After a confrontational and sometimes chaotic public hearing last weekend, parties in the struggle over disputed land in Liberty Sate Park began striking conciliatory notes.
That doesn’t mean the debate is finished for the remaining 50 acres in the perimeter of the 1,200-acre (578 of which is water) park, and whether a water park or some other project might go there remains to be seen. But a compromise may be in the works between groups that had fought bitterly in the last several months over this contested land.
“I’d be open to a replacement [swimming] pool if the DEP would allow it,” said Sam Pesin, head of Friends of Liberty State Park, last week. A state-run pool that served 500 daily was shut down two summers ago. “I’m not for anything bigger. Maybe a toddler pool and six to seven hundred people a day.”
Peter Ylvisaker, the president of the Liberty State Park Development Corporation, who had initially pitched the water park proposal, stated: “I’m sure it will be a smaller facility that will emerge.”
Three proposals were presented to the public at Saturday’s hearing.
The first would maintain the area in a more natural state, with some trails. This proposal received the backing of the Audubon Society.
The second proposal would allow for fields and trails and “unstructured recreation.” This proposal had the backing of Pesin and others.
The third proposal, or “high activity feature” could include a water playground and other amenities like an ice skating rink and horseback riding. Congressman Robert Menendez (D-13th Dist.), State Senator Bernard Kenny, and Assemblyman Joseph Doria all stated they were against a water park proposal, but Menendez indicated that he would be in favor of some sort of swimming pool.
“We need the park, I think,” he said, “to provide a place to swim for our children.”
About 500 people showed for the meeting, which became an immediate problem of logistics. The Liberty Science Center theater, which was slated to host the meeting, seats 280. Many stood outside the theater and grew anguished that they might not be able to see or hear the proceedings. A woman began shouting at a science center staffer, and another man began shouting and cursing at a different staffer.
But those several hundred people were eventually shuttled to the ground floor of the center, where they could listen to an audio link-up of the speakers. Most of those people eventually made it into the hearing after others left.
Most of the speakers were against the proposal that included the water park.
“I do not support anything that would create more traffic congestion in Jersey City,” said Lisa E. Harris, president of the Citywide Parents Council of Jersey City, “which is what a water park will do.”
The proposal had raised the ire of environmentalists and long-time park advocates, who said construction of a privatized water park would bring too many cars and be too cost-prohibitive to the majority of residents.
Gateway to tourism
On the flip side, Mayor Bret Schundler had argued that a water park, an ice skating rink, horse farm, would serve as a gateway to New Jersey tourism.
He was booed and heckled relentlessly at the meeting.
In a later interview, Schundler said his position on the matter had been distorted.
“I think what I represent is being demonized,” he said. Schundler explained that he supported “active recreation” in the park, and said that he never outright supported a private or “commercial” water park. Schundler’s several letters to this paper do not indicate a desire to support a private water park.
Nevertheless, those critical of Schundler saw his comments as a sign of backpedaling. In previous discussions, Schundler openly discussed fees at a potential water park and the characteristics of such a facility.
But Schundler had, in the past, complained that the proposal prepared by the state for presentation Saturday contained language implying that the water park might be private. In a letter dated Jan. 22, Schundler accused Frank Gallagher, a facilitator for the state-appointed park committee and a part of the DEP’s Parks and Forestry division, of attempting to “fix the result of the hearing” by including a commercial water park as the main feature of third proposal. He said activist Sam Pesin had “pressured” Gallagher in presenting the proposal in that manner so that Pesin would have an easier time crusading against it.
Responded Gallagher: “He can have whatever opinion he wants to.” Gallagher said the decision to put the commercial water park into the proposal was a committee decision, not his. “It’s my understanding,” said Gallagher, “by correspondence and conversation that he supported a high activity feature, and that early on, since it was one of the things proposed early on, he did support [the water park].”
The state Department of Environmental Protection and ultimately the governor will be the final arbiters in the plans for the park. The committee that had been set up to discuss options for the park will decide on a proposal to send to the state, perhaps sometime this summer.
It could mean a “Chinese Menu” of options for the park, said Gallagher, allowing the committee to mix and match ideas from different proposals.
On Saturday, Schundler, who had been standing in the back of the auditorium, approached Pesin.
“I’m so pissed off at you, Sam,” said Schundler, “for misrepresenting what I wrote.”
But Pesin argued that he had not seen Schundler distance himself from a proposal that he considered abhorrent. “The fight is to stop a commercial water park,” said Pesin.
Responded Schundler: “Why are you saying that’s what I want?” He added, later, “I never said it had to be a private park.”
The committee may meet again by month’s end, and a second public hearing will be held after a final proposal has been hashed out.