OCEAN CITY – Antwan McClellan, 51, was born and raised in Ocean City and is a 1993 graduate of Ocean City High School. He attended Virginia State University before transferring to Old Dominion University.
He worked for 10 years at Sands Hotel and Casino then worked as a paralegal at a law firm in Ocean City. After Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012, the firm moved to northern New Jersey and he landed a job in Cape May County as a purchasing agent.
McClellan then began working with the Cape May County Sheriff’s Office.
He was elected to his first office as a member of the Ocean City Board of Education in 2010 and then became an Ocean City councilman from 2012 to 2020, when he took office in the state Assembly.
What are your priorities if elected?
My main priority is to make sure that NJ REAL, which the governor and Department of Environmental Protection are trying to push through, doesn’t happen. It hasn’t given any consideration to the state as a whole, but also Cape May County and Cumberland County and Atlantic County, our bayshore community, our beaches and our boardwalks and our businesses and our homeowners. They have a right to decide what they want their homes to look like and where they want to live.
What are the biggest issues affecting Southern New Jersey?
Housing is a big issue around here. We need to make sure that we don’t overburden our seashore communities with housing. We can’t have state bureaucrats decide how much housing should be in each municipality.
We’ve had success in Ocean City. We built one affordable housing unit three or four years ago, and there’s another one starting this September. That’s not the state doing it, that’s not the feds doing it, it’s the municipality controlling what they want their housing to look like, and that’s how it should be.
Education is another issue. We need to make sure that our schools are fully funded. I think that’s a major issue. We shouldn’t be taking money from the schools, the districts that need it, and giving it to the districts that don’t. There needs to be a brand new school funding formula introduced that makes sure that everybody, every child, has an opportunity to have a proper education.
There’s plans out there that the superintendents have brought to state legislators that need to be enacted, and so we just need to have a full sit-down with the state education board, also the superintendents and the legislators, and figure out how we can fully fund each school district and not have them worry about cutting teachers or keeping kids from getting education.
Cape May County suffers from seasonal unemployment, poor transportation infrastructure and a lack of industry. What can be done to improve the economic situation, which depends mostly on tourism? How can transit improve the local economy?
There’s actually a $500 million manufacturing bill that the governor is signing, that was sponsored by (state Sen. Michael Testa, R-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic) in the Senate and myself in the Assembly, that we feel as though will create careers for people.
With that investment in manufacturing and the fact that we have a thriving fishing industry around here, also there’s sustainability with drone programs and other manufacturers in our area. We think this is an opportunity to create more careers other than just tourism, and a sustainable wage for people that are not necessarily going to college.
Public transportation is horrible, specifically around here, and we’ve been fighting the fact that New Jersey Transit doesn’t care about South Jersey.
We’re hoping to get Route 55 completed. We know that’s a big stretch, but if that’s able to happen, that allows different industries to come down here and also increases transportation opportunities, because there’s a straight shot from Philadelphia.
Atlantic City Electric has implemented several rate hikes this year. What plans do you have to assist the consumers? Is the answer more power plants? If not wind, what type of new energy-generating plant do you propose?
More renewable clean energy. Small nuclear reactors are a possibility. We can start building those. We need to update our grids and make sure we do that as well, and focus on how we can change the Board of Public Utilities (BPU), to make it more cost effective.
These $500, $600 and $700 electric bills that people are incurring now are ridiculous, especially for our seniors. It’s not sustainable, not affordable. There’s a lot of new, different, innovative, clean ways that we can produce energy. And the fact that we’re buying energy from other states, when we used to produce energy and sell it out, that’s a major problem as well. There’s no reason we should be buying from Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania should be buying from us.
I will never be in support of offshore wind. There’s too many problems with it and there’s nothing green about offshore wind. You’re drilling and there’s oil and all kinds of things that are going on in our oceans that’s not clean and affordable or recyclable. There’s wave energy, which they’re piloting in Atlantic County. So there’s an opportunity there for wave energy to come in along with the natural gas.
What do you think of the NJ REAL regulations?
(The elevations are) too high for anybody. We have a high senior population here in Cape May County, and to expect them to climb 40, 50 or 60 stairs to get into their home is ridiculous, especially for those that have already been raised like my house.
My house, for instance, if I have to raise it again, if I were to sell it or leave it to my niece or daughter or grandson, to have them raise that another 5 or 6 or 7 feet is absolutely ridiculous. It makes no sense.
And to expect businesses to deed restrict their properties and say that you’re in a flood zone is a problem. The construction costs on these homes alone are astronomical. These regulators are not considering the fact of where people live and people’s lifestyle.
Do the changes recently proposed by the DEP change that opinion at all?
I heard that they lessened it. I haven’t seen them yet. I know that we have a planned discussion in the next couple of weeks, to talk about those changes and figure out how they affected our communities. In Cape May County in particular, the county commissioners have put a lot of work into this and to make sure that that is done properly.
Homelessness, drug abuse and mental health problems are prevalent in your district. What initiatives do you plan to address those issues?
There’s a lot of groups out there that are willing to help, and sometimes they operate in their own little silos, which is disappointing. But some are being brought together, and I think through the county commissioners, along with myself, Sen. Testa and Assemblyman Simonsen, we’re able to try to bridge those gaps. There’s nonprofits, but the county also has an opportunity as well to reach out to individuals.
But the nonprofits don’t necessarily work with the county, and the county doesn’t necessarily work with the nonprofits. So the idea is to try to bridge those gaps, to let them know that these county resources can also help in conjunction with the nonprofits. There’s opportunity for those two entities — and even three, if you want to bring in the state as well — to work together and maybe combat mental illness, work on making sure people have homes, making sure our kids eat healthy meals, not just during the school time, but in the summer as well.
– By J. CAV SCOTT/For the Sentinel
