Peter P. O’Such, Jr.
Guest Column
Hook document not a lease, but extension
The document signed by the National Park Service and Sandy Hook Partners July 9, concerning the Fort Hancock buildings at Sandy Hook has been reviewed by me and here are my findings.
• This document is not a stand-alone binding, enforceable, contractual lease agreement. It is merely another six-month extension given by the National Park Service (NPS) to Sandy Hook Partners (SHP) in SHP’s attempt to secure the needed financial arrangements to pay for the rehabilitation of the 36 Fort Hancock buildings. And, if this latest six-month extension does not prove adequate for SHP funding efforts, the NPS has reserved unto itself the unreviewable right to give as many more extensions as it chooses to grant SHP.
Lest anyone forget, proof of an offeror’s financial capability to perform in accordance with the NPS procurement, Request for Proposal (RFP) specifications was to be demonstrated/shown in the offeror’s initial submissions due on Nov. 8, 1999. That was more than four years ago. Yet SHP is still searching for funding. This improper relaxation of the RFP’s mandatory funding requirement was done on a selective basis, as evidenced by the Friends of Clearwater offer having been thrown out of the procurement competition because the NPS determined their initial offer did not possess the financial capacity needed to perform. How can this be? How is this fair? It surely isn’t equal treatment of all offerors.
• Additionally this document fails to give the NPS and SHP, any of the rights and/or obligations that a normal contractual lease would accord its signers.
• This document even precludes SHP from recording its lease hold interests and entering into binding sublease/rental agreements.
• This document states even though the NPS signed it, it shall not be implied or construed that the NPS approves of any documents supplied prior to its signing.
The NPS reserves its approval for a later time — presumably when SHP has more factual data as proof of having the needed funding — a later time when the NPS would actually be ready to enter into an actual binding, contractual lease agreement.
• The suspect lease document contains a self-destruct clause, which states if the NPS ever becomes tired of SHP not being able to obtain funding, then the document signed July 9 is "null and void ab initio," that is, from the very beginning. If this were a real contractual lease agreement, this would not be the case. Real contractual agreements do not just disappear. A formal termination would be required.
Based upon the foregoing, the July 9 document is not a lease. It is only another extension for SHP to try to obtain funding, which was required of all other offerors, four years ago.
Good people, it is not too late. Please write, call, e-mail your elected officials, local, state and federal, to express your outrage with this NPS-sanctioned land grab of national park land by a for-profit developer here in New Jersey.
Fair Haven resident Peter P. O’Such Jr. is a retired federal procurement official.