Fort panel will go for $315K in federal funds

Lucky, Bauer to lead new base reuse group

BY SUE MORGAN Staff Writer

BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

To apply for federal seed money to start up a business, the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Plan-ning Authority, Eatontown will need some correction fluid and a typewriter.

Somewhere in the Arlington, Va., headquarters of the U.S. Defense Department’s Office of Economic Adjustment (OEA), a 10-month-old application for $315,000 in federal funding, filed by the now-disbanded Fort Monmouth Reuse Committee (FMRC), has been sitting in seemingly indefinite hold.

Now, having received the blessing of OEA Program Manager John Leigh on Friday night, the new 10-member authority, successor to the FMRC, will use that application in its quest for the same amount of funds.

Leigh has been assigned by the OEA to assist the authority in acquiring federal funding for the Fort Monmouth reuse plan. When he concurred with Eatontown Mayor Gerald J. Tarantolo, a panel member, that the pending application should just be updated, all nine voting members were on board.

The unanimous decision topped off the first of an anticipated series of meetings of the authority that must now figure out how to best reuse Fort Monmouth’s infrastructure and create new jobs at the 1,126-acre U.S. Army base once it is closed by the Pentagon under its Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process in September 2011.

Some members of the multi-jurisdictional authority, created by state legislation signed into law by Gov. Jon S. Corzine on April 28, had just met each other for the first time shortly before Friday night’s meeting at Fort Monmouth’s Gibbs Hall.

Others, such as Tarantolo, Tinton Falls Mayor Peter Maclearie, Oceanport Mayor Lucille Chaump and New Jersey Secretary of Commerce Virginia S. Bauer of Red Bank, served together on the FMRC during its nine months of life.

Some tensions emerged between the mayors, who represent the fort’s three host communities, and a few other members early in the two-hour-long meeting, which drew about 100 persons, when elections of a chairperson and vice chairperson took place.

Robert Lucky of Fair Haven, a retired corporate vice president for Telcordia Technologies, was elected chairman by a 6-3 vote over Tarantolo, who had chaired the FMRC and who had signed off on the original OEA application.

Monmouth County Freeholder Lillian Burry of Colts Neck, the freeholders’ representative on the panel, nominated Lucky, and Wall Township resident Laurie Cannon, an environmental activist, seconded the motion.

Pointing to Tarantolo’s experience with the FMRC and his attendance at conferences geared toward municipalities facing base closures, Maclearie nominated the Eatontown mayor. Chaump seconded that nomination.

When their names were called for a vote, both Maclearie and Chaump expressed “no disrespect” to Lucky, but pledged support for Tarantolo based on his knowledge of the BRAC process.

Though he had voted for himself, Tarantolo later congratulated Lucky, noted their mutual background in telecommunications, and promised to work with him.

“You have my commitment to work with you on this effort,” Tarantolo told Lucky. “It is a challenge that I think most of us do not really understand.”

Both Chaump and Maclearie expressed regret about the lag time that had passed since the FMRC disbanded in May.

However, the two mayors also thanked Tarantolo for involving them in the previous group, which had put them “ahead of the curve” in reuse planning.

“Gerry Tarantolo is a wealth of knowledge,” Chaump said. “I think we should draw on that.”

In accepting his leadership post, Lucky asked his colleagues on the authority and those in attendance for their input.

“This is a pretty awesome responsibility,” Lucky said. “This is pretty scary. People are losing their jobs.”

Recalling how he once fought for a parking spot when he worked for Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies in Holmdel, he described seeing weeds coming up through the asphalt of the now empty parking lots of the closed facility.

“Between Lucent and Fort Monmouth, 10,000 technical jobs are being lost in Monmouth County,” Lucky said. “We will need a lot of help from this community.”

Bauer, who had co-chaired the FMRC, was unanimously voted vice chairperson after she was nominated by Howell resident Joseph Colfer, who represents organized labor on the panel. Colts Neck resident Rosemarie Estephan, the panel’s expert in land use, seconded Bauer’s nomination.

“I will work tirelessly on behalf of the people of Monmouth County and the state of New Jersey,” Bauer said after the vote.

Lucky, Cannon, Colfer and Estephan were selected by Corzine in June to represent the private sector on the panel.

The authority’s 10th, non-voting member is Fort Monmouth Garrison Commander Col. Ricki L. Sullivan, representing the federal Defense Department.

“My role is to provide information about the fort,” Sullivan said as he introduced himself to those in attendance.

Corzine has allotted $1 million for the new authority in the state budget approved on July 7, according to Jack Donnelly, a representative of the governor’s office, who facilitated the meeting.

Because the state government now recognizes the authority as the official local redevelopment authority (LRA) assigned to oversee a reuse plan for Fort Monmouth, the panel can now apply for $315,000 in federal seed money, Donnelly said.

Leigh, who was sitting in the audience, indicated that the OEA funds are available for the authority to hire an executive director, staff, install telephones and computers and to handle any other start-up costs.

In addition, OEA “will also provide 90 percent of the funding for any reuse plan,” Leigh told the authority members.

“We have the money in the budget,” Leigh said. “We have an in-house policy that [when] we get an acceptable application, we look at it within three to five days.”

In December, the FMRC learned that the application it had submitted to OEA three months earlier had been put on hold at the order of then state Attorney General Peter Harvey.

In his ruling, Harvey had told the OEA to hold the FMRC application because the state government had not sanctioned it as the official entity to oversee Fort Monmouth’s redevelopment.

In January, State Sen. Joseph M. Kyrillos (R-13), State Sen. Ellen Karcher (D-12) and Assemblyman Michael Panter (D-12) took the lead in crafting lengthy legislation in both houses to create the new authority.

In the meantime, the FMRC remained on hold in Arlington.

“We have a grant application on file,” Tarantolo said. “I would think all we had to do is change the name on the application.”

Leigh agreed.

“You could modify the existing application,” Leigh said.

Though a job description for the executive director was included in members’ packets, Bauer, Chaump and Tarantolo agreed to serve on a personnel committee to revise the description and later interview candidates.

As facilitator, Donnelly suggested that the authority should advertise for the position by July 30 and accept rsums through Aug. 30.

The times and dates chosen by the governor’s office for authority meetings proved to be a sore spot with Maclearie, who works full time during the day.

The panel’s next public meeting, originally scheduled for next Wednesday at 7 p.m., was rolled back to 6 p.m. at the request of Burry, who told Lucky she had a conflict with the later start.

Indicating that he could not be available until after 7 p.m., Maclearie shared his conflict with Lucky.

Tarantolo also stated that the Eatontown Borough Council would be meeting the same night beginning at 7:30 p.m.

After Tarantolo agreed to the 6 p.m. start time and to leave for the council meeting when needed, Lucky chose the earlier start.

Maclearie, noting that the legislation creating the authority does not allow the mayors of the host communities to have designees in case of a schedule conflict, was clearly displeased.

“It’s important that the mayors be here,” Maclearie told Lucky. “You ignored my concern for the date. I don’t want to be ignored in the future.”

Future meetings should also be scheduled at night to accommodate the fort’s 5,000-plus civilian employees who stand to lose their jobs if they do not relocate to the Aberdeen (Md.) Proving Ground when the base shuts down, Maclearie said.

In accordance with the BRAC process, the authority has until February to submit a redevelopment plan to the federal government for approval.