BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer
EATONTOWN – The Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Planning Authority is scheduled to report for its mission tomorrow evening.
The first official meeting of the newly formed authority is set for 7 p.m. tomorrow at Fort Monmouth’s Gibbs Hall in Eatontown, according to Andrew Souvall, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-6).
Souvall stated on Tuesday afternoon that he did not know what would be on the authority’s agenda as it organizes with nine voting members, selected from the public and private sectors.
A press release issued on Monday by Pallone and U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-12) indicates that the members of the authority are to be sworn in to their new duties during the meeting.
Both Pallone and Holt were present at Gibbs Hall on April 28 when state legislation known as the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority Act that essentially created the ten-member panel was signed into law by Gov. Jon S. Corzine.
In accordance with that signed legislation, all meetings of the authority are open to the public.
Gibbs Hall is located at the Officers Club off Tinton Avenue in Eatontown.
Under its Base Realignment and Closure process, Fort Monmouth is targeted for shutdown as a cost-cutting measure by the Pentagon in September 2011.
Under the state legislation, the authority, known also as a local redevelopment authority is assigned to finding new uses for the fort’s land, buildings and other facilities after the U.S. Army installation, spread between Eatontown, Tinton Falls and Oceanport, is shuttered.
Because most of the 400 civilian and more than 5,000 civilian jobs now existing at Fort Monmouth are to be relocated to the Aberdeen (Md.) Proving Ground after the 88-year-old base is mothballed, the new authority is also charged with attracting new employers to locate on post.
Attracting new technology and employment to replace the jobs that will move is part of a strategy endorsed by Pallone, Holt, Corzine, the state legislators who drafted the act forming the authority and members of the Patriots’ Alliance, a coalition of Fort Monmouth military subcontractors.
About $3.5 million worth of military subcontractors use the fort as a work site and those jobs are now at stake, according to Frank Muzzi and S. Thomas Gagliano, co-chairs of the Patriots’ Alliance.
In accordance with the process established by the Defense Department’s Office of Economic Adjustment (OEA), the authority has until this coming February to draft a reuse plan to transition the fort from military to civilian uses.
To be deemed eligible for available federal funding from OEA, the authority must submit a feasible reuse scheme to the Defense Department by the February deadline, Eatontown Mayor Gerald J. Tarantolo has said.
Five of the nine voting members of the authority are public officials. Those posts will be held by Tarantolo, Tinton Falls Mayor Peter Maclearie, Oceanport Mayor Lucille Chaump, Monmouth County Freeholder Lillian Burry of Colts Neck and New Jersey Secretary of Commerce Virginia S. Bauer of Red Bank.
All five were named to the authority earlier this year, prior to Corzine’s signing the legislation.
Tarantolo, Maclearie and Chaump represent the fort’s three host communities. Burry represents the freeholder board and Bauer represents the governor’s office.
The other four voting members, all selected by Corzine last month, are Robert Lucky of Fair Haven, Joseph A. Colfer of Howell, Rosemarie D. Estephan of Colts Neck and Laurie Cannon of Wall Township.
Those four members, who will represent the private sector, were approved by the New Jersey State Legislature on June 30.
Lucky, a telecommunications engineer by profession, is a retired corporate vice president for Telecordia Technologies.
Colfer is the president of the Monmouth and Ocean Counties Building and Trades Council. He also sits on the New Jersey State Building and Construction Trades Council and the Legislative Committee for the New Jersey State Pipe Trades.
Estephan is a Holmdel-based real estate broker and Cannon has been an environmental activist and school board member.
A tenth, non-voting member, to represent Fort Monmouth, which is now targeted by the Pentagon for closure in September 2011, has yet to be nominated by U.S. Secretary of Defense.

