Deanna Stockton – Princeton Deputy Administrator and Municipal Engineer

Mark Freda: Deanna, thanks for joining us today.

Deanna Stockton: Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate the opportunity.

Mark Freda: Yeah, this should be fun. So let me ask you a first question. So, I know, you know, your title is, includes Deputy Administrator. So, and you’re also the municipal engineer, but so what does that actually mean, Deputy Administrator?

Deanna Stockton: Mm-hm. So, the Municipality of Princeton has two deputy administrators. Jeff Grosser, my colleague, is Deputy Administrator of Health and Human, Community Services, and I oversee the Infrastructure and Operations Group.

For infrastructure, we have municipal sanitary sewers, stormwater management systems, roads, buildings, and grounds, traffic signals, parking lots, a garage, open space, and the urban forest.

I rely heavily on our key staff within the department, which includes a fleet manager, sewer manager, Public Works director, arborist, open space manager, and especially the Assistant Municipal Engineer, Jim Purcell, to ensure that we’re maintaining and improving our infrastructure in a cost-effective and sustainable manner. A majority of our annual capital budget approved by Council is directed towards our group. So, I’m responsible for ensuring that we move from conceptual planning through design, contracting, construction, and then operation.

Another additional important role for the deputy administrator is to maintain open channels of communication and collaboration with elected officials, the public, outside agencies, and government entities. You know, we have state highways, we have county roads, we have a very large property owner in the university within our border. So, it’s really critical to collaborate and communicate with these groups regularly as well.

Mark Freda: So, there’s not much going on in your department. No, not at all. We’re pretty quiet. So, so easy.

Deanna Stockton:

Mark Freda: So, you know, focusing on on engineering some. Obviously, our town has you as the municipal engineer, but not every town has a municipal engineer. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between those two models?

Deanna Stockton: Sure. So, generally, the more infrastructure you have, the more population and the greater the municipal services that the government provides to their residents, the more likely it is that you will have an in-house engineer. The alternative that some of the smaller rural municipalities have is to completely contract out for engineering services. And then there’s a middle ground where you may have an in-house engineer, but then everything else is performed by a consulting engineer, so any design, contract reviews, that type of thing.

So, for Princeton, we’ve invested in a really robust in-house engineering department with multiple licensed engineers, construction engineering inspectors, and design staff. Many of our staff have been here for multiple decades, and and that really gives a solid community knowledge base. We don’t have to be accountable for having billable hours like a consultant would be, so it’s expected that we are available for our residents to resolve any quality of life issues, to just better generally be a resource for them. We don’t walk away at 5:00 p.m. or when we’ve hit, you know, the number of hours for the week.

Mark Freda: Running up against the budget.

Deanna Stockton: Right. Right. Long before cell phones were kind of the norm for contact, we were giving out our cell phone number to residents so that they could rely on us to be responsive. It’s it’s very important in our model to build trust with the community and to represent their needs when we propose improvements to infrastructure and services. In other towns that just use the consultant model, the consultant may change when the governing body changes.

Mark Freda: Yeah. Yeah.

Deanna Stockton: So, I mean, that again, just to reinforce, it really is a benefit to the residents to have us. We we still utilize consultants because we can’t be the subject matter experts in everything, but as much as possible, we do try to be that point person for the resident so they they know they can get the service that they expect.

Mark Freda: Yeah, and we and I must admit it’s an excellent department. You guys do an awful lot, and it’s amazing the workload that that is handled by by our folks. Okay, so let’s talk about pedestrian safety. The town’s doing a whole bunch of projects around pedestrian safety. Can you talk about some of those or explain like, you know, what it is we’re trying to achieve?

Deanna Stockton: Sure. So, a couple years ago, the community went through the master plan process, and part of the mobility element was to prioritize walking as the most favored mode of transportation. And to add on to that, we’ve made it, the council has made it a goal to recognize that death and serious injury are unacceptable, and so we want to get to a Vision Zero commitment on our roadways.

To do that, we take a safe system approach. We look at whether a project is underway to construct a new sidewalk or share use path, or to completely rebuild a road, we strive to make those roads safe for all users. We do this by making changes that might encourage safer behavior by everyone, that might be traffic calming, that may be slowing motor vehicles, separating bikes from pedestrians and motor vehicles. It could also look at implementing lighting changes, street lighting changes, crosswalk illumination and striping.

And so we’ve done a lot of this recently, the projects that stand out are Witherspoon Street. We have also improved a side path on Cherry Hill Road. And as much as possible, we are very focused on this. Monthly, we meet with a traffic safety committee, so we have representatives for police at that meeting as well as governing body officials so that we can look what might be coming through trends about safety, and we can try to address them as quickly as possible.

Mark Freda: There’s a lot behind all these things, right? I mean, it’s just amazing. It’s not it’s not just, let me show up and do stuff. Okay, so in a similar vein, we’re also doing stuff around biking safety, right? For for bicyclists. So, somewhat similar, but I don’t know if you want to maybe point out a couple things we’re doing there.

Deanna Stockton: Yeah, so Princeton being the historic town that it is, it can be challenging to try to accommodate bicycle facilities, and there’s of- often some decision points that need to be made of, do we remove parking? Can we accommodate bicyclists on a shared-use path? I mentioned Witherspoon Street with the pedestrian improvements, but that also had significant bicycle infrastructure improvements where we calm traffic, and we made it a safer space so that bikes could share the the roadway with vehicles.

In other areas around town, like Valley Road and Hodge Road, we were successful in prohibiting parking to be able to put on-road bike lanes. Currently, we have a pilot bike lane project on Harrison Street, North Harrison Street by the shopping center, where we’ve taken the the right lanes on the roadway and converted them to buffered bike lanes. So, project by project, where we can, we are implementing the bike master plan and trying to make connections to bike boulevards and shared-use roadways around town.

Mark Freda: Yeah, it’s an interesting challenge because, obviously, the town was built for well, originally, horses and carriages and things like that, but for many decades built around cars. So, trying to squeeze in how we make it much safer and more convenient for people walking and and bicyclists is is a challenge. So, thank you.

Let me let me change gears here and where are you from? Where’d you grow up?

Deanna Stockton: So, I’m actually a fourth-generation Californian. I grew up in Southern California, high desert in a town called Lancaster, and for college, I moved up to the Bay Area to Santa Clara University.

Mark Freda: Oh, okay.

Deanna Stockton: Met my future husband there, worked at some different places like Washington State DOT and a consulting firm in Oregon before we came out to New Jersey.

Mark Freda: Wow, that’s great.

Deanna Stockton: Mm-hm.

Mark Freda: Okay, so let me ask you this, you just mentioned like your education and some of what you did. So, what sort of education and experience does one need to become a municipal engineer?

Deanna Stockton: Uh, so an engineering degree, obviously, is a key component, with a license, so there is a professional licensure process. New Jersey has also added in a certification for municipal engineers. So, that’s a really great program that’s available to engineers.

But a lot of it comes down to some of those soft skills. I think the the engineering, the technical engineering that you need for a municipal engineer, you know, you can get pretty easily, but it’s those soft skills of being able to, I think I heard this at the council reorg meeting, actively listen.

Mark Freda: Yeah, yeah. Right. Yes. Yes.

Deanna Stockton: I think you said it even.

Mark Freda: I did, yeah.

Deanna Stockton: Hey, I was actively listening! To actively listen and just understand somebody’s perspective and to be able to do everything, you know, within limits, to help resolve issues. You know, we can’t solve everything, but as much as we can be open to new ideas, open to different viewpoints, cooperating, you know, we work closely with so many different groups. So, just finding cooperative solutions and adapting. We we also like to stay very active in professional organizations, whether it be something related with the State DOT or Federal Highway, or just local engineering societies. So.

Mark Freda: Yeah, yeah. That’s great, right? Okay, so I think you and I both mentioned how long people stay and work for the town. So, how long have you been here?

Deanna Stockton: So, I actually started in 2000. My husband’s company was relocating us from Oregon, and we thought, you know, we can live anywhere for a few years, so why not, let’s try New Jersey. So, we came, I cold-called the former township engineer, Bob Kaiser, and he’s like, we don’t have a position, but we’ll talk.

I was fortunate that he saw the value of my skills and brought me on. So, I worked with him for 2 years, then we got another opportunity to move to the Netherlands for 3 years, and when I came back, Bob Kaiser, you know, came through again and was able to bring me back. So, I have pretty much been with the municipality now since 2006 when I returned, and it’s been a great experience.

Mark Freda: Yeah, well, well, yeah, and I think like the whole institutional memory and just being involved in so much over such a a good length of time is just so beneficial to how everything operates.

Deanna Stockton: Yes. Yeah, and more and more we have staff that are retiring, so there’s fewer and fewer of us that have the institutional knowledge.

Mark Freda: So, another thing your world is involved in is transportation around town. Can you talk to us a little bit about, you know, I know we’ve got municipal buses, we’ve got bus routes.

Deanna Stockton: Yes. Yes, so Princeton does have different means of public transit. We’ve got, obviously, the Dinky. New Jersey Transit has some routes in town, but back in 2008, the former borough mayor, Marvin Reed, envisioned the Free B, a fixed-rus- or fixed-route bus system. And university was a great supporter of it, so that’s something since 2008 the municipality, consolidated municipality, has has carried through.

It is now called the Muni, until we rebrand it later this year. We have one fixed route that operates 6 days a week, and one of the fixed routes connects various shopping areas to the downtown and to the Princeton Shopping Center. It’s funded by parking revenues and contributions from the university.

With all of the third round affordable housing agreements, we were able to secure some financial contributions that, as well as the university’s voluntary contribution, to add a second route. We are using it as a pilot for this year to see how successful it is, but it’s, again, like a 6-day a week bus fixed route between the Dinky and Princeton Shopping Center. So, we look forward to starting to get the data on its success so that, hopefully, we can make it the second route of our fleet permanently.

Mark Freda: Right, and people can find detailed the routes and everything on our princetonnj.gov website. Cool, cool. Okay, another fun topic that everybody loves to talk about is sanitary and stormwater systems, stormwater sewer systems, but you know, these have a big impact on so many different things, like cost a lot of money. So, anyway, I don’t want to say too much, but maybe you could tell us a little bit about that world.

Deanna Stockton: Sure. Yeah, sanitary sewers are super important to make sure that that waste is going away and not causing issues. So, with Council support, significant resources are being expended towards the sanitary sewer system to make it more resilient and cost-effective. We’re working on the design to replace six of nine pump stations right now. Some of those, a majority of those are in floodplains, so we’re looking at making those more resilient.

The collection system is also in various design projects and construction right now to make it more watertight. We’re using an innovative technique called chemical grouting so that we can address more sanitary sewer than we would with the traditional methods of lining or dig and replace. So, it it’s really interesting that up to 60% of the flow in our sanitary sewers are attributed to rainwater or groundwater. So, this is critical work that we’re doing.

Mark Freda: Right, and it’s critical because, I’m sorry, I just want to jump in and make sure people understand that having rainwater and groundwater go through the sanitary system, we’re paying fees to Stony Brook Regional Sewage Authority for the volume of material liquid, and whatever’s in that liquid, that goes through their plant. So, having all that excess rainwater and groundwater is costing our taxpayers a significant amount of money.

So, this so all the money that that your world is overseeing to correct all that has a great, significant payback for us and is a huge benefit to the taxpayers.

Deanna Stockton: Definitely, and we’re not the only contributor contributor to Stony Brook Regional Sewage Authority, there are other municipalities, and so it’s imperative that all of our municipalities in the region are doing this type of work because then we can forestall an expansion and a huge capital cost to upgrade the treatment plant.

Mark Freda: More cost. Yep.

Deanna Stockton: So, relative to stormwater, we also have quite a few projects in the design phase on Herrontown Road, Grover, and Stony Brook Lane. We’ve we need to do some armoring of the Stony Brook along Quaker Road between Mercer and 206.

But a big part of our time really is spent just staying in compliance with our discharge permit. So, we’ve got people pretty much every day out doing street sweeping. We have to inspect the storm drains and the stormwater facilities. We need to ensure that our staff and our board members, the land use board members, are going through the necessary training, doing public outreach, working with homeowners association who have private stormwater facilities. So, and another big piece of that permit for this year is a watershed improvement plan, so we completed the first phase last year. This year will be in the second phase, and that will involve some formal public meetings.

Mark Freda: So, one thing I just want to jump on that you mentioned about the storm drains. So, everybody out there should remember that you can adopt a drain, a storm drain. So, you can go to our website again, princetonnj.gov, and there’s a whole process to adopt a drain, you get to name it, we give you some fun stuff to help you keep it clean, but there’s so many storm drains, we need the help with with the public. So, anyway.

Deanna Stockton: Over 3,000, I think.

Mark Freda: That’s an amazing number.

Deanna Stockton: And only 5 to 10% of those have been adopted. So.

Mark Freda: All right, so there’s plenty of them out there. Sign up.

All right, let me jump to Verizon. Yes. So, you know, a couple years ago, we had some very animated Mayor and Council meetings where people were clamoring for improvements to the Verizon cell service throughout town. And your world has worked with Verizon extensively and some of their subcontractors that help put up their facilities. But maybe you could just talk a little bit about the progress that has been made and and what’s being done to make all that stuff happen.

Deanna Stockton: Sure, since that meeting back in May of 2023 that you referenced, that special council meeting, there’s been nearly 50 new or updated small cell antennas brought online by Verizon. Most of them are in collaboration with a third-party vendor called Crown Castle. Many of these also include T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint. So, the work isn’t done yet, there’s another dozen installations that have been approved and two dozen more that are in the process.

So, we are looking forward to really increasing the service. The police department has been a great partner in this as well because they have the ability to collect the cell signal strength around town, and we can use it to fact-check the Verisons and the other companies on on how well their service is penetrating our community.

Mark Freda: Yeah, I just want to emphasize to everybody listening out there, that what an effort has been made to work with Verizon and Crown Castle and the other but mainly Verizon was the main problem, to improve that cell service throughout the town. I mean, it’s a huge project, and a lot of time and effort has been spent by your world to to make sure that this actually happens.

Deanna Stockton: Right, and we’re not the only entity that’s looking at it, right? They have to work with FCC. Sometimes historic preservation has to get involved on the state, local, national levels, and if it’s not on our roadways, it’s DOT potentially.

Mark Freda: Yeah, so a lot goes into it. So, thank you to everybody in your world that’s been involved with moving that along.

Mark Freda: Let me take a jump here again, and let me ask you, oh, I think this is one I get a lot, people calling me about when are you going to pave my road. So, can you talk a little bit about, you know, what is our process to how do we decide a road’s going to get paved or not paved?

Deanna Stockton: Sure. So, in 2023, we went and completed a complete roadway condition analysis of our roadways. That process has given us information on the structure of our pavement systems. It does not necessarily reflect the rideability. I’m sure we all know those roadways we drive where the potholes have been filled and pond filling upon filling. So, we look at the roadway condition analysis, it provides us at least a base of what type of work we should consider doing and and kind of in a within timeframes. It designates if a road is fair, poor, you know, great condition.

So, we use that. We look at what work other utilities have to do in town, whether it’s PSE&G, the water company, communications, will they be digging up our roads for some reason to put in or our own sanitary sewer and storm sewer for infrastructure.

We look at if there’s adjacent development activity going on, should we be making some improvements to accommodate a large development.

We look at the SeeClickFix concerns that are put in, you know, that is a valuable tool to collate all of the concerns that people raise about the conditions of our roadways.

And we put all of this together, we look at road volumes, you know, a cul-to-sac road is not going to probably have as much attention as a Mercer Street or a Harrison Street. We put that all together, we look at bike and pedestrian infrastructure that can be created or improved at the same time, and using the the various knowledge base that we have in Public Works and in Engineering, we just we come up with that list. It sometimes will alter based on the availability of funds.

Mark Freda: Often, yeah.

Deanna Stockton: It often varies because of the availability of funds. There’s a lot of competing interest for our capital dollars. But we’re also looking for trying to find ways where we can do it quicker, cheaper, better in-house. We have very skilled Public Works people, and we are now getting equipment that we can do our own paving as well. So, we’re looking at that as a component of how we do our road paving.

Mark Freda: Yeah, and I and I think, you know, in our discussions that that you and others in your department have had with the governing body is, I mean, you’ve pointed out that having done that research and knowing the road conditions, it gives us a much higher degree of success in using our money to get the best value out of it. So, if a if you can catch a road and it only needs the top pavement redone before what’s under it needs to be dug up and totally replaced, we’re saving a lot of money. So, you’ve you’ve put a much more scientific and database decision process in place than just, yeah, the road’s a little rough.

Deanna Stockton: Yeah, and that’s a that’s a great point to make too. When you catch it early, we can use more sustainable methods. We don’t have to mill up the pavement that’s in place and dispose of it. We are able to put epoxy treatments or different methods that keep the pavement in place and just secure it for another 6 years.

Mark Freda: Yeah, so it’s pretty amazing all that can be done.

Deanna Stockton: Yeah.

Mark Freda: Okay, I’ve had you here for a while. So, let me let me ask you this one. It’s a new year, it’s 2026. Any hope for goals or projects that you want to tell us about?

Deanna Stockton: Sure. Well, we’ve we’ve been working, as you should know, on Westminster Choir College. You know, that was a unique event last year that the municipality was able to purchase that property and be able then to guide what happens to it. So, I’m really excited to see what happens with the site planning, to see, you know, where we go with that. My department has been responsible for managing the operations, we still have tenants there.

Mark Freda: Yes, yeah.

Deanna Stockton: So, just looking forward to what the next phases are. The other big one is we have in progress a new Public Works facility planning process. So.

Mark Freda: Yes.

Deanna Stockton: When I started with the municipality in 2000, it was discussed that these guys do a lot for the town and they really need some better facilities than the single single-wide trailers and the triple-wide trailers that are falling apart. So, so I’m really excited that we have Council support and we’re moving ahead with putting together a permanent facility there.

And lastly, it’s the 250th anniversary of the nation, and I’m sure there’s going to be a lot going on in town. So, you know, we’re poised and ready to do what we need to to put our best face forward, whether it’s new plantings and furniture in the downtown or keeping our roads safe and clean.

Mark Freda: So, I want to thank you personally, but I want to thank your whole world for all you do every day, that everybody does every day for the town because, you know, it is amazing the volume of work that comes through your world. It’s quite a bit.

Deanna Stockton: It really is, and we are often not seen.

Mark Freda: Yes.

Deanna Stockton: And but yet we are contributing to everybody’s quality of life in town. So, we appreciate the support we get.

Mark Freda: Yeah, well, again, thanks for being here. We appreciate all the information. Thank you.

Deanna Stockton: You’re welcome. Thank you.