Cape May’s New Council Flexes Voting Muscle

CAPE MAY – Cape May City Council has been busy in the New Year. With its reorganization meeting Jan. 1, a second regular working meeting a few days later, and a special meeting for City Manager Bruce MacLeod to present his budget for 2015, the meeting Jan. 20 marked the fourth formal gathering of the council in three weeks and one item on the agenda was the announcement of yet another special meeting this month.
The year also brought with it three new individuals for the five-member council. The unanimity with which the previous council acted on almost all issues was missing in this meeting of the new council.
In the usually routine first step in the agenda, a moment to see if any items on the agenda need to be altered before the meeting proceeds, two votes needed to be taken and the results showed a willingness of new members to challenge the old consensus.
Jerome Inderwies Jr., the city’s past fire chief and newly-sworn council member, asked to have the resolution approving the 2015 contract for MacLeod removed from the agenda.
He said his motion was not a reflection on MacLeod’s work but rather his feeling that new members of council had not had enough time to work with the city manager, more time was needed if a new member was to have the ability to evaluate MacLeod.
Mayor Edward Mahaney said that the “previous council held off on approving the contract in order to give the new council the opportunity to make the appointment.” Mahaney also pointed out that the new council members were invited to participate at council meetings after they were elected and he hoped that had given them a sense of MacLeod’s performance.
The resolution remained on the agenda by a 4-1 vote. Later when it came up for adoption, Inderwies made the vote unanimous.
A division on the council over what was basically a procedural issue, the items on the agenda, seemed at odds with the smooth consensus of the previous year where disagreements of this type, if they existed, were likely settled before the meeting.
School Funding Formula
The second agenda item disputed was related to the school funding formula. It was a concern that many observers during the November election saw as the big policy issue for the new council.
For about three years, the previous council had pursued a policy initiative that is approaching its end game. Through a series of maneuvers and two referendums, council exhausted all avenues for getting the funding formula altered. The formula governs the contribution the city must make to Lower Cape May Regional School District. Deputy Mayor Jack Wichterman, who stepped down rather than seek reelection in November, led the city’s efforts.
The city has objected for many years to a formula that leaves it to pay over 30 percent of the costs of the school system while it sends only about 5 percent of the students.
Wichterman had also objected to the fact that the city had only one seat on the school board rather than representation that would be more proportional to the funds it supplies. “We can’t even get a motion seconded,” is a phrase he used often.
The aim of the long initiative on school funding was to prepare the city to seek a remedy in the courts where other municipalities in similar situations have seen some success. However a critical step that had to precede any move to the courts was the need for the special election referendum, which was not held until December.
The election was too late in the year to allow the previous council to decide how the city would move forward and in effect turned the issue over to the current council with its three new members at a critical point. The city is now able to pursue its issue in the courts, but after a long process with many hurdles to get to this point; does it still have the desire to do so?
That was on the table when Councilman Shane Meir, another new member, moved that the resolution be removed from the agenda. That resolution would have established a committee to oversee the efforts of the city “to obtain Equitable Tax relief with Respect to Lower Cape May Regional.”
That resolution would also have re-involved Wichterman, via the committee, and had him as a participant in a special closed session of council Jan. 22. That closed session was for discussion of the school funding initiative with the city special counsel. “It will be an opportunity to explore the avenues open to us,” Mahaney said.
At least Meir wanted to explore those options without Wichterman. Meir said that he wanted to have the opportunity to express his views and discuss issues absent Wichterman’s “strong views” on the subject.
Mahaney disagreed and pointed to Wichterman’s value in the meeting based on his history with the initiative and added that the special counsel wished Wichterman to be there.
The vote was 3-2 and the resolution was removed from the agenda. Mahaney and Deputy Mayor Terri Swain voted to retain it, with all three of the new members voting to withdraw it.
Later Inderwies brought the resolution back up when he criticized its language. The resolution, he said, used language that said the effort on the school funding was backed by 70 percent of the residents when in fact “it was 70 percent of those who voted.”
Inderwies was looking at the results of the special election when turnout was small, but he did not comment on the similar percentage vote during the regular election referendum which saw a higher participation rate.
Inderwies’ point was that language was something the council needed to be careful about in resolutions of this type. If that was a signal for a lack of enthusiasm for the policy initiative in general, it will be evident soon.
The disagreements displayed a willingness of new council members to avoid being tied down by the previous council’s consensus.
Other Business
Council set up a formal committee to review outdoor seating at restaurants and establishments in the city. The committee will be charged with a comprehensive review of the issues and current practices. The results will guide any efforts by council to regulate the practice.
MacLeod indicated that work on the ocean outflow pipes project had begun and that it was under county management. The nature of the work makes it subject to delays due to tide schedules and he has approved an exception to city ordinance rules to allow work to continue beyond the normal 6 p.m. end of day. When needed, work may go on up to 10 p.m.
City Clerk Louise Cummiskey announced that the 2015 free rabies clinic would be held March 24 from 4 to 5 p.m. at the Cape May Point Public Works Building.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.