Town, Boro to probe merger

The Borough Council and the Township Committee held a joint meeting on Oct. 26 and voted to establish a joint municipal-consolidation commission to study the pros and cons of either combining or sharing services.

The officials approved a resolution to apply to the Local Finance Board of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs to conduct a fact-finding study for the potential consolidation of the two districts.

If approved, the study would be conducted by an independent consultant and paid for by the State of New Jersey. Borough and Township officials would then review its conclusions and, if they agree about moving forward, would allow voters to decide the issue.

“When I first moved to Princeton in 1957, I didn’t even realize there were two Princetons. In my time here, they have grown to be more alike, not more dissimilar,” Township Mayor Bernie Miller said at the meeting. Miller also said that “great economic stress” was forcing both municipalities to search for better ways to use their “limited resources.”

The Township and the Borough already share many services, including a unified school board. The police departments, however, remain separate. It is unclear which services may be shared if the bodies decide to collaborate, but public works were discussed as a possible option at the meeting.

The resolution was not meant to openly support either of the two options of consolidating or sharing major services such as police and fire services. To achieve a neutral stance, officials spent three hours rewording the language used in the resolution, as well as questioning the wisdom of allowing the voters to decide the issue.

“If the voters reject both consolidation and shared services, what is the next step?” Borough Councilman David Goldfarb asked. “It is rolling the dice with an unforeseen outcome.”

The proposal has won the support of Gov. Jon Corzine, The Princeton Packet reported Monday.

“I have been an absolute proponent of consolidation and shared services,” Corzine told the Packet. “We do need to work on property taxes. If we get more Princeton Boroughs and Princeton Townships joining together and economies of scale we’ll be lowering those costs.”

The division of Princeton into two municipalities dates back to the early 19th century. In 1813 the Borough was created from areas of what are now Montgomery and West Windsor townships, and became part of Mercer County upon its establishment 25 years later in 1838. In that same year, Princeton Township was created north of the Borough, which became an independent municipality around 1894. In 1983, West Windsor also ceded the land between the University campus and the canal to the Township.

The subject of uniting the Borough and the Township is not new to recent history. For this to take place, the governing boards of both municipalities must place the issue on a ballot to be voted on by residents. Since 1952, the two municipalities have voted on merging six times, and the Borough has opposed the issue every time.

This last happened in 1996, where the issue passed overwhelmingly in the Township but was defeated in the Borough by a vote of 1,991-1,603.

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Correction

Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article incorrectly indicated that the Borough and Township have separate fire stations when, in fact, they do not.