Congressman Chris Smith met with the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) Stephen Dilts, State Sen. Jennifer Beck, State Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande, State Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, and Monmouth County Freeholder Lillian Burry to discuss the Navy’s controversial plan to build a public road through Naval Weapons Station Earle and open 300 unused military homes to renters. Two representatives from the grassroots community group “Neighbors Opposed to Privatizing Earle” (NOPE) Fulton Wilcox and Ernst Janssen also attended providing additional information about the impact on the community.

“This plan proposes to build a 1.3-mile long public road right through what is now a sensitive military base, and dump civilian traffic onto State Highway Route 34,” Smith said. “The Commissioner was crystal-clear: he said the Navy’s estimate that its application could be complete by April 2010 was ‘unrealistic and ‘off-track.’  They haven’t been contacted formally about any proposals except for a mere conversation in 2007. We were told by the commissioner it could take up to 24 months to get DOT approvals, although they wouldn’t commit to an exact timeframe.”

The meeting took place yesterday in the Statehouse. Smith and the elected officials discussed the Navy’s completed Environmental Impact Statement, which cites four primary alternative access plans, including the 1.3 mile road. Dilts said the State has no preferred alternative.

The Congressman said that the public road would significantly degrade security on the base to allow unfettered access to the Laurelwood Housing Area, a privatized housing development built for naval families. Beck, Casagrande and O’Scanlon outlined their opposition to the plan as well, including concerns about the proposal’s impact on local traffic patterns and the hidden costs that might be transferred to state government as well as Tinton Falls and Colts Neck municipalities and their residents.

Opening up the housing development, originally intended for military families and to be supported by military impact education funding in coordination with the nearby Tinton Falls school district, would now put hundreds of civilian students into the local school system with no support from the Navy and no time for the community to plan for added classrooms and with limited or no ability to tax the homes since they remain on federal properly. Reductions in Navy personnel stationed at Earle in recent years have resulted in only about a dozen of the homes currently being used. Under the contract, the private owner of the homes has a right to be compensated for leasing the 300 homes, or to lease the homes to the public. The Navy has been paying over $3 million a year for the homes, but now wants to allow the homes to be leased to the public.

“The commissioner and his aides made it clear that any plan that increases traffic volume on the public road system would likely require improvements that would have to be paid for by whoever builds the roads,” Smith said. “This is yet another unknown cost of opening these homes to civilians. We already know that the Navy has no idea what the cost is for increased security of a road like this, nor the impact of education costs on the local community.”