Rusty Tagliareni and Christina Mathews wear all black, and speak of a government no longer representing the people who elected them.

Adam McGovern talks about the state "disregarding a democratic process."

John Huebner filed an Open Public Records request to get to the bottom of why the main building at Greystone Park is being torn down and shows everyone the pages and pages of blacked-out redactions he received.

Yes, there is a subversive element to the people trying to save the old Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital and there should be.

Because something about the state's decision to spend $34 million to tear down this historic building and turn it into nothing but grass stinks like a late-August compost pile.

If it doesn't stink, then it's just lazy. Or lacks vision and creativity. Or shows an unwillingness to compromise.

But we don't know, because the process wasn't open.

"Who made the decision?" asked Huebner, the president of Preserve Greystone, a group that has been trying to save the place since 2008. "Who had a seat at the table? This was all done behind closed doors."



Preserve Greystone, a concerned citizen's group, filed an emergency appeal to stop the demolition, but it was denied last week by an appeals court.

The group's lawyer, James Sullivan of the law firm Connell Foley, is now working on a non-emergency appeal, and said he is gathering expert opinion from various state and federal history-minded agencies.



"We'll file it as soon as possible," he said.



With no court order to stop demolition, the state-hired contractor, a national company headquartered in New York called NorthStar, began digging into the back wings of the main structure.



Undaunted, Preserve Greystone is not only going back to court, it will continue bringing its case to the public. Wednesday night, they went to another of the dozen Morris County Board of Freeholders meetings they've crashed, to voice their concerns and objections. On Sunday at noon, they are expecting at least 200 people for a rally on the Greystone grounds.



"New Jersey was entrusted to this piece of national history, and New Jersey is destroying it," Tagliareni said. "That's a story that needs to be told."

He and Mathews are telling the story through their website, Antiquity Echoes, and an in-progress documentary called "Greystone's Last Stand."



That last stand continues, McGovern said.



"We're not going to stop until it's a pile of rubble," said McGovern, a trustee of Preserve Greystone. "There has never been a public meeting on this, or any public dialogue. The state has always acted more interested in tearing it down than trying to save it. We want to spread awareness that if this falls down, it is elected and public officials who let it fall down."



As of Wednesday, the windows, window frames and doorways were being removed, exposing the building even more to the elements, making damn sure it will be "too far gone to save."



That phrase has been repeated over and over by state and local officials, as if Greystone deteriorated overnight, unaffected by their own twin bureaucratic evils of neglect and inaction.



The other reason government gives for tearing Greystone down that anything else is "economically not feasible," and required state funding.



These are the reasons the treasury has repeatedly given for not allowing Greystone to be redeveloped.



But this is where things get ... funny.



When the state asked companies interested in redeveloping Greystone, it received six proposals by the May, 2013 deadline. A seventh came in a year later when the state treasury department announced it would tear down the building.



Three of six proposals asked for nothing from the state except some initial tax abatements, usually given out like candy by governments to developers, and ownership of the property once the proposers spent millions upon millions to restore it, which is obviously fair.

* "All maintenance and preservation will be scheduled as the necessary funds are raised through tourism," said the proposal from a demolition company called Auto Mart, Inc. (AMI), of Morgantown, W. Va.

AMI renovated the abandoned Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, W. Va., a facility on the scale of Greystone. AMI refurbished a building that was in the same deteriorating condition as Greystone and has drawn about 200,000 visitors since it opened in 2007 for ghost tours, Civil War tours and tours of the asylum.



* "We would 100 percent finance the Green Center Acre in exchange for full ownership of the property at completion," said a proposal from the Center Regenerative Community Solutions of Basking Ridge, which outlined an ambitious plan for sustainable farming and educational, residential and healthcare services at Greystone. They also offered to build a school on the property, all buoyed by at group of investors, one of whom was willing to put up $120 million.



* Alma Realty of Long Island, N.Y., came in late with its proposal, but said it "would fully finance the abatement, restoration and renovation of the existing (main) building" for residential and retail use and also offered $10 million to build a school.



Another proposal by Forest City, New York development company, talked about some public bonding for infrastructure improvement. Its track record in such historic re-use included the Presidio army base in California, the Washington, D.C., Navy yard and the Winchester rifle factory in New Haven, Conn., was impressive enough to warrant some discussion. And, don't forget, the state is spending $34 million to tear it down.



In one "Greystone's Last Stand" YouTube trailer, AMI Trans Allegheny operation manager Rebecca Jordan Gleason says there was "not too much contact" with the state after its proposal was submitted and that they "got no letter response" rejecting it or a reason why it was rejected.



Executives from another company, who asked not to be identified because they are still doing business in New Jersey, had the same experience.



"Our proposal was never acknowledged," the source said.



"If we see it, and these other billion-dollar companies see it, why can't they (the state)?" Gleason asked.



That of course, is the million-dollar question.



And the answer is, because we're New Jersey, the tear-down state.

Will Needham, the vice-president of Preserve Greystone quotesWinston Churchill: "'At first we shape our buildings, and thereafter, they shape us,' What type of legacy are we leaving behind if we bulldoze all of our historic buildings?"



And the answer is, none.



There should be outrage. There should be disgust. There should be a legislative investigation. At the very least, there should be public hearings, the kind where officials actually field questions and give real answers.

Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@starledger.com. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.