Home rule is about Princeton’s future

We have significant infrastructure problems with our sanitary and storm sewers, streets, curbs, gutters and sidewalks. These concerns will prove to be a significant expense. The concern I have is how will any of it be paid for?

As a non-home rule community, we have two ways to pay for infrastructure projects; additional utility rate and fee (tax) increases or property tax increases. My family’s utility bill is higher than it has ever been, yet we have a needed electric rate increase coming this summer and another again next year. Also, this fall we have a water rate increase and a water fee (tax) increase. If we have a sanitary sewer line collapse in the not too distant future, which is a real possibility, our utility bills will likely escalate significantly more to pay for its repair. Any increase will affect every resident, but none more so than our seniors, many of whom live on fixed incomes. Home rule provides a solution.

Interstate-80 traffic is a great asset to Princeton, but it contributes to our infrastructure problems. Traffic from I-80 travels on our streets; visitors use our water and utilize other infrastructure. Visitors contribute to our infrastructure decay, and residents subsidize their use entirely on their own. If we remain a non-home rule community, nothing changes ... future infrastructure projects will be paid solely by the resident. Home rule changes this by allowing us to diversify our tax base beyond the geographical boundaries of the city by including the I-80 traffic that utilizes our exits.

Used properly, home rule will allow us to address infrastructure problems without having to raise revenue through our utilities and without having to increase property taxes. Home rule, used responsibly, will provide Princeton residents with tax relief, and it can do so in a number of ways. Without home rule, tax relief is not possible and demands on the resident will only increase.

I introduced home rule as a solution to future concerns. It’s a good solution. I’ve asked for other solutions, other ideas, but I’ve not heard any. I support reductions in wasteful spending, and I’m all for living within our means, but our decaying infrastructure doesn’t care about this; it has its own time schedule. Reducing spending and living within our means, which I support, won’t provide the level of revenue needed to repair a sewer collapse or any other infrastructure problem. We can continue on as a non-home rule community, and that’s OK because the voters will have spoken, or we can make a change — a change for the better, for the benefit of the resident, for the future of Princeton.