Inspector General's response too little, too late
Guest Column • Peter P. O'Such Jr.
After reviewing the Department of Interior Inspector General's (DOIIG Earl E. Devaney) letter of Nov. 3 sent to Rep. Frank Pallone, it became very apparent that the DOI-IG has no intent or interest in finding fault with the National Park Service (NPS) plan to permit commercialization of the 36 Fort Hancock buildings at Sandy Hook Unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area by a forprofit developer. This recreation area is a true National Park set aside for recreation, established by an act of Congress.

To add insult to injury, the DOI-IG took over 15 months to formulate its feeble response to Pallone's request for an investigation of the NPS Fort Hancock project, which Pallone has labeled a "debacle."

The Inspector General's letter in defense of how the NPS conducted the Fort Hancock/Sandy Hook procurement can best be summarized as follows: The NPS didn't know how to do it correctly, because they had no policy to guide their efforts.

Devaney, in his letter, attempted to absolve the NPS of all wrongdoing. This is at least the third or fourth time the IG has attempted to close the investigation into the lease in question. And each time after making this pronouncement, the IG has been forced to revisit this matter because of the NPS's continuing egregious actions.

The Fort Hancock Request for Proposal (RFP) closed on Nov. 8, 1999, over nine years ago. And still no lease exists due to no lease having been awarded because Sandy Hook Partners (SHP) still does not have the funding/financial capacity to perform the work.

This truism cannot be destroyed by the NPS's "big lie" that the July 9, 2004, document is a lease, because SHP still has not obtained the funding needed.

Like all parties who responded to the Fort Hancock RFP, Sandy Hook Partners were required to satisfy this mandatory requirement imposed by the NPS in its Fort Hancock RFP document issued in August 1999.

Despite the NPS's mandatory requirement of possessing funding to perform the work proposed, the IG has the audacity to state that his investigation "did not identify any regulation or NPS policy defining the financial requirements that must be met prior to the lease agreement being executed by NPS."

On the matter of giving six to 11 time extensions to Sandy Hook Partners in their endeavor to get funding, the actions of the NPS are unprecedented.

And in the same procurement the NPS rejected the Friends of Clearwater's offer to rehabilitate its building because their proof of funding was determined inadequate. This is hardly the "equal treatment of all offerors" the government is supposed to always provide.

The IG failed to address this point of contention, making his findings even more suspect.

Despite the disclosure of two NPS outlease procurements wherein the successful offers were required by the NPS contracting officer to demonstrate that these offerors had the funds/financial capacity to do the work proposed, prior to award, the DOI-IG did not fault the NPS Fort Hancock procurement for not doing the same.

The IG stated that there was no policy which mandated such a course of action. Come on! Some courses of action are selfevident.

Who other than the NPS at Sandy Hook would agree to stay "bound at the hip" to an offeror for over seven years who was still trying to secure funding? And let us not forget the original NPS Fort Hancock RFP mandatory requirement to have all offerors include compelling proof of possessing

funding and make it a part of their initial proposals. How could the IG miss this fact? The balance of the IG's letter is bad eyewash at best, an apparent attempt to deceive. The question

that remains unanswered is: Why is the IG taking this course of action?

As for the IG's admission to Pallone that the NPS needed to "establish better policy and procedure for the administration of the NPS leasing program" and the listing of four corrective actions to be made, I agree with them.

However, if the IG had not ignored and dismissed my letters to him on this matter, he could have made these recommendations years ago.

My first of many letters was sent June 13, 2002. Other letters were sent by me in 2003 and 2004, which enumerated the many flaws contained in the Fort Hancock RFP, including one of my letters resent to the IG under a cover letter signed by Rep. Pallone. If the IG had only listened and performed a real investigation then, he would have done something of real value by providing guidance in a timely manner. Instead the IG waited until Aug. 13 to inform the NPS of the corrective actions needed.

Who does a concerned citizen notify, when the supposed watchdog of an agency, in this case the DOI-IG, is the entity that needs to be investigated? The Inspector General's reputation as the "Watchdog of Congress" has truly been besmirched here.

Hopefully Congressmen Pallone and Holt are the points of contact needed to protect the public's interest. They should be able to demand that right and justice prevail in the Fort Hancock case as well as any other such NPS projects involving national park land.

Please contact your elected representatives and make your positions known.

Peter P. O'Such Jr. is a resident of Fair Haven