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Park Service misleads on fort project, bridge plan

January 16th, 2007

Sandy Hook's superintendent...
seven years of misinformation...
misleading comments...Highlands-Sea Bright drawbridge.

Park Service misleads on fort project, bridge plan

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 01/16/07

In an era tolerant of political "spin," I'm still old fashioned. I believe in individual responsibility. If you obfuscate or hide information from taxpayers, that's on you.

Accordingly, I must criticize Richard Wells, Sandy Hook's superintendent, not only for seven years of misinformation about the National Park Service's plan to allow commercial businesses in Fort Hancock, but also for his misleading comments about why he favors replacing the Highlands-Sea Bright drawbridge.

First, the Park Service has not distinguished itself with its honesty. In 2001, it jolted many citizens by announcing it would lease 36 Fort Hancock buildings for commercial use to an inexperienced, one-man local real estate company, Wassel Realty, for 60 years. Hoping to blunt public outcries about permitting businesses in a national park, it claimed the plan had been discussed at public hearings 25 years earlier. No one at that time discussed privatizing and commercializing one-third to half of what was then described to be "Fort Hancock Village."

The Park Service also declared Wassel Realty a "prestigious firm" with "the best plan." However, the speculator never handled such a project before and lacked the required financial backing — a detail an embarrassed Park Service still ignores.

Wells and the speculator, James Wassel, took pains to deny their commercial profit center would affect the environment or recreational access. They sanctimoniously chimed: "We wouldn't think of encouraging commercial tenants to hold events on busy summer weekends." All not true, since the Park Service plan includes bed and breakfast places, bars, restaurants, office buildings, conference centers and "corporate educational facilities" — all businesses that not only will operate on weekends but will reduce beach access.

The Park Service in 2004 announced it had a "contract" with Wassel, hoping a fait accompli would deflect growing public opposition to its privatization and commercialization plan. But surprise! Regional Park Service officials later admitted no contract existed, only an "agreement to agree."

Wassel in October 2004 claimed that because the fort is a National Historic Landmark District, "the Park Service cannot allow these treasures to fall down." First, the Park Service has been allowing just that for 30 years. Second, no statutory obligation to rehabilitate exists. It's a Park Service fiction to justify privatizing the fort.

Wassel also wrote that he and the Park Service "have worked out a winterization plan for the buildings to immediately protect them from the "further ravages' of Mother Nature." However, nothing has been done. Lacking funding, Wassel has no contract. Legally, he can't change a light bulb.

Which now brings us to Wells. He recently sidestepped historical considerations to support the proposed new $137 million fixed-span bridge. "I urge you to look at impacts on the broader human environment and not simply through the narrow lens of the effect on a historic property," he wrote the state Department of Transportation.

Wells is not being forthright. The "human environment" he really cares about is Wassel's potential customers — the ones they both promised wouldn't be showing up to take away beach parking on peak summer days. Since the drawbridge blocks Route 36 — and Sandy Hook — when it opens for boat traffic twice an hour, it also will block Wassel's customers. Wells, who needs that new bridge for his tenants, hoped we taxpayers couldn't put two and two together.

We citizens deserve better from those entrusted to protect our natural and cultural resources. Perhaps Congress will finally wake up.

Judith Stanley Coleman

MIDDLETOWN

Copyright © 2007 Asbury Park Press. All rights reserved.

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Press Releases :

November 13th, 2008

Save Sandy Hook will continue to figh...

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