Cape May Residents Push For Public Safety Complex

CAPE MAY – The first reading of an ordinance is not usually cause for a crowd at a governing body meeting. That happened at the Cape May City Council meeting Feb. 20. 
The meeting room held a crowd of citizens along with firefighters and police officers, some of whom stood along the walls for lack of seats.
The occasion was the introduction of a bond ordinance. It would appropriate $300,000 for a site survey to determine if a combined police and fire department complex can be accommodated on the Franklin Street firehouse site.
The firehouse and the section of city hall that houses the police department are both seen as inadequate. Soon after the present administration took office at the start of 2017, an advisory committee was formed to look at alternatives.
The committee expressed support for a joint public safety complex for both the police and fire departments located on the current Franklin Street site. That concept had wide support.
In the latter half of 2017, a parallel interest of city council surfaced. It was to establish a redevelopment zone in the block that contains the municipal complex. That idea was favored by the advisory committee for the public safety building. The plan caused an uproar over the concept of a redevelopment area.
It also raised concerns that plans existed which would relocate the public safety complex to some other area in order to make room for a new city hall.
The redevelopment zone did not gain required traction, and the concept died at a Planning Board hearing.
The plans for the public safety building on Franklin Street no longer appeared threatened by an alternative use for the site. Many in the public wanted to make sure council still had the appetite for what will be an expensive capital project.
Some, like ex-chief of police Robert Boyd, have expressed concern that council appears more supportive of a new firehouse than of a combined public safety building.
A new facility for the police department raises the cost of the project significantly.
Police Chief Anthony Marino urged council to approve the bond ordinance citing the many benefits he feels come from a joint facility which would better support combined training.
Members of the advisory committee spoke to also urge support for the $300,000 survey and planning effort as an urgently needed first step in the process of building a facility they feel is incontrovertibly necessary.
The vote was unanimous, and the measure carried on first reading. Each of the four council members present took a moment before recording their vote to express support for the project and to take special care to note that their support includes recognition that both a police and fire department facility is needed.
Deputy Mayor Shaine Meier, who chaired the meeting in the absence of Mayor Clarence Lear, assured the public that “what is needed is a full public safety building, not a firehouse where the police are also housed.”
Patricia Hendricks agreed with many present when she said that “The time for a public safety facility is now.”
Roger Furlin and Beatrice Pessagno each expressed support and gave the measure their vote.
An underlying theme in the remarks of each council member was cost.
Furlin noted that “this is going to be expensive.”
Pessagno urged the public to turn out for the ordinance’s hearing at council’s second meeting in March.
Council wants to be sure that the public is fully behind the project as a necessary expense that would likely exceed the $10.5 million cost of Convention Hall.
The ordinance that passed first reading is only for preliminary expenses for a site survey, yet its passage saw the room erupt into applause.
For many in the public, there seemed to be a sense that they had helped keep this effort on track.
With the vote secure, most of the crowd noisily began to exit uninterested in staying for the rest of the agenda.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.