Bussing...a NON issue?

At the Hopewell Valley Regional school board meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 22 school board members Aaron Tellier and James Wulf pushed to have hazardous busing service reinstated.

But members opposed to hazardous busing said that they had not heard enough negative feedback from residents about the cancellation.

I seem to remember that parents were in an uproar over the cancellation of hazardous busing. The Pennington Police even agreed to place an officer at Route 31 and Delaware Avenue during school start and end times to protect the children who are now forced to cross the potentially dangerous intersection.

What do you think about this?

Are Mr. Tellier and Mr. Wulf on to something here, or are Hopewell Valley residents OK with the way busing was handled this year?

Another youngster down...

If you saw the front page of the Post this week, you know that Hopewell Township Police arrested an 18-year-old Pennington man for the theft of two cars and breaking in to and burglarizing a third car.

This is the third young person to grace the front page of my paper in the last few weeks for being arrested.

What is going on here? Has everyone got cabin fever, or the winter blues? What's the deal with the spike in teenager crime?

None of the crimes have been violent, yet! No one has been hurt, so far, but can an escalation to violence be too far off?

I know some of you may be thinking that I am reading too much in to a few coincidentally close together crimes, but I have seen this pattern before.

When I graduated high school in the 90s, we had kids getting in fights, being busted for small amounts of drugs (usually marijuana) and other relatively small offenses. Then, on my graduation day, a student was found to be in the possession of a gun, with the intent to shot a teacher who had failed him.

Today, things are much worse in my old high school. I am not saying that things will get that bad here in Pennington, but it is something to watch out for.

Know your kids, know their friends and know what they are getting in to when you are not around.

I am sure that these 18-year-old boys did not suddenly start to act out after they turned 18; chances are that they built up to this.

High school hijinks

An 18year-old and a 17-year-old have been arrested for the sprinkler incident at Central High School. Read the whole story here.

The elder student, being 18-years-old and an adult, was set a bail. His bail was set at $60,000, which he made. The young man was released on bail almost immediately.

The boys prank is costing the school district over $30,000, between the water damage to the gym floor and the cost of renting gym space for winter sports.

My question is, what do you think....

Is the bail fair?
Do you think that the 17-year-old should be tried as an adult?

Let me know what you think.
Send letters to the editor to:
pennpost@ingnews.com

Gone for the Holidays

It seems like Pennington is an empty town during the week between Christmas and New Years. I guess a lot of people travel during the week since the kids have off from school.
But, where does every one go?
I'll have to ask around.

At any rate, welcome back.