Bloomberg.com has a good summary of the political battle between Doug Forrester and Jon Corzine over the development of Petty’s Island [link].

Petty’s Island is a 400 acre island in the Delaware River near Pennsauken NJ that is currently owned by Citgo. Citgo wants to donate the island to the State of New Jersey for use as a nature preserve. The island is home to a few bald eagles and is otherwise undeveloped, though some of the island is contaminated from oil spills. The article notes that the state rejected the offer, and currently the city of Pennsauken is studying using eminent domain to seize the island and turn it over to politically connected developers who want to build a golf course, hotel and hunreds of luxury condos.

The article notes that Citgo has agreed to set aside money for the cleanup of the island. The article leaves out the tidbit that the state was about to accept the donation of the island until NJ democrat party boss George Norcross faxed a report to a member of the state board reviewing the donation from Citgo. Surprise!! The report was a sales pitch for the golf course and real estate development project [link]. The DEP then rejected the offer, laying the groundwork for the developers to start their study in order to use eminent domain to seize the island.

This is a perfect campaign issue for Doug Forrester. He’s already made it an issue, showing how Jon Corzine puts the interests of the party bosses ahead of the environment. Environmental groups like the Sierra Club want the island to be undeveloped. Norcross and his contractor and developer friends want every bit of open space in South Jersey to be covered by luxury condos, shops, etc. And you’ve got the eminent domain angle, a hot topic after the recent Supreme Court decision. Corzine is in the middle, and so far he’s decided that since bald eagles don’t vote he’ll be on the side of the developers.

My guess is you’ll hear lots about this in the fall. Forrester may even ask Citgo if they’ll lease him space on the island for a campaign office.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 29th, 2005 at 5:07 am and is filed under New Jersey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.