PRINCETON -- Voters in Princeton Borough and Princeton Township approved today a consolidation of the two towns into a single municipality to be known as Princeton.

The hotly-debated municipal merger had been closely watched statewide by advocates for taking the concept of shared services a step further through consolidation.

The referendum passed by a landslide in the township with 3,542 in favor and 604 against. In the borough, 1,385 voted for consolidation and 802 voted against.

Voters interviewed after exiting the polls in both Princeton municipalities earlier today leaned strongly in favor of consolidating the towns.

“It’s a division that I don’t see why it needs to be there at all,” said Alejandro Vanzandt, a Princeton University student who voted in the borough.

His opinion was echoed by several others leaving the polling center at Trinity Church on Mercer Street, all of whom said they had voted in favor of consolidation but asked not to be named in this article.

“We have redundancy in government,” said borough resident Cole Crittenden, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students at Princeton University, explaining why he had cast his vote in support of the merger.

“Trying to work with two governments causes a lot of confusion for the university and the students,” he continued. “For instance, the two towns’ police departments have different policies for dealing with the students.”

This is the fifth time residents of both Princetons have been presented with the question of consolidation at the ballot. If approved by a majority in both municipalities, the merger will be the first in 14 years for New Jersey, since Pahaquarry’s seven residents merged into adjacent Hardwick Township in Warren County in 1997.

According to those on the pro-consolidation side, a merged municipality holds the potential to rake in annual savings of at least $3.2 million, including nearly a million dollar reduction in municipal garbage collection, due to a scaled-down, singular government.

A report issued by the Joint Consolidation/Shared Services Study Commission – a group of local politicians and professionals tasked to hash out the issues of a consolidating the towns – states that borough residents would save an estimated $201 per household and township residents $240 per household from property tax reductions alone if the merge were to go through. Residents would also see an additional $200-300 in savings from streamlining county taxes, school taxes, open space taxes and other expenses, the report says.



Those opposed to the merger have widely questioned these figures, arguing that they rely heavily on the layoffs of up to 15 government workers, including nine police officers.

They have also questioned the $1.6 million the commission says it will cost to complete the merger, arguing that the process would take untold hours to sort out, resulting in high legal fees and overtime payments, and that all of the commission's figures are hypothetical and could still suffer if the newly combined government do not act on certain measures.



Consolidation opponents have also spoken of preserving the area's "boroughness," the downtown-centric, smaller-homed, bicycle-friendly way of life many borough residents identify with. Numerous consolidation opponents have voiced fears of losing that unique voice in subsequential elections should the towns combine, due to a two-to-one township-to-borough resident ratio.

Opponents have also said that the borough has more to lose in a potential merge, in terms of sharing tax ratables with the more residential township, however borough mayor Mildred Trotman shot that idea down in a recent meeting, claiming that the effect on merging ratables would be a neutral one for the borough.

Previous coverage:

• Editorial: Princeton consolidation would benefit borough and township residents

• Voters to decide whether to merge two Princetons into one

• Princeton Township and Borough hold final meeting on proposed consolidation

• Gov. Chris Christie proposes incentive for N.J. municipalities mulling consolidation

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