Freeholder Director Refutes Legislators’ Statement on Code Blue Legislation

Below is Cape May County Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton’s statement replying to Sen. Robert Andrzejczak and Assemblyman Bruce Land’s (both D-1st) statement on Code Blue in Cape May County
For their joint statement see https://bit.ly/2CoBH81
“Cape May County has been working over the past year on how to best handle the change in Code Blue funding that was initiated at the state level. There have been multiple meetings with local municipalities that have the largest homeless population in the County.
“Sen. Bob Andrzejczak was even invited to those meetings with the municipalities, but he was not in attendance. Separately my staff and I have had meetings with him on issues dealing with the homeless population, but at no time did he address any of the concerns regarding how Cape May County was following the law that he and Assemblyman Bruce Land wrote.
“This Code Blue legislation was passed by the state as many mandates do, without funding. Once the state cut off the funding source the county had been using to help those in need during a Code Blue event, I made sure we found money in our budget to fund warming centers.
“Those meetings with local municipalities included a training session with Burlington County, who runs a model warming center in the state. We are in constant discussions with the local municipalities to see how we can continue to improve this system.
“Additionally, our staff has been in constant discussion with other counties in the state and seeing what is being done statewide. Our small county is doing more than some that are much bigger in size. A simple phone call from him could have provided him with the facts instead of this political grandstanding. These comments also suggest that municipalities are not meeting their responsibility, which is not true.
“I believe this county works best when everyone comes together and works as one to help our residents. We invite other elected officials to engage in the exchange of ideas going forward in a way that can help people and not just to score political points.”