Jersey City Mayor James Solomon said that Liberty Science Center High School is unlikely to proceed at a Riverview Neighborhood Association meeting Wednesday evening, citing cost concerns in the midst of their budget crisis.
Rendering courtesy of the City of Jersey City.
By Daniel Ulloa/Hudson County View
He explained that former Mayor Steven Fulop spearheaded the effort to sell the land to the Liberty Science Center for one dollar, who then gave it to a private developer who has built luxury-only housing.
The City Council approved a deal with the county at a six-hour meeting in March 2021 by a vote of 6-2(1), where Solomon and Councilman at-Large Rolando Lavarro voted no. The school broke ground in May 2023, both as HCV first reported.
“If you’re using city land … You have to build housing that is affordable,” Solomon argued, indicating that they wanted to build Edge Works as a business incubator that would have been a hub for new companies to create jobs
“If I had started this project 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have used that for city land,” Solomon said.
He also compared LSC High School to another Fulop administration era project he cancelled, the Centre Pompidou x Jersey City, claiming there was never a serious plan to fund the projects.
Solomon announced in March that affordable housing would be built at the former Pompidou site in Journal Square, though details of the plan still haven’t emerged.
“There never was a plan to fund the high school. High schools are expensive! They cost millions of dollars to run every year. And we are in a mass budget deficit. I don’t see a way the Liberty Science High School can move forward,” the mayor declared.
“We’re supposed to pay $2 million a year toward it. And it wasn’t even a Jersey City public school! It was going to be a Hudson County School of Technology where probably half the kids weren’t going to be Jersey City residents.
Solomon said it was not fiscally responsible to have city taxpayers pay $2 million a year to fund the school.
“So now we’re going to have conversations with the folks over at Liberty Science and the County. Maybe we can do a school, but the city isn’t going to fund it with your tax dollars,” he added, acknowledging this would not be welcome news to many parents.
He noted that a great Science Technology Engineering Math (STEM) curriculum was promised.
“We have some great high schools already. We’re going to push to make the other ones better. I have to get our fiscal house in order. We can’t push glitzy projects that sound nice but have no financial backing,” Solomon asserted.
“The high school cannot continue in its current form, and we have to go back to the drawing board.”
Hudson County spokesman Mark Cygan declined to comment.