Campbell's bad campaign for EPA Administrator

He was the worst DEP Commissioner ever. But then, what would you expect when McGreevey appoints you and you scream "how high" every time he says to jump. His receipts for junkets to China, Atlantic City and travel around the country alone would sink his confirmation hearing. Oh... and I don't have a garden.

Regarding the statement that environmental section DAGs referred to Brad Campbell in the way claimed, I have known several of them over the years, and never heard that comment, and neither have several acquaintances.

For the sake of perspective, it is a group whose job has actively promoted a legal philosophy that, from time to time, has shown significantly diminished respect for individual property rights. I would agree that a sometimes annoying level of arrogance at the DEP enforcement level has even unnecessarily pitted neighbor against neighbor, with little or no real public benefit.  In fact, it has reared its ugly head far too many times over the years -- e.g., overly zealous wetlands enforcement, and other unnecessary “takings” -- to be viewed as anything other than petty arrogance.

But environmentalism overall has significantly improved our lives in many, many ways. And DEP, however flawed, has been instrumental in carrying the public standard for our protection here in New Jersey.

However, the alarming fact is that what is now emerging from Jeff’s piece in the Record, is a story about government officials of the McGreevey/Codey Administration, at the very highest levels, secretly acting with wholesale disregard of numerous environmental safeguards, to the detriment of public safety, and ostensibly undertaken for the economic benefit of a private developer!

If that story holds true – and it is a big if -- it is unquestionably one of the biggest scandals to ever hit this State, one that will rock politics in New Jersey and elsewhere for years to come.

Notably, it is clear that all of you are personally attacking Brad Campbell for at least now taking the environmental side of residents for publicly expressing his concerns about a project that seems to have turned into an alarming pig-in-a-poke.

But consider the dishonest in the way someof these projects have been presented.  Jim McGreevey once pitched a $1.1 billion dollar Cherokee Redevelopment project in Camden like it was manna from Heaven. Read it!

"'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone'," New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey (D) quoted from the Bible. " 'The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes'."

And note this . . . the website for the Cherokee and EnCap Meadowlands Project still publicly boasts about the safe use of and acceptability of dredge material for use in the Meadowlands Project, though the Record story now  informs us that they long ago "negotiated" for the use of more contaminated material.

And the state is now having to go after them to live up to their basic commitment.

In the end, the emerging public perception now seems to be that through its negotiations the McGreevey/Codey Administration seemed far less concerned with the taxpayers and residents, than they were with helping the DeCotis firm ensure that their clients -- the developers in this project -- got their way at every single turn!

If there were pay to play aspects, as Brad Campbell now says, we are certainly entitled to know about them. I want to hear what he has to say.

And the residents of Bergen are absolutely and immediately entitled to a full accounting for this boondoggle.

So, if you folks think that personally attacking Campbell is what politics should be all about, then you have all just exposed yourselves as representatives of exactly what is, and has been wrong with public discourse in New Jersey. And in so exposing yourselves, you all come up very small indeed.

If Campbell’s efforts are Quixotic, and harm his future as a Democrat administrator, at least he had the courage now to come down on the right side, not the greedy sharks. Let’s hear what he has to say.

by Trochilus