Hudson TV has received this Op-Ed from Richard T. Smith, the President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People New Jersey State Conference on the recent plans announced by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection for the creation of 165 acres of marshland at Liberty State Park in Jersey City.
The NAACP views the plan as a “perpetuation of institutional racism and segregation,” denying families of color and their children the needed recreation space at the park they have long advocated for and demanded.
Here is Mr. Smith’s Op-Ed, dated April 17, 2023:
NAACP: NJ DEP’s Liberty State Park Plan Falls Short State plan ‘perpetuates the institutional racism and segregation’
JERSEY CITY – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People New Jersey Conference today called the state’s plan for Liberty State Park a missed opportunity that fails to meet the needs of the community, especially Black and brown families in Jersey City who have long been denied adequate recreational opportunities afforded to residents in other parts of the state.
The plan unveiled by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in March calls for bringing water from New York Harbor into Liberty State Park’s interior to create 165 acres of marshland and locating some new ballfields on the park’s south end, which is farther away from community and transit access.
State Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn LaTourette last month said, “Liberty State Park will never be a youth sports complex,” and would not include a large community center or track and field complex the community has long demanded.
“I can’t imagine a more blatant act of racism than flooding a huge part of the park where we envisioned recreational opportunities for Black and brown children,” Smith said. “The state is effectively telling our community that fish and birds are more important than our children. Further, introducing water into an area that has historically flooded and was devastated by Sandy not only puts at risk any improvements to the park, but also the homes and communities adjacent to the park where Black and brown residents of Jersey City call home. What we’re getting are swamps instead of athletic fields.”
The People’s Park Foundation outlined a different vision for Liberty State Park that calls for a state-of-the-art community center with basketball courts, a swimming pool and an ice-skating rink, acres of world-class outdoor sports facilities, community gardens, an outdoor market, and a natural amphitheater for concerts.
“We support the People’s Park vision for Liberty State Park that would create spaces that can be used by children in Jersey City,” said Smith. “While wealthier suburban communities have acres of athletic fields, communities of color often lack adequate green space and parks, forcing kids to play on crumbling asphalt basketball courts or, even worse, on busy streets and narrow sidewalks. Additionally, why should student athletes in Jersey City be denied basic facilities to practice and play when you consider that Newark has two separate sports complexes that each seat approximately 5,000 and Paterson has Hinchliffe Stadium, which seats 10,000? The plan being put forth by the state does very little to change that.”
Despite the pressing need for recreational facilities for Jersey City’s youth, nothing has been built in the park since it opened in 1976. A master plan released the following year recommended facilities in Liberty State Park to meet the recreational needs of the community, but few of its recommendations have been carried out and much of the park remains contaminated with toxic chromium, fenced off and closed to the public.
“While investments have been made in other parts of Jersey City and Hudson County over the last 20 years, leading to historic growth and improved quality of life for many, why have leaders permitted more than half of Liberty State Park to remain fenced off, unusable, and threaten the community’s public health for nearly five decades,” Smith said.
Last year, Gov. Phil Murphy signed the Liberty State Park Conservation, Recreation, and Community Inclusion Act into law that sets aside $50 million to fund a two-year long Design Task Force to devise a master plan for the state park. A date has not yet been set for a public meeting of the task force.
Smith said Black and brown families like those living in Greenville are sick and tired of other people dictating what is best for them.
“Listen to what the Greenville community desires,” Smith said. “They want a safe, indoor place for children to play basketball, swim, and skate year-round. They want to be able to easily access a clean park filled with active recreational activities. They want Liberty State Park to be more than what it is, so it serves everyone’s needs. That’s not an unreasonable ask.”
Richard T. Smith
President
This op-ed continues the total lies and race card smear attacks by the funded surrogates of billionaire Paul Fireman and is orchestrated by his lobbyists and PR team. For 46 years, the overwhelming broad public consensus by many 10’s of 1000’s of park supporters in all JC communities and statewide,has been for a Central Park type park without the kind of commercialization and privatization in the plans pushed by Fireman’s two front groups and funded surrogates like the misinformed, Fireman-propaganda-pushing NAACP president who got a $25,000 Fireman sponsorship a couple years ago and whose exploitation of false racial narratives is shameless and dishonors the integrity of the NAACP.
The DEP’s plans are for spectacular long-studied, publicly vetted and fully funded plans for remediation and creation of 165 acres of diverse urban natural habitats and miles of paths and also for 61 amazing acres of active recreation. The park needs ballfields, not stadiums!
The Freinds of LSP strongly condemn the park-destroying commercial venues plans pushed by billionaire oligarch Paul Fireman, his high-priced lobbyists, two funded front groups and other funded surrogates for a 5,000- and 2,500-seat stadium, a 2000 seat hockey arena, and a 7,000-seat commercial concert venue.
Their exclusionary, admission-fee, unpreventable traffic jam-causing commercial venues plans trashes the DEP’s plans and ignore the park’s 46 years of support for a Central Park-type park with free open space, recreation and natural areas and only small scale commercial activities.
Fireman’s plan robs our scarce urban parkland for venues that will have regular admission-fee events on weekends. Liberty State Park is a crucial mental and physical public health resource and is jam-packed on nice weekends.
The billionaire Fireman, who also wants to privatize LSP’s Caven Point Natural Area to relocate 3 golf holes of his Liberty National Golf Course for his multimillionaire members, got the popular LSP Protection Act replaced by a non-protection law heavily lobbied for and probably written by his lobbyist.
Future generations deserve liberty state park as a great city, state, and national treasure behind Lady Liberty – without the kind of destructive commercial venues, being pushed by the billionaire’s funded surrogates pushing lies and fear-mongering nonsense.