The Weehawken public pool opened last year, after state taxpayers chipped in several million dollars. (Reena Rose Sibayan | The Jersey Journal)

There’s no better place to spend long, hot summer days than by the pool – especially a pool as spectacular as Weehawken’s, with a magnificent, panoramic view of the New York City skyline.

This is the jewel of a $10.5 million project to expand the township’s waterfront park, completed last August. It boasts a water slide, splash pads and separate pools for laps, family swim and babies. Who wouldn’t want to take a dip?

Good luck with that. Because this is also the site of the latest battle over exclusivity in New Jersey: Weehawken isn’t allowed to keep the rest of us out, since the people of this state paid millions toward this project through the Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Acres Program. But it’s breaking the rules and doing so anyway.

“What we see over and over again is that towns want to get public money from all of us to pay for swimming pools or parks or playgrounds for them, but then they don’t want the people who pay for them to be able to use them,” noted Jeff Tittel, the former president of the New Jersey Sierra Club.

This is no different than when towns that get funding for beach replenishment try to curtail public access by creating permit-only parking available exclusively to residents. Yet despite repeated calls to open its pool to non-residents, Weehawken retained its strict no-outsider rule even after the DEP threatened in a June 8th letter to withhold millions for other ongoing projects in the township.

Now, just this month, the township is finally starting to allow some non-residents in, but it’s a grudging effort that doesn’t go far enough and continues to flout the rules by offering limited hours for everyone outside Weehawken – just between 9:30 a.m. and 12 p.m., and you need to reserve a spot. It was booked up for the entire week by Tuesday.

“There should not be an ‘adult swim’ just for Weehawken residents,” said Doug O’Malley, the Director of Environment New Jersey. “There should be equal access for everyone, because these are Green Acres dollars.”

The DEP told us that it’s still reviewing this, but it seems perfectly straightforward. Weehawken is violating the condition of its grant. You might charge non-residents more, but everybody has to follow the same rules. We called the mayor to get his take.

“So, you want to swim in our pool?” Richard Turner asked, when he picked up the phone on Monday. Why, yes. Thank you. And isn’t Weehawken breaking the rules by curtailing public access?

“Technically, Mr. Tittel is right,” Mayor Turner told us – “in the pure sense. But this is not the pure sense. We’ve got a complex situation.” He added, “Operating a pool is not just something you turn a switch on.”

Please. He ticked off these “complexities”: Parking is very limited right now, with only 70 spots total for employees and guests because of construction going on across the street; the pool entrance is located at the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel, with all the traffic jams that come with that. Attendance is limited due to Covid protocols. And so on.

We are no strangers to traffic and parking problems and Covid protocols in New Jersey. And we are sorry to inconvenience the township of Weehawken, but the rules laid out by the DEP are explicit on this: If you don’t want the rest of us to come, then build your own pool, with your own funding. It’s that simple.

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