Guest Column
Judith Stanley Coleman
Guest Column
Demeaning and vilifying those who don’t agree with their stand on what happens to Sandy Hook is not what the proponents of the redevelopment of Fort Hancock should have done in their latest slap at those who don’t agree with their stand.
Since when is criticism considered negativism? My first reaction to their letter was to attest to my own intelligence, background and qualifications, but I’ll not stoop to their tactics. Just let the past record be the proof. Let me address some of the key issues once again.
Independent, objective assessments were never done. The environmental report and the two traffic reports were and are a farce. They would be laughed out of the room at a planning board hearing.
If a planning board doesn’t know what is going into the buildings and the number of people involved, how can it know the traffic implications and the number of cars involved? Answers to these questions help planning boards make sound decisions for their communities. I know, having served on a planning board for 27 years.
Specific uses of the building and the number of people and cars attached to the buildings were never disclosed. It is not enough to blindly state that they will be worthwhile and put to good uses. Many worthwhile and good projects, even if they be for non-profits, can generate a lot of cars and seriously impact an area. Surely a $70 million-$90 million project will need to generate much traffic in order to be successful.
The public has never really been made part of the process. It was only through the intervention of Representative Frank Pallone that public hearings were initially held. Even then, the public hearings were not "hearings" but rather parodies on gleaning information. They were mockeries of the attendees’ intelligence. We still don’t know the qualifications of those involved, the purpose of the project and how they will raise the money to fund this ever-changing project.
What was learned was that a dog, a child, a man and a park service employee met on the beach one sunny day and "Venus sprang fully armed from the forehead of Zeus."
[At the first public hearing on the project in 2002 Wassel said his conversations with the park service about the concept of redeveloping the fort began four or five years earlier while he was walking with his daughter on Sandy Hook and encountered former Superintendent Charles Baerlin.]
The process has been procedurally flawed from the beginning. The rules keep changing and the National Park Service has given carte blanche to the developer. We have been accused of slowing down the project.
That is sheer nonsense. It’s been on-going for over four years! The number of buildings involved fluctuates from 32 upwards to 78 to whatever it will take to make the project work.
There has been a loosening of the financial requirements placed on the developer, extensions granted to buy more time to obtain funding and now the recent introduction of project phases. Is our government protecting its taxpayers or the developer? Is this really a public/private partnership or are we, the citizens, actually funding the project through the granting of tax credits?
The above mentioned issues are only a few of the many that surround this project. This project should be stopped now. It is time for us to sit down with government and conservation people and re-think the whole issue. Questions must be asked and responses must be given. I call upon our New Jersey elected officials for help.
I do not believe that commercialization is the way to seek preservation. We have many recent examples of public/private partnerships that have only resulted in the sacrifice of quality for the bottom line profit.
If the buildings are restored by commercialization, will we see their former military use or rather a bar or café? At this rate, maybe McDonald’s arches would look nice over the entrance to the park!
Out of the Monmouth Conservation Foundation’s mission statement, proponents of the development have simply plucked out two words from all of the rest.
Our first and strongest mission is to land and its conservation. I know because as President, I was there when we adopted our mission statement. My experience of over 25 years has taught me that if we don’t have the necessary facts we risk the danger of losing all control to a wild and wooly scheme that stands to threaten one of our most cherished areas.
The beautiful thousand acres of Sandy Hook is what must be saved first and foremost. That was Theodore Roosevelt’s original goal. To tarnish that mission is inexcusable.
This beautiful hook of land is surrounded by the densest population in the gateway region. It is unique and to tamper with it is a foolish decision. The government ramparts that watched over this great nation in times of war should all be saved, and maybe some examples of where the people lived in those times, but for goodness sakes don’t do it at the expense of the beautiful ecology of this particular spit of land, which is so unique. "Land — they don’t make it anymore," said Will Rogers.
Judith Stanley Coleman is president of Save Sandy Hook.
Ed. Note: Mary Lou Strong’s letter ran in a previous edition of the Independent, another Greater Media newspaper.

