By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff
NORTHFIELD — Characterizing herself as a yenta, or matchmaker, Freeholder Caren Fitzpatrick said her focus is to connect people with a problem and the person or agency that can provide the solution.
“My role as a representative of all the residents of Atlantic County is to be their voice in their local government and be available to them if they are having an issue, whether it be maneuvering through the maze of county services — trying to help expedite that for them — or if they have a problem and don’t know who can help fix it for them, my job is to help make those connections,” Fitzpatrick said.
The Linwood resident just won re-election to an at-large seat on the Atlantic County Board of Chosen Freeholders. The nine-member board has five district representatives and four at-large members, with six Republicans and three Democrats.
Fitzpatrick, 61, who lived in Somers Point when she attended Mainland Regional High School, now lives in Linwood with her husband, Brian.
The Democrat is director of finance and administration at Meet AC Inc., the sales and marketing force that supports the Atlantic City Convention Center. She has worked in finance for more than 20 years in both for-profit and nonprofit organizations, gaining experience in budgeting, forecasting and fiscal responsibility.
Fitzpatrick said Atlantic County is one of six counties in the state with an executive form of government in which all of the operational propositions come from the administration.
She said if she sees something such as roads or bridges that need repairs, for example, she would bring that to the attention of the county administrator, who would have the appropriate department handle it.
“He is like the COO of the county. He reports directly to the executive and oversees all of the operational departments,” Fitzpatrick said, adding that most New Jersey counties are run by the freeholder board, with each member overseeing a different department as a supervisor.
Socially minded or new ideas would be proposed to the board. For example, shortly after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer while being arrested last spring and the Black Lives Matter protests erupted across the nation, she suggested the freeholder board do its continuing education in implicit bias training “as leaders of the county to set an example.”
She said she also brought forward the idea of a low-cost or no-cost loan or grant to small businesses suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn.
Calling it a rainy-day fund, Fitzpatrick said the county has a large surplus for emergencies and “this is quite an emergency.”
She took the idea to the administrator, who informed her that the county was making $2 million available using Community Development Block Grant funds to help small businesses.
“It all depends on where I think that approval or who can best make something happen, whether I bring it either to the administration or board of freeholders,” she said.
Just about to wrap up her first term, she said she finally has realized how she can be most effective.
She said since she is in the minority on the board, “a lot of the legislation I want to bring forward doesn’t go anywhere. So I am able to help more individually people when they contact me or have an issue and also try to think outside the box for new ways — it’s the 21st century and what worked in the ’90s isn’t necessarily going to work in 2021.”
“The best way to get something done for individuals is to find out, listen to what their issue is, what the problem is, and then talk to people in the government in leadership roles throughout the county and find out where the solution lies,” Fitzpatrick said. “And it may or may not be within the county government — it may be another organization, it may be another phone call or it may be a state situation — and one of my strengths is that I’m persistent and don’t give up until I have an answer.”
She said her favorite part of serving as a freeholder is “the feeling of accomplishment when something works out and I am able to help somebody, it’s very fulfilling.”
Among her accomplishments in her first term are getting one of two meetings each month held at 6 p.m. In the past, both were held at 4 p.m., which she said prevented the public from attending.
In her second term, she plans to focus on climate issues and how they are affecting the golden goose — Atlantic City.
“Our biggest economic driver is on an island and flooding gets worse and worse,” she said, noting she has been working with the Transportation and Climate Initiative, an organization that “works toward fixing the problems caused by climate change but also having those who cause the problems pay for it.”
She said the Black Horse Pike, particularly in the West Atlantic City section of Egg Harbor Township, used to flood on a high tide with a full moon but now floods twice a month every month and needs to be addressed.
“There is no reason why that should not be as attractive as the new Ocean City bridge,” she said.
Serving as an at-large member of the board means Fitzpatrick must cover the entire county. Instead of seeing it as more work, she said she enjoys spending time in all different parts of the county.
Fitzpatrick also is planning to push the county to market itself as a great place to live while working remotely.
“People could live here and keep their big-city job and afford a house that would cost a lot more somewhere else,” she said. “Bring that big-city salary to Atlantic County to help with the tax burden.”
Fitzpatrick said an investment in technology infrastructure would be less costly than physical infrastructure and, if undertaken, the county could position itself as a center of remote employment.
So her answer to the lack of high-paying jobs in the area is to bring the people but leave the jobs elsewhere.
“That’s something that we should be promoting,” she said. “Having more people here without having the cost of the infrastructure would just bring dollars to the county. If we can’t create jobs, bring people’s salaries here.”
Fitzpatrick can be reached via email at fitzpatrick.caren@aclink.org, by phone at (609) 645-5900 or by mail at 201 S. Shore Road, Northfield, NJ 08225.