Cape Issues Seek Your Input

What are our desires and expectations for our lives here in Cape May County, whether we live here year-round or only part of the year? The Cape Issues group ponders this every month. 
We Cape May Countians know we have a lot going for us, but we also know that we have a number of challenges, which, if left unaddressed, will continue to impact our lives negatively.  As a group we feel very grateful for those who came before us, who invested their lives in our great state and nation; it is now our duty and privilege to give back, so those coming after us can likewise prosper.
At our February meeting, instead of going through the normal format of committees reporting on what they are doing, we threw the session open to a topic-by-topic discussion, to insure that each committee was functioning with the broad buy-in of the whole group.
We are not functioning, however, to suit ourselves; to the best of our ability, we want as broad an effort as possible. Below are the topics we discussed. If you have thoughts on any of these topics, please send them to capeissues@cmcherald.com.
Completion of Route 55
Pro: Good roads facilitate commerce; the completion of Route 55 would be an economic boon for local businesses and workers. It would also save lives from accidents, reduce congestion and aid in emergency evacuation.
Con: Enhanced human development leaves less room for non-human creatures. It also changes the character, little by little, from rural to urban.
Cape May County Bridges
Pro: Our bridges are three-quarters of a century old, are increasingly functionally obsolescent, offer inconvenience when broken, and are expensive to repair. New bridges would address these issues. The argument that we are unable to replace the bridges that an earlier generation built would undermine our county’s future, and take a slap at our capabilities.
Con: The cost of replacement.
Central Dispatch of Police and Emergency Services
The county has laudably undertaken the task of modernizing and unifying communication of the police and emergency services within our county.
This will enhance the delivery of those services to the public while simultaneously reducing the cost to taxpayers. Cape Issues has supported this effort from its inception. The difficulty is the slow pace of achieving municipal adoption. 
K to 14 Education
There are many new models for educating our children and older people which have been developed over the last number of decades. A significant impediment to Cape May County’s exploring best practices is our fragmented school system.
Fragmentation is far more expensive to the taxpayers because it requires multiple duplications of school administrations throughout the county. Further, it impedes our ability to offer significantly enhanced educational opportunities, which could be achievable through the larger scale of consolidation.
Of immediate concern is the prospect of combining Cape May Tech and the Special Services School District, as is the case in other New Jersey counties. In our instance, the Special Services building is greatly underused, and Tech, which is located next door, has been under pressure to expand. 
Cape Issues has discussed this in the past with Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton, and we were told at that time that the ideal time to pursue consolidation would be with the retirement of the Special Services superintendent. Well, Barbara Makoski plans to retire this July 1.
Economic Development
Cape May County needs a medium to long-range economic development plan.
Real Estate Tax Collection
Question: Would privatization or consolidation of municipal and county tax collection improve services and reduce costs?
Bike Paths
Is the current county-wide bike plan sufficiently comprehensive?
Arts & Culture
Are we missing anything which would improve life here from an Arts and Culture perspective?
Offshore Drilling
Nobody wants to take the risk of that type of thing in their backyard, but everybody wants the product. What should New Jersey’s stance be?
Sea Isle Boulevard
Raising of the boulevard presents a temporary hazard to human life. This could have been mitigated by moving the osprey nesting stands further from the work area, which is permitted by New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) regulations.
At this point, it may be too late for any intervention to expedite the completion date. Cape Issues is inclined to spend no more time on this, other than to take this issue as a “lesson-learned” for future infrastructure projects. 
County officials should consider impacts on the citizens first, during planning stages. Negotiations with DEP should be pursued early, whenever there is an environmental impact to a project duration.
Other
Please offer other tasks for consideration, and also add, if you would be willing to spearhead it.