Well, it seems that for the North Brunswick Democrats on the Township Council, the die are cast and the Rubicon has been crossed. An informal group of open space activists in North Brunswick met the other day and came to the conclusion that as far as the cause of open space is concerned, the end is in sight, and it is not the one we had hoped to see. There are not many effective options left. The Dems seem set to negotiate with the Otkens and return to them, after the last council had deposited $6,350,000 in a bank account for the purchase, the property that now belongs to us, the people of North Brunswick.
I hope it doesn’t cost us too much when they give away something that now belongs to all of us collectively. But these are great men of principle, and they must do that which they must do. Unfortunately, the principles of highest concern are that members of the Democratic Party must be elected, and that Vito Puleio has a town to call his own, as he famously did several years ago in a newspaper interview. If memory serves me correctly, the quote was: "When I see something that needs to be done in my town, I do it." Any citizen who aspired to be the play thing of a powerful older man must surely, at this moment, feel fulfilled. But it is clear that they have the power to do so, and also to squelch those of us who desire open space.
Be that as it may, there no longer seems to be any course of action open that will slow their march to greater open space deficiency. Deficiency? Surely not. We must at least be treading water, maintaining what we have now. Well, no, that’s not the case. The recently approved high school expansion will build on land heretofore used for two ballfields, and a practice field for football. Gone. The field on the High School Oval — gone. The workhouse fields — gone, at least temporarily while regrading and reseeding take place. Gone, gone and gone. And to increase the deficiency a bit more we have a new, successful youth sports program, lacrosse, that is using space once imagined for other purposes. But that’s as it should be. One of the town’s great selling programs has been the responsiveness to the recreational needs of the community, and there clearly was a need for this program, although it is sad that girls’ softball remains homeless.
And so, if Mayor Dave and the Dems (as Dave Barry would say, "That’s a great name for a rock band") do manage to save 38 acres of land (22 acres of usable space) we already own, we will just barely make up for the loss.
They’ve got the power, but they also have the responsibility.
The next time a child is told that they can’t sign up for a sport because there isn’t room, then Mack Womack, Carlo Socio, Bruce Chandlee, Adam Weiss and, yes, Vito Puleio are responsible. And when two coaches argue over the right to a certain field for practice or games, then they are responsible. And if a child is injured on a field poorly maintained due to overuse, then they are responsible. And when some innocent finds his or her way into "the Devil’s workshop" because Mom is worried about the child spending too much time playing violent video games, tries to send that child out to play, but there is not enough space for recreation, well, then they are responsible.
That’s a lot of responsibility. I hope that councilmen Mack Womack, Carlo Socio, Bruce Chandlee, Adam Weiss and Vito Puleio are big enough to shoulder it, but I doubt it. Perhaps a new recreational program in weight lifting would help, if we can find the space for it.
William Hartko
North Brunswick