The Friends of LSP urge park supporters to again Take Action in this new battle to protect LSP’s priceless, character, openness and purpose. Please use the next paragraph or your own in your public comment to oppose the outrageous proposed new DEP lease with Suntex Marina, owner of LSP’s Liberty Landing Marina.

“ I oppose the proposed new DEP 60-year lease for the Suntex-owned LSP Marina because it gives Suntex the right to carry out its plan for a massive boat storage warehouse for 500 boat dry racks www.folsp.org/preservation/marinaplan_warehouse.pdf– a constant commercial visual assault in their boat yard along LSP’s northern entrance. The boat storage warehouse should not exceed the maximum half-acre requirement set by the 1990 National Park Service ruling to avoid a negative federal “Land, Water Conservation Funds” conversion decision. I also oppose the 39-year extension to its lease’s remaining 21 years! ”

Please Attend the Public Hearing Thursday, Aug. 21 at 6:30 pm - in person at the Terminal or virtually - AND submit comments from now to Sept. 18 (which is two weeks after the Trenton Sept. 4 hearing at 2pm) to Jocelyn.Gulla@dep.nj.gov and use “Liberty Landing Marina Lease” in the Subject. The public hearings virtual info, the proposed lease, etc. is at www.dep.nj.gov/otpla/LLM-Lease/

Non-transparently, the proposed lease only refers to a boat “dry storage facility” and the DEP fails to mention the size, but the Friends of LSP’s Open Public Records Act request revealed Suntex’s outrageous plan is for 500 DRY RACKS which needs 3 ACRES and a MULTI-STORY Building.

Suntex should just give back its leased 10-acre lawn for LSP playing fields, as they’ve been urged to do, but if they don’t, the DEP should take it back by using Eminent Domain for the community benefit.

Despite Suntex paying for half of a new bulkhead now, its hidden reimbursement and huge profits would eventually come from the boat storage warehouse and from locked-in rent and periodic adjustments because its payments’ real value would significantly decrease during the 60-year lease due to inflation! So taxpayers would be cheated out of market rate payments for decades with Suntex located in great LSP!

The DEP must not take the marina’s bulkhead replacement money in a quid pro quo deal for a monstrous boat storage warehouse GIVEAWAY! If multibillion dollar Suntex corporation won’t share the bulkhead cost without the dry rack warehouse, NJ will have to fully fund its bulkhead legal obligation with an allocation or EDA bonding.

The DEP must not ignore decades of the broad public consensus against privatization by damaging the priceless LSP spirit, openness and character by the constant visual assault of a massive commercial structure. Painting pretty pictures on a humongous warehouse is like “putting lipstick on a pig.”

Suntex is a LSP enemy for pushing for a 2nd marina in 2017 along LSP’s entire family picnicking, southside, and pushing then and in the last year for superyachts from the restaurants to the Hudson River.

Commissioner Shawn LaTourette is a LSP hero for the democratic Revitalization planning process which has led to the new LSP Master Plan and for his rejecting billionaire Paul Fireman's and his front groups' destructive sports and entertainment complex plan, but if the DEP approves the marina’s right to build an obstructive boat storage warehouse, it will harm and violate LSP as a state and national public treasure!

Central Park wouldn't allow a massive building but LSP continues to be on the chopping block for corporations. People go to LSP to get away from buildings in this crowded, concrete region.

Sam Pesin, president of The Friends of LSP