Borough, Township consider merger

Robert Geddes, the chairman of Princeton Future, the community organization that ran the meeting, said that “an overwhelming majority” of participants at the meeting raised their hands when asked if they would support consolidation.

The level of support for consolidation was unexpected, Geddes noted. “You would not have gone into the meeting and expected that the consolidation issue would have been the headline, but it was,” he said.

The governing boards of both municipalities must place the issue on a ballot for a vote on unification to take place, Princeton Regional Planning Board chairman and former Borough Mayor Marvin Reed said.

The last time that the issue was placed on the ballot, in 1996, it passed overwhelmingly in the Township but was defeated in the Borough by a vote of 1,991 to 1,603.

State pressure

The push to unify the two municipalities comes amid increased pressure from the state government encouraging small municipalities to merge, Reed explained, adding that he is a member of a commission that has been set up by the state legislature to examine the issue.

The commission is examining “whether municipalities that are too small should be combined to make them more economical and more efficient,” he said, explaining that “there is pressure to determine at what level is the most efficient way to deliver services.”

In two years, the commission is due to release a study that will likely recommend consolidation for many municipalities, Reed said.

“There’s a two-year timetable from the state,” he explained. “Simply because the state is putting a lot of effort into this, people in Princeton are saying that rather than resisting it, they should cooperate with the study.”

Taking sides

During previous consolidation debates, Stuart Carothers ’45 was a leader of Preserve Our Historic Borough, an association of Borough residents opposed to the merge. Carothers cited the “difference in lifestyle between Borough people and Township people” as the main reason for his opposition.

“In the Township, and this is still true to this day, they have expensive houses, they are mostly commuters, and they don’t have the same feeling of the town [as residents of the Borough do],” Carothers explained.

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Carothers said he is afraid that should the Borough and the Township combine, Borough residents would yield control over their community to the Township, and the Borough would lose its small-town feel.

“I knew every policeman in the Borough; I knew everybody in the Council; I could walk to everything there; and we thought that we had one heckuva attractive arrangement,” he said.

“Now here come all these rich people that are commuting to New York and living in big houses, and their approach to life is different than ours. Why combine it and turn the management over to them?” he asked.

Proponents of the consolidation plan cited financial savings and convenience as two of the main reasons for consolidation.

“The Borough and the Township being separate is just awful and it makes absolutely no sense,” Township resident Andrew Bergman ’11 said, adding that “it would be more efficient because there wouldn’t be two governing bodies, two police departments [and] two municipal courts that are a mile from each other.”

The division between the municipalities sometimes results in confusion for students, University Vice President and Secretary Bob Durkee ’69 said in an e-mail. He cited the example of “residents of Forbes and Whitman who live in colleges bisected by the Borough-Township line, which can mean that they have to re-register to vote if they move from a room in one municipality to a room in another.”

Durkee added that under the current arrangement, starting new initiatives in Princeton requires a lot of cooperation between the two governments.

On Monday, “the Borough launched a new jitney service that runs through the Borough,” Durkee noted. “Under current arrangements, eventually extending the jitney into the Township would require cooperation across two governing bodies, two municipal staffs, two police departments [and] two public works departments,” he explained.

Libby Bliss ’11, another Township resident, said that she thought consolidation would encourage greater dialogue between residents of different socioeconomic statuses. “Princeton is home to families of widely disparate economic status and political views, and I think consolidation would be a great way to re-evaluate what is best for the Princeton community as a whole,” she explained.

History of the division

The division between the Borough and the Township dates back to the early 19th century. According to the Township’s website, the Borough was created in 1813 from parts of what is now Montgomery Township and West Windsor Township. In 1838, the land north of the Borough was incorporated into Princeton Township, and by 1853, West Windsor ceded the land between the University’s campus and the canal to the Township.

Carothers explained that though he would still vote against a referendum to merge “for old times’ sake,” consolidation is probably inevitable. “I think one of these years they’re [going to] become merged,” he said.