Council President To Be Named Soon; Officials Review Rules
Mayor-elect Liz Lempert and members of the new Princeton Council met on Friday morning in a closed session to discuss, Ms. Lempert said, “personnel matters.” Selecting a president for the governing body was presumably among the items on the agenda, though no final decision has been announced.
Ms. Lempert also reported that a “training meeting” was scheduled to take place this week. Transition Task Force attorney Bill Kearns would be present, she said, to “make sure everybody knows what all the details are in a borough form of government.”
Council members include current Township Committee members Bernie Miller and Lance Liverman; current Borough Council members Heather Howard, Jo Butler and Jenny Crumiller; and newcomer Patrick Simon, who has not held office before, but served on the Princeton Joint Consolidation and Shared Services Study Commission; and the Information and Technology, and Finance Subcommittees of the Transition Task Force. Ms. Lempert is a Township resident. All seven are Democrats.
Speculation about who the Council president will be has included Mr. Miller, perhaps the most seasoned member of the newly created Council, and Ms. Howard. There has also been some suggestion that the president should be someone from Borough Council who has had experience with that form of government.
The new Princeton municipality will consist of a council governing body of six representatives and a mayor, all of whom are elected at-large. The mayor will serve a term of four years while the council members will be elected for three year terms. The mayor will not vote, but will preside over the body and break tie votes.
Because the mayor and Council have not officially assumed their respective offices, no voting can occur at any of these meetings.
In the new year, the new mayor, with the consent of Council, will be selecting members to serve on the municipality’s successor Boards, Committees, and Commissions (BCCs), with the highest priority placed on those BCCs governed by state law. In the meantime, the Transition Task Force’s Committees and Commissions Subcommittee has asked those interested in being on a committee to use the volunteer form available online at the Borough and Township websites, or to mail print copies that can be obtained at the Princeton Public Library or municipal clerks’ offices.
The next meeting of the mayor-elect and Council open to the public will be on Wednesday, December 12, at 5 p.m. in the main meeting room of Township Hall. Another open meeting will follow, in the same place, on Thursday, December 20, at 7 p.m.