STOP REWRITING HISTORY ABOUT HOLMDEL’S GIANT UTILITY POLES

September 24, 2026 - Let’s be very clear:

RAGE DID NOT APPROVE THESE GIANT UTILITY POLES.

That claim is false — or, at minimum, a gross distortion of what actually happened.

Holmdel and other towns formed the Joint Municipal Group, hired special counsel, and fought JCP&L’s 2016 Monmouth County Reliability Project, which proposed putting a massive transmission line along the railroad corridor through Holmdel and neighboring communities.

Later on, RAGE joined Holmdel Township and the other towns as an intervenor to oppose that specific project.

A judge and the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities ultimately rejected JCP&L’s application.

That is the history.

Now, years later, JCP&L has built a completely different transmission solution involving enormous poles along some of Holmdel’s most prominent roads.

And suddenly we are being told that RAGE somehow “approved” these poles?

Absolutely not.

RAGE never selected this route.

RAGE never designed these poles.

RAGE never approved this project.

RAGE never had the authority to tell JCP&L where to build its transmission infrastructure.

Prove it.

If JCP&L has a document showing otherwise, produce it.

In an article circulated by CILU, Holmdel High School student Andy Hum, winner of the First Amendment Award in the “International Excellence In Journalism Contest”, wrote: “However, according to JCP&L representatives, the current project is not intended to be a direct replacement of the MCRP, which involved building a ten-mile transmission line from Aberdeen to Red Bank along the NJ Transit railway corridor.” Link to the full article: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1moEl0SkklaHpXPP0D-MDAp8DjKQ68f7l/view?usp=sharing

And let's not lose sight of the bigger issue.

JCP&L says it has been working with Holmdel Township on this project since 2023.

Residents are entitled to know:

When did JCP&L first present this plan to the Township?

When did Township officials know?

What alternatives were considered?Who approved the route?

Why were residents not fully informed before these massive structures began appearing?

Those questions aren't answered by blaming RAGE.

They certainly aren't answered by rewriting the history of a decade-old BPU proceeding.

Holmdel Township, other towns, and RAGE fought one JCP&L project in 2016. At the legal proceeding, RAGE, and only RAGE, presented a solution that JCP&L agreed would address the reliability issue without installing new poles.

Years later, JCP&L chose not to go forward with that solution and is responsible for the current project it ultimately built.

If JCP&L, Holmdel Township Committee, and its defenders want to claim otherwise, they should stop making accusations and show residents the evidence.

Holmdel residents deserve the truth — not political spin, not scapegoating, and not a revisionist history designed to shift responsibility and blame away.

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