Sniffing around at Fort Hancock

I was pleased to learn there will be an investigation into the National Park Service's lease agreement with Sandy Hook Partners. It is long overdue.

It would be preferable if the investigation were handled by someone other than the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior, such as the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative agency. The odds of an impartial review would be much greater. But a review of the lease by the Interior's inspector general is better than nothing. It will be interesting to what comes of it.
At National Park Service properties in California and Arkansas, private developers had to prove they had financial backing before the Park Service signed a lease agreement with them. That wasn't the case at Fort Hancock, where Rumson developer James Wassel recently received his fourth extension to furnish proof of financial viability since signing a 60-year lease three years ago. It has been eight years since he was selected to rehabilitate 36 dilapidated buildings there.
This deal never smelled right. It's about time someone started sniffing around.

Having a BRAC attack in Maryland

The Press-inspired campaign to overturn the BRAC decision to close Fort Monmouth and transfer most of its operations to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland clearly has the powers that be down there biting their nails.

Today, the Baltimore Sun ran the following editorial, completing ignoring the facts behind the BRAC debacle, headlined, "Sore losers":

"New Jersey's representatives in Washington don't seem to understand that the battle over Fort Monmouth has been fought - and they lost.

"Two years after a special panel decided to close Fort Monmouth and transfer thousands of military and civilian jobs to Maryland, the congressional delegation from the Garden State is trying to stop the move. They have raised the specter of the war on terrorism in a desperate attempt to retain the base's high-tech mission and the lucrative contracting business that supports it. But undoing the 2005 decision of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission would be a grave mistake; it would corrupt a process intended to be neutral and nonpartisan.

"Twice in the past, proposals to downsize and consolidate the country's military installations threatened Fort Monmouth's future. And twice, BRAC commissions either changed course or scaled back recommendations to transfer jobs from the fort. Base supporters in Fort Monmouth have the mistaken notion that they can dodge the BRAC bullet again.

"The New Jersey congressional delegation claims the decision to close Fort Monmouth was flawed and has asked for a Government Accountability Office investigation of the process - and wants dismantling of base operations postponed until the study is completed. That just won't do.

"But if a GAO study is necessary, it should be done quickly. Maryland is already investing in road improvements, mass transit expansion and housing development. Those plans should proceed.

"Fort Monmouth backers who complain that the anticipated retirement of experienced base workers will endanger military readiness underestimate the quality of Maryland's work force, one of the most highly educated in the country. The 90-year-old base may be an economic engine for the Jersey shore area, but its military value to the Army was ranked 50th out of 97 installations.

"Congress shouldn't bend to pressure to delay funding of the relocation; personnel aren't due to move until the Pentagon delivers a report to Congress on the base closure's impact on military preparedness. New Jersey lawmakers should recall the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse. Despite a hard fight by Gen. George Washington's troops in 1778, the British escaped - it wasn't theirs to win."

A similar editorial, "State, federal leaders must back BRAC," ran Wednesday in Baltimore's other daily, the freebee Baltimore Examiner.

Any questions for state Sen. Leonard Lance?

The state Senate Republican minority leader, Leonard Lance, will be meeting with the Press editorial board Tuesday morning. The main topic on his agenda will be Gov. Corzine's "asset monetization" plans. But we will be grilling him on a wide variety of topics. Any questions you would like us to pose to him? You can respond here or e-mail me privately at rbergmann@app.com.

DOT chief taking look at guardrails

It was good to see the quick response our Sunday editorial on Garden State Parkway fatalities in Monmouth and Ocean counties got from state Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri. In a story in today's paper, "Are guardrail gaps killing motorists," , Kolluri said the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, which operates the Parkway, will do a quick analysis of accident statistics to determine whether more guardrails are needed. The installation of more guardrails was one of the recommendations included in the editorial.
There are many contributing factors to the high numbers of deaths and fatalities on the Parkway. The absence of guardrails on some portions of the highway is an important one. According to State Police statistics, of the 185 fatal accidents since 2002, 74 of them -- 40 percent -- involved impact with trees. That's a higher figure than the stunning 37 percent of fatals involving people who weren't wearing seatbelts - a figure that actually rose to 50 percent in 2006.
The 101 fatalities that occurred on the Monmouth and Ocean portions of the Parkway since 2002 are only a part of the story, of course. While I haven't been able to get breakdowns yet on the number of accident and injuries on the two-county stretch of the Parkway, there have been more than 43,000 reported accidents on its full 173-mile length, resulting in nearly 15,000 injuries, over the past five years.
This problem needs to be on everyone's radar.

Technological eyes and ears for police

There was an interesting article in the Sunday Press about the impact the installation of cameras and noise sensors has had on reducing crime in East Orange. Asbury Park officials should take note.
The technology isn't cheap. Despite getting price breaks from the manufacturer, it cost East Orange about $150,000 to install nearly 100 sensors, which can detect the sound of gunfire, and 18 cameras. But the network covered about half a town that is more than twice as large as Asbury Park and has a worse crime problem.
The results in East Orange have been impressive. Police say crime this year is down 38 percent and shootings are down 30 percent from a year ago. Murders have fallen by half.
The city also is using a "Virtual Community Patrol," which allows selected residents access to a Web site showing views of their neighborhood through the cameras, so they can assist police in reporting crimes in progress.
Police can use all the help they can get in Asbury Park. The cameras and sensors could be a wise investment.

Favorite cities and more

Travel & Leisure magazine came out with its annual "World's Best Awards" this week. The magazine's readers are polled on their favorite hotels, islands, cities, airlines and cruise lines, etc.
Florence was selected the top city for the third time in a dozen years. New York finished sixth. The rest of the Top 10:
2. Buenos Aires
3. Bangkok
4. Rome
5. Sydney
7. Udaipur, India
8. Istanbul
9. San Francisco
10. Cape Town

Here's my top 10:
1. Sydney
2. Amsterdam
3. New York
4. Rio de Janeiro
5. Prague
6. Strasbourg, France
7. Miami Beach
8. Panama City
9. St. Petersburg, Russia
10. Cracow, Poland

T&L readers chose Bali as their favorite island, followed by Maui and Kauai.
Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands was the favorite Caribbean island. Only one U.S. hotel appeared in the Top 25 - Tu Tu' Tun Lodge in Oregon.

Eleven hotels in our tri-state area were on the list of the Top 100 hotels in the Continental U.S. and Canada: nine in New York City, headed by the St. Regis, and two in Philadelphia. New Jersey was shut out.

One heckuva pothole

Something didn't smell right to me about Thursday's wire service story on the jogging accident of state Senate Majority Leader Bernard Kenny, D-Hudson. Kenny, 60, was hospitalized with several broken bones after he told police he stepped in a pothole while jogging near his home at 6:50 a.m. Wednesday. Among his injuries: a broken right fibula, four pelvic fractures, a broken nose and a dislocated right shoulder.
Apparently, I wasn't the only one who questioned the circumstances surrounding Kenny's injuries. The Hudson County Prosecutor's Office said Thursday that Kenny's injuries were consistent with being struck by a motor vehicle. "These injuries look to be more extensive than what would be consistent with a trip and fall," Prosecutor Edward J. DeFazio said.
Why would Kenny, who decided not to run for re-election this fall, say he stepped in a pothole if he was hit by a car? Was he in shock? Thursday's story quoted the police as saying that Kenny was "alert and able to articulate his injuries and indicate the circumstances that led to those injuries."
Stay tuned.

No horse sense in Asbury Park

The Asbury Park Police Department says it hopes to have a mounted police patrol in place by October. It plans to send officers to an eight-week training course with the Newark Police Department to learn the ropes.
Police Chief Mark Kinmon noted in a story in today's Press that there are no other departments in Monmouth County with a mounted unit. There's probably a good reason for that: they aren't needed, they aren't cheap and they aren't practical.
Kinmon says a mounted unit would be good P.R. and it would be an effective crime deterrent because it would allow officers to see for several blocks while sitting high in the saddle. If that's the goal, why not equip officers with a pair of stilts? It would raise their eye levels and it would delight the kids.
When I think of police on horseback, I think of "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Ala., in 1965 and the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention, when mounted cops beat back anti-war protesters. Mounted police in Asbury Park? Why?
Asbury Park has many law enforcement needs. Cops on horseback isn't one of them.

Time to respond to Parkway fatalities

The string of tragic auto accidents involving young people in Monmouth and Ocean counties continued with the deaths of Melissa Farber, 23, and Erica Lopez-Mulligan, 22. Farmer's car veered off the Garden State Parkway in Wall early Sunday morning, striking a tree and bursting into flames.
The fatalities were the 14th and 15 on the Monmouth and Ocean County stretches of the Parkway since the first of the year. Most of them involved drivers and/or passengers in their 20s or teens.
Last year, 19 people died on the Monmouth-Ocean portion of the Parkway; in 2005, 17 people died. That's 51 deaths in 21/2 years on about 60 miles of roadway.
Considering there has been an average of 35 deaths on the Parkway a year for the past five, and about half of them have been on about one third of the 173-mile length of the Parkway, you would think state highway officials and the State Police would have identified a trend by now - one warranting extra measures. Two steps should be implemented immediately - dramatically stepped up enforcement and the installation of more guardrails, particularly along the two stretches that have accounted for the most deaths, mile markers 90 to 97 (14 fatalities in past 30 months) and 112 to 120 (9 fatalities).

N.J. well-represented on "Best Places to Live" list

Marlboro was one of eight towns from New Jersey to be cited as one of the "100 Best Places to Live" by Money magazine.
The 2007 list focused on towns with populations between 7,500 and 50,000. Criteria included "economic opportunities, good schools, safe streets, things to do and a real sense of community."
Marlboro ranked 33rd nationally and fourth in New Jersey, behind Montville (13), Hillsborough (23) and River Vale (29). Other New Jersey towns on the list were: Berkeley Heights (45), Sayreville (47), Readington (58) and Moorestown (78). Moorestown was ranked first nationally in 2005.
The top three towns nationally this year were: Middleton, Wisc., Hanover, N.H., and Louisville, Colo.
California had nine towns on the list, the only state with more than New Jersey. Pennsylvania had four (Nether Providence, West Goshen, Horsham and Emmaus) and New York had three (Nanuet, Baldwin and Eastchester).

Ocean County fair rates a "good"

I've been to lots of county fairs in my day - some good, some bad. On Saturday, I took my 4-year-old son to the Ocean County Fair - the first time for both of us. I was pleasantly surprised. It was very well organized, parking was convenient, prices were generally reasonable and almost all the attractions were geared toward families.
My boy loved the rides - he hit all of the age-appropriate ones - and the animals. The top attraction for me was Bwana Jim's entertaining wildlife show. He brought a menagerie that includes huge snakes, a miniature fox, alligators and a possum. The best part of the show were his one-liners - some corny, some laugh-out-loud hilarious. I hope the fair books him against next year.

Power List top heavy with political bosses

PoliticsNJ.com has released its 2007 Power List 100 of the state's most influential people. At the top of the list is Attorney General and Chief Justice-designate Stuart Rabner. Runner-up is political boss George Norcross III, CEO of Commerce National Insurance. Of Norcross, it says, "His ability to raise money - quickly and in large denominations - can stop a team of oxen dead in their tracks. He doesn't let people tell him no, and gets that few New Jersey politicians have the testicular fortitude to turn him down anyway." Sad, but true.
Two other political bosses are in the top 10 - Bergen County Democratic Chairman Joseph Ferriero and Essex County Democratic power broker Stephen Adubato Sr. Others on the Top 10 list include Gov. Corzine's ex-girlfriend, Carla Katz, State Treasurer Brad Abelow, Star-Ledger reporter Josh Margolin, U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie and Corzine Chief of Staff Thomas Shea.
My boss, Skip Hidlay, is the only newspaper editor on the list.

How about some detour signs?

I had the misfortune of heading home from Point Pleasant Beach Saturday night around 9:30, soon after the Route 35 drawbridge between Point Pleasant and Brielle got stuck. It resulted, of course, in a massive traffic backup. As is too often the case when roads are blocked off, particularly local roads, no effort was made to point motorists in the right direction - no detour signs, no information provided by officers redirecting traffic.
If you get lost in New Jersey, it's virtually impossible to find your way back by depending on road signs. There aren't nearly enough of them, and they rarely tell you whether you are heading east or west or north or south - something that could be easily remedied at little or no additional cost.
Given the poor signage in the state, you would think police departments would work harder at helping motorists find their way when roads - particularly important ones - are closed. How hard could it be to throw up a few detour signs?