Almost one year ago, on May 7, 2024, the Cape May County commissioners notified the Delaware River and Bay Authority that the county wanted to regain control of land at the 1,000-acre county airport. It was a sign that the county would not renew its 30-year lease for the airport with DRBA. On June 6 the county voted to give the DRBA notice that there would not be an automatic renewal of the lease for another 30-year period. In that vote commissioner Will Morey dissented.
So what was the arrangement that the county was ending?
For 25 years prior to this vote to not renew, the DRBA managed the airport property and invested more than $30 million in capital improvements. The DRBA paid the county $1 a year for the lease. The original lease was signed June 8, 1999.
The lease had a notice provision that required the county to notify the DRBA of any intent to not renew five years prior to the end of the lease period. That 60-month window to give notice of nonrenewal was the only way to avoid an automatic renewal for another 30-year period.
The county has no experience running an airport. The DRBA’s capital investments had clearly improved the airport and were done in such a way as to contribute to what the county said at the time was its strategy for economic development. Those investments were off the county’s books and did not impinge on county borrowing capacity.
As far as the public was concerned, there were no hints that anything was going to change. And then it did. The county says it did not want to automatically fall into another 30-year lease. It claimed that the 1,000-acre property was key to efforts to address important quality-of-life issues in the county. One of those was exploring the development of mixed-income housing on the airport property.
There are questions that need to be asked about this explanation of how the county arrived at a notice of nonrenewal at an emergency meeting on June 6, just two days before the automatic extension of the lease would have taken hold.
The county has a number of high-level, taxpayer-supported staffers who aid the commissioners. Did this idea that the control of the land would allow the county to address the lack of affordable housing come as a revelation at the start of this year? Was it a sudden surprise that the date for renewal of the airport lease was approaching? Why did everything have to be done just months before the automatic renewal date? Why did the county’s action come as a surprise to the DRBA?
Everyone knew, or certainly should have known, that the lease was going to come up for renewal in June 2025. As much as a year earlier the county could have begun a series of discussions about its needs for some of the land at the airport to see how those needs could be embedded into the arrangement with the DRBA.
The fact that the county did not act in a way that showed that it valued the DRBA’s contributions to the betterment of the airport was bad business and just bad manners. Then, last July, the notice of nonrenewal having been sent, members of a county delegation attended a DRBA meeting and then returned to tell tales of being treated rudely. Really?
What do we know and don’t we know from a commission board that repeatedly says it values transparency?
We have all heard that the county acted out of concern for the best interests of its citizens. We heard that the unfortunate break with the DRBA has produced no interest by the agency in a new arrangement to manage the airport under the county’s newly reasserted ownership. We have also heard that the county will have to reimburse the DRBA as much as $34 million, a figure used as a top-end estimate by Commission Director Leonard Desiderio in a meeting.
It is time for us to hear how, specifically, this benefits us. What are the county’s plans? Surely these representatives of the people did not agree to repay so large a sum in order to gain control of land for which they have no plans beyond vague comments about housing development, especially when they had as long as they could have wanted to develop a plan.
In a public meeting, Administrator Kevin Lare spoke of the county’s wanting to “explore” mixed-income housing development. But $30-million-plus is a lot to pay for the right to explore something that could have been looked at prior to taking actions that triggered so large a payment.
So we ask again, what’s the plan?
Quotes From the Bible
“The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” — Proverbs 18:21
(This verse highlights the immense power our words carry – free speech, yes, but with responsibility.)
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