State aid is being slashed and consolidation is king, so welcome to Cape May Westpoint or Wildnorthwestcrestwood or Avalon Harbor Isle City or Dennisbine Township.

Welcome to Cape May Westpoint or Wildnorthwestcrestwood or Avalon Harbor Isle City or Dennisbine Township.

These are just a few branding ideas I’ve developed for the new consolidated towns the governor is forcing upon us with his “my way or the highway” plan, which punishes municipalities with fewer than 10,000 residents.

Lower, Middle and Upper townships as well as Ocean City are safe with populations well above the Mendoza Line, but even some of my combinations above fall well below the needed number of souls.

Cape May Westpoint, for instance, barely cracks 5,000 and would need to annex sections of Lower Township including Schellengers Landing, Sunset Beach and North Cape May to make it over the arbitrary hump.

With a mere 6,100 residents, Avalon Harbor Isle City would be forced to gobble up Avalon and Stone Harbor Manors from
Middle Township as well as Strathmere and possibly a portion of Seaville from Upper Township.
Dennisbine Township also falls short with a population of 8,400. Obvious areas for them to take over would be Goshen and Swainton, which Middle Township would hardly miss anyway.

And while Wildnorthwestcrestwood is safe with a population around 14,500, I think they should still take Shawcrest and Diamond Beach from Lower and Grassy Sound from Middle just for logic’s sake.

These changes are just one guy’s thoughts on the subject, but they probably make the most sense. So officials from the towns in question should begin implementing the changes immediately.

If you need to contact me, I’ll be having a beer and pondering these changes at Luckybones, formerly of Schellenger’s Landing, now on the westerly side of Cape May Westpoint.

Contact Hart at (609) 886-8600 Ext 35 or at: jhart@cmcherald.com