Working Toward Coast Guard Community Designation

WILDWOOD – Cape May City and Cape May County are seeking a coveted title: “Coast Guard Community.” Although it will not be the first in the nation (there are only 12 others), the title is still revered by community members who want to show the value they place on the Coast Guard’s presence within the community. The designation is made by the Coast Guard.
Members of the Cape May County Chamber of Commerce heard Cape May Mayor Edward Mahaney, Freeholder Will Morey and Capt. Todd Prestidge, new commanding officer of Training Center Cape May speak about what the designation means at the June 20 meeting at Gioia’s Ristorante.
Locally, the Coast Guard Training Center is the “port of entry” for every enlisted member who begins their career at boot camp for eight and a half weeks.
“I guarantee you every single member, all 44,000 members of the Coast Guard know Cape May,” said Prestidge.
While the Coast Guard link in the city and county is economic, this year alone estimated directly or indirectly at $150 million, the Training Center’s “tremendous emotional attachment,” said Freeholder Will Morey is equally great. He cited the long-standing Operation Fireside, which places recruits into volunteers’ homes at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Often, those families become close to the recruits and their families, and remain friends for many years. Some even attend their guest recruits graduation ceremony.
Morey, the county liaison for economic development cited an Atlantic Cape Community College study of the economic impact the base has. “It is an astounding number to speak of for a region our size,” said Morey. He lauded the partnership forged between the city with the county to attempt to win the designation.
The freeholder board has passed a resolution in support of the move, as have many municipalities.
“We are proud of what we see as a level of support,” Morey said.
“This designation does not talk about what the Coast Guard does for the community or what the community does for the Coast Guard. This is the Coast Guard’s sole avenue to tell everyone which communities really embrace the military station in their community,” said Mahaney.
Mahaney said a diligent search of city archives had been done, in search of a formal Coast Guard designation. None was found, much to everyone’s surprise, including Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thomas J. Papp Jr., who had also assumed Cape May was already a designee.
The mayor noted as with many businesses, the day-to-day affairs of the city likely took away from the memorialization everyone thought had already existed.
“For the last seven or eight months Freeholder Morey and Cape May have been working with the Coast Guard to document everything done since 1917, and since 1948 when the Coast Guard took over the naval base,” said Mahaney.
“In the process, we realized the Coast Guard has an impact on the whole county. We thought we would like to be the first, or one of the first to get the Coast Guard designation,” he continued.
Mahaney noted the county Tourism Department reached out, tested many businesses, and found just how important the Coast Guard Training Center is to the community.
“This base, as Freeholder Morey pointed out, is a major economic driver in Cape May County,” the mayor continued. “It is the third prong of Cape May’s economic program; the first is tourism, the next commercial fishing.”
The mayor recalled the tenuous times in 1995 and 1997 wen formal studies were done to see if the Training Center should be either combined with other operations or closed.
“We went through a difficult period,” he said. Aided by the late U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg and U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-2nd), “Based on fact, not desire, the ongoing security and operation of the base maintains the economic benefit that Freeholder Morey talked about,” said Mahaney.
Those who live and work on base “frequent all establishments in Cape May County, and the percentage of Coast Guard personnel who have elected to come back for a second tour or come back to retire speaks to how well they were received here the first time,” said Mahaney.
Mahaney cited the base as being home to a VA outpatient clinic, as well as to 13 sub stations on the 200-acre base. A loss came when the Coast Guard Air Station was shifted to Atlantic City due to funding shortages, and the stations in Atlantic City and Brooklyn, N.Y. being outdated, he continued.
Mahaney also cited the Coast Guard’s adoption of Cape May City Elementary School as one which helps the school as well as giving local students close friendships with children who have often been to distant states or lands.
“Our students are exposed to more diversification than most students get until they get to college,” he noted.
Mahaney said the formal presentation of the completed application will take place at the Sunset Parade, which is open to the public that will be the Sunday of Labor Day Weekend.
“We hope to have the Commandant Adm. Papp there to accept it,” said Mahaney, as he glanced over to Prestidge at the head table. “It would be great to have the commandant to accept it.”
“There’s no pressure there,” smiled Prestidge, the new commanding officer of the base.
Mahaney said the approval through normal channels would likely arrive in January 2014.
Having done some planning, he said it could take place at a formal, public ceremony when the Master Chief of the Coast Guard holds his formal retirement ceremony at the Training Center.
Prestidge said many have come up to him and told him they were retired Coast Guard.
“It really is an amazing partnership, and the Coast Guard is proud to be here,” the officer continued.
He said the base conducts 45 graduations annually, and each of those ceremonies means family members stay in the city or nearby, eat in local restaurants, and visit other businesses while they are here.
Prestidge said the public is invited to attend the Sunset Parade on the July 7 at 8 p.m.
It is a formal ceremony that includes every member of the recruit regiment in companies. There will be “A wonderful rendition of the National Anthem,” he said.
A law enacted Nov. 13, 1998 allowed the city of Grand Haven, Mich. To be formally recognized as “Coast Guard City, USA.” In June 2000, Eureka, Calif. became the second such city.