the staff of the Ridgewooed blog
Bloomsbury NJ, New Jersey’s agricultural industry is among the country’s smallest, with fewer than 10,000 farms producing about $1.5 billion in revenue annually, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The farmland preservation program is supposed to play a role in protecting farming as a livelihood, with grants distributed to fund soil and water conservation projects on farmland and to buy development easements. The grants allow landowners to keep their land as long as they agree to development restrictions and continue their agricultural use.
The state of New Jersey now claims the New Jersey Farmland Preservation Program has surpassed the 250,000 acre preserved milestone.
But according to one South Jersey farmer , “13 years ago, the State Agricultural Development Committee (SADC) preserved our neighbor’s farm for $360,000 and, in the process, altered our pre-existing right-of-way/driveway without our knowledge or permission. They referred to their action as “2 for the price of 1” because by locking down the configuration of our ROW easement without paying us, they effectively conserved our property for free. We learned of this violation of our Constitutional rights (taking/altering property for public use without appropriate compensation) when we applied for a permit to address life-threatening safety issues on our RoW and were told that the SADC had taken jurisdiction over it and that we could only address it with their permission.
We’re are still trying to achieve permission. In the process, the SADC Executive Director and the assigned Assistant DAG have hidden evidence, falsified evidence, misrepresented evidence to their voting committee and the NJ appellate court, and threatened to tie us up in litigation for years.
Early on, we received a Nj appellate court decision in our favor. The Court determined that our due process rights had been violated by the State and returned the matter back to the SADC for proper reevaluation and determination of whether and how much monies were owed to us. The DAG and SADC staff refused to allow us back before the SADC voting committee to address these issues. When we were between attorneys, they pulled a fast one and transferred the matter to the agency-loving administrative court, where it has languished for 8 years. In the case conferences, it is clear that the administrative judge and DAG know each other well. We were recently told by an attorney., who is not our attorney but had heard of this matter, that transferring the case to the administrative court was a violation of the Appellate court order. So Platkin’s staff is violating orders of the NJ court system, which is under his charge.
After trying to resolve this matter by following the rules for 12 years, we have decided that our only option is to become much more vocal. We recently took the matter before the State Board of Agriculture, claiming fraud and corruption with specific examples based on emails obtained via OPRA requests, court documents and transcripts. While we don’t know what transpired behind the scenes, the SADC DAG has recently offered to stop their opposition ( which they instead have transferred to the US-NRCS) or USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service with the proviso that we must release the State from liability for 13 years of violations against us. We are demanding more. So far the damage to us has been almost 1 million dollars based in loss of property value, legal fees, etc.
The main thing I want to focus on is a letter “from“ the NRCS, their preservation partner, which supported the SADC decision against us. This document was presented as an independent NRCS contribution and was withheld from us until after the adverse agency decision against us (violating the rules of evidence). It also served as the main piece of evidence presented to the court in support of the SADC position. When I went to the next SADC meeting to dispute details of the letter they had withheld from us, the SADC director came over and ripped the documents I had prepared for the committee out of my hands and kept them (first amendment violation). I later found out from documents/emails obtained via OPRA request that the letter was written primarily by the SADC but was signed by a local NRCS field officer who was a friend and former colleague of an SADC staffer. The SADC has relied on this letter for years and cited it 2 times in their ruling/ resolution. We spent 10 years and 200,000 dollars fighting that Resolution. Now the NRCS wants to pretend that the letter doesn’t exist. They have concocted a plan in which we release the SADC and DAG from liability and then get beat up by the NRCS for another 15 years.”
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