HENRY J. FRANK
Valley Road
Ashley W. Wright
Park Place
Mark Pritchard
Turner Court
To the Editor:
Princeton Township has just completed the reconstruction of Carnahan Place and the part of Guyot Avenue between Carnahan Place and Witherspoon Street at a cost to Township taxpayers of approximately $655,000. The new roadbed, Belgian block curbing, and new sidewalks are cosmetic; there were no traffic, vehicular, or pedestrian problems calling for this solution at this time. Probably 95 percent of Princeton Township residents do not know where Carnahan Place is located. The new sidewalk on the west side of Carnahan Place connects the north side of Henry Avenue, where there is no sidewalk, to the south side of Guyot Avenue, where there is also no sidewalk. There are certainly more pressing needs for the use of $655,000 of taxpayers' money.
The Township now proposes to reconstruct Ewing Street between Valley Road and the Princeton Borough line. This road, which gets minimal traffic, is in fairly good condition. It is in better shape than Valley Road, which was partially reconstructed in 1991. There are several nearby streets which require reconstruction such as Witherspoon Street between the Princeton Borough line and Valley Road, and Ewing Street between Valley Road and Harrison Street North. Those streets and others should be rehabilitated before any work is done on Ewing Street south of Valley Road.
HENRY J. FRANK
Valley Road
To the Editor:
I'm an old newspaper reporter whose nose for news got twitching this morning when after asking me some perfectly reasonable questions, a service representative of our town's water supplier (formerly as Elizabethtown Water Company, now New Jersey American Water and now based in Florida) asked for my social security number. Needless to say, I did not give it to her. In this day and age of ID theft (one of my daughters was a victim a few years ago), no one in their right mind would give out their social security number, especially to someone who had just gathered all the other personal information this woman demanded of me over the phone.
But why, I asked myself, did the water company want my social security number in the first place? And why now? I had never given it to them before, even 16 years ago when I bought my house in Princeton. No luck getting any answers from the woman on the phone. "I don't know, sir, I'm just doing my job," was her response.
Do you suppose this is a Homeland Security requirement, something authorized (or not) under the Patriot Act? After all, everyone must have water, and attaching a social security number to absolutely everyone's account number, home address, and telephone number would be an excellent way for the federal government to track citizens' movements around the country.
Am I being paranoid? I think not. Remember, our brand spanking new, multi-million dollar, wired-to-the-world public library must serve up our reading lists if demanded by federal authorities. So why not have the water company cooperate with the federal government's domestic surveillance program too?
Or is Elizabethtown Water-American Water just collecting social security numbers for their own commercial purposes or, worse, to sell along with the rest of the demographic data collected from customers to other commercial entities?
Whatever the answers to these questions, it seems that at the very least, Elizabethtown Water-American Water should explain why they are collecting social security numbers and what they are doing with them. And if they say, "It's for identification purposes," then my response would be what more ID information do they need then my account number, account name, home address and telephone number?
Ashley W. Wright
Park Place
To the Editor:
The University's plan to move the Dinky farther away from the center of Princeton is not a good plan for public transportation. If anything, it should be moved closer to town. The location of the Dinky station at the bottom of University Place is already inconvenient for most of the passengers, being half a mile from the center of town. Moving it farther away will discourage pedestrians, increase road traffic and the demand for parking spaces.
The Borough and New Jersey Transit should be looking for the best public transportation options. If the Dinky station has to move, would it be better to replace it with a shuttle bus that runs from Princeton Junction to Palmer Square, with a stop at the University Place parking lot?
I hope you will consider other alternatives.
Mark Pritchard
Turner Court