To the Editor

On Friday, Nov. 14, a symposium on the question of trust will take place at Princeton University, sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Doctorate Program in the Humanities. Among areas to be examined are background assumptions of civil society, a subject among a wide range of considerations.

The object of the symposium (from the announcement), is to “… invite members of the graduate and faculty communities to design and conduct experimental investigations into the limits and possibilities of trust, in all of its manifold significations.”

The first question might be “What is trust?” In the widest sense trust means freely accepting what a person says because of one’s confidence in that person. Trust always entails a relationship between persons, one which stands or falls on the credibility of the person who is believed. But this is difficult to apply in many situations. Can citizens, for example, trust their elected or appointed government officials? The answer should be yes when their decisions are in the best interests of those who live in the domain of their authority.

Today the only place this is possible is in local municipalities like Princeton because the further a person is from government officials the more difficult it becomes to determine their true objectives or judge their actions. It’s hard even at the local level because of the limits and constraints on local authority. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Princeton, as a calculated assault on zoning ordinances by a coalition of real estate interest groups confronts the Planning Board and residents of the Witherspoon corridor.

The goal, to overturn zoning that restricts apartment buildings in New Jersey towns, was put forth publicly at the June 13 PlanSmart N.J. regional planning summit in Trenton. Princeton is a target and already a victim of this effort to change the town into a metropolis. We were shown how it can happen by the AvalonBay fiasco that will see a high density apartment complex built on a hazardous waste site. The effect, orchestrated by the arrogance of the builder, the ignorance of the Planning Board, and questionable decisions by a judiciary friendly to developers, is to open the door for apartment construction in Princeton. That is a threat to every Princeton resident that our elected officials should recognize. Can we trust they will act in our best interests in the Witherspoon corridor? We hope so.

Louis F. Slee

Spruce Street