CAPE MAY — “People can’t afford to live here any more, they have to rent their homes in the summer to live here in the winter,” Harry Stotz told the Herald and the public many times during his term on city council 1999 to 2002 and his unsuccessful bids for reelection.
Stotz passed away July 29 at the age of 75. A life-long city resident, former commercial fisherman and retired Cape May police chief, Stotz began his police career here in 1958. He held every rank in the department and retired in 1988.
In a 2003 interview, this reporter compared Stotz to Harry Truman with the phrase “Give ‘em hell Harry.” Stotz would give hell to anyone who wanted to raise taxes or make Cape May a more expensive place to live.
“I read a statement by a politician in Lower Township who said everybody in Cape May is rich,” said Stotz. “Well, they didn’t talk to me, because I’m not.”
Stotz, in his campaigns for office and during his term on city council, opposed annual 4 percent raises for teachers at the elementary school. He called $4.2 million the city pays annually to Lower Cape May Regional School District, “disgraceful.”
Stotz and Councilwoman Laura Calnan delayed approval of the city’s 2002 budget that was originally proposed with just under a one-cent increase. The budget had a two-tenths of a cent decrease by the time it was approved.
“For 13 straight years before I got there, taxes were raised every year,” said Stotz. “For the last three years, they have gone down.”
In elections, Stotz drew heavy support from senior citizens in Village Green and Victorian Towers.
He said he couldn’t wait to return to Cape May after being away on a vacation.
“I don’t know what some people are hollering about,” Stotz told the Herald. “Everybody wants to come here, it’s clean and it’s safe.”
He was defeated in his bid for reelection by Jack Wichterman by a slim margin of 25 votes in May 2002. Stotz ran again in November 2002 and was defeated by Niels Favre, who was also seeking reelection.
Stotz told the Herald was proud of his accomplishments and those of the council as a whole. When he took office, taxpayers were subsidizing the beach patrol operation with approximately $250,000 a year, he said. By 2000, the beaches were “in the black” with no property taxes being used to fund its budget, said Stotz.
“I promised the streets would be paved and 30 or 40 streets have been paved,” said Stotz. “Harborview Park, the Transportation Center and Broadway Pavilion are done.”
“Promises made, promises kept,” he said of his record on council.
He said he was wary of building parking garages or offering shuttle service from Lower Township to solve the city’s summer parking problems.
Stotz said he was concerned with city employees’ contracts he calls “astronomical” that increase each year. Stotz cited raises within city departments of $6,000, $7,000 and a $15,000.
“The main reason I got into politics is taxes,” he said. “When they start taxing you out of your home, something’s wrong.”
He called for a stop to wasteful spending.
“Tell me what you are going to do with the money,”
he said. “The easiest thing in the world to do is spend somebody else’s money if you’re in office.”
Stotz seemed to have a cup of Wawa coffee permanently attached to his left hand. He also had a sense of fun.
When he was the first to arrive for a council meeting in 2002 in a nearly empty auditorium, he leaned into a microphone and sung a verse of Dean Martin’s “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime.”
A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated Aug. 2 at 10:30 a.m. at Our Lady Star of the Sea Church in Cape May.
