OCEAN CITY — Assemblyman Antwan McClellan said his priorities for the new year area making sure he and his First District colleagues continue to look out for southern New Jersey and that tourism tax dollars go back to the areas that send them to Trenton.
McClellan said he, fellow Assemblyman Erik Simonsen and state Sen. Mike Testa will “make sure we protect south Jersey. We want to make sure the money we’re sending up to Trenton comes back to us and to continue to fight … to make sure everything we do represents south Jersey in this state.”
McClellan, a former Ocean City councilman and school board member, is starting his second term in office after being re-elected alongside Simonsen and Testa in November by a wide margin. All three are Republicans.
McClellan said he would be putting a lot of his attention on a bill that deals with tourism dollars. He asserts there is little accountability for the money from the hotel tax — much of which comes from the tourist-heavy economies from shore areas including Cape May and Atlantic counties — that goes into four different “pots” in the state budget.
“We don’t know where it goes and where it comes back to,” he said. “The bill is for that money to come back to … those agencies that deal with tourism” and promoting culture.
“That money should be sent back to those counties to promote tourism. We need it. Small businesses have suffered. We need to get money back to help people in those businesses,” he said.
On the business front, McClellan believes even with COVID cases rising again, businesses should not be restricted. He said New Jerseyans should work to stay healthy and that the state is in a better place compared to the same time a year ago because so many residents have been vaccinated.
“We don’t want to shut down our businesses again,” he said. “Businesses should not be restricted. Allow people to live their lives and allow businesses to do what they need to do to survive …. Allow people to protect each other. I think we’re doing that.”
McClellan said the main constituent service he, Testa and Simonsen are providing continues to be dealing with headaches with the Department of Labor and unemployment claims.
“We’re still fighting with unemployment. It’s a big issue around here. People are waiting four, five or six months to get their unemployment checks and especially during the holidays it’s terrible,” he said. “Our office is still trying to help out.”
The state Motor Vehicle Commission also remains a problem, he said.
“People are still waiting for their licenses, getting delays in their license plates and their tags, causing licenses to be suspended. Those issues need to be rectified. That’s all to do with opening up Trenton,” he said.
“That’s something that needs to happen in 2022. Those offices need to be completely back open and we need to be doing business as normal and not continuing to allow people to work from home,” he said about state government.
“We’re all back to work. I have not stopped working at the Sheriff’s Office. There’s no reason for those people up in Trenton not to be working on a daily basis and be able to talk to people face to face to take care of them.”
One issue that upset McClellan during the past year was the quickly passed legislation that took away home rule over utility rights of way for certain projects and handed that to the state Board of Public Utilities. It was specifically crafted to deny Ocean City government the power to stop the Ocean Wind I wind farm from using rights of way in the resort for transmission lines between the proposed field of electricity generating turbines 15 miles off the coast and the site of the former B.L. England generating plant in Upper Township, where it would connect to the power grid.
He called the legislation “terrible.”
“Living down here in south Jersey, I can’t tell someone in Newark how they should be running their municipality. Those local mayors, those local council people, those county officials, those are the people who are on the ground and doing things. We shouldn’t allow any multimillionaires come in and take over a municipality. That’s just a bad look and it serves a bad purpose,” he said. “That rule needs to go and not have people in Trenton making decisions for people in those municipalities. That shouldn’t be happening.”
He believes Gov. Phil Murphy, who narrowly won re-election, should be governing by working with Democratic and Republican legislators.
“There are 121 elected officials, 80 in the Assembly, 40 in the Senate, and he’s the governor,” McClellan said. “He should be working with both sides of the aisle to get things done in each district. That’s how it should be and how to govern. And that’s the proper way to be a legislator. That’s the proper way to be a mayor or a council person. He should be talking to everybody and not just mandating what everybody should be doing or not be doing.”
Looking ahead, McClellan has a positive outlook for 2022 in New Jersey.
“I always stay optimistic. That’s my faith,” he said. “My faith is that we’re going to believe in the best, we’re going to pray for our leaders, pray for the governor, pray for the president, and hope everything goes well. If not, this legislative district is going to be there to challenge that.”
Being in the New Jersey’s Legislature is not a full-time occupation. McClellan is the personnel director for the Cape May County Sheriff’s Department, confidential assistant to the sheriff and the department’s public information officer. Simonsen is the athletic director for the Lower Cape May Regional School District and Testa is a practicing attorney and partner in the law firm Testa Heck Testa and White, P.A.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff