Congress Showers North Jersey With $28M
By HERB JACKSON, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
Bergen Community College came out one of the few winners in the federal budget battle that had Democrats in Congress and the White House deadlocked for most of the year.
A $516 billion bill hastily assembled over the weekend reduced funding for many of the pet projects members of Congress had been seeking.
A grant for William Paterson University that a Senate committee approved at $250,000 in June, for example, was trimmed to $200,436 in the final bill.
But the mega-spending bill included not just one, but two line items for the same program at Bergen Community College. Both appear consecutively, with slightly different wording, on the same page in the more-than-3,000-page bill.
The combined line items mean the college’s Center for Suburban Justice, which works with teachers and students on ways to recognize and combat street gangs, will receive $272,600 or $72,600 more than it was slated to get before cuts.
Overall, the final bill contains $28 million in special line items, known as earmarks, for Bergen and Passaic counties and portions of Hudson and Morris served by The Record.
The three dozen earmarks range in size from $94,000 for a child- abuse prevention program in Teaneck to $14.7 million for design and environmental studies for a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River.
There’s money to build a bike path in West Paterson, fix the roof of the Ridgewood train station, and perform flood studies on the Saddle, Passaic and Peckman rivers. About 65 percent of the money goes for transportation projects, including studies and planning for new passenger service on three rail lines in the region.
There’s also $1.4 million for better radio systems for a handful of countywide and local public safety agencies, and nearly $1.8 million to buy land in the Highlands region in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
The bill also includes language sought by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., that prevents the federal Department of Homeland Security from overriding New Jersey’s chemical security regulations, which are tougher than new federal rules in some areas.
Democrats agreed to trim $11 billion from 11 spending bills that had stalled in Congress most of the year because of threatened vetoes from President Bush. Bush indicated he would sign the combined bill that passed the House on Monday if more funding is provided for the Iraq war an issue that could still derail the package later this week.
Bergen Community College President G. Jeremiah Ryan praised the work of his faculty, who promoted the anti-gang program to members of Congress. Ryan noted that unlike most public colleges in the state, Bergen does not have a federal lobbyist.
“But the work we’re doing obviously caught the attention of the delegation,” Ryan said.
Rep. Steve Rothman, D-Fair Lawn, was the author of an earmark in the House’s version of the Justice Department’s budget providing $100,000 to the program, while Lautenberg put $200,000 in. Both serve on appropriations committees, and it’s not unusual for programs to get different amounts in House and Senate versions of spending bills.
But in most cases, the final bill this year included one amount where an across-the-board reduction was applied to the highest amount. In the Bergen Community College case, reductions were applied, but both lines survived.
A spokeswoman for Rothman said she consulted with the staff of the appropriations committee and the dual line items for the Bergen program was not an error.
“The final amendment to add the two together was intentional,” Kimberly Allen said. “They wanted to give it that boost.”
Other congressional aides, however, said that it appeared to be an error, but it was too late to make any changes.
Phil Dolce, the director of the anti-gang program, said he plans to use the funds next year to train students to be peer leaders and conduct seminars with area high schools about gang activity around them. The center previously held seminars for teachers.
“You’re insane if you think you can deal with gangs without talking to young people,” Dolce said.
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Top 5 projects
Here are the top five special line items from the North Jersey delegation that received funding:
* Environmental/design work on new rail tunnel under Hudson River: $14.7 million
* Highlands conservation land acquisition: $1.8 million
* Studies/planning for passenger rail service on Lackawanna cutoff, running from Hoboken to northeast Pennsylvania: $1.3 million
* Passaic River wetlands acquisition for flood control: $1.3 million
* Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, cyber-crime forensic security: $705,000
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By the numbers
A list of special line items sought by the North Jersey delegation that received funding:
Army Corps of Engineers projects:
Passaic River wetlands acquisition for flood control: $1.3 million
Hackensack Meadowlands flood studies: $497,000
Ramapo and Mahwah rivers flood control: $343,000
Peckman River flood studies: $309,000
Lower Saddle River flood studies: $177,000
Passaic River main-stem flood studies: $98,000
Education and environmental grants:
Highlands conservation land acquisition: $1.8 million
Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, cyber-crime forensic security: $705,000
Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission upgrades: $492,200
Bergen Community College, Paramus, for program on combating gangs in the suburbs: $272,600
William Paterson University, Wayne, program to teach Arabic, Farsi and other ‘critical languages’: $200,436
Hospital grants:
Barnert Hospital, Paterson, facilities and equipment: $306,549
St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center, Paterson, health- information technology: $306,549
Palisades General Medical Center, North Bergen, operating-room expansion: $263,318
Christian Health Care Center, Wyckoff, expansion and renovation: $191,593
Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, emergency treatment center expansion: $167,030
Holy Name Hospital, Teaneck, to renovate estate donated by Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace into free-standing hospice: $167,030
Adler Aphasia Center, Maywood, to improve communication and other life skills for people with a language disorder caused by brain damage: $118,886
Community grants:
Foschini Park improvements, Hackensack: $196,000
UJA Federation of Northern NJ, River Edge, for senior citizens programs: $162,117
Urban bikeway construction, West Paterson: $147,000
Historic train station roof repairs, Ridgewood: $98,000
Ohel volunteer service, Teaneck, at-risk youth and child-abuse prevention program: $94,000
Public safety grants:
Bergen County countywide radio system: $394,800
Fort Lee radio system: $282,000
North Hudson Regional Fire & Rescue, West New York, radio system: $267,900
Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office, fiber-optic network and radio equipment: $267,900
Passaic police radio equipment: $211,500
Transportation projects:
Environmental/design work on new rail tunnel under Hudson River: $14.7 million
Studies/planning for passenger rail service on Lackawanna cutoff running from Hoboken to northeast Pennsylvania: $1.3 million
Studies/planning for passenger rail service on Northern Branch, Tenafly to North Bergen: $490,000
Upgrade Morris County park-and-ride facilities: $490,000
Planning/design for light-rail link from Hawthorne to Hackensack: $490,000
Route 46 safety and drainage improvements, Lodi: $245,000
Upgrade northern New Jersey train/bus stations or park-and-ride lots: $196,000
Source: HR-877
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E-mail: jackson@northjersey.com
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(c) 2007 Record, The; Bergen County, N.J.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.