The Cooper Empire Expands!

A Look at the Rutgers Camden-Rowan Board of Governors in Action

Last month, members of South Jersey Progressive Democrats went to a meeting of the Rutgers Camden-Rowan Board of Governors, a shadowy public board with power of eminent domain, a multimillion dollar budget, and an all white male board comprised of some of George Norcross’s closest associates. This board popped up on our radar when Camden County Commissioner Jeff Nash was given a $275,000 position as Board CEO without any hiring process at all (and the job came with a cushy upgrade to his pension). At that meeting, we asked a series of questions about the organization’s operations and got no real answers. So on Tuesday, when a Camden ally told me that they’d just learned that board was meeting again, I figured it was an opportunity both to support Camden residents and see this powerful, shadowy board in action.

Cooper’s Billion Dollar Expansion

Ostensibly, the focus of this meeting was the relocation of the Ronald McDonald House which is being moved to another part of the city so that Cooper Hospital can buy up the land that the Ronald McDonald House currently sits on. But the real topic was the fate of the community as Cooper begins their $2.8 billion (yes, billion with a “b”) expansion. Anxiety about eminent domain and gentrification hung in the air then eventually was spoken out loud. People would be paid for their property, attendees were told by the man running the meeting, Louis Bezich.

Bezich is now an executive at Cooper Hospital and sits on various county boards but as I sat listening to him speak in vague terms about this massive Cooper expansion which will involve the acquisition of so much city land, I found myself thinking back to some other Norcross projects Bezich (and Nash) have been involved in over the years. Before Norcross set his sights on land grabs in Camden, he attempted to reshape his hometown of Pennsauken by ousting low income and working class people. My own hometown is just next door to Norcross’s so I have vivid memories of those failed Pennsauken projects that involved the misuse of public funds and public government.

Norcross’s Failed Pennsauken Conquests

In the late 90s and early 2000s, Bezich championed Norcross’s conquests through his public consultant company, Public Solutions Inc. (an item not listed on his LinkedIn). I remember when “STOP CHEROKEE!” signs were fairly ubiquitous in the area. The Cherokee project was an attempt to redevelop Petty’s Island, a 500 acre track of land where Norcross wanted to site a golf course, restaurants and luxury housing. The plan would have involved the eminent domain seizure of 1000s of homes. Norcross and Bezich lost — though their attempts to block Petty’s Island from becoming a protected nature preserve was written up in the New York Times as a standout example of dirty backroom dealing.

Bezich was also responsible for the shuttering of the Pennsauken Mart, a working class mainstay that was bulldozed because George Norcross wanted his own sports stadium. Though yes the Mart was cosmetically rough, there were legitimate small businesses at the Mart like the one my father worked at for awhile and the one my high school friend’s family — new immigrant arrivals— ran, selling homemade Polish food specialties. Demonstrating that he, like his friend Donald Trump, knows how to bilk Atlantic City out of money, George Norcross got the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) to give him $24 million for this scheme that ultimately fell through. Needless to say, the ousted business owners got nothing. The site sat vacant for over a decade. Perhaps those CRDA funds would have been better spent on, oh say, Atlantic County schools, roads, transit?

Plenty of Money & Opportunities…for Whom?

Those Pennsauken projects were billed as bringing jobs! opportunities!, the same buzzwords bandied about at this meeting of the Rutgers Camden-Rowan Board of Governors. The meeting was poorly attended — only about 18 residents in the room and about 8 politicians and appointed officials — perhaps because of poor outreach in the community, bad timing (5:30 pm meeting) or the fact that the doors of the Cooper Joint Sciences Building as well as the gated parking lot are all locked. But residents in attendance did draw attention to current city issues that should be of concern to a healthcare system like Cooper, for instance the city’s enduring status as a food desert.

Pino Rodriguez of the Camden Block Supporter Initiative stressed the necessity that all talk of redevelopment being “beneficial to residents” mean current residents, not those who might move in when others are displaced. Pino spoke too about the importance of residents being part of any changes, having a seat at the table, having a voice in any decisions made about their community. This is really the difference between the community-oriented revitalization that many parts of South Jersey need and Norcross style redevelopment and gentrification. The latter only involves power holders reporting out decisions they’ve made about the future of our communities.

Pushing Back Against the Norcross Imperial Mission

In South Jersey, so many of us already live with this as a matter of course: our communities are carved up to suit the needs of politicians and pay to play firms. We attend public hearings where we might as well be screaming into the void. The master plans (drafted without our input) are shredded to accommodate the wishlist of electeds and the contractors whose campaign donations (usually funneled through PACs or the party) keep them in office. What we’re left with is a patchwork of projects that advance individual profits and ambitions rather than collective community vision. Though these projects may pop up whack-a-mole style in places like Cherry Hill, in communities with more wealth and resources, citizens are sometimes able to force change. Needless to say, in economically challenged and working class places, fighting back can be harder to do.

And that’s why people across the county and region should care about what happens with this massive Cooper expansion and how it impacts Camden residents. We’ve suffered through voicelessness and politicians’ indifference but we’ve probably never had to worry about literally losing our homes and being displaced. That’s race and class privilege.

Talking about this grand expansion, Bezich and Nash could have been characters out of a Kipling novel, ambassadors of the empire, of Norcross’s relentless attempt to grab up our public land, public funds, public goods. But our communities are not just spaces for a clutch of powerful men to extract more wealth. Our communities need defending and that’s work we need to do together. Yes, looking away is easier but we stand to lose a lot if we do. If you’re willing and ready to be eyes and ears for the public good, you can sign up right here today!