Dear Editor:
Thanks to Al Sullivan for his excellent stories on the ongoing privatization threat to Liberty State Park from wrong-headed legislation.
Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto should be ashamed of himself for breaking his Liberty State Park promise in his 2/5 press release at the time of the governor signing a bill, with last minute LSP language, which obscenely gave the new Meadowlands Regional Commission (MRC) the power to approve and implement any plan for LSP.
Asm. Prietos and co-sponsor Senator Sarlos press release stated, a new bill will clarify that MRC may only review plans for Liberty State Park but unconscionably his new bill, A4196, still gives MRC power to “approve and implement LSP plans! In abandoning his press release promise, he cast aside weeks of strong public opposition to the bills LSP language and decades of the broad public consensus for an open space, non-privatized park behind Lady Liberty.
The speaker stated he is still including the commissions approve and implement language because the DEP requested it. He should just say no to the DEP, as he must know that the governor wants to use the commission to ramrod large-scale LSP privatization plans, and that the DEP already has development plans, after paying NJ Future $120,000 to hire a NYC company to seek proposals and look at every inch of the park according to a DEP spokesman.
The wolves are gathering at LSPs door with A4196 facilitating the MRCs ramrodding of LSP plans. If Asm. Prieto truly cares about protecting LSP from ill-conceived and unpopular plans, he will live up to his MRC review only promise and change the bills language, and Senator Sarlo will introduce a Senate version that honors their 2/5 pledge to lessen the threat to LSP’s future.
Sincerely,
Sam Pesin,
President of The Friends of Liberty State Park