To the Editor:
Anyone who followed the issues raised in last year’s race for mayor will recall Jim Davis’s excoriation of my administration’s sale of 131 acres of land at the former Military Ocean Terminal for $235 million. At that time, the City of Bayonne was facing bankruptcy and a state takeover, which would have ultimately resulted in huge tax increases, estimated in excess of 35 percent, and people losing their homes. I simply could not allow that to happen. The money received in that transaction helped us move toward a more stable financial future, and stave off a state takeover. Last year, during the mayoral campaign, Davis described the sale, which amounted to $1.8 million per acre, as the “worst economic decision ever” How then, does he now justify his decision this week to sell more land at the peninsula for $1 million per acre?
Recently, the City Council of the City of Bayonne voted to unanimously approve the mayor’s settlement of a lawsuit brought by the prospective developers of Bayonne Bay at the peninsula. The Davis settlement includes the sale of 21 acres of land, for just over $1 million per acre. The developers also now have the right to build 560 rental apartment units. Using the Davis logic, I would opine, that his land deal is now the “worst economic decision ever.”
In this “deal,” the developer gets a 30-year tax abatement, which Jim Davis and the entire city council supported. During my administration, it was policy to require a dialogue between the developers who sought abatements and the local Building Trades. I felt, and feel today, that if the city is going to lend economic support to a development project, then the least that the developer could do is to hire local union labor, and offer working apprenticeships to our high school students. The Davis plan hands out abatements without any apprenticeships or guaranteed union jobs. This is wrong for Bayonne, where many of our families are union households. When they work, we as a community prosper. When we give abatements, Bayonne men and women should get jobs.
Perhaps what is worst about the Bayonne Bay settlement is that, in large measure, the money from this land sale was spent years ago. There’s really very little in this sale for the people of Bayonne. The developers made a $14 million deposit years ago, that the Doria Administration used to plug a budget shortfall. And that money is long gone. This settlement has us, you and I, paying $3 million toward the legal fees of the developer, who filed suit against us! That leaves only about $5 million due to the City of Bayonne. In short, we get 560 tax-abated apartments, no local jobs or apprenticeships, and very little money.
This deal, heralded on front pages of local papers, is not one to be celebrated. Davis has once again, sadly, delivered a victory for out-of-town developers and a loss to the citizens of Bayonne.
MARK. A. SMITH