Ocean City Swears In New Police Chief

By DONALD WITTKOWSKI Bill Campbell had plenty of company when he took the oath of office as Ocean City’s new police chief. His wife, Jill, and his 22-year-old son, Brett, were with him for the swearing-in ceremony Thursday night in the City Council Chambers. There were also a lot of blue uniforms in the Council Chambers to show support for Campbell. The room was partly filled with about 20 law enforcement officials, including Cape May County Prosecutor Jeffrey Sutherland, police chiefs from neighboring towns and members of the Ocean City Police Department. “It means everything to me,” Campbell said after the ceremony while expressing his thanks to his fellow law enforcement officers. “The camaraderie that this profession has is always phenomenal. To have this many members of law enforcement here means the world to me. My extended family is how I refer to it.” The 55-year-old Campbell has spent his entire law enforcement career in Ocean City. He started as a seasonal officer from 1989 to 1992 before joining the department as a full-time patrolman in 1994. He climbed the ranks over the years, winning promotion to sergeant, lieutenant, captain and then deputy chief before his selection as chief following the retirement in October of former Police Chief Jay Prettyman. For Campbell’s swearing-in ceremony, his wife held the Bible and stood proudly next to her husband of 25 years. Mayor Jay Gillian administered the oath of office to Campbell. The room erupted in cheers and applause when Gillian shook Campbell’s hand after the ceremony concluded. “In Ocean City, our public safety is the best, between police and fire. The men and women of Ocean City keep us safe. I mean that from the bottom of my heart,” Gillian told the audience. “Nothing’s more important to me as mayor than that – that when you come into Ocean City, you feel safe. I’m telling you, everybody does a great job here,” he added. Campbell, standing at left, is joined by law enforcement members throughout Cape May County for the swearing-in ceremony. Gillian acknowledged Ocean City Fire Chief Jim Smith sitting in the audience and spoke of the opportunities that Smith and Campbell will have to collaborate on public safety. “The unity between police and fire is very important to me, too. So it gives us another opportunity for these two chiefs to work together for all of us,” Gillian said. In an interview with OCNJDaily.com in October, Campbell said he never really thought about becoming police chief during any point in his career. But now that he is, he is ready to lead the 68-member department, he said. Describing the department as a “well-oiled machine,” he said he has no plans to make any major changes in operations or policies. One thing he said he definitely doesn’t plan to change is Ocean City’s strategy for preventing rowdy teenagers from causing trouble during the summer tourism season. For three summers in a row, Ocean City and other shore towns have had to deal with an outburst of underage drinking, foul language, fighting and assaults involving groups of unruly teens. However, Ocean City turned the tables on the teens this past summer by closing the beaches at 8 p.m., imposing an 11 p.m. curfew on minors and shutting down the Boardwalk restrooms at 10 p.m. The city also approved a backpack ban for juveniles and adults from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. to prevent teens from concealing alcohol, weapons and other contraband. “I think it worked remarkably well,” Campbell said, while promising to bring back the same strategy for the summer of 2024. Among the major responsibilities awaiting him, Campbell will help oversee the construction next year of the department’s new $6.5 million police substation on the Boardwalk at Eighth Street. A longer-range project in the planning stages will be the city’s renovation and modernization of the antiquated police headquarters at Eighth Street and Central Avenue. The building is more than a century old and once served as a school before it was converted into the headquarters for the police department and municipal court. The timetable and cost of the renovation project have not yet been announced by the city. In this photo from 2021, the former Klause Enterprises property is cleared by the city. In other business at the Council meeting, the Council members went into closed session for about 20 minutes to discuss the city’s long-running litigation in a dispute with Klause Enterprises over the value of property bordered by 16th Street, 17th Street, Haven Avenue and Simpson Avenue. The city acquired the property in 2021 from brothers Jerry and Harry Klause by using its power of eminent domain, but a court battle continued over the value of the property. In October, a jury decided that the city should pay Klause Enterprises nearly $17.9 million for the land, far more than what the city wanted to pay. The city fought for over two years to acquire the privately owned land that once served as the location for a car dealership, with the goal of preserving and protecting it from densely packed housing development. After the Council meeting, City Solicitor Dorothy McCrosson confirmed that the Klause Enterprises litigation was discussed during closed session. She declined to comment further, citing pending litigation. Also during the meeting, there was a brief discussion of the Oct. 31 announcement by Danish energy giant Orsted that it is withdrawing from plans to develop two offshore wind farms along the South Jersey coast. Ocean City originally ignited opposition throughout Cape May County against the wind farm projects, asserting that they would cause devastating harm to the tourism industry, commercial fishing operations, migratory birds and marine life such as whales and dolphins. “We won a battle,” Councilman Tom Rotondi said of Orsted’s withdrawal from the projects. “That battle started here in Ocean City.” This image depicts what the towering wind turbines would have looked like off the South Jersey coast. (Courtesy of Orsted) Rotondi told the audience that he was particularly proud to be a member of the governing body that led the political and legal fight against Orsted. He also credited former Councilman Mike DeVlieger for being the person on Council who initially raised concerns about the wind farms while strongly criticizing Orsted. “Mike DeVlieger really set the tone for how it went in the rest of the county,” Rotondi said. Rotondi noted that Ocean City officials “took some heat” for originally opposing the wind farms. Ultimately, there was widespread opposition to the wind farms among local, county, state and federal officials representing the Cape May County coast. “It started here, and thank God we shut it down,” Rotondi said.