Where does one begin? At the Monday, November 24, West Windsor Council meeting, Mayor Hsueh was again absent. Still. He doesn’t possess the courage or judgment to represent the people he promised to serve during his re-election bid last year. Unlike Dutch Neck farm-boy Tommy Grover, who was killed in Vietnam at age 22 in 1969, as the ultimate sacrifice, this mayor has little intestinal fortitude and is devoid of answers. Hsueh arranged for a ROCK in memory of Tommy Grover instead of preserving the Grover Homestead as the Grover legacy.
Since Hsueh was absent, the mayor never wished West Windsor residents a safe and happy Thanksgiving.
As the director of public safety, Hsueh provided no insights on the recent elderly pedestrian death on Clarksville Road at Maurice Hawk School; no updates on the weekend hunter fatality off Old Trenton Road; and he couldn’t tell us why he wasn’t present. There were reports of an impending arrest for the township’s 9/11 Memorial damage yet why is a REPAIRABLE incident a greater crime than the destruction and thefts from the 170-year-old Grover Homestead, also owned by the taxpayers?
The mayor, to whom the West Windsor Police Department reports, authorized the minimum $40,000 worth of helicopter lessons. Yet the mayor refused to save the Grover Homestead despite arranging up to $1.9 million in suspect expenditures for the nearby Schenck Homestead. The West Windsor Historical Society is not part of the township yet has received obscene amounts of public funds without a public accounting.
Hsueh provided no updates on the Cranbury Road sidewalks; no progress on the Washington Road sidewalks; no status on the Millstone River $100,000+ wastewater plan promised for September, 2014, affecting many Penns Neck residents and businesses, and no comments on the Howard Hughes/Cyanamid site. How many companies did Hsueh contact for the Cyanamid site over the past decade?
What could possibly be more important to the mayor than being present to address business of the township and its residents in open, public meetings? Separate, taxpayer-funded town hall meetings where the mayor dominates the discussion and agenda, are not an appropriate substitute.
In summary, let me be perfectly clear. It is time Mayor Hsueh steps down from his position as West Windsor mayor. With multiple pensions and whatever part-time salary ($17,000 + automobile + expenses), he no longer has the best interests of the township as a priority. He neither returns phone calls nor letters. He is not hands-on with the municipal budget.
Hsueh should, simply, resign. The directly elected, fully accountable, part-time mayor has become the poster child for term limits. This township has way too many pressing matters for him to be absent. In America, there should be no taxation or payments to him without representation.
Pete Weale
Penns Neck
