Finalizing a consolidation effort to minimize administrative oversight to Corner House, a joint-municipal counseling agency for children and their families, Princeton Borough Council signed off on a mirror ordinance that will create a new nine-member board for the agency that, up to this point, had been overseen by a 27-member board governing the Princeton Alcohol and Drug Alliance (PADA).
The move comes two weeks after Township Committee adopted the same measure. The new board will consist of three residents from each municipality, one liaison from each governing body, and an ex-officio member representing the Corner House Foundation.
Both municipalities have maintained that Corner House, whose annual operating budget hovers around $1 million, is too large an entity to be governed by the PADA board, and that PADA will retain oversight for its own programming.
But several PADA members, while not condemning the creation of a new board outright, said that the public process should have taken place in the fall, when more Alliance members could have voiced their views on creating an independent Corner House. PADA by-laws will have to be altered to recognize the Corner House changes.
Jeaninne Honstein, a PADA member, appeared before Borough Council last Tuesday, voicing concerns raised during the Township's deliberations. "I support the new board, but PADA members were not notified," she said, adding that voting on such a measure during the summer could create "negative" public perceptions. "Positive public perception is critical for governments and to funding," she said, adding that the entire process has been "rushed."
Last month before Township Committee, PADA board vice chair Maureen Marchetta said that while she embraced the concept of separating Corner House from the rest of PADA operations, a fall vote on a new board could add "value" to the process.
But, as was the case with Ms. Marchetta's plea to Township Committee, Council response to Ms. Honstein's concerns was empathetic, but decidedly resolute:
"Governance for Corner House has always remained with the two municipal bodies," said Council President Peggy Karcher, saying that PADA's oversight to Corner House was largely a result of municipal resolutions, but never through formal ordinances. "That should never have risen to the issue it rose to: PADA was never the governing body," she added.
Per state statute, the governing bodies appoint PADA members, but PADA has largely become a self-appointing group, Ms. Karcher said, adding that this is why the Alliance has expanded to 27 members.
Ms. Karcher, the current Borough liaison to PADA, will likely join Township Committeeman Lance Liverman as municipal liaisons to a Corner House board.