Ewing Republicans and Democrats pounding the

pavement looking to win your vote

Sunday, September 26, 2010

By JOAN GALLER
Staff Writer

EWING — With just five weeks to go before the Nov. 2 election that will decide who will serve as Ewing’s
mayor for the next 4 years, the Democratic challenged and Republican incumbent are starting to rev up their
campaign rhetoric in hopes of winning voter support.

Both mayoral hopefuls plus three other candidates vying for two Township Council seats are pounding the
pavement, walking door to door, seeking votes from their constituents.

Fundraisers, ranging from modest to posh, started months ago.

Posters and flyers abound amid unconfirmed reports that some residents are switching parties and
demanding that partisan election signs left pegged into their front lawns be removed.

One conspicuous billboard promoting Democratic mayoral candidate and Councilman Bert Steinmann is
mounted a few hundred feet from the Trenton Farmers Market, where his rival, GOP Mayor Jack Ball, works
as market manager, a job he’s held for the past three decades.

Steinmann’s campaign team, in renting the billboard, crossed over the Spruce Street border into neighboring
Lawrence Township, where the elevated sign and farmers market are located. Steinmann, who’s making his
second run for mayor, having lost the 2006 election to Ball, has scheduled a public meeting for Oct. 20 on
the future of the GM and naval sites that have lain dormant for nearly two decades.

In a press release urging township residents to come to his 7 p.m. meeting at the West Trenton Firehouse
on West Upper Ferry Road and share their views on what should be done to clean up and redevelop these
valuable acres, Steinmann accuses Ball of failing to act or show the leadership needed to make these tracts
viable, tax-generating properties.

In his written response, Ball fires back, saying Steinmann “has been on the council for 10 years and has
failed to take the initiative until now at election time. It is disingenuous for him to now announce some
initiative that he has failed to do for ten years.

“There is no question that the development of that area is crucial to Ewing’s financial and economic growth,”
Ball adds, “but why Mr. Steinmann has chosen to address this as part of his political campaign and not as an
elected council person is a mystery.”

Ball adds, “Keep in mind that in 2004 the Ewing Township Council was looking to initiate a redevelopment
plan for the GM site but did not follow through!”

While Steinmann decries the fact that the 80-acre GM site generates only $80,000 into the township’s
treasury, Ball counters that since taking office in 2007, he’s made repeated efforts to develop this land.
Since 2007, Ball says he has met with GM representatives in his office and state environmental officials on
several occasions, and as recently as June 2010, he invited Steinmann and others on the Democratic-
controlled council to join him on a walking tour of the GM site with state Department of Environmental
Protection officials.

This invitation, Ball notes, came after the Obama Administration created a special trust fund to clean up GM
sites in 14 states, including New Jersey’s Ewing site. But that tour was postponed, Ball added, by the DEP
officials who wanted to wait until the $10.5 million in federal money earmarked for New Jersey is received.

Since he took office in January 2007, Ball says he has “met with representatives of General Motors who flew
in from Detroit to discuss the issue in my office. They spoke of their efforts to remediate the site and how
they had to wait 16-22 months to get a response from the DEP (during the Corzine administration). I found it
hard to believe, so I met with DEP representatives, who confirmed the response time was that long.”

Ball said his administration has also met with several developers interested in the site, including Beezer
Homes, whose mixed-use. residential and retail plan fell through after the DEP informed Ball that property
clean-up had not been approved and GM representatives refused to entertain a sale unless the DEP
approved their clean-up plan.

In 2008, Ball said his team met with a brownfield developer who wanted to make the site the North American
headquarters of an international pharmaceutical company.

Ewing lost that deal, Ball said, after the State of Pennsylvania offered tax credits to the developer as Ewing
was unsuccessfully applying to the State Commerce Commission to permit the site to be eligible for tax
credits under the Urban Hub Tax Credit Act.

“Despite our requests to Governor Corzine’s office as well as other elected officials, including Councilman
Steinmann, to assist us, no action was taken and the company went to Pennsylvania,” Ball said

In 2009, another brownfield developer expressed interest and “met with Mr. Steinmann in August,” Ball said.
“We never heard from them again.”

The property is no longer owned by General Motors, Ball noted. ”When they went bankrupt last year and the
federal government took over, the property was transferred to the Motors Liquidation Corp. Two months
ago, we met with DEP Commissioner Bob Martin’s staff and were advised the state was willing to contribute
the remainder of the clean-up costs.”

Now that money is available and clean-up is about to take place, Ball said he’s asked Rebecca Lynn, a
registered nurse and developer of a Lawrence Township assisted living facility, to put together a committee
of up to 11 members, including herself, “to find the best fit for the township at the GM site.”

He praised Lynn as a dedicated, caring and tenacious individual “capable of helping my administration get
the ‘ball rolling’... with respect to the GM site and what would be the best fit for Ewing residents and the
township.”

Lynn’s task will include analyzing all information about the area and the benefit of making it a redevelopment
zone, Ball said, and this will take time, requiring well-planned meetings, discussion, research and community
interaction.

“It cannot be completed in one meeting at a firehouse just prior to an election,” Ball said.

URL: http://www.trentonian.com/articles/2010/09/27/news/doc4ca00b6ccdd22632947455.prt

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