Any news about the special TC meeting?

[Guest]

Anyone? Thanks.

[James]

I missed it as I had another meeting last night. Two people I know went and both left before public comment because it seemded to be dragging out and was getting late.

[wcody]

There was a good crowd of residents who attended the meeting, about 30. The township committee initially went into closed session for the police chief interview. I was very glad to see that they did not continue in closed meeting to discuss the PNC Bank purchase. The committee then allowed the public to make comments on the potential purchase.

There was mix of responses and questions from the community. The responders were split between those that wanted to acquire the property and others concerned with expenses to acquire and maintain the property. The people that wanted to acquire the property had varied reasons, some were for a stand-alone library, some were concerned about the parking and some had an interesting idea that we should buy it then lease the building to businesses that would be beneficial to Cranbury while retaining the parking.

Some brought up good points on how the property could impact the viability of downtown. There has been a recent success in bringing new businesses and people downtown. If the goal is to continue bring in outside people downtown, a library may not be a great magnet. It would not bring down more people than the amount of residents that go there anyway. A good commercial property could attract more people downtown. It was pointed out that the current library does not get a lot of patrons in the evening. Others thought it would be focal point for people to gather downtown and would attract people.

Some stated that it is important to act now before we lose the property. The opportunity to acquire property is here now and we may regret the decision if someone buys the property and puts something downtown that would not be great for the town.

The issue of retaining the parking was raised by many people. The PNC lot is now partially available for downtown parking. Depending on who buys the property, that parking could be lost. Others pointed out that parking is not an issue and if it becomes an issue, there are other options in town.

I brought up that we needed to have a plan with all costs to acquire and maintain the property delineated that give an impact to taxpayers before a decision can be made. If the direction is going to be a library, we should outline what needs are not being met by the current library and what would be improved with a free standing library. I am concerned with the idea we should first acquire the property then decide what to do with it. I also brought up the issue with small town consolidation and shared services if we made it a new library. It will not look good to the powers in Trenton who are looking for towns like Cranbury to consolidate. It would be an example of duplicative spending when we already have a library that works and there is a brand new library being built a few miles away in Plainsboro that we can use.

I was very glad to hear the Mayor and township committee who were clear that action would not be taken until there was proper community input. This was just preliminary discussion since the opportunity just arose. The committee scheduled a meeting on May 12 to be an open forum for the community on the topic. More information regarding the deal will be gathered prior to the meeting and it would give residents time to talk among themselves beforehand.

I hope I did justice to all the good comments from the residents with this summary. The Cranbury Press was there as well and I assume we will see an article this week.

Win Cody

[Guest]

Thanks Win.

So the TC will discuss this mater during the May 12 meeting. If the building is sold before May 12, then I guess there will be no point discussing it.