Guest Column
Rep. Pallone asked to aid efforts to stop privatization of Sandy Hook
Carole Balmer
Guest Column
Rep. Pallone asked to aid efforts to stop privatization of Sandy Hook
(Open letter to Rep. Frank Pallone D-N.J.)
The New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club has joined the grassroots group Save Sandy Hook (Svsndyhk@aol.com) in its effort to oppose the National Park Service (NPS) plans to award a 60-year lease of public facilities at Sandy Hook to a private real estate company.
It is respectfully requested that Rep. Pallone duly consider the following on-the-record facts while contemplating the opinions of self-proclaimed proponents for privatization of the now very public north end of Sandy Hook.
• A recent letter from Judith Stanley Coleman (Middletown Planning Board chairwoman) aptly pointed out "the public was never really made part of the process. … Through the intervention of Representative Frank Pallone the public meetings were initially held."
• Section 5 of the original request for proposal (RFP) published in 1999 required that documented proof of funding be substantive parts of any/all proposals. Four-and-a-half years later, there is still no solid, evidence of where the moneys are coming from. Fiscal responsibility like environmental accountability cannot be accessed or addressed when the buildings’ uses and possible occupants are changed as often as the NPS has altered the original conditions of the RFP for Wassel Realty.
• The authors of the pro-development position state "the rehabilitation … will have no effect on environmental assets." The estimated 1,600 cars/trips and infrastructure to support the traffic, along with new utility lines and needed expansion of the sewage treatment plant, will undoubtedly impact natural resources.
The cursory environmental report cited nine osprey nests to be relocated, parking lot encroachment on piping plover nesting areas, and relocation of public parking to mention only a few. Evidently, these along with the many other unreported cumulative impacts from urbanizing the Hook’s north end are expendable for the sake of converting crumbling military structures into private businesses.
• The environmental and traffic studies presented at the public meetings (not duly noticed hearings) were jointly prepared by the NPS and the preferred applicant, Wassel Realty. Lack of impartial objectivity lends little credibility to any conclusions reached by vested parties with much to gain from acquiring the public’s prime waterfront real estate.
The problematic, precedent-setting, 60-year lease of the Hook to be used as a model for placing our national parklands in private for-profit hands undermines the purpose/mandates for public lands.
Finally Rep. Pallone, it is hereby suggested that when you think about Sandy Hook, you remember it was saved for preservation/conservation first and foremost, to be enjoyed by the true owners, the taxpayers. It is hereby further requested that you stand firm and continue to support the necessary and publicly beneficial effort to keep public lands out of dubious deep pockets so they stay forever safe in the people’s hands.
Finally, for the public at large to learn more about saving Sandy Hook please go to Svsndyhk@aol.com.
Carole Balmer is the current Holmdel Zoning Board vice chairwoman, Bayshore Regional Sewerage Authority commissioner, and Save Sandy Hook corresponding secretary