Story ID: 
Judge: Town Cannot Seize Solberg Airport
By: Mark Phelps
Caption: “The condemnation [of the airport] was singularly initiated to secure Township control over airport operations,” ruled a judge.
Word Count: 501
With all the bad news about New Jersey airports, it looks like the good guys’ side has finally won one.

In early May, Somerset County Appellate Court Judge Paul W. Armstrong ruled on an ordinance passed by the town of Readington to condemn and then “instant take” 625 acres of land from the Solberg family by eminent domain. The Solbergs’ property contains their family-owned and -operated airport (KSBJ), founded by family patriarch Thor Solberg in 1939. The airport is currently owned and operated by his children, Thor Solberg, Jr.; Lorraine Solberg; and Suzy Solberg Nagle. Thor Solberg Sr. set a record as the first to fly an airplane (a Loening C-2-C Air Yacht amphibian named the Liev Eriksson) from America to his native Norway. His route retraced the voyage of the aircraft’s namesake, nearly 500 years before Columbus’s Atlantic crossing.

The township of Readington’s request was the latest in a long string of attempts, dating back more than two decades, to take over the Solbergs’ land, ostensibly to preserve open space. This time, Judge Armstrong left no doubt as to the court’s opinion of the town’s real motivation.

His opinion states, in part: “An objective scrutiny of the collective testimony of the elected officials involved in the architecture and implementation of the eminent domain ordinance concerning the SHA property reveals a studied attempt to obscure the true purpose of the condemnors in the instant taking. The Court finds this testimony, as a whole, to be un-forthright, evasive, untrustworthy, argumentative, lacking credibility and therefore unworthy of belief. Moreover, the resultant lack of transparency in governmental actions of Readington Township has subverted an open political process thus weakening the protection of all its citizens’ private property rights including the Solberg family. That is to say the condemnation was singularly initiated to secure Township control over airport operations.”

Judge Armstrong went on to indicate that the township’s action was a calculated reaction to the Solbergs’ plans to improve the airport, including extending its paved runway to 4,950 feet from 3,000 feet, and the township’s motivation was underhanded. He concluded: “Such behavior undermines the integrity of the municipal government’s stated public purpose behind Ordinance 25-2006 and demonstrates bad faith. Accordingly, the taking is invalid in its entirety.”

The Readington town leadership has been criticized for the “millions of dollars” in legal fees it spent on the airport acquisition plan, all paid with taxpayer funds. In addition, the court ruling calls on the town to compensate the Solbergs for their legal fees over the years, also estimated in the millions of dollars, which will be paid from township taxes.

The Solberg family’s attorney released a statement, including this excerpt: “None of this was necessary. It was the result of the myopic view that Solberg Airport was going to become another La Guardia being drummed into the collective psyche of too many citizens misled by the Township leadership.”