North Bergen residents and others living in the nearby area turned out at a public hearing at North Bergen High School on August 13 to urge the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to deny the township’s application to divert just over 1.2 acres of land inside James J. Braddock North Hudson County Park so a modular structure can be erected to accommodate the expanding Pre-K population.
For more than 20 years, the district’s Pre-K3 and Pre-K4 students have been attending school in classroom trailers in the park. The 17 temporary units, which opponents say were illegally placed in the park, have been in use since 2001. They are being moved out and the students will be housed in other facilities during the upcoming school year.
Some who turned out at the scoping hearing argued granting the township’s diversion
application would allow officials to continue violating state regulations, which protect Green
Acres-funded parks from non-recreational uses.
Others said given the densely populated area, residents need all the open space that is available.
“It’s not about nature being nice,” said one speaker, adding that the land needs to be protected and restored so it can be used for recreational purposes.
“For over 24 years the public has watched town officials mislead and distort the facts, including promises to move the existing Pre-K trailers out of the park,” said another woman.
“This should have been over years and years ago,” said another speaker, asking North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco why he continues to push the issue.
The mayor said it’s not the first time the park has housed a school.
“There was a school here for 54 years in that same vicinity,” Sacco said.
Prior to the start of the scoping hearing, Hudson TV caught up with North Bergen Superintendent of Schools George Solter, Ph.D., who discussed the diversion process and what the district would like to do with the property if officials are allowed to move forward.
“When it was determined that the schools were built on Green Acres land, we talked about
removing the trailers from that location, and that process–which started before I was
superintendent—would have involved paying whatever fines we had to pay and moving the
trailers,” said Solter. “The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Green Acres said that we had to go through the diversion process.
“The diversion process is that when you build on public lands you have to go through a legal process through the Department of Environmental Protection and they can say that this is not going to be your property.
“We were told to fill out an application and this is our fourth scoping hearing. We are getting all the feedback from the neighborhood and beyond,” said Solter. “Right now, anybody can call in and make a comment about this. We go through all the comments; we look at all the options and if someone comes up with an option that makes sense that’s great.
“What we plan is we’re going to remove the trailers, and if the diversion is successful, we have time to build a modular facility up on the footprints of the trailers,” Solter said.
Dr. Solter said “We look at all the options and if someone comes up with an option that makes sense that’s great”.
There have been and still are are many sensible and great options but NB prefers to undermine and violate State environmental and educational regulations so that it can take away prime park land that it took illegally, 25 years ago and have State and County taxpayers pay for it.
The preschool NB wants to build in Braddock Park will violate educational (safety) regulations and further jeopardize the lives of preschoolers and teachers.
Taxpayers would benefit by NB’s removal of its preschool from the park and there are many viable options, the best being NB BOE owned land on 64th Street.