To The Editor:
WW-P Schools Need Property Manager
I applaud the West Windsor Plainsboro School Board for considering ways to reduce operating costs within the system. I would, however, ask them to consider another approach. As a retired supervisor of building and grounds for a local school system I recognize that as school systems grow there becomes a time when drastic changes are required. WW-P has reached one of the times in the management of its plant.
With over a half billion dollars in physical plant WW-P would be well advised to consider hiring a professional engineer schooled in property management. Such an individual could provide significant savings to the system in the following areas.
• Manage capital projects from inception to completion, thus reducing the cost of consultants and insuring that architects provide our needs rather than cookie cutter units with a new facade.
• Recognize physical problems long before they become catastrophic events.
• Manage repairs and renovations knowing when to complete in house and when to economically go outside.
• Effectively write requests for quotes using knowledge unique to someone so trained thus insuring WW-P gets what it needs — not what “keeping up with the Joneses” caused a request for.
Now for the real change. Such an individual should be an employee of the Board of Education answering directly to the board with a completely separate budget. Our system has clearly grown well beyond any level that a superintendant of schools can comprehend, let alone objectively manage. A superintendant should be an educator first and foremost. His or her loyalties should be directed to education and education alone. And unfortunately all too often their tenure is not long enough to relate to the life cycle of the physical plant.
Replacing the lowest-paid staff may reap short-term savings, but the disinterest in the well-being of the system by outsiders will cost more in the long term. Until you have experienced the costs produced by small problems left unreported you will think my idea is foolish. Those who have gone down this path generally realize the mistake in a year or two at considerable costs. The board would be well advised to contact some who have gone down this path.
Howard Eldridge
Retired Supervisor
of Buildings and Grounds
Custodians’ Role Is Integral To Schools
As a Plainsboro taxpayer, parent, and WW-P school district employee I would like to express my disappointment that our school board is even considering the outsourcing of our operations and custodial staff. The group that has been targeted is a hard-working, trustworthy, and responsible collection of individuals. They are an integral part of every school’s community atmosphere. Our students know and trust them, and our parents and other school employees, like me, depend on them.
They not only keep our schools clean and in good working order, they help maintain a level of security that would be impossible using a rotating staff of strangers from an outsourcing company. There is no reason these district employees should be facing the threat of job loss. Many of them have worked in the district for years. They have shown dedication and commitment to their jobs. Is this how they are repaid?
I would like to encourage the parents of children in the district to show your support for our operations and custodial staff by attending Board of Education meetings and expressing your feelings on this issue. Two of my children graduated from this school district, and as a parent I never had to worry about their safety at school or their exposure to an insufficiently cleaned environment. As parents in this district we have always taken it for granted that these things would be provided for our children. They were provided for mine. Please make sure they will be provided for yours by supporting our operations and custodial staff in this effort to save their jobs.
Elaine Bush
Plainsboro
Re-Blaze Shortcut
From Sherbrooke To the Train Station
Many of us old-timers fondly remember a time when we could walk directly from the Sherbrooke area to the train station by cutting through the woods on what is Schlumberger’s land. This saved the time it takes to walk around what is now the PNC Bank. Hemi Nae was gracious enough to set up a meeting with Schlumberger’s facility manager to see if it might be possible to resurrect such a pathway. This is what he has discovered.
The old walking trail has not been in use for a long time, and the area is fenced to prevent people from crossing through the Schlumberger area. We might want to find out why — there has been some speculation that it is for legal reasons.
Schlumberger owns a property on Route 571 and for a time had employees working there. West Windsor approved — we think in 2007 — the addition of a second floor to the main building on Wallace Road and an elevated boardwalk over the wetlands on the south side of the building for employees to walk between the two facilities. The second floor has since been completed and the employees from the building on Princeton-Hightstown Road have moved to the main building.
The building on Princeton-Hightstown Road is now vacant. The facility manager did not know what Schlumberger would do with the vacant building. Because everyone is now located together on Wallace Road, Schlumberger no longer needs the building on Princeton-Hightstown Road. There is no reason to connect the two buildings with a path, and it therefore has no plans to build the boardwalk.
Apparently, even when they had people in the Princeton-Hightstown Road building, the employees used to go around the PNC Bank at the corner rather than walking through their land directly.
For the time being, it appears that there are no plans to create a crossing through the Schlumberger property, and we are left with another empty building on Princeton-Hightstown Road.
Please note that the West Windsor redevelopment plan calls for a walking path from the Windsor Plaza (behind the Acme shopping center) to the station.
Suggestions and ideas are always welcome.
Rita McGrath
HomeFront Thanks
In 2009 HomeFront received 13,928 pleas for help from families facing homelessness, hunger, and all the other economic, social, and personal problems that go with poverty. This represents a 34 percent increase over 2008.
New Jersey is, in a way, at the center of the current crisis in the economy. Unemployment, foreclosures, homelessness, and hunger are at record levels. All of this shows up at the HomeFront front desk, and it is particularly painful during the traditional American holiday of Thanksgiving, a time for families to sit around the table and celebrate the good fortune of their lives. There are so many hardworking families with no table, no home, and no festive dinner.
I want to take this opportunity to give thanks to all of the dedicated staff, volunteers, and donors who have made it possible for HomeFront to reach out to 4,000 parents and children and provide them with a holiday meal and ongoing support through the holiday season and beyond. I want to thank the other organizations collaborating with us to fulfill this important mission.
I know that many of our supporters have been impacted by the current crisis. That they would still help their fellow citizens through these hard times tells me just one thing: that there is still something to give thanks for as a member of this community, a resident of this state, and a citizen of this country. There are still Americans who care about and care for their neighbors, a concept fundamental to our traditions. Let me give my thanks to all of you for all of this.
Connie Mercer
Executive Director, HomeFront
Christmas Story Can Be Messy
I’m troubled by “Blue Christmas” worship. The practice started because, understandably, some people find it difficult to share in the joy of the holiday season. Their lives are a mess (divorce, death, illness, etc). So some institutions thought that this group of people would benefit from a separate worship service, where similarly struggling folks could gather without the refrains of “Joy to the World.”
I’m troubled because this practice seems to be in response to our culture’s appreciation of Christmas. The church’s story, however, is not the reassuring bliss of “God is in his heavens, and all is right with the world.” Rather the joy of the Feast of the Nativity is that God is with us in our mess!
Blue Christmas segregates people and experiences into false categories: Worship with sad people when you are sad and joyful people when you are joyful. In reality there is no place you can go where life is not messed up. Messed up is the only way that life is found. Blue Christmas also harms the gift of diversity in a Christian community. Christian worship is less than it is meant to be when those present aren’t connected to the messiness of life — theirs and others.
This Christmas don’t stay away if you are blue. Instead gather with others to hear about the God that doesn’t protect us from the messes of life (unplanned pregnancy, homelessness, governmental corruption — elements of the first Christmas) but in the very messiness of life is with us — Emmanuel!
Paul Lutz
Pastor, Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Princeton Junction
