Princeton Council candidates meet in first contested general election in years

For the first time since 2019, the general election race for Princeton Council is contested, with three candidates competing for two seats. The Democrats, Marina Rubina and incumbent Councilmember David Cohen, and Republican candidate Antonio Merolli met for the only scheduled candidate forum of the general election cycle on Tuesday.

The forum, organized by the Greater Princeton Area chapter of the League of Women Voters, was held at the Center for Modern Aging Princeton’s Nancy S. Klath Center. The candidates addressed a range of questions about the municipality’s ongoing zoning code rewrite, a car crash lawsuit that implicated Princeton Mayor Mark Freda, and data centers, among other topics.

Merolli, a former orthopedic surgeon who moved to Princeton several years ago to retire, is the first Republican candidate for the Council since 2018. Democrats have not had the race contested since 2019, when independent Adam Bierman ran.

Merolli acknowledged the lack of recent Republican candidates during the forum, arguing he could “contribute an opposition, a true opposition.”

“I am the alternative. We didn’t have alternative for so many years,” he said.

No Republican has been elected to the Council in the history of the municipality, which formed after the Princeton Township and Princeton Borough consolidated in 2013. Earlier this year, the Democrats had their first contested primary for the Council since 2020.

During the forum, Cohen and Rubina, who both have backgrounds as architects, shared similar perspectives on sustainability and housing development, while Merolli was primarily concerned with municipal budget transparency.

Cohen is running for a fourth term. Current Councilmember Leticia Fraga is not seeking reelection, leaving a seat open without an incumbent.

Housing development

Cohen pointed to sustainability as the biggest issue facing the municipality, though he referred to the term broadly. He said his idea of sustainability included affordability and was “not just a question of climate change and emissions.”

“Right now, we’re not sustainable, for instance, because the cost of living in Princeton has gone up so much,” Cohen said, adding that housing costs have increased far faster than inflation in recent decades. The current Council has pushed to meet the municipality’s affordable housing obligations and approve housing developments, leading to some local pushback.

Rubina said that, in addition to meeting affordable housing obligations, Princeton should focus on building more entry-level housing options. She advocated for zoning changes to allow “for condos, for smaller residential units, for studios, for things that are located downtown that don’t require cars.”

Merolli, meanwhile, said he would pause the zoning rewrite process, claiming the municipality’s financial situation was “terrible.”

Municipal budgets and accessibility

Merolli said that he decided to run for Council after viewing the municipal budget documents, which he described as complicated and “impossible to read.” He argued the budget needed to be more accessible for the general population.

“We must let the people access the budget,” said Merolli. “There is no transparency in what [the Council is] doing, no justification for their spending,” he added.

Merolli also said that the municipality had “a terrible situation in the finance” because the “management was so bad in past years.” Cohen strongly disputed Merolli’s characterization and said the Council had done “a great job of managing the town’s finances.”

“I’m sorry if you have trouble understanding the budget,” Cohen said. He argued that the municipality’s finances are strong, pointing to its AAA bond rating, repeated clean results during audits, and how the Council kept municipal tax increases this year to three percent, below the rate of inflation.

Rubina sought to find a balance between making deliberations accessible and providing detailed documents for those who want to look. She gave as an example the difference between the 2023 Master Plan, which set a broad vision for the municipality’s development and “the very technical language of zoning.”

She said a challenge would be balancing the Master Plan’s “visionary thinking, and bringing it together into reality so that people can understand what is going on” during the zoning rewrite process. She pointed to a recent session that Princeton Future, a planning organization that she is on the board of, hosted to educate attendees on the language of zoning and help them be engaged in the process.

Cohen offered a different perspective on public participation in municipal processes, saying he knew from experience that a “vocal minority” could “derail what was actually going to be the best thing for the community as a whole.”

He explained those experiences caused the Council to shift its approach to public participation, but said he thought “the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction and that we should be doing more public engagement.”

Freda lawsuit

The candidates also responded to a question regarding what actions the Council owes the public following a recent settlement in a car crash lawsuit involving Freda. The lawsuit stems from a fatal 2021 incident on Route 27 where Freda followed a teenage driver of a stolen car at high speeds while using his courtesy blue lights, which he had from his work as a volunteer firefighter.

The settlement included a $3.5 million payment made by the municipality’s insurance fund to the plaintiff and his lawyer.

After prefacing his statement by acknowledging the tragedy of the events, Cohen said that “the mayor was, as a lifelong volunteer both as an EMT and as a firefighter, acting out of the best intentions,” but that “he was not acting in his capacity as mayor.”

Cohen added that the payment from the municipality’s insurance fund is not expected to have significant impacts on insurance rates or on taxpayers. He also noted that the Council has not released a statement about the settlement because the councilmembers have “been conflicted about what to say about it.”

“I’m happy to hear now from Mr. Cohen that we will have no increase in taxes, but that is not the point,” Merolli said. He argued that Freda should have resigned following the crash.

“​​I feel that the integrity of our mayoral office was hurt in this situation,” Rubina said. She added that she wished Freda had spoken publicly on the incident in acknowledgement of “the pain that it caused the victims and their families.”

Environmental concerns

The candidates were also asked about data centers and the municipality’s role in commenting on actions in neighboring towns that could impact Princeton.

Cohen said he had drafted the statement that Princeton’s governing body released opposing an air pollution permit for a nearby data center in South Brunswick. He noted there were “very specific impacts of that data center on Princeton.” However, he said a data center moratorium was not needed in Princeton because the municipality’s zoning code does not currently allow for one, he doesn’t foresee that changing, and land in Princeton is more expensive than in surrounding areas.

When asked about a compressor station being built in nearby Franklin Township for the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project natural gas pipeline, another environmental issue that some residents have expressed concerns over, Cohen said he did not know enough to say if the municipality should comment on it.

Rubina said data centers will likely have to be built somewhere, but said they should rely on green energy to limit pollution and electricity price increases. Merolli expressed his belief that many concerns surrounding data centers are due to the companies not following proper regulations, noting “some communities are happy with data centers.”

The candidates also answered questions about the future of the Westminster Choir College property and possible improvements to the municipal budget.

The general election will occur on Nov. 3. Early voting will be open prior to Election Day, running from Oct. 24 to Nov. 1.

Mira Brock is a reporter-in-training for the ‘Prince’ from Fayetteville, Ark. She is a member of the Class of 2030 and can be reached at mfb[at]dailyprincetonian.com.

Oliver Wu is the assistant News editor for the ‘Prince’ leading town coverage, focused on the Municipality of Princeton and beyond. He is from Stony Brook, N.Y., and can be reached at oliver.wu[at]dailyprincetonian.com.

Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.