23rd 2026. This is a meeting of the mayor and council of Princeton, New Jersey. And again, thanks for being here and joining us. Okay. Could we do the meeting statement first, please? >> Notice that this meeting was provided in accordance with the requirements of the
Open Public Meetings Act and state regulations governing public meetings, including the time, date, and location of the meeting, and clear and concise instructions to the public for accessing the meeting and making comments. In addition, the agenda and all related materials were posted electronically and
made available to the public on Princeton's meeting portal in advance of the meeting. >> Thank you. Michelle's going to do the land acknowledgement tonight. >> Okay. We gather today on the land of the Len Lape. As members of the Princeton community, we aspire to show appreciation, respect, and concern for
all peoples and our environment. We honor the Lape and other indigenous caretakers of these lands and waters, the elders who lived here before, the indigenous today, and the generations to come. >> Thank you. Could we have roll call, please? >> Mr. McDonald >> here. >> Mr. Cohen
>> here. >> Miss Peron Lamrose >> here. >> Miss Saxs >> here. Miss Braa >> here. >> Mr. Nulan >> here. >> Mayor Frida >> here. If you're able and like to stand, join us in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. All right. First up on the agenda, we have a proclamation. And I think our
council president will start with that. >> I'm sorry. >> I will. >> Oh, Laticia start. >> Yes, I have the honors. So this is a proclamation observing the month of March as women's history month. Whereas Princeton recognizes the month
of March as women's history month established in 1987 by Congress to celebrate the contributions American women have made to strengthen the nation since since its inception. And whereas the purpose of Women's History Month is
to celebrate the vital contributions women have made to the United States and to recognize the achievements women have made over the course of American history in a v variety of fields. And whereas
women from every walk of life have contributed to the growth and strength of our community in countless recorded and unrecorded ways. And whereas the diverse women in our community play a critical economic, cultural, and social role in every
sphere of life. And whereas when women succeed, their communities prosper. And in Princeton, the impact of women's leadership and entrepreneurship is evident in the vitality of our economy, the strength of our neighborhoods, and the richness of our civic life. And
whereas in Princeton, there are over a 100 womenowned businesses making an enormous contribution to the success and prosperity of the town. And whereas Princeton Council wishes to acknowledge each and every woman-owned uh business
in our community for contributing to a thriving economy and to the vibrancy of Princeton's distinct business districts. And whereas the following businesses are hereby recognized on March 23rd, 2026 as womenowned businesses of distinction. I
will skip that because we are short on time tonight, but please do take a look at them. Uh and now therefore I Michelle Peron Lamrose on behalf of Mark Frereda, Mayor of the Municipality of Princeton and the Council of Princeton, County of Mercer, State of New Jersey, do hereby
recognize March 2026 as Women's History Month in Princeton and commend the women of our community and especially the many womenowned businesses for their invaluable contributions to the economy, vitality, cultural richness, and civic strength of our town. Be it further
resolved that Princeton Cal Council hereby honors and recognizes the womenowned businesses named herein as womenowned businesses of distinction and extends its sincere appreciation for their leadership, entrepreneurship and enduring enduring impact on the
Princeton community and witness hereof uh under the set of hands and cause the seal of the municipality of Princeton be affixed. Thank you. >> Here we go. And I' I'd like to I'd like to present this to Robin Leitis uh who
is our executive director of Experience Princeton and with whom her um uh great uh idea is uh coming forth uh this this month and honoring these women. So I'm going to hand this to you Robin. Thank you. >> And just for people you can go to our
website to see the list of the hundred businesses. It's really amazing how many uh how many businesses there are, womenowned businesses in town. Okay, we are all going to come down to the table below and we're going to have our annual uh discussion with Chris Eiser, the
president of Princeton University. So, Chris, welcome. And let's all find our way down. Jesus. Okay, we're all good. Chris, the floor is yours. >> Thank you. Um, let let I'll just say a
few things and and then uh look forward to your questions as as always. I think this is now my 13th year coming to speak with this council and I'm delighted to have the opportunity to extend that uh tradition as part of a partnership that
certainly matters greatly to the to the university and I think to the town as well. So, thank you for making time on your um agenda for that. Um I I also want to take a moment before saying some things about where things stand at at Princeton just to thank all of you for
what it is you do for uh our town. I say that as the university uh president. I say it as uh a citizen of this uh town. I know that the jobs you have are very difficult uh uh ones. Uh one of the things that is challenging about uh
being a university president is having to uh manage um various contending uh constituencies all of which one uh cares about. And I appreciate that. That is even harder for a town uh council. So, thank you for what you do on behalf of
this place that we all cherish and are so pleased to be able to live um at at Princeton right now. Uh you know, I talked to you last year and very much appreciated your support about some of the challenges that we were facing around a combination of threats to
government funding and and uh threats to academic freedom and and those challenges uh persist. we face them right now uh together with a set of economic challenges that are um affecting our uh future and and those
things come together um in what I described in my annual letter to our university community as a kind of transition from a a time of growth to to what is still a very strong uh period for the university but a a time that I think will be characterized more by by
focus and a set of choices um in some ways it has produced a year on campus of I don't know contending um attitudes or or uh forces. We we have been uh privileged to be able to celebrate the
end of a very successful uh capital campaign, the venture forward uh campaign where uh Princeton's friends and alumni came together and enabled uh the university to invest in its uh mission in um extraordinary ways. I see
that now and I hope you see it as you walk around the campus in in lots of different ways. Some of them are are visible in terms of uh buildings. Uh for me, the most important are always in terms of the people on the the campus. We've been able to expand our
undergraduate student body. We've been able to uh take military veterans into our undergraduate student body in a way that was not uh possible before. We now take community college transfers at Princeton, including from Mercer County uh community college in a way that was
not the case uh previously. um that has added tremendously to uh the diversity of our student body and to the talent and excellence that we're able uh to bring. If you look at the sets of of buildings, we've completed a number of capital projects
uh recently, some of which enable us like our new uh bioengineering institute to move into areas that we wouldn't otherwise have been able to explore and that will make a difference, I think, not only to research and teaching on the campus, but to uh what we're able to do for the world in terms of things that
will provide the foundation for medical cures in the in the future. You can't possibly have missed that. um that we opened a brand new art museum that got Princeton, New Jersey, I will say, identified as one of the most exciting places to visit in the world according
to Timeout. Yeah, I I just think and uh uh that I you know I thought when I first heard that honor I thought okay maybe they've got a really long list or something but you know there are 13 places they said you should see in North America and one of them is Princeton and
the Princeton University uh art museum. So I I think that you can see it in the activity on campus every day and on on uh weekends and I see a lot of those people coming into town. I see them eating at our restaurants in town. I see them buying things from uh merchants on
Nassau Street. And we hope that that energy will uh continue. We created uh more housing for our graduate students over across the lake, which was a very high priority uh for them. We created um a new uh
health center, the first health center that will make a difference to health and well-being in our campus, which is another area of I think shared concern for this council. um and for the university. So there are are lots of things that I've proud that I'm proud of as we've come through that period. At
the same time, uh we've been talking to our campus and continue to talk about our campus. I was just at the meeting of the council, the Princeton University community. I've got a council double header today. So I was at that up until 6:00 talking there again and discussing with folks some of the budget cuts that
are taking place on uh campus. uh we we went through an initial phase of uh 5 to 10% budget cuts around the campus across nearly all of our departments uh over this past summer uh mainly in
response to what was happening uh politically in Washington and to the threats to sponsored research that I talked about um earlier um in my letter to the community. I talk about some more fundamental economic conditions that we
think require um if anything an even more substantial pivot in our um economic outlook going into the the future. So, we are an endowment-driven uh university as I think all of you know that that is part of what enables us uh
to partner with uh our friends and alumni in the way that I just described and answer and offer the financial aid packages that make the university affordable to our students. But it means that changes in in expected market returns expect affect us to a greater
extent than they do other universities. And if you look at at those returns over about a 30-year period and you just take rolling averages, what you see is a downward slope to the returns that we and other universities, this isn't about a particular investment strategy at one
university versus another. It's a downward slope to to the endowment returns over a 30-year period that universities have been able to obtain even with the benefit of the sophisticated investment advising that we get. So we calculate that uh we need
to be able to generate 8% on average annual returns at a minimum to basically stay in equilibrium to continue to fund our financial aid and the salaries and other aspects of our operation that depend on the endowment. We we need 8% because we spend about 5% of the
endowment every year. We take 120th of it every year and we spend that as the main source of revenue in our operating budget. And then we have to account for inflation. Nominally call that 3%. Obviously it fluctuates but a total of of 8%. You go back 30 years and you see
uh returns that were averaging 12% more on average. When you're seeing returns like that, you can invest that difference between 8 and 12 to partner with alumni and and other donors as we do things like improve our graduate stipens and improve our our uh student
aid and undertake other initiatives on the on the campus. As we look forward now, we we are projecting out 8% returns that are basically what we need in order to stay in stasis. meaning we're not going to have that kind of margin in the
endowment to leverage the other kind of philanthropy and and other sources of revenue uh that we have. And and part of what we have been talking to the campus uh about is the fact that we're going to remain a very strong university financially. We're going to continue to
be able to maintain our commitment to affordability and access. we are going to continue to be able to sustain excellence at the worldclass levels that uh Princeton University always aspires uh to achieve uh but we we are going to
have to make choices in different kinds of ways than we have made in the the past and we're going to experience that over the longer term and we're experiencing it in the in the shorter term. So, one of the things that you may have read or uh uh know is uh
right now like just about everybody, we're we're dealing with um uh health care costs that are rising for our uh population. Uh we are seeing um uh rapid increases to the uh cost of our benefits charges and that affects our our
compensation uh pools. there might have been a time when when Princeton would be able to draw on that difference between the 8% it needs to stay in stasis and higher returns to address that that problem. We cannot do that right now. So part of the difficult choices that we've had to make in consultation with our
priorities committee is that um tenured uh faculty, our senior faculty this year are not getting raises. our our staff have raises that are are limited to 1% and we're continuing to do cuts across the university and expect to be in a
phase where we are going to be making those kinds of substitutions over an extended uh period of uh time. There are things that continue to to rise. I will say uh one of the things that continues to rise, we continue to make commitments to graduate stipens and to undergraduate
uh financial aid. Another is we have an agreement with this uh town where the our voluntary contribution will increase um uh year-over-year 4% is I believe the number that we've got in there and we intend to adhere to that uh uh
commitment. We regard that as an important commitment that we have have made both for our uh partnership and and for um the university's uh mission. But it's it's something that again has required uh work from our team uh to
protect and uh uh in the circumstances that we face now which are um different from those we faced in the past. So um that's the set of uh uh choices that that that we're confronting right now. As I say we we go forward um feeling I I
don't know I was going to say bullish but I think I should say tigerish. We feel tigerish about about uh our mission, about our prospects for excellence, about our partnership with this uh town. Uh but we do so under circumstances where we're, as my
wonderful provos, Jen Rexford and I are are finding ourselves saying to our community, we're just going to have to get used to uh making a different set of uh choices over time, but still being able to seize new opportunities and do great things. So, with with that, by way of introduction, I'm I'm happy to take
your questions. >> Thanks, Chris. Uh, it's interesting to hear how the university faces what so many of our households face, so many of the residents in town. You have so much money, but you can only do so much with it, and you have to set priorities. We at some point in the very near future
we'll be looking at all the the requests for capital money here and we're going to be doing the same thing setting priorities and you know there's a there's a wish list so to speak and you can only do so much so you have to figure out what do you really need versus what's discretional. Anyway, why don't we just uh I think we started down
here last year. Why don't we start at this end and just we'll just work our way down the table. Comments or questions for Chris? >> Thank you mayor. Thank you. But I just like calling you Dr. Eyes Gubber for some reason. >> I've told Leighton he's given me an
honorary degree. I'm just a lawyer. I think my my sisters who have real PhDs are going to get on my case if you keep calling me doctor. >> Well, well, maybe that's something we can think about bestowing on our good friend a honorary doctorate degree from the municipality of Princeton. But anyway, thank you for being here
tonight. Thank all of you for being here. Uh I must admit that I am a bit of a homer being born and raised here. So, uh, my, uh, it's not an ask. I want to make that tremendously clear. And I also want to recognize, uh, that I read
carefully, uh, what you sent out, what Kristen sent out. And it's clear to me that, you know, you guys are in a position where you have to look at things very carefully, as do we. And, uh, we we we no longer, I think, want to look at you as the golden goose, but as
just just a goose. and and uh I have led with that in mind here. So again, this is more of a vision being in Homer. Uh and I've done this in two parts and I'll try to be as brief and get through this as quickly as I
can. Uh the first part of this uh I want to talk about is with regard to uh the relationship between Princeton University and the municipality is not just historic, it's consequential.
What we do together or choose not to do together shapes who gets to live here, who gets to stay here, and ultimately who Princeton is for. We often talk about excellence, about innovation, and about leadership. But at this moment, I
think the question before all of us is a little more grounded. Can the people who teach here, maintain this place, support this institution, both the town and the university, and serve this town, actually afford to live
here? Because if they cannot, then we are building something that is indeed exceptional. but not sustainable and not equitable. For a long time, I have championed the work and mission of the Princeton
Housing Authority, even though I am no longer the liaison. Not simply I've championed the work of the mission of the Princeton Housing Authority, but not simply as a provider of housing, but as a stabilizing force in this community, one that understands
at a very human level what it means to create opportunity through access. So tonight, my vision, not an ask, my vision is for the university to at some point enter into a formal partnership
with the Princeton Housing Authority to explore and advance the development of mixed income affordable housing with a meaningful commitment to supporting members of the university's workforce. This is not about charity or about it's about alignment. There may be
opportunities whether at the former Butler track or elsewhere where land, mission, and capacity intersect in a way that allows us to do something truly impactful together. We've had conversations for years about affordability, inclusion, about
belonging. This to me is an opportunity to move beyond conversation and into coordinated action where one of the world's great institution partners with a local housing authority to help ensure that
Princeton remains not just a place of learning but a place of living for everyone. And I offer this with a clear understanding that partnerships like this are complex. They require patience, trust, and a willingness to work through
real challenges. But I do believe that these two institutions have the capacity to navigate that path with purpose and precision. Because the truth is both the Princeton Housing Authority and Princeton University are legacy institutions in
this town. Each in its own way shaping lives and futures over time. A moment like this calls for that shared legacy to show up in a new way. And I say that with both urgency and
optimism because I believe this is something that would be transformational for our community and the university at large. So that's my first vision. I'mma quickly go to my second and I'mma be fast.
not just coming to you as a councilman, but as somebody deeply rooted in the Witherspoon Jackson community. Somebody who has been in this from the beginning, who helped bring this vision into existence, and who now has to answer to the neighborhood that is frustrated, confused, and frankly running out of
patience. The Witherspoon Jackson Development Corporation was entrusted with a critical mission to protect legacy home ownership and stabilize a historic black community under intense pressure from rising costs and gentrification.
That mission was backed by real resources, most notably the 1.25 million that came through the settlement secured by Bruce Afron with Princeton University. Those funds were not symbolic. They were intentional. They were meant to produce outcomes. But today, the people that money was meant
to serve are asking very basic questions and not getting answers. Where is the transparency? Where is the accountability? Where are the tangible results tied to that investment? A property was acquired years ago on MLAN Street. Taxes have been paid. Time has
passed. Meanwhile, members of the community, people who should be the beneficiaries of this work, have expressed real interest in purchasing that home. And yet, nothing meaningful has moved forward. No clear pathway, no communication, no resolution. That is not was ini what was envisioned. That is
not what was promised. I have personally brought leadership from the organization before the community more than once so that questions could be addressed openly. These moments did not produce that clarity of or confidence that the neighborhood deserves. And now the temperature has changed that is no
longer a quiet concern, but it is open frustration. As part of the original settlement, there was an expectation, if not formally, then certainly in spirit, that the university would remain connected enough to ensure that these resources
were being used in alignment with their purpose. The absence of that connection is now being felt. So my vision or my look forward is that we need your help not to take over not
to dictate but to bring visibility accountability and urgency back to this effort. We need university to lean in help us get answers to hard questions seek clarity on outcomes and help ensure that the intent behind those funds is being honored in practice. Quite simply
the mission isn't too important for us to drift. We have a shared history here. The university and this neighborhood have been intertwined for generations, for better or for worse. The moment is an opportunity to demonstrate what it looks like when that relationship works in service of equity, preservation, and
justice. Innovation starts at home and right now home is asking for help. We really need you and thank you for listening and sorry to take so long. So Leighton, I I appreciate the the questions and the spirit in which they
are asked. You you said in your questions and you said to me beforehand that that you that this isn't an ask that that it's a a vision. And I'd like to respond in the in the same way as as you say, we have a shared history, we we
have a shared present, we have a shared future uh together. And um I think we proceed toward that shared future uh with values in in common that are directly relevant to the vision that you've just expressed. Um as I've said
before at these meetings, we care deeply about this being a livable and affordable uh community. We have a a very great percentage of our staff that that already live in Princeton. We want that to be able to continue. Many also live in in surrounding towns obviously,
but we want this to be a place where um our staff and and faculty live and uh thrive. We want it to be an affordable community. We want it to be a diverse uh community. Um and I I respect the the the many concerns that you raise about
that. Um I I said a few moments ago we we um face a a difficult set of choices right now and uh a different set of choices as we move forward into the the future. But I do hope at some point that for example we are building on Butler
tract and the university has a history which I expect to be continued into the future of uh making sure that we have inclusive housing when we uh build projects. We hope that we will be able to um at some point do things along the
Alexander Street corridor. We're we're very interested in making sure that we can work with this council and the town to uh ensure that the zoning is appropriate around potential projects that I think would be very beneficial not just to the university but to the
town uh uh going forward um uh as I said earlier one of the projects that we created it may not be directly re relevant to what you said but I think it's really important that we created housing for our graduate students that's on the uh west windsor side of the lake,
but it it means that they're not stressing the demand for housing that would otherwise be present here um in Princeton. Um so that's the the kind of the the vision level uh agreement. I I think both of us know that to really make a difference, we've got to go from
vision to to details and and um uh more particulars uh on those things. I I I trust you and I trust my my colleagues. Hillary and Kristen and Melissa who are uh here now to to work together with you
both over the the short term to see whether there are short-term things we can do but also over the long term as as we continue to think about we now have a agreement in place with the the town regarding our voluntary contribution through 2028 I think. But you know these
these conversations take place into the future too. So, I hope we can go there with with deep appreciation for the sentiments and concerns that you just uh raised and and with imaginative uh consideration of possibilities that that could move us forward together.
>> Thank you, Mr. President. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Um so, mine like Leighton, I'm not going to make an ask. I know traditionally we see see this as an opportunity for us to um to uh come
together and to discuss uh our needs and and make our ask. But I'm not going to do that tonight. Uh instead I'm going to I'll consider more of a moment of reflection.
Uh earlier this year I shared I shared that I will this will be my final term on council. Our annual meeting in this format where we discuss shared goals and initiatives that enhance the quality of life for both campus and community has
always been one of my favorites. This will be my ninth year doing this. Uh and it's something that I will truly miss. I especially value the opportunity to plant ideas for meaningful collaboration.
Several of the ideas that we have planted, nurtured, and brought to fruition include the following. At my first meeting with uh President Ice Gruber as a newly appointed uh council member, I highlighted the work
of Habitat for Human Community Humanity Habitat for Humanity, which at the time was raising funds to build muchneeded affordable housing in the Witherspoon Jackson neighborhood on municip municipally acquired land.
Not long after, Princeton University stepped in with generous funding and students, faculty, and staff who contributed sweat equity to help uh construct the two homes. Through the collaboration and support of
many community partners, including the university, two families became firsttime homeowners. among them a longtime Princeton renter whose dream of home ownership was finally realized.
Also, a few years ago during another meeting, I suggested that Princeton University consider following the lead of other institutions by allowing students to use a portion of their meal plans at local restaurants.
I was pleased to later learn that the university's PA with points program does exactly that and I saw in your report that it has significantly increased and contributed to uh our local uh restaurants.
Uh this initiative not only supports local businesses but also provides students who might not otherwise have the means the chance to enjoy experiences many of their peers take for granted. I also had the opportunity to
collaborate with Cara Bransom from the University Art Museum to organize community building events. The first took place at the original museum where many members of our immigrant community the exhibits while participating in a
game of Leria, which is a Mexican bingo family game. During the museum's renovation, these events continued on art at Halffish and I look forward to the possibility of continuing this tradition in the new museum space this
year. So, uh, as you have mentioned in, uh, during your remarks, across the country and here at the local level, we face challenges that threaten our ability to sustain services.
Both those that both those that enhance daily life and those that are essential to our community. We're not alone in facing these challenges. History has shown that when we work together, we can overcome anything.
And I want to take this opportunity to personally thank the university for being such a such a strong and valued partner throughout my time on council. Thank you. >> Well, thank you for those uh comments which are really meaningful to me. I I
can't believe it's been nine years that we've been going back and forth uh on this. Uh but Leticia, I want to thank you for what you brought to every single one of those endeavors that that you described. I I think every single one of them is an example of uh how if people
put creative energy into uh priorities, you can make a difference and you can make things uh happen. And I'm proud of the various members of our community who step forward around those things. I mean, thank you for mentioning the faculty and students who, as you say, put sweat equity into um the uh Habitat
for Humanity uh projects. I will also say the undergraduate student government was a great partner um as we worked on initiatives around paw points uh for example and from my standpoint it's just fabulous to see students crossing Nassau Street in a way that they didn't do
before and being embraced in a way that wasn't necessarily the case um a decade plus uh ago. So thank you for making those opportunities u uh possible. I I look forward to continuing a partnership with you as we move forward into the the
future. And the last thing I will say just to to offer a hearty amen to your uh remarks basically is that one of the things that I find um valuable and it was illustrated by Leighton's earlier question about these conversations is we can't always identify solutions in the
moment and it's very rarely the case that I can just raise my hand and say yeah that you know we'll do that or that will happen. But if we know where the town's priorities are and somebody says this is something that would make a a difference, that's something that we can bear in mind as we go into the future.
Sometimes find something in the shorter term, often find something in the longer term. So thank you for that partnership. Much appreciated. Thank you. >> So it hasn't been quite nine years for me, but >> soon. Um and uh a top priority for me
has been the um rebuilding uh the relationship with the university in a way that I I feel like it had frayed. I was you know um out of town for many years and when I came back I was surprised to find that the relationship had become uh so contentious in a way
that it it was not when I was growing up. And that was disappointing because I think as I said my first year on council we can't get divorced. we're stuck. >> That's true. >> Um and uh so we have we have to work together and make the best of it. Um and I I um have been doing that and I really
appreciate um your support, the university support, Melissa, Kristen, and Hillary um you know, are are an invaluable part of the team. Um and I think we continue to move forward and build on that foundation with a very
generous voluntary contribution. um uh because you are um also hurting financially in the way that we are. I'm going to join my colleagues and not hitting you up for anything. Although there might have been a little bit there that
um so I I want to mention one more thing to the to the point of collaboration. I want to give a shout out to our representatives uh the representatives from the Daily Princonian here. Um, this is something that I personally have been working on.
I think we um wanted to work together on on more accurate coverage. Um, I want to give a shout out to Luke Grio, who is the managing editor this year of the Daily Princonian, who took it upon himself to reach out to the municipality
and build trust and find out what was involved with trying to accurately cover uh news in the municipality. And I said, you know, I know that you're just on campus for a temporary period, but what you cover in terms of decisions made by
the university and municipality and particularly those that collectively impact us stay on the internet forever. And it's a big responsibility and I have been so pleased at at our work together and and they recently have had a series of articles which are the only articles
that I have forwarded to people who really wanted a factual balanced account. So hats off to the Daily Princonian. Um okay so the here's my question. Uh and as usual I have a two-part question. Um first uh you know
there is a feeling in the country of uh in both parties and in all faiths and backgrounds of um real um bleakness of um feeling overwhelmed and anxious and
and as though this is the darkest point ever. Um but if you look back in American history, the Civil War, the World Wars, the Vietnam period, we have had many bleak periods. And so my first
question is your opinion or your your perspective on whether is it really much more bleak now or is it the impact of social media and the fact that we are bombarded 247 with everything that's going on not just here but in the world
that makes it seem so much more extreme. And my second question is what is uh when you need to grasp on to something that that makes you feel hopeful about this country and our
ability to come together, the American experiment, you know, um what what do you grasp on to what what is can you share with us some what what you think of when you need hope? >> Yeah, thank you for those questions. You
know, I may start with the second one if I may. I let Let me just say by way of preface, first of all, I I'm I'm really delighted that you reached out to the Daily Princonian. I'm delighted to hear that that conversation went so well. I I think it obviously speaks well both of
the students on the on the Prince and and of you for reaching out to them and having that conversation and and and uh making sure that they were able to do what they aspire to do, which is to report accurately. So, thank you for that. That that that connects to what I want to say about the second half of
your question, which is I find inspiration every day from what happens around our our campus. I mean it is a um it's a complicated uh time but what energizes me about the job I do and I continue to uh love that job is uh the
extraordinary research and teaching of our faculty the extraordinary aspirations and achievements of our our students the the passion they have for what it is that they do. And whether it's walking into that that art museum and experiencing the beauty beauty and
serenity of that place or or going to a student um um uh theater performance or uh going to an athletic uh event um you know seeing those things which are uh a little different from the political
conflict that I think gets people down is is for me always a lift and uh a boost. and and then I see in these conversations looking actually at what goes on in on my uh campus um a state of affairs that is different from what
often gets uh reported in the press. That's that's one of the uh central themes of the book that I just uh wrote is I you know I think we as a country should take great pride in these colleges and universities that are in
very many ways uh admired all around the uh world and and that we should treasure here in the in in the states. But I I find that and and I find it in our community too. And so it it's true we we couldn't get a divorce between university and town if we wanted one.
But we shouldn't want one because we should be finding inspiration um uh from each other. And so let me let me go from that from what I I see the kind of the daily sustenance of the stuff. You can you know you can go on to the blogosphere or whatever and get consumed
in various kinds of of I I don't know enmity if I can put it that way of rivalry of of anger. uh but in in the ordinary life that we live or maybe I should say the extraordinary life that we're privileged to live in a community like this one there are lots of sources
for inspiration. You are absolutely right. These are these are tough times. I mean I don't I I I don't think there's any denying that we are divided in ways that should concern us. There are all sorts of things I think I can say this people believe it without regard to what
their uh particular political views are. There are all sorts of things to be concerned about in our society today. But we have been through tougher times as a uh as a country. One of the things as I've dealt with the challenges in my job over the last few years that that I
have found myself doing is going back and reading biographies or autobiographies of university presidents who served in the in the late 60s and early 70s. People like Clark Kerr at the University of California who lost his job but he was one of the best presidents in the country. Kingman
Brewster at Yale, Robert Gohane here in u uh Princeton and they were dealing with very tough times. There was all sorts of violence taking place including on on uh college campuses. There there were um uh destructive acts there. There
there was anger. um uh and I think at times it's important for us to um simultaneously get that historical perspective that I think your question implicitly urged and even as we are
attentive to the challenges in our country and appreciation for the blessings that we enjoy because they remain very real. No. So after the very philosophical and high level uh discussion,
I think I keep my sanity by looking at the details of the work um and the opportunities and I just wanted to mention a few of the wonderful opportunities uh that our collaboration affords us and then maybe some of the challenges. So first of all I was going
to mention the the the art museum is amazing. Uh it has I mean the fact that Time magazine acknowledged it was just really uh phenomenal. But we've already seen what an incredible economic driver
it can be for the town. And so I say the challenge for us now is to work together and collaborate on you know how to deal with better wayfinding you know traffic solutions, parking solutions and you know the staff has
been you know wonderful but I think that that's a challenge uh for us you know to continue to work together on. Um and then that leads me to a thank you uh a a huge thank you for supporting our transit system. Uh we are now launching
the loop express which is may not seem like a big deal but it really is a step in the direction of moving us away from a car centric town and I know you love to walk cuz we run into each other often. You probably don't recognize me
tonight without my dog. >> Um but >> usually got mine with me too. >> I know. Um but we uh we really appreciate that support and the opportunity to have a 20 minute you dinky down with you know down
Nassau down Harrison to the shopping center 20 minutes each way and this is something that you know like Tiger Transit can be for everybody and we really need um we really appreciate the support for that and again it's it's part of the solution the package of what
we can do together. So, just want to thank thank the university for that. >> I guess Lori and I ran into you as we were walking to Bluepoint about uh what 10 days or so ago. Yeah. >> The um Well, thank you for the question. Um what I would say is this is another
area as you rightly recognize of shared interest between the uh town and the university. Um I I know you work closely with Charlie Tennyson who who leads up a lot of our parking and transportation services and
>> uh um I think you said in the course of your your question it's not an easy problem to uh solve. I'm grateful that we have Charlie working on these and I'm grateful we have a a good partnership uh with you around those issues. They are obviously issues that matter
tremendously both to our population on the uh campus and to the to the university. So um I hope we can continue to to look for creative solutions. U I hope we can continue to work with you as we uh design future agreements to work
together with the town to identify where it is that we can make a difference there. But as you rightly say, the the ability to walk around this uh town and and to get around with without having to uh fight traffic and and worry about parking um is something that I think
makes a difference in the quality of life for people at the university and and uh beyond it and and so what whatever we can do to work together on that we will continue to do. >> Yeah, very much. I I have one other possible opportunity and challenge and
that is um in the uh department of our firefighters. Uh as ch times have changed, we have a long tradition of volunteerism both with your associate program with firefighters and um our volunteerism and little by
little that has fallen off greatly. You know, times change, times being what they are. So, um I think it's it's an opportunity for us to work together closely and see how we can be cost-effective and efficient. Um and I you know I know that our fire department
uh works closely with yours and um you know I just want to highlight that as as another opportunity to to do something >> and again obviously I agree I know we've worked with the town as we've uh uh supported what is very important to the to the university as well the town as
the town around fire protection. uh services. This is another place where I think the the critical pieces of it are in the details. So, I'm looking over to my friends uh Hillary, Kristen, and and Melissa, knowing that they're the people who can can work around that both again in the shorter term and the and the
longer term, but knowing that we have a shared interest there. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> I'm thinking about pivoting since none of my colleagues are asking for anything. I think I might ask for something um >> but not for the municipality actually.
I'm going to ask you for something for the country and the world. Uh your motto is in service to the country and the world. Right. So I was really struck in reading your comments to the university
community. It was a little aside almost, but with the challenges facing the endowment, you talked about needing to rely even more in the future on philanthropy. And the question is, what kind of trends are
you seeing in philanthropy? I'm hearing in the community of Princeton that it's getting harder to raise money from wealthy members of the community. Uh we know that, you know, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett sort of
tried to start the giving pledge for billionaires and all the new billionaires are refusing to sign on to that. And so, you know, you were really precient. We've been talking about um civil
discourse and freedom of speech for many years uh at these gatherings and you were really addressing those issues on your campus and I think you avoided some of the really hard things that other campuses have been experiencing the last
year and a half uh because of your precience and I'm curious if you're equally planning for encouraging a culture of giving in your students uh going forward to meet that increased
reliance on philanthropy that um you and Princeton and the country will really need um to thrive in the future and so just are you seeing trends and are you
trying to do anything to address those trends in your educational programming? I don't know. I have some temptation to throw the question to your colleague to your right on the council just because when I was a young provost uh many years
ago uh Brian was our our vice president for uh advancement at uh Princeton and and taught me a lot of what I have come to rely on and know as a university administrator uh raising money. But but let me let me offer you a few thoughts about what I
know on that um front which would be to say I I think philanthropy is one of one of the great strengths and actually remains one of the great strengths of America. So you know I did my graduate education over uh in England and at some
point Oxford University which I attended realized that it needed to start uh raising funds. uh you know a lot of the fundraising that they do is over in the United States just because there is a tradition here of giving which is I
think u valuable and different from what exists in much of the the rest of the world. I think that tradition continues. Actually, I I talk all the time to to people who care about paying it forward in one way or another. Um
uh to their communities, to their to their schools, to their uh country. I think what people confront um and and we see it here even in a place as blessed as Princeton is is a growing set of needs that of different uh charities and
um uh institutions seeking uh philanthropic uh support greater sophistication in those appeals. So it can feel a lot um more challenging to to raise funds but I don't think that means that people are less interested in
supporting their uh communities. I think that tradition remains strong when I think about it um in connection with Princeton University. uh what what we try to instill in all of our students and it is part of our our motto and I think every Princonian knows
it right the the formulation that we have now is literally in the nation service in the service of humanity and it dates back in its original formulation to uh Woodro Wilson and the end of the uh 19th century in a speech that he gave then and that ethic of
service I think is very strong and we try to instill it and part of what I strongly believe and I I saw a quote from our uh a wonderful alum Robert Mueller who passed away this week where where he said uh look you you can serve in many different ways. You can serve in
a wide variety of different professions and I would add it at different points in your life but what matters is that everybody have a commitment to service. I'm paraphrasing um what what it was that that he said but I think it's that instinct that is um important. I do
believe it's it it is um valuable and desirable. And one of the reasons that that that we are so proud of our tradition of annual giving that starts early at at Princeton and often starts with very small gifts is there's something wonderful about getting in the habit of thinking wherever you are in
your career. part of what you're going to do is make a commitment to give back or pay it forward, however you want to put it, to uh the uh communities that have mattered in your life and that are uh around you or that are in need. So, we try to inculcate that that instinct
and as I'm talking to people, I'm you know, obviously it's part of my job to ask them to support Princeton University and our mission and I do that with with great enthusiasm. But one thing I'll always say to folks is look, I know I know everybody has a portfolio of different causes that they are committed
to and in some years I hope it will be us when I'm talking to them, but I know that in other years it's going to be other organizations and institutions. But what really matters I think in the spirit that you've just described is this commitment to um I would say
fundamentally to serve but also to pay it forward and to to uh give back. And if if people are making that that choice, then I I respect that tremendously. Uh Chris, welcome back and thank you for your continued continued leadership of
the university and for your past leadership of and continued service on the American Association of Universities. Thank you also for your strong advocacy for free speech, civil discourse, and academic freedom. and thank you for pushing back on this
administration's unprecedented assault on higher education and our research universities. These institutions have been our country's main driver of discovery, innovation, and advances in healthcare, technology, and national security to name only three. For 80
years, this unique, remarkable, and mutually beneficial relationship has been the envy of the world. It is now under attack. The partnership model has weakened and there is no question that this will hurt our country now and for decades to come. What can we do and what
can members of our community do to support the university and its peer institutions? Well, thank you. I I mean, first of all, just thank you for those words and thank you for uh speaking up. that was extraordinarily well put and I I just think uh one of the things that you just
did is is uh one of the things that members of this community can do which is to get that message out there um underscore how important this partnership has been to our nation's health security and prosperity and to the education of our children and and to
the propagation of American values throughout the world and that it depends on on that fragile combination you mentioned of government support and a commitment to academic uh freedom. So one is I just think anytime you make that kind of statement it makes a difference. The second I would say is um
uh you know communicating with uh other people in uh Washington with office holders in uh Washington writing to to Congress including those uh who represent us here in New Jersey. They generally appreciate this but knowing that it is front and center for uh their
constituents matters a lot. I mean I know you know this right? you you are members of this council, you know how important it is. It's it's hard work. Uh as I said earlier, uh dealing with the multiple constituencies that you have, but it matters what your constituents uh
think. And I I will say when I go down there and I'm making more and more trips to Washington, it matters if I walk into an office and and uh the a congressperson or or the representatives uh staff is saying, "Yes, we're hearing from constituents. We know this is on uh
people's mind. People are uh talking to us about the importance of supporting research and science and uh universities. So I I think that civics 101 uh point actually uh matters. And and then more specifically, I I think
you know, we've got a a website called uh Stand Up for Princeton and Higher Education. Uh uh that provides updates about the specific issues that we're facing and where people can uh make a difference, helps to provide information if people are interested in what it is
they can do. And one piece of that that I think is really important and I I think this this council would immediately agree is I firmly believe and we believe at uh Princeton you can't just stand up for a particular institution. Right? One of the things that I believe is when I'm going down to
Washington I got to be standing up for all the institutions in in higher education. I've got to be standing up for American colleges and universities. I will answer whatever questions or concerns people have about uh Princeton University. I will defend my my
institution, but at the end of the day, I know that the legislation that's going to matter is going to affect a broad range of colleges and and universities. And if we fall into the trap of of competing with one another or or saying, "Well, it's not me, it's it's those
other other uh institutions, that is not an effective way to be proceeding." So, we we need everybody to be standing up, not just for uh Princeton, but for higher education in this uh country. and and what it does because as I said uh
Mia in response to your question earlier I just think these places and you spend time on a campus and you feel this they are places that are treasures and that make a difference to our our country and and those of us who are close to them have got to be sending that report
inside the beltway where sometimes they forget it. So thank you for the question. >> All right Chris again thanks for your time. thanks for for joining us. Um >> I'm I'm greatly encouraged when you say about >> all people everyone should stand up and
I think it's good at the national level, but I think locally we should all stand up as one community, the university community, the town community. At the end of the day, we're all one. what happens with one impacts the other and the more that we can work together and I
must say that it is very um I'm very grateful for the opportunities to be able to just make a phone call send an email and say hey what about and we always get an honest answer maybe not always the answer I would hope for but we get an honest answer u and be able to have that dialogue I think is very
important and in today's world people being able to just have an honest open dialogue is sometimes a challenge so we truly appreciate all the effort and the respect and everything that goes along with that between the university and the town. So, thank you very much. >> And Mark, just amen to that. I think
that that connects again to to Mia's comments at the beginning of her statement about what has been necessary in order to uh bring the relationship closer together between the town and the and the university. We've just got to be able to have those conversations in
exactly the way that you said I that we got to be honest with one another. We got to realize we've got a shared future and and shared interests. And we got to know that either, you know, from either side, if you're being honest, you're you're not always going to hear what it is that you want to hear. And and as you
said, uh we've got to have priorities. You've got to have priorities. But if we can have that that conversation, um uh then I think we can move forward in a way that that will give us a future we can both be proud of. So, thank you so much for making that possible. >> Thank you. >> All right.
>> Thank you. Thank you. Okay, continuing on with the meeting and to the people on Zoom, sorry about uh some problems we had earlier. It was a little hard for people on Zoom to get on uh right at the beginning of the meeting. Uh okay, next up we have
minutes from October 27th's regular meeting. If somebody wants to Thank you, Brian. TSO's got the second. Any questions or comments on the minutes? If not, all in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Okay. Next up are announcements and reports. Any council members with
announcements or reports for tonight? >> Okay, great. because we got a lot of other stuff to cover. The I'm sorry, Deanna. >> Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to do a couple of quick reports. Um, one of them
is related to the storm event we had with a lot of uh road closures. We just want to remind residents that um it is their responsibility to look after their private trees. A lot of the road closures that had occurred were due to
private uh trees falling into our roadways and on power lines. And so uh we do encourage residents to make the effort to look at the health of their trees and um maintain them in such a way that it's not going to cause property
damage in the right of way or disrupt our traffic. Um, and our second update is um related to the Princeton Environmental Film Festival. Um, I see that we have a couple folks here from
the library, but on March 28th, if anybody is interested in learning more about sanitary sewers, um, or sanitary sewer treatment, um, there is a film entitled Unless Something Goes Terribly
Wrong that is being screened at 11:00 a.m. at the library. Um, and so people are invited to check that out. That's it. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> I'm sorry. >> You're with their now.
>> Yep. Okay. David. >> Yeah. And I just remembered a quick announcement I wanted to make on uh tomorrow evening. There's a public information session regarding our watershed assessment plan. It's both at the watershed uh from 6:00 to 7:30, but
also um available on Zoom if you want to take it in that way. >> All right. Thank you. Okay, Chief, you're here and you have two things for us tonight. The February monthly report and the 2025 annual
report. >> That's correct, Mayor. And again, thank you for having me here on council. Tonight, I'm presenting those two reports. First, the February police monthly report contained in this report and a specific activity that I'd like to highlight is our community relation bureau's continued strong community
outreach efforts. This is done through a variety of engagement initiatives to school partnerships, community events, and public assistance activities. You'll see in this report that during the month of February, officers from the Community Relations Bureau participated in numerous community policing events,
conducted school details and safety drills with school administrators and officials, hosted community engagement events such as smoothie with a cop, and assisted residents with several quality of life concerns and public safety services most uh recently with the
winter storm that we had, following up on 112 snow removal complaints and issues. Each one of those uh contained a follow-up to ensure that that it was appropriately done. Overall, we remain actively engaged in building relationships, supporting our schools, and maintaining a visible and positive
presence through the community. That second report, that's our 2025 annual report. This report provides a comprehensive overview of the department's operations, staffing, training, community engagement efforts, professional standards throughout the
year, and many other things. It outlines our calls for service, our enforcement activity, internal affairs reports, use of force statistics, training initiatives, and our organizational structure. All of the goal of maintaining transparency and keeping our community informed.
The report is not only intended to document our activity, but it also demonstrates accountability, professionalism, and our continued commitment to community partnership and public safety. The year 2025 was a significant year for the police department marked by both transition and
progress. We experienced leadership transition. We welcomed several new officers to the department and we continue to build upon the strong foundation has been established over many many years. During 2025, the department implemented several important initiatives and improvements, including
upgrades to our bodywn camera system, integration of drone technology into operations, implementing the New Jersey arrive together mental health response program, and expanding training opportunities for our officers, and as well as beginning
the process of public safety answering point accreditation. Overall, 2025 represented a year of forward movement for the Princeton Police Department. We continued to focus on officer training and wellness, transparency, and accountability along with modernization of equipment and
technology and strengthening relationships with the community we serve. The men and women of the Princeton Police Department remain committed to providing professional, responsive, and community oriented policing services. and the progress that we made in 2025 positions the department
well as we continue moving into 2026 and beyond. With that, mayor and council, I know that those reports, especially the annual report, was quite comprehensive. Does anybody have any questions in regards to February or the annual? We'll be happy to take them.
>> Thanks, Chief Leighton. Thanks, Chief. And first of all, thank you for a tour to force annual report. But I I can't imagine that there are many police local annual reports deeper and better than that one. So it it I read through it totally and it it was very informational. So congratulations on
that. Number two, I just really took a quick look at the numbers of the times policemen have been called in January and February. I compared this year's to last year's and there's a 28% 28.6% 6% increase in the amount of time police
have been called, which when I ran the numbers out looks to me like about 50,000 times this year police will be have will have been called. And my question is, if that 28 or approximately 30% increase continues throughout the rest of this year, what impact, if any,
will that have on your officers and particularly your patrol area officers? >> Thank you, Councilman Nulan. Correct. We are seeing an uptick in calls for service. A lot of that is uh also um officer generated um conduct and uh
initiatives. Again, at the beginning of the year, we made it an absolute point to strengthen our traffic safety bureau as well as our community relations bureau. We additionally staff these units and as a result, we're also able to generate more police proactive calls. So that's going out to businesses,
that's uh interacting with people more, it's conducting more traffic enforcement and trying to make our roadways safer for all roadway users. So that number uh seems to be going up, but it's also going up due to proactive officer involvement within the community, which we want to see. Um I I do see a slight
uptick in calls for service, and it's something that we're going to continue to monitor throughout the year, and um the police department is more than prepared to uh tackle any issues head-on. >> Thank you, sir. Brian. >> Uh yes, Chief. Thank you for the very
comprehensive report and for the monthly report and um also for agreeing to serve as chief and stay with us for some time. Um I think your leadership is going to uh be extremely impactful and it will be great to have you really focusing in for
some period of time on uh moving our police forths uh to even uh a higher and better level of service. Um I did note that um there was some variability in some of the statistics and this was explained earlier that there uh have
been times when we've been down officers um and that that can have a really big impact even though we have a goodsized force being down um two three four five officers can have a significant impact. So I I guess I have a a question and
also um something an ask for my fellow council members. One is uh is there any way to better anticipate uh vacancies and uh prepare in advance to have the shortest gap in coverage possible? And then for our administrator Bernie and
for my council colleagues and the mayor, are there things that we can do uh to assist you in ensuring that there are few gaps and when there are that they are uh short ones? >> Thank you, Councilman McDonald. Uh
that's an excellent point and this is something that has recently come up at our public safety committee. Um I trying to get a good idea as we look into the future of uh vacancies and attrition in the police department. It's uh policing
is unlike any other profession where you can't just hire somebody and they start the next day. It's a comprehensive recruitment process which starts at an application phase and it goes through physical testing, psychological testing. The uh the background investigation is
extremely comprehensive and this is all before you go to the police academy which is a 21week investment. Even after they come out of the police academy, you're looking at uh about 16 to 18 weeks on a field training program. So all in all from the point when we implement recruitment to the time that
the officer actually counts towards staffing levels is about 18 months. So we like to identify right away when those departures are going to occur. And most recently in our in last public safety meeting I tried to map out a three-year plan of when we pro uh
forecast uh potential departures in the agency. And through using that plan and being proactive with recruitment, I think we can stay ahead of the A-ball and not uh fall behind where staffing becomes an issue. And I'm a strong believer of with the appropriate staffing, we can accomplish so much
more. Um, and it's something that I can I absolutely will look at as we go to the future. >> Any other questions for the chief? >> Just comment. Great job. Thank you, Chief. >> Thank you so much. >> Yeah, chief. I just want to comment and echo I think part of what was been said,
but the amount of information that our police department makes available to the public compared to the majority or the average police department in this state and probably in this country is pretty amazing. So, I mean, it's something that I think we should be proud of. Uh, and
the fact that we do not try to play with numbers or hide things or make things work to our advantage, that we're very open and transparent about what we do with our police department. And as I've said many times to you and I hope I say it enough times in public that I sincerely hope the people of this
community understand how blessed we are with the police department we have and the leadership in our police department because this is not a typical police department that you're going to find in most towns and what we have is way above average and provides much more services and a much better service than you'll find in most places. So thank you very
much. >> Thank you much. I appreciate the kind words from everybody. Thank you. >> All right. Thanks, Chief. >> All right, Chief. You can try to escape if you want. Uh, next up, we have a work session regarding special events and our
attorney of the evening, Lisa Maddox, is going to, I guess, walk us through that. Lisa. >> Yes, Mayor. We have a >> Okay, so we have a a presentation um some slides to put up. I think we're just waiting for the
slides. >> I'm sorry. Who's leading this? >> Oh, there we go. >> There we go. Okay. >> Our slides. >> Okay. And I as I go through this, I I mean I think it's better to ask questions all along and >> that that would be good because it's very general. So, we're going to need a lot of
>> very general details. Try to keep it simple. But I I have a lot to add. >> Yeah. Lisa, if you just keep the microphone close to you because people on Zoom >> Absolutely. I have a lot to add and hopefully hopefully answer everybody's questions. We've been working on this
with c some council members, staff in our office for about two years. I know through the years we've revisited special events many times, but in the last couple of years we've um we've been working on a new ordinance um that something that really regulates these
special events, but also uh tries to, you know, protect the public and invite people into the community. So, one of the main questions is why now? Why do you need a new special events ordinance?
In recent years, there's been a pretty big increase in public interest in holding events in Princeton. So, you've have more events, more people, and a a greater use of public resources. So, that's uh one main reason
for this new ordinance. Currently the special events are covered under two portions of the code under parades one chapter and in a a different area regarding u public assemblies. It's a it's it's a totally separate chapter
portion of a separate chapter. So again one of the reasons for this now is to streamline the procedures and put everything into one one chapter and this also goes to the next point. This enhances public safety and and helps
protect the uh public welfare in general. Um there is because of the increase in public interest and use of the municipality for special events. There's also an added cost. It's uh there's a
cost for administrative review and analysis of the applications, police department, um labor costs, cost for cleanup, public works, police, um uh fire department, emergency services, and potentially other departments that need
to spend time and resources in helping ensure that these special events go well and are safe. Right now, Princeton's limited in what it can charge it. The only charges are first for a permit fee, which is only $25 for anyone, and the
second charge is for police department labor costs. That can be passed on currently. But right now, you can't charge for cleanup fees, public works, or any any of the other administrative fees involved. So, that's another u not main reason, but that's another um we
want to ensure that this becomes more cost-effective for the municipality. Um, another aspect of this is that there are certain portions of the m municipality that are more desirable for special events. And right now, there's
no control in the ordinance as to where these events can happen. So, under the new ordinance, we're we're trying to create special event routes and for instance, designated areas where 5Ks,
walk-athons, and parades can take place. So you're not overburdening certain neighborhoods and and you're sort of spreading things out a little bit. Um so moving on to the next slide.
The again currently we have a parades ordinance and essentially a parade is a special event. Under this new ordinance we're going to kind of broaden that definition. Special event is really any organized gathering of people where they're going to be using a um an
outdoor municipal area. So that would be any street, sidewalk, um a park, open space, plaza. So it it again puts all those provisions into one ordinance, but it's it's pretty broad. And anytime an
event, an organized event is going to take place in any of those areas, people are going to have to, unless there's an exception, apply for a special event permit. Right now, we have um a proposed trigger, and this is something to discuss with council for how many people
in a public area would would need to gather for an for a permit to be required. you know what if we don't want to require a permit if people just want to sit in hinds you know 10 people want to get together and have a knitting
circle or something like that but what if it's 100 people so right now the current draft provides for 100 people as the trigger for a special event that doesn't use any um any roadways or
anything like that just something that takes place in a park or a plaza 100 people. Um the next c so there are different categories of what could trigger the special events permit. The next one would be regardless of the amount of people anytime you're using
any municipal resources like police, public works, any other um any other need for any other department. Anytime there's a required road or sidewalk closure, you're going to need a permit. Anytime you're restricting public access and use of outdoor
municipal areas or you want to reserve a portion of an outdoor area to exclude general public, that would require a permit. Anytime merchandise, food, beverages offered or sold, that would require a permit. And anytime you're
you're you want to have a special event where you're going to be bringing in restrooms or any other temporary installations or improvements, you would need a special event permit. in the next slide. So the process isn't going to be much different than from what you have right
now. Uh right now you have you file an application um there's a permit issued. One main difference with this new ordinance is that the permit would be issued administratively versus you have some permits that are administered by
the clerk, some that are admin given by the chief of police and then others by council. everything's going to be done more uniformly with the clerk and the police and other departments coordinating and then council really won't be involved. So, we thought that
would be a more um better use of council's time and most of the work is done at administrative level. The next thing that the ordinance requires is the payment of fees to cover the administrative um labor costs and any parking. Again, as I mentioned
before, the administrative fees right now it's just $25 per per application. Um the um actually we'll get into this in a second. I'm just going to generally talk about the how the three categories of of the payment of fees, the
administrative fees, the labor costs, and uh fees for restricting parking. And then the fourth element of the process will be that the the license has to strictly comply with the permit and all conditions. And and if they don't and
then they come back and they want to do their event again, well then they won't be able to. If they can't comply with the ordinance, then they're going to be restricted in in their ability to to bring future events to the municipality.
So the next slide is the exceptions. So there are several uh important exceptions and these are pretty new. The first one has to do with a spontaneous event. So one of the questions that initially came up when we were talking about this ordinance is what happens if
people want to protest? Something happens in the news, people are mad or people are really happy and they want to celebrate. They have to get a permit. No, they will not have to get a permit if it's in response to something taking place you in the news or the media within 48 hours. So if people
organically ga gather or they you know they they gather in response to something that happens they have to have the ability to express themselves. Um and this is something that's really important under the first amendment. So this is this is provided for in the ordinance and basically they can gather
anywhere and they can except the streets. the streets, they would have to have a permit still because that that causes a lot of disruption. And if they don't notify the municipality before they block streets, it can also cause a public safety nightmare. So they can gather in parks, they can gather on
sidewalks as long as they allow for an area for the pedestrians to walk. So there this is a expanding upon the ability of the public to express themselves with this exception. Now, if somebody wants to have a protest that's you if they want to plan something for a
week or two away, then they can communicate and get the permit from the clerk's office. But this is this is really intended for the a really core protected area of the First Amendment to make sure that people can engage in expressive conduct without having to get that permit. So, we really thought that
was important to add to the ordinance. Another category is an event that's sponsored by Princeton. This has always been an exception essentially, but it it's stated explicitly. So if Princeton or any of its departments want to hold an event, for instance, the recreation
department, no permit is necessary. The um a permit that's actually issued by the recreation department is also completely separate from my other ex my other example is an exception in general. So, the recreation department
under chapter 16 has a process for permits to use certain locations at its parks like pavilions and things like that. It has a process in place. This ordinance is not going to touch that limited procedure that's already in place. They they know what they're
doing. They have a fair process already um already regulated. So this, for instance, if you want to have a really big event in a park that's not covered under chapter 16, the the parks ordinance, then you'd come in and and get a special events permit. So this doesn't prohibit people. Again, this is
really intended to expand what can be done in Princeton. The fourth category is another important new category, and that's events that are co-sponsored um by Princeton. And that that when when we say co-sponsored, that means they're
also co-sponsored by um an organization that's either quasi uh public like um like Princeton Library uh public school district or the rescue squad or another nonprofit like the um Arts Council of
Princeton, Farmers Market, organizations that have a pre-existing relationship with Princeton. That would be a co-sponsored group. They wouldn't be exempt from the permit requirements, but only because the you we want to make sure that we know what's happening and
when and where, but they would be exempt from all the fees, including the special fees, parking fees, and all of that. So, they would just have to come in, provide information about their event, get approval, and then the fees would still be waved for those groups. uh some other relevant
updates that are not really found in the current provisions regarding parades and and public assemblies. Um the first one has to do with food trucks. So that has been a question are they aren't they allowed? Under this ordinance food
trucks would be allowed when they are incidental to a special event. That would mean that they can't be the main purpose of the event. But if someone were having a parade and they want to provide food for attendees, well, they can invite a food truck. So that would
be instead of for instance having a caterer because I know that a lot of times special events, they they do provide food for people. So that's that's sort of the caveat for when food trucks would be allowed. Again, you couldn't have just an event for all food trucks and that would be the nature of
the event. That wouldn't be uh consistent with the new ordinance. Also importantly, we you during discussions regarding the ordinance, it really became important to respect the existing businesses in town and ensure that
you're not inviting food trucks for every event and then that they're being allowed in every area of the town to the detriment of your existing existing restaurants. So, as part of this analysis, we're going to work with um the relevant departments to make sure
there are designated areas. Just like the special event routes for the the 5ks and and those events, we're going to make sure there's certain areas where food trucks are appropriate. So, you're not allowing them on, you know, in front of all the restaurants on Witherspoon Street. So, they would be in areas
where, again, just more appropriate for the event and and while you're respecting the local business interests. And that will be done administratively. The next um and I'm almost done with this so I apologize for this is a lot of information. The next relatively ma
major change at least it's it's becoming explicit now. Alcoholic beverages will be permitted at special events when they are part of the application process and they are vetted through the police department and all the relevant departments. So as part of your
application you can say I want you know alcoholic beverages to be served and consumed at my event. So you will then explain where that will take place the details in your application and then that will be subject to review and
approval just like anything else under the under the permit review process. The only other element to that is to remind people is that they may be required to get a special permit also from the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, but that that that's just state law. But
this this enables a municipality to allow events again in appropriate areas to have open containers and to serve alcoholic beverages. Um, the other aspect, and I've I've touched upon this, is the creation of
these special event routes along public streets and and roadways. And this allows the police department and staff to really control kind of the distribution of where these events take place. And 5Ks aren't going to always happen in the same place. And and walk-athons and parades aren't going to always happen in the same place. You can
distribute where in the municipality they take place, so they're not um infringing upon certain neighborhoods too often. Another main discussion is always going to be fees. So we've, you know, we've looked at a lot of different ordinances to come
up with something fair and reasonable. So the fees will fall into three different categories. First, you have your application fees. So everybody files when when they file for an application, they'll have a a fee to to pay. And the second category will be special service fees. And the last one
is the metered parking reservation. So and again the reason for this is the cost of Princeton has increased as the need and the interest in using Princeton for special events there there's a lot of resources are are utilized regularly
for these events. So the idea is to pass on not every cost but a reasonable amount of those costs to the um the event organizers. So the first category is the application fees. This again covers the administrative review. The
there sometimes is a lot of time that's spent in passing these applications around and having the police department, uh, public works, engineering department, various departments review applications and conduct an analysis and determine this can or can't take place
in a certain area. So the idea with the administrative fee is to ensure that we can reimburse the municipality for at least a portion of that that fee. We don't necessarily have amounts
specifically to provide to you. That's really ultimately going to be up for discussion with council. You know, we don't want to beat people up with these fees. But the fees, one idea is to have a graduated fee structure. So the most expensive would be when you have a road
road closure, one or more road closures and an impact to one or more intersections. That will require the most analysis, most um review by the police department and other other departments. So that would be the highest fee. Your next one will be if there's only one road closure, a no
impact intersection, then an area that doesn't impact the rights of way such as Hines Plaza or a park. So that that type of of an event won't won't require the same level of analysis ahead of time. So the fee would be less and then your your
smallest fee would be for a block party because that's you know something that's regularly that regularly takes place in the municipality and again you don't want to beat people up with these these fees and you know they the main thing
with those fees is to ensure that they are reasonable and reasonably related to the actual cost. So that's something we can work on with staff to come up with reasonable rates. But again, we're not looking at, you know, I I've seen towns charge like thousands of dollars. I I
don't think we're looking to do that here. It's it's going to be more reasonable. And again, for administration, special service fees is again the the special service fees, the only one that's charged right now is the cost for police officer labor. That's already passed on for to a lot of the
events. This new ordinance would pass on that cost as well as any labor costs for public works, fire and emergency services, and um and anything else that's that's that's needed for from other departments. And it'll be done on a
case- by case basis and be based on the labor involved. So, we're not going to say, you know, for a parade it's going to cost this much in labor cost. You don't know. You're going to have to do it on a case- by case basis. And again, based on labor costs. you're just not going to make up an amount. The way that
it'll work, it will work is there'll be an estimate of the fees ahead of time. Then the event organizers will pay that as part of the permit. And then if more money was actually spent during the event, then the event organizers are
going to reimburse the town for that. And if less money than you estimated was used, then the town will reimburse the event organizers. So, and then the last fee is the metered parking space reservation fee. For many
of these events, there are streets that are blocked and many of the the block streets have metered parking and as a result, the town loses revenue from those spots and the public loses the ability to
park. So, we worked with engineering and there's a $30 per day per parking space fee and that's based on the loss revenue. So, anytime someone needs to block a street that has metered parking, that will be the fee per parking space. So, that's
my part of this. It's a lot of information. I apologize. So, it's not as it's more detailed maybe than >> Okay. >> So, anyway. >> All right. Great. Let's start with Leightton.
>> Yeah, thanks. Something that stood out to me, you said that the cap of public uh entity was 100 and that a spontaneous event could take place
anywhere. >> I think that's a problem. Um >> because like that so 99 people could have a protest on spruce spruce street in front of somebody's house in the
middle of the block. >> Well, >> is that that's okay? >> Well, that's one of the questions is what that trigger will be for the event. So, this is what we're trying to avoid and it's really a question that we'd like to
talk to you about. So, I'm just using Hines Plaza as a as an example. So if you know 10 people want to get together and they want to regularly get together and have lunch, that's still an organized event taking place in a public space. We don't want that group to have to get a permit. So
then we're trying to figure out at what point a group does need a permit for Hines Plaza. So that's one of the questions. And in a lot of municipalities they they use a a number of attendees as a trigger. So, >> but I I I understand your point exactly.
It's it it's tough to >> Yeah. I just think we need like spontaneous is anything that happens spontaneous happens. It's organic, >> right? >> But people normally move somewhere to do something. And I think that spontaneous
anywhere we should we we should have that be in some public facing situation, you know? I mean it not just anywhere is anywhere and that that's problematic I think. Well, we can absolutely you can define areas. You can you you don't have to say anywhere. You can there are cases
where they they >> you specifically stated that it would not be allowed to occur in a street, >> right? >> For example, any street, you would not be able to have a spontaneous event. >> Right. So, so I help answer Leighton's question. And I think the intent is that
somewhere in this ordinance, if you're could have a spontaneous event within 48 hours of some trigger, >> there will be a list of here's where you can go and have a spontaneous event. >> We could do that. Absolutely. Right now, we don't, but that is absolutely permissible. You can identify parks and
areas where because as long as you provide alternative um locations for people and enough of them and ample means of communication, then you're satisfying the first amendment. So, I would say that's a great idea. Right now we don't really have that. But I would say you want to restrict streets. You
you don't want to enable people to just block your streets. That just doesn't especially when you have so many areas in the municipality where things can take place. So I I think that's a great idea. Coming up with a list of locations is is something that we discussed and
and we toyed with and I've seen that in other states. >> Yeah. I would think you'd either have to have a list of here's places you could have this spontaneous event or you can have a spontaneous event but you can't block a road, you can't block a street. By the time you say all that, I think everybody's got to go to okay, where can
I go? So, I think you're almost forced to have a >> a list of some type. David, >> wait, wait, David, I'm sorry. One second. Let did you >> Thank you. >> Thank you for the explanation. >> Okay. Sorry. Ju just to continue along this line, I think the other important
question is how do spontaneous events intersect with permitted events, right? Because uh Palmer Square is a municipal property. It's one of the few along with Hines Plaza and Tiger Park where a
spontaneous event might want to happen, but it's very heavily programmed. So how, you know, especially from the first amendment perspective, Lisa, how do we uh restrict spontaneous events in
in con, you know, that are in conflict with planned events? >> It's a really good question, too. So I guess you know in some instances if if you're having an event and you anticipate that it may generate some opposition that that may be something to
consider as part of the event like that there might be counterprotests if you're having >> I I think though what we could do in the ordinance is simply say all right again there's some trigger event >> you contact the clerk's office and say hey I'm pulling together a bunch of
people because you know the US just won the >> first uh gold hockey medal, you know, 20 25 years ago, whatever it was, and we wanted to have an event for that. But you call the clerk's office and say, "I'm thinking of doing this, and I'm thinking of going to such and such a place." And the clerk's office could
look at the list and say, "Well, here's everything that's already happening, and three of the six allowed places already have events, so your list is now three places." I it's never there's going to be no I don't think there's any perfect solution to the question, but we should have some process that tries to direct
people. So, if I've paid for a permit and I'm paying for police and public works and whatever, I don't know that I want another few hundred people showing up and stepping all over my event. So, we should try to do something that in some hopefully in most cases will push people to a different location.
>> And most time I I don't know if we're sure, but I it's my understanding of a lot of those types of events, they will contact the clerk's office as a courtesy in advance anyway. So in those instances, if someone's if something's taking place in Tiger Park, well maybe then the police can help direct, you
know, whoever the protesters just to a slightly different area but not too far away, maybe on a sidewalk and but then allow, you know, ensure that there's still public safety and and there's the ability for pedestrians to to cross. >> I I I think we're going to have to Well, again, we're not going to solve it tonight, but I think it's going to have
to be better defined. So, Palmer Square Management was here last meeting and we approved a list of things for bands to be playing on on the green. So, now a spontaneous event takes place and it's a lot of noise and here you somebody just paid who knows how much money to have
somebody come and entertain a group and that entertainment cannot now happen because of the noise and activity by a spontaneous event. So again, we're not going to resolve it tonight, but I think we have to have something in the ordinance that tries to make sure that the two don't interfere with each other.
I mean, not again, it's not going to be work every time, but >> yeah, we can definitely work on that. And and plus, most of the events are you maybe they could be public. I mean, I I think they could be Can they be publicly
um listed? I know that they're done the events are going to all be done through the portal on the website. So I wonder if you can create a list of events that are taking place and where so then the public can have access. I don't know. I don't know if that's >> something for us to work
>> a great idea either for public safety. >> That might be a security issue. >> Yeah, I was just going to say that's not a great idea. So it's something that we can absolutely work on because we have competing interests. >> I'm sorry. Did you have >> No, I was just going to say I like the idea of having a list. >> Okay. um
>> somewhere in one of the slides and this is a great presentation. So, thank you to everybody that put this together. But we said if you didn't follow the rules, regulations of an event and you came back the next later to ask for it again. So, what is the penalty and who's
responsible? So you say that uh you not you I mean someone Mark Freda applies for a permit and says I'm gonna do something on Hines Plaza and then I decide to walk all around Palmer Square and Nassau Street and who knows where and you say hey man you weren't allowed
to do that. So am I held responsible and what how am I held responsible for not doing what I said I was going to do >> as the event organizer? So I mean I guess it's it's you know you have the permit's sort of like an agreement with the town. So in in one respect, you know, you have this agreement
essentially that you're going to fulfill certain obligations under your permit and then if you don't, it could be revoked. I mean, it's tough to revoke a one-day permit, but um the it could the fact that you didn't comply one year can be used subsequently saying, you know,
you failed to fulfill your your contract or your permit, your the conditions of the permit. And therefore now when you request a new permit, we're not going to give it to you because you've demonstrated that you have there's an inability. And then also there's a complaint process. You
can always this is this is an ordinance. You can if it's egregious enough, you can go to municipal court. >> Okay. So I'm I'm asking the question because I specifically know that we have had groups that do not contain the activities and where the group goes and how they go where they
go. >> Right. And if we do not hold someone responsible and we do not clearly state in the ordinance that here are the penalties and here are the costs that will be incurred, >> then all that happens is the next time the group comes forward is they just
don't ask for a permit and they just show up and then have another event and then we have more problems. >> So to be fair to the everybody else in the community that's impacted, I think there has to be there has to be some stick. >> Absolutely. And then there's again this
is you know like any other ordinance there's an enforcement provision that discusses violations and revocation of permits. So I mean you know basically states that someone's in violation of the article um if they commence or conduct a special event without a permit
or they fail to comply with any condition requirement or provision of a permit issu issued under this article or otherwise violates any provision provision of this article or other ordinance that is applicable to the special event. So, in that case, the uh the chief can revoke a permit if there's
the ability to, but if it's already taken place, it's tough to revoke a permit or can file a complaint in and summon a municipal court. So, if it's egregious enough, I would say and if it's flagrant enough, too. I mean, you would have a situation where they're just not complying and they're
completely um just violating all the terms of of the permit, then I don't think it would be inappropriate to to bring a uh municipal court complaint and there so there's a provision for it and it's subject to general penalties. So, it's it could be prosecuted that way.
>> Okay. Other questions or comments? So, what what is the what is the going forward now? So there's some comments, some questions from tonight. So the group working on this, I guess we'll chitchat about that and some point in the near future this will come back again.
>> Yeah. I mean, what do you think? >> Are you looking for it to come back as a work session or an ordinance introduction? Uh well I don't know that we need to do another work session as long as there is
some written something that says hey council and public here were the questions and that it's available in agendas or whatever on a website I don't care where but in enough time ahead of time that everybody can look at here's how we try here's how we assume we're
going to address all the questions or comments and then when the if anybody has a question we can just reply fly back to whoever issued that document and go back and forth. But then when there's an actual ordinance public hearing, hopefully all that stuff will have been ironed out. But if not, then we know
what to expect at the public hearing. Right? I mean, there's no whether this gets passed a month from now or 3 months from now, >> 10 years from now, nobody's going to remember that which one it was. So, it won't be that that much. I'm sorry. Did you have your hand up?
>> Go ahead. >> Okay. She doesn't have her hand up. No, I I do have my hand up, but I'm deferring to my colleague and I will then supplement what she said. >> Okay, that's that's fine. >> I was just going to say, well, I mean, hopefully we can move this sooner rather than later because we have 250th coming
up. We have watch parties. We have some things, you know, in the works that community partners uh want to do. Um, so hopefully it's not going to be three years from now or three months from now, but um, you know, so I do bring forward your questions and um, and we'll try and
hammer it out because I I think it's a really good basis. And thank you, Lisa. >> Well, I would hope that anybody that has a question would ask it now. This would be the this would be the great time. I don't know if there's going to be any other questions or comments unless somebody that had their hand up and didn't, but does now. >> It's a comment.
>> Okay. Um I feel like I we have been working on this special events um ordinance for years and years and years. Um and it would actually be nice to have a lawful special event that is governed by an adopted ordinance. Maybe it's just
a pipe dream, but um I think that Lisa, thank you for your work. Deanna, Michelle, thank you for spearheading this. Um I think we are very close to the finish line. And my concern is that we have these work sessions and then
somehow um with everything that is on everyone's plate, it gets lost in the shovel. The shovel the shovel and we uh everyone forgets what the main comments were. So hopefully whoever was taking close notes tonight um could put them
into some sort of form to determine what Lisa what you have to deal with. if there's, you know, uh, things that need to be tracked down in terms of strong feelings among council members. Uh, I'm willing as chair of INO to, um, create
that as a central point. If anyone else wants to volunteer, I'm not, uh, going to argue with them, but for the time being, let's do that. Bring everything to Deanna to, while it's still fresh in
our mind, to an upcoming INO meeting. um and try to just hammer this out. I I think we're going to need another work session. I I I do I I I think >> there's just a lot of details here, but I would hope that would be the final
work session. Um and since spring is >> imminent, >> which means lots of special events possibly with beverages. Um I think we should really try to expedite this. So that's that's my more than two cents.
Yeah. And obviously our our minutes will list all our comments and questions. Come on up to the mic. Come on up to the microphone. Just state your name if you live in Princeton or wherever. And >> yeah, >> blah blah blah. >> Uh Seth Melman, 113 Adams Drive. Uh I just want to make a comment about
events, community events in general in Princeton. It's not directed at the council. Um, I've actually been trying to reach out to experience Princeton, so I'm glad Robin's here tonight because I'm going to flag her down before she leaves. I just want to make a general comment that I feel that Princeton has
lost some of the character of its community events. And I'm just going to give a couple examples. You know, no university, which was used to be my daughter and I's favorite day of the year. Biggest day of the year for us. We always used to look forward to it. Um, Porchfest just is nice, but it doesn't
cut it in terms of community diversity. The terms of community coming together, everybody being there, seeing all your neighbors in one place, not having to travel around town to try and see people, uh, skating on the lake. Um, the one that really got to me this week or
two weeks ago was there was no pi contest. There was nobody reciting the pi numbers. What happened? Okay. So, I'm just throwing it out to the group and I'll talk to Robin later. I'm interested. I'm willing to volunteer on all of these fronts. I've reached out to
to Brian about a little bit about this. Um, so I just wanted to throw it out to the council that I think we've lost something in this town and I'd love to bring some of that back and I'm happy to work on it. Thank you. >> Thank you very much, >> Seth. I think we need to bring back the hospital FET.
>> All right. Any other comments on on the uh special events? Okay, cool. Lisa, thank you very much. All right. Next up is an ordinance, a public hearing on an ordinance, and that is ordinance 2616, which is an ordinance by the
municipality of Princeton designating restricted parking spaces for persons with disabilities on Play Street and Lee Avenue, updating restricted parking spaces in additional locations and amending section B1930 of the code of the burrow of Princeton, New Jersey,
1964, and section T11-11.1 of the code of the Township of Princeton, 1968. Atisia is making the motion. Michelle's got the second. Uh, and then somebody want to give us a summary of what we're doing here?
>> Yes, mayor. I can do that. Um, so with this ordinance, it's a little bit of housekeeping, but also establishing um some new locations of parking um for formerly known as handicap parking. It's
being renamed to be restricted parking. So, uh, we would establish a new restricted parking space on Clay Street as well as Lee Avenue. Um, in addition to the two new spaces, uh, we are
updating the ordinance and the code to, um, reflect the actual number of restricted parking spaces in various locations. Some of those numbers have changed over the time and hadn't been codified. Um that includes Monument Hall
parking lot, Spring Street Municipal Garage, and um this municipal complex as well. Um there's other revisions including um changing numbers
from numbers to text, deleting a redundant and unnecessary section 11.11B. Uh there's also a name change where the ordinance had previously stated Witherspoon Alley which um is now
commonly known as two lane yard. Um so that's another inconsistency or um obsolescence that uh is being corrected in this ordinance. >> Okay. So just a practical question. So the signage that's going to be for these
spaces is going to say restricted instead of handicapped. I'm I'm just My concern is, you know, that's fine if handicapped is not the proper terminology any longer, but I just want to make sure that people understand what a restricted space is for. And I'm just curious how we're going to make sure people understand
that. >> Uh, we will be following the ADA um the the federal guidelines for the ADA parking. And I will have to double check what that is. If it states um
accessible, I think is typically or reserved. So I can get back to you on that. >> Okay. I'm just worried if Yeah, that I appreciate that. I'm just worried if it's only says restricted or reserved that people inadvertently park in a space not understanding the true purpose
of that space. So as long as we're appropriate but obvious about the space, that would be great. >> Yes. >> Michelle. >> Yeah. And just to clarify, that the person parking there would have to either have a license plate or a placard uh designating disability and approval
to have that, right? Correct. So, yes. >> All right. Thank you. >> And these are not reserved parking spaces for one individual. So, while they're on uh a public street, anybody can use those spaces. >> Okay. I'm sorry, Light. >> Yeah, Mayor. I just wanted to note that,
you know, all of the uh handy all of the restricted signage is symbolic. It's, you know, has the universal symbol of uh lack of mobility, if you will. So, it it would be hard for somebody not to realize it's it's not a parking place if
you don't have any problems walking or getting around. >> Yeah. No, good. Yeah. I just want to be sure because we don't want to inconvenience somebody that has a right to that spot. David. >> Yeah, >> I still don't feel we have an answer to that question actually. Is the symbol
>> a stylized wheelch person in a wheelchair? Because that's the symbol that everybody recognizes. So if the symbol is different, >> I'm concerned. >> It's the same symbol. It's just the handicap is no longer applicable
anywhere. That is just not any longer usable. But the >> well the symbol is still the same. >> Stay tuned Leighton because it'll probably become politically incorrect to have a stylized wheelchair a few years from now and then I don't what we'll do but >> I guess we're okay for now.
>> Okay. For for figuring out what symbol will be there. Our engineer has said that she will figure that out for us. >> Yes. >> I'm sorry. >> I have a question. Quick question. So uh does this uh parking not restrict whether it's restricted or however it's
characterized would it also allow for overnight parking or is it just for allowable during daytime parking? >> Um I I will have to get back to you on that. >> Okay. >> There's overnight parking on on that
part of the avenue. >> Correct. So, if if they have a permit to park overnight as well as a placard um for the accessible parking, then they would be able to use that space.
>> Thank you. >> Other questions or comments up here? No. Anybody in the room have a question or comment on this? >> All right. Anybody on Zoom have a question or comment on this? Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, I have a question, Felicia
Spitz. Um, for streets where there aren't currently any spots marked, >> how do you delineate um a restricted spot? >> It will be striped uh with the blue lines. That's how it would be.
>> So, just the distinguished correct striped. Okay. >> Yes. >> Okay. Any other questions or comments from anybody on Zoom or in the room? All right, we'll close the public hearing. Can we have a roll call vote, please? >> Mr. McDonald,
>> yes. >> Mr. Cohen, >> yes. >> Miss Peron Lamrose, >> yes. >> Miss Saxs, >> yes. >> Miss Fraga, >> yes. >> Mr. Nulan, >> yes. And thanks to staff. >> Okay. Thanks. Next, we have an ordinance introduction. Ordinance 26-17,
an ordinance, excuse me, by the municipality of Princeton to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits and to establish a cap bank NJSA4A 4-45.14. The public hearing will be April 27th, 2026. Would someone move that? Thank you,
Brian. Is there a second? Thank you, Michelle. Can we have a roll call vote, please? >> Mr. McDonald? >> Yes. >> Mr. Cohen? >> Yes. >> Miss Peron Lamrose? >> Yes. Miss Saxs, >> yes. >> Miss Frogga, >> yes. >> Mr. Newan, >> yes.
>> Thank you. Next up is resolution 26097, resolution of the mayor and council of Princeton authorizing compliance with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's enforcement guidance on the consideration of arrest and conviction records and employment decisions under title 8 of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964. Uh David has the motion. Let's got the second. And does somebody want to explain what and why? >> This is part of the uh the budget process. It's a resolution that we do
every year and it's just identifying that our hiring practices are in accordance with uh title 7 of the civil rights act. >> Thank you, Sandy. It's always important that we just make sure that everybody in the room has some idea of what we're doing and why we're
doing it. David. >> So, can I ask in contrast to the budget itself when we will vote on this resolution and then pass it tonight or does this have to be with a public hearing and a future vote along with the budget?
>> No, this is just a resolution that you approve uh just tonight upon the budget introduction. >> Thanks. Other questions? How much? Leon. Yeah, I I just want to just share some information just what's with the public
and in general just say a few things. Uh this this is part of the budget and a lot of times I think we kind of just approve stuff and not really look at it. But but I really want to take a look that this is really talking about people
who have been disenfranchised who have been locked up in the New Jersey Department of Corrections since we're here in Princeton and may have some gun charges and we have a CARES committee and we passed the equity toolkit resolution. So, not for tonight, but I want to be very intentional about this. And it's a
good thing that I'm on the personnel committee because I want to walk through how our hiring practices are being evaluated using our racial equity toolkit to ensure we're not just compliant, but actually removing barriers for those historically impacted
by the justice system. And I'm going to want to know what specific steps that we are taking to ensure our use of criminal background checks doesn't unintentionally reinforce racial disparities and how is that being measured through our racial equity
toolkit. So, I just want my colleagues and the public and the staff to know that that's the direction I would like to head into and I hope and I'm sure that Leticia and our personnel committee are in agreement with that. So, thank you. >> Thanks, Leon. >> All right. Any other comments on this?
>> Mayor, can I comment on that real quick? >> Yeah, please. >> Uh, so when we make job offers, we don't have the benefit of a criminal background. We we can't. It's not part of the application process. Uh, once we make them a job offer, it's contingent on two things. Uh, criminal background check and a physical. Uh, they must pass
both before uh we will actually hire them and they'll start their job. Uh since I've been here, we've probably had 10 cases where uh something came back in the criminal background check. Uh we discuss it with the police and I will tell you in every one of those cases, I've brought the person in, sat down
with them, and I tell them, you don't have to tell me anything about this, but if you don't, you're not going to get hired. But please, you know, explain to me what happened. And uh we've walked through it, and I we've probably hired five or six of the 10 uh that I've met
with. uh you know, maybe they were 18 and they had a drunk driving. Now they're 35. Uh there was a couple we just couldn't get past because of the nature of the underlying offense. Uh and it would have been very inappropriate to hire them in the positions that
uh would have affected that. So uh we do meet with every one of those uh individuals and uh we we give them due consideration of their of their past criminal history. >> Okay. Thank you. Anything else on this? >> Thanks, Bernie. >> All right. All in favor, please say I.
I. >> I. >> Next up is resolution 26098. Resolution of the mayor and council of Princeton. Introduction of the municipal budget for 2026. Adoption of the budget is scheduled for April 27th, 2026. Would someone like to move that? Thank
you, Brian. Is there a second? Thank you, Michelle. Brian is head of the finance committee. Did you have do you or Sandy have anything that you wanted to point out or? >> Uh yeah, I'll make a few comments and then hand it off to Sandy and then we get to the end of her short
presentation. I may add a few remarks and invite uh my fellow finance committee members uh Michelle and David to make comments and obviously invite discussion from everybody else up here.
Um, first I want to just thank Sandy. Um, you know, this I believe is her 26th budget introduction, um, since she joined the, uh, burrow in 2000. Um, and
it also is her last one. Um, and, um, I think it's, uh, we'll have more to say about that in months to come. Uh but I just wanted to express uh an enormous gratitude to Sandy. Um she has been one
of the hardest workers uh for 26 years and this budget was a very very difficult one. It required a lot of hard work including a lot of hard work over the weekend. Um so thank you Sandy. Um
uh this is the introduction tonight. Um, as is typical, there may be some adjustments before the adoption on April 27th. Um, and I also want to note that for those of you who were with us during
our goal setting session, I guess two weeks ago, um, one of our goals for the year is to attempt to shift the budget process uh, from March to the fall. um when a lot of the departments are doing their planning and submitting
preliminary budgets. Um and if we can have many of the conversations in the fall, we'll have a little more time. I think there'll be opportunities to do more of the work in public. And um then in January, we can introduce the budget,
which is the earliest permitted uh by law, and then adopt it in February, which is also the earliest permitted by law. um about this year. Um it was a very challenging year, perhaps the most challenging since consolidation.
Um a lot of very very difficult uh choices were considered as President Eisuber said with the university. Um they have um harder choices to make and different choices to make. And the same is true for us. Although they're they're
what they're going through and what we're going through are different in many important ways. Um, everybody up here um would agree that the number one concern expressed by residents is the high uh uh property taxes. And the property taxes are the
municipal tax levy plus a modest open space tax levy, the county tax levy, plus a modest county open space tax levy, and the school tax levy. Those are the the primary components. Um all of the expense trends, as you will see, are
negative. health insurance, utilities, gasoline, legal fees, liability insurance, and pensions um are all increasing far faster than the rate of inflation in the case of health insurance, 36% this year. That alone, as
you will see, is about $1.9 million higher than it was last year. And if we just pass that expense on to taxpayers, it would require a one-year increase of 6%. Um, so we've had to work extremely
hard and again make very challenging choices. Um, there is some new revenue, there is some good news and Sandy will highlight that. Um, and then I want to note that there are two unusual components uh or not unusual but two
that I'd like to call out. One is um a couple of years ago the planning department grew a little um as everybody has seen the level of development um is at twice the level it had been a decade
earlier and that was deemed to be a very important uh addition to make in the planning office and we are early on in the migration from an all volunteer fire department to a primarily
professional fire department. Um, >> paid, not professional. >> Paid. Paid. Sorry. >> Just because you're a volunteer doesn't mean you're not professional. >> Sorry, my apology. Um, uh, when volunteer number one joined 51 years ago, uh, he was one of more than 40 very
dedicated, reliable volunteers. Uh, now after 51 years, our mayor is one of four very dedicated, reliable volunteers. This is a a national trend. It's a state trend. It's a county trend. And we believe we are the last of the 14
municipalities in Mercer County that is moving to a paid force, primarily paid force because we uh still hope to have volunteers. We still attempt to recruit volunteers and we still hope that we can rely on them. Um the other thing that
you'll see is Westminster Choir College. Um in November and December of 2024 when council considered the acquisition of the choir college and believed it was a literally a once-ina-lifetime opportunity. It was noted at that point
that there could be an impact on taxpayers. Um to date it has been modest because we've been able to move things around, but there are real pressures on the operating budget from both the interest costs and the uh operating
costs associated with it. And um the three members of the affordable housing plan and redevelopment committee have been working very hard for very long. And now that they have a reprieve from affordable housing, I think are meeting once or twice a week to really try to
find um not maybe a single path but several paths uh forward that will allow us to make maximum best use of that 23 acres and to do it in as finanially
responsible as possible and is unlikely to have that will have uh perhaps some burden on tax taxpayers. but not the the full burden that was contemplated in 2024. Um, I want to thank uh Mark, Bernie, and
Sandy. Uh, the three of them and I met with more than 20 departments and reviewed every line of every budget and every individual capital request for the next five years. Um, I've seen a lot of spreadsheets and been through a lot of
budgets and um, together we spent many hundreds of hours working on this. Michelle and David get credit for their time. Um, I would like to say that uh, as a somebody who consumes himself something of a budget expert that I saw lots of opportunities to cut things and
that there was some fluff there. There were neither. Um, it is a very lean, well- constructed budget and the department heads all do their jobs uh around this very well. They take it very seriously and they understand the
challenges we have that despite being a growing community. Um, we may not be able to grow our services at the same rate the community is growing. So, I will pause there and hand it off to Sandy.
>> Thank you, Brian. I have to agree with you. This uh budget this year has been one of the hardest that we've had to put together. Um there was a lot of back and forth, a lot of um you know, I think finance committees meeting every weekend or every two weeks. Brian and I spent
some quality time going through the budget on Saturday um to kind of firm up numbers. So I first let me apologize. What is in your packet is slightly different than what I'm going to present tonight and I'll go through what those changes are. So, o just a quick overview, the budget is up about almost
7% to the tune of $5.4 million. A lot of that is made up of the salaries. Um, you can see from the slide here, we've added um additional firefighters. It includes cost of living increases for both non-contractual and all three of our bargaining unions. They're all have
settled contracts. and we have an overlap of a zoning officer who is going to retire um in a couple of months. On the other expense budget, they're all the things that Brian already hit on. It's the same things we see year after year. Pensions, uh Stonybrook
insuranceances, you know, we never expected the group insurance to go up 36% given where it's been uh the increases that we've seen the last couple of years. And of course, you know, the cost to maintain the Westminster campus, it's, you know, it's
a big property and it it doesn't come cheaply, but we're dealing with that. Um, in terms of this budget, um, so again, just kind of laying out what the numbers are. The 2025 budget was a little over 79 million. This one comes in just shy of 85 million.
So, some of the revenue increases. um we ended the year with our surplus um in a really good spot and we've had a lot of conversations over whether that's sustainable or not. Um I think that it is. I think that we're in really great shape. Um so we've anticipated
additional surplus um fund balance. The words are interchangeable. Um we're bringing over $300,000 additional from parking from the parking utility. We've held that number steady for a couple of years and um parking is self-sufficient
so we're able to bring in additional revenues there. Um you know we have additional money from sewer. We've increased rates based on our what our expectation is of the infrastructure repairs that are going to be done there. We have additional money from the
university. We have two um new pilot agreements that are coming on board for this year. And we have uh our hotel motel tax with the add-on of the graduate hotel. We've seen an increase in that revenue and then also delinquent taxes and of course
the amount to be raised by taxation which is our tax levy. Um on the expenditure side again not to beat a dead horse but you know we know insuranceances are up 2.3 million of that 1.8 is the group insurance. We know
the liability went up significantly when we added the cost of the liability to ensure the Westminster property. Legal services are um are up again. We have a lot of litigation that's going on. We added additional fire staff. We have the
utilities again for Westminster. We have a new uh appropriation this year which uh council approved. I think it was in the fall last year for a shared service agreement with the school where one of the pilots that we collect once we pay
the county once we pay the debt service on one of our affordable housing projects. The balance of that fund was going to go over to the school district and that comes in just shy of 349,000. We have the debt service on the Westminster property. That's a note that
we have outstanding and uh Stony Brook goes up a little bit every year. So when we talk about what the tax rate increase is um we talk about it and there tends to be a lot of confusion. I I will say that when we started this
process we were closer to a 5 cent tax increase. Uh the municipal rate is going to be going up about a little over 1.5 cents. That accounts for a 2.87% 87% increase. There's a lot of confusion
between those two numbers. When we add in the library, it goes up um a little over 1.8 cents and that comes to 3.18%. Our current fund surplus when we ended 24, we were slightly over 25 million. Um
now we're slightly under 30 million. So it's it's grown significantly. Um but we know that we have added expenses that are going to you know this will help sustain us for the long term and also we you know we've seen that parking has jumped um you know almost $400,000 as
well. So when we talk about non-discretionary budgets these are the things that we have very little control over. It's our debt service. It's our pensions. It's utilities. It's group insurance liability workman's comp. And Brian and
I had this conversation on Saturday that well but when we say non-discretionary liability could come down and workers comp could come down if we didn't have as many employees. So it's kind of you know we kind of walk a fine line on what we call um discretionary.
So, I just wanted to mention of the budget that you have before you, um, that budget was at a tax rate increase of a 3, uh, 3.5% increase. And that increase, uh, Brian and I worked on it, like I said, on
Saturday. Um, that is under a 3% increase in the tax. Now, um the changes that we did was we had some vacancies built in for our group insurance for some position vacancies. So, we made some assumptions on when those vacancies
are going to be filled. So, uh we were able to bring the group insurance down a little bit and we offset that with the uh with the amount to be raised by taxation to reduce the um the municipal rate.
>> Thank you, Sandy. I I just wanted to clarify one thing. Um in the uh utilities that number is up $550,000 or estimated to be up $555,000. $235,000 of that is attributable to Westminster.
The balance is everything else. That's not all that's not all Westminster. >> And that's a good point. I mean the utilities I know I recognize it at home. I'm sure all of you do as well that your utility bills are going up. I mean, hopefully the new governor is going to pull get some control of that, but it's
it's a fact of life right now. And the other thing that kind of goes hand inand with that, at least in my mind, is the gasoline. You know, who expected we'd be paying over $4 a gallon of gas. And so, we've increased those budgets as well to accommodate, you know, what the reality
of uh of those prices are. And um uh the $4 for gas is significantly better than the $5 for diesel which uh powers many of our larger trucks. >> Okay, questions, comments up here. We'll
start up here. >> Yeah, >> just would like to thank the uh finance committee and Sandy, Bernie, Deanna for really all of your intrepid work. um
weekends, evenings. Um and uh I I have to say it's been um a wild ride for the rest of us because every time there's a finance committee, we were either on the verge of financial ruin or uh looking to
uh with with uh some rosecolored glasses at some some uh some extra. So, I'm glad we we've finally with all of you reached um some shared factual uh some shared facts. So, it's good to and I and you
did a really great job and I'm I'm so pleased um in these difficult times that we do not have to come in with uh the significant tax increase that was initially in anticipated and I think it's we've gone down from last year,
right? Yeah. Like to make that point. the municipality is reducing its uh tax percentage uh levy from LA from last year. So, it's a good thing. >> Yeah. I al also want to re-emphasize
um when we say this was a very difficult year. Um it's not going to get easier as we look to the future. Um we have deferred maintenance to address on core infrastructure matters. Um, we will see
pressure in key areas like human services as the community grows and as the demographics of the community shift. Um, there will certainly come a time when the police will uh let us know that with 10% more residents or about 3,000,
they may need supplemental support to uh do the important uh work that they do. Um, so, uh, I'm I'm glad we're where we are, but, um, we're going to be challenged for many years to come.
Other questions or comments up here? All right. I noticed on the sign-in sheet for public comment, we usually use this sheet for public comment for items not on the agenda, but a whole bunch of people said library, but not specifically what about the library. But
if it is about the library and the library budget, this would be probably the appropriate time for people to come up. Just state your name, say whether you live in Princeton or not, and then a magic timer should go on behind me. Uh giving you three minutes, but again,
this is on the budget, >> the library budget. >> Well, actually, it's any item on the budget, but I specifically noticed all the people that said library. So, in case this is why they were here. >> Okay. Felicia Spitz, 5 Hazlet Avenue. I
do live in town. Um, I I think as we look to the future and the difficult financial times that we're all going to be facing, what's really important is that we protect the resources that serve the entire community. There are not many
organizations in this town who serve residents from one to 100. Um, there also aren't many organizations in this town that go out of their way to serve people who don't show up and speak at your meetings um or don't feel that they
can have a voice here. So, as chairwoman of the housing authority, I can say the library is one of the few organizations that I can count on one hand that actually goes out of their way to support our residents. um whether that's by loaning um their space to us for for
housing authority events um for little to no expense at all or coming to our resident council meetings and helping our residents get library cards. So um I I'm sure this is difficult. I'm sure we all have to tighten our belts, but in
the context of who serves everyone, um the Princeton Public Library has to be number one. Um, and as things get worse, we need those resources even more. So, I encourage you to do what you can um to fund the library. Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> My name is Karen Johnson and I live in Plansboro. Uh, I live in Princeton Landing and I'm a member of the Princeton Public Library because I joined. I'd see the Princeton Public
Library as um a draw for me uh because of the library. I'm sure I'm not the only one. I spend more money and time in Princeton um for um wonderful restaurants or for buying uh gifts and food and of course
the art museum. Um I think that the li the Princeton Public Library is an absolute jewel. It's it's won many awards and for good reason. It has a diverse and dedicated staff. It
represents uh lots of communities and it serves all of them with fairness and equality. So I hope that you will uh give great financial support to the Princeton Public Library. Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Hi. I'm not as eloquent as those other two speakers. I've written down my comments. I'm Stephanie Austster. I am a trustee of the library. here to talk about the budget and um to echo Felicia's comments about uh how the library serves everyone in the
community. Um there aren't there really are no other places in this town. It is um as far as a municipal service goes. It uh is relevant and and universal. Everyone and can find something for themselves at the library. Whether it's a service, a workshop, an author talk,
the books, the video games, the magazines, newspapers, our neighbors find community in the groups that the library organizes. Knitting groups, book clubs, English language learning, um, story times for children, the teen advisory board. These all offer such
wonderful, rich service to the community. Um, the library fosters a lifelong love of learning and reading, and these are critically needed today in our society. Um, from my position on the board, I can say that the library staff does everything it can every day to make
sure that not a single scent is wasted. Whether that's from the uh municipal contribution, which is very generous, and we thank you for your continued support. Um, the municipal contribution only uh makes up for 75% of the budget. Um, and the other 25% uh from our
generous donors. And so this is to make sure that the library remains open 7 days a week for our community. it uh is to help navigate the unfair pricing for libraries set by the publishing industry for ebooks and other digital resources and that can be a conversation for
another day because there's a lot there and then as you all are facing um we have also the similar rising healthcare costs for our staff. Um, in addition to its main purpose, it also helps uh serve some municipal functions as a warming center in the sum as in the winter and a
cooling center in um in summer. And it really is a deacto welcome center for town based on where it is uh in the center of town. So again, thank you so much for your many years of supporting our library and and giving so generously of the budget to the library. Um we hope
that you will continue that support this year. Um, PPL is such a vital part of uh, civic life here in Princeton and we really want to very much continue our level of service to our community. So, thank you. >> Thank you.
>> Hi, I'm Holly Beretto of 48 Mercer. I'm also on the board of trustees at the library and I wanted to thank you for the hard work you've put towards um, the budget. I know it's a challenging time for everyone. I specifically wanted to draw your attention to some really important numbers about how the library
affects the children of our town. In 2025, the library counted over 220,000 checkouts of children's and teen books. And that's just the physical books. It's not any digital checkouts for children. In addition, almost 900 in-person
library programs were offered for youth with over 32,000 people in attendance at those programs. Again, that's just in-person programming. These numbers also do not take into account the number of children and teens simply enjoying the libraryies community spaces on a
daily basis when out of school. These numbers are so important. They show that we provide a safe place with adult supervision for our children to congregate. They mean literacy development. They mean increased language and social skills for babies and toddlers attending the story times
at the library. Also, um it's all of this is available to every single child in Princeton without having to pay. Uh these programs and services that our children and youth rely on are possible due to the hard work and dedication of our incredible library staff and their
work is possible with the partnership of funding between our municipal budget and our private donors. I am so grateful to live in a town that has so generously funded our library for many, many years. And I know the increasing budget constraints you're facing uh as we are
facing them as well. And that's why the library board of trustees decided earlier this year we made the difficult decision to start addressing budget concerns and close the library um an hour earlier every day in addition to implementing other budget reduction measures.
uh the work I detailed earlier that our library does on behalf of our youngest residents, it's some of the most important work that we do in Princeton. And the numbers that I detailed earlier clearly show that the library services for children are highly valued and
highly utilized by the families of Princeton. I ask that you please consider fully funding the library's budget uh request for this year so we can continue our record of excellent public service for everyone. Thank you. >> Thank you.
>> I'm not getting up. >> Hi, Seth Milman, 113 Adams Drive. Um I'm not on any committee. Um I just love the library. Um, and Kim knows that because she sees me at half the events that go on there. Um, and I just think it's the most incredible place and one of the
most incredible places besides the art museum and a few other things that are in Princeton. Um, and I happen to mentor Vihan who did your video. Um, so Vhan and I were they did a development uh video that was done and I mentored the
the young student who who made that video. We were sitting in my studio going through the numbers that he had, you know, sort of typed into the video and the numbers are incredible. Just the numbers that the numbers of people and students and books and so anyway, it's
an incredible place. And so whatever we can do to keep it going the best we can because when I saw that it was closing an hour early, I was shocked. It was shocking to me um to think that in Princeton where we have so much money
everywhere, maybe not here, right in this room, but it's there. So, whatever we can do to help the library, I would love it and I'm sure everybody else would greatly appreciate it. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> I'm Helen Hein. I live at 16 Green View
Avenue in Princeton. I've been a volunteer at the library for 14 years now. And it's not just me. There are hundreds of people that volunteer at the library and give thousands of hours every year. So, I just want to say that
we appreciate every dollar that the that the town puts into the library and we back it up by putting our own time and effort into the library and and do a lot of fundraising for the library, by selling books, having dinners, all sorts
of things. I've hosted cocktail parties on the balcony there with the friends, everything we can think of to raise money for the library. So there's a whole town out there supporting the library, but we really absolutely need the the library to be well funded. It's
a cry and shame that we had to cut back those hours. And I would like to make the point that when we think of affordable housing, we want to have our teachers be able to live in town. We'd like to have our police and our firefighters be able to afford to live
in town. I'd like to see our library employees to be able to live in town, too, because they are a tremendous asset here. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> See? Oops. Good evening. Um,
mayor, council, uh, members, my name is Shnam Tuzun. I am also a resident of Princeton 200 Laurel Circle and also a member of the uh board of trustees with Princeton public library. Uh I am here to speak on behalf of the uh public
library. Uh I strongly support the approval of the Princeton Public Library budget. Since relocating from New York City 10 years ago, uh the library has been a cornerstone for my family and our three children. It's been a safe haven,
a true community center, and um a place we deeply cherish. Its impact extends well beyond uh residents. Even my new manager uh who lives in Philadelphia just commented how impressed he was with
the Princeton Public Library where he attended a business meeting last year. Um Princeton Public Library is truly our pride and joy. made uh exceptionally by its outstanding programs and devoted
staff and it deserves our continued investment. So, thank you for many years of supporting the library. Again, uh please consider fully funding the budget uh uh request for this year as well. Thank you for your consideration. Um
have a great evening. Thank you. >> Thank you. Good evening. So, um, Chrisanne Burren, president, board of trustees, Princeton Public Library. Uh, a couple of decades living on Hun Road
on the subject of institutions. And I was I was really not anticipating referencing President Ice Grouper, but but I will. Um you know I thought he was very eloquent about the role that his
institution plays in the community and also in the world at large. Similarly libraries are fundamental institutions of democratic societies. I think we all understand and agree with
that libraries are the primary way that the community gets its information free of charge and hopefully without a lot of bias associated with it. Library services have expanded
over time with the growth of our community. that's not also not under argument as well. But when I look around, I'm thankful for the support that the library has
earned from that community as it has grown over the past 20 years that I've lived here. In conclusion, I'd like to thank you, the council, for all of the support that you've provided to the library during those times when
the library has expanded its services, that the community has grown, and and we've met the moment. I'd like to ask the council to continue to meet the moment and fund the bud fund the budget of the library
to continue to provide services to the growing community that we've all talked about and all love. Thank you. Thanks. >> Good evening. I'm Scott Sillers from Patton Avenue in Princeton. Uh, as you all know, for a number of years, I was
the head of the CFAC, the citiz citizens finance advisory committee, and we went over the uh, budgets for the library every year. And, you know, they're they they're confusing. They move all over the place, but we just maintained a very very simple policy year in year out. And
that was the library has its own fundraising capability. They've got their own dreams and and aspirations and they could go out and they could make raise the money they need to do a lot of stuff. One
thing where they were just as stuck as the town was is in salary and wage increase salary wage and benefit increase year in year out. And so what we the policy that we had was that the percent increase that the town was
expecting in its salary and wage and benefit numbers for the year. That percent increase would be the amount the the number by which we would allow the amount of appropriations to the library to increase as a percentage of their their salary and wage and benefit subset
of their their budget. So that they were every year they were increasing a little bit and kind of consistent with everybody else. It's it seemed fair and equitable. We were supposed to be supporting the library and this is what we could do uh without having really to
go deeply into the numbers. All that time I was wondering you know what is really in those limb numbers that we never see and we should be able to see them because they're part of the town. uh they've got their foundation
that they should be able to appropriate money for. They should be able to do a lot of fundraising off of their off of their popularity in the town. And so there's a lot of things that we should expect them to do in the last couple years. I'm not sure what happened, how where where it started getting off
track, but their requests started started to come in bigger. They started to be granted larger amounts of money. uh and there was no kind of rhyme nor reason how it matched up with what was going on with the rest of the town's expenses.
So I'm a little bit puzzled on that side, but on the other side I'm puzzled that I want to make sure that what they're being asked to do is equitable with what the other or uh uh branch organizations non the non departmental
organizations like the senior resource center like sustainable Princeton and I see that their budgets are are both going up this year but the library is being held flat. So, I hope that everybody is, you know, applying a consistent and thorough
uh uh look at their numbers, including them. They ought to be able to come to council with their full budgets and how they spent money year in year out and how their their foundation is is appropriating money for the organization
and what they're doing on for additional fundraising endeavors as they go along. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anybody else with a comment on the budget? >> I did not prepare notes because I actually didn't think I was going to
speak. Um, but I do think I have a unique perspective from the other speakers tonight. Um, I am a resident of Princeton. Um, I am a donor to the library because I think that it's important, but I'm also an employee of
the library. Um, I am sort of not I'm not senior staff. I'm not familiar with all of the, you know, budget decisions, but I do know that all of my colleagues work hard to make sure that we are uh very carefully shephering all of the funds that are entrusted to us either
through the municipal um uh what's given to us through the municipality, municipal taxes, or through donor funding. I know that many of the public programs that I'm on, I'm part of the program team. Many of the public programs that we put on have no cost
except for, you know, staff time. Um but we, you know, we were able to put on a lot of these programs because we are so um loved in the community and so many people want to be able to work with us and work in town to help make this community a better place. Whether that's
um volunteers coming to help people learn English or volunteers that are coming to help make sure that uh people can get jobs and learn how to do LinkedIn better or learn how to apply, you know, improve their resumes. like a lot of the stuff that we are able to
offer in town is in collaboration with all of the volunteers who come to support the library. Um, you know, that's learning English, financial literacy, all kinds of things. I wish I'd sort of taken the time to write it all out. Um, I also think it's one thing
that we haven't brought up so much. Yes, we are in very difficult um challenging times financially for a lot of things and and I think also as as uh president eyes group and others have said uh it's a difficult time in the world. People
have a less aren't as good at uh coming together and you know discussing differences but the library is one of those places where they do. The library is a place where community members can come together from all different um uh
places in life. And even if it's just spending time together, there's like a puzzle table where people come and sit and puzzle together. They don't even talk, but it's just a way of getting to know people that you might not otherwise know. And the library does that in every
single space in every program. And it helps build resiliency. um in these tough times, we need more and more places that build resiliency, that help build those threads of connection and community that allow us to get through these hard times. And that's why, you know, I donate, you
know, I work there, but I also like essentially donate time because I spend so much more time doing it because I believe in the library and I believe in my community. Um, and I thank you for everything that you've done and all the hard work. I know that you have hard decisions to make, but I just want to
show my support for the library. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anybody else with a comment on the budget introduction? >> Okay. And just to remind you, the final budget will be discussed and voted on on April 27th. So, there's still still time
for things to happen. All right. And nothing else up here. We're we're good. All in favor of introducing the budget, please say I. >> I. I. >> Okay. For those of you that came specifically for that, feel free to skip out and
don't feel that you need to stay here for anything else, right? It's not rude to leave. We get it. Thank you. >> All right. Uh, next up are resolutions. Resolution 26-099, resolution of the mayor and council of Princeton authorizing the award of a
professional services agreement to LRK, Inc. for redevelopment plan and planning services for the Franklin Maple site for an amount not to exceed $50,000. Michelle, I think, had the motion and Mia had the second. Questions or comments?
I just want to make sure something looking at the the written description of what they're going to do. It talks about Franklin Avenue and Maple Terrace sites, but this is the entire site, right? It's the parking lot. Okay, because technically it's and I think it
in some parts here it references three sites, but it's Franklin Avenue, Maple Terrace, and Franklin Terrace. So, the the description is slightly different. Anyway, I don't know how important that is, but I just don't want people to think that it's only one of the sites
where the house the current abandoned housing sits and the parking lot. It's both housing sites and the parking lot. I just want to be clear that that's what it is. It's all three. >> All right. Other questions or comments? All right. Seeing none, all in favor,
please say I. I. >> I. >> Uh 26-100. Resolution of the mayor and council of Princeton authorizing the award of professional services agreement to Phoenix Consulting Group LLC for executive search services for an amount not to exceed $15,500.
Leticia has the motion. Michelle has the second. Questions or comments? All right. Seeing none, all in favor, please say I. >> I. I. >> 26101, resolution of the mayor and council of Princeton ratifying a professional services agreement awarded
to uh Maraziti Falcon LLP for legal services in connection with PCRD litigation for an amount not to exceed $50,000. Uh thank you, Mia. Is there a second by someone? Thank you, Brian. Okay. All any
questions? Sorry. >> Yeah. >> Uh Leighton, >> is this 26101? >> Yes, it is. >> And this is along with R26104. >> It's coming up. >> Yeah. >> Uh
>> yeah, that's >> I I'll wait for >> uh Councilman Nulan, my apologies. uh there for two separate uh uh litigation matters from the same uh group, >> right? So the one would be litigation
concerning the town and the other would be litigation concerning the master plan. >> Uh this one is um to represent the planning board in the litigation uh for the seminary redevelopment plan. uh whereas 104 will be uh for the planning
board in the litigation concerning the 2023 Princeton master plan. >> Right. Okay. >> Okay. Well, yeah, I'll talk now. Say pretty much it's the same thing. Um but on on 50k in particular, and you've
probably heard me say this before, but let me be clear. when privilege and I got in trouble for this and the plantation mentality dress themselves up as legitimate concerns and those concerns result in
costly litigation against the very idea of inclusion. We as a municipality have a responsibility to do more than just defend ourselves. We should be asking and we are our legal representatives and we do and we will to
aggressively and compassionately pursue every available avenue to recover taxpayer dollars spent responding to what too often amounts to obstruction dressed as civil engagement. If there are consequences tied to this kind of
activity, perhaps it will serve as a deterrent because the cost of exclusion should not be borne by the very people and community being kept out. This is some and we are tired of
dealing with frivolous lawsuits and we just want the public to know that we're going to ask our defense attorneys to go get our damn money back because as I said, this is Thank you. >> Okay. Thanks, Leon. Uh, any other
questions or comments on this one? Michelle, >> just one comment to this is I would like at some point uh Bernie, if we could find out what is the accumulative amount of money that we've spent on these lawsuits, I just, you know, we're we've
got a tight budget and it would be good to know and we have legal fees obviously that have gone up. Um, so I would like to know that. I'm sure we all would. Thank you. >> And I just want to say it's not just unfortunately the legal fees that is
really a small fraction of it. It is an extraordinary amount of staff time, Oprah request, discovery, frivolous requests that involve uh
an extraordinary amount of time by all of our staff and takes time away from other critical municipal priorities. um you would have to look at what the salary is and extrapolate it out on an
hourly basis. Um but you know our some of our new employees have just been flooded with what basically amounts to you know a small number of people in a in in one neighborhood. Um and and it has you know
the staff have borne a lot of this and there's also elected official time which is not um you can't >> we haven't quantified that >> you can't calculate that in in in uh but it's time away from priorities that are
urgent in the rest of the community. So you know the legal time is just a small that that's s very significant but a small part of this. Thank you, Mayor. I I appre >> other questions or comments. All in favor, please say I.
>> I. >> I. >> Okay. Resolution 26102, resolution of the mayor and council of Princeton authorizing the award of an extraordinary unspecifiable service contract with R&D Consulting LLC for information technology support in 2026
for an amount not to exceed $100,000. David's got the motion. Lets got the second. Questions or comments? Mia? Uh this is can you can you give a little bit of I know there was some detail but if you could just refresh your memory.
>> Yeah. So R&D consulting has done work for the municipality for many years. Uh we've keep them u they have a retainer. They build down off the retainer. They won't go through the 100,000 but uh that's what we give them. Uh they come in once a week but they also help us
with any other uh major issue we have on the IT side. and they're at, you know, we're able to just pick up the phone and call them and they've been super helpful over the years. These are technology services. >> Well, we've we this is a firm that we've used to back us up for for many many
many years and providing a very good service for us. We would need to staff up it uh considerably more if we did not have their services. Yes. >> Other questions or comments?
>> All right. All in favor, please say I. >> I. Uh, resolution 26103, resolution of the mayor and council of Princeton authorizing the award of professional services agreement to Mueller and I always say this one wrong, Valley PC to provide legal services in connection with the review of development
applications in 2026 to be paid exclusively by escrow funds for an amount not to exceed $105,000. >> Thank you, Mia. Is there a second? Thank you, Leighton. Questions or comments? >> All right. All in favor, please say I. >> I. Hi.
>> Uh, resolution 26104, resolution of the mayor and council of Princeton authorizing the award of professional services agreement with Mueller and Bailey again PC for legal services in connection with the PCRD litigation for an amount not to exceed $30,000. Uh, thank you, Mia. Is there a second?
Thank you, Michelle. I think we've kind of discussed this, but any other questions or comments? All right. All in favor, please say I. >> I. Resolution 26105, resolution of the mayor and council of Princeton, excuse me, authorizing the award of professional services agreement to Storm
Water Management Consulting LLC for additional hydraulic and and hydraological hydra hydraologic and hydraulic analysis and operation and maintenance manual and emergency action plan updates for lower mountain regional detention basin G and Smooyer Park dams
for an amount not to exceed $76,728. $28. David has the motion. Michelle has the second. Diana, can you just comment on I'm sure people are wondering what the hell are we about to do here.
>> Yes, I can. So, we have five dams within the municipality that are under our um ownership. And the state dam safety requires um on a
periodic schedule both regular inspections and formal inspections. We are at the point where we need to do formal inspections of these dams. That includes looking at the asbuilt plans, uh doing site visits, calculating
um as you mentioned the the hydraologic and hydraulic performance of those dams um in light of the changes that the state has been making with um rainfall estimates. So
Joe Scoopian and SWM Consulting will do that work. Uh prepare an inspection report that is submitted to the state. Hopefully will not include recommendations for improvements, but that will be um part of his charge and
um also updating the operation and maint maintenance manuals and the emergency action plans. >> Thank you. Mhm. >> Any other questions or comments on this one? >> All right. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Resolution 26106, resolution of the
mayor and council authorizing the award of a bid contract to CCM Contracting, Inc. for 2026 Roadway Resurfacing for an amount not to exceed 1,935,72.17. David's got the motion. Brian's got the second. Deanna, anything you want to
highlight here for this one? Um, we received quite a few bids. Uh, I think it was eight bids that we received from um, biders and CCM Contracting came in with low bid. They have previously
worked for the municipality on a resurfacing project. We are comfortable with their skills. Um, and their low bid price was under our engineers estimate. So, um, we we were happy to see that,
especially as we've talked about tonight in light of the price of oil and gasoline these days. So, >> that's it. >> David, >> yeah, just a question. Is this all of the road work that's essentially going
to be done in the municipality this year or might there be other work under separate contracts? >> Yes, there is work under separate contracts. Uh we will be looking to put out to bid a project on Harrison Street
um as well as on Turhune. Turhune is mainly a pedestrian um project, but we are um going to put in an alternate bid in that package to resurface the roadway and um build some traffic calming into
that. So yes, that that's what we're planning to do. Uh there's DPW work that's also planned as part of this um bid package. Um the contractor will be milling a couple of roads for us, which
is, you know, scarifying and taking off that top surface. Public works uh with their equipment that we invested in a couple years ago will be coming in to pave those roadways. Um >> yeah, I saw that in the memo. Yes, the
water company has some resurfacing to do. I know um Felicia's gone, but they had done some work at Spruce Circle, so they'll be coming into pave there. Uh they're currently working on ULIC. So, yes, it won't be the level of work that
we've had in the past, like the PSEG work specifically is what I'm refer referencing. Um but yes, there will be other activity going on in town. >> Great. Thanks. Any other questions or comments? All in favor, please say I. I.
>> Resolution 26107, resolution of the mayor and council of Princeton authorizing an amendment to the professional services agreement with Clark Kaden Hints PC to add affordable housing monitoring services and increase the contract amount by $42,000 for a new not to exceed amount of $52,000.
Michelle's got the motion. Mia's got the second. Questions or comments? Brian? >> Yes. I should have asked this earlier, but um I I is this an annual obligation that we have to do the monitoring or is this just in the first year or two?
>> I'm happy to answer that. That is uh in perpetuity as part of the fourth round. There is a state portal and row is there's a new position um that has to be go through cert certification and training which is Ro Jones the municipal housing leaison. uh she's responsible
for providing that documentation but it's uh more than she can do on her own. She needs professional assistance. This involves um two parts. One assistance with her role in providing that
documentation. The state portal doesn't provide data sets in their entirety um along the lines of what the municipality needs. Um so we have to break it down. In addition um in in the fourth round
there are new ways um such as rounding um and and uh rounding up and rounding down. Um and the best uh our planning department uh we have a a requested assistance. They have a storm water
consultant, landscape consultant. They have a variety of professionals who are on hand to evaluate applications and the complexity of fourth round legislation and U-Hack was beyond what they really felt they could um
uh accommodate uh in-house in terms of uh we will now have multiple sites going through the planning board uh in the imminent future and so they have to determine whether these are all consistent with U-Hack um and Uh so they
wanted to have assistance in that regard for those hearings. Um so this is both for Ro and for Justin. Um and so that's and and uh should there be additional litigation
challenges to our fourth round which do appear to be shaping up on the horizon, there will also be testimony uh planning testimony. So um that's what this is. Uh, and if I could add to that real quick, uh, Mr. Mayor, um, if we are to
use their services for planning board applications, we would have an applicant pay for them out of escrow like we do with our other consultants. >> Okay. Thank you, Leon. Did you have a >> Yeah, thanks, Mayor. I I I just I had a
conversation with both Justin and Ro today and and I understand that this is this could be a heavy lift and I think we know that this litigation as we're just talking about could could get out of hand and I just want to bring my
colleagues attention to wordage and language and the narrative and the proposal that's been given and it reads as follows. after they're asking for a budget of 42,000 in fees and reimbursement is recommended for 2026. Since many factors are unknown and
there may be influences beyond Princeton's internal team that may require additional effort on our behalf, we cannot fully understand all the time that will be required. Therefore, this suggested budget may need to be supplemented in the future based on
circumstances. what circumstances how much >> the circumstances of how many people are going to sue the town to challenge their fourth round plan that that's what they meant. I think when this came in uh it was not clear what sort of litigation
would be forthcoming. We have more clarity on that point. So that that's sort of what they mean. >> Okay. I just uh I would be on the lookout for increases next year and and I would be very careful as to what these increases might look like because quite
frankly I'm not comfortable approving a contract that jumps from 10 to $52,000 without a clear understanding of what we're actually buying. Monitoring services sounds good, but what are the specific deliverables? What are the measurable outcomes? And how are we holding this accountable? especially
when the proposal itself says costs may increase due to unknowns because that's exactly how these things quietly get away from us. Thank you. >> Yeah. No, Leighton, thanks for pointing that out. I I talked to to Ro Jones, our
head of human services also. she felt that the the number was likely to be adequate, but I mean the the entity making the proposal has said that >> I'm just making the point that we need to be fiscally accountable and we need to do a better job all around.
>> Yep. >> Thank you. >> That's a point well taken. >> Well, we we could always uh do we want to remove it? >> Do you want to remove it, Leon? >> Do we want Do we want to remove it? We could table it and
As I said, I talked to both Justin and Ro today and I'm satisfied that this is something that we need. But I think I have made my point very clear. Have I not? Council P Council members, did you all understand what I was trying to say? Thank you.
>> Everybody on board? >> Yeah. >> Well, we'll get a We'll take a vote and we'll find out. >> Wait, there's there's a motion. There's a motion. >> David's raising his hand. Anyway, David, >> yeah, I just wanted to point out that um
or reiterate Justin's comment that a fair chunk of this could be paid by escrow funds that would be um submitted by the applicants, any portion of it that relates to uh assessing planning board applications. So,
as we did with another resolution earlier this evening, you know, we we approved $105,000 for um Mueller Bailey because that was going to be paid entirely out of escrow. So, it's
something we have to do um to approve the spending, but we get reimbursed for it. And it'd be good to keep track with that um so that Leighton will be comfortable. Yeah. >> Yeah. I guess, you know, we just uh
approved 1,900,000 for roadway surfacing, 76,000 for hydraologic and hydraulic analysis, which I'm not sure that any of us really understand. Um, you know,
lot of stuff here and I don't know why we would want to, you know, this this is money that protects our most vulnerable and helps our staff who work hard. So, I don't know why we would want to short change them. >> I I I don't I don't think anybody's trying to short change anybody. And we
all have the right and the obligation to question anything that we might have a concern about. So, I we should allow that and it shouldn't be a big deal. I I I I I totally agree. I I just, you know, it's it seems to the questions always seem to come for our most
vulnerable and not for the roads or the trucks or the infrastructure. And you know, >> I I I think that's I think that's a very unfair statement. >> And if I may, the point is the point is we approve >> all kinds of things here with millions
of dollars. It's not it's not the$10,000 and the $45,000. It's not that it's a small amount because it is that's insignificant. It is the process and that's why I took the time to read the damn proposal because the proposal speaks for itself.
Yeah. All right. I'm going to ask that we that we vote on this unless anybody feels an urgent need to make another comment that hasn't been made. >> Okay. >> All right. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Thank you. Resolution 26108, resolution of the mayor and council of Princeton
authorizing an amendment to the professional services agreement with Catholic Charities Dasis of Trenton for behavioral health and community services to add emergency housing services and increase the contract amount by $25,000 for a new not to exceed amount of $81,1698.
Tisia has the motion. Brian has the second. Questions or comments? All right. Seeing none, all in favor, please say I. I. >> I. I. >> Resolution 26109, resolution of the mayor and council of Princeton authorizing release of a maintenance
guarantee in the amount of $111,314 an inspection escrow to Windytop at Princeton LLC for Windy Top Major subdivision block 300 or yeah 3000 3001 lots one and two. If someone would move
that. Thank you, David. Is there a second? Thank you, Michelle. And this uh Deanna, basically, they've done everything they need to do, and there's no reason for us to think we need to hold money any longer. >> Yes, correct. >> Okay. Actually, I wasn't sure whether to
address that to you or to Justin, but hopefully I made the right call there. Thank you. All right. Any questions or comments? All in favor, please say, "I." >> I. I. Uh resolution 26110, resolution of the mayor and council of Princeton authorizing a final change order in the
amount of negative $124,2582 and authorizing a final payment of $212,5364 resulting in a final contract amount of 3,565,87.31 and the release of performance bond for phase three roadway improvements to Witherspoon Street project to Earl
Asphalt company and acceptance of a maintenance bond in the amount of $534,76310. Thank you, Michelle. Is there Thank you, Brian. Questions or comments? Mia, >> uh, so now we're talking to some real
money, half a million. Um, there's a lot of numbers here. Can we have some explanation? What what when when you add and you deduct and and then you What are we ending up with? Can you can you give some explanation?
Uh you're saving $124,000 on a contract which had a bid price of $3,689,000 11 or sorry $113.13.
Uh so the overall project cost is reduced by that $124,000 to just over $3.5 million. And this project has funding through uh
the state municipal aid program as well as um an earmark. So we will be getting reimbursement from those entities as well. Um, and I don't have the amount, but I can share that with you later.
>> So, what does that leave us with in total? How much how much are we out once we get reimbursed? >> I'd have to double check the amount. Um, I think the earmark was $750,000,
but it was for phase two and phase three. And um our state aid I think was generally in the range of about 700,000 >> so
>> yes >> so about a third of the cost >> right >> yeah I had a question the um size of the performance bond that's being released and the size of the maintenance bond are
those equal or um was it not thought relevant to mention the amount of the performance bond. >> Uh the performance bond is the uh amount of the contract the original contract amount.
>> Okay. >> Yes. Yeah. It's it's 100% of the bid price. That way if a contractor is unable to perform and complete the project, we have those funds available
working with their shity to complete the project. >> Okay. And we still have this half million or so left as a maintenance bond for problems that may occur. >> Correct. >> With quality of the work or whatever going forward, >> right? For the next two years. Yes. Yes.
So, we'll do an inspection um about 3 to 6 months prior to the release of the maintenance guarantee to confirm whether anything has to be done. >> Great. >> Other other questions or comments?
>> All do you have any questions on this one? >> Did you have any question on this one? >> Okay. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. Yeah, there's somebody on Zoom. Wesley, you have to unmute yourself. There you
go. If you could just introduce yourself and there's a the three minute limit. Wesley >> All right I just mute him. Okay. Uh all okay. Any other questions or comments up here? All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I.
>> Resolution 2611, resolution of the mayor and council of Princeton approving emergency temporary appropriations for the 2026 current fund budget. Is there a motion on that? Thank you, Michelle. Is there a second? Thank you, Brian. Questions or comments?
>> All in favor, please say, "I." >> I. >> I. Consent agenda's got six items. Unless somebody thinks we should pull one of those off to speak about separately, we could move them in block. Uh Leticia is moving them in block. Is there a second? Thank you, Michelle. All in favor, please say I.
>> I. >> I. >> Okay. Next up, public comments for items not on the agenda. Um again, so George. >> Oh, wait a minute. Okay. Sorry. Hris,
just come up, introduce yourself, and Am I here? >> All right. Thank you so much. Oops. Uh, yeah. Hendricks Davis, 232 John Street, and I'm here for my annual appeal to uh
the mayor and council for your support of another educational jewel in this great county of Mercer in the state of New Jersey. And that particular
uh educational jewel is Mercer County Community College, which this year is celebrating its 60th or diamond anniversary as a wonderful educational resource and asset for the
entire county, but also very much so for Princeton. I was happy to be here tonight particularly because I didn't know that uh President Ice Gruber would be here as well to hear his report. But if you had
the opportunity to hear a report from our president uh at Mercer County, you would also know that there are plenty of challenges facing community colleges uh in this state. And certainly Mercer
County Community College is not escaping those challenges, but we're trying to face them by uh calling together the many supporters uh from across the county and particularly here in
Princeton to come out and support our spring into student success annual event which will be happening on April 17th at Jos Napolana and we hope to raise a lot of money which will be for scholarships
for very disturbing very disturbing very uh deserving uh um uh students here. So, I have invitations produced by the great resources at Mercer County Community
College uh for each of the council members and mayor that I'd like you to take into consideration. And I thank you. >> Thank you, Hendrick. >> If I can give these to someone, >> right, somebody's going to hand out.
>> Bernie's going to grab them from you. >> Thank you, Hrix. It's always more pleasant when you come to visit. >> Yeah, I need to come more often now that I now that I'm learning more how to uh walk with my my eyes and read with my
eyes. Lots of good stuff happening. >> Always welcome. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Hendricks. >> George, just come up, introduce yourself, and watch the timer. >> Yep. Uh, thank you. George Cohen. I live on Hawthorne Avenue. been there for
almost 31 years. Um, I know you've had a long night and I apologize for bringing this to your attention, but myself and our neighbors have gone as far as we can with the engineering department. They've done their best, but I'm here to beg for a traffic calming table at the worst
intersection in town, the intersection of Hamilton Avenue and Lynen Lane. There was an accident there as recent as March 8th. And I bring this to your attention because I attended a meeting that Mr. Con was also at last Wednesday a virtual meeting with Mr. Purcell from the
engineering department talking about traffic in the community and when I raised in the chat room about the need for the traffic table he indicated respectfully that you know that's not the way they were going to go that it had been a recommendation in
2019 my recollection is a little different that in 2019 and on Saturday morning meeting your contractor it wasn't one of the recommendations it was the recommendation but be that as it may co came and nothing ever came of it. For
the last year and a half, we've been reaching out to Mr. Purcell and he's been polite and getting back to us, but he indicated that the accident on March 8th was someone running a stop sign at Lynen Lane. Well, speed kills. If you're going 25 miles an hour, which is what it
requires there, and not 40 miles an hour, you can either avoid the accident or the injury. And Mr. Purcell could tell you study after study which will show an an accident at 25 miles an hour might be a slight injury. An accident at 40 m an hour, we're talking perhaps
fatality. You have middle school students and high school students all going through that intersection every day on their way to the middle school and to the high school. And every effort they put in, as Mr. Purcell said, incremental speed strips
there. Well, that's fine. The people who obey the law, they pay attention to them. The others don't. My backyard is right there. I see them every day. You could have an officer there every minute and they're going not 25, not 35, they're going over 40 miles an hour. I've become an expert at it just
watching them go. And I know you've been a lot of people said tonight they're not doing an ask. I'm not doing an ask. I'm doing a bagg. I don't want us to look back a year, a month from now, a year from now, or two years from now, and saying, "Too bad that kid got killed. Maybe we could have
done something about it. It's going to happen." And I'm not talking about myself when I'm at that intersection waving at the cars to stop, waving, and practically having to step out to stop them or the time I had to get out of my car at a school at school time and stand
in the middle of the road to get them to stop to let the kids walk. It has to be done. Nothing else will stop it. I beg you, the speed table's the only way it's going to happen. I know you can't do the stop signs. I mean, four-way stops. I know you can't do the lights. Not
permitted by the state. You need the speed table, and I ask you please to have it done. Thank you. >> Thank you, George. I think between our traffic safety committee and engineering department, we can take a look at that intersection. It's a it's a dangerous >> George. I just wanted to respond because
I'm not sure if you saw but I did I think I put it into the chat that meeting that you were at and we have discussed this intersection and the traffic safety committee. Uh according to the police records we don't have any incident of a pedestrian being struck at
this intersection. All of the crashes have been vehicular and if you have better information because our records are not perfect >> please get back to me. my neighbor on North Hawthorne Avenue. It was about six or seven years ago. Her daughter was hit
at the intersection. Thank God it wasn't a fatality, but that uh and her first name is Addie and I forget her last name, but one of my neighbors, her daughter, >> I thought I remembered hearing about that, but >> yeah. And again, I know there are many intersections that need work and I know
obviously money is short. We'll raise the money if if you approve it. I'm not kidding. you approve it and tell us it's a h 100,000 200,000 whatever it takes we'll raise the money I don't I I don't need to be awake for the rest of my days knowing a kid was killed there
>> thank you >> thank you >> yeah thank thank you >> yeah we should I mean if you spend any time at that intersection it the all the near misses are amazing and you know a couple of the accidents the vehicles have been ended up on the
sidewalk so it's you know somebody's good fortune that they weren't in the same spot that the vehicle ended up. Uh anyway, and it just seems the and the police have been out there quite a bit over the last now that we have a a fully functioning traffic uh safety department, but they can't be out there
24 hours a day. >> I'm sorry. Yeah. I mean, as we all know, you can put all the signs and all the strips. The only thing that's going to slow these guys down is when they go over that bump and they feel what it's doing to their undercarriage. And we have them on Hajj. We have them on
Mercer. We have them on Murray. And no disrespect to Edge Hill. We even have something severe on Edge Hill where they've got bumps and you can't go more than 10 miles an hour. If they need it, this intersection needs it. >> Thanks again. >> Yep. Thank you. >> Thanks.
>> All right. Anybody else have uh any public comment for items not on the agenda? >> So noted. I'm not I'm not going there again. I'm not going there again. Yeah. All right. Uh, a motion to adjurnn is in order.
>> Thank you, David. Is there a second? Thank you, Leighton. All in favor say I. >> I. >> We are done. Have a good night. Tata.