Local voters approve most school budgets

By BRIAN IANIERI
Published: Thursday, April 19, 2007
Press of Atlantic City

Maybe it was the school's hot-dog dinner Tuesday, or the Election Day phone calls reminding Dennis Township parents about the school-budget vote.

Or maybe it was more state aid this year — and likewise less of a tax-rate increase — that prompted voters to pass the Dennis Township school budget for the first time in six years.
Tuesday night was a good night for school budgets in Cape May County and the state. Officials said additional state aid this year made school-tax rates more appealing to voters.

Across the state, there was a 26 percent increase in approved budgets from last year.

In Cape May County, voters rejected only two school budgets: in Sea Isle City, where the shrinking school's future is the subject of ongoing discussions, and in West Wildwood, a sending district with no school.

The city of Cape May's school budget passed by two votes, but three provisional ballots need to be counted, according to the county Board of Elections.

One of the most striking budget victories was in Dennis Township, a district that faced five straight years of defeated school budgets, including some by large margins.

But Dennis Township voters approved the budget 278 to 240, according to unofficial election results.

The $15.4 million school budget called for a 2.5-cent tax-rate increase. However, the relatively small increase was no guarantee it would be taken well by voters. In 2005, a budget with a 1.7-cent tax rate increase fell about 50 votes shy of passing.

Dennis Township Superintendent George Papp said the Board of Education, the Dennis Township Education Association and teachers helped bring public awareness to the budget and the election.

The district on Tuesday held “Dinner and a Showcase,…#65533; which featured students' artwork on display and hot dogs to eat. But additional state aid was a major factor, Papp said, providing the district about $230,000 more that helped the tax rate.

“I'm sure in a lot of districts the state aid made a big difference in the presentations the districts were able to make to the public. And that's what we've been looking for for a long time,…#65533; Papp said.

Across the state, 78 percent of budgets passed, said Frank Belluscio, spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association.

Last year, nearly half failed. In Cape May County last year, voters in six municipalities rejected budgets.

“This was the first time in six years school districts received a big increase in state aid,…#65533;
Belluscio said.

When voters defeat a school budget, the budget goes before the municipal governing body, which can cut school taxes at its discretion. The school can appeal any cuts.

“There will be fewer towns that have to go through the whole review process. The boards can go forward and can focus on other issues,…#65533; Belluscio said.
But budget success was not universal.

In Sea Isle City, the school budget sought to raise $3.2 million in taxes and called for about a one-tenth of a cent decrease on the tax rate, said Brian Robinson, interim principal of the school.
Voters rejected it by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.

“The voters that got out yesterday certainly made their feelings known about the current budget, which is good,…#65533; Robinson said.

Sea Isle City is also in the middle of discussions about the future of the school and whether its declining enrollment warrants the 93-student school shipping students to another district.
“I think there's a number of things going on that could have an effect on this, and certainly the discussions about the future of the school could play into that. I'm not sure what role that could have played,…#65533; Robinson said.

In Cape May, voters passed the budget 131-129, according to the unofficial results. But three provisional ballots, which will likely be recorded Friday, could change that.

“I'm just trying to not have much of a reaction right now until I get the official news,…#65533; said Victoria Zelenak, Cape May's chief school administrator.

“We're on pins and needles. With these provisional votes outstanding, I don't know what's going to happen. It's not a pleasant place to be right now.…#65533;

In Upper Township, the school budget passed 754 to 712.

However, failing was a public question asking for $208,014 for a part-time health teacher and librarian, two part-time clerks and two full-time behavioral specialists and two security cameras for school buses.

To e-mail Brian Ianieri at The Press: BIanieri@pressofac.com

Ocean City to make improvements to parks
By MICHAEL MILLER Staff Writer, (609) 463-6712
Press of Atlantic City
Published: Wednesday, April 18, 2007

OCEAN CITY — The city plans to revamp five parks and playgrounds to give them a more consistent look.

City Council approved a $120,000 professional-services contract with Schoor DePalma, of Manalapan, to design new playgrounds at Eighth, Ninth and 34th streets, a small service building for the Sixth Street tennis courts and a new park at the Tennessee Avenue boat ramp.
“We want both functional and aesthetic improvements,” Community Services Director Michael Dattilo said.

In keeping with the city's pay-to-play ban, Schoor DePalma certified that it did not contribute to local candidates.

The city budgeted $1.2 million, which includes a state grant, to build the two parks and three new playgrounds, the largest of which is Sandcastle Park on 34th Street.

“That really is what some towns call a destination playground. People come from all over town to use it,” Dattilo said. “It's the most heavily used by far.”

The community financed the construction of this fortress-themed playground. The city recognized contributors with engraved fence posts that circle it. Dattilo said these contributors will be recognized again in the design of the new playground.

One incentive for revamping this popular playground is to replace its pressure-treated wood. This type of wood is known to contain the toxin arsenic. The city routinely paints the wooden equipment with a sealant as a preventative measure, he said.

The new playgrounds will provide better access to disabled children, he said. The work should be done by the end of the year, Dattilo said.

To e-mail Michael Miller at The Press: MMiller@pressofac.com

Bridge report pleases Upper Twp. officials
By MICHAEL MILLER Staff Writer, (609) 463-6712
Press of Atlantic City
Published: Tuesday, April 17, 2007

UPPER TOWNSHIP — Township officials welcomed a report last week that state officials are committed to re-opening the dilapidated Beesleys Point Bridge.

Assemblyman Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic, said he was privy to a state inspection that concluded the bridge could be reopened for 15 years with an investment of $20 million.

Van Drew said the governor's office and state Department of Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri will endorse the repairs. There has been no official word.

“Beyond the inconvenience, we really have an infrastructure problem when it comes to evacuation or just moving people from one county to another,” Mayor Richard Palombo said. “I'm hoping the DOT commissioner will see the absolute necessity of this.”

For three years, the DOT has resisted lobbying by state lawmakers and local officials to take over the troubled bridge, which is owned by the Beesleys Point Bridge Company. The bridge has been closed since June 2004.

Committeeman Frank Conrad said he was skeptical about the state's sincerity about reopening the span.

“When I see it, I'll believe it,” he said.

Township officials were quick to note that many bridges in Cape May County are in bad shape, including the Route 50 bridge over the Tuckahoe River.

“Route 50 is about to fall in the river. For 10 years they've been talking about fixing that Route 49 bridge,” Committeeman Curtis Corson Jr. said. “Cape May County is not far from being an island.”

The antiquated Beeslesy Point Bridge has narrow lanes and no shoulders. Van Drew said the inspection report concluded the bridge deck needed replacing.

“It's only a matter of time before the Garden State Parkway bridges will have to be replaced. If you're planning 15 years out, it makes sense to do something now,” the mayor said.

Corson said a state bias against southern New Jersey was to blame for the DOT's recalcitrance. Demographics figure prominently in state spending with population-heavy northern New Jersey getting more money.

“If this were up in Rahway, how many millions of dollars would the state spend?” Corson asked. “North Jersey doesn't care about us. We're just lowly little South Jersey. That's the reality.”
Meanwhile, township officials said the Beesleys Point Bridge should serve as a cautionary tale for the state when it comes to privatizing public roads such as the Garden State Parkway or Atlantic City Expressway. The bridge company spent $900,000 in public money on repairs in 1997. Seven years later, the company closed the span saying it had no money to make additional repairs.

“If they want an example, look at that bridge,” Corson said. “It's an absolute embarrassment.”

To e-mail Michael Miller at The Press: MMiller@pressofac.com

O.C. neighbors dish dirt on ditch
By MICHAEL MILLER Staff Writer, (609) 463-6712
Press of Atlantic City
Published: Tuesday, April 17, 2007

OCEAN CITY — The city ripped up a culvert Friday it helped bu ild off Dory Drive after learning the w ork required a federal permit.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told the city to remove the drainage pipe and crushed stone bridge that covered the ditch because it infringed on wetlands, spokesman Ed Voigt said.

“They had no permit so we had them remove the culvert. They have basically complied,” Voigt said. “That will be the corrective action. That's it.”

But that is not the end of the dispute over the future of this public property.
City Planning Director George Savastano said the Cape May County Mosquito Commission had heavy equipment nearby for routine drainage work when city and commission staff decided to install the culvert. The crushed stone bridge was solid enough to support vehicles.

This would keep water flowing and discourage people from dumping debris in the ditch as a means of walking to the other side, Savastano said. City workers believed the commission's blanket drainage permit allowed for the culvert, he said.

Neighbors on Monday accused the city of using the mosquito commission's drainage work as an excuse to create an access for a controversial bicycle path. The culvert off Dory Drive would provide a ready entrance to the proposed path.

Some neighbors oppose the bike path for fear the public improvements and the added bicycle traffic will disturb wildlife such as herons, red foxes, terrapins and ospreys.
The city is still drafting specifications. In concept the path would have fishing piers and a gazebo.
“I want them to be stopped from destroying any more wetlands,” summer resident and south-end property owner Irene Lorenzon said. “They have an elaborate plan for landscaping, lighting, a gazebo. I hope they get fined. It's either that or a Ferris wheel goes behind my home.
“I'm afraid it will turn into Boardwalk West.”

The Army Corps did not fine the city, Voigt said.

Savastano said he only learned of the culvert after it was installed. But in retrospect he said the culvert was a good idea because it would have improved drainage and allowed people to cross the ditch. He said the culvert had nothing to do with the city's plans for a bike path.

“There was no scheme to take advantage of the mosquito commission's work to create that crossing,” Savastano said. “It occurred because the folks in the field thought it would be a good solution to people throwing things in the ditch.”

Savastano, who lives in the neighborhood, said the city is sensitive to any environmental impact.
“We don't take anything for granted. What happened there is no more damaging than any other maintenance work the mosquito commission does,” he said.

Supporters of the bicycle path have dismissed the argument that the path would disturb wildlife as a smokescreen by south-end residents who don't want visitors intruding on their bay-front seclusion.

Part-time resident Diane Mayfield said that is not the case.

“We have no problem with people behind my home. We've had photographers back there all summer,” she said. “We wouldn't mind bicyclists back there. But there is such a big infringement on the wetlands.”

To e-mail Michael Miller at The Press: MMiller@pressofac.com

South N.J. hospital changes its name
Posted by the Asbury Park Press
04/4/07

CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE: Cape May County's only hospital has changed its name. The facility known for 57 years as Burdette Tomlin Memorial Hospital was rechristened Cape Regional Medical Center.

Hospital spokesman Tom Piratzky told The Press of Atlantic City that the board of trustees voted to change the name four months ago but did not announce it until Monday.

The hospital opened in 1950 and was named in honor of Tomlin, an Ocean City philanthropist and businessman.

The Associated Press

New Jersey’s Cape May offers visitors a glimpse of Victorian grandeur

Sunday, April 1, 2007
By Joan Scobey of Copley News Service
Peoria Journal Star - Peoria,IL,USA

I hate the beach. I don't like quaint. And sunbathing is off limits.

So why, oh, why, was I heading to Cape May, on the southern tip of New Jersey, which excels in all of the above?

I could say it was because I needed a break from urban frenzy and the daily headlines, but, mostly, it was a weekend with friends - and the prospect of pigging out on straight-from-the-farm Jersey corn and tomatoes.

Rolling into a sea of pastel blue, pink and yellow Victorian houses, with their fanciful gingerbread porches, turrets and dormers, was ... well, like stumbling onto the MGM set for a seaside remake of "Meet Me in St Louis."

A small triangle of tree-lined streets hugs the beachfront, with its commercial heart around the Washington Street Mall. The mall consists of three pedestrian blocks of cafes, shops, ice cream parlors, fudge shops, open-air tables and the town's information booth.

Within this triangle is an eye-dazzling display of "Stick Style" Victoriana, with steeply pitched gabled roofs, bright contrasting colors, decorative trusses and overhanging eaves. No wonder this whole Cape May Historic District also carries a National Historic Landmark status for its more than 600 Victorian houses.

Anchoring this architectural bonanza is the town's grandest hotel, Congress Hall, our home for the weekend.

Picture it with a sunshine yellow facade and a long colonnaded L-shape porch. Throw in high-back rocking chairs that overlook the lawn, swimming pool and the broad beach beyond.
The fine-sand beach, cleaned and raked every night by a fleet of "beach cats," runs the length of the town, down to the Cape May Lighthouse where the Atlantic Ocean meets Delaware Bay.
"Because of our location at the southern tip of the state," says Congress Hall owner Curtis Bashaw, "we share with places like Key West and Provincetown - other places at the 'end of the line' - a kind of unfettered charm, as well as a sense of welcome to those who seek their own path."

Undeniably, there is a fetching offbeat nostalgia to Cape May. The townspeople love to recall their early days. They celebrate them, in fact, often in period dress.

They celebrate Victorian Week in October, when older women in flouncy lace dresses and broad-brimmed hats rock on oceanfront porches and young boys in knickers and caps line up on the beach for their photographs.

With typical Victorian excess, the week is 10 days of historic house tours, evening ghost tours, vintage dancing, lectures, mystery dinners, brass band concerts, dine-arounds and more.
Sherlock Holmes had no known connection with Cape May, but every spring and fall a mystery weekend honors the Victorian detective. Participants are urged to wear Victorian attire as they prowl the resort's "gas-lit" streets. And every evening from Sunset Beach, where you can see both sunrise and sunset over water, they salute the setting sun with a flag ceremony and a recording of Kate Smith singing "God Bless America."

Cape May is the oldest beach resort in the country, going back to 1816 when the Congress Hall resort first opened its doors as the "Big House." It was renamed when its owner, Thomas H. Hughes, was elected to Congress in 1828.

No surprise that from the first it drew a lively, well-heeled crowd, such as entertainers P.T. Barnum and John Philip Sousa, who composed "Congress Hall March" in its honor.

Presidents James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce and Ulysses S. Grant were guests during their presidencies. President Benjamin Harrison made it the Summer White House while electricity was being installed at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Henry Ford and Louis Chevrolet raced cars on the beach in 1905. Its colorful history even includes a 27-year interlude as part of the Cape May Bible Conference led by fire-and-brimstone radio evangelist, the Rev. Carl McIntire, Curtis Bashaw's grandfather.

In 1878, 30 blocks of the town were destroyed by fire, and, faced with their summer trade moving to other beach resorts (think Atlantic City), the town energetically rebuilt, creating the dazzling Victorians of today, including Congress Hall.

A century later an attentive, seven-year, $21 million restoration preserved the character of the original Congress Hall. It reopened in 2002.

Keeping its Victorian heritage, the resort has a delightful authenticity with welcome 21st-century amenities, such as flat-screen plasma TVs and DVD players in every room.
While my sun-besotted friends at the beach waited for lunchtime crab cakes and gin and tonics to be served at their lounge chairs, I had my date with the 19th century.

I meandered up and down the tree-lined streets, caught in a flurry of stars and stripes. American flags fluttered from flagpoles. They were draped over porches, swagged at windows, sometimes 10 or more from a single house. And it wasn't even a holiday. Charming bed-and-breakfasts were tucked among private homes, where an occasional resident read the morning paper in a wicker rocker. A horse-drawn carriage clip-clopped along. A family on bicycles waved.
From the Washington Street Mall I caught a trolley - it's the preferred mode of transportation, of course - out to the lighthouse. The 199-step trek to the top of the lighthouse rewards one with glorious views, I'm told.

I also stopped by the Emlen Physick Estate, a Victorian museum, to learn about life behind those gingerbread facades. How to throw a Victorian picnic, no laid back affair; the art of keeping cool; how Victorians celebrated the Glorious Fourth and took vacations. A host of rules covered summer behavior and diversions.

Modern Cape May has a reputation for outstanding restaurants, and one night we put it to the test in The Virginia Hotel's Ebbitt Room. It's a lovely romantic room with an ambitious menu.
Our table of eight was big enough to sample a number of starters - yellow fin tuna tartare with Mediterranean flavors, seared foie gras with raisin polenta, peeky toe and blue crab salad and butternut squash bisque. Entrees had a similar sophistication: rack of lamb with lamb sausage, pistachio-dusted scallops with tomato marmalade, glazed Atlantic salmon with chopped macadamias. There was a gorgeous tray of 25 international cheeses, and a menu of "small plates" of the most interesting dishes.

Imaginative cuisine, beautifully presented, and not what I expected at the Jersey Shore.
The following night's lobster feast by the Congress Hall pool was closer to the mark. It was our last meal, and still no corn. The next day, as we packed our car to leave, the general manager came out to say goodbye - and he handed me a dozen ears of corn.

Where to stay:
- Congress Hall, 251 Beach Ave., Cape May, NJ 08204; Phone: (888) 944-1816; www.congresshall.com; 109 rooms, $125 to $465.
- Virginia Hotel, 25 Jackson St., 800-732-4236; www.virginiahotel.com. An elegant 24-room, Victorian-style boutique hotel half a block from the beach with beach amenities (towels, chairs, umbrellas, and food service); rooms from $150 to 350 and $265 to $450 depending on season.
- The Star, 29 Perry St., (800) 297-3779, www.thestarinn.net. Modest property close to the beach: Nine rooms are $95 to $275, midweek; $145 to $275 on weekend; 10 efficiency motel suites are $125 to $425, midweek; $165 to $425 on weekend.
- The Mainstay Inn, 635 Columbia Ave., (609) 884-8690; www.mainstayinn.com. Six rooms in the inn, six in an adjoining cottage, all with period furnishings. Doubles $290 to $345 for weekends, holidays and summer, including breakfast and afternoon tea.
Where to eat:
- Blue Pig Tavern, Congress Hall, (609) 884-8421. Comfort food and homey American favorites such as clam chowder, fish and chips, seafood sizzler, crab cakes, mac and cheese; entrees $10 to $26.
- Ebbitt Room, Virginia Hotel, 25 Jackson St., (800) 732-4236. Award-winning dishes feature fish and seafood; entrees $26 to $34.
- Washington Inn, 801 Washington St.; Phone: (609) 884-5697. American cuisine; entrees $25 to $42.
- Copper Fish, 1246 Route 109 South, (609) 898-0354. Steak and seafood, entrees $18 to $32.
- The Lobster House, Fisherman's Wharf, (609) 884-8296. Famous seafood house, with raw bar, seafood dishes $18 to $40.

What to do:
- Events: For a calendar and listings of all major town activities see Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts, 1048 Washington St., Cape May, NJ 08204, (800) 275-4278, www.capemaymac.org.
- The Cape May Bird Observatory, Cape May Point, (609) 884-2736, www.njaudubon.org, is open all year, 9 am. to 5 p.m. daily, and offers weekend bird-watching courses. The bird refuge and freshwater wetlands is an important stopover for migratory birds, especially March through May and September through November.
- Emlen Physick Estate, 1048 Washington St., (609) 884-5404, a Victorian house museum with daily guided tours, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Cape May Lighthouse, Lighthouse Avenue, is open daily, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays; 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekends.