Save Sandy Hook.org

press release

August 18th, 2005

CLEARWATER TO JOIN SUIT TO BLOCK DEVELOPMENT ON SANDY HOOK

Environmental group will ask court to allow it to join other plaintiffs

Front Page hub August 18, 2005

CLEARWATER TO JOIN SUIT TO BLOCK DEVELOPMENT ON SANDY HOOK

Environmental group will ask court to allow it to join other plaintiffs

BY GLORIA STRAVELLI
Staff Writer

Monmouth County Friends of Clearwater (MCFC) will join a suit to block the National Park Service from leasing historic buildings at Fort Hancock to a private developer.
If successful, MCFC will file a complaint claiming the NPS discriminated against Clearwater by refusing to lease the environmental group’s longtime headquarters building at Sandy Hook.
A motion to allow the environmental group to become a plaintiff in the suit will be filed early next week in U.S. District Court in Trenton, according to Paul Josephson, the attorney litigating the suit for Save Sandy Hook, a grassroots group opposed to commercialization and privatization on Sandy Hook.
The suit names the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), the National Park Service, NPS Regional Director Marie Rust, Sandy Hook Partners, Wassel Realty Group, and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection as defendants.
Rust is named as signee of the lease. The DEP is named since Commissioner Bradley Campbell serves as the state’s historic preservation officer.
Strategically, adding Clearwater as a plaintiff would be significant, Josephson said, because the environmental group has standing to bring a lawsuit on its own behalf.
Ed Dlugosz, president of Clearwater and a trustee of SSH, said when the government signaled its intention to file a motion to have the suit dismissed on the basis that SSH lacked standing, the group decided to seek a role as plaintiff.
“We provided much of the ammo for SSH ... and we were going to be prime witnesses,” Dlugosz said.
“When the DOI made a motion to stop the suit because they felt SSH had no standing, they weren’t a participant in the bidding. It was incumbent on us to stand out and stand forward so we could ensure the lawsuit had standing,” he continued.
“There should have been no question at all because citizens should have been able to do it,” Dlugosz said. “The public is going to be denied access so they should have had standing.”
Clearwater submitted a proposal to lease and rehabilitate its headquarters building on Sandy Hook, which was denied because the park service said the group did not have adequate financing.
Instead, the park service awarded a 60-year historic lease for 36 buildings to Sandy Hook Partners (SHP), which, five years after submitting a redevelopment proposal, has still not produced proof of financing adequate to begin even the first phase of its $75 million plan to rehabilitate and lease out the buildings for a mix of uses including commercial office space, hospitality, education and research facilities.
The suit asks the court to cancel the lease award.
“It’s important that Clearwater join because one of the arguments the government is making is that because Save Sandy Hook was not a bidder that submitted a [lease] proposal, they don’t have adequate interest to bring it to court.
“Clearwater was a proposer, and its proposal was rejected because the government found it didn’t have financial capacity to renovate the building. One of our objections was the government waived all sorts of financial capabilities for Wassel. We think Clearwater was directly harmed here because they were found to be not capable financially, and didn’t get any of the waivers that Wassel got.
“Clearwater’s position is that Wassel should be held to the same standard as they were.
”I consider Clearwater to have indisputable standing.”
“What’s good for them is good for Wassel,” Josephson said. “He should have been held to the same standard.”
Josephson said he expects to file a motion with Judge John Hughes to amend the complaint by adding Clearwater as a plaintiff on Monday or Tuesday. The environmental group would join plaintiffs SSH, and James M. Coleman of Middletown.
According to Josephson, an attorney with Trenton law firm Hill Wallack, the defendants refused to agree to let Clearwater join the suit, and plaintiffs rejected the option of filing a separate lawsuit in favor of asking the court to allow the complaint to be amended.
“We could have filed a separate complaint on behalf of Clearwater, then tried to consolidate the two cases, but it would be a totally inefficient way of doing it. Why create a separate lawsuit?”
Josephson said he expects the court to allow the motion.
“It should not be a controversial issue because of the fact that Clearwater could have brought suit in its own name,” he said.
He anticipates that the government will oppose the motion and file a counter motion to dismiss the case for lack of standing. The court has not ruled on the plaintiffs’ request for a jury trial.
A spokesman in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Trenton, which is representing the DOI and the NPS, declined to comment Monday.
According to Josephson, the addition of Clearwater would broaden the base of citizens represented by the plaintiffs in the action.
“Clearwater brings a representation of more citizens to the table who are objecting to the plan for development of Sandy Hook,” he said. “Clearwater has a lot of members who are users of Sandy Hook. There’s some overlap in membership and the sorts of interests represented by Clearwater and Save Sandy Hook.
“It’s an interesting slant on all of this that the government doesn’t want citizens to have their fair day in court to be heard on their objections. That’s what’s happening here. When you cut through all the legal mumbo jumbo, the government is saying you citizens have no right to be heard on your objections. We’re saying every citizen has the right to be heard.”
When the National Park Service put out a call in 1999 for redevelopers for the historic Fort Hancock buildings that it could not afford to maintain, Clearwater applied for a long-term lease for Building 11 on Officers Row. The proposal was for the Clearwater Education and Conference Center to serve as a headquarters and conference center that could be rented by other nonprofits.
Despite its long connection to the Hook, Clearwater’s application to lease and restore its building was turned down by the NPS, which said MCFC didn’t have the financing necessary to fund renovations of the former Captain’s Quarters on Officers Row.
Instead, of 23 applications for one or more of the buildings, the agency selected SHP.
In its complaint, Clearwater will argue that its proposal was turned down in March 2000 because it didn’t show proof of financial capacity — even though the group “supplied all of the information required by the park service’s Request for Proposals to support its financial ability to undertake the lease of Building 11, through grants, fundraising activities, and the rent received from nonprofit organizations for use of the Clearwater Education and Conference Center.”
Both SHP and Wassel Realty are headed by Rumson resident James Wassel. According to an announcement by Equis Corp., the Chicago-based real estate services firm has named Wassel senior vice president, eastern region.
Wassel’s SHP has received from the NPS seven extensions of the time frame in which it was to show proof of financial capacity.
Noting that Clearwater is “dedicated to preservation and restoration of and continued public access to Sandy Hook,” the eight-count amended complaint that would be filed charges that:
Count 1 — The lease will result in degradation of Sandy Hook by permitting SHP up to 70 percent commercial usage of buildings in what amounts to “a thinly disguised corporate office park.”
Count II — The lease does not ensure preservation of the historic properties, because renovation of the interiors calls for full redesign and incorporation of modern décor and technological advances when the RFP called for minimal changes to defining characteristics of the buildings, site and environment.
Count III — The lease violates statutes by not providing for the payment of the fair market value of the properties. The lease calls for $1.65 per square foot when the NPS’ own appraisal of fair market value is $2.46 per square foot.
SHP has not shown it has financial capacity to execute the lease. RFP required that at the time of submission of proposals, sources of needed funds and “compelling evidence” of ability to obtain funding be identified, and that audited statements, financing agreements, letters of commitment, etc., be provided. Wassel’s proposal did not comply; in fact, “it contains absolutely no proof of financial commitment.” NPS refuses to disclose the basic financial terms of Wassel’s proposal. NPS rejected several proposals, including Clearwater’s, because it did not include required proof of financing, while Wassel’s proposal “failed to provide any proof of financial capacity to perform,” and still does, five years after submitting, and NPS gave extensions and allowed Wassel to only show proof of financing the first phase.
Count V – The NPS altered terms of the RFP in favor of Wassel, giving SHP unfair advantage over Clearwater and other bidders. By changing terms, NPS violated terms of the RFP.
Count VI — The lease violates the National Environmental Policy Act which requires an environmental impact statement prior to the awarding of a lease. The NPS finding that an EIS wasn’t necessary didn’t take into account the environmental impact of additional parking spaces or the fact that the development would be up to 70 percent commercial.
Count VII – The lease violates the National Historic Preservation Act by failing to provide a Programmatic Agreement or Memorandum of Understanding signed with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
Count VIII — The conduct of the NPS is arbitrary and capricious and violates the Administrative Procedures Act because NPS altered portions of the RFP without formal amendments, including “giving Wassel four years to provide less comprehensive funding guarantees than were required of all other bidders, including Clearwater, at the time proposals were submitted.”