Wildwood Commissioners Split on Boardwalk Cop Show

WILDWOOD — One of the members of Wildwood’s governing body hates the idea of having a “Cops”-type television show filmed in this city; the others seemed excited about it.
Commissioner Al Brannen stormed out of a public meeting on Feb. 24 during a presentation by representatives of Chicago-based 20 West Productions, the company that wants to produce a show with the working title of “Boardwalk Cops.”
In the wake of Wildwood finishing in a “New Jersey Monthly” magazine list as the worst town in the state in which to live, Brannen likely feared an even worse image portrayal in this program, showing drugs, drunks and disorderly persons all summer long.
“We’re a tourist town, as a tourist town the last thing you do is advertise your problems,” he said.
Melissa Cutlip and Jason Bolicki, the 20 West representatives, told commissioners they wanted to produce a program that shows the typical day in the life of a police officer in Wildwood, a shore town that balloons in population from 10,000 year round to more than 250,000 in the summer.
According to Cutlip, 20 West has two other shows in production — one of which is on MSNBC called “Squeeze” that shows the inner-workings of Chicago’s Cook County Jail.
Commissioner Ed Harshaw, who’s been consulting with the company, said the city was approached about doing a television show based in Wildwood.
“They’ve gotten some fantastic response from television companies,” Harshaw said.
Cutlip said that 20 West has had preliminary discussions with a couple networks and A&E has shown the most interest in the Wildwood program.
“But it’s not sold yet,” she said.
Cutlip and Bolicki began explaining their proposal and had started showing a clip of their Squeeze program for commissioners to get an idea of what they’d hope to do in Wildwood, when Brannen interrupted.
“I don’t mean to insult you and I know you have a job to do,” Brannen told the production company executives. “But I for one cannot sit here and watch that kind of stuff and think that you’re going to walk around this town looking for dirt because that’s basically what you’re looking for is dirt, because dirt sells.”
Cutlip noted that the Squeeze clip shows the Cook County Sheriff’s Department in an “exceptionally good light” and the sheriff’s department has been very happy with the project.
“It might show the police department in good light but it doesn’t show the fellow walking around in handcuffs in good light, it doesn’t show the drug deal (in a good light),” Brannen said. “It’s not a positive, it’s a negative. We don’t need any more negatives in Wildwood, New Jersey.”
“I don’t mean to waste your time,” Brannen added. “But it’s not going to happen in this town. I’m in charge of the police department and we have enough problems.”
“If you want to come here and follow five families throughout Wildwood that are having a great time on the Boardwalk or on the beach from around the country, I’m all for it, but the last thing this city needs is a document like this on TV,” he said. “And that’s my personal opinion I don’t know how the other two (commissioners) feel but it’s very upsetting to me.
In an effort to get things moving again, Harshaw asked, “Al, can we just go on with this and then we can make a decision later?”
“You can, but I can’t watch it. Let me know when it’s over,” Brannen said as he left the dais.
“Alright,” Mayor Gary DeMarzo said. “Well, you know how Commissioner Brannen feels.”
Bolicki tried to address some of Brannen’s concerns.
He noted that on a given weekend, a quarter million people are in Wildwood having a good time, enjoying vacation on the beaches and boardwalk. Of that huge amount of people only 10 or 12 cause trouble.
“We want to show how the police handle those few and keep it safe and peaceful for all the others who come here to have fun,” he said.
Bolicki and Cutlip said they had planned to structure the show around large convention weekends like the Roar to the Shore, Firefighters and VFW conventions.
Cutlip added that “Boardwalk Cops” would not be a “reality show.”
“We’re not staging anything,” she said. “We’re not going to put a bunch of young kids in a house and ply them with alcohol so we can get them in trouble and catch them on tape.”
She said that wasn’t the game plan.
“The game plan is to go out with officers that serve this community and document what they do on a day-to-day basis when you’ve got a small community of 10,000 people in the off-season that blossoms into 250,000 in the summer when people are here enjoying their vacation time,” she said.
The production company representatives noted that there would be many benefits to the city, including: positive national public relations on a network like A&E that reaches 100 million U.S. households; financial benefit to the town through production company spending in local businesses estimated at $200,000; location fees to the city for production costs associated with the program such as press office and overtime, at no expense to local taxpayers; and exposure to the television industry for local students who could be hired as production assistants.
After hearing these benefits, DeMarzo said his main concerns regarded who would have control of the end product.
“Who has the final say?” he asked. “The fear is that it (the show) doesn’t portray the community the way that we want the community to see it.”
“What if you have two shots of the Ferris wheel and seven shots of drunken disorderlies?” he asked. “Some of them (incidents) are very gritty, some of them are very violent. And that’s what people kind of want to see and the City of Wildwood may not want to go down that route.”
When asked if the city could receive copies of potential scripts, Cutlip reminded DeMarzo of the nature of the program.
“This is a verite documentary, which means we’re out with our cameras and we have an idea of what a typical day in the life of a Wildwood police officer is, and we follow them. We don’t script anything. These are unscripted shows.”
Ultimately, Cutlip said, creative control rests with the network, not the production company, but what they would do is get about two-thirds of the way through the editing process to the “fine cut” and show it to city officials and work with them to the point “where everybody is happy with it.”
“We are not here, despite some people’s opinion, to make anybody look bad,” she said.
Bolicki noted that the Cook County sheriff had the same concerns as Brannen. The sheriff had a representative from his office with the film crew at all times. It was covered in the show’s budget and the company wrote a big check to the department.
“We’d be happy to have someone with us from Wildwood filming for every single frame,” Bolicki said.
Towards the end of 20 West’s presentation, Brannen returned to his place with the other commissioners.
“I just want to apologize to a point,” he said.
“But I am still under the belief that if you want to come here and want to film positive things of this town, which there are many, much to the disbelief of a lot of people, I’m with you 110 percent. But if you’re coming here to film dirt, Rio Grande is a few blocks down, go over the bridge thank you.”
DeMarzo agreed.
“A very strong statement and I tend to agree with Commissioner Brannen, we don’t want a “Jersey Shore,” we don’t want fistfights and bottle throwing,” DeMarzo said regarding the much-maligned MTV program.
However, he left the 20 West executives with hope.
“My point is not as adamant as Commissioner Brannen’s,” DeMarzo said. “I feel some of the same skepticism that he feels, but I also feel some of the excitement that Commissioner Harshaw feels.”
“You’ve definitely captured my interest. Maybe it can be crafted to something before you shoot as long as we have control over the product,” DeMarzo said.
Contact Hart at (609) 886-8600 Ext 35 or at: jhart@cmcherald.com