CREST HAVEN – In preparation for the long-anticipated countywide designation as a Coast Guard Community, freeholders hired an event coordinator at the Dec. 23 meeting. A multi-day festival will mark that occasion.
By resolution, the board hired Kristina Ranalli of Court House to oversee the three-day community festival. Her term runs from Dec. 10 to May 30, 2015. Her fee will not exceed $10,000.
Ranalli will “Coordinate and facilitate planning, field and administrative work relating to the three-day festival to be held in or around May 2015, including identifying and coordinating the interests of multiple stakeholders in a manner that promotes and develops the interests of all residents of Cape May County and their Coast Guard neighbors, colleagues and friends.”
Her hiring was done without advertising for public bidding under the Local Public Contracts Law, according to the resolution.
Freeholder Will Morey has overseen the crafting of the Coast Guard Community documents submitted to the service. He also traveled to Grand Haven, Mich. this past summer to observe that city’s Coast Guard festival.
Ranalli and Morey attended the first planning meeting Dec. 23 with the event’s steering committee. That group includes Cape May Mayor Edward Mahaney Jr., Vicki Clark, president, Cape May County Chamber of Commerce, Diane Wieland, county tourism director, a representative of Delaware River and Bay Authority and the county Planning Department. Morey said members of the commercial fishing industry are also expected to take part in the event’s planning.
He told the board he had discussed the event with Culture and Heritage, because the Coast Guard is a “giant fabric, socially interwoven in the fabric of our community, to show our appreciation toward that base (Cape May Training Center).” He added he was “excited to see this move forward.”
The county will be the 14th in the nation to receive the Coast Guard designation, and apparently the first county, since all others are Coast Guard Cities.
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