That is shockingly offensive. Also, Pesin's Friends of Liberty State Park raised money from the community for many of the amenities currently there!

The People's Park propaganda people are so deeply, deeply distasteful.

There were TWO separate race track plans. One involved Formula-1. I don't know what the other involved.

They definitely do not want to build a Ferris wheel.

Honestly, I’d delete everything after the line, “significantly change the character of the park.” As it’s mostly wrong.

I posted on this thread more information on what they actually want to do.

Preemptive information for those who want to know more about the issues around Liberty State Park:

There has been a long-standing plan to remediate the interior 230+ acre portion of Liberty State Park that was contaminated with chromium and other industrial waste following decades of heavy use by railroads and manufacturers. That area has been fenced off for a long time, largely due to a lack of funding for the environmental remediation.

Last year, the state legislature passed $50 million in funding for Liberty State Park but neglected to pass the companion legislation that would have protected the park from private development and commercialization. As a result, there are two competing visions for the land:

The tentative, original DEP plan (which almost everyone in this sub supports) calls for wetland, woodland, and grassland restoration to create wildlife habitat and scenic, passive recreation for all visitors to the park plus an additional sixty acres of sporting facilities, active recreational fields open, and a cultural center – all open to the public. It would also restore the old train terminal for community use. Since most of the park lies in a flood plain, habitat restoration will actually add a buffer to protect low-lying neighboring communities from storm-surge, particularly parts of Jersey City — Greenville, Bergen-Lafayette, and Downtown. You can see the updated version that was set to be released last Thursday below:

https://preview.redd.it/m9yb1b0hafqa1.png?width=2546&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=1208094e53cfc23017a8e7273d3e40dd04ceb555

The alternative plan (which is the one most are upset about) is promoted by the People's Park Foundation, which is funded by billionaire golf course owner Paul Fireman. This plan calls for the park to be turned into concert venues, multiple stadiums, hockey rinks, and an olympic-sized pool to be built, destroying the open green space to "generate revenue." Predecessors to the overdevelopment plan have called for a new marina for yachts (conveniently located by Fireman's golf course) and, in the past, an outlandish formula-1 racetrack. Mind you, this would be a multi-million dollar infrastructure investment in a severe flood zone. So instead of a buffer to protect the community, we'd have another expensive mess to clean up.

For context on why the People's Park is pushing their plan, their main funder, Paul Fireman, is a billionaire who owns a neighboring golf course. He has long coveted an environmentally sensitive portion of Liberty State Park called Caven Point to expand his course. His People's Park Foundation has been running a campaign in the op.ed section of NJ.com for the last year either claiming that the first plan does not exist or grossly underselling the state's vision for the park. They try and conflate opposition to their plan with the false idea that the state wants to abandon Liberty State Park. This is an out-right lie.

The development activities that this post is asking the residents of Jersey City to oppose are the ones calling for overdevelopment and commercialization of the park. That said, we are not opposed to all development. Again, there is universal support for the closed-off 230 acres to be turned into restored wildlife habitat with trails throughout for passive recreation and the addition of new areas for active recreation and sport.

Thank you for helping to save Liberty State Park!

I would love to work with volunteers who have an eye for design and punchy messaging skills.

I'd be willing to chip in some money to get them printed and posted.

Additionally (and separately), we could even reach out to Assemblyman Mukherji. He might be interested in doing something like that to help fundraise for his senate campaign. It would be a win to have him in the senate advocating for the protection act.

If there were any good ones in particular, send them our way!

Hooooly shit. They have over a million dollars in receipts and $625k in assets?

Fireman is spending even more money on this than I thought. That is actually mind-boggling but when you're worth $1.1 billion I guess it's a rounding error.

Edit: This gets me fired up. Let's make him waste that money. I want him to feel very, very stupid for having thrown it away.

Yeah. FOLSP is very much a grassroots organization.

They do great work in helping to raise awareness on protecting the park and drumming up money for smaller-scale park amenities like playgrounds and gardens and stuff. But, I mean, they clearly don't have a billionaire's hoard of money backing their efforts.

If you have a better way of reaching our representatives, please let me know here and I will update the main post.

Also, truly post your own version of outreach emails and voice messages.

Above all, I encourage everyone to be respectful, polite, and formal when communicating with elected officials. It's easy to dismiss the kooks. It's harder to dismiss the average voter who is upset but reasonable.

Thank you. I will update! Makes sense since Mukherji is moving up.

Edit: Just kidding, I can't edit the post.

Edit on the edit: Still kidding. Turns out I can edit the post. I'm just dumb.

u/mooseLimbsCatLicks — Can we get this pinned to the top of the subreddit? This is the contact and outreach content we discussed in another thread.

I created r/SaveLibertyStatePark because I realized all the other LSP-related subreddits were claimed by a pro-Fireman Astroturfer who wants to develop the park.

You’d have to show that you were harmed and that Dow was the cause-in-fact of your cancer.

The state has standing because they’re probably suing under a theory of strict liability under a toxic tort / nuisance theory.

https://www.change.org/p/seize-fireman-s-golf-club-to-expand-lsp-the-campaign-for-eminent-domain

This is the latest one in response to Fireman getting the plans to remediate LSP canceled.

I don’t know your gender but you spend all your time slobbering over Fireman’s knob online.

The same could be said for your mouth.

Send emails to your local reps like Mukherji and Stack. Send an email to the Governor.

It might not hurt to email Fulop too given his ambitions for statewide office.

Consider signing up for the Friends of Liberty State Park listserv.

We also have a protest petition floating around this subreddit that I started based on the latest news.

Thanks for the questions. I know many have not been following this as closely as others in this subreddit.

There has been a long-standing plan to remediate the interior 160+ acre portion of Liberty State Park that was contaminated with chromium and other industrial waste following decades of heavy use by railroads and manufacturers. That area has been fenced off for a long time, largely due to a lack of funding for the environmental remediation.

Last year, the state legislature passed a $50 million act to fund Liberty State Park. There are two competing visions for the land:

The original plan (which almost everyone in this sub supports) calls for wetland, woodland, and grassland restoration to create wildlife habitat and scenic, passive recreation for all visitors to the park plus an additional sixty acres of sporting facilities, active recreational fields open, and a cultural center – all open to the public. The park also lies in a flood plain so habitat restoration will actually add a buffer to protect low-lying neighboring communities, particularly parts of Jersey City — Greenville, Bergen-Lafayette, and Downtown. You can see an older version of the state's plan here.

The alternative plan (which is the one everyone is upset about) is promoted by the People's Park Foundation, which is funded by billionaire golf course owner Paul Fireman. This plan calls for the park to be turned into concert venues with multiple stadiums to be built and concession vendors spread throughout to "generate revenue." Predecessors to the overdevelopment plan have called for a new marina for yachts (conveniently located by Fireman's golf course) and, in the past, an outlandish formula-1 racetrack.

For context, Fireman has long coveted an environmentally sensitive portion of Liberty State Park called Caven Point to expand his golf course. His People's Park Foundation has been running a campaign in the op.ed section of NJ.com for the last year either claiming that the first plan does not exist or grossly underselling the state's vision for the park. They try and conflate opposition to their plan with the false idea that the state wants to abandon Liberty State Park. This is an out-right lie.

So, the development activities that people are opposed to are the People's Park Foundation plans.

I am sure you could cross post to other communities. I think someone made a thread in Hoboken.

Feel free to share.

Star Cleaners does a fine job and they're usually pretty efficient about it.

Fireman already built one golf course with public money and he wants to expand it on public land and then use the rest of the park as a grab-bag for private developers to take state money to build sports stadiums and concert venues on a park that should be a free, open and public resource for passive enjoyment of nature and active, outdoor community sports.

Part of the high price tag (and reason why it hasn’t been done sooner) is finishing soil remediation to clean up chromium and arsenic contamination from years of heavy industrial use.

The DEP was about to undertake that costly effort to restore wildlife habitat and build community rec fields UNTIL the People’s Park derailed that effort at the last minute to try and get their private development efforts through.

Thank you. I’m very glad the vast majority of this subreddit gets the point. I thought it would be a fun way to fight back.

By the way, Paul Fireman used hundreds of millions of taxpayer money to help build his golf course.

“The cost of cleanup was picked up by taxpayers, and the developer would be allowed to build a course atop the site at its own expense, under strict regulations. In recent years, Liberty National's price tag has been reported as $250 million. About 90 percent of that figure were Superfund cleanup costs.”

We should send him the bill and use it to deduct against acquisition cost as a “down payment” from the taxpayer.

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/the-presidents-cup-on-the-hudson

This “waste dump” has been home to hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans, including friends and family.

Sure, Jersey City has had a Renaissance but it isn’t due to Fireman, golf, and the PGA. It is they who have benefited from us; not us who have benefited from them.

Your jefe Paul Fireman took over $200 million to build his golf course. Forget eminent domain, we’ve already paid for the land. He should either pay the money back or “donate” his golf course to LSP.