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    • Wall NJ airport owner says Monmouth County is trying to buy his land
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    Wall NJ airport owner says Monmouth County is trying to buy his land

    Harry Posted on

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    WALL – The owner of Monmouth Executive Airport is warning that he will have to suspend flight operations early Friday to attend a site visit by consultants from the county government who want to inspect his property.

    Alan Antaki, owner of New Jersey’s largest private airport with a longer runway than LaGuardia Airport in New York, told the Monmouth County Board of Commissioners. plans to use applicable area laws to force him to sell his property to the district administration against his will.

    Monmouth County wanted to buy general aviation airport He has been working towards public ownership for over 55 years, making his first effort to do so in the late 1960s. However, Monmouth County Commissioner Director Thomas A. Arnone said the county government is exploring the possibility again in the 2020s, but the board has not made a final decision.

    Recently, Antaki was informed that, citing New Jersey’s eminent domain law, the county government had exercised its prerogative to obtain the right of first entry to the property. The law allows a government agency and its consultants limited access to private property being considered for purchase to conduct assessments, surveys and other information-gathering reviews, according to a statement issued through Antaki’s attorney, Thom Ammirato.

    All Republican county board appointed Commercial Aviationto decide whether the 740-acre complex could be better managed under public ownership by Monmouth County, a Summit-based consulting firm said.

    Ammirato said the inspection and the resulting two-hour flight halt would occur “during off-peak hours – between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m.” on Friday.

    “Closing the airport even for a short time will disturb the pilots and people using our airport, but the district leaves me no other option,” Antaki said.

    Project manager Ed Harrison and airport planner Pawel Mankowski of Merchant Aviation said the site visit did not require the airport to suspend flight operations and that their visits should be permitted during daylight hours when there would be no interference with operations.

    “As the largest owner and operator of airports worldwide, we have conducted dozens of airport inspections and no airport has ever had to close during an inspection,” Harrison and Mankowski said in a statement to the Asbury Park Press.

    “Our visual inspection will be conducted safely and will not cause any harm to operations at Monmouth County Airport,” the statement said. “The owner’s request to conduct our inspection after midnight is outside any industry standard and would be safer and more efficient in daytime operations. We look forward to presenting a detailed review of our findings to Monmouth County.”

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    “Even a short-term closure of the airport will inconvenience the pilots and people who use our airport, but the district leaves me no choice,” Antaki insisted.

    Antaki was disturbed by the district’s first site visit in May. Arnone announced that there was “a busload of county officials,” including Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden (chairman of the county’s Republican Party) and a team of public relations staff. Antaki said some displayed an arrogant attitude as they surveyed the land as if the airport was already theirs.

    That visit convinced him that the county had privately decided on a plan to purchase the airport, whether he was willing to sell or not.

    Arnone said he had “heard troubling reports from a variety of sources about the state of the airport and its support facilities” and that after the visit he was “relieved of my own serious concerns about both the safety of the airport and its financial viability.”

    Kevin Israel, a public relations and crisis management consultant with Kessler PR Group in Ocean Township, which handles media investigations of the airport on behalf of the county government, said there was no written complaint that a reporter had to investigate because “the reports are anecdotal.” But Israel pointed to a recently published letter to the editor. Coast Star Former state Assemblyman Ned Thomson, R-Monmouth, himself voiced concerns about the airport.

    “Commissioner Arnone recently involved former Councilman Ned Thomson in his campaign to take over the airport, and Thomson wrote in a local newspaper about Mr. Antaki’s efforts to pay off EPA debt for a cleanup that existed long before Antaki purchased the airport,” Ammirato said. He published a questioning letter.” he wrote in an email to the press.

    The issue dates back to 2010, when the Environmental Protection Agency and the Wall Herald Corporation (the airport’s parent company, which Antaki purchased in 2013) agreed in U.S. District Court to spend nearly $20 million to clean up a Superfund site at the airport. It had to be paid from the proceeds of its sale.

    The deal was amended several times after Antaki took ownership of the airport and struggled to meet monthly payments, which at one point cost him $100,000 a month, according to federal court records.

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    Antaki has vowed to litigate — for years if necessary — any attempt by the county government to use eminent domain to purchase the airport.

    The relationship between the county and Antaki became so acrimonious that Antaki filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Golden and the Monmouth County Park System in late summer, claiming its First Amendment rights had been violated.

    Antaki said his employees were instructed to leave the county fairgrounds in Freehold, where they had been handing out brochures on the subject at the airport this July.

    The three workers were led away by county park rangers and sheriff’s officers, who escorted them to an area outside the fair entrance and made them stop next to several sheriff’s vehicles, Ammirato said.

    A few minutes later, one of the rangers hastily spray-painted a square box on the ground, where the workers had been instructed to stand inside. They were told not to talk to or approach any of the fair attendees; He said flyers can only be given to people who want them.

    County officials said no one is allowed to distribute materials to the public at the fair unless it is part of an authorized exhibit.

    Contact Asbury Park Press reporter Erik Larsen at [email protected].

    Harry
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