Volume LXXIII, Number 12
Local Eateries Pitch In During Nursery School Renovation . . . . . . . . . . .5 Public Meetings on Seminary Redevelopment Continue . . . . . . . . . . .10 W .S . Merwin in Princeton and Manhattan . . . . . . .14 The Gods of Comedy Premieres at McCarter Theatre . . . . . . . . . . . .16 PU Wrestler Glory Primed for Shot at NCAA Championships . . . . . . 29 Hun Swimming Produced Breakthrough Campaign . . . . . . . . . . 34
Alan B . Krueger, PU Professor of Economics, Dies . . . . . 11 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Berkshire Hathaway Fox & Roach Realtors . .24, 25 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 23 Classified Ads . . . . . . 40 Dining & Entertainment . . . 21 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Music/Theater . . . . . . 17 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 36 Police Blotter . . . . . . . . 6 Real Estate . . . . . . . . 39 Religion . . . . . . . . . . . 38 School Matters . . . . . . 10 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . 6
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Students Strike For Climate Action, Join Global Movement
Urging action to combat climate change, more than 40 Princeton High School students, joined by about a dozen middle school and elementary school students and about 15 more from Princeton University, gathered in Hinds Plaza then marched to Nassau Hall last Friday. The demonstrators, seeking to draw attention to youth voices and opinions on climate change and participate in the international strike, carried signs urging such messages as “This Is Our World,” “Stop Global Warming,” “You Are Stealing Our Future,” and “Make Earth Cool Again.” In a collaboration between Princeton High School Democrats in Action (DIA) and various Princeton University climate groups, the demonstrators made phone calls, collected petition signatures, and wrote letters to U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, urging him to support the Green New Deal. District 12 Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman and N.J. U.S. Senator Cory Booker are both co-sponsors of the Green New Deal, but Menendez has not signed on. “Climate change is one of the biggest issues facing my generation,” said PHS junior Ella Norman, vice president of DIA and lead organizer of this Youth Climate Action Strike. “Climate change has disproportionately hurt areas with higher populations of people of color and people who are less wealthy and powerful.” Referring to environmental disasters in Puerto Rico and Flint, Michigan, Norman noted, “My generation sees this as an injustice. Many of us are too young to vote and too young to hold office. However, by the time our generation becomes old enough to do these things, it will be too late.” She continued, “Now is the time to pass radical climate action legislation, such as the Green New Deal, in order to ensure that our future planet will be a healthy and habitable place for all members of my generation and future generations.” PHS Principal Gary Snyder, though not willing to mitigate the importance of student attendance or condone the class cuts, expressed support for the students participating in the strike. “The usual procedure of parent notification and follow-up with student occurs for a class absence,” he wrote in an email. Continued on Page 9
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Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Princeton Dems Vote To Support Three Candidates In a candidate forum and endorsement meeting Sunday night, the Princeton Community Democratic Organization (PCDO) voted to support, but not endorse, three candidates for two open positions on Princeton Council. With 165 ballots cast and voters’ first and second choices ranked equally, Mia Sacks received 97 first and second rank votes (59 percent), incumbent Tim Quinn 95 votes (58 percent), and Michelle Pirone 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 a subsequent meeting of the elected members of the Princeton Democratic Municipal Committee on Monday night, 33 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 99 points; Sacks, with 97 points; Lambros, with 83 points; and Bierman with 47 points. The two highest-ranked candidates, Quinn and Sacks, receive the designation “Regular Democratic Organization” on the ballot. In presenting the outcome of the Municipal Committee (MuniComm) vote, MuniComm Chair Scotia W. MacRae expressed her appreciation to the candidates. “Running for office is a difficult process, and I applaud
you all for taking the step of entering a competitive race to become a public servant,” she said. Sunday night’s full-house session at the Suzanne Patterson Resource Center gave the three candidates a chance to present their platforms and respond to questions raised by the audience, with Assemblyman Andrew Zwicker moderating the proceedings. Continued on Page 9
LALDEF FUTURO Mentoring Program Receives $75,000 Grant for Women, Girls
The Princeton Area Community Foundation’s (PACF) Fund for Women and Girls will provide the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund (LALDEF) with $75,000 to sustain and expand its FUTURO Mentoring Program over the next three years. “With the help of the Princeton Area Community Foundation, the women and girls of our FUTURO program will receive the empowerment necessary to graduate high school, matriculate into a fouryear institution, and become leaders in society,” said LALDEF Executive Director Adriana Abizadeh. In a week full of news about unfair
advantages for wealthy college applicants and the multifarious means used by some rich parents to buy access to colleges and universities, last week’s announcement from LALDEF was welcomed by FUTURO Program Manager Tulia Jiminez-Vergara. “What we do is important because many of our young people are immigrants or children of immigrants, many of whom have never attended college,” she said. She continued, “Through our efforts, they have been able to aspire to higher academic and professional goals that they may never have imagined without our help and encouragement. We show them the Continued on Page 8
PUNCHING THEIR TICKET: Members of the Princeton University women’s basketball team celebrate after they defeated Penn 65-54 in the Ivy League championship game last Sunday in New Haven, Conn ., thereby punching their ticket to the upcoming NCAA tournament . The Tigers, now 22-9, were selected as a No . 11 seed in the Greensboro Region and will face 6th-seeded Kentucky in a first-round contest on March 23 in Raleigh, N .C . For more details on the Ivy title run and NCAA matchup, see page 28 . (Photo by Noel Valero)