Council approves U.-town memorandum

The Borough Council voted 3-2 to approve the memorandum of understanding on the Dinky on Tuesday evening.

If passed by the Township Committee, the memorandum of understanding would secure the community a right-of-way easement that would allow for a potential light rail system and would also promise to contribute funds to a study of the community’s long-term transit needs and a study of the community impacts of the University’s expansion.

Councilmembers Roger Martindell, Kevin Wilkes ’83 and Barbara Trelstad voted for the memorandum. Councilmembers Jenny Crumiller and Jo Butler voted against it.

An amendment proposed during the meeting to add a statement clarifying the council’s position on the proposed Dinky move was rejected. The amendment, proposed by Butler, would have added to the memo a declaration that the council does not assume that the University has the right to move the station and that the council does not support the move.

Butler and Crumiller voted for the amendment, arguing that, without it, the memorandum might be cited as evidence that the Council supports the Dinky move or has affirmed the University’s right to move it.

“This document will be held up to bolster the case of the University to move the station,” when the University gets its final approval from New Jersey Transit to move the station and when the pending lawsuit is heard in court, Crumiller said.

The others voted against it, arguing that, while they also did not support the move of the Dinky and agreed that there may be reason to issue a statement of opposition to the move, it did not belong in the memo.

“I wish the University hadn’t decided to move the Dinky,” Martindell said. “I can’t think of any reason why anybody would want to move the Dinky. But the bottom line is, they say they’re going to do it anyway.” He expressed concern that Township and the University would not agree to the memo if it contained this amendment.

“These are people who have threatened to withdraw our payments in lieu of taxes, they have slandered us in the press, they have misled us at every turn regarding the need to move the Dinky, and we’re going to worry about casting a pall on the relationship? I think not,” Butler said.

“I think the proposal to move the Dinky has made a bad proposal into one that’s nearing evil, quite frankly, and I’m ashamed to be an alumnus and to have to apologize on behalf of the institution I graduated from for their poor behavior, their lack of community spirit,” Peter Wolanin ’94 said. He added that he felt that the University should have sought to build its arts campus at 20 Washington Rd. instead and that the University should have initiated its transit and expansion impact studies before proposing the development.

“If you think you are more right than the legal counsel which has issued that opinion, then you’re taking a big gamble,” Jill Jachera said. “If you’re wrong and the University moves that Dinky without us having an MOU and without the arts center there, then we gain nothing.” Jachera is the Republican candidate for Borough mayor.

“We have no interest in withdrawing the PILOT,” University Vice President and Secretary Robert Durkee ’69 said, explaining that the University has only considered adjusting the amount that it gives to the Borough’s operating budget. The comments that President Shirley Tilghman made earlier in the year, he said, meant that “the level of contribution that were likely to make in the future would of course depend on whether we’re in a community where, in addition to helping the community meet its needs, we can meet our highest needs, one of which is the further development of this project.”

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If the memorandum is passed by the Borough Council and Township Committee, the University would immediately give the first installment of its pledged funding for the transit study. The easement, the expansion study and other provisions of the agreement would go into effect if and when the Borough Council, Township Committee and the Regional Planning Board of Princeton grant the zoning rights and permissions allowing the University to build its proposed Arts and Transit Neighborhood in the Alexander corridor.

The original version of the memorandum was released in May after months of negotiations between the University, the Borough and the Township. After Council members and community members expressed dissatisfaction with the memo, the negotiating committee reconvened to make improvements to the original agreement.

The revised version of the memorandum was released last week. The new memo extended the life of easement, accelerated the schedule for the transit study to begin and increased the University’s pledged funds for the study.