Attention ALL Hudson County Taxpayers

Attention all Hudson County taxpayers:

One of the reasons your taxes have skyrocketed recently is because in 2001, Hudson County
allowed North Bergen to illegally situate its 17-trailer preschool in the county’s North
Hudson/Braddock Park, in violation of state environmental and educational regulations. Currently, New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection is adding up the penalty Hudson County taxpayers must pay for North Bergen-Hudson County officials’ folly.

So far, it has cost Hudson County taxpayers approximately $4 million to provide park land in North Bergen to replace the land the North Bergen preschool illegally diverted in Braddock Park. More replacement park land is needed because North Bergen is now asking NJ DEP if it can permanently keep its preschool in Braddock Park.

A permanent diversion of Braddock Park will require Hudson County taxpayers to provide five times as much replacement park land as the land the North Bergen preschool intends to divert. If North Bergen were to remove its preschool from Braddock Park, Hudson County taxpayers would be responsible for three times, not five times as much replacement land.

North Bergen claims that in the past 23 years there hasn’t been a suitable site for its preschool
in the community, yet it redevelops site after site for housing and stores.
There are viable preschool sites on land the North Bergen Board of Education owns. There are viable sites in the community, but North Bergen refuses to use eminent domain for preschool purposes, even though it will use it for redevelopment purposes.

Beginning in 2011, NJ DEP told North Bergen it had to remove its preschool from the park and North Bergen assured DEP and the community that it would comply. Then North Bergen sabotaged every plan it made to do so.

The latest sabotaged plan:

North Bergen acquired Hudson County’s unused 10-acre former High Tech High School campus. The school is being renovated and converted into a junior high school; the work is four years behind schedule. North Bergen’s plan was to move the district’s seventh and eighth graders out of elementary schools and into the junior high, making room in the elementary schools for all the preschoolers. Now North Bergen claims there will not be room in the elementary schools for all its preschoolers and it wants to keep its preschool in Braddock Park.

The numbers don’t add up; High Tech junior high school is adding 1,700 seats to the district. In
2023-2024, North Bergen only had 245 preschoolers enrolled in the district.
North Bergen’s realignment plan is still doable and North Bergen has other viable preschool site options.

Hudson County taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for North Bergen’s continuing folly.

Ask Hudson County Executive Craig Guy and your town and county officials to exercise fiduciary responsibility and oppose the permanent diversion of Braddock Park.

Craig Guy: HCexecOffice@hcnj.us