NPS should provide cash amounts rec’d for Hook

Open letter to Barry Sullivan, general superintendent, Gateway National Recreation Area:

Thank you for your Jan. 6 response to my Nov. 17 letter. As you suggested, I once again reviewed the July 9, 2004, document, which you mistakenly call “the lease,” but which is actually only an “agreement to agree” because Sandy Hook Partners was not able to secure suitable, adequate funding to perform. My understanding of what the July 9 document has even been validated by the National Park Service when its representative called this 2004 document “not a lease, but an agreement to agree” at the October 2004 Programmatic Agreement meeting held at the chapel.

But as the National Park Service has done continuously during this protracted, unheard of, 10- year-plus procurement, whenever an unpleasant, irrefutable truth confronts its chosen course of action, the National Park Service has simply, elected to ignore it. This has, once again, shown when Mr. Barry Sullivan states that the separate July 6, 2007, supposed 56-year lease for the Fort Hancock chapel, theater and 26 Hudson St. is appropriate and legal, even though Sandy Hook Partners had not shown that it had proper funding. (This same defect would cause Sandy Hook Partner’s complete elimination on Oct. 12.) To attempt to justify the use of Provision 27.1.b demonstrates how desperate the National Park Service has become. If Provision 27.1.b had truly been available for the creation of the July 6 threebuilding lease, when Sandy Hook Partners did not have the necessary funding, why did the National Park Service stop at three buildings, causing the other 33 Fort Hancock buildings to later be withdrawn from Sandy Hook Partners’ possible control?

And as for your allegations that the judiciary had ruled positively on the legality of the July 9 document, you are incorrect once again. The courts never ruled on the documents’ legitimacy. The case was dismissed due to the ruling that Save Sandy Hook LLC did not have “standing.” The procurement defects were never examined or adjudicated by the courts.

I still hope that the National Park Service will finally recognize the error of its signing the July 6 document for the three buildings and terminate this erroneous relationship.

In an effort to help the National Park Service focus on its errors, I am once again asking Mr. Sullivan to provide the actual cash amounts of rental fees the National Park Service/federal government have received from Sandy Hook Partners since the inception of the July 6 bogus lease. I also am asking for the name of the insurance company and the amount of insurance coverage that Sandy Hook Partners has supposedly secured for the three buildings. So far, Mr. Sullivan, you have given only an imprecise assurance that Sandy Hook Partners is current in its payments to the National Park Service and that insurance coverage has been obtained.

Unfortunately, you have failed to provide specific dollar amounts once again, and I have learned not to trust the hollow assurances of the National Park Service.

I look forward to your next response.
Peter P. O’Such Jr.
Fair Haven