Housing, immigration top issues for local politicians

With less than a month to go before elections, candidates running for Princeton-area offices gathered at the University yesterday evening to discuss a range of social issues facing the larger Princeton community.

Discussion focused primarily on affordable housing, immigrant rights and homelessness.

Candidates first discussed strategies to reduce homelessness. Proposals included creating more jobs, supporting a living wage policy and funding programs that deal with substance abuse.

Princeton Borough Council member Wendy Benchley, running as an incumbent, highlighted the progress Princeton Borough has already made in building affordable housing as a way to address homelessness.

"[Princeton Borough] has built 778 units for affordable, low and moderate income housing," Benchley said. "There are about 90 units that we hope to have built. We have to keep chipping away at this problem. We do not give our money to have the affordable units only in Trenton. We want diversity here."

Benchley praised the University for expanding graduate housing, which has helped take pressure off low and moderate income housing in the area, and she proposed that the University consider building affordable housing for some of its employees as well.

The University has also played an important role by paying regular property taxes on the married student housing and faculty housing that it owns, said Joseph O'Neill, Democratic candidate for Princeton Borough mayor.

However, the University does not contribute as much money to the local community as Harvard and MIT do to theirs, he said.

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O'Neill suggested the University pay a $0.13 tax on each square foot it owns and pay tax on new buildings as they are built. The University has 4.5 million square feet of tax-exempt land.

He also emphasized reforming the property tax reform to create affordable housing and reduce homelessness. Steven Syrek, the Green Party candidate for Borough Mayor, said homelessness is often deeply rooted in society and difficult to resolve on a local level.

Last, the candidates discussed the employment and higher education needs of Princeton's growing immigrant community.

"Many immigrants come here and because of communication difficulties they are taken advantage of by employers," said Elizabeth Maher Muoio, who hopes to be reelected to the Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders. "The county should initiate greater outreach into immigrant communities."

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In addition to Benchley, O'Neill and Maher Muoio, panelists included Borough Council candidate Margaret Karcher, Township Committee candidates William Hearon and Vic Fedorov, Mercer County Executive candidates Brian Hughes and Robert Klein and Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders candidates Ann Cannon and Pasquale Colavita.

The panel was organized and cosponsored by the Princeton Justice Project, College Democrats and College Republicans.

"The impetus for the event was concerns voiced by some of our community partners . . . that decisions at the local and county levels were not necessarily being made that took into consideration the wellbeing of all community members," said Ann Healy '04, one of the key PJP organizers, in an email.

Event turnout was low, consisting primarily of community members and a handful of students.

"We didn't think a lot of students would come out, but this [low student attendance] does symbolize the disconnect between University students and the local community," said PJP co-chair Robin Williams '04.