Volume LXXVI, Number 12
Healthy Living Pages 19-21 Creating A Midsummer Night’s Dream Involved Musical Treasure Hunt . 5 Volunteers Welcome for Spring Cleanups . . . . . 9 PHS Researchers Go to National Finals . . . . . 10 An Opening Day Visit to The BMW Book Sale . 14 Boheme Opera Performs Verdi Classic . . . . . . . 15 Bill Irwin Presents On Beckett at McCarter . 16 PU Women’s Hoops Stuns Kentucky in NCAAs, Falls to Indiana in 2nd Round . . 27 Hun Baseball Primed to Start 2022 Campaign . .33
Patrick Glory Helps PU Wrestling Make History at NCAAs . . . 29 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 24 Classifieds . . . . . . . . . 36 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 11 New To Us . . . . . . . . . 26 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 35 Performing Arts . . . . . 17 Police Blotter . . . . . . . . 7 Real Estate . . . . . . . . 36 Religion . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . 6
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New Variant Arrives As COVID-19 Cases Continue to Decline On Monday, March 21, the Princeton Health Department reported declining COVID-19 case numbers, 16 new cases in the previous seven days, 43 new cases in Princeton in the previous 14 days. The first weeks in January this year, Princeton recorded its highest totals of the pandemic with 287 new cases in a single week and 568 cases in a 14-day period. Of rising concern to health officials and others, however, is a new strain of COVID-19. An Omicron variant known as BA.2 has caused recent surges in several European countries and is now spreading across the United States. It has been called the “stealth variant” because it can be difficult to detect. Princeton Deputy Administrator for Health and Community Services Jeff Grosser explained, “It has genetic mutations that could make it harder to distinguish from the Delta variant.” The World Health Organization has classified BA.2 as a variant of concern, he added. Expert opinions vary as to what its impact might be in this country. The BA.2 variant accounted for more than half of the cases reported in New Jersey as of March 19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Although it appears to be highly contagious, one and a half times more transmissible than the original Omicron strain, according to Grosser, it also appears to be less deadly than previous variants, especially to vaccinated individuals and those already infected by Omicron. The March 22 statewide COVID transmission rate remained below one, at 0.88, indicating that the outbreak continues to decline. All 21 counties in New Jersey are listed as having low rates of transmission, according to the CDC. A Princeton University February spike in case numbers has subsided, with the University COVID-19 dashboard reporting a positivity rate of 1.16 percent for the week that ended March 18. That’s down from 1.25 percent from the week before that and 2.4 percent and 2.59 percent in previous weeks. Princeton Public Schools reported seven new cases in the week ended March 18, just three the week before that, and six for the first week in March. In early January PPS weekly totals were 96, 79, and 39. Continued on Page 7
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Wednesday, March 23, 2022
Town Looks to March 29 Cannabis Meeting Whether or not there should be a retail cannabis dispensary in Princeton is the question coming before Princeton Council, and at a public Zoom meeting on Tuesday, March 29 at 7 p.m. Council is expecting to hear a wide range of information and opinions on that subject. A Zoom link will be provided at princetonnj.gov for those who would like to participate, and Council will also read comments emailed to princetoncomments@ gmail.com. The meeting will be a “listening session” to hear from as wide-ranging a group of people in the community as possible. No specific action will be taken by Council at that time — the issue will be revisited at a future date to determine Princeton’s next steps in zoning or not zoning for retail cannabis sales. Among the preliminary presentations planned before the public commentary segment of the meeting will be two speakers providing information about their experiences with cannabis dispensaries in their towns, reports from members of the municipal staff, and arguments and information from concerned parents. Princeton Municipal Administrator Bernie Hvozdovic Jr. is expected to present brief reports from different departments
— health, Corner House, legal counsel, police, zoning, etc. — commenting on the possible impacts of retail sales of cannabis in Princeton. New Jersey, including the town of Princeton with 78 percent in favor, voted in a November 2020 referendum to legalize the sale of recreational cannabis in the state. The decision whether to allow dispensaries in individual towns was left to the governing bodies of those towns. In November 2021, after more than seven
months of research, discussion, and public meetings, the Princeton Cannabis Task Force, enlisted by Council as an advisory body, recommended that Council pass an ordinance permitting up to three dispensaries in town. Discussion over the future of cannabis in Princeton has been lively since the 2020 referendum vote, but the intensity of the debate increased after the CTF recommendations last November. Groups and many individuals have spoken out in the Continued on Page 8
Princeton Human Services Department Helps Resettle Ukrainian Family in U.S.
While more than three million Ukrainians have fled their war-ravaged country, few have made their way to the United States. The federal government has yet to say how many refugees from Ukraine it is willing to accept. According to the website travel.state. gov, Ukrainians can be released into the United States only if they can provide the name, address, and telephone number of a sponsor who has agreed to take responsibility for them. That was the situation with one family, which has been brought from Ukraine with help from Princeton’s Department of
Human Services. Currently being housed with a family in Pennsylvania, they were able to come because their son is already here, studying on full scholarship at a local private school. “Right now, it’s just this one Ukrainian family, from Kyiv, that we’ve encountered,” said Princeton Human Services Director Rhodalynn Jones. “They were fleeing the war. They traveled to Lviv, and then to Poland. From there, they flew to the U.S. Their son, the only English-speaking member of the family, reached out to Human Services hoping we’d be able to Continued on Page 8
SUPER BOOK SALE: The Bryn Mawr-Wellesley Book Sale held its 90th annual sale last Wednesday through Saturday at its new location at Stuart Country Day School. Proceeds from the event, the most successful in its history, will support college scholarships for area students. Book lovers share their finds in this week’s Town Talk on page 6. (Photo by Weronika A. Plohn)