CAPE MAY – Following two successful citizen initiative petitions, the ballot, in Cape May, in November, will have competing referendums aimed at resolving the long controversy over new facilities for the city’s public safety departments.
The largest issue of debate Sept. 1 was the use of ordinance numbers, as the sole distinction between the two ballot questions in the area where residents cast their votes.
Council member Zack Mullock pushed for some designation that would prevent confusion. He wanted a label that clearly stated which ordinance was for the combined $15 million public safety building and which was for the $5 million fire station.
Deputy Mayor Patricia Hendricks countered that voters would only have to look at the interpretative statement above the voting area for clarification.
The resolution approving the interpretive statements using the ordinance number designation was adopted on a 3-to-2 vote.
City Clerk Erin Burke scheduled a random drawing Sept. 3, on Facebook, to set the order of the two ordinances on the ballot. The result of the drawing was that the $15 million public safety building bond ordinance will be first on the ballot, and the $5 million fire station ordinance will follow.
