Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

The MOM Line blues or,’Who they trying to kid, anyway?’

The numbers might seem overwhelming — at first.

But when you realize where they come from, they suddenly seem a bit under-whelming.

A new study unveiled recently indicates that a high-speed commuter rail line connecting Monmouth and Ocean counties with the Northeast Corridor Line in South Brunswick would attract nearly twice as many riders as alternate lines that would run to the east.

The line, according to AECOM Consult, an affiliate of DMJM Harris, would average 40,700 riders a weekday, or 31,700 more than the 9,000 riders estimated in a study conducted by NJ Transit in 2005.

The new study also finds that 22,200 riders would use an option that runs through Matawan, 11,300 more than the 10,900 estimated by NJ Transit, and that 12,000 would use a line through Red Bank option, 4,100 more than the NJ Transit estimate.

The numbers are so striking that it would seem to end all arguments, giving NJ Transit no other choice but to go ahead with the so-called MOM Line through Monmouth Junction despite the opposition of officials in Middlesex County.

There is a catch, however. The numbers come from a firm hired by the freeholder boards in Monmouth and Ocean counties, both of which have been pushing to get the MOM Line built.

Shore officials had pushed NJ Transit to revisit its original numbers because they believed the agency did not account for new developments — including the likelihood that the Trans-Hudson-Express Tunnel, which is still in the planning stages, will open in 10 years and the availability of dual-mode (diesel and electric) trains that will allow commuters to travel straight into New York. These changes would make a huge difference in the figures.

NJ Transit’s agreed, but only if the Shore counties paid for the study — which created a built-in conflict that was destined to toss into question the findings.

The folks down buy the Shore want us to believe that this is a minor point, that AECOM was acting independently.

But as Monroe Township Councilman Irwin Nalitt told our reporters on Thursday, ” “If you pay for a study, you can make it come out anyway you want.”

And that’s the key here.

The two freeholder boards released the figures without any accompanying data. When we called to get a copy of the report, officials in Ocean County faxed us a printout of a Power Point presentation that can be called sketchy — and I’m being generous.

Imagine if Jamesburg, Monroe and South Brunswick had commissioned a study that happened to find that the Monmouth Junction alternative would be the most lightly used. Shore officials would be fighting mad, and they’d have a right to be.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Dispatches: Death to the death penalty

This week’s Dispatches (Cranbury version) is on the Web. (Here is an editorial in the Asbury Park Press on the same subject.)

And, in case you missed it in last week’s Press, here is my review of the latest Bob Dylan (this week’s SB Post Dispatches).
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Lynch and the South Brunswick connection

John Lynch pleaded guilty today in federal court to accepting a bribe from a South Brunswick sand company and attempting to use his influence to push a recreational plan on the property.

From an AP story from the Record:

John Lynch, a former mayor of New Brunswick, admitted in court that he accepted $25,000 from a South Brunswick sand mining company in return for helping the company in its efforts to build a recreational park.

He also admitted failing to declare $150,000 in extra income he earned in 1999.

The payments from the unnamed sand company took place between March 1998 and February 2002, according to court documents. In return, Lynch took a number of actions, including sending a letter on official state Senate stationery to the Department of Environmental Protection, vouching for the company’s proposed project.

Former Sen. Lynch apparently didn’t name the sand company and the Record left it at that, but the Star-Ledger in a live post identified the company as Dallenbach Sand Co.

Dallenbach had proposed a land-swap with the state in 1998 that would have allowed it to mine

an additional 450 acres — 165 of which are state property — with the promise that the area would be turned into a recreation area after the mining was completed. The company proposed to turn over 54 acres immediately to the state and to establish a $15 million to $20 million escrow account to fund the long-term operation of the facility. The proposal was not put into action. (from a 1999 story in the South Brunswick Post that is not yet available online)

The company later sought

a land-use variance from the zoning board to allow the company to mine a 43-acre site that would extend onto the adjacent property, occupied by Operating Engineers Local 825.

The application was denied and Dallenbach was later stripped of its mining permits.

The question remains whether federal investigators are finished or whether they will be targeting the unnamed sand company.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.