Twin Pines Airport purchase is closer to reality

Four towns hope to have athletic fields on the site

By John Tredrea
   Hopewell Township has begun work on a contract to purchase the 50.05-acre Twin Pines Airport from the Weasner family. The effort is part of a four-town plan to build eight athletic fields on the property.
   The full Township Committee voted unanimously Monday night in favor of the move.
   Jean Weasner, who attended the meeting, said she and her husband, William Weasner, can’t keep the airport because they can’t afford to pay the taxes on it anymore.
   The taxes on the airport property are nearly $36,231, up from $16,770 in 2005, according to a Hopewell Township tax official . The increase, she said, is a result of the recent revaluation.
   The airport is located in the southeastern section of the township, at the intersection of Pennington-Lawrenceville and Federal City roads, near the Lawrence Township border.
   In September, Hopewell Township, Lawrence Township and Pennington and Hopewell boroughs applied for county grant money to help buy the airport and build the fields. Two weeks ago, the county announced the towns would receive $442,000 in match grant money for the project. Under this type of grant, the towns would have to put up as much money as the county in order to receive the money from the county.
   Township and county officials have said more county matching grant money next year could cover most or all of the cost of buying Twin Pines and building the fields. Those officials include township Mayor Vanessa Sandom and county Freeholder Liz Muoio, who lives in Pennington. Officials speaking on condition that their names be withheld have estimated the total cost of the project at $3 million.
   Her voice breaking with emotion, Ms. Weasner said Monday she and her husband hated to let go of the airport, which they have owned for decades.
   "We’ve put our heart and soul into it," she said. "We can no longer pay the taxes. I had to go to the bank today to borrow money to pay the taxes."
   Ms. Weasner said a developer has offered $2.5 million for the airport. She said she and her husband told the township they’re willing to sell it for less than that if the land can be preserved as open space or for recreational use.
   She and several other residents asked the township to consider a compromise plan under which a portion of Twin Pines could still be used as an airport while the rest was used for athletic fields. Several of the residents who backed this idea were pilots who occasionally schedule Saturday programs under which youths are given free rides in small planes from Twin Pines.
   Mayor Vanessa Sandom replied that the township would investigate the compromise idea. "I don’t know how the county will feel about it," she said.
   Before the committee voted to authorize beginning work on a contract under which the land would be bought from the Weasners, committee members Judy Niederer and Mark Iorio complained that they had been unfairly excluded from recent negotiations on the proposed acquisition. Ms. Niederer and Mr. Iorio are Republicans. The other three Committee members — Ms. Sandom, Mr. Sandahl and John Murphy — are all Democrats.
   "We’ve all been talking about this for more than a year," the mayor replied to Mr. Iorio and Ms. Niederer.
   After a lengthy, testy discussion that included rapid-fire reading aloud of portions of various e-mails that had gone among township officials, Township Attorney Steve Goodell said nothing illegal or improper had occurred to date in talks between township officials on the proposed airport deal. He stressed that no contract of sale for the airport could be approved without a committee vote on an enabling township ordinance, which under state law would require a public hearing before an adoption vote.
   Any financing measure for the project, such as a bond ordinance, also would require adoption of an ordinance. A public hearing would be held before an adoption vote could be cast, he added.
   Township Engineer Paul Pogorzelski has said an advantage of the airport is that its all-grass, flat fields could likely be converted to athletic fields in a year or less.