To the Editor:
A critical county-wide issue is overstaffing of police and emergency personnel during winter months. Continually raising the tax base is unacceptable, but typically shortsighted by people focused on retail and boardwalk traffic.
As noted elsewhere, one beach community has one cop for every 10 winter residents; the numbers are undoubtedly similar for other municipalities. The nearby offshore municipalities are experiencing real estate inflation and will undoubtedly soon feel similar inflationary issues, i.e., well-paid people sitting around doing nothing for months on end guarding the mostly empty properties of second homeowners.
Elected officials need to be creative. A potential solution could be to offer temporary positions to retired emergency personnel who are already qualified. Such positions could be very lucrative for the recipients but with no attached pension or health expense benefits given that retired personnel already have those, making the process cost effective for municipalities.
PHILIP ROGERS
Cape May
