Though apparently well intentioned, Mary Lou Strong’s vilification of any and all people who are critical of the National Park Service’s (NPS) stewardship of the deteriorating buildings at Fort Hancock and its ongoing flawed attempt to rehabilitate these buildings by means of a proposed 60-year lease with James Wassel’s "for profit" Sandy Hook Partners LLC entity is unjustified.
Given my 29-plus years of federal government experience as a procurement official/contracting officer, I am unable to comment from a position of blissful ignorance.
Simply put, in my opinion NPS has not conducted the procurement for the rehabilitation and subsequent 60-year out-lease of Fort Hancock’s buildings in accordance with existing federal procurement regulations.
As early as June 13, 2002, I wrote to the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) inspector general (IG), explaining my concerns with this NPS procurement.
Despite Ms. Strong’s continuing assurances to the contrary — that everything is wonderful with this NPS procurement — this matter is still under investigation by the DOI inspector general’s office at the present time. Apparently, a "level playing field" and "equal treatment of all prospective offerors" are still tenets of the federal procurement process.
In addition to the 13 areas of concern cited in my June 13 letter to the DOI IG, I have since brought to the DOI IG’s attention another troubling concern. It is, why did the NPS, in its RFP, ask offerors to propose either a "15-year, 25-year or longer lease," when the NPS knew full well under the Historic Tax Credit Program, tax credits are only applicable to leases of 40 years or longer in duration?
Dissemination of this critical information would have been beneficial to all parties, prospective offerors, the general tax-paying public, as well as the NPS and DOI. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Concerning Ms. Strong’s statement that "Mr. Wassel has extensive experience with historic rehabilitation projects," this has yet to be proved.
Because Mr. Wassel worked for the Rouse Co., Ms. Strong gives Mr. Wassel credit for Quincy Market in Boston, and New York’s South Street Seaport, both of which are commercialized, shopping-mall-type of adaptive reuse.
If I were to use the same deductive process as Ms. Strong, I would be able to list as my accomplishments the United States of America’s landing of a man on the moon, the NASA shuttle program, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the removal of the Berlin Wall, merely because I was employed by the federal government from 1967-97. But I do not, for obvious reasons.
So, Ms. Strong, please bear with we "unfortunate individuals" who have to contend with real experience and firsthand knowledge on the subject at hand. We just can’t help ourselves.
Peter P. O’Such Jr.
Fair Haven