Teen’s Ocean Accident Makes Father Recall Son’s Injury, Urges City to Act

CAPE MAY – Following a routine agenda dispatched by the Cape May City Council, a portion of the public comment focused on the dangers lurking in the city beach profile.
Just within the last two weeks, Cape May beaches witnessed another spinal cord injury on a 17-year-old visitor from Baltimore, Md. The accident did not occur on a city-owned beach; rather it happened on a private span in the east end. The accident brought back memories of a local young man similarly injured in 2001. 
Chad DeSatnick, then 24, suffered his injury as he surfed high waves caused by a hurricane. His father and mother addressed council urging more action to make the beaches safer. 
Dennis DeSatnick said the recent injury led him “to relive my son’s injury.” His son Chad has been active in efforts to improve beach safety and get better information for the public about the dangers of shore breaks in the area.
It is largely through his efforts that the city has a beach safety brochure which is given to all who buy beach tags.
The family urged that the city intensify efforts to improve shore safety. Former mayor Jerry Inderwies, Sr. also spoke on the issue. Inderwies cited his years of experience with the issue and asked to be part of any effort to develop ways to better address the problem.
Following the recent injury, Mayor Edward Mahaney was quoted as saying that a planning group would be looking into possible actions. 
Mahaney and City Manager Bruce MacLeod further explained that the group to which the mayor referred is a meeting of city officials with representatives of DEP and the Army Corps of Engineers on a variety of initiatives directed at area beaches.
“It is not specifically aimed at this one issue,” MacLeod noted.  Mahaney said he had asked that this issue be placed on the agenda for the meeting as an added item.
Mahaney said he is hopeful that the DEP and the corps will turn more of their attention to “technological engineering” issues like addressing the beach profiles and the sand breaks. 
He noted that headway was being made before Hurricane Sandy, but that since then much of the attention has gone to beach replenishment. In a number of ways replenishment can actually worsen the danger of the breaks.
“We understand the need for replenishment,” Dennis DeSatnick said, “it’s part of the community we live in, but we need to make the sand safer after replenishment.” 
Police Controversy
The other issue which engaged the public during the meeting was the continuing controversy surrounding the city’s police department.  
Recent reports of the city’s motion in Superior Court to have three subpoenas quashed brought a number of residents to the microphone with questions.  The subpoenas are related to an investigative grand jury looking into the “City of Cape May and Several Officials” and are tied, at least in part, to the ongoing controversy over Lt. Clarence Lear’s alleged misuse of compensatory-time. Lear’s Civil Service disciplinary hearing on the matter, brought by the city, has been postponed until October.
In response to most questions raised by the public, the almost uniform response was that the council could not discuss the court case or the judge’s ruling because the documents were under seal. 
A phone call by the Herald to the chambers of Judge Bernard DeLury, presiding judge of the Criminal Division, verified that the letter opinion in the case and the judge’s order are not under seal, only the exhibit used and reference in the opinion are sealed.
In his order and opinion, DeLury denied the city’s request to have the subpoenas quashed, denied the city’s motion to have over 400 pages of requested documents protected, and denied the city’s request to either have the grand jury disbanded or have the case moved to another prosecutor. 
The ruling gave the city the right to exclude a minority of documents requested by the subpoenas.
The issue of the city’s ongoing efforts in the courts to battle County Prosecutor Robert Taylor has a number of residents in arms at just about every council meeting. 
Robert Boyd, retired police chief in the city, asked if council “even had a plan?” He lectured members saying “You have forgotten about right and wrong, good and bad.  What is important to you now is winning at all costs.”
Jerry Gaffney, a former mayor, asked if the city plans to appeal the ruling but he was unable to get an answer to that question.
The council and City Solicitor Anthony Monzo had no response to why the case is in Atlantic County. 
A call again supplied that answer. This is a Cape May County case and the court orders show that plainly. 
The case is being heard by the presiding judge in the Criminal Division of the Atlantic-Cape Vicinage who hears cases in Mays Landing.  As one attorney put it, “The judges make you come to them.”
It has been almost six months since council took the action to rescind the appointment of Robert Sheehan as chief of police.
The controversy has taken many turns in that period including a trip through both the Civil and Criminal Divisions of Superior Court.
At the council meeting, members felt that they were being advised not to speak about the most recent court case in any way. No resolution appears close at hand. 
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.