State Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-12th District) is calling out state officials for their failure to share information about proposed legislation establishing an authority to implement the Fort Monmouth reuse plan with Monmouth County legislators.
Beck said she has been seeking information on the draft legislation for some five months.
“I have repeatedly personally requested it,” Beck said.
“I think the major issue here is that the governor’s office has refused to share with me — well, frankly, with any legislator — the draft bill that they have been kicking around,” Beck said last week.
The Senate representative’s district includes the towns of Oceanport and Tinton Falls, which along with Eatontown make up the property the fort is situated upon.
The legislation in question, according to Beck, would establish a Fort Monmouth implementation authority, which would be charged with executing the reuse plan as developed for the fort property by the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Planning Authority (FMERPA).
Beck said her major concern with the proposed legislation is that it could reduce the voting power the towns of Oceanport, Tinton Falls and Eatontown and Monmouth County have in implementing the reuse plan, which they assisted in creating, and instead allow state-appointed representatives to make decisions about the plan without the need for local support.
“My understanding is this new bill that they are kicking around and refusing to share with any of us, completely distorts the balance of power for towns in Monmouth County by having seven appointees from the governor’s office,” Beck said.
Officials with the Governor’s Office could not be reached for comment by deadline Monday.
Under FMERPA guidelines, which were also established through legislation, certain vital decisions about the reuse plan had to receive a super majority three-fourths vote to pass. With nine voting members on the authority, composed of the three mayors, a representative from the county Board of Chosen Freeholders and five state appointees, a super majority would only be achieved by a seven to two vote.
However, according to Beck, the proposed legislation to establish the implementation authority would have seven state appointees and four local representatives.
“[The state] would no longer need at any time the municipalities’ support or the county’s support for the major redevelopment effort they are about to undertake,” Beck said.
“By adding two appointees from the governor’s office, you really are now rendering the municipalities and the county completely irrelevant,” Beck said.
“But when you are talking about ‘Hey, I’m the mayor of a town, and what you’re planning affects my residents,’ how can you not allow them to have a substantive role in redevelopment?” Beck said.
“You are talking about their land, their property, their residents, and decisions that are going to be made to affect them, and then you are going to … relegate them to a position that’s meaningless? I think that’s the wrong direction,” she said.
Oceanport Mayor Michael Mahon took a similar stance in assessing the proposed legislation, saying that officials with the three host towns and the county were disappointed when they learned of the potential makeup of the implementation authority.
Mahon, who attended a meeting about the legislationwith representatives from each of the three towns and the county, said that while no draft of the proposed legislation has been made available to the towns or county yet, the local officials were made aware of the possibility that the state might hold a super majority over the four local stakeholders.
“I think we were disappointed with the draft that we were informed of,” Mahon said. “We were disappointed in particular with the balance of overall board members, the number of board members, and the majority as it relates to local stakeholders.”
“We would like to see the implementation board constructed in such a way that the three host communities and the county … comprise the majority of the board,” Mahon explained.
“We think the planning is over and would like to have a leading role, a greater say, in actually moving that plan forward.”
While supporting local stakeholders’ holding a majority of the seats on the implementation authority, Mahon said he would like to see important votes require a super majority of votes by both state appointees and local stakeholders.
“We would like to take … a leading role in how [the implementation] proceeds and we would like to do it in partnership with the state.”
Mahon backed up his case for the local stakeholders by adding that regardless of the makeup of the authority, the governor will still retain veto power over it, as he does with any state authority.
“A point to make going forward is regardless of the makeup of the board and whether or not the majority balance is appointed at the state level or comprised of the local representatives, the governor has a veto,” Mahon explained.
“So, we don’t see a pressing need for the governor to also have a majority of representatives at the table,” he said. “We think that the plan and the governor can best be served by those people who have a much closer interest in the outcome, that are closer than other appointees might be to the particular issues of concern,” he continued.
“So, we think that’s an advantage that the board would have, rather than a disadvantage, if it’s made up with a majority of local stakeholders. And at the same time, respect the contributions of the state and certainly take advantage of those contributions to the extent that we should be focusing on three different levels — local, regional and state — in terms of going forward,” Mahon said.
In addition to the makeup of the authority, Mahon said the local stakeholders are also seeking to ensure that the reuse plan is not altered in any significant way when it is presented to the implementation authority.
“We want a structure that ensures that the plan that each of the communities adopted and that went through the process with FMERPA and was presented … remains the model going forward,” Mahon said, “that the implementation
[authority] respects that plan to a high degree.”
Eatontown Mayor Gerald Tarantolo echoed concerns expressed by Mahon and Beck over the makeup of the board, saying that one of the most important issues facing the formation of the implementation authority is how much of a say the local stakeholders will have.
“One of the things that we did not have with the redevelopment authority was the fact that the structure of the reuse committee favored everyone but the local mayors and the freeholders,” Tarantolo said. “And what we felt was, since we are the ones that have to deal with the selling off of the property and whatever happens to the resale of the property, they become local issues. Then it’s the opinion of the mayors and the freeholders that we should have more of a majority say in the process.”
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