Volume LXXV, Number 1
Senior Living Pages 20-23 Sycamore Creek Farm Now Preserved in Hopewell . . 5 New CEO at Rescue Mission Keeps it in the Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 PPPL Science on Saturday Lecture Series Resumes . . . . . . . . . . . 11 PU Men’s Hockey Alum Cressey Patiently Waiting for Pro Opportunity . . . 24 Smirk Lived Nomadic Existence in Coaching PHS Cross Country to Big Season . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
A Twelfth Night Conversation with Sherlock Holmes in This Week’s Book Review . . . . . . . . 13 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Berkshire Hathaway Fox & Roach Realtors . .18, 19 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 16 Classified Ads . . . . . . 32 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 12 New to Us . . . . . . . . . . 17 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 30 Performing Arts . . . . . 14 Police Blotter . . . . . . . . 8 Real Estate . . . . . . . . 32 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . 6
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Mayor Freda Sworn In, Fraga Named President Of Princeton Council Mark Freda officially began his term as Princeton’s mayor Monday evening after being sworn in by Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman at Princeton Council’s annual reorganization meeting. Council members Leticia Fraga and David Cohen took the oath of office for their second terms, and Fraga was named new Council president for 2021. Several professional contracts, boards, and commissions were approved at the meeting. Familiar in local politics from his years serving on the former Borough Council, Freda focused in his remarks on creating opportunities for people at all economic levels, improving listening skills, sharing information, and treating each other with respect and decency. “There are many issues for us ahead including COVID-19 and all of its impacts on the community,” he said. “These impacts will most likely persist for years. During those years, new challenges and new issues will arise, and they will require resilience, agility, and effort from all of us to address them.” Freda spoke of making efforts to improve speed and efficiency in digesting information and making decisions. “This past year has amplified the need for a consistent and ongoing effort to support everyone in our community to the best of our abilities, to create partnerships, and to question the way things are done as we look to improve services and how they are delivered,” he said. He also touched on growing the tax base, creating job opportunities, providing services within a reasonable municipal budget, and working with the public school system and Mercer County on shared services. Praising those who have worked during the past year to address the challenges of the pandemic, Freda said those efforts will continue. “We have so many resources in this town,” he said. “We have so many opportunities in this town. We have the ability to move forward on so many fronts. I am eager to work with all of you to move forward together.” Instead of delivering remarks one at a time, which is customary, Council members took turns reading from a “2020 Year in Review” that they wrote together. Each read sections about issues on which they Continued on Page 7
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Wednesday, January 6, 2021
Officials Work to Speed Up Vaccine Rollout With 101,417 people in New Jersey having so far received the first of two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s Monday, January 4 report, state health officials were looking to speed up the process in hopes of meeting their goal of 4.7 million vaccinations, 70 percent of the state’s population, in the next six months. The Princeton Health Department continues to lead the local effort to combat the virus, with their current focus on delivering the vaccine effectively to protect as many local residents as possible. “The vaccine distribution is front and center right now,” Princeton Press and Media Communications Director Fred Williams wrote in a January 5 email. He noted that a local Princeton web portal would be up and running by the evening of January 5 in English and Spanish for COVID-19 vaccine registration for Princeton residents in the Phase 1B category, which includes frontline essential workers and individuals over 75. “The rollout, on a national scale, has encountered some supply chain and other logistical issues, but locally, on our
smaller scale, things are progressing well,” Williams said. Currently vaccines are being administered, under the direction of the Mercer County Health Officers Association, to health care professionals and others in priority group 1A. Also in Phase 1A, workers at hospitals and long-term care facilities are getting vaccinated by their employers, and long-term care residents are getting vaccinated in house, with Walgreens or CVS distributing vaccines directly to them. “While getting the vaccine into the arms of local 1A recipients is happening as ex-
pected, the lines of distribution become more muddled when determining when one phase ends and the next begins,” said Williams. “It is important to remember that the phases of distribution are guidelines, and they can be adapted based on the number of vaccines distributed.” In the coming weeks, according to Williams, localized micro-clinics will be activated across Mercer County to help expedite the vaccination process for health care workers. There are six more micro-sites scheduled in January to vaccinate Mercer County health care workers and first responders. Last week’s two-day Continued on Page 10
PU Study on Paths to Zero Emissions Gains Attention in Biden Administration
Princeton University’s recent Net-Zero America study lays out in detail what the Biden-Harris administration must do to meet its pledge to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. In the three weeks since its release, the study has stirred up interest among decision makers in government and industry. President-elect Joe Biden, along with
many state and business leaders, has endorsed the goal of zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in seeking to avoid the worst effects of climate change. A two-year effort led by 18 different researchers, 10 from Princeton University, the study, “Net-Zero America: Potential Pathways, Infrastructure, and Impacts,” Continued on Page 10
SHOWING THEIR COLORS: Members of the Color Guard were in attendance on Sunday afternoon at a wreath laying ceremony at the Mercer Oak in Battlefield State Park . The event, presented by the Princeton Battlefield Society, commemorated the January 3, 1777 Battle of Princeton . (Photo by Weronkia A. Plohn)
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