On thin ice? Activists still worried about Devils arena

Like Jason in the Friday the Thirteenth movies, the idea of building a stadium for the New Jersey Devils over the Lackawanna Terminal/PATH station never seems to die. Just when it appeared to have flat-lined for good thanks to an all-but-completed deal that would put the team on ice in Newark the notion twitched again last weekend when Bob Drasheff, the city’s director of human services, told the New York Times that the arena would fit in Hoboken nicely. Drasheff’s words did not sit well with mile-square activists who have nightmares about the traffic and the noise pollution that might be associated with locating a “world class” stadium in the already-congested city. Two years ago, city officials held a press conference to discuss the idea of bringing the Devils to Hoboken. Afterwards, a public outcry made supporting it a political no-no, and the mayor and council publicly disavowed the idea. At a meeting Monday night of the Hoboken Quality of Life Committee, a citizens’ organization, activists launched a brand-new letter writing campaign to try and ensure that the stadium does not end up in Hoboken. Drasheff, who was reached a day after the meeting, said that the activists have nothing to fear. “Anybody who reads the paper knows that this is a dead issue,” he said. “The administration is not going to re-open it. Even if the stadium in Newark falls through, the team has announced that its second choice is to move it out of state, so Hoboken just is not an option.” But why did Drasheff suggest it, then? The director said that his remarks were intended to tweak state officials in Trenton who opposed the project, not breathe new life into the proposal. “My remarks were intended to give a little knock to the officials in Trenton,” Drasheff said, “because when it came to negotiations over the stadium they were not completely truthful with us. If they had just come to the city with what they wanted, then it would not have been drawn out over such a long period of time and become so political. Instead, they negotiated with Newark while all this was happening, and then they announced that they would put together $75 million in aid to Newark the day that the team owners announced their interest there.” Although the administration of Mayor Anthony Russo has announced its deadset opposition to the project, activists are skeptical since the mayor originally said that he was interested in the idea. A recent sighting of George Steinbrenner in the mile-square city further fueled their fears. Steinbrenner, the longtime owner of the Yankees, recently became a principal partner in the Devils. “The idea that Newark wouldn’t work out and that Hoboken would sounds crazy,” Quality of Life Coalition coordinator Helen Manogue told a crowd of 40 people Monday night. “But this whole project sounds crazy. You just never know with this thing.”