Commentary
Ocean City Today July 8, 2022
Page 63
Sportsplex debate missing OC’s voice If the Town of Ocean City and the resort tourism industry truly believe that a substantial sports complex operating close by will have a huge economic impact on the resort, the time to get off the pot is now. At the least, someone should say something in defense of the four Worcester County Commissioners who continue to hold the line against a rising tide of disenchantment fomented by opponents of the majority’s plan to acquire sports complex property on Route 50 just outside Berlin. Someone needs to throw these folks a life ring just for the sake of appearances, so they don’t look like this is all their idea and that they will be going it alone. Commissioners Joe Mitrecic, Diana Purnell, Bud Church and Josh Nordstrom aren’t in any big political trouble necessarily, since they probably have the support of most people in their districts, and Church isn’t seeking reelection. Still, they do look somewhat exposed by virtue of Ocean City’s absence from the conversation. Ocean City officials, after all, have been talking about the need for a sports complex for years, so it’s a little disconcerting that they have yet to offer any real indication of the role they want or intend to play in its development and operation. All that’s out there now is that Mitrecic and Purnell are pushing hard with the backing of Church and Nordstrom, but have little to defend their positions beyond their own opinions. It’s time other advocates for this project join them and reveal what they are thinking and how they intend to participate before voters in Ocean Pines and elsewhere in the county permanently embrace the notion that this is a bad idea. For all anyone knows, Ocean City officials see things a little differently and are trying to work that out with the commissioners behind closed doors. Regardless, as sports complex proponents who believe the resort would be its chief beneficiary, city officials need to join the debate and explain to potential voters these commissioners aren’t in this alone. Or at least we assume they aren’t.
Ocean City Today 11934 Ocean Gateway, Suite 6, Ocean City, Md. 21842 Phone: 410-723-6397 / Fax: 410-723-6511.
EDITOR ............................................ Stewart Dobson MANAGING EDITOR ................................ Lisa Capitelli STAFF WRITERS .................................... Greg Wehner, ..........................................Jack Chavez, Mallory Panuska ACCOUNT MANAGERS.......... Mary Cooper, Vicki Shrier ..............................................................Amanda Shick CLASSIFIEDS/LEGALS MANAGER .... Nancy MacCubbin SENIOR DESIGNER ................................ Susan Parks GRAPHIC ARTIST .................................... Kelly Brown PUBLISHER........................................ Christine Brown ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT ...................... Gini Tufts Ocean City Today is published weekly by FLAG Publications, Inc. 11934 Ocean Gateway, Suite 6, Ocean City, Md. 21842 Ocean City Today is available by subscription at $150 a year. Visit us on the Web at www.oceancitytoday.com. Copyright 2022
PUBLIC EYE
Aliens must save us
Early voting in the Maryland primary election began this week, thus giving people the opportunity to cast ballots now that they know they will regret later. I’m not quite that cynical yet, although I am contemplating forming a political party for people like me, who have come to believe that our best bet these days might be intervention by space aliens. The way I see it, only an extraterrestrial outfit will have the advanced technolBy ogy needed to disable our inStewart ternet service completely and Dobson free us from the tractor beam grip of the political poo-poo people who stir the pot for fun and profit. Providing our new friends from space don’t view us as a planetary party platter or force us to labor in the dilithium crystal mines in the Asteroid Belts of Xenon, we’ll be ahead of the game, since we will know nothing about them and therefore won’t be disappointed when they don’t act as expected. Until that happens, and I suspect we’ll have a little bit of a wait, I’ll have to satisfy my disaffection for our current circumstance by remaining a cherry-picking Independent, that is to say someone who feels it’s only fair to be let down by both sides instead of being limited to one. It’s true. As an Independent, I have voted around the horn for decades and have yet to pick anyone who hasn’t given me one or more “What the ----?” moments. Let’s see, I started with Nixon, and that didn’t quite work out, jumped over to Jimmy Carter, who came up shorter than a Death
Valley cornstalk, didn’t vote for Reagan because actors are ... well ... actors, did vote for Bush, who went on to burst into a thousand points of light of disappointment, then to Clinton, who ... well, you know. And so on through our recent custodians of the office, all of whom wee-weed on my shoes and told me it was raining. In my unaffiliated opinion, of course. I confess that being an Independent does have its drawbacks. One, I can’t vote early, late or on time in the primary election, and we’re looked down on by true believers on both sides of the equation. My dear old dad put this in perspective for me back in the day when I was trying to decide how to register before I voted for the first time. He recalled that he and a fellow soldier were hitchhiking north from an Army base in North Carolina before going overseas in World War II when they were picked up by a local husband and wife. The woman turned to the back seat and asked my father’s buddy where he was from and he replied, “New York.” “A damn Yankee,” she told him swiveling toward my father and asking, “And where are you from?” “Maryland,” he replied. “Hmmph,” she snorted. “I’d rather be a damn Yankee than a damn nothing.” My father was a Democrat and my mother was a Republican, so in the spirit of familial harmony, I split the difference and became a Damn Nothing. Go ahead, laugh now, but one of these days we’ll be in the majority, assuming that ET does phone home and calls in reinforcements.
