Delaware

‘Unwanted’: Officials oppose national park designation at Delaware Water Gap spot

Published

4 months ago

March 13, 2024

‘Unwanted’: Officials oppose national park designation at Delaware Water Gap spot

SANDYSTON – A resolution is being prepared in the New Jersey Assembly and Senate which would put the state Legislature on record opposing the redesignation of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

The resolution is being proposed by District 24 state Sen. Parker Space and Assembly members Dawn Fantasia and Michael Inganamort and will collectively call the redesignation proposal “unnecessary and unwanted” by residents in northwestern New Jersey.

Inganamort attended a Saturday information session on the proposal via Zoom and told the crowd that the resolution was being prepared.

On Monday, he said, “You really have to hand it to Sandy Hull and the Delaware Water Gap Defense Fund for their 24/7advocacy to protect the Water Gap as it is. It was a pleasure to join this meeting virtually and I look forward to partnering with them in their advocacy.

“Part and parcel, we’ll be going to our colleagues in the Legislature to explain why this designation is unnecessary and unwise,” he wrote.

Space noted the proposed change “is not necessary and would upset the recreation area’s original mission and still puts uses such as hunting and farming at risk. A new designation that translates into prohibitions and restrictions on currently allowable activities in the recreation area would have a negative impact on our region.”

Fantasia, who is in her first term in the Assembly, recalled that in her previous elected position as a Sussex County commissioner, that board “officially opposed this redesignation for multiple reasons. The fear that this redesignation will disregard the rights of local property owners, and eminent domain will be used by the federal government to acquire private and State property adjacent to the Delaware Water Gap.”

Nearby on the northern end of the recreation area are state-owned High Point State Park and Stokes State Forest. At the southern end of the park in Warren County is Worthington State Forest, which visitors to the park must drive through along Old Mine Road.

Any redesignation of the park must be approved by an act of Congress and Rep. Josh Gottheimer, whose Congressional district crosses northern New Jersey and includes the northern half of the recreation area, has also expressed opposition to any redesignation.

“As I’ve said from day one, designation of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area as a National Park requires significant local input because it directly impacts many North Jersey townships, boroughs, and residents,” he said in a written statement.

“I have full confidence in the mayors and local governments of the Fifth District and their ability to best represent the views of our constituents. Based on input from local officials and residents, it does not seem that the proposal has the necessary local support to move forward,” he added.

Pennsylvania Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-8, and New Jersey Rep. Thomas Kean Jr., D-7, have also expressed concerns about the redesignation campaign and expressed support for the “No Park” movement. Kean’s district includes the southern half of the recreational area and Cartwright’s district includes all but a tiny part of the Pennsylvania side of the park.

There were about 70 people who attended the Saturday session in person at the Sandyston Municipal Building. Numbers of those attending via Zoom were not available.

The redesignation proposal is being pushed by John Donahue, who retired from the National Park Service as superintendent of the recreation area. His website also claims support from Sierra Clubs in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania as well as other environmental groups such as the Appalachian Mountain Club and the New Jersey Highlands Coalition.

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His revised proposal would designate the Delaware River and some of the land on both sides of the river, as the National Park, while the remainder of the nearly 70,000 acres of the park would be designated a national preserve.

The park stretches from near the New York- Pennsylvania border downriver to just south of the geological formation known as the Delaware Water Gap, an opening in the Kittatinny Ridge which allows the river to continue south.

The northern peak of the gap is known as Mount Tammany, while the Pennsylvania side peak is called Mount Minsi.

The 70,000 acres of land and water actually have within its borders three designated units of the park service. The Appalachian National Scenic Trail runs along the Kittatinny Ridge and crosses the river at the gap, before continuing south.

The river itself is also designated the Middle Delaware Recreational and Scenic River. While a separate unit of the NPS, the river is part of the recreational area’s administrative responsibility.

The revised proposal for the Delaware River National Park and Lenape Preserve eliminates the recreational and scenic river as a separate unit and includes the river within the national park designation. The remainder of the land would get the “preserve” designation.

In 2023, the recreation was the 17th-most-visited unit, with more than 4.2 million “recreation visits”, a decline of 173,684 recorded visits, or 3.9%, from 2022.

While there was dip in numbers last year, it was still nearly 25% higher than the 2019 attendance of 3.37 million. In 2022, the recreation area ranked 14th on the NPS list, and ranked 15th in 2021.

Should the recreation area get redesignation, Donahue said his goal is “to place this gem of our national heritage into the jeweled crown of the national park system where it has always belonged.”

And, his website claims, redesignation as a ‘national park’ would be the first in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and increase visitation. It would also eliminate the farmland on either side of the river, allowing the forests to reclaim the land.

Those fields are currently leased by the NPS to local farmers for field crops such as corn, hay and soybeans, and there are strict regulations for “no till,” meaning the fields are not plowed and use of pesticides and fertilizers is highly regulated.

One lesee, however, said that if the land is allowed to go fallow – no further crops grown – it will be taken over by non-native and invasive species long before forests would get a chance to stretch onto the land.

Among other “Our Park” talking points are increased prestige which the group claims will mean increased funding, and increased visitation.

Local impact

While local businesses do get trade from visitors, the amount of vehicles creates traffic jams on weekends, said local mayors at Saturday’s meeting.

Lafayette Mayor Alan Henderson said traffic on Route 15, a main route which leads from eastern New Jersey across mid-Sussex County, linking with Route 206 which provides entry to the park, backs up on weekends.

Milford, Pennsylvania, is at the northern end of the park, where Mayor Sean Strub said, “there’s only three ways in or out of the borough, and on weekends (traffic is) at a standstill” and many are large recreation vehicles which drive across lawns as they make turns.

He also noted that the Route 209 bridge over the Sawkill Creek (within park boundaries) is crumbling and there are no plans from the park service to repair or replace it.

Sandyston Mayor George Harper Jr. said he remembers how the park was created when land was “grabbed for Tocks Island.” The island was the name of a project to build a multi-use dam on the Delaware River by the U.S. Corps of Engineers.

Most of what is now the Water Gap park was purchased or taken by the government for not only the lake behind the dam, but for surrounding acreage which would become a “recreation area” around that lake. The burgeoning environmental movement of the 1960s forced the government to abandon the dam and the land was converted into what is today’s 70,000-acre recreation area.

“I see no benefit to Sandyston to take this from a recreation area to a national park,” he said. “Frankly, there’s no benefit to anyone in this.”

The redesignation idea is just a couple of years old, and any formal action would require Congressional funding of environmental impact studies required for national park and national preserve designation which would take several years, and then a final vote in Congress.

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Delaware

How bank fraud suspects targeted man in Delco grocery store parking lot

Published

6 hours ago

June 28, 2024

Press Room

How bank fraud suspects targeted man in Delco grocery store parking lot

UPPER CHICHESTER, Pennsylvania (WPVI) — Upper Chichester police hope the public can help them identify two people they believe targeted a man for bank fraud in Delaware County. There’s also concern there could be other victims.

On June 4, around 12:30 p.m., police say the pair followed the man out of the Giant in Aston and approached him in the parking lot.

One suspect claimed he dropped a $20 bill while the other was recording the interaction.

Police say the victim pulled out and opened his wallet and said the money wasn’t his. In the process, cards fell to the ground and the man’s personal information was possibly caught on video.

A short time later, thousands of dollars were swiped from the man’s bank account, according to police.

“It’s horrible, there’s all kinds of things that are happening all different kinds of scams that are going around and people just need to be really, really careful,” said Jackie Kane of Aston Township, who was walking her dog near the Village Green Shopping Center.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, in the first quarter of this year, more than 30,000 cases of bank fraud have been reported nationwide. The tri-state ranked 8th overall for fraud, and people 70 to 79 were the most targeted.

“They’re too trustworthy too, older people,” said Cindy Robertson, of Ridley Park, who was shopping nearby.

“They should be careful, especially if they’re by themselves and they don’t have somebody with them.”

Residents say it’s important to be aware of your surroundings and they’re also thankful the only injury in this case was financial.

“It’s frustrating, it’s frustrating people do that kind of stuff. That guy worked for whatever he has his whole life and somebody gonna steal it, that is not a good thing to do,” said Dave Bonavita of Upper Chichester.

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Delaware

Delaware Senate calls for commission on education funding – Bay to Bay News

Published

13 hours ago

June 27, 2024

Press Room

Delaware Senate calls for commission on education funding – Bay to Bay News

Laura Sturgeon

PHOTO COURTESY OF legis.delaware.gov

DOVER — The Delaware Senate voted Tuesday to create a committee to review how public schools are funded.

The current formula used in the First State is more than 70 years old and focuses on school censuses and not what each student needs, according to the sponsor of Senate Concurrent Resolution 201, Sen. Laura Sturgeon, D-Woodbrook.

Her measure would develop a group of legislators, educators, community leaders and other advocates to research how educational facilities receive funding and make recommendations. It would be called the “Public Education Funding Commission.”

Sen. Sturgeon, also the chair of the Senate Education Committee, hopes the initiative will drive reform.

“In my 25 years as a public school teacher, I saw firsthand how the incredibly complex and inequitable system that Delaware uses to fund public education is failing to meet the needs of students and contributing to widespread burnout among educators,” she said.

“Over the last five years, the courts, independent researchers and community members have all weighed in and consistently confirmed what our public educators have been telling us for decades,” she continued. “The time has come for us to stop kicking this can down the road and start working on real systemic reforms that will improve Delaware’s schools.

“The Public Education Funding Commission will do that by bringing advocates and experts together to develop a multiyear plan that the legislature and Delaware’s next governor can follow to bring about the transformative changes that we all agree will be needed in the years ahead.”

The current funding formula is based on enrollment and on how much money is needed to provide education to a “unit” made up of a set number of students, with little regard to the level of need among the children who make up that population.

The state and federal governments provide about 70% of the funding, while the rest is generated through district-level property taxes set by voters during referendums and collected by the counties.

SCR 201 stems from legal action over the last six years. In 2018, the Delaware NAACP, Delawareans for Educational Opportunity and others filed a lawsuit arguing that, by ignoring individual student need and local funding capacity, the state’s public school fiscal system is unfair to the disadvantaged and violates the state constitution.

In 2020, Carney administration officials settled the lawsuit, by agreeing to permanently allocate additional state funding based on the number of low-income and multilingual learners at a given school and expand special education funding in kindergarten through third grade, among other changes.

Part of the settlement created an independent assessment of the education funding system, which was completed in 2023. That review, according to Sen. Sturgeon, declared that the settlement did not go far enough to address students’ needs.

Therefore, the proposed Public Education Funding Commission would be composed of 31 members, including legislators, cabinet secretaries, parents, educators, principals, district administrators and advocates.

If now passed by the House of Representatives, SCR 201 would require the commission to hold its first meeting no later than Oct. 1 and issue its first set of recommendations within a year, so they could be considered in the governor’s recommended budget for fiscal year 2027.

“During the last several years, we have passed numerous measures and have committed meaningful investments to support students of all ages and abilities. While these have been critical steps, the fundamental issue lies in how we fund public education in our state,” said the resolution’s co-sponsor, Rep. Kim Williams, D-Newport, who also co-chairs the Joint Finance Committee.

“The Public Education Funding Commission will help us create a more equitable system that truly meets the needs of all students and educators. I commend Sen. Sturgeon and all the stakeholders for working on this issue and look forward to the work of the commission.”

The resolution is now awaiting consideration in the House.

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Delaware

How this new bill could make Delaware’s legal holidays more inclusive of cultural events

Published

20 hours ago

June 27, 2024

Press Room

How this new bill could make Delaware’s legal holidays more inclusive of cultural events

A bill that was recently introduced in the Delaware Legislature and aims to include a Muslim holiday as a state-recognized legal holiday has gotten a recent update.

Here’s what to know about the bill’s recent changes.

What is House Bill 360?

House Bill 360, introduced on March 27 and primarily sponsored by State Rep. Madinah Wilson-Anton of the 26th district, aims to add Eid ul-Fitr to the list of state holidays. The legal holiday would be observed for one day during the first full day of Eid ul-Fitr.

The legal holidays currently recognized by the State of Delaware are:

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Independence Day, also known as the Fourth of July

Return Day, observed after noon for state employees living and/or working in Sussex County

The day after Thanksgiving

Previous coverage: A bill aims to add a new legal holiday to the state of Delaware. Here’s what to know

Although the State of Delaware grants state employees two floating holidays per calendar year, recognizing Eid ul-Fitr as a legal holiday allows those who observe the holiday to save their floating holidays for other personal matters.

According to a fiscal note from the Office of the Controller General that examines state employee payroll system data, adding one state holiday to Delaware’s calendar would cost $712,532.

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How has HB 360 changed?

HB 360 originally included both Eid ul-Fitr and Eid al-Adha as potential new state holidays, but Wilson-Anton filed an amendment on May 22 to change the bill to include Eid ul-Fitr only.

On June 20, House Substitute 1 for HB 360 was filed by Wilson-Anton in the House of Representatives, making the bill inclusive of other cultural holidays. Under House Substitute 1, one floating holiday would be removed from the two granted to state employees and one legal holiday would be added.

The added legal holiday would rotate on a three-year basis between Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, which occurs on different days between October and November each year; Eid ul-Fitr, which occurs on different days annually and is celebrated in accordance with the 10th month of the Islamic calendar when the new moon is seen; and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement for Jews, observed annually on the 10th day of the seventh month of the Hebrew Calendar, which varies each year and usually occurs in September or October.

This makes it so that only one of the above cultural holidays would be considered a legal state holiday in any given year as opposed to all three being recognized in one calendar year. If the bill is passed, it would take effect on Jan. 1, 2026.

Further voting on the substituted bill has yet to take place.

Got a tip or a story idea? Contact Krys’tal Griffin at kgriffin@delawareonline.com.

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