Volume LXIX, Number 27
Local Design Firm Wins Top AIA Award for Monmouth Park Visitor Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 The Vienna Piano Trio’s Richardson Concert Accompanied by Sound of Nearby Fireworks . . . . 14 Celebrating Orson Welles’s Centenary and “The Greatest Entrance There Ever Was” . . . . 17 After Completing Stellar Career for PU Women’s Soccer, Lazo Thriving on Pro Level with NWSL’s Boston Breakers. . . . . 24 PHS Star Smallzman Caps Special Final Campaign, Helping West to 21-0 Victory In Sunshine Classic . . . . 27
Elizabeth Stuyvesant Perry, Formerly Pyne, 92, Dies at Her Princeton Home of More Than 60 Years. . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 22 Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Classified Ads. . . . . . . 34 Clubs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Music/Theater . . . . . . 14 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 31 Police Blotter . . . . . . . 13 Real Estate . . . . . . . . 33 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Topics of the Town . . . . 7
F
Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . . 6
www.towntopics.com
Council Holds Closed Session on Lawsuit, PU Tax Exemption Princeton Council held a closed session Monday to discuss the lawsuit challenging Princeton University’s tax exempt status. The municipality is named as a defendant in the suit, brought by public interest lawyer Bruce I. Afran in 2011 on behalf of local residents Kenneth Fields, Mary Ellen Marino, and Joseph and Kathryn King. The suit takes issue with the tax-exempt status of University properties, arguing that they are being used for commercial functions; it challenges the University’s status as a tax exempt non-profit organization. The impetus for the suit came after a 2010 property tax reevaluation in Princeton, which resulted in increases in assessed values and therefore in property tax payments. Princeton University is the town’s largest taxpayer and the lawsuit, which has been likened to David taking on Goliath, could have major implications for homeowners. It could potentially reduce their property taxes, which would be a boon to residents of modest or fixed incomes. According to the University’s website, its 2014 tax payments comprise less than one percent of its 2013-14 operating budget, which was $1.582 billion. In lieu of paying taxes to the municipality on all of its properties, the University contributes a yearly payment or PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) and makes certain properties eligible for taxation. In 2014, it paid $8.5 million in property taxes and $2.75 million in PILOT payments. For 2015 the University will make $2,860,000 in PILOT payments to Princeton as part of a seven-year agreement with the municipality that calls for four percent annual increases. According to the Princeton Tax Assessor’s office, the University owns 1,035 acres of land in Princeton with a total estimated valuation of $1.79 billion. Some 27.6 percent of this valuation is taxable, the remainder is exempt from property taxes. Before moving into closed session Monday, the Council looked for comments from members of the public. But only one person from the community, Dale Meade, had turned up to speak to the Council represented by President Bernie Miller and members Jo Butler, Jenny Crumiller, and Patrick Simon. Lance Continued on Page 13
eldman
W E L L N E S S ²inventory C E N T\ Ein’•vèn•tö•ree R
75¢ at newsstands
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Teachers Have New Contract At Last
After long drawn-out negotiations between their union and the school district, Princeton’s teachers now have a new fouryear contract. The Princeton Public Schools Board of Education (BOE) and the Princeton Regional Education Association (PREA) reached an agreement that was unanimously approved by the Board last week. The long-awaited contract is the result of talks between BOE and PREA that began in the fall of 2013 and the cause of much criticism directed at both sides from teachers, parents, students, and taxpayers since that time. The contract is retroactive to last July 1, when teachers had been working under the terms of an expired contract. It will expire June 30, 2018. Under the terms of the new contract, teachers will receive a salary increase of 2.66 percent for 2014-15; 2.67 percent for 2015-16; 2.50 percent for 2016-17; and 2.63 percent for 2017-18. According to district officials, longevity pay will be eliminated in year four of the new contract and will be incorporated into a new step system going forward. The new contract includes increases in the stipends that teachers receive for extracurricular activities such as coaching or
advising student clubs. In this case, however, the increase is not retroactive for the 2014-15 school year. The increase for year two is 2.5 percent. For years three and four, the increase is 2.25 percent. Under the new agreement, teachers will continue to make health care contributions at the tier 4 level under Chapter 78 of New Jersey state law. The interpretation of Chapter 78 had been a bone of contention between the two parties and the inclusion of such health care contributions at the tier 4 level was one which the teachers’ union had opposed, even after sessions with a state-appointed mediator brought in to bring the two sides to a resolution. The new contract holds teachers to two evening parent-teacher conferences a year and offers an additional staff development day a year.
In addition, teachers who subscribe to the district’s health care benefits program will receive annual health care stipends for years two, three and four of the contract. The agreement came just as the two sides were about to enter the expensive arbitration stage of the bargaining process known as “fact-finding,” which could have cost between $1,600 and $2,500 per day for a state appointed fact-finder. The two sides would have shared this cost. In recent weeks, with the approach of the end of the school year, both sides met face-to-face to thrash out a deal. Hopes rose after two marathon negotiating sessions on June 2 and June 10, the first lasting 18 hours and the second 12 hours. After the second meeting, BOE President Andrea Spalla said that both parties were
Thanks to an acquisition announced last week by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Princeton Battlefield State Park is 4.6 acres larger. The added land fronts Stockton Street and directly abuts the main battlefield site. Its addition raises the size of the park to 80 acres.
Purchased from the D’Ambrisi family last April, the property is said to have been key to tactical maneuvers during the Battle of Princeton, fought on January 3, 1777 a week after George Washington’s victory over Hessian troops in Trenton. It consists of slightly rolling land and a
Continued on Page 6
State Environmental Protection Office Announces Battlefield Park Addition
Continued on Page 13
INDEPENDENCE DAY: Children played a variety of games during Saturday’s July 4 festivities at Princeton Battlefield State Park. Revolutionary War period soldiers from Mott’s 6th Company, 2nd Continental Artillery were on hand to demonstrate drill, artillery, and flintlock muskets while volunteers from Clarke House (shown here) demonstrated domestic skills of the day, and Battlefield Park Curator John Mills read the Declaration of Independence. (Photo by Emily Reeves)
NICK HILTON P ONCE-A-YEAR R I N C E T O N
TOTAL CLEARANCE
BLUEBERRY BASH
\ n. pl. –tories; v. –toried. [ ME : in-vent (big bunch) -tory (of stuff)] 1 : a lot of things left over the government will make you pay tax on 2 : the sizes of things that sold out in other sizes that now The Natural and Drug Free way of Healing schlep to 19 for Details. don’t have matching things to go with them 3 :ETAILS everybodyON makePAGE mistakes ; v. t. 1 : count, fold, stack, box up, See Page Details on page 5. storage; repeat next year
D
4.