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Politics & Government

100 Days Until Closure: Eatontown Mayor Marks Countdown With a Talk on Uncertainties That Remain at Fort

The fort's closure looms large for the mayor of Eatontown as his community stands to inherit a ghost town in little more than three months.

“One of the saddest things I’ve had to do is to approve the gate that will close off Fort Monmouth,” Mayor Gerald Tarantolo told a group of residents Tuesday night at his second public Fort Monmouth update to Eatontown residents.

Tarantolo lamented the more than 10-year process to save Fort Monmouth, which ultimately failed and will officially end on Sept. 15 when the gate is shut and the property ceases to exist as a U.S. Army base.

But what will happen inside that gate in the days that follow, before the site is developed and estimated to be an ongoing 20 to 30 year project, remains a mystery.

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There are numerous details that haven’t been worked out yet, like fire hydrant access. Tarantolo said at the meeting that he just heard that the fire hoses from the Eatontown Fire Company would need adapters to work with the hydrants at the fort.

“Can we get a couple of them?” asked Eatontown Borough Council President Anthony Talerico.

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“We don’t need them in Eatontown, but Fort Monmouth does, who pays for it?” the Mayor questioned, as heads nodded in agreement in the crowd of about 30 residents who came to hear the his update on June 7.

Surveillance, caretaking, even basic logistics like whether lights will be left on for security, are all still unsettled. “Nobody knows,” Tarantolo said.

These kind of “little” issues and who pays for them are of great concern to Tarantolo and the Tinton Falls and Oceanport mayors who are about to absorb portions of this giant property into their towns in a little over three months.

Another issue discussed at the meeting was how Eatontown would handle a fire or police emergency at the fort.

Fort Monmouth Economonic Revitalization Authority (FMERA) Administrator Bruce Steadman said at the group's May 18 meeting that he is working on a policing program with state police to protect the fort.

But that doesn’t sit well with Tarantolo. The state police, he said, are supposed to police Shrewsbury Township. “But what happens when there is an incident there? The state police don’t get there in time,” he said, adding that it is his police force that often steps in.

At the last FMERA meeting, Oceanport Mayor Michael Mahon asked Steadman to include the municipalities' EMS systems in his plans, which Steadman said he would consider.

Another one of those nagging, unanswered issues is fencing. There are roads in Eatontown, Tinton Falls and Oceanport that run through Fort Monmouth that are currently blocked by chain link fencing and gates (see drawings in photo gallery). Would these roads become available to residents? Would residents even want the new traffic patterns in their neighborhoods?

The mayor said the first places he thinks that will be redeveloped and/or reused is the Suneagles Golf Course (see photo in gallery), which will become public with a planned hotel and conference center. Who will manage the golf course is also uncertain. According to Tarantolo, the Monmouth County Parks System, which has agreed to manage recreation facilities at the fort, will not be overseeing the course.

The Borough council passed a resolution at their Wednesday meeting reaffirming the park system's position on recreation at the fort and the borough's support or that arrangement.

See slides from Tarantolo's presentation in the photo gallery.

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