How much more proof do we need that the Cranbury Press is anti-Cranbury?

[Guest]

[Cranbury Conservative]

Once again Hank Kalet is using to his advantage one of the great things about this country, and that is his freedom of speech. I certainly do not agree with what he said today in his editorial, however I do respect his right to his point of view.

Of course along with every action there is a reaction. A possible reaction to the actions of Mr. Kalet could be to choose to cancel our subscriptions to the Cranbury Press. Yes that may make some impact, however in the end it will not be enough.

We could instead take a different approach. That approach would be to contact the advertisers in the Cranbury Press and let them know our displeasure with Hank Kalet and that we were not going to spend our money with them any more.

My guess is that would send a signal.

For instance I noticed Patio World has a nice size add on page 2A of the Cranbury Press today. They are located over in Lawrenceville on Rt 1 south and can be reached via phone at 609-951-8585. I wonder how they would feel if residents of the“rich town” of Cranbury as Hank put it contacted them and let them know they would no longer be shopping there unless they stop advertising in the Cranbury Press?

Or how about Rider Furniture who also has a nice add on Page 2A today in the Cranbury Press. They are located over on Route 27 in Kingston and can be reached at 609-924-0147. Possibly they would be interested to hear that Cranbury residents, “who have been buying their way out of providing housing by paying poorer communities to build a portion of our obligation” as Mr. Kalet said will no longer be shopping there until they stop advertising in the Cranbury Press?

Those are just two examples of the many advertisers both you and I can contact to let them know our displeasure with Mr. Hank Kalat of the Cranbury Press.

As I said earlier, one of the great things about this country is freedom of speech. So let’s see how Hank Kalet likes it when we use our freedom to let his advertisers know we won’t be purchasing their goods and services until a change is made at the Cranbury Press!

[Guest]

"The idea is to move them out to growing new communities and spread the problem around. However, this is making more suburbs become instant urban areas."

If this is their goal, then I think the logic is flawed. Those people who got stuck there are likely to have difficulties finding jobs in the new communities and will not be able to afford to commute from the new communities to their current job locations.

Those with marketable skills were likely to be out long time ago.

[Cranbury Liberal]

I agree with Cranbury Conservative on this. This isn't about free speech. Hank is welcome to his opinions. He's got his blog for that. And if he things his opinion supporting A-500 is so good, let him submit it to a more appropriate outlet like the Trenton Times or the Star Ledger. If they agree, they will publish it. But he is abusing his position to continuously use our small town paper as his personal forum for opinions that usually have nothing to do with Cranbury and when they do are consistently are counter to the interests or perspective of our Township. And in so doing he repeatedly misses opportunities to say anything at all specific about Cranbury. So he goes on about how small towns in New Jersey are bad but never once mentions that Cranbury is a model example of shared services and therefore is a counter example. Now he calls us a rich town buying our way out of our housing obligation and completely ignores the chance to discuss our program of self-financing and building affordable housing that is so nice and well integrated into our residential areas that most people don't even know it was affordable housing. He really seems to have personal contempt, or at least utter indifference, to Cranbury itself.

I do think we need to take our case straight to advertisers and the publishers or owners of the Princeton Packet parent company of the Cranbury Press. We should organize a petition to the latter and if anyone is willing to collect contact info here of avertisers I am willing to hopefully join others in calling, emailing or sending letters to them.

[Stephen]

I was a journalism major long ago. One of the reasons I opted not to go into journalism is that I saw there was lack of balance in reporting or concern about the individuals impacted by the stories people wrote.

I went to a major university and we had lecturers from the WSJ, Financial Times, NY Times and Washington Post. All of the editors who spoke talked about the joy of your name in print and how even in news articles you have the means to change opinion. One editor spoke of a family fire and the potential that it was related to a threat the family had received during a trial at which the father (a polic officer) was testifying. That editor spoke proudly of finding where that family had moved and reporting it in the paper. Claiming he bettered his competition and delivered a needed service. To me that was irresponsible and the point when I realized journalism at that time (20 plus years ago) was not based on concern or independence. It has gotten worse today where even at the local level editors have the ego to dictate their opinions rather than understand their obligation to the readers or to their own paper. You have Fox for the Right and CNN & MSNBC for the left. Local news is really no better. The local papers Star Ledger and Times are left leaning on editorials, but do try to balance Op-Ed.

What I also find interesting is that the major papers (i.e. Washington Post and NY Times) write editorials all the time about their area or state. They do seem to write the editorial from the view of what is best for their readers. I rarely see editorials that contradict that positon or put the state or city residents in a tough position.

The Cranbury Press has now forced Cranbury readers into a decision because of their policies and staff.

We can boycott the paper and advertisers. We lose some local news, but we can get it free on the Web if there is a story we really want to read. The Press is still a money maker, but they need readers. They will make in house changes before they kill the paper.

-or-

We can continue to be forced to purchase a paper run by a staff that wants to be bigger than a small town paper. A staff that's views go against the town. A staff that really takes no interest in Cranbury continuing as it has for centuries. A staff that likely will be like the other Press staffs and go away in a matter of a few years anyway.

Just an FYI, his blog states he lives in South Brunswick. If Cranbury were forced into COAH and into consolidation then South Brunswick is one of the rumored towns in which Cranbury would merge. That is a fact and has been reported several times in the past. I wonder if Mr. Kalet's end game is to get Cranbury to consolidate and that he's using his means at the paper in the best manner he can. I am not saying this is the case, but being a skeptic I can see the correlation. You don't write in a local paper about the negative aspects of the town unless you are hoping to achieve some goal.

[Stephen]

By the way the person in charge at the Packet is:

James B. Kilgore
President & Publisher
Packet Publications
300 Witherspoon Street, P.O. Box 350
Princeton, New Jersey 08542
Phone: 609-924-3244

I suggest we write or call him and also send their advertisers letters and cc him. If he sees a number of people writing to his revenue base he'll become very concerned.

[HistoricallyFiscal]

I'm not sure how relevant the Cranbury Press is anymore as a representative of
our Cranbury community. Hank the editor of the Press doesn't live in Cranbury but its mainly his support of current COAH rules that will destroy our Historic Cranbury that has me canceling my subscription. He is pro COAH without the intelligence to articulate how it affects a well planned community like Cranbury who has implemented smart growth for both preservation and affordable housing in balance. Shame on you Hank for pretending to be a voice for our Cranbury community, and editorializing your opinions that opposes the well being of our future existence. It is the superficial understanding and promotion of the current COAH rules that will destroy historic NJ treasures like Cranbury and other historic towns in NJ (Clinton, Washington, etc.)

But that's not the main reason I canceled my subscription, Hank has totally missed all opportunities to highlight how Cranbury has implement a 20% ratio of affordable housing to meet our obligation and almost no other NJ townships have equaled our track record. Cranbury is not a town of elitists as he alludes to, we are pragmatists and have planed well for over 50 year for smart growth. Tell me HANK, what other NJ cities or towns have the same ratio of affordable housing/residential was implemented as Cranbury has? Does the neighborhood you currently live in have at least a 20% ratio like Cranbury? Will you be fighting and publishing articles to promote a 50% ratio in your own neighborhood in New Brunswick, like you are supporting for Cranbury?

If there was any other way I can make my point more strongly on how your paper is hurting the future of Cranbury I would make it!!! Well maybe there is.

Maybe as a community, we can all make our point more strongly by calling the Advertisers, but in my industry when old media becomes irrelevant, new media overtakes. If we really want to make a point to the Cranbury Press as a Cranbury community of our disagreement, we can start our own online web publication that really expresses the true voice of Cranbury. and puts the CP out of publication.

Should we call for an all out ad boycott and cancellation of the Cranbury
Press? As a community, we can either improve the Cranbury Forum or start a new
Cranbury Community Portal and I know we can do it. I (and others) would
surely donate our time to make it possible for the Cranbury community to have
an online publication that makes the Press irrelevant. In this day and age of
email, newsletters, web and iphone/ipod/phone we can create a site that truely
educates all residence about the events and issues about Cranberians. Maybe
its time to start a self-publishing web site for the Cranbury community that
makes the CP irrelevant. Let's transform the Cranbury forum into something
better. I love the fact that this forum is a 2 way communication, instead of
the one way that the Press editorials promote. Maybe its time for a change in
Cranbury news, without paper - all online - community driven -and
representative. I for one will keep reading and posting on this forum.

[Cranbury Conservative]

Well put Historically Fiscal. The more I think about the points you were making the more I realized how important this forum is and how it is changing the way news and events are communicated in Cranbury. We need to continue to tell everyone about cranbury.info

Further I believe personal blogs are a good way to communicate local news and events. I have been trying to do that over the last month and one half or so, on my blog which is located at http://cranburyconservative.blogspot.com . In fact I added today my 2 cents regarding the Cranbury Press.

On another note I personally have noticed a trend in which the Cranbury press is in my opinion trying to keep up with this board. This is in my opinion a good thing for us here in Cranbury. If you look at the press over the last few weeks the articles are mirroring what we are speaking about here on the board first. Of course the views do not mirror our point of view; they are Hank’s views and not Cranbury’s

One good but minor example is gas prices. We were all speaking about the local gas prices in the area on this board and then suddenly the Press has an article this week about local gas prices.

In the end we are making an impact here on this board, we can also continue to do so and make Hank and the Press even more irrelevant then it already is in Cranbury.

[Jeff M.]

Here is an interesting blurb from Hank Kalet's own blog. In last Friday's post he cited Cranbury as a rich town and applauded the decision by the legislatures to go forward.

However, on March 19, he posted an article on his blog COAH Blues Spreading. http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2008/03/coah-blues-spreading.html

Interesting that when South Brunswick, his town raises the issue, he is for a modification of the COAH rules.

"South Brunswick weighed in this morning on the new COAH rules -- see story tomorrow in the Post -- saying that the numbers are inflated and would impose hardship on the township. While the numbers are not as extreme as what Cranbury says its facing, they remain shockingly high."

"South Brunswick is suggesting that warehouse rules be changed from 1.5 jobs per 1,000 square feet with one affordable unit being required for every 16 jobs to a rate of .40 jobs per 1,000 square feet and one unit per 25 jobs. The town also wants the new rules to start in 2008, rather than having them be retroactive to 2004 -- a requirement that Cranbury says would force the township to build nearly 500 units."

and

"As Mr. Camarota, officials in Cranbury and the state League of Municipalties point out, this would put the burden on taxpayers because towns could not charge developers to cover the cost of the new units, as they could for new development proposals.

The township's proposal is interesting one that essentially could knock about a quarter to a third off the latest numbers. More analysis is needed, but perhaps it is the kind of proposal that COAH can work from as it attempts to sort out this mess."


So which is it, should the COAH rules be amended or should it be passed as is? Or is it a party line stance that the Press is taking on the issue. Or perhaps the editorial is not written by the editor of the press which makes one really question what is going on with the paper.

[Jeff M.]

In fairness, I also forgot to mention that in his blog on Friday he applauded Cranbury's hiring a consultant and felt this was a good idea to argue the warehouse numbers. I think his press view may be different than his personal view or as I said earlier that he actually did not write the editorial. That may actually be the case as he has his own editorial on the page. So perhaps some blame is being unfairly assigned to Mr. Kalet when it is actually the press itself that is the issue.

[Guest]

FYI - The Princeton Packet carried exactly the same editorial, so you may be correct about the author being someone other than Kalet

[Cranbury Conservative]

We know Hank reads the board. Possibly he could give us more insite?

[Guest]

[toenailcake]

newspapers?
Who needs those anymore?
blogs are where it's at!
You have a website...you have people...have people write stories about concerns for the town!
DOH!
It's NOT that hard. An impartial person/people need to moderate it, but whats wrong with the free exchange of ideas? Papers are going the way of the dodo.
Anyone with a brain could do it.

[CranburyNJ.info]

Any citizen in Cranbury that wants to start a BLOG can do so a for free at either
http://www.CranburyNJ.info (on your MyPage you have a free blog)
or
http://www.blogger.com

[Cranbury Conservative]

great