Thornton’s Thoughts on Our County’s Questions

Last week I related to you the Cape Issues discussion with Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton on Oct. 6 on the status of Route 55. What follows are summations and excerpts of other topics we also covered. I believe that you may find at least some of the sub-titles interesting.
Art Hall
Central Dispatch
Our county has been working to consolidate emergency communication, which will enable all police, fire and other emergency personnel to communicate seamlessly. Our current patchwork of communication equipment is less safe and more costly than an integrated, county-wide system will be.
Thornton: “911 in going to come on line. I have met with the fire chiefs. They are in. They want central communications. (Regarding police) Lower Township is almost in and also Middle Township. We have Stone Harbor and Avalon in right now.
Peter Jespersen: Is there a timeframe when you expect to have emergency management relocated (to the facility being established at the airport)? 
Thornton: I am going to say, probably a year and a half or so. We’re going to spend around $2.7 million to get all of that upgraded equipment; it’s going to be absolutely modern equipment, to which all the police departments are required (by the state) to upgrade. We are saving money for the municipalities. As I recall Lower spends $780,000 for dispatch and if they come in with us it’s going to be only $600,000.
Emergency Management
Larry Kratzer: (Cape May County Office of Emergency Management Director) Marty Pagliughi will speak at COCA (Coalition of Community Organizations) next month. I will touch base with him beforehand on Route 55 regarding emergency management (evacuation in a storm).
Thornton: Marty was one of the best hires I have ever made in the county. He is nationally recognized for his expertise on emergency management. He was invited to Washington for their national conference and was the keynote speaker. Working with him is wonderful when we are going through storms. Sometimes we spend two days in that “bunker” working item-by-item, asking, do we have this done? Do we have the cots? Do we have the blankets? Do we have the MREs (meals ready to eat), the water? Do we have the pet trailer in place?
Schools
Jespersen: Another thing we discuss is the Technical High School and Special Services campuses in Crest Haven, they are two separate organizations. We have often wondered why have two separate administrations?
Thornton: I absolutely agree. We have probably discussed this ten times. You have two separate school boards there and we (freeholders) are the appointing authority. We could have one superintendent of schools for both schools and one administration, and we would save a lot of money. I would think, when the superintendent of the Special Services School retires, we will make a sincere effort to merge those.
Jespersen: Why not have one school district for all our 12,000 students in our county of less than 100,000 residents? I moved here from Hamilton Township in Mercer County, which is about 110,000 population, and about 13,000 students. They have three public high schools and 16 elementary schools, three middle schools, and one school district.
Cape May County Vision
Jespersen: Where should Cape May County be in 10 years? The Herald had published the Cape Issues vision, asking why Cape May County should not be the most forward-looking, efficient county in the state, and the county which makes the best use of government funds.
Thornton: What is so wonderful about Cape May County is being small enough that we can accomplish a lot of things. We have created pilot programs that have really worked, and that the state has adopted, such as the inter-governmental services program. Everybody knows each other so they can make a phone call and say, ‘Hey, Jack, I need some help here;’ and he says ‘I can take care of it right now.’ It is not like you have to spend a week going back and forth saying, ‘Whom do I talk to?’
Years ago we had mental health, alcohol and drugs as separate programs in each county throughout the state. I went to (Cape May County Department of Human Services Director) Pat Devaney and said, “This is nonsense. We’re going to merge these three into one. I got so much grief from the state. The guy that was the director of the alcohol program at the state came down and threatened me and said that they’re going to cut off our funding if we merge them.
I did it anyway because, at that time it was our governor that was up there, and I made a call and explained what we wanted to do, and they said, ‘OK.’ So we did it. Guess what? Today they are all merged throughout the whole state, and it started right here in Cape May County.
Workforce Investment Board — WIB
Dr. Tom Henry: We have to address the WIB issue. How do we get more money out of the Workforce Development Board? I have done some research; there are 36 members of the WIB for Atlantic and Cape May Counties, six are from Cape May County. There has never been a meeting where more than 24 members have shown up. We have a dysfunctional board and the executive director assumes all the authority.
Thornton: It has been dysfunctional for at least 25 years. You are absolutely right. I have had that argument over and over again over the years. I have fought that battle.
As you know, right now we have a major battle going on with the WIB. You have had executive directors of the WIB that have provided misinformation to both Atlantic and Cape May counties. I can go back to Steve Bruner, who was the former executive director, and if you remember the former program, Job Connection, which provided services to get people employed. It was very successful; it was the second most successful program in the State of New Jersey.
The executive director decided they were going to do away with it. So when I started raising hell about it, I was told the money was gone, there was no money, that Cape May County was $36,000 in the hole.
I said that can’t be right; I want a program and fiscal audit. I spent six months asking for that and it was never forthcoming. So finally I wrote a letter to the feds and sent a copy to the state. The feds called me from New York and asked if there were anything criminal here; I said, it’s not criminal but ethically it is wrong and Cape May County is getting the short end of the stick.
That was the last I heard about it; the state ignored it, and so did the feds. What I did, because I was angry, was to talk to George Plewa, who has been a member of the WIB for 35 years, and who is really good with finances. He told me, ‘Jerry, I think I can do this.’ So I asked him to do his own audit on this thing and get back to me. So he did, $556,000 they had shorted us on. They stole our money and closed the program down.
I brought that all to the attention of my colleagues on the Board of Freeholders and got no support; I was odd man out. They believed Bruner. I had Marie Britton and Terri Bryan, who had been the executive director of Job Connection, come in with George Plewa and the audit in a private meeting, and gave it to the Board of Freeholders and argued for 15 or 20 minutes and could not get support.
Bruner was friends with Steve O’Conner and the (former) county administrator, and they were both spewing the same nonsense to the board. The board did not believe me. I don’t know if they didn’t believe me, or didn’t want to believe me; I spent five years as odd man out.
Henry: It is a very difficult program to understand because they (WIB) control so much money and in the last 10 years they got control of all the adult education and family literacy programs. We have trouble educating our people; there is money to help, but we aren’t getting it.
Thornton: I think it is about an $11-million program for Atlantic and Cape May counties. Cape May County is entitled to 25 percent to 33 percent of that money and we haven’t been getting our fair share.
Henry: The federal government changed its reporting requirements for colleges, and they now want to know what the salary is of students 10 years after they graduate. I was shocked and embarrassed. The national average after 10 years from graduating from college is $34,000 a year.
Economic Development
Henry: Economic development is an education and a workforce-development issue. What really burns me is, there is a company that started in Sea Isle City three years ago, Hank Sauce, is now moving to Cumberland County to expand. I am asking, where are the economic development directors, paid for by the WIB, to keep companies like that in Cape May County?
Thornton: I absolutely agree. And I did not know about that company until I read it in the newspaper.
Henry: I was next to them at the Family Fall Festival in Sea Isle City a couple of weeks ago. Honest to God, people did not buy one bottle of their stuff, they bought all three varieties, and they were walking away with cases. I was sitting there watching this and thought, ‘They must be giving out money over there;’ and then you read, they are going to Cumberland County.
Thornton: How about the brewery at the airport? Look at the success story there. The other brewery in Tuckahoe moved up to Atlantic County.
Henry: There is something wrong with this picture. I started looking at these numbers and I am asking, why are we at the bottom?
Thornton: There is a good example. I did not know about it, but if we knew they were that successful, we should have immediately gone to them and told them that we would find a location at the airport, and try to reduce their tax responsibility for the next 10 years, if you provide 10 jobs to the county.
Henry: At the same time the state should have been offsetting those salaries by 50 percent for six months.
Thornton: People think I am crazy. Remember the old CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act)? program. It was a very successful program. Look at all the people it put to work that eventually became county employees because of subsidized salaries. The WIB eventually replaced CETA.
I appointed Freeholder Kristine Gabor to the WIB and she has been up there for four months. She went nuts, and asked me, ‘How about I do something?’ I told her, ‘You do whatever you want to do, and I have your back.’ Now we will see what happens. We’ve got a big dispute going on now.
Henry: I worked with the Cumberland County WIB for 25 years at the college, and I saw how successful their programs could be, and what I see from Atlantic-Cape is a disgrace.
Thornton:  Atlantic County took absolute control of it. Not necessarily am I criticizing them because, the executive director took control of it and everything went to Atlantic County.
Security of Public Spaces
Thornton: We have to do something about security at Social Services (in Rio Grande). We have people who go in there in need of benefits and it can be a very stressful situation. Sometimes they just don’t qualify for benefits and they get irate.
We had one guy in there that had an electric knife. What was he going to do with it? Say, ‘I’m going to cut your throat as soon as I plug it in?’ Sean Breslin, the security guard there, had a guy threatening him, and Sean put him on the ground. If they had had to call the police, it could be too late. We had to put an alarm systems on the desks of the interviewers so if they get in a threatening situation, they could push the alarm.
It is the same way with the county administration building. Eventually we are going to have to go to armed security. I have been talking to the sheriff on and off for a year or more about this, because they would be under his department.
It will be costly. There is legislation that would enable Class II officers to be armed, and that would cost you less.
Another thing I was in favor of, and talked to the sheriff about, was hiring retired police officers and letting them work part-time, like 20 hours per week, at $15 to $20 per hour. They are authorized to carry a weapon. But we need enhanced security. It is not only us; it is every public facility in the state, including schools. Eventually you are going to need armed personnel in the schools. That is the environment we are living in.