Hospital plan is ailing

After spending several years and $43,000 trying to come up with a plan to purchase the property that formerly housed the Marlboro State Psychiatric Hospital, Marlboro municipal officials are no closer to that goal.

In fact, they may be further away from that goal today than at any point since 1998, when state officials closed the hospital.

Shortly after the hospital closed, Marlboro officials an-nounced plans to pursue the purchase of the 411-acre property from the state.

Among the steps the Township Council took was to approve a redevelopment plan that proposed a mix of commercial, residential and municipal uses on the hospital property.

As a means of facilitating negotiations with the state Treas-ury Department, the council hired one of the most politically connected law firms in New Jersey, the firm of DeCotiis, Fitzpatrick, Gluck, Hayden and Cole. Attor-ney Jonathan Williams was given a $25,000 budget cap. Williams has since represented Marlboro at a handful of negotiating sessions.

In a somewhat disturbing development, however, Williams has submitted a bill for $43,000. Last week, attributing the overrun to an "oversight," the council raised the budget cap for the attorney to $50,000.

It must be nice to get a raise just by sending in a bill that happens to be over budget. We can’t wait to see how much closer to buying the hospital property that extra $7,000 will get Marlboro.

We agree with Mayor Matthew Scannapieco who wondered aloud what that money had bought Marlboro.

Complicating the negotiations was the election of Democratic Gov. James McGreevey and the subsequent shuffle among the people who had been handling the negotiations under the previous Republican administrations.

In effect, the entire process is back to square one.

Marlboro’s plan to buy the hospital property was ambitious from the start, to say the least. One town was trying to come up with millions of dollars and convince the state to sell a piece of prime real estate.

It has been our concern that even though the hospital property is zoned for residential development on large lots, a developer would manage to buy it and persuade elected officials to change the zoning to smaller lot sizes, thereby permitting large-scale residential development.

Because we fear McGreevey would be susceptible to the entreaties of developers — and because we are certain he would not do anything to benefit Repub-lican state Senate Co-President John O. Bennett, who is Marl-boro’s municipal attorney — we urge Marlboro officials to make certain right now that the residential zoning in place on the Route 520 hospital property is as restrictive as it can be.

Marlboro officials may also want to rethink the extra money they are about to pay to a law firm, which for all its connections in Trenton has apparently not brought the town one step closer to assuming ownership of this prime piece of property.