Save Sandy Hook.org

Save Sandy Hook group outlines goals and objectives

October 15th, 2002

The citizens' organization that recently formed to oppose the proposed commercialization of Fort Monmouth at Sandy Hook announced today that it is adopting the mission statement of the National Park Service (NPS) as its own, in fighting the NPS privatization plan.

“We feel that going back to the origins of the U.S. National Park Service will help us all – citizens and federal officials – remember what the NPS is supposed to be all about, and that is not commercialization of park lands,” according to Judith Stanley Coleman, chairman of the Save Sandy Hook citizens group.

“With just a slight modification to the NPS mission statement, our mission is ‘...to help conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wild life of Fort Hancock and Sandy Hook and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations,’” according to Mrs. Coleman.

“When the noted naturalist and conservationist John Muir convinced President Theodore Roosevelt of the need to preserve our nation’s wilderness treasures for future generations, it was exactly the present plans of the NPS to lease 36 former Army buildings at Fort Hancock to a private developer for commercial development that Muir and President Roosevelt tried to guard against,” Mrs. Coleman said. “We believe Sandy Hook, which is the property of people of the United States, is too valuable to the public interest to be turned over to private speculators. We do not agree that the NPS concept of ‘blanket privatization’ is the only alternative.

“The heart of our concerns is our doubts that the privatization of the buildings is the only viable alternative to letting them continue to deteriorate under NPS stewardship, a concept that was alien to both Muir and President Roosevelt as they worked together to encourage to establish the National Park at Yellowstone,” she said. “Their foresight has resulted in a national park system that protects some of the most beautiful natural areas in this country and most of the nation’s important monuments and historic sites.

“The NPS proposal to rehabilitate the 36 military buildings at Fort Hancock by privatization, which means commercialization, flies in the face of 130 years our nation’s tradition of conserving what is important to us,” she said. “Fort Hancock can be preserved without selling it to the highest bidder.”

“We all agree that the current situation at Fort Hancock cannot continue, allowing the unused buildings to continue deteriorating due to the lack of regularly scheduled maintenance by the NPS. We also agree with Congress that buildings under NPS control that are not needed by that organization should be leased to other appropriate organizations. We believe, however, that the buildings at Fort Hancock, part of the National Historic Landmark status of Sandy Hook, are an important exception and should be treated as such by the NPS.

The NPS has had 28 years to encourage alternate use of these buildings, and has had some success without a formal program to attract many appropriate tenants, such as National Marine Fisheries, the American Littoral Society, the NJ Audubon Society, MAST, Clean Ocean Action, and other educational, environmental, and civic action organizations. Imagine how much more successful the NPS would have been with an aggressive federal/state/private “marketing” program to attract additional public-oriented organizations. We believe that the absence of an organized program by NPS to attract appropriate tenants is no excuse to now rush to turn the facilities over to real estate speculators.

“Historically,” she said, “Sandy Hook and Fort Hancock has too rich a heritage to be turned over to a land speculator of undocumented competency for commercial use that has yet to be defined by either the NPS or the developer.

“Aesthetically,” she added,”Sandy Hook also has a quiet beauty, charm, and ambiance that is unmatched in the metropolitan area; and no decision about the future of this valuable recreational gem should be made in haste to meet the questionable administrative needs of the NPS bureaucracy. That is why we are going back to the beginning, when the nation park system was first begun, to remind ourselves of what our real purpose should be at Sandy Hook and Fort Hancock, preservation and appropriate use, not commercialization.”
In the next few weeks we will be proposing to state and local officials our ideas on how the buildings at Sandy Hook can be preserved as part of national heritage and consistent with the NPS’s mission to ensure that they can be enjoyed for future generations

Press Releases :

November 13th, 2008

Save Sandy Hook will continue to figh...

...commercialization was never envisioned by the founders of the National Park Service