Council refuses to disclose meeting minutes

The Princeton Borough Council has revealed most of the contents of a private August 7 meeting, but a part of the meeting is still being kept under wraps.

The undisclosed section of the meeting’s minutes concerns the so-called “final offer” that the Borough Council presented Nassau HKT (NHKT), Councilman Roger Martindell said. NHKT is the company contracted to build a mixed-use building on the parking lot behind the Princeton Record Exchange, but construction has been delayed by disputes over the terms of the agreement.

Martindell, who wants the entirety of the meeting’s discussions disclosed to the public, said that other council members did not want to release the information because doing so would be an admission that the Borough is a weak negotiator.

Martindell explained that the Borough has retreated from what it called its “final offer” and “is now negotiating with NHKT a possible agreement that is substantially more advantageous” to the developer.

If the council released the purported “final offer,” it would “open itself up to the charge that it could accept any offer from NHKT,” Martindell said.

Keeping the minutes secret was “a political decision to avoid embarrassment in the future, should the council approve an agreement with NHKT that is significantly more generous to NHKT and significantly less attractive to the Borough taxpayer,” Martindell explained.

Though Martindell is not allowed to reveal the contents of the Borough’s “final offer,” he said that some of the main points included whether NHKT has an obligation to pay the Borough’s project-related legal bills, when the developer will begin paying rent on the land and whether the developer must fix leaks and other problems with the garage it built behind the Princeton Public Library.

Borough Administrator Robert Bruschi defended the Council’s decision to keep the minutes private. “The decision has been made not to negotiate in public,” Bruschi said. “It is not something that is required, and we feel that we can make more progress negotiating with the developer in private.”

Martindell disagreed with Bruschi about the legality of keeping the negotiations secret. “State law — the Open Public Meetings Act and case law interpreting it — requires that governing bodies conduct the public’s business in public,” he said.

There are exceptions to the law, such as cases where revealing the information would “substantially injure the public interest,” Martindell said, adding that he does not think this is one of those cases.

Bruschi disagreed with Martindell’s interpretation of the law. “There is a specific provision in the Open Public Meetings Act that says that negotiations and strategy sessions may be held in [closed] executive session,” he said.

At a later Borough Council meeting, Princeton Borough Mayor Mildred Trotman said the public was better served by keeping the minutes private, thereby allowing negotiations to be conducted efficiently.

Martindell, however, said the public would benefit from the insight provided by the minutes. “The public will be informed of the issues under consideration and be able to ask questions about those issues, supply information and otherwise participate in the public discussion of the issues,” he said.

Bruschi said that because the Borough failed to reach a consensus with NHKT, it decided to ask the developer to begin construction based on the agreement previously made with the developer.

“We already had an agreement, but all the dispute is over us, and the developer is trying to clarify and renegotiate sections of [the agreement],” Bruschi explained.

By asking the developer to proceed without reaching a compromise, the Borough hopes to get the project back on track after a long delay. Bruschi said he hopes the disagreements will be resolved in the future, or the two parties may take their dispute to court.