Earth Day & Arbor Day

It looks like a great week ahead. Earth day is on Tuesday, April 22nd
and Friday, the 25th is Arbor Day.
Monmouth County is celebrating all over.

It all starts on Monday, the 21st  with two EARTH DAY STORY & CRAFT events. Be sure to Register and get there by 4:15 PM to either the
Holmdel Township Library, RSVP: 732-946-4118 or
to the Marlboro Library, RSVP: 732-536-9406

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Sandy Hook’s Fort Hancock a step closer to getting a makeover as more than just a beach destination

Sandy Hook’s Fort Hancock a step closer to getting a makeover as more than just a beach destination (via NJ.com)

Like many young teens in the mid-to-late 1960s, Julie Hankinson spent some of her best days at Sandy Hook. Hankinson, though, had an advantage. She didn’t have to leave after the sun set or when the school year started. She lived there year-round…

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Remains Discovered on Sandy Hook Not Human

Remains Discovered on Sandy Hook Not Human (via Middletown Patch)

The remains were found near Gateway National Recreation Area on Saturday. The remains discovered in Sandy Hook bay on Saturday were not of human origin, New Jersey State Police Sgt. Brian Polite said Sunday. The remains were found near the Gateway National…

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Not quite a shutdown

Sandy Hook, the Monmouth County arm of the Gateway National Recreation Area, is closed to the public as a result of the Federal Government shutdown.

But vehicles were driving in and out of the park when I drove by this afternoon.

Ranger Tim Quinn said the Marine Academy of Science and Technology is open as are “the cooperators,” the non-profit organizations that have their offices in the park.  The Coast Guard Station is also open.

Quinn said all others are prohibited from entering the park, by car bicycle or foot. He said several members of the park staff were sent home after working four hours today and referred me to the press office for the answers to any other questions.  I guess the press office is working.

In addition to Quinn, there were five rangers gathered in toll house at the entrance to the park.  Asked if he was getting paid, Quinn laughed and said, “I’m not volunteering for the government.

The Jersey Tomato Press reports that 800,000 “non-essential” government employees are out of work. Passport offices and the Federal Housing Administration are closed.  No mortgages or last minute overseas trips.  No SBA loans or background checks for gun licenses either.  The trash isn’t being picked up in Washington, DC, but lots of garbage is being reported in the media.

While President Obama and Senate Democrats are blaming House Republicans for shutting down the government, the House is taking up measures to fund the National Parks, veterans affairs and Washington, DC government operations.   Senate Democrats, budget chairwoman Barbara Mikuski and Majority Whip Dick Durbin rejected the piecemeal approach to reopening the government, according to Politico.

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Sandy Hook Is Open

Sandy Hook, the northernmost part of the Jersey Shore, reopened to the public this morning after being closed since Superstorm Sandy struck.

Noel Westerlind, SR of Leonardo was there and captured this amazing photo:

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Sandy Hook to Re-open on May 1

Sea Gull’s Nest photo

Gateway National Recreation Area will reopen the Sandy Hook Unit to the public for the first time since Hurricane Sandy beginning Wednesday, May 1. A ceremony at 10 A.M. will mark the reopening, with U.S. Congressman Frank Pallone in attendance.

“We have been looking forward to this moment since the storm hit us and we’ve worked hard to make it happen this soon,” said Sandy Hook Unit Coordinator Pete McCarthy. “Employees and volunteers have literally dug out beach centers and parking lots, and pumped out flooded basements, we’ve even rebuilt sand dunes and replanted beach grasses.”  Work will continue this summer as more services are restored and roads continue to be repaved.

After the opening ceremony Congressman Pallone will address the group, which will include the Marine Academy of Science and Technology (MAST) Color Guard who will be on hand to present the colors.  These MAST high school students’ campus is located in the park and their campus was flooded during the storm.   The students will finish the school year at an alternate location, host their graduation at Ft. Hancock and will return to Sandy Hook for fall classes.

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Kyrillos Introduces Resolution Calling on Feds to Ensure Sandy Hook Gateway National Recreation Area Open for Summer of 2013

Concerned about the potential impact on the Bayshore region’s economy of a prolonged closure of the Sandy Hook Gateway National Recreation Area, Senator Joe Kyrillos (R- Monmouth) has introduced a resolution calling on the federal government to make reopening Sandy Hook a priority.

“Sandy Hook sustained enormous damage during Hurricane Sandy along with the homes and businesses of Bayshore residents,” Kyrillos said. “But there is more devastation in store if this economic engine for our region is not restored and reopened in time for the 2013 tourism season. The Sandy Hook Recreation Area is the source of millions of dollars of economic activity every year and an affordable summer getaway for tourists from near and far who will lose out on a treasured summer tradition if it is not reopened. We cannot afford to lose the economic activity generated by Sandy Hook as we seek to rebuild our shoreline.”

Sandy Hook Gateway National Recreation Area is federally owned property that is maintained and operated by the National Park Service.

Text of the resolution is as follows:

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Peek-a-boo Francis…I see you!

By Russ Cote

So Francis favors transparency. Well that’s terrific. The first step down that long hallway toward redemption for Mr. Pallone you ask?

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Sad Story Continues At Fort Hancock

Pallone, Lautenberg and Menendez should put up. The Asbury Park Press should shut up

By Art Gallagher

In their editorial today, Sad chapter ends at fort, the Asbury Park Press editorial board demonstrates that their grasp of reality is insufficient for a newspaper of record for the Monmouth-Ocean region.

The press rehashes the sorry history of  Sandy Hook Partners’ failed plans to redevelop Fort Hancock. They fault the National Park Service for granting the developer nine years of extensions to obtain financing for the redevelopment plans.  They fail to mention that SHP’s ability to finance the project was thwarted by litigation and grassroots opposition to the commercialization of the park.  The litigation and opposition was supported by the APP and by Congressman Frank Pallone.

Now the APP says,

Fort Hancock must be preserved for future generations. In order for that to happen, a developer or developers with both the money and sound plans need to be found. The park service would do well to heed the suggestion by Reps. Frank Pallone and Rush Holt, both D-N.J., that the historic buildings be leased to entities one by one, rather than as a package.

Clearly, neither the Neptune Nudniks nor the Congressmen have even an elementary understanding of how development works.

Where does Pallone, Holt and the APP think the Park Service will find a developer, or developers, with an extra $60-$100 million sitting in the bank who would be willing to commit it to Fort Hancock after what Sandy Hook Partners went through? James Wassel, the head of SHP is no slouch.  His experience and personal committment to our community made him the right developer, if a public-private partnership was the best method to redevelop the fort.

Private partners were, and apparently still are, sought because federal dollars are not available to rehabilitate the park.  Said another way, Frank Pallone, Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez (and Jon Corzine, as U.S. Senator before Menedez) either did not have the clout or commiment to secure federal funding to rehabilitate Fort Hancock.

The Pallone/Holt/APP idea of leasing the 36 buildings of the fort one by one, to non-profits, rather than as a package, is crazy.  Even if 36 organizations “with both money and sound plans” on hand could be found, managing 36 separate projects with 36 separate project managers is not feasible.

Wassel’s plan to “commercialise” Sandy Hook would not have turned the park into Times Square or the Monmouth Mall.  He would have developed the fort into an educational and cultural campus.

As a neighbor of and frequent visitor to Sandy Hook, I never understood how Wassel’s plans would have been commercially viable or returned the investment required for the rehabilitation, given the location and climate of the site.  Yet, I supported the plan because the proposed usage would have been an enhancement of the park.  If private investors or lenders were willing to risk their capital on a project that enhanced the park while giving the National Park Service control of what could be done with the site in the event of failure, there was no downside for the public.  Yes, I read the master lease.  The public was protected from turning Fort Hancock into an amusement park or shopping mall.

Now that Wassel’s is out of the picture, it is incumbent upon our federal representitives to secure funding to preserve the fort.  Failing that, the Park Service should fence it off and install Keep Out-Hazardous signs like there has been for most of the fort’s ruins for decades. 

Alternatively, the Park Service should either level the buildings and convert the land to a recreational use like a marina and camp ground.

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Fort Hancock Developer Evicted From Sandy Hook

Sandy Hook Partners, LLC has been evicted from the three buildings it retained control over after its MasterLease with the National Park Service to rehabilitate Fort Hancock was terminated.  The former park headquarters, the theater and the chapel were subject to the separate lease that Sandy Hook Parnters defaulted on in October.

The park service changed the locks on the buildings on November 24, according to a report in the Asbury Park Press.

Sandy Hook Partners was chosen from a pool of 20 applicants to rehabilitate Fort Hancock in 2001.  There plan faced strong opposition from the late Judith Stanley Coleman who formed Save Sandy Hook to oppose the private redevelopment of the fort.  The Sandy Hook Partners master lease was terminated last year when the firm failed to secure financing for their plan after six extensions to the agreement.

Congressman Frank Pallone supported private redevelopment before joining the opposition.  He and Congressman Rush Holt are now urging the Park Service to lease the 36 rundown buildings to non-profits on a building by building basis and not as part of an overall rehabilitation effort.

That won’t work either.  If Fort Hancock is to remain a historic landmark and open to the public, federal funding is the only viable option to restore the buildings.  Pallone did not have the clout to make that happen during the Clinton administration nor during the first two years of the Obama administration.  Not only is it unlikely that he can get funding for it now that he is soon to be a minority member of Congress, he’s not even trying.

In the meantime the buildings continue to deteriorate.  It is very likely that they will continue to decline, unless Pallone can prevail on Senators Robert Menendez and/or Frank Lautenberg to secure funding for rehabilitation.

As the Park Service seeks public input on the future of the fort, they should also consider turning it over to the military….either the adjoining Coast Guard station or to the Earle Naval Weapons Station.

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