Fireman’s involvement in various groups that supported the bill are well known — one even paid for detailed mock-ups of potential plans for the park — but the golf course’s involvement cuts against his own supporters’ claims that Fireman’s involvement had little or nothing to do with golf.

It’s unclear why the golf course — known in lobbying records as WA Golf Company, LLC — would now lobby for the bill if it didn’t have interest in parkland, though it’s conceivable it could benefit from the increased development of the park that proponents of the bill advocate for.

The company’s lobbyist, Eric Shuffler of River Crossing Strategy Group, did not respond to emails and a voicemail seeking comment.

In 2020, following a backlash to language that was quietly inserted into the state budget that many read as a way to facilitate Liberty National Golf Club leasing Caven Point — a 22-acre migratory bird habitat bordering the golf course — Fireman said in a statement he was “halting any efforts to pursue a public private partnership at Caven Point” in order to “force the supporters of the Liberty State Park Protection Act to address the social justice problems connected to Liberty State Park without using me as an excuse to keep ignoring minority communities.”

Sam Pesin, president of Friends of Liberty State Park, said the lobbying is evidence that Fireman still wants Caven Point for his golf course, which as of 2009 charged a $500,000 initiation fee for new members.

“This was the culmination of two years of lies and smear attacks: Getting a law passed that provided no protection at all,” Pesin said. “If he really did not care about Caven Point being golf holes, why were they lobbying for a bill that had zero protection in it for Caven Point? And even right now, why won’t he support [state Sen.] Brian Stack’s bill?”

The Stack bill Pesin referred to, NJ S2956 (22R), would designate Caven Point a natural habitat and preserve it from development.

Stack (D-Hudson), who had previously sponsored the long-stalled Liberty State Park Protection Act, introduced the measure in response to critics of the new law who noted that legislators rejected requests to amend it to bar development of Caven Point.

Stack told POLITICO he’s going to try to advance the Caven Point bill through the Judiciary Committee, which he chairs, either this summer or in early September.

Last month, during the first public hearing on the Liberty State Park development bill, a key Fireman-aligned supporter dismissed critics’ claims that Fireman was still interested in expanding Liberty National.

“It will benefit the community in the long run, rather than this notion of somebody trying to create their own golf course out of state property,” Arnold Stovell, the head of Liberty State Park for All, told the Senate’s environment committee. Stovell’s group has received money from Fireman.

The lobbying reports cover the first half of the year. They do not include how much was spent on the lobbying campaigns; that information won’t be available until next year.