Volume LXXII, Number 10
Rental Units Planned for Nelson Glass Building . . 5 Local Groups Seek to Support Immigrants . . . 7 Town Cleans Up, Another Storm Arrives . . . . . . . 9 Glee Club Combines Modern Works, Handel . . . 22 The Year of Loving Improbably . . . . . . . . 27 PU Men’s Hockey Sweeps Brown to Advance to ECACH Quarters . . . . 32 PHS Girls’ Hoops Earns First State Tourney Win Since the 1990s . . . . . 36
PHS Wrestler Alec Bobchin Places 8th at States . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Berkshire Hathaway Fox & Roach Realtors . .24, 25 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 29 Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Classified Ads. . . . . . . 39 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Music/Theater . . . . . . 22 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 38 Police Blotter . . . . . . . . 6 Service Directory . . . . 42 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Some Westminster Faculty Are Encouraged After Weekend Meetings Last weekend, representatives from the Chinese company to which Rider University has proposed transferring ownership of Westminster Choir College visited Westminster for meetings with faculty, staff, and students. Live-streamed sessions were also held for parents and alumni about Kaiwen Education Technology Company, which recently signed a non-binding, $40 million agreement with Rider for the Choir College, Westminster Conservatory of Music, and Westminster Continuing Education. Having met the representatives, Westminster Dean Marshall Onofrio and Director of Choral Activities Joe Miller both expressed optimism in the proposed transaction. “I walked away from those meetings with a very positive sense of several things,” said Onofrio. “The partner is very dedicated to keeping Westminster in Princeton. They understand that the brand of Princeton is connected to the faculty, staff, and students.” “I was just so happy to put some humanity to the process,” said Miller. “Actually having human beings to talk to rather than a press release was very helpful.” But members of Rider’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) remain skeptical about the situation. “After Sunday’s presentation, AAUP and the faculty in general still have a lot of doubts about the sale of Westminster Choir College and the ability of this buyer to run the place,” said Elizabeth Scheiber, the chapter president and a professor of French and Italian. “It was a nice, slick presentation. But nobody was actually from Kaiwen. They were
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Wednesday, March 7, 2018
Students Plan Walkout, Call for Gun Control “It could’ve been us,” reads the Facebook announcement of the PHS Walkout to Protest Gun Violence. “Join us on Wednesday, March 14th. Front lawn.” In conjunction with thousands of schools across the country, the Princeton High School (PHS) student-led demonstration, seeking stricter gun laws, will protest “the government’s mishandling and lack of change over gun violence in America.” The event will start at 10 a.m. and last for 17 minutes, one for each victim in the February 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Princeton Public Schools (PPS) are supporting the walkout and students
who wish to participate, and PHS students are planning an additional hour of related activities, including voter registration, call and writing centers to contact Congress members and senators, service project areas, discussions, quiet spaces, mental health awareness, and 17 stations around the school for acts of kindness. “Our school’s walkout is not only a way to show solidarity with the students at Stoneman Douglas, but it is a way to show that it is now our time to speak up,” said junior May Kotsen, one of the event organizers. ”We refuse to let these guns that encourage mass murder to continue to exist and it is going to be us that change them. We refuse to let the NRA
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Daylight Saving Time starts this Sunday at 2 a.m. Turn clocks ahead one hour.
control our lives and our education.” Talia Fiester, a co-founder, along with Kotsen, of the PHS Democrats in Action who are sponsoring the event, commented on the school’s support for the walkout. “We’re grateful for their support of gun reform. Many schools will have a 17-minute walkout, but we are grateful that the PHS administration is not opposed to this and is even extending it,” she said. “The students are organizing and leading. We want to show that students have some kind of agency in government even though we can’t vote yet.” PHS Principal Gary Snyder echoed the student leaders’ comments. “It is Continued on Page 10
Health, Policy, Public Safety Experts Urge Cannabis Legalization
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Hopewell Pennington Area Life On Pages 14 - 18
www.towntopics.com
HOAGIE HAVEN EXPANDS: Owners Costa, left, and Niko Maltabes hosted a grand opening on Saturday celebrating Hoagie Haven’s new space at 244 Nassau Street, just two doors down from its original location. In between the two shops is Slice Between, a pizza restaurant run by their brother, Mike. With the expanded space, Hoagie Haven now offers seating and online ordering, along with local deliveries. Hoagie Haven customers share their favorite orders in this week’s Town Talk on page 6. (Photo by Charles R. Plohn)
A psychiatrist, an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer, and a retired New Jersey state trooper presented the case for legalizing, taxing, and regulating marijuana to end the negative effects caused by current laws, in “Beyond the Bias,” a forum sponsored by New Jersey United for Marijuana Reform (NJUMR) at the Princeton Public Library last Thursday evening. “It’s a civil liberties issue,” ACLU Policy Counsel Dianna Houenou said. “We’re in the midst of a civil rights crisis.” Citing nearly 25,000 arrests for marijauna possession in New Jersey each year, with African Americans arrested at a rate three times higher than whites, Houenou argued for “reform with racial and social justice at the heart of it.” Retired police lieutenant Nick Bucci, who spent 25 years confronting drug criminals at all levels before leaving the force in 1991, has been working to end drug prohibition. Claiming to have seen the injustices and ineffectiveness of the criminal justice system, he now represents the Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP), “my way of paying back to the people of New Jersey for the injustice that I caused all those years.” From the medical and education perspective, Princeton psychiatrist David Nathan, founder and board president of Doctors for Cannabis Regulation, affirmed his “oath to serve public health” and his “oath not to let go problems in society Continued on Page 8
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