Fight Goes Into High As State Picks Solberg

Hunterdon County Democrat

April 6, 1967

Hunterdon County leaders from all walks of life described themselves as “angry/embittered and ready to fight back immediately” after they learned that Gov. Richard J. Hughes’ administration will recommend Solberg as the site for a fourth metropolitan jetport.

Political, business and community leaders were gathering forces yesterday to battle the jetport which now looms larger than ever on the Hunterdon-Somerset horizon.

Two lines of attack were outlined to residents yesterday:

• Hunterdon-Somerset Jetport Association urged “each and every Hunterdon and Somerset family to wire or write Governor Hughes instantly, “protesting a jetport here.”
• Assemblyman Douglas Gimson, Hunterdon’s last lone voice in the State Legislature, called upon every interested citizen to gather Monday at 9:30 a.m. “under the golden dome of the State House” to present petitions, resolutions, and letters to the Governor.  Gimson has arranged at 10 a.m. appointment with Hughes.

Individuals and organizations, and political leaders of both parties, agree that Governor Hughes must be the target of a massive response to reports that Solberg-Hunterdon will shortly be named and that top men in Hughes’ administration feel there is little meaningful opposition to it in Hunterdon and Somerset.

“The apparent final nomination of Solberg as the fourth jetport site means total war and absolute disaster to the tens of thousands of citizens of Hunterdon and Somerset Counties and beyond who will be directly affected” declared George Bushfield of the Hunterdon-Somerset Jetport Association.

“If Governor Hughes, after turning down Morris County, then okays Solberg, we respectfully ask him whether swamp life is more important than human life, and what now happens to the future water supply of metropolitan New Jersey if this Colossus is permitted to ruin the upper Raritan, Millstone and South Branch watersheds, which its blight will encompass.”

“These watersheds are vital to the Spruce Run and Round Valley Reservoirs which have cost New Jersey taxpayers more than $40 million – not to mention the yet-to-be-built Raritan confluence reservoir which will be located just off one of the Solberg runways.

“If built in New Jersey, this jetport, despite the biased opinions of Oscar Bakke of the FAA and the Metropolitan Airlines Committee, properly belongs at the existing McGuire jetport base in Central New Jersey, for which the taxpayers have already paid hundreds of millions of dollars, and is physically ready to operate tomorrow – the same as many other jetports in this country which today are used by both military and civilian planes in perfect harmony.

Together with the two-county association, the Readington Township Anti-Jetport Association yesterday began sending telegrams to the governor reading: “As a resident of Hunterdon County, I strongly oppose a jetport going to Solberg, wining out planned recreation access and jeopardizing future water supplies.  I demand you fulfill your campaign promise: no jetport in Hunterdon County.”

“Gov. Hughes is on record opposed to a jetport in Hunterdon – is he a man of his word?” asked Dr. George Brightenback, chairman of the task force committee of the Hunterdon-Somerset Association.  “I wonder if (State Transportation) Commissioner Goldberg is thinking of New Jersey.  Or is he finding a way out for Gov. Hughes or Gov. Rockefeller?”

Bohren’s Question

Frank Bohren, who as a Democratic delegate saw that Hunterdon was specifically included in the party’s 1961 campaign platform pledge, repeated in 1965, asked much the same question about Hughes – “Is he going to keep the faith?”

“With our rural areas denied a franchise in the legislature, we have no hope to stop the jetport except with the governor himself” said Bohren.

By today, Republican assemblymen and senators from Hunterdon, Somerset, and other northwest counties had reported their opposition to a Hunterdon-Somerset jetport.  They include Sens William Ozzard of Somerset-Hunterdon, Woolfenden of Sussex, and Assemblyman Raymond Bateman of Somerset.

Gimson’s Appeal

“I call upon all responsible Democrats to stand up and remind the governor of his position in 1961 and again in 1965,” said Gimson.  “I feel that it is also incumbent upon the Democratic candidates and their county chairman to immediately report their position in regard to their leader.”

Chester Errico, County Democratic Chairman, has done so.  “We are going to fight,” he pledged, and will “work with any group that wants to fight the jetport.”  Errico said that if reports the governor will name Solberg “are true, it’s a sell-out.”

Sen. Woolfenden warned that campaign promises “are not enough unless they are backed up with a formal expression of the legislature that cannot be misinterpreted by the Port of New York Authority.”

 

Inside View

State House reporters say the governor’s top advisors – “not some flunky in the lower echelons,” emphasized Ronald Sullivan of the new York Times – are convinced Hunterdon will no muster the same “meaningful and fierce opposition” which won jetport immunity for Morris County.

What Hunterdon officials and businessmen are saying in public, and what the governor’s advisors are hearing in private, may be two different things, said Times reporter Sullivan, and the administration seems to feel safe from any “fierce” reaction when it settles on Hunterdon.

This, said Bushfield, is precisely why letters, telegrams, and protests must barrage the governor.

County officials right down the line say they are solidly against the jetport, no matter what the governor’s office claims about substantial Hunterdon support for the project.

Freeholder Stand

Hunterdon County Freeholder-Director Roy Peet sent a wire to Hughes yesterday, noting that the freeholders have officially opposed the jetport since 1960, and that the Democrat’s opinion poll “shows people 10 to 1 in opposition to a jetport in Hunterdon, on the basis of more than 4,000 returns.

Moreover, Peet told the governor, the state freeholders’ association is strongly opposed, too, and wants Jersey’s jetport in Burlington County.

Walter E. Foran, Hunterdon County republican chairman, and Errico, Democratic chairman, joined Peet in asking the governor to reject a Hunterdon-Somerset jetport proposal and to veto “any legislative action permitting it.”

No Taxes

“The jetport,” declared County Treasurer Kenneth Myers and GOP candidate for freeholder, “would be a shocking disturbance to our local economy, imposing vast problems on the county and its municipalities to provide public services,” and as operated by the Port Authority, “would not be subject to local taxation.”

Ozzard and Bateman issued a joint statement in Trenton yesterday declaring themselves “totally and unequivocally opposed to any move in the direction Commissioner Goldberg indicates.”

Referring to the New York legislature’s decision to let Gov. Rockefeller and the Port Authority pick and site and build a jetport, they said they “doubt our legislature will hand a blank check to the governors and the Port Authority the way the new York legislature did.”

Bateman and Ozzard are conferring “with as many people as possible to get the forces rallied to put on a real fight, because we’re not going to let the jetport come here.”