Historic Waterloo Village, Byram, NJ – April 16, 2015

There was a very insightful OpEd in the Bergen Record on Tuesday, October 6. “Parks are for people, not development” was written by Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, and addresses the ongoing controversy over the privatization of Liberty State Park in Jersey City. You can read much, much more on how this all came about by clicking here, here, here, and here.

Here in Byram Township, we have recently experienced privatization of facilities at another public gem of a State Park/Historic Site – Historic Waterloo Village in Allamuchy Mountain State Park, so I can sympathize with Mayor Fulop’s views. But I believe there are some significant differences between what is being implemented at Waterloo Village and what is proposed at Liberty State Park. I can only believe – and not say with certainty – since the much-sought-after New Jersey Future development report on Liberty State Park is being held from public scrutiny by the Christie administration.

At Waterloo, the state has a contract with Jeffrey A. Miller Catering (JAM) of Philadelphia to utilize a portion of the park outside the historic Village as a site for weddings, catered banquets, and special events. The contract (See proposed lease agreement here, and NJ State House Commission findings on the lease award here) is based on set annual fees and percentages of annual sales on a sliding scale, with the funds paid to the State being dedicated specifically for use at Waterloo Village.

JAM’s lease is for an area encompassing three buildings – constructed by Percy Leach’s Waterloo Foundation for the Arts – situated outside of the historic section of Waterloo. These buildings, like most of the rest of the Village, were in need of repair and improvements.  JAM has since made repairs to the old Foundation buildings used to host receptions and banquets, and the surrounding grounds have also been improved. Some of the grass lawns, as well as the nearby former ‘tent-pad,’ have been converted to working gardens and an orchard to facilitate ‘Farm-to-Table’ dining in the future.

The historic Village, meanwhile, has undergone some changes in foot-traffic flow, and improvements to the park entrance, buildings and grounds, which enables the historic Village to co-exist with the lessee, and allows visitors to experience the Village more like it appeared in the late 1800s, the park’s ultimate long term goal. There remains a large amount of expensive restoration work to complete just to secure the remaining buildings and interiors from further damage until funding for complete restoration can be found.

Is this situation perfect? No. Compromises have been made by both sides – and there are still some rough edges to smooth out – but the relationship with JAM has benefited Waterloo Village. The point of all this being that through collaboration and planning with its private partner – and some give-and-take from both sides – Waterloo Village is coming back to life, while the grounds of the historic site are still available for public use every day of the week.

While reading Mayor Fulop’s OpEd, I came across a disturbing and ironic bit of hypocrisy that requires my response. Since I don’t ‘do Facebook’ (a topic for discussion at another time, perhaps) I’ll address it here.

New Jersey Highlands Coalition ‘Policy Director’ Elliott Ruga dropped this ill-informed rant into the comments on the Liberty State Park OpEd:

Elliott Ruga · Boonton, New Jersey
The New Jersey Highlands Coalition was forced out of Waterloo Village this year for its 3rd Annual Highlands Festival at Waterloo, a music, arts and cultural celebration of the natural beauty and resources of the Highlands. Why? Because the State Park now has a contract with a private caterer and the influx of public visitors and amplified music would interfere with the private wedding parties the caterer schedules in the historic, restored Village on weekends.

Where to even start?

How about we begin with some recent history from the past election, and the ‘Keep It Green’ campaign to lobby for passage of New Jersey’s Ballot Question #2 in November 2014? Ruga, and his employers, the New Jersey Highlands Coalition, aggressively lobbied for passage of the ballot question that – to make a long story short – robbed State Parks/Historic Sites like Waterloo of funding for repairs and improvements. They will argue my assertion to be false until their last breathes, but they misled the public by not informing them that approval of this question would mean diverting funds formerly dedicated to repairs and capital improvements and instead transfer them to open space acquisition and ‘stewardship’ of such lands by private land trusts. It also cut the funds used for historic preservation to levels so low that even operating the trust would be unsustainable.

Don’t believe me? Read many of the details here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Then decide for yourself.

The irony of this complaint by Ruga is that he and his ‘Green Mafia’ friends now cry ‘Wolf!’ at the need for public/private partnerships at State Park facilities, when they were the ones who tore down the fences that keep the wolves out to begin with by defunding State Park’s budgets through the passage of Ballot Question #2!

Back to the Highlands Coalition and their recent festival at Waterloo. In essence, the Highlands Coalition entered into a private/public partnership (which Ruga derides in his comments) with the Parks, and the Coalition had the opportunity to benefit financially from it! The Coalition charged $25 per day, or $40 for weekend (at the gate) for the public to enter the Historic Village for the festival in 2014 and 2015. At a public park, no less. The Coalition’s ‘event’ precludes public use of a historic gem of a park for a full weekend, where they have two days of exclusive use. If I wanted to stroll the grounds, hike the Morris Canal, or ramble down Old Waterloo Road, I’d have to pay the Coalition’s fee.

Second, the Coalition was not “forced out of Waterloo Village” this year, as Ruga claims. They were moved to the Waterloo Village Concert Field because amplified music, large raucous crowds and the scope of their event was not in keeping with the character of the Historic Village – a decision made by Parks staff based on a general policy that was agreed upon months prior to the Coalition’s request. A very large, dedicated group of Waterloo stakeholders (noteworthy that the Highlands Coalition was NOT one of them) spent over two years working on a strategic plan that includes policies, procedures, and long-term goals on how to best restore the village to it’s late 1800s condition and maximize the visitor experience.

With spaces for large, live music performances no longer available within the confines of historic Village itself, and the Coalition projecting a much larger turnout in 2015 than prior years, it made sense that they were moved to a larger space that was more appropriate for their intended use. And an appropriate public use of the Waterloo Concert venue, just as the All Points West Music & Arts Festival was an appropriate use for Liberty State Park in the past, but would be totally inappropriate on Ellis Island.

Further, it’s a shallow claim that they were deprived of celebrating the “the natural beauty and resources of the Highlands” and relegated to the ‘lowly’ Waterloo Concert Field – less than a mile from the historic Village itself, and in one the most beautiful river valleys in the area – when the Coalition touted it’s use of the historic Waterloo Concert venue in it’s own press releases:

“The Coalition is thrilled to bring more music back to Waterloo and to continue adding to the tradition of presenting exciting performances for music enthusiasts. Over the years, other well-known acts such as the Beach Boys, Judy Collins, James Taylor, Willie Nelson, Phish and the Metropolitan Opera have performed at Waterloo.”

Meanwhile, contrast this with how Byram Township – without a center or downtown – utilized the ‘main street’ of the historic Village for the first time on Saturday, September 26 for Byram Day, the Township’s annual community celebration. Waterloo Village is, in a way, Byram’s historic ‘downtown,’ and Byram is positioning its economic growth around eco-tourism and a revived, vibrant Waterloo Village. Allamuchy Mountain State Park and Waterloo Village are jewels held in the public trust, and tremendous assets to the community.

Byram Day is a much higher attended event than the Highlands Festival, and bumps up against the proposed limit of use for the historic Village. Guess-timates on attendance at Byram Day were approximately 5,000 people between 11am and 5pm. Byram was given the same restriction on amplified music, and chose to honor that by finding acoustic acts to perform within the venue. Byram paid the Park a fee for event parking. Byram didn’t charge a dime to enter the park! The public was free to enter any and all portions of the event for the entire day. Food was available from local non-profits at a reasonable cost. Byram rented porta-potties to facilitate the crowd, at their expense. The Village was open for the public benefit, and there was no conflict with the Park’s lessee. In fact I talked with Robyn Bell, the site manager for JAM last Thursday evening, and she was thrilled with the outcome of the event, a fact that bodes well for both JAM and the Park for their future co-existence. No complaints. A great success, not perfect and with some minor bugs to work out, but a success nonetheless.

I agree with Mayor Fulop that public parks should be available for public use. But an on-site wedding/banquet caterer (in existing buildings away from the historic village, paying upkeep, utilities, and maintaining the grounds) can and does currently co-exist with the public use at Waterloo Village. And it does so with proceeds from the lease going to Parks to help fund the repairs, maintenance and historic restoration of the Village.

Tell me how that’s not a good thing?

That’s just my opinion, and I’m sticking to it.