NPS needs new bridge for Fort Hancock plan

In an era tolerant of political "spin," I'm still old fashioned. I believe in individual responsibility. If you obfuscate or hide information from taxpayers, that's on you.

Accordingly, I must criticize Richard Wells, Sandy Hook's superintendent, not only for seven years of misinformation about the National Park Service's plan to allow commercial businesses in Fort Hancock, but also for his obliquely misleading comments about why he favors replacing the Highlands-Sea Bright lift bridge.

First, the NPS has not distinguished itself with its honesty. In 2001, it jolted many citizens by announcing it would lease 36 Fort Hancock buildings for commercial use to an inexperienced, one-man local real estate company, Wassel Realty, for 60 years. Hoping to blunt public outcries about permitting businesses in a national park, it claimed the plan had been discussed at public hearings 25 years earlier! No one at that time discussed privatizing and commercializing a third to a half of what was then described to be "Fort Hancock Village."

The NPS also declared Wassel Realty a "prestigious firm" with "the best plan." However, the speculator never handled such a project before and lacked the required financial backing - a detail an embarrassed NPS still ignores.

Wells and the speculator, James Wassel, took pains to deny their commercial profit center would affect the environment or recreational access. They sanctimoniously chimed: "We wouldn't think of encouraging commercial tenants to hold events on busy summer weekends."

All not true, since the amorphous NPS plan includes bed and breakfasts, bars, restaurants, office buildings, conference centers and so-called corporate educational facilities - all businesses that not only will operate on weekends, but will reduce beach access.

The NPS in 2004 announced it had a "contract" with Wassel, hoping a fait accompli would deflect growing public opposition to its privatization and commercialization plan. But surprise! Regional NPS officials later admitted no contract existed, only an "agreement to agree."

Wassel, in October 2004, claimed that because the Fort is a National Historic Landmark District, "the Park Service cannot allow these treasures to fall down."

First, the NPS has been allowing just that for 30 years. Second, no statutory obligation to rehabilitate exists. It's an NPS fiction to justify privatizing the fort.

Wassel also wrote then that he and the NPS "have worked out a winterization plan for the buildings to immediately protect them from the further ravages of Mother Nature." However, nothing has been done. Lacking funding, Wassel has no contract. Legally, he can't change a light bulb.

Which now brings us to Wells. He recently sidestepped historical considerations to support the proposed new $137 million fixed-span bridge.

"I urge you to look at impacts on the broader human environment and not simply through the narrow lens of the effect on a historic property," he wrote the DOT.

Wells is not being forthright. The "human environment" he really cares about are Wassel's potential customers - the ones they both promised wouldn't be showing up to take away beach parking on peak summer days.

Since the lift bridge blocks Route 36 and Sandy Hook when it opens for boat traffic twice an hour, it also will block Wassel's customers. Wells, who needs that new bridge for his tenants, hoped we taxpayers couldn't put two and two together.

The entire privatization and commercialization plan is built on misdirection and misinformation that are well documented at www.savesandyhook.org/about.php. Please take a look.

Meanwhile, we citizens deserve better from those entrusted to protect our natural and cultural resources. Perhaps Congress will finally wake up.

Judith Stanley Coleman

Middletown