(The following story by Nancy Benecki appeared on the Jersey Journal website on December 12.)
KEARNY, N.J. — A public hearing scheduled for later this month to discuss NJ Transit’s discontinuation of its Boonton-to-Hoboken line has been postponed, officials said.
The three-hour hearing, originally slated for Dec. 18, will be held in January on a date to be announced, NJ Transit officials said.
The hearing must be held as part of a settlement ending a lawsuit brought by an independent rail operator who sued NJ Transit when it opened the Midtown Direct line via the Montclair Connection. The independent rail operator argued that NJ Transit had failed to give public notice before closing the station in September 2002.
State Superior Court Judge Thomas P. Oliveri, sitting in Jersey City, ruled in October that the hearing had to be held in Kearny and notice had to be given 10 days before.
NJ Transit gave advance notice of the meeting, but the Kearny High School location was not available for the event, according to NJ Transit spokeswoman Lynn Bowersox.
She said NJ Transit then planned to hold the session at the Mason Hall in Kearny on Dec. 29, but decided, after talking to Oliveri, to wait a few more weeks to give sufficient notice.
“The judge granted us an extension to January so that everyone could be more comfortable in participating,” Bowersox said.
She said the meeting will likely be held in the latter half of the month.
Gregory Castano Sr., the Kearny town attorney, said moving the meeting to January gives residents, who might not have had time to participate in a meeting during the holiday season, a chance to participate.
“The judge felt since Kearny High School was not available on the 18th, it was really too late to set the date so he enlarged the period of time from the end of December to the end of January,” Castano said.
John K. Fiorilla of the firm Watson, Stevens, Fiorilla and Rutter in New Brunswick, the attorney for the New York & Greenwood Lake Railway, which sued NJ Transit, and the Lower Boonton Line Coalition, which represents commuters, said proper notice must be given for the next meeting.
“Of course we’re concerned because when you don’t get a good notice, it’s hard to get people assembled. . And they’re likely not to show up. That’s why the 10-day notice is important,” Fiorilla said.
The Arlington Depot station in Kearny, the Rowe Street station in Bloomfield and the Benson Street station in Glen Ridge were all closed when the Boonton-to-Hoboken line shut down last year.
Jim Wilson, the head of New York & Greenwood Lake Railway, previously said his company will seek to run its own Boonton-to-Hoboken line, and he hopes the hearing will demonstrate there is still a need for that service. He was joined in the lawsuit by four commuters who once used the line, two of them from Kearny.