Volume LXXIV, Number 31
Home Sweet Home Pages 28-31 Mixed Income Development Opens in W-J District . . . . . . . . 5 DOT Blocks Slow Streets Initiative, But Hope Remains . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Red Cross Needs Volunteers to Prepare for Hurricane Season . . . . 8 Manhattan Chamber Players in Online Performance of Beethoven . . . . . . . . 12 PU Track Alum Cabral Still Chasing Olympic Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 PHS Grad Perello Primed to Start Bucknell Track Career . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Álvaro Morte's Professor is New Kind of Superhero in Money Heist . . . . . 11 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Berkshire Hathaway Fox & Roach Realtors . .18, 19 Classified Ads . . . . . . 32 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 10 New to Us . . . . . . . . . . 21 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 26 Performing Arts . . . . . 13 Real Estate . . . . . . . . 32 Religion . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . 6
www.towntopics.com
“Racism in Princeton” Is First Forum for 2020 Joint Effort Event Joint Effort Princeton Safe Streets will kick off its 2020 program of a community reception and three communitywide Zoom discussions on Wednesday, July 29 at 5 p.m. with a forum on “Racism in Princeton, PHS Student Video, John Witherspoon Middle School Name Change, and More.” The annual week-long series of events celebrating Black culture in Princeton will continue next week with a virtual discussion on “The Future of Princeton and Community Development Hot Topics” on Wednesday evening, August 5 at 6:15 p.m.; a “Princeton Elected Officials Update and Candidates Forum” on Saturday morning, August 8 at 10 a.m.; and a Cynthia “Chip” Fisher and Romus Broadway Memorial Virtual Art Exhibit-Collage Slideshow and Community Reception featuring a community salute to Romus Broadway and the Jim Floyd Memorial Lecture and Gospel Music Hour, followed by an awards presentation ceremony, starting at 4 p.m. on Sunday, August 9. As Black Lives Matter protests continue throughout the country and, locally, a Princeton High School (PHS) student video with racist content and a middle school named after a slaveholder cause ongoing consternation, the July 29 discussion could not be more timely. The panelists include former Princeton School Board member Fern Spruill, former Princeton Councilman Lance Liverman, Black Parent Affinity Group member Jason Carter, attorney Eric Broadway, Princeton Public Schools (PPS) teacher Joy Barnes Johnson, PPS School Board candidate Paul Johnson, Not In Our Town Coordinator Linda Oppenheim, PPS Interim Superintendent Barry Galasso, PPS Board of Education (BOE) President Beth Behrend, and Princeton Civil Rights Commissioner Thomas Parker. The controversial student video, circulated on social media earlier this month, included former and current white PHS students at a party singing along with racist and homophobic lyrics, and not observing social distancing. The video was shared widely and, in addition to questions of racism and acceptable teen behavior, raises the question of the school district’s responsibility for behavior of students outside of school. The PPS Black Parents Affinity Group has written a letter, signed by 19 Continued on Page 9
75¢ at newsstands
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Council Approves Last of Affordable Housing Ordinances In a marathon meeting that stretched past midnight on Monday, July 27, Princeton Council unanimously passed five ordinances, four of which make up the final pieces of the town’s Affordable Housing plan. The governing body voted on the measures after hearing dozens of residents comment, through emails read aloud by Mayor Liz Lempert and live via Zoom, on the two main ordinances — one on a site at the southern edge of Princeton Shopping Center; the other the Franklin/Maple site. Both projects will go before the Planning Board and Site Plan Review Advisory Board (SPRAB), and there will be additional opportunities for public involvement. “This is the culmination of a multi-year process involving a lot of work of current and former Council members,” Lempert said earlier in the day, singling out former members Lance Liverman and Jenny Crumiller for special thanks. She reiterated the goals of the plan, including providing housing for low and moderate income households, using a mix of different approaches, spreading the sites throughout the town, and being situated close to jobs, services, and transportation. The Princeton Shopping Center site is for 200 new homes including 44 affordable units. The development would “have
a tremendous impact on the shopping center, which has a lot of vacancies,” said Councilwoman Michelle Pirone Lambros, who outlined the plan. “It will attract more tenants and customers. When you add 200 new residents along with the 200 that will be built at Thanet [a development planned for the northern end of the center], you’re adding significant economic impact.” But at four stories, the plan doesn’t sit well with some neighbors who live
on Clearview Street and Grover Avenue. One resident who said he represented 18 households directly behind the proposed development expressed concerns about scale, intensified activity, and noise, and said it was an invasion of the municipal land use law. Another resident asked why neighbors were not included in the planning. “Though we support affordable housing, we feel hoodwinked,” she said. “We would like a say in the design of this development.” Continued on Page 7
Eight Candidates Vie for Three Spots On Public Schools Board of Education Two incumbents, one former Board of Education (BOE) member, and five new candidates will be running to fill three available seats on the Princeton Public Schools (PPS) BOE in the November election. In the context of a pandemic, with the challenges of managing a hybrid model of in-person and remote learning, a search to hire a permanent superintendent and assistant superintendent, and overseeing completion of referendum building projects, the stakes are high. BOE President Beth Behrend and Vice President Michele Tuck-Ponder will each be looking to win a second
three-year term. Jessica Deutsch, did not file to run for another term, and will step down from the Board at the end of this year. Bill Hare, who served on the BOE from 2017-2019 and declined to run in last year’s race, will join new candidates Paul Johnson and Karen Lemon in running as a team in the non-partisan November election. Adam Bierman, Hendricks Davis, and Jean Durbin have also filed to run in the BOE race, according to the Mercer County Clerk’s Office. Behrend, a corporate attorney advising large corporations on financings, joint Continued on Page 9
BEATING THE HEAT: Kayakers enjoyed a refreshing ride on the Delaware & Raritan Canal in Princeton on Sunday afternoon . (Photo by Charles R. Plohn)