Court dismisses lawsuit by Save Sandy Hook

M embers of the grassroots environmental group Save Sandy Hook (SSH) were scheduled to meet this week to decide what action to take after U.S. District Court Judge Mary Little Cooper dismissed the group’s suit aimed at blocking commercial development on Sandy Hook.

The December 2004 suit was part of Save Sandy Hook’s campaign to overturn a 60-year lease granted by the National Park Service to developer James Wassel, Rumson, to commercially develop 36 or more buildings at historic Fort Hancock. Monmouth County Friends of Clearwater petitioned the court successfully for the right to join the suit.

The 34-page decision rendered last week provided for an appeal by the nonprofit group to be filed within 60 days.

“We have to have a meeting,” Judith Stanley Coleman, who founded SSH to stop the commercialization of the national parkland, said Monday.

She said that the case had been costly and the opponent had “all federal money behind it.”

Richard Wells, superintendent of the Sandy Hook Unit of Gateway National Recreation Area, said Monday, “We’re very pleased with the decision.”

It places the park service “one step closer to preserving” the Fort Hancock buildings “for the benefit of the American people,” he said.

In June, Save Sandy Hook attorney, Paul Josephson, who also represents Clearwater in the suit, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Irene Dowdy presented oral arguments in the case.

Cooper asked both lawyers to direct their arguments to whether the district court should take jurisdiction in the case.

At the hearing, Dowdy said that Clearwater’s case belonged in the Court of Federal Claims because the environmental group was a “disappointed bidder.”

The environmental group had attempted to lease its longtime headquarters at Fort Hancock but was turned down and the building was included in the Wassel lease.

Cooper said Save Sandy Hook had not proved that the group had standing to bring the suit, but left it open for further proof of standing to be supplied in an appeal.

Josephson said Tuesday no decision has been made yet.

“We are pleased that the court found it had jurisdiction in this case,” he said.

He said the court wants proof of a “specific” way his clients had suffered from the violation of each law cited in the complaint.

The fact that the judge’s opinion was “without prejudice” means that there is an opportunity “to come back and file an amended complaint,” according to Josephson.

He said standing refers to “whether or not plaintiff has sufficient interest or injury to bring a claim” to the court.

The park service signed the lease with Wassel in 2004, after selecting him as the developer in 2000. He has received several extensions of the time in which he must prove that he has the financial ability to carry out the project, the most recent at the end of June.

In addition to Save Sandy Hook, opponents of the proposal include the N.J. Chapter of the Sierra Club and the N.J. Environmental Federation, some local and state officials and Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) who say it will harm the unique environment at Sandy Hook and worsen already severe traffic problems in the area

Other local and state officials, the Monmouth County Planning Board and the National Trust for Historic Preservation approve of the project, saying the government lacks funds to rehabilitate the historic buildings so it must be done by a private developer.

Wassel’s plan calls for reuse of the historic Fort Hancock buildings as restaurants, overnight accommodations, offices, conference centers, and environmental and educational facilities.