Issue: Waste & Pork
Example:
The County budget in 2000: $96 million
The County budget in 2007: $133 million, an increase of over 38% in seven years.
Click here to read more about the 2007 budget.
What We Would Do:
Examine each County department’s spending to root out waste and pork. The current Freeholders are all from one party. There is no one on the Board of Chosen Freeholders to find wasteful spending.
Issue: Clean Energy, Jobs & Long Range Planning
Example:
Wind & Solar Power. The current Freeholders have turned a deaf ear to exploring the opportunity to save money in the long-term by investing now in wind and solar power. These major construction projects would create good jobs locally and are good for the environment.
What We Would Do:
Following the example of the Atlantic County Utilities Authority, we would pursue a public-private partnership to create wind and solar “farms” in Cape May County. In Atlantic County, private interests paid the cost and the Utilities Authority is guaranteed a flat cost per kilowatt-hour for the energy generated for twenty years. The price of oil and coal will only go up. Wind & solar power save money in the long run, reduce global warming gasses, and free us from foreign oil. Wind farms are springing up elsewhere in the U.S., Europe and around the world. Scientists studied our County’s air currents and found we have excellent potential for energy production from wind turbines. Cape May County should lead, not follow.
Issue: Crime, Gangs & Drugs
Example:
The current Freeholders have spent years fighting against giving the County Prosecutor’s office necessary staff. It is shameful that it took action from the Superior Court to get what is needed to fight gangs and drugs in our neighborhoods. Instead of hiring more law enforcement staff to pursue criminals, the Freeholders spent your tax dollars to fight the County Prosecutor’s requests for additional staff in court, and to hire outside firms for “studies” to argue against hiring more investigators and paying our investigators what their colleagues in neighboring counties make, so we could recruit and retain the best people. In the end, the study confirmed and the court dictated that the staff be hired. The current Freeholders are still fighting against paying our people competitively. Meanwhile, gangs and drugs continue to expand in our county.
What We Would Do:
Give law enforcement the resources they need to keep our county safe, and rid our county of drugs and gangs.
Issue: Better Jobs
Example:
So many people tell us, as we go door-to-door throughout the county, that their children have little hope of finding a decent paying job in our county.
What We Would Do:
We would actively pursue high-tech and low-tech companies that provide good jobs, pay & benefits with no ill effects on our environment.
Such companies could be enticed to move here with tax incentives, and public-private partnerships to develop business and research parks on County airport land and elsewhere.
A well-trained workforce is also necessary to attract high-tech businesses. We will work with our high schools and Atlantic Cape Community College to create paths of study to prepare our youth for high-tech workplaces.
Issue: Waste, Pork, Poor Planning & Bad Management
Example:
The current Freeholders are borrowing $8.5 million to build two new libraries for fewer than 4,000 year-round residents in Stone Harbor (pop. 1,128) & Sea Isle City (pop. 2,835).
More Details:
Avalon (pop. 2,143) built a state-of-the-art public library which is free to all County residents. It is only about five miles from the current Stone Harbor library branch to the Avalon library, and about the same distance from Stone Harbor to the Main County Library in Cape May Court House. It is also only about five miles from the current Sea Isle City branch to the Avalon library.
According to the Library’s “History” webpage, these libraries were renovated in 2002 (Sea Isle) and 2003 (Stone Harbor). If new libraries are needed, why were the old ones renovated only five years ago?
The County Library Commission just finished its first-ever Master Plan for the County Library System at a cost of $741,000, but that plan only looks at existing branches: it doesn’t consider new branches in places such as Dennis Township at all.
Dennis Township (pop. 6,492) has no public library. Woodbine (pop. 2,716) will open a small branch with minimal financial support from the County as part of a public school this year.
Upper Township has a single branch to serve 12,115 people, and Lower Township’s single branch serves 22,945 people.
The Wildwood Crest branch serves all four of that island’s communities: Wildwood (pop. 5,436), N. Wildwood (4,935), Wildwood Crest (3,980) and W. Wildwood (448).
What We Would Do:
- Include all 16 municipalities in long-range planning. Give off-shore communities with large year-round populations a fairer proportion of library system resources than the current Freeholders do.
- Develop partnerships with public schools to create after-school public access to their libraries, and integrate them with the County library system. Expanding hours, staff and inventory in school libraries will cost much less than building, staffing and filling new stand-alone libraries.
Issue: We Have Time For You
Example:
We invited the current Freeholders to join us in 14 candidate forums throughout the County, in various locations and times, over a seven week period in September and October. They declined.
We invited them to participate in one televised debate on their new County government TV show on NBC-40. They have not responded.
What We Are Doing:
Our goal is to give you, the voter, more opportunities to meet us, ask us your questions and tell us your views on how to better run our County.
We are going door-to-door throughout the County.
You should have a chance to ask questions of all the candidates more than just one hour on one night in Cape May Court House.
The current Freeholders aren’t interested. As quoted in the July 28, 2007 Press of Atlantic City, Mr. Thornton is too busy to talk with you and Mr. Bakley is only interested in same old, same old:
Thornton said a large number of forums is not practical among his other professional responsibilities.
“It’s very difficult to say we’re going to sit down and try to schedule things, especially when you’re a sitting incumbent office holder, because there are so many demands on your time,” he said.
Bakley also said such a number of public forums before the election is not practical.
“I think one debate, that’s the way it’s always been and I see no reason why that should be changed,” he said.
“We always have one debate that’s scheduled with the League of Women Voters, and I think that should do it.”
--from Press of Atlantic City, July 28, 2007 by Brian Ianieri
We are working to set up forums in as many of our towns as possible between now and election day, November 6, 2007. If you would like to have a meeting with us at your convenience, please contact our campaign manager, Todd Alexis, Todd@bacherjackson.com.
Issue: Health Care
Example :
The County offers free flu shots in Cape May Court House each year. Some people who need shots don’t live nearby and don’t have a car.
What We Would Do:
Advocate for the County to offer rotating free flu shot clinics in every municipality. The same medical staff can offer flu shots in public schools, fire halls and other public buildings in all 16 municipalities. (If it can be done at a car dealership, it can be done just about anywhere.)
Issue: Beesley's Point Bridge
This is not only an evacuation issue. Seniors with a lifetime of visiting doctors in Somers Point via Route 9 now have a choice of braving the Garden State Parkway’s speed, traffic and trucks, or driving through Ocean City to get to their physician, as some have told us they do.
We support Assemblyman and State Senate Candidate Jeff Van Drew’s plan to open the bridge. This plan is supported by four of the five current Freeholders. Freeholder Gerald Thornton opposes this plan.
Issue: Hurricane Preparedness
Example:
The County sponsors one Hurricane Preparedness Conference per year, in the last week of September. This is too little too late.
The 2006 Conference included a study that revealed the current evacuation plan is inadequate.
What We Would Do:
Rather than waiting for the State and Federal governments to fund a revised evacuation plan, the County should make it happen now.
The hurricane season lasts from June through November. Most intense storms develop in late August and September. If there is useful information that the public needs to know, the County should sponsor a series of conferences in several barrier island towns in May, June and July. Making people come to Crest Haven doesn’t work. One conference is too little. Late September is too late.
Issue: Global Warming
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