Sides weigh in heavily on proposed land swap
First of two public hearings on Monroe plan draws hundreds
BY SETH MANDEL
Staff Writer

More than 700 people filled a Monroe auditorium last week as supporters and opponents of the controversial Thompson Park land swap debated the issue for nearly five hours.

Area residents and officials from both Monroe Township and its school district were among the approximately 100 people who signed up to make their voices heard at the first of two public hearings arranged by Middlesex County and the state Department of Environmental Protection to solicit input on the issue.

If state agencies approve the land swap, the township and school board will be able to use 35 acres of Thompson Park land to build a new high school. The township is offering 77 acres in return for the park land, and has filed a preapplication with the state Green Acres program. Officials have also made additional parcels available, bringing its total offer to 152 acres.

The Nov. 21 hearing ran for over five hours at the Richard P. Marasco Performing Arts Center, part of Monroe Township High School. The second hearing will be held Dec. 6 at 4 p.m. in the freeholders’ meeting room, county administration building, New Brunswick.

Betty Schneider, a resident of Monroe’s Rossmoor community, said the proposal would only help the district, as the students are in dire need of a new facility.

“I feel the glue that keeps a community growing positive and productive is centered on a strong public school system,” Schneider said.

She added that the land swap would be beneficial not only to the students but to the taxpayers of the township, and would enable officials to “pass the torch” to the younger generations.

“We need to finalize action on our high school referendum to stop the overcrowding in all of our schools,” Schneider said. “We need to create a cost-effective realignment of all our schools at a limited cost to taxpayers, and show our younger citizens that Monroe does care about their future.”

Monroe resident Tom Nothstein spoke against the plan, first noting that the state’s delay in ruling on the pre-application shows that the proposal is not the “slam dunk” described by local officials. He referenced a meeting of the Monroe Board of Education this year, at which two board members motioned to abandon the proposal and devise an alternative plan that could be voted on in January.

“Unfortunately, it was voted down by members of the board who would rather save face than improve our schools,” Nothstein said.

He said the rules governing land diversions are strict because such a proposal is not to be taken lightly, and warned that approval of the swap would set a dangerous precedent.

“This land diversion will have a huge impact on the state or other municipalities who are going through the same problem and are looking for the cheap way out, like Monroe,” Nothstein said.

Resident Alec Kapoor said he and his wife, Tracy, moved to the township three years ago, and both spoke in favor of the proposal. Alec Kapoor said the delay has only hurt the township’s school children, but the current plan is in the best interests of those students.

“I don’t know much about local government, but I do know this: People would be held accountable in the corporate world for the lack of progress that’s happened with this school and this land swap,” Kapoor said.

Impact on the park

The two sides have since 2003 debated the quality of the acreage the township would trade for the park land. Members of the district’s teachers union, PTA and PTO have argued the tradeoff presents a net gain for the county, which owns Thompson Park. Groups such as Park Savers, however, have stated that the 152 acres are largely wooded and substantially inferior to the park land.

Sheryl Parr came to the podium stating that the purpose of her comments was to debunk certain myths she said were propagated by the opposition.

“The perception Park Savers would like you to believe is that this is a loss for Green Acres, when the reality is that this is a 434 percent net gain for the county,” Parr said. “I wish I could get that kind of ROI on some of my personal investments.”

Parr said the second myth was that the land the township is offering is inferior because it is not flat.

“The reality is that from an environmental preservation standpoint, this land is more valuable,” Parr said, adding that the wildlife on that land will add to its interest and character.

Parr said the residents want this land swap, and that members of the opposition do not speak for the majority of the public.

“The reality is that this is a plan that puts kids first, it puts the community and county first and it puts the environment first,” Parr said.

But according to Park Savers member Jennifer Dressel, the proposal not only does not put the environment first, it would jeopardize both the physical landscape and the historical significance of the park.

Dressel sought to refute claims that missionary David Brainerd’s Leni-Lenape settlement, known as the Bethel Mission Settlement, was located in a section of the park not included in the proposed diversion. She presented a 1947 county map locating the source of the Wigwam Brook at the corner of Thompson Park, on the 35-acre tract in the pre-application. She also referenced Clayton’s “History of Union and Middlesex Counties,” which cited the source of the Wigwam, in the Bethel settlement.

“Dozens of Lenape remains would be disturbed,” Dressel said of the proposal. “State law requires that this site be preserved and that federal law must be followed in terms of Native American burial and sacred sites.”

But Monroe Township Historian John Katerba disagreed. In a letter to state Green Acres official David Smith, Katerba wrote that other maps show the source of the Wigwam to be at the corner of Perrineville Road and Forsgate Drive in Jamesburg, not at the intersection of Perrineville and School House roads, where Dressel’s map claimed.

According to Katerba, published records included in the book “Centennial and Historical Exercises at Jamesburg, New Jersey, 1876,” a deed dated July 12, 1754, states that Brainerd’s brother John sold the land on which the source of the brook was located, where presently stands a CVS Pharmacy. That land, Katerba said, was eventually purchased by Alexander Redmond in 1841.

Concerning Bethel remains, Katerba wrote: “It is documented in various records that only on the Alex Redmond farm were any artifacts found from the Bethel site. The Redmond farm consisted of well over 200 acres. Again, the Redmond farm and Rue Farm are clearly shown at the most northerly area of Thompson Park on the enclosed 1872 and 1876 state and county atlases; nowhere near School House Road.”

Any alternatives?

Part of the application process requires the applicant to provide documentation supporting the park land as the only available and feasible option.

In November, the Monroe Township Environmental Commission passed a resolution supporting the diversion. That resolution states that this is the case, in two separate paragraphs.

“Large areas of wetlands in the township make it now impossible to locate a large enough suitable tract of land for the school that is not constrained by wetlands,” the resolution states. “The environmental commission believes that the only suitable tract of land for the high school is approximately 35 acres of grass fields, now owned by Middlesex County and encumbered with Green Acres restrictions, in Thompson Park, adjacent to the current high school athletic fields. …”

Dressel, however, disputed that finding, citing studies conducted by township officials in their search for feasible alternatives. Some parcels of land that would appear to meet the criteria, Dressel said, were absent from the alternative analysis portion of the application.

She said those left out of the alternative analysis included a 144-acre parcel on Union Valley Road, suspended eminent domain proceedings for land on Applegarth Road, and an 80-acre tract of land owned by the township on Long Street Road near Perrineville Road.

“This alternative analysis is a sham that was concocted after the fact that they had their eyes on Thompson Park as a building plot for the new high school,” Dressel said. “Look at the pre-application itself. It states other lands and alternatives that are not on the alternative analysis.”

Dressel then questioned why none of the 1,700 acres the township is adding to Thompson Park through purchases and land donations were included in the analysis.

Township Environmental Protection Manager Joe Montanti, who also sits on the Planning Board and chairs the Route 33 Land Use Task Force, said the land Dressel mentioned does not qualify. Montanti put together a planned open space inventory of the township and said when considering land for such a proposal, appearances may be deceiving.

“Other land within the township, that if you looked at you think might be good for a school, is in a non-sewer-serviced area,” Montanti said.

He added that some land may appear dry, but actually contains agriculturally modified wetlands, unfit for school construction.

“I took inventory of land in this township,” Montanti said. “This is the last resort for us.”

The emotionally charged crowd, at times raucous and other times exuberant, responded to Montanti’s remarks with one of the loudest ovations of the night.

Debating merits, legalities

Joseph Catanese II and Joseph Catanese III, both New Brunswick residents, were among those booed by supporters of the proposal after their comments.

Catanese II said the park land can be enjoyed by all residents of the county, but the proposal is tantamount to the township’s confiscation of that land from county residents. He said the application does not meet Green Acres standards, and township officials should not trade inferior land to the citizens of Middlesex County for high-quality park land.

Catanese said county residents, through an open space tax, helped to pay for the park land, but had nothing to do with the increased development in Monroe.

“I am not responsible for the growth of this township,” Catanese said. “You allowed building, you allowed the students to come into your district, and now you wish the county and the state, with Green Acres land, to solve your problem, and I do not think it should be done.”

And while some of the plan’s opponents live out of the district, some of its supporters said they will join them if the proposal is not approved.

Saddle Court resident Theresa Simmons said she moved to Monroe from England with her husband and two young children in part because her real estate agent and members of the Board of Education assured her that the plan was a done deal.

“Had we known that it wasn’t going to be a done deal, we never would have moved here, and if it doesn’t happen, we will move,” Simmons said.

Simmons said many young families will move as well if the proposal is not soon approved.

“I have not come this far to see my children educated in trailers and in overcrowded classrooms,” Simmons said.

State and local officials also weighed in on the proposal.

Schools Superintendent Ralph Ferrie refuted the claim that administrators did not plan for the future. To the contrary, Ferrie said that four years ago, when he began his work in Monroe, an ad hoc committee was established to address the needs of the growing student population.

Not only has the committee worked toward solutions to this issue, Ferrie said, but the committee is an inclusive group that is represented by school board members, parents, residents, representatives of the planned retirement communities, teachers, township officials, students and school administrators. That committee, he added, has expressed its unanimous support of the proposal.

Under the plan, the current high school, which is located across the street from where the new building would be constructed, would become a middle school, and Applegarth Middle School would become the district’s sixth elementary school.

Ferrie said this would increase district capacity by about 1,400 students, and would create what officials have called a campus environment in which the high school and middle school could share facilities.

Grant Herring, a senior at Monroe Township High School, said the campus effect will make the most significant difference to high school and middle school students.

He said sharing athletic facilities would encourage greater participation in the school’s sports programs, and that participation would dwindle if a new, separate athletic complex had to be constructed for high school students.

In addition, Herring said, the campus would encourage greater unity between the schools, make acclimation to the high school easier for middle school students, and make higher education available to middle school students.

“A struggling student in the middle school can receive tutoring from an on-campus high schooler,” Herring said. “I feel the campus will benefit the town’s children.”

That, according to Milltown resident Alex Wiener, misses the point.

“No one I know begrudges Monroe a school, but this public hearing isn’t supposed to be about Monroe getting a school,” Wiener said. “This public hearing is about honoring rules protecting land that is, by law, already protected. This public hearing isn’t about legal sleight of hand with the environment, it’s about governmental integrity.”

Wiener added that during a visit to the area the township has offered in return for the park land, he found the land sloped, muddy, tick-infested and brambled with thorn bushes.

State Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein (D-14) said the issue of taxes is the most often-received complaint from her constituency. The proposal, she said, would save taxpayers over $20 million.

In addition to increasing preserved open space, Greenstein said, the proposal is legally reasonable.

“As a legislator and as an attorney, I must say this application seems to meet the intent of the land-diversion process as stipulated by law,” Greenstein said.

But Richard Webster, an attorney representing Park Savers and the Sierra Club, New Jersey chapter, said the proposal violates three Green Acres statutes governing land diversions.

He said the township and county are “double-dipping,” and cannot trade the park land since it has already been preserved. He also said the application is incomplete and the applicant has not shown that there are no reasonable alternatives.

“We know this township needs a new high school,” Webster said. “The problem with this application is that it will not deliver a high school in a timely fashion. Rushing ahead with a diversion of dubious legality will only lead to litigation and delay.”

Both sides could agree on one thing, however: further delay must be avoided. Proponents and opponents alike have expressed concern that this application, and the township’s current situation, require a decision. No timetable has been set for such a ruling, however.