Below are the notes from our most recent Lawrence Committee meeting on Tuesday November 12, 2019. These notes contain information on the much-asked-about Lawrence Composting program, which has hit a delay (read below).
Housing update
New playground equipment is in! Old playground is still up but is likely soon to come down in a timely fashion.
The Lawrence Composting will be done with the company Organic Diversions, which also works with Campus Dining for their composting system. Trash collection at Lawrence is handled by Princeton Building Services, and they want to add Lawrence composting as an addendum to the current contract they have with Campus Dining. This then requires a more prolonged approval process, in contrast with Lakeside composting which is managed by an external company and has its own trash collection arrangement (and therefore a much shorter approval process). The approval for Lawrence is still under way, which explains why the launch has been delayed beyond October. Lawrence Committee has expressed that this is a top concern among Lawrence Residents and is continuing to monitor the situation closely with Housing.
Social events
Bonfire was a huge success. Estimate of 50 attendees!
Next up: Holiday cookie decorating. Tentatively on the morning of Saturday December 7 in Lawrence 14 common room.
The dwindling shopping carts
Housing is unable to purchase new carts or devices (to prevent lost carts), given that the new carts were just ordered this year.
Lakeside management frequently sees the shopping carts show up in their complex. Housing will attempt to put Lakeside management in touch with the Lawrence Committee, and Housing will help coordinate with Facilities to get them returned if there are some there right now
New signs will be placed on carts that explicitly state the carts should not be removed form Lawrence.
GSG Update
Graduate Housing retreat—meant to be focused on grad housing survey—was canceled unfortunately due to lack of available and willing grad students to participate.
Joshua went on the safety walk with Amit and Michael. Concrete plans were devised for updates and improvements for Lawrence: (1) a walkway that connects directly to old Lawrence is definitely possible now (2) more lighting for the walkway on Alexander (3) improvement on crosswalk at roundabout by Lakeside
Transportation update
The Alexander Bridge is now officially closed and is scheduled to be opening in April, although delays would not be unexpected. To attempt to alleviate traffic, the University is encouraging staff to do flexible work schedules (including remote work) and carpooling.
The bridge closer raises safety concerns due to increased traffic on Faculty Road.
Grad students raised concern about the infrequency of buses after 7pm. The Committee will contact the Office of Transportation Services to see if the Lawrence/Lakeside bus line can be extended for an extra 30-60min.
If you want to express a concern directly to Transportation, please email Charlie Tennyson (ct15@princeton.edu). Emailing him will give him a better sense of what issues are occurring.
Lawrence Chat listserv
There is an opt-in Lawrence listserv (lawrence-chat@princeton.edu) that can be used to send emails to a group of Lawrence Residents. You can sign up through the Listserv Management Webpage. In the past, residents have used the list for lost & found, to ask to borrow items (e.g., tools), or even to see if carpools to a location could be arranged.
Lawrence elections
The election committee will be Joshua, Kevin Fleming, and another Lawrence resident that Joshua has recruited. The date of the election is Tuesday, December 10 and the deadline for declaring candidacy is Tuesday, December 3.
Candidate nominations will begin soon (in ~1 week). Then after a few weeks, the election committee will allow candidates to adjust what position they are running for (in case there is a lot of competition for one position and no candidates for another). Then voting will take place online in the few days leading up to the next Lawrence committee meeting, with in-person voting (for those who did not vote online) and candidate statement reading taking place at the meeting.
Goals for next committee cycle: (1) change name of “GSG Representative” to “University Liaison” to better capture responsibilities of positions (2) potentially create a “Facilities Manager” position and merge positions of “Secretary” and “Webmaster”
The garden
The garden officially closed (until spring) on Halloween week.
In Attendance
Deepen G Yi-Che C Guanhua H Noam R Joshua B Michael H Richard G Amit H Maruicio L Chris T