News release  

BERGEN COUNTY REPUBLICANS

CALABRESE  HELLER & DUGGAN

Contact Matt Mowers

201-880-1646                                                       

May 7, 2008  

BERGEN GOP  APPLAUDS NJMC DECISION TO KILL THE ENCAP DEVELOPMENT DEAL

Urge State, Feds to Continue Investigation 

HACKENSACK -- Bergen County’s Republican freeholder candidates applauded today’s decision by the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission to pull the plug on the notorious EnCap project.

“Finally, the state of new jersey did the right thing for the taxpayers of New Jersey and the residents of the meadowlands area by killing this monster called EnCap,” said Chris Calabrese, a Rutherford business.Calabrese said the NJMC’s decision is vindication for Republicans, like Rutherford Mayor John Hipp – who criticized former mayor and current Democratic Freeholder Bernadette McPherson -- for giving away unprecedented tax breaks to EnCap and squandering millions in EnCap impact fees.  “The people who backed EnCap, like Freeholder McPherson, owe an apology to the people of the meadowlands region for failing to stop the EnCap, project years ago,” said Calabrese.

Calabrese’s running mate Paul Duggan said: “EnCap has plagued this region for seven years; it has played economic havoc with the meadowlands communities, and it should have been killed long ago. Thank God the NJMC finally did what was best for the people,” said Duggan. 

The third GOP freeholder candidate Jeff Heller said the NJMC’s decision should be applauded, but that the state’s work is not done. “The NJMC made a sound decision in killing the EnCap boondoggle. But this action should in no way stop the state from doing its investigation into how this project got so far, so fast with so little oversight by the state officials,”  Heller, a Ramsey resident.

“If the state is not going to do its job and investigate EnCap, then I hope the federal government steps in and unravels this fiasco,” added Heller.   

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