Democrat Moore ’79 elected Borough mayor

In two close votes cast on Tuesday, Borough residents elected Yina Moore ’79 as their next mayor and voted to merge with the Township into a single municipality, according to unofficial results.

A majority of Borough voters supported consolidation: 1,385 voters voted yes on consolidation, giving the pro-consolidation side 63 percent of the vote. There were 802 votes against consolidation, or 37 percent of the vote.

The margin of victory was closer in the mayoral race. Moore received 1,117 votes, giving her 53 percent of votes cast. Her opponent, Republican candidate Jill Jachera, received 984 votes, or 46 percent.

Final results, including absentee ballots submitted by mail, were not available as of Tuesday night. They are expected to be released by the Mercer County Board of Elections today.

Because the consolidation referendum also passed with a majority among Township voters, the Borough and Township will merge into a single municipality beginning in 2013. They will undergo a transition process over the coming year.

“This really is just the end of the beginning. There’s a whole of difficult work that’s going to be begin,” said Joseph Stefko, director of public finance for the Center for Governmental Research, a nonprofit consulting firm that helped to prepare the plan for consolidation.

Since last fall, CGR has worked with a study commission of representatives from the Borough and Township to write a proposal for consolidating the two municipalities.

“The study commission did a really excellent job engaging the community in this process,” Stefko said, describing the many public meetings that the commission held to share information with the community and solicit community feedback. “The commission invested an incredible amount of time to listen to what the community was thinking in terms of shared services and consolidation.”

Stefko congratulated the community on its decision to consolidate, which the commission estimated would result in an annual savings of $3.1 million on currently administered services.

Borough Councilman David Goldfarb said he was disappointed that Borough voters had chosen consolidation. Goldfarb has opposed consolidation outspokenly in the past, predicting that the loss of a municipal authority for the Borough as the downtown urban district of Princeton will weaken the voice of the downtown community and hurt its interests in future municipal legislation.

“We can be vigilant and make sure that every time there’s a threat we can remind people that they said that residents of the Township care very much about the downtown also,” Goldfarb said of how Borough and Township interests can work together in the consolidated municipality.

Democrats Heather Howard and Barbara Trelstad were elected to seats on the Borough Council. Trelstad, a sitting councilmember, received 1,402 votes. Howard, a Wilson School professor new to the council, received 1,441 votes.