Time to Act is NOW on the Valley Road School

Dear Editor

The time for the Princeton Regional School Board and the Township Committee to turn ownership of the Valley Road School over to the non-profit Valley Road School Community Center Inc. (VRSCCI) is today - not tomorrow, not next year – but now.

The basic structure of the old Valley Road Building is sound but there is a new leak in the roof that is getting exponentially worse. The Township was kind enough to fix the boiler so that Community TV 30 can have heat and the School Board recently passed a resolution to allow TV 30 to stay in the building until Jan. 2013. TV 30 and the VRSCCI appreciate what the School Board and Township Committee have done to date but it appears that neither body is ready to either fix the roof or let the VRSCCI take over the building and convert it into a community center at no cost to the town. Princeton has a history of converting schools like the Nassau Street School and the Quarry Street School into useful modern buildings. Other towns, like Somerset, have converted schools into community centers. The VRSCCI has a sizable list of local non-profits who are ready, willing and able to move into the Valley Road School and pay a reasonable rent if the building is upgraded.

While the towns and School Board are mired in the weeds of consolidation they aren't showing the leadership needed to do the obvious – namely, let a local non-profit take the burden of the Valley Road School off of the hands of the School Board, which clearly doesn't want the building, and put it into the hands of a group that clearly does.

The time to act in now.

Sincerely,

Richard C. Woodbridge

Chairman, Valley Road School - Adaptive Reuse Committee