We urge our fellow Democrats in Princeton to support Tamera Matteo for Borough Council in the primary on June 5. She believes that united Princeton deserves the best Borough Council. We agree.

A vote for Tamera would be a vote for results-oriented leadership and an end to the petty squabbles that have paralyzed our Borough government. Drawing on her ten years as a small business owner in Princeton, she would bring elements of our community together for win-win solutions to problems ranging from downtown parking to cost sharing by local tax-exempt organizations. She would draw on her civic activism as a Parent-Teacher Organization president and community volunteer to engage a broad cross-section of Princeton residents in shaping our common future.

A vote for Tamera would be a vote for transparency and against the local party machine. Meeting behind closed doors, the Princeton Democratic Municipal Committee gave current Borough Council members Jenny Crumiller and Jo Butler favored positions on the June 5 primary ballot despite Crumiller and Butler’s failure to win the full endorsement of the membership of the Princeton Community Democratic Organization. Tamera is not beholden to the party machine and will make decisions that she independently believes are in the best interest of our community.

Consolidation offers the voters of the new Princeton the opportunity to create a vibrant new civic culture. We believe that Tamera Matteo will make that happen.

Ted Mills, Henry Vega

Quarry Street

As a lifelong Democrat, I’m supporting Jenny Crumiller for the new Princeton Council. For over 20 years, Jenny has selflessly served our community from being a room parent at Community Park School to serving on the current Borough Council. In her spare time (wherever she finds it) she is vice-chair of the local committee of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Jenny never seeks the limelight; she just gets the job done.

Jenny was a founding member of Unite Princeton and worked tirelessly to bring about the consolidation of the Township and Borough, a goal that had eluded Princeton’s leadership for several decades. As a taxpayer, I appreciate the reduction in government expense without decreasing services to the public. As a civil rights lawyer, I appreciate her efforts to ensure that the savings come from elimination of redundancies, not using consolidation as an opportunity to cut the pay and benefits of municipal employees.

Jenny also led the effort to make the local Democratic Party more democratic. When I became a committeeman eight years ago, the party leadership simply gave me the position. The people in my district had no voice in the decision. Jenny worked hard to increase participation and give anyone interested in serving an equal chance. Ironically, this good deed has not gone unpunished. Some of those who liked things the old way now oppose her candidacy.

Public servants like Jenny don’t come along every day. We need to keep her in office.

Lewis L. Maltby

Stone Cliff Road

On June 5, Princeton Democrats will elect a slate of six Council members and a mayoral candidate to represent our party in a historic election in November. We need knowledgeable leaders to ensure that consolidation yields the promised savings while maintaining and/or enhancing our community’s quality of life; leaders respectful of disparate viewpoints; leaders who are skilled listeners; leaders willing to research the pros and cons of issues; leaders capable of collaborating with others to identify the best options and solutions to community concerns; leaders driven by advancing what is best for our community as a whole; leaders who embrace healthy debate. I know Jo Butler is such a leader.

During the two-year consolidation debate I was very vocal in my opposition to the municipal merger. I appeared at nearly all of the Commission meetings and every joint municipal meeting to raise questions and concerns. I can state unequivocally that Jo Butler listened to my concerns, answered my questions in a thoughtful manner and was respectful of our differing viewpoints.

Now during the “transition” to a united Princeton, I regularly attend task force meetings and selected subcommittee meetings. I am comforted that Jo Butler is in a position of leadership and decision-making, representing Borough Council on the Transition Task Force. She is serving on the Personnel, IT, Public Safety, and the Infrastructure and Operations subcommittees, working to make sure the promises and opportunities of consolidation come to fruition.

Jo Butler is a proven leader working on behalf of the Princeton community at-large. Her energy is boundless, her attention to detail unparalleled. She is frank, honest, an independent thinker who works well with others. She is a doer and a go-getter in her work on behalf of others.

Jo Butler is prepared on Day One to make myriad tough decisions that await the new government. With knowledge and insight, Jo is ready to begin a new government faced with the difficult task of making the transition from two municipalities to one a success for the future of Princeton.

We need a leader who is ready to unite Princeton on January 1, 2013. That is why I will be voting for Jo Butler. Please join me in supporting and voting for Jo Butler on June 5.

Kate Warren

Jefferson Road

November’s vote for consolidation was a monumental turning point in Princeton’s future. But this was only the first step … it is now incumbent upon us to vote for the right leader to make this vision of consolidation, of a more efficient and effective government, a reality. The Princeton Community Democratic Organization (PCDO) and the local Princeton Democratic Party have done this with their overwhelming endorsement of Liz Lempert. I’ve worked closely with Liz in my role as the chairman of the Environmental Commission, and I couldn’t agree more.

Liz brings the leadership needed for a United Princeton. She has spearheaded many initiatives that are critically important to the existing Township and Borough: keeping municipal taxes flat, saving human services, and preserving our environment. Through collaborative decision making, Liz was able to help save 66 acres of land on the environmentally sensitive Princeton Ridge. As liaison to the Princeton Environmental Commission (PEC), Liz has been on top of sustainability since she first took office … working with the PEC to investigate options for a Parks Director, working on solutions for safer cycling, and most recently bringing people together to help keep a Green Building Checklist on the agenda of the local government.

Liz will ensure that consolidation results in the tax savings that we expect and the elimination of much of the red tape that frustrates each and every one of us. She takes her constituents’ concerns to heart and will strive to preserve the character of our neighborhoods and the vitality of our downtown. The bottom line is that Liz is the right person at the right time.

In a few short weeks, Princeton takes the next step in the consolidation journey. Join me in voting for the best possible candidate to lead us, Liz Lempert.

Matt Wasserman

Meadowbrook Drive

On behalf of the students, faculty, staff, and parents of The Bridge Academy I would like to thank the Princeton, Lawrenceville, and Hopewell community businesses that supported our recent fundraiser, “Reach for the Stars.” I would also like to thank Willis Greenhouse for the beautiful centerpieces they provided.

The evening was a fabulous success! As a school for language-based learning disabilities (like dyslexia) and the only school in New Jersey that is Orton-Gillingham accredited, it is extremely important for us to provide a multi-sensory approach to learning. Our annual fundraiser helps support the hands-on learning opportunities for our students that enrich their educational experience.

While fundraising was an important part of the evening, the student testimonials about how important Bridge has been to their success in school formed the highlight. As one of our students said, “opportunities are found every day at The Bridge: to go to college, to have a job, to grow a family, to bridge forward. Who said a dyslexic was not normal?”

Thank you to all the local businesses that help our students bridge the gap between potential and performance.

Kim Bruno

Development Coordinator

The Bridge Academy, Lawrenceville

Recently, in an article about the Princeton Half-Marathon, from which HiTOPS, an adolescent health organization, will benefit, Princeton Borough Mayor, Yina Moore, was quoted as saying, “If any of you have kids, you know how valuable HiTOPS is.” We are mothers of children who attend public schools in Princeton and we think it is wrong to assume or imply that all parents agree with HiTOPS’s approach to adolescent health. First, it is important to recognize that Princeton is a diverse community. Second, it is important to understand that there is no sex education program that is morally neutral.

In their 900-page teaching manual, HiTOPS promotes teen condom use as well as “alternative” sexual practices sometimes referred to as “outercourse” (sexually intimate activity short of intercourse). HiTOPS also teaches teens that consensual, “protected” teenage sexual activity is commonplace, healthy, and unproblematic. Furthermore, HiTOPS puts emphasis on normalizing alternative sexual lifestyles and practices while reducing sexuality to questions of individual, private satisfaction, and self-protection. Whatever your particular views about these teachings, one cannot honestly claim that they are morally neutral.

Our own views regarding sexual ethics and the meaning of human sexuality are diametrically opposed to those advanced by HiTOPS. We believe that it is important to teach teens that sexual longings are an essential part of living a virtuous life and have a place in the service of something higher — for example, to love another faithfully, rear and provide for children and participate knowledgeably and loyally in the political order which protects the family.

People who share the views of HiTOPS have as much right to their views as we have to ours, but they have no right to a monopoly in the public schools. The unjust monopoly status HiTOPS currently enjoys, and comments like Mayor Yina Moore’s, tend toward an assumption of homogeneity and conformism, which may lead to the suppression of individuality and diversity. Recognition of a true or fundamental diversity is not merely recognition and toleration of those good-willed persons who have different views than we do, but a respect for them even when we strongly disagree with them. We would not ask for or expect our view to be given a monopoly in the schools, but we do object to a view contrary to our own being given a monopoly. Students should be given a serious opportunity to engage the main competing views about sexuality and sexual morality.

Teaching the conflicts is one of the bedrocks of a good public school education system. Once we assume that something is intellectually settled or even sacrosanct, we often marginalize, malign, or render mute the voices of others. We should remind ourselves and teach our teens that sometimes it is necessary to consider other voices and to rethink our own assumptions if we wish to get closer to the truth and make an adequate defense before our own intellectual and moral consciences.

Wai Far Bazar,

Greenbrier Row

Aileen Collins

Guyot Avenue

Sarah Schemmann

Erdman Avenue

Lynn Irving

Longview Drive

I heartily applaud “Not in Our Town” for their stand against racial discrimination (Town Topics May 2, 2012). In the future the group may wish to take a stand against other forms of discrimination prevalent in Princeton. Individuals who are fiscally prudent, pro-Israel, evangelical Christians, or Republicans routinely suffer from overt harassment and discrimination.

Beverly T. Elston

Quarry Street

I am writing to thank everyone who made the fifth Princeton Special Needs Prom such a success.

Since 2008, the Princeton Recreation Department and Princeton Special Sports have partnered to host monthly dances, culminating in our Prom, for the teenaged and young adult members of our special needs community. Through these dances and other events, our neighbors with special needs have had multiple opportunities to socialize with existing friends, and make new ones, in a comfortable environment.

We could not do it without a long list of very special people.

First and foremost, thank you to Ben Stentz and all of the staff at the Recreation Department for their unwavering support of special needs programming. Joe Marrolli, the new program supervisor, is an invaluable addition to our team. Special thanks to Joe Scullion, the Recreation Department’s maintenance foreman, who solved the inevitable last minute emergency by creating replacement lighting out of discarded equipment in under 24 hours. You saved the evening, Joe.

Thank you to Jaime Escarpeta, our talented photographer who once again donated his time and provided every participant with a professional formal photograph right on site. Thank you, too, to McCaffrey’s for supplying an elegant and delicious dinner. And of course, Prom wouldn’t be Prom without our terrific DJ, Drew Zimmerman.

Thank you also to our adult volunteers who helped set up, run, and clean after the prom: Katerina Bubnovsky, Ann Diver, Radha Iyer, Sethu Iyer, Joe Marrolli, Jackie Mckelvie, Erroll Mckelvie, Hana Oresky, Evelyn Rutledge, Angela Siso, Ben Stentz, Trudy Sugiura, and Yasuo Sugiura.

We are especially grateful for our student volunteers: Emma Crain, Catherine Curran-Groome, Charlie Doran, Tom Doran, Rhea Kulkani, Alexus McKelvie, Milosh Popovic, Leah Roemer, Jack Ruddy, Severine Stier, Adam Straus-Goldfarb, Sarah Trigg, and Sydney Watts.

Thank you to Dick Nosker, Joanne Rogers, and Tom Zucoski of the Joint Recreation Board; to Kevin Wilkes from Borough Council; and to Evan Moorhead and Stacie Ryan of the recreation department, for coming. It meant a lot to our community.

And finally, thank you to my fellow trustees, still and always the most dedicated group of volunteers I know: Carmine Conti, Ann Diver, Hana Oresky, John Pecora, John Rutledge, and Barb Young.

The next and last dance of this school year is our outdoor dance and BBQ at the new Community Park Pool complex on June 1. For more information, go to www.princetonrecreation.com or www.princetonspecialsports.com.

Deborah Martin Norcross

Princeton Special Sports

I am writing to thank Borough Councilwoman Heather Howard for assisting the community on the eastern end of Princeton, which recently experienced a series of burglaries. Councilwoman Howard organized a community meeting, attended by more than 60 concerned residents, to hear from Police Chief Dudeck and his officers about the investigation, and to discuss steps we can take to protect our families and our homes. She has since followed up to help us access different services available to secure our homes, including home security audits and vacant house checks. I wish to thank Councilwoman Howard for her hard work and attention to our neighborhood concerns. She is approachable, articulate, and quick to respond to the needs of our neighborhood.

Phyllis Wright

Murray Place

Princeton Hospital (Princeton HealthCare System, PHCS) must honor and fulfill its commitments to Princeton and the Witherspoon neighborhood, which it leaves behind next week.

So far it has not done so. Hospital representatives, including Barry Rabner (now CEO of PHCS), participated in two years of discussion with the Witherspoon community and the municipal Task Force — and arrived at a consensus for a “unique opportunity” to recreate the vacated acreage: 280 apartments in exchange for specific design standards, a large public plaza (like Hinds), public passage “crossing the site,” and development in physical scale with the neighborhood.

PHCS has unaccountably selected a buyer, AvalonBay (AB), which has so far refused to acknowledge the 2006 Master Plan and Borough Code Design Standards in which that consensus was embodied. True, the AvalonBay monolith (two squares side-by-side, uniformly five stories high) is permitted by “Bulk Regulations” in the Borough Code. But did PHCS perform due diligence in selecting a buyer who would agree to honor the hospital’s commitment to neighborhood revitalization? Why not?

The selling price for the property, reputed to be $36 million, was only $4 million higher than another bid from a qualified, distinguished developer who takes pride in customized architecture that fits the environment. For $4 million less, PHCS could have had good design and maintained its good faith agreements with Princeton. No one tosses off $4 million. But that $4 million is less than one percent of the hospital’s total costs for moving to Plainsboro and building a new facility ($537 million, as reported in Town Topics). For less than one percent, PHCS could have given Princeton what they agreed to foster: a socially smart and architecturally sensitive neighborhood building, not the “gated community,” explicitly prohibited in the Master Plan, that we are in great danger of getting.

It is time for PHCS, at the highest levels of administration, to step forward and inform AvalonBay of commitments that must be observed. Yes, Princeton values the hospital that has served our community since 1919, and we applaud the effort expended in creating the new health campus. But not at any price shall we value PHCS any longer if it does not actively push AvalonBay to propose excellent, not mediocre, designs that serve the neighborhood. Greater Princeton contributed over $100 million to the new hospital site: so far, in return, we have been abandoned.

Last week an overnight letter was sent to Mr. Rabner and all 35 PHCS trustees, from Princeton Citizens for Sustainable Neighborhoods. The letter expresses a sense of real betrayal because the hospital is selling its buildings to a conventional developer apparently lacking capabilities to customize development to specific needs.

Online, all Princeton residents are invited to sign a petition requesting PHCS to intervene: go to www.change.org and type in (beside “Browse Petitions,” at top) “To the University Medical Center at Princeton.”

Princeton is special, the Witherspoon area is vital to Princeton, the Master Plan is specific in its guidelines for rebuilding. The hospital has no excuse. We are disbelieving and angry.

Jane Buttars

Dodds Lane

To the Editor:

The hospital (the University Medical Center) has an important moral responsibility to the Princeton community. Unfortunately, the hospital is not living up to it.

The hospital’s moral responsibility dates to 2004-06, when the hospital, Princeton Borough, and the neighborhood surrounding the hospital’s Witherspoon Street site had lengthy negotiations about what could be built on the site when the hospital vacated it. The goal was to make the site attractive to potential buyers so that the hospital could get a good price for it, while still safeguarding the neighborhood. The neighborhood and the Borough made great concessions — among them, much higher density than any other site in Princeton, and the retention of two seven-story buildings. The hospital agreed, among other things, to include a public park, walkways crossing the site, and mixed retail and office use.

Unfortunately, the Borough did not codify these agreements in a way that is legally enforceable. Perhaps Borough officials didn’t think this was necessary, since they were dealing in good faith with the hospital — a fine, honorable institution.

But now the hospital has tentatively decided to sell the site to AvalonBay, which has shown total disregard for the agreements. Indeed, AvalonBay’s previous developments demonstrate that it is probably incapable of building the kind of development envisioned in the agreements.

Why did the hospital choose AvalonBay? We can only guess. Perhaps it forgot about its agreements and simply chose the highest bidder. AvalonBay reportedly bid $36 million. A very reputable builder who would most likely adhere to the agreements bid $32 million. The $4 million difference may sound large, but in fact it is less than 1 percent of the $527 million that the new hospital will cost.

Barry Rabner (the hospital’s CEO) and the hospital’s trustees need to demonstrate to the Princeton community that of course they recognize the hospital’s moral responsibility and will adhere to the agreements, whatever the legal situation. They should withdraw their tentative acceptance of AvalonBay’s bid. They should sell instead to a buyer who will support them in living up to their moral responsibility to Princeton. And they should work with the new buyer, as it goes through the approval process, to make certain that all of their agreements with the Borough and the neighborhood are kept.

Phyllis Teitelbaum

Hawthorne Avenue