Volume LXXIII, Number 18
Princeton’s Agricultural History Told in New Garden . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Guns Down Author to Speak About Combating Gun Violence . . . . . . . . .10 Jazz Age Begins 100 Years Ago in Fitzgerald’s “May Day” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Gustavo Dudamel Ends Princeton Residency . . . 17 Young Musicians Join Pros at Capital Philharmonic Concert . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 PU Men’s Volleyball Earns 1st-Ever NCAA Tourney Win . . . . . . . . 27 Junior Star Carroll Providing Clutch Hitting for PDS Baseball . . . . . 32
Shaylah Marciano Starring for 11-1 PHS Girls’ Lax . . . . . . . . . . 31 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Berkshire Hathaway Fox & Roach Realtors . .22, 23 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 26 Classified Ads . . . . . . 36 Dining & Entertainment . . . 24 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Music/Theater . . . . . . 18 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 35 Police Blotter . . . . . . . . 4 Real Estate . . . . . . . . 36 School Matters . . . . . . 11 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . 6
www.towntopics.com
Candidates for Council To Present Platforms At Community Forums
As the June 4 primary election approaches, the race for two seats on Princeton Council is heating up. Members of the community can hear from registered candidates Tim Quinn (incumbent), Mia Sacks, Michelle Pirone Lambros, and Adam Bierman at two forums — one tonight, Wednesday, May 1, at 7 p.m. in Witherspoon Hall; the other Saturday, May 4, 9:30 a.m. at the First Baptist Church on Green Street. The May 1 event is sponsored by the League of Women Voters and Princeton Community Television, and will focus on questions taken from the audience. A video of the proceedings will be posted at lwvprinceton.org and on VOTE411.org, and rebroadcast on the Princeton Community Television channel. The Saturday morning forum is sponsored by the Witherspoon-Jackson Neighborhood Association. Candidates will be asked to address issues and identify their priorities and solutions to problems both specific to the WitherspoonJackson neighborhood and relevant to other neighborhoods and segments of the community. This past March, the Princeton Community Democratic Association (PCDO) voted to support, but not endorse, Sacks, Quinn, and Lambros. With 165 ballots cast and voters’ first and second choices ranked equally, Sacks received 97 first and second rank votes (59 percent), Quinn 95 votes (58 percent), and Lambros 66 votes (40 percent). Sixty percent was required to win PCDO endorsement, 40 percent for support. A fourth Democratic candidate, Adam Bierman, will also be running in the June 4 primary, but declined to participate in the endorsement process because of the dues requirement ($5-$15) to vote. “There is a need to get money out of the process,” he wrote in a letter to Town Topics at the time. At a subsequent meeting of the elected members of the Princeton Democratic Municipal Committee, 32 committee members representing the 22 voting districts of Princeton, also voting with a ranked voting system, voted to recommend to the chair of the Mercer County Democratic Committee the following ballot order in the Democratic column on the June primary ballot: Quinn, with Continued on Page 9
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Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Composting Program May Be Restarting Soon After a few setbacks that brought the Curbside Organic Program to a temporary suspension in February, local residents and public officials are determined to restart Princeton’s composting program as soon as possible. “We’re working on an exciting opportunity that could have the Curbside Composting Program up and running locally before year’s end,” said Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert at a community meeting attended by more than 100 residents at the municipal building Monday night. “We are also looking at near-term options that could be ready as early as this summer,
and we are working towards a goal of making this service free.” Among the problems cited by Lempert last January in announcing the suspension of the program after seven years in operation were failures by Solterra, the solid waste contractor, to make timely required pickups, and periodic failures to take the food waste to a farm for composting, delivering it instead to a landfill. Compounding the problem, when the town sought new bids for waste hauling and disposal, the only bidder was the company already being used and the bid was double the previous price.
In her January announcement, Lempert promised “to bring the program back stronger than ever. This is an important program and we are committed to taking the steps to make it successful. We ask our current participants to stay engaged with us while we develop the right solution for Princeton.” The audience filling the meeting room Monday reflected Lempert’s commitment and determination to make the organic waste program work effectively. As one resident said, reporting on the three months since the suspension of the program, “We’ve more than doubled our Continued on Page 7
PHS Students, Alumni Give Voice to Concerns At “See Me, Hear Me”
COMMUNIVERSITY 2019: Tens of thousands of people attended the 49th Communiversity ArtsFest on Sunday afternoon in downtown Princeton . Presented by the Arts Council of Princeton, the annual event featured more than 225 booths and a wide variety of art, crafts, culinary delights, and live entertainment . Festivalgoers share their favorite things about Communiversity in this week’s Town Talk on page 6 . (Photo by Charles R. Plohn)
For several hours at Princeton High School last Saturday, April 27, students — current and past — gave voice to their thoughts, feelings, and concerns while teachers, parents, administrators, and other adults listened at the third annual “See Me, Hear Me” conference, titled “The Power of the Student Voice; Our Stories, Our Voices.” Hosted by the Minority Student Achievement Network (MSAN) and Pride, Unity, Leadership, Sisterhood, Esteem (PULSE), under the guidance of Social Worker and Student and Family Services Coordinator Lenora Keel, the conference brought together about 50 participants for a day of discussions on current topics that impact students in this district. “This was intended to be about the students’ voices, to have adults sit and listen to what the students have to say,” said Keel. “We felt the power of the students. It was their voices and their stories. This provided a strong picture of what it’s like to be a minority student at Princeton High School. Adults need to listen more.” In written remarks on the conference, Keel added, “The students worked together to further their agenda of understanding, respecting, and uplifting persons in all ethnic, cultural, and gender groups. Some of the topics included the importance of the student voice as it relates to social justice, student/teacher relationships, implicit bias, and micro/macro aggressions faced on a daily basis by many of these students.” Continued on Page 8