Please urge your state senators and assemblypeople to sponsor the Caven Point Act.
In the senate, it's S2956 and in the assembly it's A4468. After Senator Brian Stack
passed it in his Judiciary Committee in August, 2023, he's failed to get a vote in the whole senate.
His Civic Association got $25,000 from billionaire Paul Fireman in 2021 and maybe more in 2022.
Please take these actions to help pass the LSP Caven Point Protection bill
- Please send a letter to the editor (about 250 words) or a guest column/op-ed (700 words) to The Jersey Journal at
jjletters@jjournal.com
to urge the legislature to pass the LSP Caven Point protection bills Assembly bill A4468 and the Senate bill S2956
This letter was aimed at LSP protection obstructionist Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin:
The Jersey Journal 8/25/22 Letter to the Editor
Don't stand in way of LSP protections
Speaker Coughlin should stop blocking protection for Liberty State Park. The New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously and with bipartisan support recently moved the Caven Point Protection Bill out of committee. The bill would keep a rich estuarine ecosystem, located at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, as natural habitat. It is important to many migrating and nesting birds along the Atlantic Flyway, and it is a source of inspiration for many parkgoers.
However, once again, there is fear Speaker Coughlin will not help move the legislation in the assembly. The original Liberty State Park Protection Act was approved by the Senate only to never come up for a vote in the Assembly. It was replaced with another bill that omitted key protections from the original protection act, leaving the park vulnerable to privatization and commercialization. This has resulted in a grassroots effort by the community that uses the park, their elected officials, and civic justice and environmental groups across the state to obtain legislative protection for the most critically sensitive environmental areas, such as the Caven Point Peninsula.
Let me be clear. Elected officials in the 19th District I call home, such as Speaker Coughlin, represent Carteret, Perth Amboy, Sayreville, South Amboy, and Woodbridge. They should not be interfering with legislation that conserves critical ecosystems elsewhere in our state park system, protects such natural habitat from a history of attempted redevelopment schemes, and does not add one penny to the taxpayers of the State of New Jersey.
We need to stand with our fellow New Jerseyans and urge Speaker Coughlin to support the Caven Point Protection Bill.
Chris Smiga, South Amboy