News from Skylands CLEAN, Inc.

Residents question use of grant money

Sheehan Drive sinkhole remains

Suburban Trends

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

By Teresa Edmond, Staff Writer

While borough officials are waiting to learn the status of their $400,000 Small Cities Grant application, questions are swirling about exactly how the first $238,000 was spent.

Some residents can’t understand why borough officials didn’t use the $238,000 grant to remediate a sinkhole on the property of Sheehan Drive resident Roger DeGroat when Governor Jon S. Corzine himself awarded the money in 2006 while visiting the Superfund site in Upper Ringwood.

“Obviously Governor Corzine and Susan Bass Levin knew this was private property and near a Superfund site when they decided to award the grant,” said Robin O’Hearn, executive director for Skylands CLEAN. “They actually stood on Roger’s deck.”

The sinkhole emerged on DeGroat’s property in 2005. Residents speculated that the hole is the result of the property’s location on an abandoned mineshaft.

Last February, borough officials said that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) restricted them from using the $238,000 grant on the sinkhole remediation.

Former councilwoman Wenke Taule said that the council had passed a resolution in November 2007 to use the remaining $177,000 of the Small Cities Grant, a resolution that was “never honored,” she said.

Furthermore, when Joanne Atlas was mayor, she promised DeGroat that the sinkhole would be fixed but didn’t follow through with it, Taule said, adding that she doesn’t know what the current council did with the $177,000.

“The ball is in their (the borough’s) court now,” Taule said.

Borough officials like former mayor Atlas refute residents’ claims of municipal officials dragging their feet on the Sheehan Drive sinkhole. Atlas said that past and present borough officials, including herself, have tried to get complete funding for the sinkhole.

However, two emergency situations derailed repairing the sinkhole on DeGroat’s property. Residents vacated their Van Dunk Lane homes after investigation proved the houses stood on unstable ground and that part of the Sheehan Drive road collapsed.

Besides those dire circumstances, borough officials didn’t have enough money to complete a sinkhole repair that would cost about $400,000, a feat that $238,000 wouldn’t have been able to accomplish, Atlas said.

Gary Gartenberg, an independent consultant on the Upper Ringwood sinkholes, came up with the $400,000 estimate from his investigation, Atlas said.

“How could we do that work for $238,000? Another $100,000 plus fencing…would have to come from the taxpayers,” Atlas said. “Asking taxpayers to remediate the sinkhole was not on the table.”

Gartenberg said that he had performed almost 70 test borings in the Sheehan Drive sinkhole in November 2006. He said that estimate, which engineers usually give “on a conservative side,” was based on the remediation method considered, which could include a number of bored holes and amount of grout needed to fill them.

“It’s not some number coming from thin air,” he said.

The first small cities grant was used to repair Sheehan Drive, the street on which DeGroat lives, and provide fencing and run test borings on the ground at 23 and 27 Van Dunk Lane.

As a result of the unstable ground the Van Dunk Lane homes stood on, about 23 residents vacated their homes and moved into temporary housing, for which the town paid. The State Department of Community Affairs (DCA) reimbursed these funds through its Homelessness Prevention Program. Before the DCA paid for the temporary housing, the displaced residents had to provide income verification.

The Van Dunk Lake sinkholes weren’t remediated.

Bradley Campbell, a former DEP commissioner and Trenton-based attorney who represents DeGroat in the sinkhole matter said the he wouldn’t comment further on the case, though he said the borough has a “legal obligation” to fix the sinkhole.

All this time…

Even though residents questioned where the $238,000 went, a letter exchange could further fuel their doubts. The letter between state officials, dated earlier this year, indicate that the borough was allowed to use the grant money for sinkhole remediation all this time.

DCA Commissioner Joseph Doria wrote a Feb. 27, 2008 letter requesting a waiver from HUD so the Small Cities Grant could be used for the sinkhole.

Diane Johnson, HUD field office director, wrote back to Doria stating that sinkhole remediation on private property “is an eligible activity in the CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) program,” so it doesn’t need a waiver.

“The Small Cities Grant fund can be used for sinkhole remediation as long as the DCA determines that emergency conditions exist, which threatens public health and safety,” said a HUD official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Chris Donnelly, DCA spokesperson, said that he couldn’t comment on the status of the pending $400,000 Small Cities Grant application.

Borough Clerk/Acting Manager Kelley Rohde said that the municipality would receive word on the status in spring 2009.

O’Hearn said that the borough’s reason for not being able to use the $238,000 for the sinkhole directly was “a disappointment.”

“It was a convenient smokescreen to say ‘We can’t do it,’” she said.

Derailment

In the past, borough officials did negotiate with the DCA to get additional grant money to deal with DeGroat’s sinkhole. At a November 2007 meeting between municipal and state officials, DCA representatives told the borough it couldn’t use the $238,000 Small Cities Grant for the Sheehan Drive sinkhole because it wouldn’t make sense to spend a $400,000 remediation on a property worth even half that much, Atlas said.

At the same meeting, borough officials attempted to ask for another $400,000 from the state for the Sheehan Drive sinkhole. That request took a step forward when the mayor and council voted to apply for the $400,000 Small Cities Grant in October 2008.

Richard Osworth of the DCA sent a December 14, 2007 letter to then-Mayor Atlas about the Small Cities Grant the borough received in 2006. The letter said that the proximity of the sinkhole site to the toxic or solid waste landfill that is the Superfund site came to light at a meeting between DCA and Atlas on October 29 and was a “contributing factor to the decision.”

“Unfortunately, Roger’s sinkhole had to be put on the back burner because there was a lack of money and because other things had to be dealt with immediately,” Atlas said. “As awful as his situation is, Roger’s house was on a ledge rock. We knew this because of Gartenberg’s test borings.”

Carol Lowy, a consultant from Housing and Community Development Services, has been working closely with the borough in securing grant money for Upper Ringwood remediation. She said that almost two years had passed since Corzine’s decision to award the $238,000 grant to the borough before officials were told they couldn’t use it for repairing the Sheehan Drive sinkhole.

“We asked if we could do a (purpose) swap with that money so the money could be used for street repairs instead,” Lowy said.

Atlas and Lowy said they weren't aware that Doria asked for a waiver.

Teresa Edmond’s email address is Edmond@northjersey.com