Bills approved in Senate, Assembly; members decry loss of home rule
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – Ocean City Council members decried legislation that whizzed through the state Legislature last week, eliminating what they said was their “home rule” over Ørsted’s Ocean Wind project that is proposing up to 99 turbines off the coast of Atlantic and Cape May counties to create 1,100 megawatts of electricity.
Bill S3926 was approved in the Senate Thursday, June 24, in a 25-13 vote and the Assembly approved its companion legislation, bill A5894, by a 49-26 margin the same day, mostly along party lines with most Republicans voting no. The bills were proposed and made it out of committee less than two weeks before that.
District 1 legislators – Sen. Michael Testa and Assemblymen Antwan McClellan and Erik Simsonsen, all Republicans, voted against the bills, but the legislators in District 2 – Sen. Chris Brown, a Republican, and Democratic Assemblymen Vince Mazzeo and John Armato, voted yes. The bills were proposed and supported by District 3 representatives Sen. Stephen Sweeney, the Senate president, and Assemblyman John Burzichelli, both Democrats. District 3, which includes Cumberland and Salem counties, is home to a major economic development project to support wind farm construction.
The legislation, which was expected to be signed by Gov. Phil Murphy, takes away leverage communities such as Ocean City have over allowing power transmission lines to run through their rights of way.
Ørsted, a Danish company, has proposed to connect its wind farm transmission cables to the southern New Jersey power grid at the former B.L. England generating plant in Beesleys Point in Upper Township and at the former Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Ocean County. The transmission lines would run through Ocean City on the way to Beesleys Point.
Under the legislation, the state Board of Public Utilities (BPU) would be able to “supersede certain local governmental powers upon petition from offshore wind project.” Without the legislation, Ocean City would have had some say over allowing the lines to run under its beaches and city streets.
Because of the speed of the bill, Ocean City Council could not get a resolution opposing it on the record until Thursday evening’s meeting, mere hours after it passed the state Senate and Assembly. That did not stop City Council from voting unanimously for an ordinance in opposition to the legislation after the fact.
Multiple council members slammed the legislation, but it also raised an internal debate over whether some members of council were overstepping their authority and negotiating with Ørsted while the mayor is the official empowered to do that.
Council President Bob Barr said the city was on a “good path” with members of council having discussions with a new team from Ørsted, but this bill takes away home rule not just for Ocean City, but for other communities and potentially for other projects. He said the legislation was “done in the dark of night” and that it is “unheard of” to get a piece of legislation passed in the Legislature in 10 or 12 days.
Whether people are for or against the projects, “this legislation should scare you,” Barr said, because if it can be done on wind farm projects, it can be done to take the power away from communities on other issues.
“Doesn’t mean all our tools are out of the toolbox,” Barr added. “We’re working with parties – don’t want to say more about this – to try to do some things to slow this down to at least give us tools to see environmental impact studies. Don’t know what will happen.”
Councilman Michael DeVlieger, the most outspoken member of council who keeps a model turbine on the desk in front of him, said if the Senate and Assembly had the best interest of coastal communities in mind, they “wouldn’t strip us of home rule, but that’s what they have done. What’s next? Your guns?”
He said the legislation gives more power to a company owned 75 percent by a “foreign interest” and that the precedent has to be challenged.
“They just took our democracy away,” Councilman Keith Hartzell said. “They decided they know better than us. We don’t have choice. If you think we shouldn’t be afraid or we’re being alarmist, you’re wrong.”
He said the fight isn’t about wind turbines. “It’s about home rule. They’re taking away our freedom,” Hartzell said.
Councilman Pete Madden said he was for the resolutions, but questioned why certain members of council had been meeting with representatives of the company, something he and fellow council member Karen Bergman said they weren’t aware of and weren’t invited to.
He asked for clarification from city solicitor Dorothy McCrosson, who said the mayor has “sole authority” to negotiate contracts. “I’m not sure to what extent he’s aware council is meeting with Ørsted,” she added. Mayor Jay Gillian was not at the council meeting.
“That’s what kind of concerns me,” Madden said. “If you’re negotiating with Ørsted, and the mayor is negotiating with Ørsted, it appears Ørsted took advantage of us” and made a business decision to “bull-doze” through Ocean City.
DeVlieger and Hartzell said they weren’t negotiating. Hartzell said ideas came up in conversation and DeVlieger said he raised environmental and economic concerns and the “visual pollution” the turbines would create.
“I think it goes back to council being out of their league,” Madden said. He pointed out the administration set up a meeting for them with an Ørsted representative as a whole back in December. He said he supported the resolution, but it seemed like the members of council who met with Ørsted on their own “muddied the waters.”
“We have to rein this in,” he added. “We (council) don’t run the city, we don’t negotiate on behalf of the city. Now they used their power and their money to railroad through Ocean City.”
“A foreign entity is driving the Trenton machine to vote this way,” DeVlieger countered. “Don’t you see anything wrong with that?”
Madden and Bergen agreed with him on that point, but both said they were concerned other council members were meeting with Ørsted and they didn’t know anything about it.
The council resolution opposing the (now approved) legislation was approved 7-0.