Public Safety Building Contract Sparks Debate

CAPE MAY – A resolution called for authorizing a contract to USA Architects for conceptual and schematic designs related to the proposed Public Safety Building on the site of the existing firehouse in Cape May. USA Architects was the unanimous selection of the citizens’ advisory committee.
The site was also the majority choice of the committee with two dissenting votes. The need for new facilities for the fire and police departments is generally acknowledged by both the public and city officials.
Anyone who assumed the resolution would sail through Cape May City Council was wrong. It passed on a 3-2 vote and that after long public debate. 
This was not a debate with two sides, for or against. Everyone said they were for building new facilities. The debate was over a variety of issues that included:
* The process by which the architectural firm was selected.
* The wisdom of moving ahead with anything more than a test of the site’s suitability.
* The need for greater public disclosure and informed discussion.
* The impact of a large public safety complex on the historic character of the town.
* The projected cost of the project relative to what other towns have paid.
* The proposal to split the facilities for the two departments so as to stagger their development and construction.
* The hint that the project is a backdoor to a multi-story parking garage in the heart of town.
Each of those concerns relative to the Public Safety Building project had its proponents during the public commentary on the resolution to award the architect’s contract.
Police Chief Anthony Marino spoke early on the resolution stating that he and Fire Chief Alex Coulter were in agreement that a combined building on the site selected was both doable and desirable. With a number of fire and police personnel in the audience, he urged the council to pass the resolution and “keep this project moving.” William Murray, a former councilmember, followed and also urged support.
Wister Dougherty came to the podium to offer a different approach. Dougherty served as the vice chair of the advisory committee that studied the public safety building issue and made recommendations to council. He was part of the unanimous vote that recommended USA Architects. He was also one of the two who expressed reservations about the site selection.
Dougherty expressed support for the architectural firm and for moving to what he termed step one in a rational process, a conceptual design to see if the building could be adequately sized in the space available. Instead of the $142,000 that the city put at risk with the proposed resolution, Dougherty pushed for spending no more than $70,000 for the conceptual design which he predicted would show that the site was not adequate to the needed facility.
Dougherty’s comments opened the debate but almost no one adopted his position.
Christine Miller argued that the city was not following best practices. “This is not a good government way of doing things,” she said. She urged a detailed RFP (request for proposal) process that would result in a competition among firms benefiting the city with free conceptual designs.
Mayor Clarence Lear asked Solicitor Frank Corrado to outline the process the city had followed to date, leading Corrado to claim that the process had been “exactly what Mrs. Miller is suggesting.” Miller disagreed.
Miller then urged council to “separate the Public Safety Building process from redevelopment and the building of parking garages.” In doing so, she raised concerns that the project was a way to reassert a need for redevelopment of the municipal block.
William Seeger urged council to vote “no” on the resolution. He expressed support for the police and fire departments’ needs, but urged that they are separated and sequenced in a way that would better fit with long-range bond financing. Seeger also challenged the unanimous selection of the architectural firm, citing the firm’s astonishing rise from fifth place to first place based solely on the interview.
So it went on with each person who spoke counter to the resolution doing so from a different position.
Those who spoke for passage did so from a uniform position: the city has been at this long enough; the committee appointed by council did its work; the committee’s deliberations were open to the public at all points.
It was not just some members of the public who urged a different approach. Both new members of council since January took issue with the resolution.
Council member Stacey Sheehan enumerated the members of her family that served the city in the police or fire departments. She used that to argue that her support of the departments and their needs was second to no one else.
Sheehan then argued that the facilities need to be separated. She called for a comprehensive view that details what would be done with the police substation in West Cape May, when and how the city would join the county central dispatch, what the city’s plans are for the Franklin Street School and how parking in the municipal block was to be addressed. Sheehan also argued that a three-story, 30,000-square-foot public safety complex would not fit in the center of Victorian Cape May.
Council member Zack Mullock also expressed opposition to the resolution supporting many of Sheehan’s arguments and adding a concern that the approach being taken by the city would be much more expensive than the project needed to be. He questioned the relationship of the architectural firm to a similar project in Collingswood, a city whose mayor serves as Cape May’s special counsel for redevelopment.
What about that relationship was a negative for Cape May was not specifically stated, but it echoed the concern raised by Miller that the public safety project was somehow tied to redevelopment of the municipal block. Mullock claimed that he and Sheehan had a plan that could see a new firehouse in 18 to 24 months at a cost of $4 million with a police department at another site soon to follow.
In the end, Council member Shaine Meier, Deputy Mayor Patricia Hendricks and Mayor Lear all spoke in support of the work done by the advisory committee. Hendricks said the council had delayed the action in order to give the new members “time to catch up.” The argument that the time had come to move ahead won the votes. The resolution passed 3-2.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.