West Windsor NJ
6-30-2022 2:51am

West Windsor Planning Board Voted to Industrialize a Once Ideal Hometown - opinion

Where to begin? How about the end. The 6-2 vote to approve the BP8 application will put an end to the West Windsor that was, until now, known for being one of the most desirable places to live in NJ. It will become a toxic, dirty, loud, dangerous industrial zone that will drag  down property values and drive an exodus. Stay and possibly get COPD or liver cancer, or go find clean air to breathe. Some folks are seriously planning to put their homes up for sale before the plummet. 

I don't know what was more embarrassing...  the pointless conditions to attempt to keep the trucks off of Clarksville Rd, knowing full well that it is a county road over which they have no jurisdiction... or the silence over how to figure out sewage in and around wetlands. They passed those conditions despite the lack of a plan. The plan is to kick the can down the road and let other professionals handle it, pros that should have been consulted preemptively, not concurrent with voting on it. Perhaps it was more embarrassing how they could not articulate the reason for filters on diesel trucks, unable to name the "particulates" needing to be filtered from the exhaust. The applicant did not bother to do a complete environmental impact study, so they'll kick that down the road too. That gaping void didn't stop them from giving it all the go ahead. My criticism is not to fall on Allen Schectel or Simon Pankove. They were the only two to vote with the will of the people. Allen read his thoughts on the project, which were aligned with those of the residents. 

I think I was most embarrassed for them when they spent way too much time trying to phrase the simple concept of restricting bulk-storage of hazardous materials, that which might warrant a warning label. They blundered on about how, well,  white-out is hazardous! Everything is hazardous in some way. Supposed intellectuals in suits chimed in with equal stupidity. You can't make this stuff up. You gotta see it for yourself. White-out or paint or cleansers were not on Andrea Mandel's mind, which was on the right track, just without the words. After a few minutes, they finally came up with the words, not nearly as succinct as the way I just phrased it. They had equal trouble debating what to do over contaminated rubble from all of the clearing that has been done. Not sure what they'll do with it. To bury it or not to bury it, under a building or haul it away...  No plan to test any of it. American Cyanamid did some infamously nasty stuff on site and contamination abounded. While the site was mitigated, what about the buildings that are currently being turned to rubble? No plan to test the rubble, and no idea what they would even test it for... Someone in the audience had to call out, "for chemicals!" ...unable to stand the struggle any more. How about lead? I know they're volunteers, but they really missed the boat on calling in experts to make this easier on them. 

The takeaway from the residents was, "These people are unqualified and out of their league to be handling this mammoth decision on behalf of us!" They didn't know well enough to call in the experts, and plan to burden tax payers with the cost of doing so as an afterthought. When they decided to hire experts for follow up with site testing for noise levels (another neglected study) or toxicity, folks called out, "Who's going to pay for it?" The answer was that if we don't pay for it, what could we get? How about, don't make such a death sentence for the town and we won't pay so dearly! With our health, safety and even our lives. 

The fight continues. The residents will not give up their home to greed. Part of that fight is a recall of those that do not serve the people of West Windsor. Stay tuned. 

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6-30-2022 8:12pm

These warehouses are part of the infrastructure of the 1% of the US population that owns 50% of the wealth. Such wealth inequality has accelerated in recent decades starting around the time of Sam Walton, when he found ways to exploit the capitalistic features of our economy to ingratiate himself beyond human reason. He and his company Walmart and family rapidly accelerated the loss of US jobs to overseas factories, and the US government did nothing about it. As wealth inequality accelerated, Jeff Bezos then found ways to put retailers out of business in order to satisfy his greed, and again government did nothing about it.

More Capitalistic Monsters came into the scene, and they grab the cream of US society in the form of tens and hundreds of billions of dollars, and claim it for themselves.

So these warehouses are the latest outcome in that transfer of wealth on conveyor belts of money upwards. The volumes of these warehouses were once the volumes inside tens of thousands of retail stores that Amazon and other big box stores put out of business. From retail stores to warehouses. Is this the progress we want?

Now in our own struggle in West Windsor, we again see collusion between corporations and government. The applicant, Bridge Point, submitted a deeply flawed application, and instead of Town Council rejecting it on many valid grounds and telling Applicant to do its homework, the Council took it upon itself to do the Applicants homework, figuring out what the Applicant needed to put in the application in order to have the plan approved. You see, for the Applicant to do its homework, it would have to know intimate details of the West Windsor community. But when you have Town Council working at your behest, you don't have to know or care anything about the community. Most all the talk by the committee at yesterday's 4-hour meeting was directed at making the development plan acceptable for the council's "Yes" vote. They effectively told Bridge, "Here, do this, and we'll vote "Yes."

That means the Council acted as a lawyer advocate for Applicant, not as an advocate for the people who elect and pay them. It was one of the most disgusting collusions between government and corporation, at the expense of the people. That process is called Fascism. 

Thus, in the last three decades or so, we've been having both federal and state governments act in collusion with corporations, who package the wealth of cities and communities, sell it, put the money in their pockets, then go and gnaw on some other community, and the people left behind must suffer the consequences to health, ecosystems, quality of life, safety, air, water, and much more.

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7-10-2022 7:42pm

Spot on! I must correct the record in that it was the Planning Board that voted for this heinous atrocity. Back in Dec 2020, the Planning Board voted in a room with 5 board members and no interactive public access, to add warehouses to the ordinance, while everyone in town was on lock down and unaware. The Town Council then voted to approve the change. The planning board and council were both guilty of allowing this to happen to us. On June 29th, it was the planning board that voted yes to the application. Thank you for your brilliant post! Join the fight - we CAN win!

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