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Nov. 4 to 10
The Election
The election was the story of the week, but while it may have held surprises for some in terms of outcomes at the national level, the races that county residents voted on went pretty much as everyone expected they would.
Former President Donald Trump won the county handily on his way to a national victory.
Democrat Andy Kim bested local businessman Curtis Bashaw for a Senate seat even though Bashaw won Cape May County by a wide margin. Interestingly, Bashaw won the county by 20 percentage points but lost his backyard vote. Kim won three of Cape May City’s five districts, both of West Cape May’s districts and Cape May Point.
Jeff Van Drew cruised to another term in the House of Representatives, easily beating local businessman Joseph Salerno.
Three sitting mayors won reelection, Zach Mullock in Cape May, Frank Sippel in Lower Township and Matthew Ksiazek in West Wildwood. In Stone Harbor, the sitting mayor opted to not stand for reelection. The office will go to Republican council member Tim Carney, who beat back a challenge from independent Robert Ross.
The Palombo cousins, Zachary and Samuel, won seats on the Upper Township governing body as expected. County Commission Director Len Desiderio ran unopposed for another term.
In Cape May Point, Anita VanHeeswyk appears to have won reelection, but the other two spots on the Borough Council have three candidates all within one vote of each other.
Keep in mind that the vote totals are not yet final. There is a possibility of mail-in ballots arriving until Nov. 11. They will be counted if postmarked by Election Day. Provisional ballots and ballots with cure letters also may still need counting.
This may be particularly important in a close school board race.
In Middle Township the school board vote as of Nov. 8 was tight, with just six votes separating two incumbents for the last of three open seats. Stephanie Thomas at 2,706 votes and Kathleen Orlando at 2,700 were on opposite sides of the recent bond issue referendum, with Thomas voting for it and Orlando against.
Middle and Dennis townships both held funding referendums in September. The voters rejected both measures, each of which would have increased local property taxes. The general election vote in Dennis appears to have given a new term to incumbent Tami Kern but not to the other incumbent in the race, Mariam Khan. Both supported the Dennis referendum measure asking for an increase in the tax levy.
Now on to 2025 and the race to replace Phil Murphy as governor.
State Health Benefits Plan
For those who have grown used to the plodding nature of politics in Trenton, we had proof recently that the Legislature can move fast when it suits the majority of its members. A bill to address the burgeoning crisis in State Health Benefit Plan premiums was introduced on Oct. 24, passed the Senate and Assembly on Oct. 28, and signed by Murphy on Oct. 30.
The bill is at best a band aid on an expanding wound. It allows the fund for state workers’ health benefits to lend funds to the local government workers fund when the local government fund cannot meet its next 10 days of projected expenses. The loan would have to be paid back in 120 days, although a provision does allow for an extension to 365 days.
The mere existence of the bill tells the tale of the local government health benefits fund crisis. The State Health Benefits Commission approved a 17% hike in local government employee health benefits premiums for 2025, following a 7.3% increase this year and a 22% hike in 2023. The benefits pool covers participating counties, municipalities and school districts.
Local government units have been bailing out of the fund when they are able to gain better terms with private insurance companies. In Cape May County, Sea Isle City, Cape May City and Avalon have withdrawn from the state program for 2025. Ocean City left the program in 2024.
Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) said the state program is in a “death spiral.” He went on to say that this situation “should horrify and scare every public worker and every taxpayer in the state.”
Michael Cerra of the New Jersey League of Municipalities called the current situation unsustainable. He pointed out that the departures from the plan by municipalities with positive claims histories leave weaker towns behind, causing continued pressure on rates.
Cape May County’s representatives in Trenton all opposed the bill, with Sen. Michael Testa and Assemblymen Erik Simonsen and Antwan McClellan each voting against.
This bill is a stop-gap. Several officials have said curtailing costs will be essential to a longer-term solution.
Incarceration
A state prison report says that New Jersey has 13,196 incarcerated individuals. The Prison Policy Initiative’s Geography of Mass Incarceration in New Jersey lists five counties with the highest incarceration levels per 100,000 of population. Cape May County is fourth out of 21, with a rate of 271 persons per 100,000 population. The state rate is 170 per 100,000.
Of those in prison, 71% are there for crimes against persons and 12% join them for narcotics violations. It may come as a surprise to know that 46% of those in New Jersey prisons entered confinement with a term of 10 years or more.
The number of individuals in New Jersey prisons became significant enough to drive lawmakers to a special 2020 statute. Before the new law ended prison gerrymandering, the Legislature would draw districts in a way that counted the prison population as if the prison were their tenants’ legal residence. That gave some areas enormous benefits.
In Cumberland County, 3% of the prison population is made up of individuals whose homes arre in the county. Yet Cumberland had the benefit, under the old rules, of 45% of the state’s imprisoned individuals due to the large prisons in the county. South Woods State Prison, for example, has the highest inmate capacity of any Department of Corrections facility.
For its size, Cape May County ranks high for the number of its citizens in state prisons. However, that is not unique in South Jersey. Of the six counties with the highest prison rate per 100,000 of the population, four are among the seven counties that make up the designation South Jersey. Cumberland, Atlantic and Camden counties are the other three. The two outside of South Jersey are Essex and Passaic. Each of these counties is well ahead of the state incarceration rate.
Happenings
*Cape May County and most of the rest of the state were at increased risk of fire spreading on Saturday, Nov. 9, according to a special weather statement from the National Weather Service. A red flag higher warning was put out for all New Jersey counties on Friday, Nov. 8.
*The Scotch Bonnet Marsh Enhancement Project now underway in Stone Harbor is an attempt to build up low-lying marsh areas that are quite literally drowning. For many areas of New Jersey marshland, sea level rise has transformed marsh areas into mud flats and open water.
*Using her experiences growing up in an Atlantic City Italian American neighborhood once home to infamous organized crime figures, retired Cape May County Technical High School teacher Diane Zimmerman has authored her first novel, “The Other Side of Tenderness.”
*In an effort to reduce barriers to buying flood insurance, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has announced that the National Flood Insurance Program will begin accepting monthly payments. The new rule goes into effect Dec. 31.
*A Vineland man has been arrested and charged with the murder of Whitesboro resident Daquann Smith, 22, in Woodbine on Friday evening, Oct. 25.
*The National Association of Realtors was prompted by the 911 attack on the United States to create a foundation to help with housing-related issues caused by disasters, and its Cape May affiliates have pitched in to assist.
*Police were called to a Shunpike Road property in Court House after a goat was discovered dead and mutilated the morning after Halloween.
*Wildwood Crest Mayor Don Cabrera, after busting his hipbone socket in a bike crash during an Ironman event in North Carolina, was recuperating at home and getting back to his responsibilities in the borough.
*Cape May County’s unofficial General Election results, as posted on election evening.
*The CapeGOP wrapped up election night mainly with wins, including in several races where incumbents had no challenger.
*U.S. Rep. Andy Kim won a seat in the U.S. Senate on Nov. 5 after beating local businessman Curtis Bashaw in his first attempt at elected office.
*Residents of Middle and Dennis townships went to the polls Nov. 5 to select, among others, three members for their boards of education in the aftermath of resoundingly defeated referendum measures in the two townships, measures through which the school districts asked residents for additional funding.
*The unofficial results showed Donald Trump winning Cape May County in a landslide over Kamala Harris, with 59% of the ballots and a margin of more than 10,000 votes.
*A Wildwood Beach Patrol junior lifeguard performed the Heimlich maneuver on a young student at his school who was choking and was able to dislodge a piece of fruit leather stuck in his throat, enabling him to breathe again.
*Stone Harbor Councilman Tim Carney was successful in his bid to win the mayor’s chair, beating rival Robert Ross, a local businessman, by 31 votes.
*Stephen Bodnar is moving up from his position on the Zoning Board of Adjustment to the Cape May City governing body: He won easily in a field of four candidates.
*The campaign for the 2nd Congressional District seat culminated in an easy victory for incumbent Republican Jeff Van Drew over Democrat Joe Salerno on Nov. 5.
*Veterans joined representatives of the Department of Veterans Affairs and others on Friday, Nov. 8, to celebrate Andrew Jackson Tomlin, a sergeant in the Marine Corps during the Civil War, who became the first member of the Wall of Honor established at the VA’s Cape May Community Based Outpatient Clinic.
Spout Off of the Week
Calm down everybody. I’m old enough that this could be my last Presidential election. I’ve voted in every election since I was 21. Sometimes the person I voted for won. Sometimes the person I voted for lost. The point is America is still here, and the great country it has always been. It will be here after Trump and I are both gone. After future candidates are also gone. Just live a good life and treat everyone the same way you want to be treated.
Lower Township
