By John Burton
RED BANK – Jetsun Enterprises is pushing back against a borough official and the borough environmental commission about their opposition to their Marine Park proposal and may take legal action.
Jetsun’s position is that the company may have been libeled by Councilwoman Cindy Burnham and the environmental commission made public their opposition too soon. Burnham, named in the complaint, said she was “shocked by the implicit threats and intimidation in that letter…” and said she stands by her opposition to he proposal. The environmental commission, which had problems with all three proposals, said it was simply doing the job it was tasked to do – study the matter and come to a recommendation.
The principals in Jetsun Enterprises, Anthony Setaro, Douglas Booton and Michael Hernandez, in September sent a letter to Mayor Pasquale Menna and the Borough Council raising a number of concerns about their alleged treatment in response to their proposal to develop the Sandy-damaged red clay tennis courts located on borough property adjacent to the borough-owned Marine Park.
Jetsun complained about the public comments made by Borough Councilwoman Cindy Burnham and the views expressed by the borough Environmental Commission.
Through an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request made by The Two River Times the letter was made available, as was a correspondence from the borough clerk to Jetsun Enterprises, indicating the clerk was sending a tort claim form.
In New Jersey, any claims against a government entity require the plaintiff to submit a tort claim notice prior to a civil complaint, giving the government 90 days to respond. Jetsun’s request would seem to indicate the company is certainly considering taking legal action.
Setaro this week declined to comment. Jetsun’s attorney, Philip San Filippo, did not return a call seeking comment.
Daniel J. O’Hern Jr., borough attorney, also declined to comment, saying “At this point all it is an allegation, an informal complaint,” and nothing formal has been submitted.
In its letter, Jetsun took issue with comments Burnham has made in public and posted on her Facebook page, expressing her opposition to the Jetsun plan. Jetsun principals alleged those comments have “tainted” the request for proposal process the borough council initiated for recreational possibilities for the borough property, “as she has abused her power to influence public perception in support of her own personal agenda,” charging she was “committing libel against our firm.”
Burnham has issued a statement in response to the Jetsun firm’s letter. “My obligation as an elected Councilperson is to carefully study the issue and the proposals, making inquiries, talk to the people and voice my concerns and opinions as appropriate,” she said in her statement.
Jetsun also took exception with the environmental commission’s stance. Burnham is a non-voting, council liaison to the environmental commission. According to the development firm, the commission acted prematurely issuing a statement on the plan’s merits. According to Jetsun’s letter, the commission should have waited until the borough council’s Parks and Recreation Committee to issue its formal findings, which will eventually be submitted to the full borough council, before the commission offered an opinion.
The parks and rec committee, consisting of borough council members Republican Linda Schwabenbauer, who serves as chair, and Democrats Kathy Horgan and Edward Zippich, has yet to officially offer its recommendations to the council.
Jetsun feels the environmental commission “has neither authority nor jurisdiction to be evaluating a proposal before any formal recommendation has been made to council.”
Environmental Commission Chairman Frank Corrado said the commission’s response was based upon discussions at a commission public meeting, answers from an area newspaper reporter and the commission’s submission to the parks and rec committee’s request for public input. Corrado said the commission actually had reservations with all three submitted proposals, believing all had environmental detriments and detracted from Marine Park’s recreational role. “From our vantage point,” the commission would like to see, “some kind of passive park, restoring the land to a park state,” Corrado said.
In its public statement, the commission specifically disapproved of the Jetsun plan, even though it includes modern green technologies, because of the size and scope of its proposal. “Marine Park is beautiful and should be celebrated instead of adding attractions on top of it,” the commission’s public comment stated.
“From our standpoint we were a little surprised by Jetsun’s reaction to it,” Corrado acknowledged about the statement.
The commission’s role is advising the governing body and by offering its opinion “From our standpoint we were doing only what we were tasked with doing from the start,” Corrado responded.
The borough council had issued a request of proposals to redevelop the area that had contained the tennis courts, which had been seriously damaged by Sandy in October 2012 and have remained unusable since the storm. Officials received three proposals. One would pay to restore the tennis courts, privately manage them and provide a stipend for the borough; another would construct a two-story boathouse and catering facility and have canoes and kayaks available for public rental and lessons. The Jetsun offering is the most ambitious, attracted the most attention and is the most controversial of the three. Jetsun would build a miniature golf course, a year-round synthetic ice skating rink and paddleboat rentals, among other amenities.
Burnham called this an attempted “witch hunt” against her and said she wouldn’t be intimidated.
Burnham, one of two Republicans on the borough council, is no stranger to controversy. She has often found herself outspoken and at odds with her Democratic colleagues and had been at loggerheads even before winning the election two years ago, when she was a self-described “citizen-activist” advocating for or against various issues
