Cape May’s Low and Moderate Income City?

CAPE MAY – Cape May City Council heard a proposal from a consultant Aug. 1 concerning the best chance at competing for funds available through a large state block grant program. 
Consultant Mark Blauer began with the counter intuitive statement that Cape May meets the federal definition of a majority low- and moderate-income city.
This qualification sits alongside the city’s historic designation and its very high-end real estate in large parts of town.
The qualification comes with its advantages for purposes of competing for the block grant funds. The state funds are for community development projects that benefit persons of low and moderate income.
The state runs its competition for funds, but they originate from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
If the city was less than 51 percent low and moderate income, only a project that directly related to the designated community could be considered for submission.
Blauer said that the city’s current 56-percent level for low- and moderate-income families means that the city can submit citywide projects that will by definition aid low- and moderate-income individuals.
For purposes of this grant process, the city’s 56 percent standing “places us in the same category as places like Wildwood,” he said.
The project Blauer suggested to the council was the repair of a water transmission main that enters the city behind the elementary school after it first traverses the marshes.
The main is an old asbestos concrete pipe which is at an age where it has an increased potential to rupture at some point.
Both Blauer and City Engineer Thomas Thornton agreed that if that main were to burst it would have a catastrophic effect on the city. That impact would only begin with the water main’s replacement.
It would go on to include a very messy and expensive clean-up across an environmentally sensitive location.
Thornton explained that the pipe would not actually be replaced. Rather the project calls for a substance to be injected throughout the inside of the pipe that then hardens providing “a pipe within a pipe,” he said.
Thornton said it is an industry accepted practice that would remove the danger associated with a burst of the old concrete pipe. Once the project is completed, the old pipe would only represent an aging outer shell, and a leak in it would not affect the new pipe inside.
Thornton put the cost of the proposed project at about $500,000. Blauer explained that the grant the city would be seeking would be for $400,000 with an expected city match of 20 percent, or $80,000.
Blauer felt confident that the project would “compete well” with the state committee that decides the distribution of funds.
New Public Safety Building?
Council passed a resolution that established an advisory committee to study the feasibility and options for constructing a new public safety facility for the Fire Department, Rescue Squad, Police Department and the Office of Emergency Management.
With the current public safety departments in aging, disparate spaces that the resolution calls “outdated, crowded and hazardous,”  the committee is being asked to develop a “reasonable task and timetable for accomplishing” its charge.
Ultimately the city is seeking design and location options with at least “three alternative sites in addition to the present Fire, Rescue and OEM site.”
The committee of 11 individuals will be chaired by ex-mayor Jerry Gaffney. Deputy Mayor Shaine Meier will serve as council liaison.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.