Getting It Wrong on Liberty State Park (again)

[Update: 2/16/15 – A few things:

1) Star Ledger has an editorial today: “Liberty State Park’s Precarious Future” – – pretty good, but still fails to note that: a) the Christie DEP is just a big a problem as the new MRC; and b) NJ Future’s stealth privatization study was, at best, totally inappropriate and at worst a money laundering exercise in political cover and betrayal.

2) Prieto’s “cleanup” bill is now on line, see: A4196 – it does nothing to resolve the development threats to the park – see below for reasons why.  ~~~ end update]

Unbelievable.

Defenders of Liberty State Park – along with the press corps – repeatedly have been lied to, manipulated, and deceived by Legislators and DEP.

I have been exposing that and warning about the issues for weeks now and explaining it’s origin in Gov. Christie’s “Sustainable Parks” privatization policy.

So, are they going to let that happen again?

A story today in the Bergen Record sure suggests that may happen.

The story is about a bill introduced by Assembly Speaker Prieto, the sponsor of the bill that created the problem. (A4196 – the bill text is not yet available on line):

The new bill says that “nothing” in it “shall be construed to transfer ownership of any of the property” to the commission. Prieto maintained that the DEP is still in charge of the park.

“We call it a cleanup bill,” said Prieto, D-Secaucus. “The DEP still calls the shots.” He added, “What the DEP was able to do one month ago, two months ago, they will be able to do today and going forward.

I call bullshit on that –

The so called “cleanup” bill does nothing to cleanup the mess and address the underlying problems.

Transfer of ownership is NOT the issue. Whether DEP “calls the shots” is NOT the issue. They are manipulative diversions.

The real issue is that the Christie DEP has unilaterally announced plans to develop the Park and that the new Meadowlands Regional Commission has the power to finance that park development.

When the problem was first exposed, a Prieto staffer denied the problem.

Then, in followup news coverage, Prieto himself denied the problem.

When Senator Sarlo contradicted Prieto and admitted the problem, and editorials blasted the dirty deal, Prieto was forced to walk those denials back.

He then admitted the problem, and said he was going to fix it.

Now his proposed fix may make the problem worse and divert attention from the real problems.

So, after this ugly history, do they finally understand the issue? NO.

Just last week, the Bergen Record broke a story that revealed that for over 6 months prior to their efforts to stealth a provision in the new Meadowlands law, DEP secretly had paid $120,000 for a private consultant to study options to commercialize the park.

DEP has said – multiple times – that their goal is to make LSP a “tourist destination” and a “venue” for events, in order to “generate revenues”.

The DEP press office even went so far as to say that LSP was “just where people go to get on the ferry”.

HELLO!

DEP is just as big a threat to Liberty State Park as the new Meadowlands Regional Commission.

The key issue of concern is the role of the new Meadowlands Commission in financing improvements to Liberty State Park.

DEP would love to develop the park, but DEP doesn’t have bonding authority and they are broke.

The professionals in DEP’s Division of Parks are not controlling decisions about plans for the Park..Decisions are being dictated by Commissioner Martin and the Governor’s Office. They are driven by the Gov.’s own privatization and commercialization plan.

It does no good for park advocates and the press to deny this and pretend that this is not happening.

The open space constitutional amendment dedicated all parks lease and concession revenues to the new Open Space fund.

That legal change put the kibosh on any DEP public private partnership deal to finance stuff like  a restaurant of amphitheater, where concession revenues or ticket sales would finance the “improvements”.

That’s why DEP inserted the MRC role into Prieto/Sarlo Meadowlands bill. They need a funding source and financing entity. 

Whether the Park is controlled by DEP is irrelevant – DEP has announced plans and conducted a study to commercialize the Park as a “tourist destination” to “generate revenue”.

Prieto’s bill does nothing to address any of those issues.

And the concern about the new Meadowlands Environmental Research Institute is a total diversion.