WILDWOOD – While the Wildwoods are still home to the county’s largest free beachfront, questions have arisen about how long that may remain the case.
The mayors of the three Wildwoods towns that offer free beaches don’t all agree about what to do but have met in recent years about the possibility of implementing tags.
Doing so would preclude them from collecting significant state revenue, which sources said accounts for about one-third of potential tag revenue, based on studies into neighboring municipalities’ numbers, placing any new tag program behind the proverbial eight ball before it begins.
Wildwood Mayor Peter Byron, North Wildwood Mayor Patrick Rosenello, and Wildwood Crest Mayor Don Cabrera updated their positions on free beaches in separate interviews with the Herald.
Here are some snippets of what they had to say.
North Wildwood Mayor Patrick Rosenello
“I just don’t know that we’re there yet. I don’t know that the effort to implement beach tags, and the inconvenience to the residents and visitors, is 100% worth the only benefit I see, which is reducing the crowds on the beach.”
“I don’t know that beach tags are the financial windfall that people think they may be… The thought process on beach tags really should not be based on a financial consideration because I do not think there is a huge financial gain to the city.”
“The real impetus for beach tags is managing density. Our beaches, partially because they’re free, are extremely crowded in the summertime, and we are also dealing with erosion at a pretty significant rate. The main purpose of doing beach tags in North Wildwood would end up being really to manage the crowds.”
“Our parking meter revenue is almost $1 million a year. Part of that is people paying for parking to go to our free beach.”
Wildwood Mayor Peter Byron
“We have a beach fee; it’s called taxes. The taxpayers are paying for the maintenance of this vast oasis that we have, so we need to come up with other sources of revenue to help offset the great expense to continue to maintain the beach.”
On if North Wildwood and Wildwood implemented tags, but the Crest didn’t: “Well, it would work for North Wildwood and Wildwood. I don’t know that the Crest residents would be so happy, but at the end of the day, North Wildwood and Wildwood continue to sit at the table and continue to have these financial issues. If we could offset that cost to maintain our beach with fees, we could take that money and put it maybe into streets or add it to our Boardwalk funding.”
“I think if you put it to a vote, the taxpayers would vote for beach fees. I think that the majority of people who are against it are not taxpayers of the city. I think it’s more of the folks that come down here and vacation, and we don’t want to chase anybody away, but they’re not the ones who have to pay for all these infrastructure improvements all these cities continue to be up against on a yearly basis.”
“We would put a committee together, a committee made up of taxpayers and business owners within the community. That way, it isn’t just the leaders, the commissioners, making that decision… If we did that, I don’t think you would need a referendum because it wouldn’t just be Wildwood Commissioners arbitrarily, it would be the commission, in an alignment with a committee.”
Wildwood Crest Mayor Don Cabrera
“If you ask me, ‘What’s the best thing for the Crest right now,’ I would say, ‘No, beach fees are not the way to go.’”
“There are residents who want to see beach fees and there are a lot of people who don’t. I would say, right now, the community is split, probably right down the middle, at least from what we are able to gauge.”
“Two years ago, we estimated an annual operations cost of $450,000 (to implement tags). That was in two years ago numbers. Those costs very well have escalated.”
“Maybe times are changing. Maybe it is time, but I think that elected officials have to do their due diligence. If you’ve got a controversial topic like this, you’ve got to allow the public to weigh in on it.”
“If they put tags in, people are going to say in North Wildwood and Wildwood you have to pay tags. Crest potentially is free, so if I’m going to go on vacation, maybe I want to go to Wildwood Crest to go on vacation because they have free beaches… That could be a competitive advantage to Wildwood Crest.”
“It could happen down the road, but it needs to happen in a referendum vote after much education and information shared with the people it affects.”
To contact Shay Roddy, email sroddy@cmcherald.com.
