Wildwood idea: Close the high school?

WILDWOOD - The beaches are empty, rusty steel shutters rattle on boardwalk stores, and the buzzing neon of the doo-wop-themed hotels is just about the only sound in town. The schools in this Cape May County resort seem to be the only things that don't hibernate for the winter.

But for Wildwood High School - the smallest high school in New Jersey - that may change.

In a letter presented at a board of education meeting last month, Wildwood Mayor Ernest Troiano Jr. suggested that the school district come up with an "exit strategy" for closing the high school so the city can maintain an even keel amid the rising tide of taxes.

"Everyone is bitching about taxes," Troiano told the Daily News.

He surmises that Wildwood could save money by closing the school and sending its students to surrounding high schools, but he's not certain of that. That's why he wants to investigate the idea further.

"At this point, nothing is written in stone," Troiano said. "I don't know what it would cost. I don't even know if it would be cheaper."

The mayor's chief critic didn't mince words deriding the idea.

"He might as well [have] asked for, and sent a letter demanding a lasting peace in the Gaza Strip or the revolution to end in Sierra Leone," City Commissioner Gary S. DeMarzo said in an e-mail.

In a letter to the school district's superintendent, DeMarzo said Troiano is blaming the district for his financial mismanagement of the city.

The district accounted for $9.4 million of the city's $30 million tax budget in 2008, DeMarzo pointed out, while local-purpose tax exceeded $17 million.

The state Department of Education said that Troiano has no authority over the district and couldn't order a school to be closed.

"There's nothing wrong with stimulating the debate," said department spokesman Rich Vespucci.

Troiano said that funding the district falls on the small population of year-round residents, who struggle like homeowners elsewhere; on vacation homeowners, who he claims don't want to pay; and on a poor, largely Hispanic population who live in the back-bay section of the city and who simply can't pay.

"That's the population most people don't see in the summer, but they make up the bulk of our work force and winter population," he said. "Somebody has got to pay for them."

According to the U.S. Census, 33 percent of the Wildwood School District's 849 students live in poverty. That's the second-highest rate in New Jersey, behind Bridgeton, in Cumberland County.

But Wildwood is not on the state's list of so-called Abbott Districts deemed poor enough to receive special aid. DeMarzo said that's due to the high property values in town.

Troiano, in his second term as mayor, said he fields "99.9 percent" of the complaints from vacation-home owners who demand that taxes be lowered.

"I'm worried about my first home," he said.

One school board member at the high school declined to comment on a possible closing, and several others couldn't be reached. The district's superintendent, business administrator, and solicitor did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Troiano, a Wildwood High grad, said that he's the school's strongest supporter and doesn't approach the subject lightly.

"I don't run away from any issue," he said.