Limecrest Quarry bond approved

Sparta — The Sparta Township Council unanimously approved a $2 million, 40-year bond to fund the purchase of the Old Edison Quarry, a 172-acre parcel where a Mediterranean-blue quarry pool hundreds of feet deep dominates the landscape. Although C.C. Cox LLC owns the 172-acre tract originally mined by Thomas Edison and manages the Iliff family trust fund for its heirs, Limecrest Quarry Developers Eugene Mulvihill and his son, Andrew, have a long-term lease that allows them to mine this section of the total 522-acre tract until 2017. Only 199 acres of the land is in Sparta. The remainder of the parcel reaches into four other municipalities. Mayor Michael Spekardt said the township wanted to buy the quarry because it would be “a tremendous natural resource to the benefit of Sparta Township.” He didn’t expand on his statement, and some members of the audience said that they were mystified about how Sparta would use the resource. They were also upset that the council may have railroaded through an expensive purchase without making a strong case for its benefit to the taxpayers or allowing the voters to decide through a referendum. The decision came after lease-holder Andrew Mulvihill and his attorney, Kevin Kelly, urged the mayor and council to adjourn the meeting and delay the vote until the township could supply them with 25 documents they had asked for last week through an open public records act (OPRA) request. Kelly said that without the documents, which include the executed sale contract and the associated studies, his clients lacked sufficient information to present their case to the township. “All I’m asking you to do is give us a fair shot at what’s going on,” Kelly said. “We know you didn’t get an appraisal. We have the deposition of your real estate expert. We have a number of questions about how you arrived at the price.” Just before the council voted, Kelly warned that if they should pass the bond ordinance, there is “every chance in the world [Superior Court] Judge [B. Theodore] Bozonelis would send this back here for a hearing.” Before the mayor and council voted, Bill Kulsar, Sparta Planning Board member, said he’d like to commend the council on its recognizing that this property has the best supply of water in Sussex County and perhaps in all of New Jersey. “I can guarantee you that this body of water won’t depend on rain,” Kulsar said. “You’ve got a natural spring-fed water supply and you have struck gold. Don’t give up on this one.” But former councilman Wayne Ring painted a darker picture, citing the state’s, and Sparta’s own, “exploding debt.” “Now you’re buying an industrial piece of property for which you will become landlord to an active quarry for the next 10 years. I don’t understand why you are purchasing this property,” Ring said. “I think voting in favor of this is unconscionable and without regard to the taxpayers of this town.” Speaking after the meeting, Eugene Mulvihill questioned why the town would want to buy “a hole in the ground.” Andrew Mulvihill said that his hopes for dialogue with the town had been dashed, and that taxpayers are getting stuck with a bill for land that otherwise would have brought in major tax revenues. Lake Grinnell resident and association officer John Naisby deplored the “lack of transparency” the council had displayed in not justifying the purchase to the taxpayers, and charged the mayor and council with “doing whatever they like without regard to the people of Sparta.”