News
Existence Of NPS Sublease Is News To Congressman Pallone
By John Burton
SANDY HOOK - The debate over the controversial leasing agreement between the National Park Service and a private developer for the restoration of 36 aging buildings at Fort Hancock at Sandy Hook, has mostly been about the developer's ability to finance the multimillion dollar project, and to show the government and the public the source of that funding; and the objectors' contention that it isn't even a valid agreement, and no work should be done until that information is in the offing. But now, two outspoken critics are pointing to another agreement - a sublease - that allowed the developer to move forward with work while the debate and controversy continued.
U.S. Representative Frank Pallone Jr. joined another objector this week in voicing a jaundiced view on a 2007 sublease agreement struck between the National Park Service (NPS) and Sandy Hook Partners (SHP), the private developer selected to undertake the development of 36 aging and deteriorating structures located at the historic former military installation, at the northern tip of Gateway National Recreation Area at Sandy Hook, a federal park.
In 2007 the NPS and Sandy Hook Partners entered into the sublease, allowing the developer to proceed with renovations of three structures, the base's chapel, theater, and headquarters building, with the intention of allowing them to be used for various endeavors. Most notably the chapel and theater have been "earmarked for use" for catered affairs such as weddings.
In 2007, the controversial lease agreement was the center of a bitter lawsuit brought in 2004 by Save Sandy Hook, a grassroots organization, opposing the plan to allow a for-profit group use of federal public lands.
As the debate went on, Save Sandy Hook's arguments also included allegations that the NPS violated its own regulations and federal statutes by not insisting that the developer provide the necessary documentation, showing his ability to undertake the multimillion dollar project.
Over the years, the NPS had granted Sandy Hook Partners, headed by James Wassel, Rumson, a series of extensions to obtain the financial backing for the plan. Federal officials argued the extensions were necessary because the ongoing federal lawsuit impeded the developer's ability to court investors - an assertion that has continued to make Save Sandy Hook members bristle, saying there had been plenty of time prior to the suit for the developer to raise the money - if he could.
(Save Sandy Hook last December dropped the suit, having lost on three separate occasions in federal court.)
The three buildings have been renovated with the developer striking a deal with Merry Makers, an area event planner, to use the sites.
The sublease, according to Brian Feeney, a spokesman for NPS Northeast Region, "allowed him [Wassel] to move forward with the project, at least a small part of the project, while everything was still stuck in litigation."
"Those three buildings would eventually all fall within Phase I of the project, anyway," Feeney said this week.
But objectors, countered the NPS has continually maneuvered to give Sandy Hook Partner additional advantages for this project.
They pointed out when federal officials issued their requests for proposals in 1999, it was supposed to be for the one project. Since then the NPS has amended the process so it could be done in three phases, thus allowing the developer greater leeway to obtain funding in three smaller quantities, instead of one large amount, as well as failing to provide the funding documentation, the objectors alleged.
"Numerous extensions of the lease, more and more and more time to review the financing, every possible advantage to prevent termination," this week said Pallone about this revelation. "They should have terminated the lease."
Also offering his skeptical view of the sublease was Peter O'Such, a Fair Haven resident, who, like Pallone, has been a longstanding critic of this proposal and the NPS's performance on this matter.
O'Such had spent more than 29 years as a federal government procurement analyst, working with these types of contracts. And for him this situation, "gets stranger and stranger," he said.
"It appears to me," O'Such said this week, "this is an attempt by the National Park Service to give greater assistance to Mr. Wassel in his attempt to get the entire lease for the 36 buildings."
"It was a carve-out," Pallone alleged. "You can go ahead with that without having met the larger proof for the whole first phase."
Pallone and O'Such, who have been following this matter through its various twists and turns for nearly 10 years, both said this was their first recollection of this separate agreement.
"We made that lease public back in 2007," Feeney insisted.
But for Pallone, "We knew they proceeded with the three buildings," he said. However, "The fact that there was a sublease, I don't think that was ever reported.
"No, that hasn't been reported before," he stressed.
The coming week will be the NPS's deadline for the 90-day review period for Sandy Hook Partners' long-awaited financial documentation for the rehabilitation of the 36 buildings at the fort.
