John Logan, mayor during Maple Grange dispute, resigns from planning board

Vernon - Last week, John Logan announced his resignation from the Vernon Township Planning Board, thus bringing to an end - at least for the time being - his involvement in local political issues. Logan said he resigned to focus on other priorities. “Now that I’m not spending my time running for office; I’m running for glory,” joked Logan, who competed in the Jefferson Hospital half marathon, a 13.1-mile run, in Philadelphia on Sept. 17. Described by friends as being a man willing to take on tough issues and by his enemies as a caustic foe bent on running roughshod over the town, Logan was elected to the township council in 1997, and served as mayor from 2000-03. His administration was marked by the long and bitter battle over the proposal to build a town park at Maple Grange Road partially on land that has since been named a national and state Native American historical site. His first public appointment was to the planning board in 1999, where he served until 2003. After leaving the council, he returned to the planning board last year for a term that ended with his resignation last week. Always interested in sports, Logan served on the recreation committee in 1996 and was a driving force on the bicycle path committee from 2004-06. Logan said that the recent completion of the Maple Grange loop of the bike path gave him particular satisfaction. “The bike path will offer another valuable recreational resource to the town’s citizens and visitors. It’s all very exciting,” he said. Logan also said that his work as Vision for Vernon Town Center Committee chair in 1997 had been especially meaningful for him. Vision for Vernon Town Center began about ten years ago, when Vernon Chamber of Commerce members and others interested in creating a central focal point for the sprawling township began the series of studies that led to Vernon’s July 2003 town center designation. Working with the nonprofit group, Downtown New Jersey, the committee included Jeff Patterson, Logan, Mary Emilius, Steve Jecker, Vernon “Kip” Merritt and Kris Wheaton. Also involved were planning board members, township administrative officials and local residents. In 1999, shortly before Logan became mayor, the township bought the approximately 180 acres that were to become Maple Grange Community Park. In April 2001, the township adopted a resolution to authorize a preliminary site plan for sports fields to be built on the property. The acreage included the 40-acre Black Creek site soon to become a topic of bitter local controversy that centered on the discovery by avocational archeologist Rick Patterson of an abundance of American Indian artifacts on the site. Patterson and local activist Jessica Paladini, later joined by members of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape, filed suit to stop Vernon from developing the site, but not before the township had begun preliminary grading. A move to swap the Maple Grange land for the Van Dokkenberg site on Route 94 at Maple Grange Road failed after endangered bog turtles were found on the site. A bond issue to finance a new park also failed. The issue was finally resolved in 2005 when the state purchased the historic site and incorporated it into Wawayanda State Park. On the remaining land, the township built two all-purpose artificial-turf fields and a grass field, and plans to build a ball field, as well.