Volume LXXI, Number 30
Montgomery Area Life Pages 12 -15 Students Keep Academic Skills Alive in a Natural Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Town Talk at MarketFair Mall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Sō Percussion Looks for the Unusual . . . . . . . . 16 Lysander Piano Trio at Richardson . . . . . . . . 17 PU Alum DeValve Primed for Second Season with the Cleveland Browns . . . . 22 PDS Grad Alu Emerges as Star for Boston College Baseball . . . . . . . . . . 24
www.towntopics.com
Safe Streets Program Announces Honorees, Upcoming Celebrations The Joint Effort Safe Streets Program has announced honorees to be recognized during its 10-day celebration of the Witherspoon-Jackson (W-J) Community of Princeton beginning next week. Honoring the historic role of the black church will be the focus of this year’s event-filled festival, which is titled “Looking Back & Moving Forward.” “All of this year’s award recipients have made significant contributions to the Witherspoon-Jackson and Princeton community and are more than worthy of this recognition,” said Princeton Councilman Lance Liverman. “The recognition of the historic role of the black church in Princeton is amazing and long overdue. The history of these four black churches are stories of faith, leadership, and Continued on Page 8
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Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Council Approves Appointment of New Police Officers At its meeting Monday evening, July 24, Princeton Council approved a resolution to authorize the Princeton Police Department’s appointment of five probationary police officers. With three retirements possible by the end of the year and 11 officers eligible for retirement through 2020, it is important to be proactive, Chief Nick Sutter told Council. “My vision is that we anticipate these retirements because there is a lag time between when we hire someone and when they get fully certified,” he said. At a press conference earlier in the day, Mr. Sutter said this completes the most recent recruiting list, which he called “particularly robust.” “It went beyond our expectations in terms of diversity and caliber of officers,” he said. “We really look for individuals committed to policing in Princeton. They don’t just meet the minimum requirements. They meet Princeton requirements.”
The five new recruits will be sworn in at a future Council meeting. Council also held a work session on proposed route changes to the FreeB bus service. Fay Reiter, chair of the town’s Public Transit Advisory Committee, detailed recommendations to merge the existing two services into one because ridership on the early morning route to the
Dinky train station has been so low. The plan, which Ms. Reiter called a work in progress, suggests that daytime service would be merged with commuter service and run until about 7:30 or 8 p.m. Service on the daytime route currently ends about 3:30 p.m. Continued on Page 8
Rider President Cites Progress In Sale of Choir College Campus In a letter to the Rider University community this week, Rider President Gregory Dell’Omo said “great progress” is being made in efforts to sell Westminster Choir College in Princeton, which Rider has owned since 1991 and announced this past spring that it was putting it up for sale. Rider’s campus is located in Lawrenceville.
Rider’s Board of Trustees and PricewaterhouseCoopers Corporate Finance have communicated with some 280 possible purchasers, and have received “multiple proposals” from buyers who would either purchase the property and Choir College and keep it in Princeton, acquire the property and Continued on Page 4
Teacher Ryan Brown Mixes Math and Music at Hun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 20 Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Classified Ads. . . . . . . 29 Clubs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Music/Theater . . . . . . 16 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 28 Police Blotter . . . . . . . . 4 Real Estate . . . . . . . . 29 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . . 8
ZUMBA BY THE POOL: The annual Princeton Community Night Out, sponsored by the Princeton Police Department, PBA Local 130, and the Princeton Recreation Department, will take place on August 1 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Community Park Pool. Activities will include Zumba dancing, free use of the pool, and a rockclimbing wall. There will also be hot dogs, ice cream, souvenir giveaways, and police and emergency tools and equipment on display. (Photo Courtesy of Princeton Recreation Department)