Politics & Government

While 'Sympathetic' to Ewing Mayor's Protest, Lawrence School Board Moves Forward on Warehouse Purchase

The Lawrence Township school board still plans to spend $875,000 to buy a warehouse in Ewing to serve as Lawrence schools' maintenance shop despite the Ewing mayor's protest that the purchase will cause Ewing to lose tax revenue.

Despite a letter written by Ewing Township Mayor Bert Steinmann asking board members to reconsider the purchase, the Lawrence Township Board of Education plans to move ahead with its plan to buy a warehouse located in Ewing to serve as the maintenance shop/storage facility for the Lawrence Township school district.

“We don’t have any intention of changing our minds,” Lawrence Township school board President Laura Waters said late last night (March 19), explaining that Lawrence school officials have been searching for a facility able to accommodate the district’s needs for about six years and had been unable to locate a suitable building within Lawrence Township.  

In a letter addressed to Waters and dated March 12, but which Waters did not receive until yesterday, Steinmann said: “As you may know, the [Lawrence school] board’s purchase of the warehouse will eliminate the tax revenue to [Ewing Township] from the property by converting its current use to a non-taxable use. This means that in these difficult economic times, the citizens of Ewing, and not the citizens of Lawrence, will be subsidizing the functions of the Lawrence Township Board of Education.

Find out what's happening in Lawrencevillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“Instead of shifting this financial burden to its neighbors, I implore the board to refocus its search for suitable properties within Lawrence Township,” Steinmann continued in his letter. “In this way, Lawrence Township residents, and not Ewing Township residents, will appropriately bear the financial responsibility for Lawrence’s publicly-owned facilities.”

Last night, Waters said, “I completely understand the mayor’s concerns about Ewing ratables. I completely empathize and sympathize with him. But this is the right decision for Lawrence.”

Find out what's happening in Lawrencevillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Waters said the Lawrence school district has, for the last six years, been renting a different warehouse in Ewing to serve as its maintenance shop/storage facility, an annual cost of about $80,000 in rent.

“All that time we’ve been looking for a property to buy,” she explained. “We started out looking in Lawrence. We really did work hard to stay in Lawrence. We made our best effort to find a property here. It’s not like this was a strategy to burden Ewing with a loss of ratables. There are lots of reasons it would have been great to have it in Lawrence. But there are simply not any properties available [in Lawrence] that meet our needs.”

She said a deal to purchase a different facility in Ewing was almost completed last year, but it fell through at the last minute.

The search continued and a new building suitable to the district’s needs was located in Ewing. At a , the Lawrence Township Board of Education approved a resolution authorizing Superintendent Crystal Lovell and Business Administrator Thomas Eldridge to purchase that building for $875,000, using funds that the district had “saved up” over the course of the last five years for the specific purpose of buying property to serve as a maintenance shop/storage facility.

“This went through our facilities committee,” Waters said, explaining that board members and district officials inspected the warehouse to make sure it was just what the district wanted and needed. “There was a lot of due diligence on our end. This was not something we entered into impulsively.”

Waters said last night that the purchase had not yet been finalized but was moving forward.

 

The complete text of Ewing Mayor Bert Steinmann’s letter to Lawrence Township school board President Laura Waters can be found below:

March 12, 2012

 

Laura Waters, President

Lawrence Township Board of Education

2565 Princeton Pike

Lawrenceville, NJ 08648

 

Re: Lawrence Ledger Article, "Schools to purchase $875,000 warehouse in Ewing"

 

Dear Ms. Waters:

I was extremely disappointed to read the recent Lawrence Ledger article regarding the Lawrence Township Board of Education’s (the “Board”) decision to purchase a warehouse located on Spruce Street in Ewing Township to serve as the District’s maintenance facility. Although I understand that municipal entities are not prohibited by law from purchasing facilities or land in neighboring municipalities, I am concerned with the impact of the Board’s purchase of this facility on the Township of Ewing (“Township”) and Ewing’s residents and strongly urge you to reconsider the warehouse purchase.

As you may know, the Board’s purchase of the warehouse will eliminate the tax revenue to the Township from the property by converting its current use to a non-taxable use. This means that in these difficult economic times, the citizens of Ewing, and not the citizens of Lawrence, will be subsidizing the functions of the Lawrence Township Board of Education. Instead of shifting this financial burden to its neighbors, I implore the Board to refocus its search for suitable properties within Lawrence Township. In this way, Lawrence Township residents, and not Ewing Township residents, will appropriately bear the financial responsibility for Lawrence’s publicly owned facilities.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.

 

Very truly yours,

 

Bert Steinmann, Mayor

Township of Ewing


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here