Phillipsburg just announced that 33 acres along the Delaware River, once slated for another massive warehouse, will instead be preserved through New Jersey’s Green Acres program. Our LD23 Democrats’ advocacy, Citron & Powell for State Assembly campaign, local environmental groups, other nonprofits, and upset residents deserve credit for this long-fought victory and rare win for the town’s riverside. It’s certainly cause for celebration.
But there is evidence of a troubling pattern. New Jersey’s warehouse problem is largely an entanglement of political power, connected to private firms who depend on overdevelopment, and our public resources. Real estate moguls hold and keep land hostage in undesirable condition, untold thousands of acres at a time, until they can build a warehouse or pay themselves with our money to preserve and go away. Worse, these preservation deals are sometimes announced right before election day by the same actors driving the crisis. People in general, who understandably have a hard time following the ins and outs of the situation, thus stay snowed over from knowing the sad truth. That’s the now, and familiar script, for Warren County, and beyond.
Think and do your research. Many of you will remember that in 2023, nearly 600 acres of farmland in White Township were bought from Mr. Jaindl, a land-baron billionaire, for roughly $27.4 million in our tax dollars. That was to stop millions of square feet of his desired warehouse complex from paving over that beautiful town and surrounding ones. But $48,000 per acre is very expensive, and generous for farmland. That kind of bailout is unsustainable at scale, as like a best practice, for statewide preservation. Worse than that, the deal was struck after four years of citizen opposition. So, we must consider the timing. Local Republican state officials broke their silence about White Twp’s situation to suddenly appear at a press conference, and their names were also being praised, right before their last election. Ask yourself. Have they taken interest in solving the many more unpopular warehouse applications in Warren County since?
Now, in 2025, a similar story is playing out in Phillipsburg. This is the second time at least, in as many years, locally, that land held in limbo once targeted for a warehouse has been “miraculously saved” right before an election. The core issue is conflicts of interest.
Here’s the uncomfortable reality. Despite all the good things that these men have done for society, State Senator Steinhardt and Mr. Perrucci are partners in a law firm that specializes in business related to warehouses. Their firm profits from overdevelopment of warehouses by working with developers, their engineers, and land use boards, etc. Perrucci himself is the landowner, and owns the construction company, Peron Construction, at the center of the Howard Street warehouse controversy. He and his surrogates have gone on record, time and again, defending his Phillipsburg warehouse dream project, claiming “everything else had been tried”. Many opposed stay silent. Why? Because those who challenge Perrucci’s now-tiring “Noble Developer” narrative fear retaliation and harassment.
Don’t take our word for it. In 2024, Republican Council President Marino reported that he had been threatened, ostensibly over the warehouse issue since that was that evening’s topic. Soon after, two of his fellow Republican council members resigned, citing a lack of integrity in local government. Their abrupt departure in 2024 is why there is a five-seat council race this year. We think it’s all related to the bullying that we know is typical in Phillipsburg’s machine-like political organizations. We think that’s also related to the developers and career politicians who control the town for their own self-interests, like building warehouses.
So, when the same political actors, and firms who nurture warehouse proposals, are praised for “doing the right thing” - by stopping them right before Election Day, the public should ask: was this preservation or political theatre? I mean, Mayor Piazza’s announcement did not inform us how much of our money Perrucci is getting. But it is clear they are all winning while we, the public that truly cares, lose. That’s one way to see the political cost of this broken system, which is the sheer absence of honest public representation, without even mentioning the negative economic and environmental impacts.
Now you hopefully see the political pattern. Land speculators, and their allies in government, sit on farmland or neglected open space for as long as they want, allowing it to decay while other potential uses are arrested, until they have local powers-that-be to accept a warehouse. We have noticed it mainly done through ethically questionable rezoning practices and abuses of “Redevelopment Law”. When residents object to a proposed warehouse, they’re forced to exhausting, time wasting, costly fights and the petitions, lawsuits, and late-night land use meetings, all just to protect their neighborhoods and futures. Then, once public pressure peaks, the same political machine pivots, arranging a “preservation deal” that spends millions in state funds to buy back what was already ours. Like we said, it’s best described as a hostage scheme, and we the taxpayers end up paying our own ransom.
We urgently need at least stronger conflict-of-interest laws. We need full public disclosure when developer-connected law firms hold influence over boards that decide those same projects. Without such reform, every so-called “victory” will keep looking like damage control. And let’s be honest. The press rarely connects the dots. Few outlets have the courage to remind readers that Senator Steinhardt himself faced FBI investigation in 2024 over another shady, public land-use deal, involving a warehouse. Have Lehigh Valley Live reporters followed up on that?
So, lastly, with that being said, there unfortunately is a partisan point to enlighten. We’ve never made our campaign about “vote for us because we’re the Democrats”, or our reactions to Trump, or Ciattarelli vs Sherrill. But if you care about stopping warehouse overdevelopment in Warren County, you cannot count on local Republican state representatives to fight the developers for you. Because they are clearly the same people.
This year we have to fix it ourselves. Vote for us, Citron & Powell for State Assembly, the only candidates who have made stopping warehouse overdevelopment a top priority for years. That’s precisely how we’ve earned endorsements from the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, and leaders across party lines.
We’re fighting for New Jersey. We’re fighting for you.
Paid for by LD 23 Democrats, PO Box 58, Flagtown, NJ 08821