As a mayoral candidate I have often asked voters to judge me based on my record—not only on promises I make in the waning days of the campaign.
Just a few years ago, the two slates of candidates were on the opposite side of another important issue, the opening of a proposed charter school—the Princeton International Academy Charter School—to draw students and a considerable amount of cash from WW-P schools.
Our opponent, Kristin Epstein, worked hard to open the charter school. As the school board president, I worked harder to prevent it from opening.
It took us three years to finally deny PIACS, but the long fight was worth it. I was proud to lead that fight. That struggle to prevent PIACS from opening is a perfect illustration of why I am the best candidate for mayor of West Windsor.
For those who are trying to pin a certain ideology on me for political purposes, I had to take on the Christie administration, which kept giving the charter school undeserved extensions for three years.
Collaboration: First, I had to convince some school board members that it was worth the fight. Some of them felt it was a done deal and there is nothing we could do about it. I was happy to prove them wrong.
Second was to build collaboration with our elected representatives of both parties, Linda Greenstein and Thomas Goodwin, to constantly put pressure on the Christie administration not to renew PIACS for another year. It took us three tries but we were eventually successful.
Third was to reach out to elected members of Plainsboro (Mayor Cantu) and South Brunswick (Mayor Gambatese) to make them aware of the danger the opening of PIACS meant for their school district.
No matter whether the zoning board hearing was in Plainsboro or South Brunswick, WW-P always had the largest contingent, including parents, teachers, senior citizens and school board members. Neither Princeton nor South Brunswick had built such a coalition. At each zoning board hearing the PIACS supporters would sit on one side and opponents on the other.
Kristin Epstein always sat with the PIACS supporters. She even arranged seminars through the Princeton Area Alumni Association to push charter schools.
I attended every meeting of the zoning board and made comments when allowed. I learned much about the charter school law, zoning boards, land use during that time which will be useful as we deal with the Howard Hughes application.
On being sued: PIACS sued the WW-P school district to put a gag order on us so we could not be advocates for taxpayers and students. We successfully defended the lawsuit and continued our pursuit of denying PIACS permission to open.
Preventing PIACS from opening saved WW-P taxpayers at least $1 million every year in perpetuity. This amount would only increase if the school had opened. It was one of the shining achievements of my career as the school board president.
The concern that a potential charter school opening in West Windsor has not gone away. The Howard Hughes plan includes space for a school, Ms. Epstein still works for a parent of PIACS and Yingchao Zhang has suggested on numerous occasions that we rezone the property for educational uses. Last time we were successful only because we could prevent PIACS from securing a property that could house them. If elected mayor, I will fight as hard to prevent any proposed charter school as I fought the last time.
If you want a mayor who will stand up for West Windsor, do what is right, and has a demonstrable record of accomplishments, I am your candidate.
— Hemant Marathe
Marathe is a candidate for West Windsor mayor.
