On Monday, March 26, I joined with 100 other West Windsor residents to watch West Windsor Council ultimately pass the gun safety resolution with yes votes from Ayesha Hamilton, Alison Miller and Linda Geevers. But it was not the moment in community-based governance that it could have been. Sadly, what I saw instead was how this moment revealed the dysfunction within our elected local leadership.
It is rare for so many residents to show up to a town council meeting to discuss a single topic, so I was shocked to observe how our mayor and town council members failed to recognize the meaning of the moment, and lost their cool as they gave in to self-absorption and infighting. There was actually time spent by our officials airing out grievances related to comments made on the Facebook West Windsor Peeps page.
The response to the high community from people in favor of the resolution by council members opposed to it was, at times, laced with belittlement, annoyance and incredulity. Yes, it is true that regular residents do not know the intricacies of local government.
But leadership is not just about getting the potholes filled and schools funded. It’s also about community building. And when leadership focuses on political optics or wins (as done by those in favor of the resolution) and criticizing constituents or colleagues (as done by those against it), it’s a missed opportunity.
It was clear at the meeting that many residents—kids, teachers and parents—are feeling vulnerable and frustrated, because of Parkland and because of the gun-related incident at the Princeton Panera Bread. It behooves our leadership to acknowledge that collective concern and address it explicitly.
The town council could have considered the simple resolution without the drawn out fight that it ultimately involved—a political fight that focused far too little on the resolution itself.
Alternatively, they could have worked together to come up with some other kind of joint statement to address people’s concerns—perhaps one that touches explicitly on the ways local government has direct oversight on gun-related issues—like deescalation training within our police department, investigating the efficacy of active shooter drills or discussing whether armed officials (Class III Officers) belong in our schools.
Either response would have been a productive demonstration of community-based leadership.
Our sense of collective comfort is not a function of how many police officers or guns we have down the road. Instead, we feel safe if we are welcoming to our neighbors and they us, if we feel our police officers are committed to community-based policing, and if we feel listened to and represented by our elected officials.
I urge other residents to watch the video of the town council meeting on the township website for yourselves. I suspect you would be surprised by the conduct and effectiveness of our local leadership right now.
— Shin-Yi Lin, West Windsor
