Volume LXXII, Number 47
Home for the Holidays Pages 22-23 PHS Junior Teams Up with Civil Rights Activist . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Appearance of White Supremacists Draws Strong Response . . . . 15 PSO Presents Eclectic and Virtuosic Violin Soloist . . . . . . . . . . . 26 The Beatles’ White Album 50 Years Later . . . . . 27 PU Men’s Soccer Falls in NCAAs After Marathon Shootout . . . . . . . . . . 36 Senior Stars Come Up Big For PHS Boys’ Cross County at MOC . . . . . 39
NYC Ballet Soloist Unity Phelan Comes Home to Dance . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Berkshire Hathaway Fox & Roach Realtor . . .24, 25 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 32 Classified Ads . . . . . . 43 Dining & Entertainment . . . 30 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Music/Theater . . . . . . 28 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 42 Police Blotter . . . . . . . . 6 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 School Matters . . . . . . 14 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . 6
www.towntopics.com
Four PU Seniors Win Rhodes Scholarships For Study at Oxford
Three Princeton University seniors were among 32 United States Rhodes Scholars chosen for 2019, including a record 21 women. A fourth Princeton senior is one of five recipients from India. Nicolette D’Angelo, John Hoffmeyer, Katharine (Kate) Reed, and Samvida Sudheesh Venkatesh, who was named last month as a winner from India, will all begin their studies at Oxford University in October 2019. Almost half of the U.S. recipients, named Sunday, are either immigrants or first-generation Americans, according to the Rhodes Trust. Recipients are chosen not only for their scholarly achievements, but also for their character, commitment to others and to the common good, and for their potential for leadership in their chosen careers. D’Angelo, a classics major from Hewitt, N.J., is interested in exposing more people to classics. She is committed to understanding the ancient world and in relating that world to contemporary concerns. She hopes one day to become a professor of classics at a public university, according to a Princeton University Office of Communications press release. “I hope to use my Rhodes Scholarship to establish a public platform for displaying the relevance of antiquity to our world today,” she said. “I hope to inspire budding classicists and non-classicists alike to examine the global reception of ideas from the amazing yet deeply troubling worlds of ancient Greece and ancient Rome.” At Princeton, in addition to her work in classics, she is pursuing certificates in creative writing, humanistic studies, and gender and sexuality studies. She plans to work towards the M. St. in classics at Oxford. A recipient of the national Beinecke Scholarship and of Princeton’s Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence, D’Angelo interned last summer at the Paideia Institute in Rome, where she helped write educational materials for the study of Greek and Latin. She also teaches Latin to elementary students through Princeton Young Achievers. Continued on Page 10
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Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Voters Will Decide on $26.9M Referendum
With significant tension remaining between the needs of the schools and the financial concerns of the residents, the town of Princeton will vote on December 11 on a $26.9 million scaled down bond referendum to provide upgrades to the Princeton Public Schools (PPS). Following almost two years of planning and more than 40 public forums, the Board of Education (BOE) in early October decided to postpone some of its plans for a facilities referendum that would have cost taxpayers almost $130 million, and instead voted 10-0 to place on the ballot a single question “addressing the district’s most urgent needs in its aging schools, including safety, security, and HVAC upgrades,” according to a PPS press release from last week. The referendum would also provide facility improvements for Princeton High School (PHS) that would include four additional classrooms, a dining distribution center on the main floor, increased space for athletics, and improved space for student counseling. “This makes the kind of changes that bring us into the 21st century and responds in the right ways to the challenges that we are currently facing,” said PPS Superintendent Steve Cochrane in a comment on the PPS website. “It’s the result of really listen-
ing to the community that the Board made the decision to focus this initial referendum in December on the most immediate and urgent needs that we have.” BOE Chair Patrick Sullivan noted, “Every Board member voted in favor of the referendum because every Board member understands how important the issues are that are at stake here. This is about the stewardship and maintenance of our buildings and ultimately about the future of our children and their education.” He continued, “We’ve had over 40 public meetings to discuss referendum issues. We’ve had a lot of input
from people, and I think we’ve come up with an exciting vision. We can’t do nothing. This small referendum in 2018 is a first step towards addressing the needs of our children for the next 50 years.” The anticipated impact on Princeton property taxes for the $26.9 million bond is approximately $57 additional in the first year for an average assessed home of $837,074. Subsequent year estimated additional costs would be about $61 in 2021, about $106 in 2022, then sizable reductions in 2023 and beyond. Significant needs for space, for Continued on Page 8
Council Votes for Ordinance With New Zoning Standards
On Monday night, Princeton Council voted unanimously, with modifications, in favor of an ordinance establishing new neighborhood residential zoning standards. The final ordinance requires Zoning Board review for applications when a house is being demolished, but waives the requirement to appear before the town’s Zoning Board when seeking permission for additions and renovations that comply with the rest of the ordinance. The vote came after significant public comment and discussion among
Council members, who worked to reword the section of the ordinance that was in question. Originally introduced by Council last month, the measure went to the Planning Board for review before coming back for a final vote. The ordinance was a response, in part, to community concerns about the impact of development on existing neighborhoods, and the teardowns of homes that are then replaced by houses considered to be oversized and out of scale. Consultants have Continued on Page 13
PERFECT 10: Members of the Princeton University football team celebrate after they defeated Penn 42-14 last Saturday at Princeton Stadium to end the fall at 10-0 overall and 7-0 Ivy League . It marked the program’s first undefeated season since the 1964 team went 9-0 and its first outright Ivy title since 1995 . For more details on the game, see page 35 . (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)
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