Move Out or Re-Invent Ourselves

New York City has periodically had to reinvent itself in order to maintain its vitality. They are again in the throes of such travail with technology undermining its financial, publishing, broadcasting, legal and accounting sectors.  
The fact is, with rare exception, nothing stays the same. Tastes change; technologies change, and some things just wear out. That said, let me tell you about an email I received a few weeks ago from Jack Killeen of the Cape May Kiwanis Club. He had read some articles in the Herald about the Cape Issues group and wanted me to speak to them about our work. I’d not met Killeen before. As it turned out, he, like I, spent over 20 years in New Mexico, a state of few people but abounding in unique natural beauty and centuries of Indian and Spanish cultural heritage.  For me, it’s a bond I cannot explain.
So on Wednesday night, Jan. 17, prior to dinner, I chatted with the Kiwanians, a number of whom I have known for years, and then talked to them about what drives the 16 people of the Cape Issues group to volunteer their energies to help our county address our concerns.
As you have heard me say over and over, we live in an incomparable place on this earth, but what energizes the Cape Issues people is recognition that the passing of time requires changes. Historically, we in New Jersey have been enormously blessed, not just in the beauty of our surroundings, but also financially. That historically strong financial status has eroded to the point that New Jersey has become a “Move Out State” and  Cape May County has become a “Move Out County.”
The things that worked well for us in the past, which provided good livings, are decreasingly available to our young people and need to be rethought, reimagined, re-engineered. So that is what I talked about to the Kiwanians.
At a time when the American population is gradually shifting to the coasts, Cape May County should be gaining population, not losing it, especially given our desirability and our proximity to  the major metropolises of New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.  I told them that none of the Cape Issues people “have a dog in the hunt,” so to speak; we’re not studying our county with an eye to a specific solutions, but rather The Right Solutions.
An example I gave was the work Cape Issues is doing on completing Route 55 into the county. This effort is being fought tooth-and-nail by environmental groups. Maybe they are right to fight it, but their fight is not being done in a democratic way.  They do not explain to the citizens why it is environmentally unsound to complete the road; rather, they use their enormous power to influence the right people in government to nix its completion.
So that is where Cape Issues comes in. While the group doesn’t have its hands on the decision-making levers, we are putting trust in Lincoln’s adage: “In this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions.”
As we view it, it is our role is to empower government officials with information which enables them to best serve the desires of the voters, which includes revitalizing the economy and reversing the declining number of year-round residents.
After my talk, two people came to me expressing interest in learning more about our work, which I had hoped would happen. And let me add, if our work interests you, please call me at 886-8600.