Chris Fry reports for Jersey Digs – May 29, 20193
The bloom of spring hasn’t been particularly rosy for Jersey City’s lawyers, as the city will be forking over $137,000 in legal fees following a double dose of bad news at the courthouse.
The first setback happened just as the calendar turned to May and stems from the blockbuster Federal lawsuit filed by Kushner Companies last year. The case alleged that anti-Trump bias from the city was the root cause behind the company’s stalled One Journal Square project, and Kushner had filed a request for records from the city regarding various tax abatements that were granted to other developers at the time.
After the city told Kushner their request was “overly broad,” the company filed an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) lawsuit and won a favorable ruling from Judge Francis Schultz in Hudson County Court. The city will have to turn over the requested records and is liable for legal expenses because Kushner was the prevailing party, and Schultz ruled on April 29 that Jersey City will have to pay Kushner’s legal fees of $95,000.
On the heels of that ruling, another OPRA lawsuit has not gone the city’s way. This one stems from a legal challenge over the Sixth Street Embankment, an abandoned elevated freight line that the city wishes to turn into a park. The land is owned by Steve and Victoria Hyman, who filed a lawsuit in 2016 over an ordinance that the city passed that was meant as a step to acquire the land.
The Hymans were seeking bills, invoices, vouchers, and communications between the city and outside parties as part of their case and filed a separate OPRA lawsuit looking to obtain them. Last week, a two-judge appellate panel affirmed the city violated OPRA for not turning over the records and ordered they pay the Hyman’s legal bills of $42,000.
