September early october ocean pines progress by Ocean Pines Progress

Vol. 9, No. 6

September-Early October 2013

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www.issuu.com/oceanpinesprogress Terry to head up OPA for another year as president

THE OCEAN PINES JOURNAL OF NEWS & COMMENTARY COVER STORY

‘FAREWELL, OLD GIRL’ Ocean Pines says goodby to 40-year-old Yacht Club By SUSAN CANFORA Contributing Writer icrophone in hand in a festive atmosphere, Ocean Pines Association President Tom Terry dubbed the aging Yacht Club “the old girl” and said the end had come. It has indeed. The building, opened in 1975, closed on Labor Day, earlier than planned due to worsening plumbing and electrical problems. “It just gave out,” Terry said. So, at 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 2, the day before doors closed and about two weeks before demolition, Terry stood on the deck in front of a band on a sunny afternoon to say a few words. “The old girl has worked hard and it’s time for her to retire,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the sagging building, once a popular meeting place, deemed “iconic” in an OPA press release, with bars and restaurant, weddings and parties and a lovely view of the bay. In the early days, a waiter delivered a

A view of the Yacht Club farewell party from the second floor balcony on Sunday, Sept. 2.

rose on a pillow to your dinner date, local Realtor John Talbott remembered. He got a round of applause after being introduced by OPA board member Sharyn O’Hare, since he was one of the original salesmen when lots were being sold in the new community. He also attended the ribbon-cutting in May of 1975 when the building was open for business the first time. O’Hare spoke sentimentally about the end of the Yacht Club era, but was one of many whose heart strings were tugged. Memories, she said, “are the pages in our mind and get sweeter like good aged wine.” She urged the crowd to raise a glass for a final toast, and many did, but others kept chatting, drinking and loading plates with hot dogs, baked beans and cole slaw, the parting $2 meal. Still, she continued. “Like a Phoenix, the new Yacht Club is going to arise in her dust. Raise your glass. Think of your To Page 22

A LOOK BACK: 1973-2013

Terry making history as OPA president with most consecutive years of service In a year of anniversaries, the OPA is celebrating its 40th as an association controlled by property owners. This year is also the 40th anniversary of the ground-breaking of Ocean Pines’ original Yacht Club, scheduled for demolition later in September. The year 1973 was notable for other key events in the history of Ocean Pines, including the ground-breaking for a community center in White Horse Park and the establishment of the Ocean Pines Volunteer Fire Department. Also creating some history is OPA President Tom Terry, whose consecutive years in the role will surpass that of a 1970s-era president. By TOM STAUSS Publisher cean Pines Association President Tom Terry, who has served in that role for three consecutive years, was re-elected to the position for a fourth year in a row at the board of directors organizational meeting Aug. 20. Once he completes his term in August of next year, Terry will have the record for the most number of consecutive years served as elected

OPA president, previously held by the OPA’s first elected president, Evan Anderson, who served in the position from the fall of 1973 to the fall of 1976. Anderson served in an appointed role as president from January until October of 1973, when he became the first president of the OPA under the control of property owners. He was elected by his board colleagues in October, previously having been appointed to the To Page 23

Ocean Pines Association President tom Terry delivers remarks at the Yacht Club farewell party Sept. 2 from the second floor balcony.

Ocean Pines Association President Tom Terry, who has served in that role for three consecutive years, was re-elected to the position for a fourth year at the board of directors’ organizational meeting Aug. 20 by vote of his board colleagues. Terry, reelected to the board in balloting that concluded in August, won the presidency in a contested ballot over newly elected director Jack Collins, the top-voter in this summer’s balloting. Collins nominated himself, an unusual if not unprecedented occurrence in the annals of Ocean Pines. Collins had no expectation of ousting Terry as president. ~ Page 6

Stachurski suggests way Casper could extend golf contract With the clock ticking on Billy Casper Golf’s three-year contract to manage the Ocean Pines golf course – it officially expires in spring of 2014 – it is generally thought that the Ocean Pines Association board of directors will decide whether it wants to keep the management company in place soon after the fall package play season is complete. Sometime after September or October, OPA officials have said, it should be clear whether BCG is on a path to meet its budgeted deficit target for the fiscal year. That budgeted loss is $150,000, a substantial improvement over last year’s $500,000 loss. ~ Page 9

Bank of WIlliards aquires Points Reach Clubhouse in sale The Bank of Willards, protecting its interest in the unfinished Points Reach clubhouse in far south Ocean Pines, acquired the property in a foreclosure sale that the bank had scheduled for the courthouse steps in Snow Hill on Aug. 27. A spokesman for the bank said that other than bank officials, no one showed up at the courthouse to bid on the clubhouse, which has been languishing unused on a picturesque bayfront parcel adjacent to the Points Reach condominiums in Ocean Pines’ Section 17. The building had been owned by Bankers Development Corp. LLC, whose principal owner, David Meinhardt, developed the Point subdivision, including the Points Reach condominium. ~ Page 16

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At the weekly meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Greater OP-OC on Sept.4, Sharon Sorrentino was the guest speaker and spoke about the local performing arts scene. She is a member of the Ocean Pines Players, Radio Airwaves, The Delmarva Chorus, The Worcester Choral, and The Pinetones and also donates her time to perform at various Star Charities events.

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September-Early October 2013 Ocean Pines PROGRESS 5

OCEAN PINES

Terry says no cost overruns at new OPA Yacht Club

Board closer to naming Yacht Club restaurant

The OPA board of directors are moving ahead in a process that should lead relatively soon to an online poll or some sort of balloting to determine the name of the downstairs restaurant at the new Yacht Club that is under construction and scheduled for opening this spring. Ultimately, though, it will be the board of directors that ratifies the choice of OPA members. At a special meeting Aug. 28, the directors in a secret ballot chose their top three choices for names, with those choices given to members of the OPA’s Clubs Advisory Committee for further processing to determine the top three options that will then be put to a vote of property owners, probably through a survey posted on the OPA Web site. To a list of eight top choices that had been assembled by the committee from suggestions submitted to the committee by OPA members, directors offered up their own suggestions during the Aug. 28 meeting. Director Jack Collins suggested the Blue Heron, Dan Stachurski added Ocean Pines Dockside Grille, and Terri Mohr tweaked that by suggesting The Pines Dockside Grille. Sharyn O’Hare contributed Harbor Light and Tom Terry offered the Pines Cove Grille. Marty Clarke suggested Mumford’s Tavern.

OCEAN PINES BRIEFS In all cases, the directors agreed that Grille should be spelled with an e. A recent contest sponsored by the Clubs Advisory Committee to generate options for naming the resulted in 466 names submitted. The committee then whittled the list down to eight finalists. The names include the Big Breeze Bar and Grill, the Bayside Grill, Harborview, Marina Cove Bistro and Pub, Mariner’s Cove, Seabreeze Bar and Grill, Water’s Edge and the View. The directors also agreed that to whatever restaurant name the community finally embraces, the tagline “at the Ocean Pines Yacht Club” will be added. The consensus seemed to be that almost 40 years of operation generated a well-known brand that should not be given up just because the building is new.

Bond issue to include pump station upgrades

When Worcester County goes out to the bond market in early 2014 to finance the Snow Hill High School construction project and other projects, roughly $5 million in Ocean Pines wastewater pump station upgrades will be included in the bond issue. The bond will raise funds for a wastewater treatment plant operations center, for refinancing an older loan to install fire hydrants, and possibly a more concentrated effort to make blue-tube replacements throughout Ocean Pines on county-owned water lines running from water mains to the property lines. Blue-tubing used in utility hook-ups in homes built from about 1985 to 1995 are failing, contributing to an epidemic of water line leaks in homes of a certain age. Homeowners are responsible for making blue-tube replacements in water lines that run from property lines into homes. The county has mapped all of Ocean Pines for homes it believes could have blue-tubing issues. Deputy Public Works Director told members of the Ocean Pines Water and Wastewater Advisory Committee that water leaks having been running five to six per day, not always related to bluetube issues, in the weeks prior to the committee’s Aug. 13 meeting. Ross said the new bonded indebtedness will not result in higher rates for Ocean Pines ratepayers because other bond debt is falling by the wayside at the same time new debt will be coming on line.

Who knew? No drought in OP

One measure of just how much rain fell in Ocean Pines in the early weeks

of July comes from activity at the Ocean Pines wastewater treatment plant operated by the county. At one point during one of the heaviest deluges that hit Ocean Pines, stormwater was pouring through the plant at a rate that translated into 4 million gallons per day, well above the plant’s rated capacity. Deputy Worcester County Public Works Director John Ross assured members of the Ocean Pines Water and Wastewater Committee at its Aug. 13 meeting that the flow didn’t stay that high for very long and indeed dropped down to normal levels once the storms dissipated. Another sign of the water-logged times: revenue from the sale of water is less than anticipated because usage is down, reflecting the fact that with all the rainfall this past summer, residents have not had to water their plants and gardens to the extent needed in previous years, Ross said. Although it isn’t affecting plant operations to any great extent, the Ocean

Pines wastewater treatment plant’s #4 aerator is down and out for an extended period of time. A gear unit needed to effect the repair is on order and takes 22 weeks for delivery. The cost of the gear unit is $20,000; the entire repair is estimated to cost about $80,000, including labor. Ross said that the plant’s three other aerators are operating normally, processing wastewater at a rate of a million to 1.2 million gallons per day. The capacity of all three aerators is 1.5 million gallons per day, so the plant is still working well within approved parameters.

Thompson said reluctant to embrace LED lighting

When members of the OPA Budget and Finance committee heard a pitch from Carmen Meo of New Lighting Solutions for LED lighting to replace conventional lighting throughout Ocean Pines Association-owned facilities recently, committee chair Dennis Hudson said the presentation had started out as a presentation on how the OPA could possibly obtain grant funding to convert to

hile confirming that the need to drive pilings along the shoreline to accommodate a portion of the new Yacht Club has added to the building’s cost, Ocean Pines Association President Tom Terry says he believes the contingency fund built into the $4.3 million approved for the new building should be sufficient to handle the cost of driving the pilings. Terry was responding to rumors that the new Yacht Club, still in the early stages of construction, has already incurred significant cost overruns. “Not true, so far as I know,” Terry told the Progress in late August. “The $4.3 million property owners approved in referendum is the number that we’re holding to.” Harkins Construction Co. of Salisbury has the contract to build the building. OPA General Manager Bob Thompson told the board of directors in August that the timetable is roughly a month behind schedule because of complications caused by the need to drive pilings to support a foundation. Thompson said he believed that Harkins could make up for lost time and still complete the project by spring of next year. Thompson said he was out of the business of giving exact dates when projects will be complete, mindful that the new Yacht Club pool opened a couple of months after the target date of Memorial Day weekend.

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OCEAN PINES

Terry to head up OPA for another year as president By TOM STAUSS Publisher cean Pines Association President Tom Terry, who has served in that role for three consecutive years, was re-elected to the position for a fourth year at the board of directors’ organizational meeting Aug. 20 by vote of his board colleagues. Terry, reelected to the board in balloting that concluded in August, won the presidency in a contested ballot over newly elected director Jack Collins, the top-voter in this summer’s balloting. Collins nominated himself, an unusual if not unprecedented occurrence in the annals of Ocean Pines. Collins had no expectation of ousting Terry as president. Terry had said during this summer’s election season that he was not interested in serving again as president, but that intention fell by the wayside once it was clear that the person who observers thought was the logical successor, former president Dan Stachurski, took himself out of the running. Another rumored candidate, Sharyn O’Hare, also decided she didn’t want the job this year.

O’Hare to serve as vice-president, while Cordwell will serve as treasurer and Mohr shifts to secretary. Former OPA President Dan Stachurski has only a limited official role as parliamentarian.

Left to right: Terry Cordwell O’Hare That left little option but to persuade Terry to again take up the mantle, a task that fell to Stachurski in the days before the Aug. 20 organizational meeting. Terry accepted the role, albeit reluctantly. In a Sept. 1 telephone interview with the Progress, Terry said he hoped to accomplish three main goals this coming year – completion, approval and and execution of a capital improvement plan; resolution of the golf course management contract issue, particularly whether to renegotiate a new contract with

billy Casper Golf or find an alternative; and successfully roll-out the new Yacht Club in the spring. Terry said that other goals could be added to that list. A major task of any board is always review and approval of an OPA budget for the following fiscal year. Regarding the new Yacht Club, Terry said it will be vital for the staff to be prepared to provide good food and excellent service when the new facility opens in the spring. He said this past year has seen progress but that more will need to be done in order to give customers a positive first impression. As for golf, Terry said the focus will begin by assessing Casper’s performance as the manager of the golf course. He is optimistic that the process to consider and approve a capital improvement plan for the OPA will get off to a good start during a working session scheduled for Sept. 10. He said he expected that OPA General Manager Bob Thompson will provide some materials for the board to review

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From page 5 LED lighting at the Ocean Pines Beach Club in Ocean City. Delmarva Power, the electricity supplier in Ocean City, is offering some sort of grant or subsidy or incentive for LED conversions that apparently isn’t available in Ocean Pines through its electricity supplier, Choptank Electric Cooperative. When Meo and an associate appeared before the committee’s Aug. 23 meeting, their presentation became more of a pitch on the virtues of LED lighting and just barely touched on the Beach Club. While costing more than conventional bulbs, LED bulbs last much longer and run with much less energy, resulting in savings over time, they said. Meo, a gregarious and candid 80-yearold, told the committee that when his company attempted to pitch the virtues of LED lighting to OPA General Manager Bob Thompson some time ago, the

prior to the meeting, with other materials to be provided during the meeting. At the board’s Aug. 20 organization meeting, other officers were elected for the coming year. They include: Sharyn O’Hare, vice-president, by acclamation; Terri Mohr, the former treasurer, secretary, by acclamation; Bill Cordwell, treasurer, contested by Collins, who nominated himself, citing his many years in the banking profession; Thompson and Pete Gomsak, assistant treasurers, by acclamation; and Stachurski, the former OPA secretary, parliamentarian, by acclamation. Reappointed in their roles were Michelle Bennett, recording secretary and time-keeper; Joseph Moore, as the association’s general counsel; and TGM Group, of Salisbury, as the OPA’s auditors. Director Marty Clarke opposed the reappointment of TGM on grounds that it’s time for the OPA to shop the auditing function to competing firms; the appointment was passed on a 6-1 vote of the board. In comments after the board meeting, O’Hare explained her opinion as to why Cordwell was selected as OPA treasurer over Collins, whose professional credentials would appear more relevant to the role, O’Hare said that Cordwell had sufficient experience overseeing OPA finances as a member of the OPA budget and finance committee this past year. Unsaid is the reality that much of the heavy lifting of treasurer will be performed by the assistant treasurers, Thompson, the OPA general manager, and Gomsak, a former OPA director and professional accountant.

general manager expressed little to no interest. Budget committee members seemed receptive to the pitch, but whether they will be able to persuade Thompson to reconsider a proposal for LED remains to be seen. It’s not clear whether they will make the effort. The committee at its Aug. 23 meeting also heard a pitch from a Union Bank representative on various financial services the on-line bank could provide Ocean Pines. The reaction was lukewarm at best, since the bank representative had little to say about the committee’s primary concern, management of assets held for longer terms. The committee will continue to invite bank representatives in for presentations before the panel makes some sort of formal recommendation to the OPA board of directors on whether to switch financial services providers. In July, the committee heard a presentation from PNC Bank.

September-Early October 2013 Ocean Pines PROGRESS 7

OCEAN PINES

Board to discuss capital plan in Sept. 10 work session

Stachurski wants documents to review before meeting Marty Clarke, frequently complained that OPA General Manager Bob Thompson asked for board approval on various proposals without much documentation, or documentation provided too late for proper consideration. Stachurski may be joining that bandwagon with respect to the Sept. 10 meeting about the CIP. “I really hope we don’t get it all on

the 10th,” he said. “The discussion will be much smoother if we have a little time to review the documents beforehand.” Of particular interest to Stachurski is the so-called rack-and-stack of big-ticket capital projects that Thompson reportedly has assembled but declined to release this past summer so it wouldn’t become an issue in the OPA board elections.

Whether Thompson will be prepared to release that document before or even during the Sept. 10 meeting remains to be seen. He previously has said that his intentions were to do so sometime in October or as late as November. Stachurski apparently sees no reason to wait that long. The director, in a telephone interview in late August, said he was concerned that the board has not been given up-

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By TOM STAUSS Publisher cean Pines Association Director Dan Stachurski could be channeling former director Dave Stevens, who retired from the board in August, in recent comments regarding documents related to the draft capital improvement plan that the board of directors is scheduled to discuss in a work session Sept. 10. Stevens, along with current director

8 Ocean Pines PROGRESS September-Early October 2013 From Page 7 dated documentation on the CIP’s planning process that was promised “within two weeks” of a board meeting “in July, I believe it was,” Stachurski said. “I really had hoped we’d be a little further along by now in nailing down important details of a CIP, especially as staff is about to begin work on drafting a new budget for next year.” OPA President Tom Terry said that he believes Thompson will provide some material about the CIP to the board prior to the Sept. 10 work session but that additional material probably will be distributed to the directors during the meeting.

“This is a work session to move the process along,” Terry said. “It’s not a special meeting or town meeting where a completed document is ready for public input.” But the OPA president said he expects that there will be solid dialog during the work session that moves the process along. If Thompson decides not to release a completed rack-and-stack, or matrix of proposed big-ticket projects, at the Sept. 10 meeting, it probably will generate some more division among the directors, who skirmished in a special meeting in July over whether an initial first phase draft of the CIP complied with the intent of a Stachurski motion passed by the board in September of 2012. The directors pretty much agreed

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‘Hard and fat’ crabs are store’s specialty By Nathan Brunet Staff Writer BERLIN — Country Barn Seafood, co-owned by “Speedy” Voss, sells quality carryout seafood. Maryland Blue Crabs are Voss’ specialty, which he promises will be more “hot ‘n’ heavy” and “hard and fat” than the crabs served at more popular venues around town. The specific blue crab sold at Country Barn Seafood is bigger and sweeter than most crabs served at restaurants in the area, according to Voss, who got his nickname after being born within minutes of reaching the hospital. Not only is the quality of crabs notable, but also the process in sorting crabs for purchase. Voss measures the crabs individually and separates them into baskets by size and weight. Crabs deemed large enough are put in the regular pile to be sold by the bushel or dozen, while the smaller crabs are- sold at a discounted price. “I’m the last person I know of that does that,” said Voss, who claims no one has ever complained about the size or weight of his crabs that were purchased by the dozen. He admits some small crabs may be added to bushels accidentally because of the large quantity of crabs being processed, but it does not happen often. Surrounded by crabs since he was a little kid, Voss has been a major part of local seafood businesses since the early 1970s. He has either owned or managed a number of seafood

among themselves that the first phase fell short of the rack-and-stack matrix called for by the September 2012 motion. But they disagreed over its significance. One camp – now retired director Dave Stevens and Marty Clarke – more or less said that Thompson had ignored the will of the board in devising a first phase document that fell well short of the “rack and stack” of future projects called for by the September motion. The other camp, including Stachurski and Directors Terri Mohr and Terry, said the draft CIP was a good start, and that Thompson and facilities manager Jerry Aveta should continue their work on a second phase, including a detailed “rack and stack” of major projects. Thompson told the board, in defense of the draft CIP’s exclusion of new rack and stack projects, that the initial plan was more about process and arriving at a community consensus about which projects should be included in a future rack-and-stack. “It’s not important what I think should be included,” he said at one point. Even so, the existence of a tentative “rack and stack” project list has been rumored to exist for some time, and Thompson confirmed that in a brief discussion after a recent board meeting when he also said he had decided not to release it for discussion at the July 17 special meeting, because he didn’t want

specific items to become issues in this summer’s board of directors election. During the meeting, he said it would take “two weeks” to finish a rack and stack list for public distribution but that he would probably not release it until as late as November, once he was certain that the directors were on board with a process for evaluating it. Stachurski later told the Progress that he was not particularly concerned that Thompson had declined to release his proposed future project list at the special meeting, but that at some point he would “have to give it up” and accept whatever reaction, pro and con, that it would likely generate. During the late August telephone interview, Stachurski said he might have been too diplomatic in letting Thompson off the hook for not coming up with a rack-and-stack sooner. “Let’s just say I’m now regarding the matter with a little more urgency,” he said. One project that is rumored to be on Thompson’s proposed rack and stack is a new administration building to replace the one in White Horse Park. There have been unconfirmed reports that it would include new offices for Thompson and the accounting department, along with space for the public relations department and new quarters for the Ocean Pines Police Department. The new

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NATHAN BRUNET/BAYSIDE GAZETTE

"Speedy," Voss, owner of Country Barn Seafood, poses with one of his "hard and fat" Maryland Blue Crabs. Voss individually measures each crab and separates them into baskets by size and weight. According to the owner, he is the only seafood place in the area that still does so.

restaurants through his career, including Crab Alley, The Crab Bag, City Fish Co. and Supreme Seafood. After getting tired of the increasing population in Ocean City, Voss settled into the now 80-year-old barn in the late 1980s with Ken Jaworski, who is still a co-owner even though Voss performs all of the labor. In the mid-2000s, Country Barn Seafood was rented out and operated by different families at times, but it is now back to the man who started it all. “I retired five times and I’m still working,” said Voss, who is helped every day by his nephew, Marty, who began working at the restaurant in 1998 when he

was 13. Little neck clams, jumbo shrimp, scallops, fresh Maryland crabmeat, tuna and salmon accompany Voss’ crabs, as well as his crab spice that comes from a recipe that has been in circulation since 1946. Beer and wine is also available to take home. Country Barn Seafood is open daily each summer from noon until dusk. There is no set time of closure, as Voss chooses the closing time depending on how busy the market is that day. For more information, or to place an order, call 410-6415164.

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By TOM STAUSS Publisher ith the clock ticking on Billy Casper Golf ’s three-year contract to manage the Ocean Pines golf course – it officially expires in spring of 2014 – it is generally thought that the Ocean Pines Association board of directors will decide whether it wants to keep the management company in place soon after the fall package play season is complete. Sometime after September or October, OPA officials have said, it should be clear whether BCG is on a path to meet its budgeted deficit target for the fiscal year. That budgeted loss is $150,000, a substantial improvement over last year’s $500,000 loss. Whether a $350,000 turnaround was ever conceivable is highly speculative. One OPA director, Dan Stachurski, told the Progress in a recent interview that even if BCG fails to meet the budgeted target, there is a scenario under which he personally could support a contract renewal. That scenario would be for BCG to dramatically increase “its skin in the game,” Stachurski said, alluding to the fact that the management company is guaranteed a fee of about $5,500 per month regardless of how it performs relative to budget. Stachurski said he would be willing to consider writing a new contract that would increase the incentives for Casper to reduce or even eliminate operating deficits, at the same time that the guaranteed management fee is eliminated or reduced very close to zero. “I’d be willing to give them 100 percent of the profits,” he said, “Because that would mean our deficit and subsidy would be zero.” He said he understands that some golfers might fear that such an arrangement would incentivize BCG to take steps to dramatically reduce expenses, perhaps in a way that would adversely affect golf course maintenance, but

Stachurski suggests way that Billy Casper Golf could extend contract Director says that reducing Casper’s management fee to zero, or near zero, might be the best way for Ocean Pines’ golf course manager to keep its contract if it fails to meet this year’s budget target Stachurski said he didn’t think that would happen. “Casper is a professional management company with decades of experience operating golf courses around the country,” he said. “They’re not going to do anything to hurt the golf course and cause golfers to go elsewhere, because that will make it impossible for them to make any money.” The company got off to a reasonably good start relative to budget in May, recording a $6,662 positive variance to budget and a $10,746 profit. But results were disappointing in June, when the negative variance to budget was about $50,000 and the actual loss was $16,008. July’s numbers were an improvement, though still not particularly encouraging. The negative variance to budget was $19,329, with the actual loss a relatively small $4,807. Cumulatively through July, the negative variance to budget is $62,474, meaning that BCG is on a path to produce a $212,000 or more deficit for the year if, from August through April of next year, it meets its monthly budget targets. To hit the $150,000 deficit target, the company would need to exceed

its budget targets significantly, with September and October, the months of heavy package play, offering the greatest opportunities. Once the season tapers off in the colder months, there simply isn’t enough play on the course to warrant much optimism for robust performance relative to budget.

Capital plan From Page 8 building would be located on Cathell Road across from the library and Taylor Bank. Another rumored project for what might be described as the Sports Core/ Cathell Road campus is a new indoor swimming pool, or natatorium as it is sometimes called. Thompson asked the Aquatics Advisory Committee some months ago to research the possibility of a new indoor swimming pool complex, and committee chair Virginia Reister complied by assembling a notebook of information. At the same time, however, the committee went on record as opposing the inclusion of a new indoor swimming pool, and the funding of it, in a five-to-ten-year capital improvement plan. As told to the aquatics committee earlier this year, Thompson envisioned removing the cover on the existing Sports Core pool and turning it back into an outdoor venue.

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Through July, the actual cumulative loss for the golf and operations at the Tern Grille was a modest $10,069, much improved over the same time a year ago, when the actual loss was $87,929. That means BCG has produced roughly a $78,000 turn-around in operations so far this year. Although whether BCG would be willing to significantly adjust its management fee as part of a new contract negotiation is speculative this far in advance, Stachurski’s apparent flexibility on the subject, even if the deficit target is unmet, seemingly places him at odds with OPA President Tom Terry, who has been outspoken on the need for BCG to meet its budget target – or else. During an election forum this past June in the run-up to this summer’s board election, Terry told OPA members that he had informed Casper executives, with the contract up in the fall, that there would be “no excuses” for poor financial performance.

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From Page 9 “You either turn it around or no new contract,” Terry said. In contrast, then candidate Bill Cordwell, who was among three candidates elected to the board, seemed far more willing than Terry to give Casper more time to turn operations around financially. With the golf course not fully open until this past May, after completion of expensive greens replacements and drainage improvements on holes 11 and 12, Cordwell said “it will take time” for Casper to meet revenue and budget objectives. This year’s top vote-getter in the board election, Jack Collins, said that the OPA “might have to look at” outsourcing as a way to solve certain operational challenges. He said that if Billy Casper doesn’t do it – by which he meant meeting budget targets – “then we’ll have a decision to make.” He said he might be willing to give the company an additional year to see if it could effect a turn-around, after which he said that “maybe we lease it out” if the turn-around doesn’t happen. Leasing the golf course to an outside operator has been at the top of options favored by OPA Director Marty Clarke, and he has also expressed an interest in selling the course if the leasing option doesn’t work. Stachurski told the Progress he is opposed to leasing or selling the course. This seems to be a hardening of a position he took on the topic in July. “I believe owning a golf course and keeping it under OPA control is essential to maintaining our community ambiance and serving our members,” he said. “You could lose that if you lease or sell the course.” During a July 17 special meeting called to discuss the draft of the first phase of a proposed capital improvement plan for Ocean Pines, Stachurski offered what seemed to be a less than rousing defense of golf in Ocean Pines and the degree to which OPA members support the existence of the Ocean Pines golf course.

“If you survey 100 people (in his Section 3 neighborhood), only ten would say we need a golf course,” he said. In a subsequent interview, Stachurski offered some context and a more substantive explanation of his views on golf in Ocean Pines. No one should conclude because many residents in Ocean Pines don’t see the need for a golf course, that Stachurski believes it should be shut down, turned into a park, or sold off to developers. “I probably should have provided more explanation when I said that,” he said. “What I meant to say is that we as an association haven’t done a very good job of making a case for why the golf course is important to the community, to property values, to Ocean Pines identity as a community with more amenities and activities than almost anywhere else in Worcester County.” Rather than as a static description of OPA member attitudes toward golf, Stachurski said it should be used as a starting point for a discussion on turning the golf course into an amenity that operates more efficiently and economically and begins to attract the significant number of golfers who, for whatever reason, have dropped their memberships in Ocean Pines and moved on to other local golfing venues. From a peak of more than 800 members back in the 1990s, golf memberships as of June 30 stood at 143, ten less than at the same time last year. The number of lifetime members now stands at 20, four more than in June of last year, according to the OPA’s official amenity report. Lifetime membership revenue is allocated not to golf operations but instead is helping to pay for a capital program, the greens replacement program completed earlier this year. Stachurski said the board of directors will have a challenging time of it deciding whether to renew Billy Casper Golf ’s contract to manage the Ocean Pines golf course and, if so, under what terms. Like all the directors, Stachurski said he will be very interested to see how well BCG performs relative to budget later in the fiscal year, and that performance will drive the contract renewal negotiations

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OPA president says he’s willing to consider open vote counting ing up the counting of ballots, which is now conducted in closed session of the Elections Committee, consistent with long-standing OPA practice, as well as Board Resolution M-06, Attachment A, which specifically says ballots are to be counted in closed session. Terry said the committee had taken some heat this summer from critics of the closed-door practice of counting ballots, when it was simply following the letter of a board resolution. But Terry signaled his willingness to consider changes to the board resolution

before next summer’s board election. Terry was responding to another request from Ocean Pines Forum owner Joe Reynolds to explain what exception under the Maryland Homeowners Act allows the elections committee to count ballots in private. Reynolds asked Terry whether he thought the “personnel” exception under the HOA act would justify keeping the counting of ballots in closed session. Terry didn’t respond, instead saying he thought the subject of the Elections Committee counting the ballots

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Stachurski also said he would be open to proposals from limited partnerships to take over management and/or ownership of the course. He said he had been approached by two separate individuals purporting to be part of groups interested in running the Ocean Pines course in the last six months or so. In both cases, he invited the individuals to put their proposals in writing and that he promised them he would present them to the board for review. In neither case did he receive a formal proposal, he said. “I didn’t think it appropriate to chase

them down to see how interested they really were,” he said. Clarke has said that the board shouldn’t simply wait for representatives from limited partnerships interested in leasing or buying the course to come to the board with formal proposals. “We need to be more proactive in telling the world that we’re interesting in leasing or selling,” Clarke said. He has noted previously that any such proposal could include a reversion clause, dictating that the course would return to OPA control in the event that the new operator could not operate the course profitably.

From Page 10 that will begin in the fall or winter. He said he is open to restructuring the course management into what he called the municipal model, in which responsibility to operate the course could be transferred to a foundation separate from the OPA. Fees to play the course would be dramatically reduced, perhaps to as low as $25 for 18 holes and a cart, he said. Revenues would be much less dependent on prepaid annual memberships, reflecting the trend in Ocean Pines.

in closed session was worthy of a board discussion and that current policy could be changed. Changing a board resolution to open up vote counting would require a majority vote of the directors. Reynolds has suggested that, at a minimum, candidates or their representatives should be able to attend the committee meeting in which ballots are counted. Through the summer, the Elections Committee rebuffed inquiries about the justification under the HOA act for conducting the vote count in private. Reynolds appeared at one meeting to seek a committee response to his inquiry. He never received one, but he has since continued his quest for an answer by posing the question at OPA board meetings. He did so again at the board’s Aug. 18 organizational meeting. The continuing practice of opening ballots in closed session energized this summer’s top vote-getter in the OPA board election, Jack Collins, who came into the committee meeting in early August to ask the committee why he or his representatives couldn’t witness the ballot count. Collins said that he does not believe the committee has acted improperly in

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By TOM STAUSS Publisher resh off reelection to the board of directors and a board vote to give him a fourth consecutive year as Ocean Pines Association president, Tom Terry recently signaled his willingness to consider a change in the way the Ocean Pines Election Committee counts ballots in annual OPA elections. In remarks to two members of the local media following the board’s Aug. 18 organization meeting, Terry said he was willing to consider proposals for open-

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any way, but that his non-resident supporters are questioning the policy of closed sessions to count ballots, regardless. Some of those supporters volunteered to serve as poll watchers during the vote count, Collins said. He fared no better than Reynolds in getting a straight answer from Judy Butler, the committee chair, or Dan Stachurski, the board liaison to the committee, or any committee members on which exception listed in the HOA Act would permit a closed committee meeting for vote counting. The clear suggestion from the inability or unwillingness to answer the inquiry is that no exception listed in the HOA Act is applicable. Even clearer is the fact that the committee as a whole, with Stachurski perhaps in agreement, appears to put more stock in following the letter of an OPA board resolution, even if it might conflict

with the Maryland HOA act. Stachurski said in a recent interview with the Progress that a judge somewhere might rule that the HOA Act requires counting of ballots in open session but that, short of a court order mandating an open count, he was not prepared to overturn a longstanding OPA practice just to satisfy Reynolds. He said he would pay attention if there was a groundswell of opposition to the current committee practice, but so far he’s seen nothing to suggest that current procedures aren’t working well or that property owners generally want a change. He noted that one benefit of a closed count is that more property owners attend the annual meeting than might otherwise to learn of the election results first hand. If Terry joins Collins in supporting a change to the closed-door policy – Director Marty Clarke would likely support an open-door policy – then just one more director would be needed to change the board resolution M-06.

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OPA records positive operating variance in July

Actual loss is a relatively modest $16,008, but even so the results are troubling in a so-called contract year. After two months into the new fiscal year, golf operations are already $43,000 behind budget and $5,262 in the red. Is a turn-around possible before the board of directors considers a contract renewal for Billy Casper Golf? aquatics and the Beach Club all had solid positive variances for the month. Beach parking had a $7,233 positive variance, aquatics beat its budget by $5,480 and the Beach Club was ahead of budget by $3,481. Amenity departments that missed budget targets included tennis ($1,805), marinas ($7,281), golf ($19,329) and the Yacht Club ($25,981). The monthly financial reports prepared by OPA Controller Art Carmine show financial results in two fundamental ways – actual performance and performance compared to budget – and show the results for the previous month and also cumulatively for the fiscal year. Departments that are primarily funded by lot assessment as opposed to amenities generally fared well compared to budget in July. Recreation and parks had a $13,073 positive variance for the month, while general administration was ahead of budget by $26,429. For the first quarter of the fiscal

year, all major amenity departments are in the black except for golf operations and the Yacht Club. Golf ’s year-to-date loss is $10,069 while the Yacht Club’s is $3,128. It is possible that the Yacht Club, especially with the opening of the new swimming pool in early August, will generate a surplus for the month, sufficient to offset the cumulative loss through July. With the Yacht Club closing for good after Labor Day, that facility’s losses should be modest for the duration of the fiscal year. However, the board of directors in September probably will be voting to shift food and beverage operations from the Yacht Club over to the Country Club once the Tern Grille, operated by Billy Casper Golf and included in golf operations for accounting purposes, closes for the season around Nov. 1. OPA General Manager Bob Thompson has been asked to present a formal business plan for winter food and beverage operations at

the Country Club in September. He has already told the board that to do so will generate an operating loss; the only real questions to be determined are how much and where the loss will show up in the financials. The Country Club is not now a separate cost center for accounting purposes, as it has been under the management and budgeting control of BCG. If the upstairs of the Country Club is kept open throughout the winter for dining, under the direct control of the OPA, the costs of doing this probably will either have to be reflected in a new cost center – currently unbudgeted – or merged with the Yacht Club food and beverage lines. The latter could make sense operationally, because at least some of the Yacht Club staff, including the food and beverage and banquet managers, might be moved over to the Country Club if the board pulls the trigger on keeping the Country Club open for three or four days a week after Nov. 1. On the other hand, it’s also possible that Yacht Club food and beverage manager John McLaughlin would opt to keep on some of the popular Tern Grille staff after Nov. 1. When BCG operated the Country Club last winter for limited

By TOM STAUSS Publisher he Ocean Pines Association’s financial performance for July, the third month of the 2014 fiscal year, contained some cheerful news for those who care about monthly fluctuations in the bottom line. The OPA generated a positive operating variance for the month, reversing negative variances for the first two months of the fiscal year. While the association as a whole is slightly more than $100,000 behind budget for the first quarter of the year, July’s $19,803 positive variance to budget reflects some success at controlling expenses in the face of revenues that in most cases did not meet budget expectations. Revenues were under budget by $81,005, offset by expenses that were under budget by $100,808. Major amenity operations were either solidly in the black or in the red by relatively small amounts. Those generating surpluses for the month included marinas ($9,644), beach parking ($65,666), aquatics ($9,890), the Beach Club ($57,408), and the Yacht Club ($5,521). Major amenity operations that were in the red included tennis ($6,434) and golf operations ($4,807). Compared to budget, beach parking,

OCEAN PINES OPA finances From Page 14 dining, it appears to have done so profitably, or at least managed to do so close to break even, depending on the month. OPA Board member Dan Stachurski recently said he hopes that Tern Grille staff is kept on over the winter. For the first quarter of the fiscal year, all amenity departments except for Beach Club parking are behind their budget targets. The Yacht Club’s cumulative negative variance is $76,237, golf and Tern Grille operations are $62,474 behind budget, and marina operations have a $50,278 negative variance through July. Aquatics’ cumulative negative balance to budget is $40,188, while the

September-Early October 2013 Ocean Pines PROGRESS 15 Beach Club is $13,417 behind budget through July. Tennis’ negative variance to budget is $8,194 for the year. Beach parking’s positive variance through July is $13,522. A scan of individual departmental summaries indicates that the OPA seems to have been overly aggressive in budgeting certain revenue projections for the year. Amenity rates were increased modestly for aquatics, tennis and golf this year, and increases of any kind over the decades normally have resulted in fewer Ocean Pines property owners electing to purchase memberships. The exception to that this year seems to be golf membership, which is within $253 of its budget through July, helped along by a robust positive variance to

OPA Net Financial Operations through July 31, 2013

budget in July ($6,609). Member dues were projected to be $18,130 in July, but actual member dues booked were $24,739. The better-than-budget membership performance is offset by under-performance in other golf revenue categories, such as cart and greens fees paid by non-members. Even the Tern Grille seems to have lost money for July, based on food and beverage revenues that were $1,284 under budget and costs that exceeded budget by about $2,000. Member dues for tennis and aquatics are under-performing through July. Actual revenues for marina operations, the Beach Club, and the Yacht Club also are underperforming, while Beach Club parking’s $370,411 in revenues is $2,313 ahead of budget. Tennis membership fees through

July were $42,751, $7,694 under budget and less than the $47,592 in fees generated last year. Cumulatively through July, the OPA has sold $178,222 in aquatics memberships, $48,671 less than budgeted for the year. Weekly memberships sold in August will help bridge that gap, and both annual and winter pool memberships are sold year-round, so it’s possible the negative variance to budget will be narrowed by the end of the fiscal year. Tennis memberships, in contrast, are generally sold at the beginning of the fiscal year in May. Marina revenues are substantially under budget, with fuel sales under-performing because the marina was closed throughout much of the early season. Through July, the OPA has generated $290,668 in fuel sales, $139,921 behind budget. Slip rentals also have been affected by construction activity at the Yacht Club campus, with $129,672 in sales through July. That’s $40,058 less than budgeted. At the Beach Club, despite a July that was very close to budget, gross revenues of $205,194 for the year are $21,647 less than budgeted. Yacht Club revenues of $409,832 generated through July are $250,268 behind budget, while associated costs were under budget by $91,835, for a cumulative negative variance to budget of $158,433. Clearly, keeping the Yacht Club open this summer, in the midst of a construction zone, has been a real challenge, with implications for financial performance. Status of reserves – The reserve summary released as part of the July financials shows that the OPA’s reserve balance stood at $7,585,734, a decline from the $8,249,142 June balance. The May balance was $8,437,653, and the April balance stood at $4,733,893. Lot assessment dollars flow into the reserves at the beginning of the new fiscal year in May. The balance in the roads reserve through July was $66,744, virtually unchanged from June’s $66,703 balance. The bulkhead and waterways reserve through July stood at $1,049,112, virtually unchanged from June’s $1,058,796 balance. At the end of April, the balance was $311,485 positive balance; the April to May increase was attributable to $822,367 in contributions from the waterfront lot assessment differential. The major maintenance and replacement reserve remains as the OPA reserve most flush with earmarked assessment dollars. Its July 31 balance was $7,102,704, comprised of $5,517,555 in funded depreciation and $1,585,149 in revenues from the five-year funding plan. Its June 30 balance was $7,308,102. This reserve will be substantially reduced by the end of the year, reflecting the cost of the new Yacht Club and swimming pool. Each year, the OPA collects between $3 million and $4 million in assessment dollars that are allocated to various reserves.

OCEAN PINES

16 Ocean Pines PROGRESS September-Early October 2013 By TOM STAUSS Publisher he Bank of Willards, protecting its interest in the unfinished Points Reach clubhouse in far south Ocean Pines, acquired the property in a foreclosure sale that the bank had scheduled for the courthouse steps in Snow Hill on Aug. 27. A spokesman for the bank said that other than bank officials, no one showed up at the courthouse to bid on the clubhouse, which has been languishing unused on a picturesque bayfront parcel adjacent to the Points Reach condominiums in Ocean Pines Section 17. The bank was the clubhouse’s primary lienholder. The building had been owned by Bankers Development Corp. LLC, whose principal owner, David Meinhardt, developed the 199-unit Point subdivision, including the 75-unit, three-story, three-building Points Reach condominium project. The clubhouse, partially completed in the mid-2000s, is the one element of the original Meinhardt vision that failed to materialize, at least in a way that property owners in the Point can use. With the bank now owning the building free and clear of all liens after foreclosure, it probably will be in a better position to find a buyer for the building

Bank of Willards acquires Points Reach clubhouse in foreclosure sale

and adjoining property. There has been speculation that the building could be torn down and the property sold as a prime piece of waterfront property. Attempts by the bank to market the clubhouse in recent years have failed to produce a buyer. Ocean Pines Association President Tom Terry, a member of the Point Homeowners Association, recently said in his personal view there is no reason for the OPA to approach the bank in an effort to acquire it. “I just don’t see a need or a purpose for it,” he said. “I recognize that it’s an issue for the residents in the Point,” but he said it’s not an issue that’s been on the minds of OPA directors. He said he would always be open to suggestions on how the property might be used, but he said barring some creative idea that has yet to materialize, he doubted that the OPA will be interested

in acquiring it, no matter the price. The bank in its advertising prior to the auction asked for a deposit of $110,000 for the property from a successful bidder on the day of the sale, which is the fourth building in the Points Reach condominium complex located in the Point section of Ocean Pines. As it’s customary for a lender that is embarking on a foreclosure sale to ask a deposit of ten percent of what it might be willing to accept in a sale, the $110,000 deposit requirement might have suggested that the bank was willing to let the building go for $1.1 million. For anything less than that, assuming that $1.1 million was the minimum acceptable price, its representatives present at the auction would probably have bid to protect its interest as a lienholder. Since no bidders showed up, that particular scenario became moot.

It’s a fairly common practice prior to a scheduled foreclosure auction for the owner of the subject property to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which stops the auction and allows the property owner time to reorganize and work out a deal with creditors. Bankers Development Corp. LLC, had not filed for bankruptcy protection, suggesting that Meinhardt had no interest in trying to keep title to the clubhouse. A foreclosure auction generally wipes out any other secondary liens filed against a property, depending on the selling price. In the case of the Points Reach clubhouse, many contractors filed liens against the property that by now are many years old. In an August 2010 article in the Progress, local Realtor Sandy Galloway said she understood that the bank’s lien on the clubhouse was for about $3.5 million, with secondary liens only adding to the indebtedness. At one time, the property was listed for sale at $6.5 million, and Galloway said back in 2010 that, had the building been completed, it would have appraised at somewhere between $7 million to $8 million. The building contains more than To Page 18

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18 Ocean Pines PROGRESS September-Early October 2013

OCEAN PINES

Court of Special Appeals rebuffs Points Reach secession bid

ASIAN CUISINE

miniums that overlook the Isle of Wight Bay. The Point HOA is responsible for landscaping, the minimal lighting present in Section 17, and, some say, snow plowing. Ocean Pines Association general counsel Joe Moore recently disclosed that common areas in Section 17, including roads, have not been formally “turned over” to the OPA, even though all 199 properties in the Point are subject to paying OPA assessments every year and Section 17 is considered part of Ocean Pines. Turn-over efforts continue, he said. The Worcester County Circuit Court, through visiting judge David B. Mitchell, ruled against the Points Reach condo owners from the bench the day after a June 23, 2011, hearing on the case. A one-page written order followed. A settlement conference between the parties had failed to resolve the dispute before the hearing. For several years, many if not most of the unit owners in Points Reach have been escrowing Point HOA assessments, pending resolution of the dispute in court. In some cases, the Point HOA has filed liens against property owners it considers delinquent in paying assessments, but so far there have been no foreclosure sales, with the Point HOA apparently willing to wait

out the appeals process. Unhappy with Mitchell’s unwritten decision, the Points Reach association appealed it to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, and a hearing on the case was heard by a three-member pan-

el of the court in October of 2012. The three-member court posted its decision on its Web site on Aug. 30, roughly ten months after the hearing, affirming the lower court’s ruling.

Points Reach clubhouse

putting green, and indoor and outdoor swimming pools. Meinhardt’s original plan was to sell equity memberships in the club, first to property owners of Point’s Reach and the Point, starting out at $4,500 and increasing in $500 increments over time after the first 40 memberships were sold. Annual dues to cover operating expenses were also envisioned. His intent was to broaden the base of potential members to all comers if an insufficient number of Pines property owners surfaced to buy memberships. While the clubhouse never was finished, in part because membership sales never materialized in the quantities needed, that fact didn’t hinder the successful build-out of the single-family Point section. The three Points Reach condominiums were also completed, but there have been years of contentious relations, including litigation over alleged construction flaws, between the Points Reach Association and the developer.

From Page 16 8,000 square feet of interior space, with unfinished indoor and outdoor pools and outdoor decking. It has a picturesque view of the Ocean City skyline across the bay. The developer walked away from the project in 2007 or 2008, leaving Points Reach and Point property owners without a major amenity they’d been promised when they purchased condo units or individual building lots earlier in the decade. Reportedly, financing to complete the clubhouse was unavailable. In early efforts to sell individual residential units in Point’s Reach, a 75-unit condominium with views of the Ocean City skyline across the bay, and the 124 single-family building lots elsewhere in the Point, Meinhardt pointed to the prospect of a first-class clubhouse containing a 90-seat dining room, movie theatre, outdoor decks, fitness center,

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By TOM STAUSS Publisher he Maryland Court of Special Appeals has sided with the Point Homeowners Association in a legal dispute with unit owners of the Points Reach Condominiums over whether 75 condo owners are required to be members of the Point HOA subject to its annual assessments. When the condo owners are included in the Point HOA, total membership is 199, composed of 124 single-family lot owners and 75 condo owners. The Point is located in Section 17, in far south Ocean Pines, and is among the newer sections in the greater Ocean Pines subdivision. Condo unit owners are also members of the Points Reach Condominium Association, whose Council of Unit Owners, along with several individual owners, sued the Point HOA in 2011 over whether the condo owners were members of the Point Association subject to Point Association dues. Condo owners complained that they receive very little benefit from the dues they pay to the Point HOA. The Points Reach Association is responsible for maintenance of common areas in the three, three-story buildings that comprise the Points Reach condo-

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September-Early October 2013 Ocean Pines PROGRESS 19

Points Reach appeal From Page 18 The Points Reach association can appeal the panel’s ruling to the full Court of Special Appeals or to the Maryland Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state. The parties could also resume talks on some sort of negotiated secession. Whether Points Reach Association board members would have much incentive to do so in light of the court of special appeals’ decision remains to be seen. Several condo owners told the Progress in interviews last May that previous attempts to negotiate a secession appeared close to success, only to founder when final details could not be ironed out. The outlines of a deal had the Points Reach condo association agreeing to pay off all assessment arrearages in exchange for an amicable secession. Apparently the deal fell apart when it became clear that the Points Reach Association could or would not guarantee that all of its members would pay assessments previously levied by the Points Association. In the 2011 circuit court filing, the plaintiffs sought a permanent injunction prohibiting the Point HOA from assessing fees against the condo owners and also sought reimbursement of HOA fees previously paid. The judge in the case, in ruling against the condo owners, initially determined that the Declaration of Restrictions for the Point, as revised and restated in 2000, was not clear as to whether they covered the condominium units. To resolve the ambiguity, the court considered the testimony offered in the hearing by unit owners and applied what it called the “equitable doctrine of implied reciprocal negative covenants.” The judge ruled that the condo owners are subject to the 2000 covenants, must pay the Point Association annual assessments, and otherwise rejected all relief sought by the plaintiffs. In its appeal to the Court of Special Appeals, the plaintiffs argued that the circuit court erred in finding that the condo units were subject to the 2002 Point covenants and Point Association assessments. The plaintiffs also contended that the trial judge had failed to issue a detailed written declaration of rights of the parties. The appeals court panel concluded that the 2000 Point restrictive covenants are “clear as to its parties and the lots expressly covered, which do not include the (Points Reach condos), but also is clear that all property owners within the Point – which includes the condominium – must belong to the (Point) HOA … Many of the restrictions are … for the benefit of the Point as a whole, not just the lots expressly covered …” The appeals court said the judge in the original case properly considered “extrinsic evidence” to resolve the covenants’ ambiguities.

That evidence included testimony from Point developer Dave Meinhardt, who told the court during the 2011 hearing that he had always intended for the Points Reach condominium to be part of the Point HOA, as well as testimony from condo unit owners. The appeals court’s opinion says that condo unit owners, when purchasing their Points Reach properties, admitted to being advised of their membership in the Point HOA and paid a portion of annual HOA assessments at the settlement table. Sales materials for the project that were used by Meinhardt at the time also

The appeals court’s opinion says that condo unit owners, when purchasing their Points Reach properties, admitted to being advised of their membership in the Point HOA and paid a portion of annual HOA assessments at the settlement table. promoted the Point as a development that would include both single family lots and condominiums. That evidence was sufficient to persuade the circuit court judge, and the court of special appeals’ three-member panel, that the Points Reach condo owners are properly considered members of the Point HOA.

The court of special appeals agreed with the plaintiffs that the lower court judge could have issued a more detailed order spelling out the rights of the parties in the case. That deficiency was remanded to the circuit court for a remedy, which will do nothing to change the appeals court’s decision in favor of the Point HOA.

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September-Early October 2013 Ocean Pines PROGRESS 21

22 Ocean Pines PROGRESS September-Early October 2013 Farewell From Page 1 favorite memory ... this is a time of days gone by and those meant to be. Salud,” she said. Earlier, she talked about the days when the community gathered there for Fourth of July fireworks, how children raced up the steps on the deck to see better and that, inevitably, the marsh caught fire, further exciting youngsters who loved the sight and sound of fire trucks. “She’s at the end of her season. They are walking around today with duct tape,” she said, as she mingled. The new building is expected to open in the spring and be, the OPA press release promised, “a true All-American restaurant in the heart of our community.” Sitting on stools near the bar Sunday were Howard Chilcoat and Nancy Gipe, Pines residents. “We’ve been coming here ten years. I love the bar,” Chilcoat said. “The view is as good as any view anywhere,” he said, but he wasn’t upset it is being razed. “The building is worn out,” 85-yearold Jim Mitchell said, surrounded by his buddies. “I have had some good times here, absolutely, but it has to be closed and rebuilt. If I feel bad about old things, they might get rid of me,” he

OCEAN PINES

“I do like having the original building, but I go with the flow. Yeah, I kind of will miss the building. I’ll miss it, but everything changes.” John Talbott

said, laughing. “The sooner it’s torn down, the better,” Pines resident Jim Beisler said. Board member Dan Stachurski said he hoped, “the termites hold hands long enough to hold it together” until the wrecking crew got there. A grinning Doug Slingerland wasn’t lamenting the loss, but instead was pleased to be a finalist in the contest to name the downstairs dining area of the new building. His suggestion was Mariner’s Cove. The other two entries are Bayside Grille and Oceanside Dockside Grille. The winning name will be decided and announced to the community by e-mail, O’Hare said. Pines resident Geri Gallagher, though, said she’ll always have a soft spot for the Yacht Club because her daughter, Michelle Wilkins, was married there, arriving by decorated pontoon boat and walking down the deck to her ceremony. “I loved it here,” she said. She and her late husband, Paul, enjoyed time there so much that after he died, she couldn’t

Kiss Your

return for a year. “It was not an easy decision to decide what to do with the Yacht Club, but the board decided to move on,” Terry said. During remarks, he thanked the staff, who he said, “fought their way through this summer to meet our needs and it has not been easy for this staff.” Outside the front door, a row of decorative lights were loosely wrapped around a spindly pine. On the upstairs deck there was a crooked row of dusty stools, unmatched chairs and tables, a cushion upside down. At the adults-only pool, newly rebuilt and open until just bore the demolition of the hold building, the middle of this month, a young lifeguard, sitting on top of the stand, moved his head to music Tranzfusion played and watched the few people in the water. Others sat around tables biting into steaming hot dogs, sipping from plastic cups, nodding and laughing together. “When it was opened, the Yacht Club was private, for Ocean Pines people only,” Talbott reminisced.

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“It was a pretty nice building. Now, of course, it needs to be torn down but I thought it was a nice building,” he said, recalling it went up about six years after the Country Club, also aging but still standing. “There were a lot of good times here,” Talbott said, recalling Yacht Club gambling nights, parties and activities and where locals met for lunch and dinner years before Taylors, Pizza Hut, La Hacienda and other restaurants were thought of. He recalled swimming late in the pool, the community’s second. The Swim and Racquet Club’s pool opened in 1969. “We had security guards then. Now we have a police department, but then there were only security guards. We went swimming during the summer, late, around midnight. If a security guard came by, you went by the edge of the pool, took a deep breath and went under the water and he walked around, then he’d leave,” he said. Maryland Gov. Marvin Mandel docked The Maryland Lady, the 58-foot state vessel, at the Yacht Club for two consecutive summers. “I do like having the original building, but I go with the flow. Yeah, I kind of will miss the building. I’ll miss it, but everything changes,” Talbott said. “It won’t bother me at all that it is being torn down.”

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OCEAN PINES A look back

the OPA was executed. The Turnover Agreement was the document that From Page 1 conveyed all of Ocean Pines common position by Boise Cascade, the Ocean areas, from amenities then built to Pines developer at the time, in a period roads, waterways and bulkheads, to the of transition. OPA from Boise Cascade. Anderson was on the board of The year 1973 was an eventful one directors but didn’t serve as president for other key events in the history of in the 1976-77 term. He served another Ocean Pines. Ground-breaking for the year as president beginning in the fall of new Community Hall in White Horse 1977. He retired from the board in the Park occurred in mid-September. fall of 1979. The Ocean Pines Volunteer Fire Terry’s fourth year as an elected Department, then a department within president that began this past Aug. 20 the OPA, was established in the spring. matches Anderson’s four years in the Cluster mailboxes were installed same role. throughout Ocean Pines beginning in Terry’s years will have been October. consecutive, compared to Anderson’s On Oct. 25, 1973, ground was broken three. Including his eight months as an on the new Yacht Club, an 11,000 square appointed president, Anderson served foot, three-story building with two four years and eight months as OPA restaurants and a lounge, five tennis president, an achievement that Terry courts and a 30- by 50-foot swimming will be able to surpass only if he is re- pool. elected as president again in the fall of The Yacht Club had been scheduled 2014. to be completed by mid-1974, but was Although Ocean Pines is celebrating not opened officially until May 24, 1975, its 45th year of its founding as a for a ribbon-cutting. community this year, it has missed Forty years ago, much like today, it celebrating another key anniversary, the was difficult to predict from ground40th anniversary of the year in which the breaking to completion just how long OPA began to be managed by property a construction project would take to owners rather than developer interests. complete. That year -- 1973 -- was the year Participating in that 1975 ribbonin which the landmark Turnover cutting, memorialized in a photo Agreement between Boise. Cascade and xfrom Ocean Pines Progress 1/2 pg 10.125” 5.67”that 4C day published in the late

September-Early October 2013 Ocean Pines PROGRESS 23 Bud Rogner’s History of Ocean Pines, were Anderson, the OPA president; Herbert Pohl, of Clubs Corporation of America, the Yacht Club manager; Tuffy Mumford, the Boise Cascade employee after whom Tuffy’s Tavern, the old Yacht Club’s downstairs bar, was named; and Daniel Prettyman, the then chief judge of the Worcester County Circuit Court. With the demolition of the old Yacht Club scheduled for later in September, once all the furnishings and souvenirs are removed, it can be said that the old facility lasted about 40 years from

ground-breaking to demolition, or 38 years, eight months, from ribbon-cutting to demolition. Only two people who attended the ribbon-cutting on May 24, 1975, were present at the “Good-bye to the Yacht Club” party held Sept. 2. They were local Realtor John Talbott and his wife, Karen, who was called Karen Adams in 1975. He was a Boise Cascade sales agent in 1975, and she was an assistant working for Boise Cascade broker Ralph Spencer. They were unmarried at the time.

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24 Ocean Pines PROGRESS September-Early October 2013

OCEAN PINES

Budget committee hears ideas for limited municipality

Committee votes to continue research into a governmental structure that might not replace the Ocean Pines Association, would not necessarily impose a local property tax, and could rely on local income tax sharing and highway user revenues as its main sources of revenue. The picture that is emerging is of a municipality that might take over police, fire and general maintenance, including roads, leaving ownership of the amenities and most other functions and departments with the OPA. support them. In several instances, municipalities based in the Chevy Chase area of the Washington, D.C. suburbs don’t charge its resident property owners any property tax, relying instead on its share of the local income tax collected by the state and returned to the counties and municipalities, Reynolds said. Another source of revenues is highway user revenues. Bruce Wahl, a small town mayor on the Western Shore and president-elect of the MML, told the committee that within his town there are eight separate HOAs that offer various services to its residents, including private swimming pools and roads. He said that 17 percent of local income taxes are distributed to municipalities in his county.

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The details of just how local income taxation might flow back to an Ocean Pines municipal corporation was not known precisely by the MML officials. Committee chair Dennis Hudson said that local income taxes are an issue needing more investigation by the committee. Worcester County’s relatively modest local income tax rate is set by the county commissioners, with the taxes collected by the state through employer withholding or directly by taxpayers when they file their annual state tax returns. The local income taxes are then remitted to the counties. In Worcester, 25 percent of local income taxes are shared among the four municipalities. The outlines of how an Ocean Pines municipal corporation might be struc-

tured unfolded during the meeting, with the MML officials telling the committee that there was no need to eliminate the Ocean Pines Association in order to create a municipality. In fact, as a result of the meeting, the presumption is that the committee, if it decides to promote the establishment of a municipality, would advocate retaining the HOA as a powerful force in local administration, with only a few departments – such as police and fire, roads and perhaps Public Works – transferring over to a municipality. Amenity departments would stay with the OPA. Hudson told the Progress after the meeting that he thought Parks and Recreation Department functions might be split the OPA and a municipality. OPA Director Sharyn O’Hare, sitting in on the meeting to educate herself on the issue, said going in that she had been under the impression that a municipal corporation would be established as an entity to replace the OPA. She said she had been reluctant to support such an approach because it would eliminate the voting franchise, and thereby representation in local government, of non-resident property owners.

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By TOM STAUSS Publisher lthough the Ocean Pines Association’s budget and finance committee is not ready to embrace the idea of creating an Ocean Pines municipal corporation, and indeed may never be, the idea is still alive and kicking. After a presentation by members of the Maryland Municipal League at the committee’s Aug. 23 monthly meeting, the committee voted to proceed with further study, perhaps with a narrowed focus on a municipal structure that could credibly show OPA members that their OPA assessments would decrease if a parallel municipal government were created. Well aware that any such assertion would face mountains of skepticism from critics who could not possibly imagine that creating a new layer of government could ever reduce costs, committee members heard commentary from Municipal League representatives that showed how it might be possible. MML Director of Education Tom Reynolds told the committee that municipalities in Maryland “are all over the board” with respect to the services they offer and the level of taxation needed to

From Page 24 She said she now understands that in fact both the OPA and a municipality could exist side-by-side, with the question then becoming which services are provided by the HOA and which by the municipality – and the costs associated and funding sources that pay for them. “What is important is the tax differential (how much residents and property owners pay the municipality versus the HOA),” Wahl told the panel. “Our residents only pay two cents per $100 of assessed valuation for municipal government.” Residents who live in town areas under an HOA pay additional fees; those that don’t simply pay town taxes, he said. Hudson told the MML officials that what prompted his interest in studying the municipality idea is the reality that despite being the county’s largest community, “we receive the least amount of funding per person” when compared with the county’s four municipalities. Reynolds said that to the extent the county provides services countywide that are also provided by the OPA, Ocean Pines property owners are in effect double-taxed. When Hudson said that indeed Ocean Pines residents are double-taxed, Reynolds replied that Worcester County is “under no obligation” to compensate Ocean Pines for whatever extent that double taxation occurs. The solution, he said, may be to create a municipality, which he said is primarily governed by state laws created by the Maryland General Assembly as opposed to county ordinances. Certain funding streams, such as the local income tax, are governed by state law, he said. Some state revenue streams are simply denied a community if no municipality is in place. Reynolds suggested that before Ocean Pines moves too far down the road of possibly creating a municipal corporation, it ought to first determine whether county government is amenable. While he said at one point during the discussion that he didn’t believe a county government could prevent the creation of a municipality if residents were determined to create one, at the same time he said it was preferable if county officials are not hostile to it. “You need to know up front whether the county will oppose” the establishment of a municipality, he said. Committee member John Wetzelberger said he feared that creating a municipality would simply add more bureaucracy and expense and that the way in which the OPA runs the community is “a pretty good system.” Reynolds replied that such concerns are “part of the discussion” and in the end the decision might be to retain the HOA structure under an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” conclusion. He said the debate comes down to whether certain advantages, such as new or increased funding streams, offset the disadvantage of more bureaucracy, which he said need not be substantial.

September-Early October 2013 Ocean Pines PROGRESS 25

Board adds second meeting every month Work sessions suggested by OPA president represent a ‘back-to-the-future’ moment for directors By TOM STAUSS Publisher t may come back to bite them in the form of even more time cloistered in meetings, debating the issues of the day and perhaps treading on the dreaded territory of micro-management. Or, as Director Dan Stachurski suggested recently, it could result in directors more frequently missing meetings or showing

Critics are likely to argue that what starts out small has a way of growing by leaps and bounds if it involves government. Another issue is what sort of unfunded mandates are imposed on municipalities that don’t apply to an HOA, he said. “There are lots of new regulations about stormwater management coming down,” Reynolds told the committee. But in many cases, communities are already subject to such regulation through their county governments, he said. After the MML officials concluded their presentation, committee members voted to continue their study of the municipality issue and talked about the possibility of obtaining expert help in determining the costs and benefits. Among the options mentioned by Hudson was the hiring of Dr. Memo Derricker of the Beacon House at Salisbury University to conduct a municipality study. Once the committee ascertains any costs associated with a professional study of the issue, it probably will ask the OPA board of directors for funding assistance.

up late or leaving early. Whatever the possible pitfalls, the Ocean Pines Association board of directors has established a meeting schedule for the coming year that adds a second meeting every month to the board’s workload, this one billed as a working session, where the directors can receive material from the general manager well before they need to vote on whatever is presented. No motions, or at least votes on motions, are supposed to occur during these meetings. In proposing the work session during the board’s Aug. 18 organizational meeting, OPA President Tom Terry, in effect, was returning to a way of doing business that previous boards followed during much of Ocean Pines 45-year history. Until about three or four years ago, work sessions were fairly routine every month, often resulting in board consensus on particular issues. if not actual votes, that technically were supposed to be made at the regular meeting each month. Very often, work sessions were of longer duration than the regular meetings. In their new iteration, Terry expressed the hope that they could be compressed into an hour or less, something that could quickly fall by the wayside if the topics at hand are particularly interesting or controversial, or both. For instance, the first work session under the schedule that the board formally approved in a special meeting Aug. 28 is a 4 p.m. session on Tuesday, Sept. 10, on the subject of the OPA’s draft capital improvement plan. This working session, like all of them approved for the

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26 Ocean Pines PROGRESS September-Early October Board meetings

OPA likely to move food and beverage ops to Country Club beginning in November The board directed the general manager to come up with a business plan to operate the upper level of the Country Club as a restaurant in the run-up to the opening of the new Yacht Club in the spring. An operating loss is predicted, but a board majority seems willing to accept that as a necessary cost of helping the staff prepare for the new Yacht Club’s launch.

By TOM STAUSS Publisher lthough a final decision will await a formal business plan with cost estimates that General Manager Bob Thompson has been asked to provide, the Ocean Pines Association board of directors is poised to approve a plan to shift food and beverage operations from the Yacht Club to the Country Club’s upper floor beginning in November. Actually, calling it a shift may be somewhat of a misnomer, since the Yacht Club’s food operations closed down officially in late August, leaving the outdoor tiki bar open for drink service through Sept. 8, the last day the pool is open for swimming. The decision to be formally ratified by the board in September, assuming that Thompson’s budget numbers come in as expected, would reopen the upper floor of the Country Club in November under direct OPA supervision. The reopening

would be coordinated with the closure of the downstairs Tern Grille, operated by Billy Casper Golf, around that time. As explained by Thompson during the board’s Aug. 28 special meeting, BCG’s decision to close down the Tern Grille and the fact that the Yacht Club will be demolished well before November means the OPA would be temporarily out of the food and beverage business after the first part of November. “We wouldn’t have any facility open,” Thompson told the board, telling members that he thought it should be a “board decision” whether to operate a

limited food and beverage operation at the Country Club in the run-up to the opening of the new Yacht Club in the spring. “It’s up to you all” to decide, Thompson said, candidly telling the directors that there would be a cost to do so – an unbudgeted operational loss that he was not then prepared to estimate. His approach seemed to be to put the ball in the board’s court as to whether directors were willing to accept an operating loss in order to stay in the food and beverage business over the winter months.

some reservations. “I’m afraid that we might end up with two long meetings each month,” he told the Progress in an interview. He also said that the second meeting might open up the opportunity for more board micro-management of Thompson, something he said he hopes can be avoided. Stachurski also said that he suspects the second meeting will present more attendance challenges among the directors, resulting in less than seven members making critical decisions or in some cases even failing to have a quorum in attendance. All were not uncommon occurrences in those years when work sessions were the norm.

The following is the approved meeting schedule for the coming year: Tuesday, Sept. 10, 4 p.m., working session (capital improvement plan) Thursday-Friday, Sept. 12-13, board training for new members Wednesday, Sept. 18, 3 p.m., regular meeting Wednesday, Oct. 2, 4 p.m., work session (budget guidance) and general working session Saturday, Oct. 26, 9 a.m., regular meeting Wednesday, Nov. 6, 4 p.m., working session Wednesday, Nov. 6, 7 p.m., executive council meeting Wednesday, Nov. 20, 3 p.m., regular

meeting Wednesday, Dec. 4, 4 p.m., working session Wednesday, Dec. 18, 3 p.m., regular meeting Monday, Jan. 6, 3 p.m., special meeting, budget presentation to OPA board and working session January 11-17, budget and finance advisory committee sessions on Budget Wednesday, Jan. 22, 3 p.m., regular meeting Monday -Tuesday, Feb. 3-4, 9 a.m., Board Budget review sessions Wednesday, Feb. 5, 4 p.m., working session (optional) Friday, Feb. 7, 4 p.m., board guidance to GM on budget delivered Saturday, Feb. 15, 9 a.m., public presentation on budget Saturday, Feb. 22, 9 a.m., regular meeting and final budget approval Wednesday, March 5, 4 p.m., working session Wednesday, March 19, 3 p.m., regular meeting Wednesday, April 9, 4 p.m., working session Saturday, April 26, 9 a.m., regular meeting Wednesday, April 23, 7 p.m., executive council meeting Wednesday, May 7, 4 p.m., working session Saturday, May 24, 9 a.m., regular meeting Wednesday, June 4, 4 p.m., working session Wednesday, June 18, 3 p.m., regular meeting Wednesday, July 9, 4 p.m., working session Wednesday, July 23, 3 p.m., regular meeting (year in review) Saturday, Aug. 9, 10 a.m., OPA annual meeting,

From Page 25 aren’t scheduled on Saturdays fall on either the third or fourth Wednesday of the month. They’re all scheduled for the board room in the administration building at 3 p.m. The regular meetings are the third Wednesday of the month in September, November, December, March and June. They’re on the fourth Wednesday of the month in January, May, and July. The approved meeting schedule for the coming year is a bit of deviation from this past year, when all the regular meetings were set for the last week of the month, ostensibly to give the OPA staff more time to produce financial reports for review. That imperative is no longer in force, as the board recently approved a motion requiring the staff to produce the financial reports no later than the 14th working day of the month. When he presented his initial draft of a meeting scheduled at the board’s Aug. 18 organizational meeting, Terry said that regular meetings this past year had lasted much longer than they should have. He said he envisioned regular meetings would last two hours and work sessions one hour. He said regular meetings would be shortened because some of the material presented by Thompson during the regular meeting would have been presented instead at the work session. At the same time, however, he said he did not intend that the general manager would present the traditional general manager’s report at the work session as opposed to the regular meeting. “This is going to evolve,” he told his colleagues. But the additional work session “is not a replacement for the GM report.” There was no push-back against the second meeting every month during either the Aug. 18 or 28 meetings, but later Director Dan Stachurski expressed

OCEAN PINES

OCEAN PINES Country Club From Page 26 Thompson said that if the board authorizes it, the plan would be to move the Yacht Club staff over to the Country Club in November, along with some of the kitchen equipment from the old Yacht Club to replace old or non-functional equipment in the Country Club kitchen. The plan would be to be open for lunch and dinner three or four days a week, on a Thursday through Sunday or Thursday through Monday schedule, he said. He made no mention of moving the Java Bay coffee house over to the Country Club. He also did not specify how much of the Yacht Club staff would be moved over to the Country Club, but presumably at minimum it would include the food and beverage manager, John McLaughlin, the new banquet manager, bartenders and some kitchen and wait staff. Director Dan Stachurski suggested that Thompson consider using some of the Tern Grille staff as well, given the general popularity of that operation under BCG management. He later told the Progress that he believes some of Tern staff should be considered for employ-

September-Early October 2013 Ocean Pines PROGRESS 27 ment at the new Yacht Club when it reopens next year. “They’re the old (Pudge) Ruppert staff,” Director Marty Clarke remarked, referring to a former food and beverage manager who operated the Yacht Club during most of the 2000s. During the Aug. 28 special meeting, Thompson seemed to be asking the board for a quick decision on keeping the Country Club open, in the hopes of avoiding a second move of the Yacht Club’s kitchen equipment. If the board had accommodated the general manager during the Aug. 28 special meeting, he said he would have been prepared to move the kitchen equipment directly to the Country Club. If a decision is delayed, it would be necessary to park the equipment in storage, then move it again to the Country Club if the November reopening is approved. Thompson said that one rationale for operating the Country Club as a food and beverage venue over the winter months is that it will allow time for the staff to ramp up and train for the new Yacht Club opening. Initial reaction by a majority of directors seemed positive, with the exception of Clarke and, possibly, Jack

Collins, who seemed to side with Clarke when he expressed concerns about the operating losses that would result. Still, both Clarke and Collins voted with the majority on Stachurski’s motion directing Thompson to produce a business plan with cost estimates for keeping the Country Club open after the Tern Grille closes in November. The motion passed on a 5-2 vote, with directors Sharyn O’Hare and Terri Mohr opposed. They seemed prepared to give Thompson the immediate go-ahead to proceed with moving kitchen equipment and didn’t seem particularly concerned that the general manager had not submitted a business plan with projected losses. Also voting for the motion were OPA President Tom Terry and the newly minted OPA treasurer, Bill Cordwell. During discussion prior to the vote on Stachurski’s motion, O’Hare touted the success of last winter’s limited operations at the Country Club managed by BCG, citing the popular chicken dinners on Friday nights and other items on a lite fare menu. Clarke responded that however popular the dinners were, they weren’t successful because they didn’t make money

County receives bids on Pines Plaza utility lines Commissioners may approve project at Sept. 17 meeting; low bid is $415,569 By TOM STAUSS Publisher waiting word that easements needed for the installation of water and sewer mains along Route 589 and Cathell Road in the commercial area west of Ocean Pines have been secured, the Worcester County Commissioners in their Sept. 17 meeting may be ready to approve what somewhat inaccurately has been called the Pines Plaza project. Sometime in the future, the utility lines that the county is close to approving will be able to serve the Pines Plaza shopping center, but until then they have a more limited purpose: providing public utility service to the Route 589 McDonalds, PNC bank, the Re/Max Crossroads building and lawyer’s office, the Ocean 7-Eleven, the 5-L commercial strip, the future site of a new Walgreens Pharmacy and possibly other buildings on Cathell Road across from the Pines Plaza. But no Pines Plaza, because its fate is tied up in bankruptcy recently filed by its owner, Berkley Trace LLC of Loxahatchee, Fla. Deputy Public Works Director John Ross told the Progress in early September that he had hoped that the county commissioners would accept the low bid for the project at their Sept. 3 meeting. But he said he’s still in the process of securing easements from property owners for the utility lines and until then the

project isn’t quite ready for approval. The low bid submitted for the project is for $415,569, by A.P. Kroll and Sons. Ross said he expects the commissioners will accept the low bid at the same that they consider and vote on a funding mechanism for the project, which he hopes will all occur at the Sept. 17 meeting. The county commissioners in early July approved bid specifications for the project, with bid proposals due back from contractors by Aug. 12. After a staff review of the bids, county public works officials normally make a recommendation on the preferred contractor to the commissioners, who have the final say on whether to authorize the project to proceed, the contractor and the project cost and financing mechanism. As a result of a revised engineering plan for the project, county officials were able to reduce the estimated cost of the project from the earlier $3 million to $500,000, primarily by deciding not to run water and sewer lines as far along Cathell Road as initially envisioned. In its current iteration, the project includes the installation of approximately 1,600 linear feet of gravity sewer and 2,300 linear feet of an eight-inch water line. The proposed funding mechanism has also changed from earlier plans. As proposed by staff but yet to be formally ratified by the commissioners, funds to build the utility lines initially would come from a loan from the county’s general fund, to be repaid over time as the affected commercial properties connect to the system.

Ross told the Progress that this proposed funding mechanism does not mean that the county has given up on the possibility of obtaining federal and state grants and loans to help finance the project. How all that will work out remains to be seen and should become clearer once the construction bids are opened and a contractor is selected and a project cost determined. Early in 2013, county officials received favorable notice from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on the status of funding to provide a permanent source of water and wastewater treatment services for the Pines Plaza, located just west of Ocean Pines and Route 589, and help create a new Greater Ocean Pines Service Area for much of the commercial district on nearby Cathell Road and Route 589. The Maryland Board of Public Works previously signed off on two separate requests before the state, one for about $200,000 for water improvements and another one for about $600,000 for wastewater collection. Ross previously had advised members of the Ocean Pines Water and Wastewater Advisory Committee that he had been notified via e-mail by the U.S. Department of Agriculture office in Dover, Del., that the long-established rural development program administered by that department would provide $2.1 million in low-interest loans to the county to help create the service area. Total cost of the project then was estimated at $3 million. With the project scope and cost now substantially reduced, it would seem likely that the USDA would reduce its funding, too.

for the OPA. Underscoring the philosophical divide between O’Hare and Clarke on basic budgetary issues, O’Hare responded that she defines success differently from Clarke. She said she’s been in Ocean Pines since 1975, when the practice was to operate the Country Club as the OPA’s primary food and beverage venue during the winter months. “It gave people a reason to go out, it was an opportunity for friends to meet up,” she said. The implied message was that she is fully prepared to subsidize that opportunity in 2013 and after, while Clarke said he believes private enterprise in the area is fully capable of providing that service, relieving the OPA of the obligation to subsidize it for the relatively few. Terry offered support for the idea of keeping the Country Club open this winter but seemed to emphasize the importance of providing a venue for training the staff that will operate the new Yacht Club in the spring. He said the staff will need “to hit the ground running” when the new facility opens, offering good food and consistent service. “Where we are today won’t be good enough,” he said. In order to be prepared, “you need a place to do it,” and he said the Country Club appears to be that place. Collins pushed back against the idea that the Country Club will serve as a suitable venue for training the new Yacht Club staff. He said there should be a 30- to 45-day “shakedown” at the new Yacht Club and that both food quality and service will need to be “plu-perfect.” “It needs to be at the Yacht Club,” he said. Stachurski disagreed. “Training isn’t location specific,” he said. At that point in the discussion, Stachurski offered his proposal for Thompson to draft a business plan for the Country Club this winter, to be presented for board approval in September. Clarke said in effect that whatever the general manager comes up with will be inadequate because it’s not possible for the OPA to break even or make money in the restaurant business during the November through February timeframe. While acknowledging that last winter’s successful Friday night chicken dinners were underpriced at $7, implying that they could be made more expensive, Terry summarized his reasons for supporting a decision to keep the Country Club open this winter. He said the OPA needs a training place for the new Yacht Club, and “our members want a place” to go for light fare and meeting friends. “It’s not a pure profit-loss situation,” he said, prompting Stachurski to say he agreed with Terry. “We have to be ready (at the new Yacht Club),” he said. “If we’re making mistakes (because of poor training), the place is going to explode.” He later added that he said a light fare menu with no live entertainment could be a formula that works at the Country Club

28 Ocean Pines PROGRESS September-Early October 2013

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ing were members Cordwell and John Trumpower. While Stachurski’s comments increase the chances that the board will take up the issue, and may even take it to referendum, the bylaws require that 20 percent of the OPA membership base, or just less than 900 property owners, can petition the board to conduct a referendum on the topic of the petition. It is generally thought that a petition containing the names of more than 800 property owners would force board action to conduct a referendum, that it’s not a matter of discretion. OPA bylaws seem to give the board some authority over the precise wording of a petition for a referendum, and the language in the bylaws has never been tested. Committee chair Dennis Hudson previously has warned that a petition effort would be possible, if not likely, should the board not act favorably on the committee’s recommendation. The board’s liaison to the committee, Terri Mohr, said she would forward the committee’s recommendation to the board of directors for consideration at its regular September meeting. Mohr, the OPA treasurer, has never said publicly during committee meetings whether she favors or opposes the recommendation to curb spending authority, or even if she would vote to let property owners decide the issue in a referendum. Hudson has said that he has not received positive feedback from most OPA board members about the proposed curb on their spending authority. The vote by the committee during its July meeting concluded several months of discussion and indecision on the issue about the best way to accomplish the objective. During the panel’s June 28 monthly meeting, members had debated a draft recommendation to amend the OPA bylaws to require a property owner referendum for any capital purchase in excess of 20 percent of the market value of the Association’s liquid assets. Liquid assets are defined by the committee as including money market funds or CDARs that can be converted to cash in 30 days. A document circulated during the meeting indicated that the OPA, as of May 30, had $9.5 million in CDAR and money market instruments on deposit at area banks. That number has probably fallen since then with expenditures related to the new Yacht Club swimming pool and new Yacht Club. Twenty percent of $9.5 million is $1.9 million, higher than the $1.6 million the board can spend now under the OPA bylaws, which say a referendum is required if a project costs 20 percent of the annual OPA revenues. The generally accepted definition of annual OPA rev-

By TOM STAUSS Publisher espite a recent suggestion from the chairman of the Ocean Pines Association’s budget and finance committee that he is skeptical that the board of directors will act to curb board spending authority, there is some recent indication that directors might not be all that resistant to change, or at least will allow property owners to decide the issue in a referendum. OPA Director Marty Clarke has long favored a reduction in board spending authority, currently set at 20 percent of the revenues collected from the annual lot assessments, or roughly $1.6 million. Newly elected director Jack Collins, the top vote-getter in this summer’s election, has said that he favors a reduction. The second top vote-getter in the election, former budget committee member Bill Cordwell, declined to take a position on the matter this past summer, perhaps implying he was not on board with the budget committee’s recommended change. Whether he was truly opposed to the change or just preferred to keep his powder dry on the issue remains to be seen. But in a signal that the ground may be shifting on the issue, OPA Director Dan Stachurski told the Progress in a recent telephone interview that he is willing to take the issue to referendum, in a somewhat different form than that proposed by the budget committee, which in July voted to recommend a reduction in the board’s spending authority from 20 percent of the annual assessment to 10 percent. A referendum of property owners would be necessary to effect the curb on spending authority because the 20 percent threshold is spelled out in OPA bylaws that can only be amended by a majority of those voting in a referendum. Stachurski said that rather than reducing the threshold to ten percent of the annual assessment, he would favor a referendum allowing property owners to establish an upward limit on board spending authority at $1 million per project. At current assessment rates, a $1 million threshold would allow the board to spend roughly $200,000 more than the $800,000 allowed under the committee proposal. Over time, as assessments increase, that differential would tend to diminish. At the budget committee’s July 26 monthly meeting, members by a 6-0 vote, and two abstentions, voted to recommend a change in the OPA bylaws that would reduce the board’s spending authority from the current 20 percent of annual assessment revenue to ten percent. The motion to recommend the change was made by committee member John Weltzelberger. New member Pat Supik voted with the majority. Abstain-

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30 Ocean Pines PROGRESS September-Early October 2013 By ROTA L. KNOTT Contributing Writer opulation shifts among Worcester County’s election districts as illustrated in the 2010 census have prompted significant boundary changes for many of the districts, but residents of Ocean Pines will remain in districts 5 and 6. The Worcester County Commissioners are scheduled to approve the revised election district boundaries on Sept. 17, following a series of sparsely attended public hearings in July and August. While things remain stable in the all Ocean Pines District 5, voting blocks are being shifted in District 6, which includes the northernmost edge of Ocean Pines and the Bishopville area. A currently uninhabited land area just south of Ocean Pines – an area owned by Steen Associates that eventually will become a 60-lot subdivision to be annexed into Ocean Pines – has been added to District 6. An additional approximately 300 residents from outside of Ocean Pines are being shifted into District 6 as part of the redistricting. Residents of the Friendship area and from Route 113 to the Delaware state line are being moved out of District 6 and into District 4, the largest in terms of coverage area. Although things remained fairly stable in the Ocean Pines area and the all-Ocean City District 7, major changes

Revised county election maps mostly preserve Pines districts were made to four of the districts, the West Ocean City/Sinepuxent District 3, the Snow Hill/Berlin area western District 4, the minority-majority election District 5 that stretches from Berlin to Snow Hill and now on to Pocomoke City, and the Pocomoke City/ Stockton area District 1. Changes to the election district boundaries had to be made because the minority population has shifted in Worcester County. In order to retain a minority-majority district, the county had to alter the District 5 boundaries to pick up minority residents further south. That district, District 5 represented by long-time Commissioner James Purnell, currently includes just parts of Berlin and Snow Hill, but for the next election it will also include a significant chunk of Pocomoke City. The other six current election districts were carved out around the minority-majority district. Residents of Berlin will now be divided among three of the seven county election districts. If the county had not revised the district boundaries, the minoritymajority would have ceased to exist. However, each of the seven current districts violates at least one of the

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Spending authority enues are those collected from annual lot assessments, while annual amenity membership dues are excluded from the formula used to determine the referendum threshold. Trumpower repeated that he does not really support additional curbs on board spending authority and that the community elects directors to make “these spending decisions,” while other committee members said that authority is already restricted by the bylaws with larger expenditures requiring a referendum vote. Mohr suggested that the panel should make its recommendation “a number,” without specifying what that number

another race, and 9,322 are listed as minorities, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s website. Based on those figures the county stills needs to meet the courtmandated requirements for a minoritymajority district comprised largely of black voters. If the county has a minority population of about 14 percent of the total population, it is required to have a minority-majority district. That district must also contain a super majority of minority residents at 60 percent. The Ocean Pines census tract includes 8,870 housing units, with occupied housing units said to total 5,471 and 3,399 listed as vacant. The number of housing units listed as vacant may actually be representative of those homes owned by non-resident owners. Census data shows District 5 currently contains a total population of 7,727, with the northern District 6 having a population of 7,115. The commissioners introduced legislation adopting the election districts as an emergency bill so it will become effective immediately following passage on Sept. 17. That will enable the Board of Elections to determine the precinct lines and polling places and notify voters of any changes as far possible in advance of the Feb. 25, 2014 deadline for candidates to file for election. should be. Trumpower suggested that the percentage in the existing bylaws could be simply dropped from 20 to 10 percent, calling it “easier, cleaner” than the alternatives. The committee then debated whether the restriction should be on total capital spending for any given year, as opposed to each proposed expenditure, but Mohr said that approach would be “too restrictive” and would almost definitely be rejected by the board. Trumpower said it was clear that the committee didn’t have “a handle” on what to recommend, and Hudson agreed. He said the issue would be taken up again at the committee’s July meeting. It was, and the committee made up its collective mind. Now the ball is in the board of directors’

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principles of voting districts. All except the all-Ocean City District 7 required adjustments based on population changes, which resulted in a 29 percent deviation between the highest and lowest total population in the election districts. The rural-based District 4 already contains nearly 46 percent of the land mass in Worcester County. In order to reduce the overall population of District 3, which currently includes all of West Ocean City, 80 percent of Berlin and stretches down Route 611 to South Point and west toward Ocean Pines, from 9,188 to a more comfortable 7,485, residents are being shifted to other districts. District 6 will pick up some of those residents along the southwest side of Ocean Pines down Gum Point Road to Herring Creek. Other areas now part of District 3 will be moved to District 4, as well. The county’s total current population is 51,548. Of the total population 83 percent or 42,226 listed their race as white, alone or in combination with

From Page 29

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September-Early October 2013 Ocean Pines PROGRESS 31

WORCESTER COUNTY

Worcester schools beat statewide average test scores on MSA By ROTA L. KNOTT Contributing Writer he 2013 Maryland School Assessment scores show that Worcester County public schools are prepared to meet higher expectations associated with the Common Core state standards and Maryland’s third wave of education reform, says the county’s superintendent of schools. “The bar is rising with new standards, new curricula, and higher accountability,” Jerry Wilson said. “Our student performance, as measured by the 2013 MSA and a host of other indicators, demonstrates that we are ready to advance our students to the ‘next level,’ preparing them for college and career and to compete globally. The opportunities for continued growth are tremendous.” The Maryland State Department of Education has made available the MSA results showing that, statewide, there was a slight decline in scores at some grade levels as school systems transition to the new Common Core curricu-

Hamilton named assistant Emergency Services director

James Hamilton, Jr. is the new Worcester County Emergency Services assistant director, following the promotion of Fred Webster to director of Emergency Services. Hamilton is a trained emergency management and public safety professional. His experience and active certifications include emergency management, emergency medical services, fire services, emergency communications and hazardous materials. He has specialized training in emergency public warning, social media for crisis communications, interoperable communications and operations center management. Prior to joining Worcester County, he worked as the emergency preparedness manager for Cecil County Emergency Services and as manager for the Maryland Emergency Management Agency. He is currently pursuing a degree in emergency management.

Spay and neuter clinic wins MACo award

Worcester County’s low-cost spay and neuter clinic won the president’s best practices award from the Maryland Association of Counties. The program offers spaying and neutering of cats and dogs by Dr. William Schultz at the Worcester County Animal Control center in Snow Hill. The reduced rates are $50 to spay or neuter a cat and $100 for a dog. The program was approved by the Worcester County Commissioners in 2001 and began in March 2012. It is offered two Mondays per month at animal control and is a self-sufficient program. The program does not entail any extra hours for animal control employees because the service is entirely performed

lum. The 2013 MSA was given in March to all Maryland students in grades 3 through 8. The July 23 release of the results for Worcester County shows that 94 percent of students in testing grades 3 through 8 scored “proficient” or “advanced” in both reading and mathematics. Fifty-six percent of students scored advanced in reading, while 54 percent scored advanced in mathematics. Preliminary results also indicate that all Worcester County public schools met their annual measurable objectives. When compared with the state, Worcester County students exceeded performance averages on the assessments. In grades 3 to 5, 95.3 percent of students scored proficient or advanced in reading on the 2013 MSA, while the state average in reading at the elementary level was 86.4 percent. In mathematics, Worcester students scored 94.4 percent, while the state average at the elementary school level was 83.9 percent. At the middle school level for grades 6

to 8, 93.6 percent of students scored proficient or advanced in reading, while the state average in reading at the middle school level was 83.4 percent. In mathematics, Worcester students scored 92.3 percent, compared to the state average of 72.2 percent. During the last decade, progress on the MSA has also been significant for Worcester County students. At the elementary school level, the percent of students scoring proficient and advanced rose by 17.4 percentage points in reading, from 77.9 percent in 2004 to 95.3 percent in 2013. In mathematics, the percentage rose by 14.3 percentage points, from 80.1 percent to 94.4 percent during the same time period. The percent of students scoring proficient or advanced at the middle school level dramatically improved since the first test was administered ten years ago. The percentage of middle school students scoring proficient and advanced rose by 23.8 percent in reading, from 69.8 percent in 2004 to 93.6 percent in 2013. In mathematics, the percent rose

AROUND THE COUNTY during regular business hours. In 2012 the program spayed or neutered 167 animals, and so far in 2013 it has done so for 65 animals. The surgeries are performed and the animals are picked up by their owners the same day to return home.

Mosquito pools test positive for viruses

The Worcester and Wicomico county health departments have received updated test results from the state that a mosquito pool in southern Worcester County tested positive for Eastern Equine Encephalitis. In Wicomico County, there was one pool that tested positive for West Nile Virus, one pool that tested positive for EEE, and an additional pool tested positive for both. The pools were sampled in remote, low lying areas of the counties, usually known to have standing water year round. This is in addition to the single sample of mosquitoes from Ocean Pines that tested positive for WNV in August. West Nile Virus is most common during the summer and fall months, and the number of infections usually peaks in mid-August. The virus is transmitted by infected mosquitoes and spreads to humans, birds, horses and other animals. Since mosquitoes can breed in as little as a quarter inch of water, the recent rain may attract more mosquitoes. Many factors impact when and where outbreaks occur, such as weather, numbers of mosquitoes that spread the virus, and human behavior. Most people infected with West Nile virus will show no symptoms; however, some people may have mild to severe symptoms that may include swollen lymph glands, a rash, fever, headache,

disorientation and others. The easiest and best way to avoid this virus is to prevent mosquito bites. Signs and symptoms of Eastern Equine Encephalitis include fever, headache, irritability, restlessness, drowsiness, vomiting, diarrhea, cyanosis, convulsions, and coma. There are no medications to treat, or vaccines to prevent EEE virus infection. To help prevent contact with mosquitoes and reduce risk of infection by the West Nile virus and EEE: stay indoors at dawn and dusk, wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants when outdoors, use an EPA-registered insect repellent and follow package instructions, get rid of mosquito breeding sites, remove all discarded tires from property, dispose of water-holding containers, change the water in pet dishes and replace the water in bird baths weekly, drill holes in tire swings so water drains out, and keep children’s wading pools empty and on their sides when they are not in use.

September is National Preparedness Month

Worcester County Emergency Services is participating in National Preparedness Month during September in an effort to increase preparedness on the Eastern Shore. The event, now in its ninth year, is a nationwide, month-long effort hosted by the Ready Campaign and Citizen Corps, encouraging households, businesses and communities to prepare and plan for emergencies. One of NPM’s key messages is to be prepared in the event an emergency causes you to be self-reliant for three days without utilities and electricity, water service, access to a supermarket or local services, or maybe even with-

by 29.6 percentage points, from 62.7 percent to 92.3 percent over the same time period. “During times of transition, educators must utilize the accountability measures of the past, while transitioning to the higher expectations of the future. Our sustained excellence on the MSA shows that our effective and dedicated staff is committed to high expectations for each student’s achievement and continuous improvement. Teachers continue to be focused on meeting the needs of each individual child,” Wilson said. The Common Core standards and curricula will be fully implemented in the 2013-2014 school year. “We are facing the future with confidence, knowing that our students demonstrate high success rates using the current standards, curricula, and accountability system,” Wilson said. “We believe that the time is right to increase rigor in our educational programs. No one ever reached higher levels of achievement without increased expectations.” out response from police, fire or rescue. Preparations start with four steps: Be informed about emergencies that could happen in your community, and identify sources of information in your community that will be helpful before, during and after an emergency; make a plan for what to do in an emergency; build an emergency supply kit and get involved.

Worcester County holds scrap tire drop-off day

The Worcester County Public Works Recycling Division, in conjunction with the Maryland Department of the Environment and Maryland Environmental Services, will hold a scrap tire drop-off day on Sept. 14 from 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. at the Central Landfill in Newark. Worcester County residents can drop off tires of any size, on or off the rim, at no cost during the event. However, no businesses, commercial haulers of tires or generators of scrap tires will be permitted to participate. Contact Worcester County Recycling Coordinator Ron Taylor at 410-6323177.

Public Landing Pier reopens to the public

The Public Landing Pier reopened to the public in August after a ten-month closure. The pier was severely damaged during Hurricane Sandy in late October 2012. Rehak’s Contracting, LLC of Baltimore, Maryland repaired the pier at a total cost of $198,226, with Federal Emergency Management Agency funding of $44,395 and insurance settlement funds of $130,861 covering a majority of the needed repairs. Unobligated funds available in the Public Landing Bulkhead/Marina Project covered the remaining expenses.

CAPTAIN’S COVE

32 Ocean Pines PROGRESS September-Early October 2013

Captain’s Cove getting serious about selling off Sections 14-18 POA to develop business plan to guide process for disposing of the undeveloped sections of the Cove in a bulk sale to a developer or perhaps to farming interests By TOM STAUSS Publisher he possibility of selling off association and developer-owned lots in Sections 14 through 18 in a block sale to a developer or perhaps to farming interests has been on the radar for much of the year by the Captain’s Cove property owner association. The possibility seems to have taken on more urgency of late, as the Cove association’s board of directors is now regarding the sale as a critical piece of raising revenues needed to help balance the books in the next year or so, especially in the area of building reserves for identified and needed capital expenditures. Although such a block sale is not imminent, the directors at their Aug. 15 meeting, during which they approved next year’s budget and an increase in some lot assessments, signaled their intent to develop a business plan for that eventuality. It’s seen as a way to deal with what most of the directors believe is a shortfall in capital expenditure funding provided for in the budget they approved for the fiscal year to begin Oct. 1. Tim Hearn, the Cove president, said during the meeting that the Cove and developer interests control threeeighths of the lots in these sections, with the percentage to increase to 50 percent after the next set of foreclosure sales. The POA continues to encourage owners of lots in these sections to swap them for association-owned lots in Sections 1 through 11, so over time that percentage will probably increase. To that end, the board modified the policy with respect to land swaps, upping the value of lots in Sections 1 through 13 that can be obtained through swapping out lots in Sections 14 through 18. The old policy had a limit of $3,500 on lots that could be obtained in a swap; the new value will be $5,000, making the swaps potentially more attractive for participants. Even with a checkerboard pattern of ownership, Hearn said he believes there will be interest from developer or farming interests in acquiring the property. He said down south large tracts of land with the same some sort of checkerboard ownership pattern have sold. Perhaps more definitively than he has before, Hearn said there is no way that any of the individual building lots platted in Sections 14 through 18 will ever be developed. He said Virginia environmental regulators have informed the Captain’s Cove Utility Co., of which Hearn is the man-

aging partner, that they will never approve the extension of water and sewer infrastructure into these sections. In addition, he said that there is no chance that the developer interests in the Cove will ever build roads into those sections. Of the 778 platted lots in Sections 14 through 18, Hearn said that 148 are current on their assessments, 362 are developer owned, 66 are POA owned, 30 are in arrears by $1,000 or less, and 172 owe the POA more than $1,000 in overdue assessments. Those 172 are foreclosure targets or are eligible for land swaps, provided that property owners cure their delinquencies. The POA will also accept deeds in lieu of foreclosure from property owners who can’t pay, under certain conditions.

said, was about $661,000. But because some board members were uncomfortable raising the assessments on 2,300 lot owners to more than $1,100, Hearn said the fallback will allow an additional $230,000 to be spent rather than the full $661,000. The difference at some point will have to be made up, Hearn said, and that’s where the bulk sale of Sections 14-18 comes into the equation. The approved budget for the new fiscal year does not identify precisely what that additional $230,000 will be spent on, but Hearn told the Progress that it will include a range of capital expenditures such as replacing older HVAC equipment in the Marina Club building, an indoor pool heater, and maintenance vehicles (the latter of which can be cap-

Even with a checkerboard pattern of ownership, Cove POA President Tim Hearn Hearn said he believes there will be interest from developer or farming interests in acquiring the property. In developing a business plan for the bulk property, Hearn said the POA would consult with the Realtor handling lot sales for the Cove association, Cindy Welsh, and might also consider hiring a commercial broker based in St. Michaels or a “high-end” broker based in Virginia Beach to help with the sale. The decision to develop a business plan for a block sale was made in the context of a board whose members were trying hard to avoid raising base lot assessments in the Cove to more than $1,100 per year. That they managed to do, setting the rate at $950 per year, while reducing the assessments for waterfront owners whose contributions in recent years have far exceeded the expenses of dredging. Waterfront owners, roughly a quarter of those in the Cove, will actually see a reduction in their assessments in the new fiscal year. Much of the Aug. 15 meeting seemed to be laying out the case for an assessment increase to $1,140 per year, which Hearn said would be needed to fully fund all of the POA’s funding needs, based on requests from the Waterfront and Long Range Planning committees and an operating shortfall identified by the Cove’s accounting firm. The sum of all those requests, Hearn

italized over five years). Some limited road resurfacing will also occur as dollars permit. “We’ll bring them (capital expenditures) up over the course of the years for approval,” he said. Hearn said that if funds were available, about $125,000 could be spent on roads resurfacing, but the funding shortfall resulting from raising assessments to $950 means actual road resurfacing will be limited next year, perhaps in the amount of $15,000. “We can’t fund everything that needs to be funded all in one year,” he said. The road resurfacing is not to be confused with the construction of new roads in areas that don’t have them. New road construction has a separate funding stream – a line of credit that the POA will obtain once the county approves engineering plans to complete roads in Sections 1 through 13. In the discussion about new road construction during the Aug. 15 meeting, Hearn said about 700 lots in the Cove don’t have paved roads for access, and those lot owners comprise a large percentage of the lots that are seriously delinquent in the payment of lot assessments. Once a road provides access to a building lot, Hearn said that the assess-

ment collection rate rises to 90 percent. In undeveloped Sections 12 and 13, 130 lots are current in assessments out of roughly 300, he said. So, in theory, building roads in those two sections will more than double the number of lots current in their assessments. Credit card payments: The board discussed at some length the policy of allowing property owners to make monthly payments on their annual lot assessments. A change in procedure will allow property owners to make such payments via credit card, but the POA will not pick up the 2.5 percent convenience premium that credit card companies charge for that service. Previously, that convenience fee has been absorbed by the POA, which Hearn has characterized as unfair to property owners who pay their assessments in twice-annual payments. To make monthly payments by credit cards when new half-year assessments go out in September for the new fiscal year, property owners will see their credit card statements reflecting the 2.5 percent convenience charge. Golf pro shop hours: In a cost-cutting move, the Cove board approved a reduction in golf pro days and hours of operation beginning Sept. 1. The pro shop will be closed on Tuesday and Thursday, and riding carts will not be available on those days although the course will be open for walkers. On the days when the pro shop is open, staff from the town center café will be helping out in the pro shop as well, cutting down on operating expense. September board meeting: Due to scheduling conflicts, the September board of directors meeting has been moved from Thursday, Sept. 26 to Sunday, Sept. 29, at 10 a.m. in the Marina Club’s banquet room. Because of a staffing issue, live streaming of the meeting will not occur as usual. Foreclosure sales: Attorneys for the Cove conducted a foreclosure auction of 32 Cove lots on Aug. 15 in the banquet room, tucked in between the morning and afternoon session of the board meeting held that day. While most of the lots were acquired by the Cove association because of a lack of bidding interest, five of the lots had at least one interested buyer and sold over the minimum listed price, in every case by $100. The third in a series of association-sponsored foreclosure auctions is set for Oct. 4 at the Marina Club, beginning at noon. A list of the properties scheduled for sale appears on page 35 of this edition of the Progress. There are 28 properties list. Some may drop off the list if the owners take action to relieve the arrearages. The Cove POA and the Captain’s Cove Utilities Co. are cooperating in the latest auction, as has occurred in the earlier ones.

PenFed Realty September-Early October 2013 Ocean Pines PROGRESS 33

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GOLF COURSE LOTS

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INTERIOR LOTS

$2,000 1/1060 Wooded (478966) $2,500 3/1804 Wooded (482476) $2,500 3/1807 Wooded (482477) $3,500 6/39 Wooded (479422) $3,500 5/2545 Wooded (477724) $3,500 3/1800 Wooded (482405)

$86,000 3/1443 Cleared Canal, W & S (477567)

$3,500 3/1837 Wooded (482446) $3,500 3/1840 Wooded (482447) $3,500 3/1841 Wooded (482448) $3,500 7/200 Cleared (482473) $3,500 7/203 Cleared (482445) $3,500 6/41 Wooded (482474) $3,500 11/56 Wooded (482475) $3,500 1/492 Wooded (482480) $3,500 1/496 Wooded (482483) $3,500 1/841 Wooded (482485) $3,500 1/844 Wooded (482487) $3,500 4/1886 Wooded (482489) $3,500 4/1900 Wooded (482490) $3,500 4/1902 Wooded (482492) $3,500 1/624 Wooded (482495) $3,500 1/1077 Wooded (483044) $4,800 4/2294 Wooded, Septic Approved (484100) $4,900 5/2442 Wooded Septic Approved (482063) $5,000 9/20 Cleared (477718) $5,000 4/2014 Wooded (477726) $5,000 6/63 Wooded (477728)

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$79,900 1/905 Partially wooded, $79,900 1/913 Bay views, on Canal, W & S (483215) canal (485261)

$5,000 7/275 Cleared (482630) $5,000 11/85 Wooded (482330) $5,000 11/7 Wooded (482334) $5,000 4/2092 Wooded (482488) $5,000 5/2455 Wooded, Septic Approved (483219) $5,000 1/1084 Wooded, W & S (481352) $6,000 8/39 Cleared (483299) $7,000 14/83 Cleared, Septic Approved (482888) $7,900 4/2177 Wooded, Septic Approved (483968) $8,000 5/2438 Wooded, Septic Approved (478432) $8,000 2/89 Wooded (484423) $8,500 11/2 Wooded (479198) $8,500 11/3 Wooded (479197) $8,500 9/101 Wooded (479207) $8,500 6/45 Wooded, Septic Approved (481154) $8,900 3/1723 Wooded, Septic Approved (478995) $8,900 11/10 Wooded, Septic Approved (478998) $11,500 1/ 1252 Wooded, W & S (481587) $12,000 1/1250 Wooded, W & S (483681) $15,000 3/1640 Cleared, Septic Approved (482892)

2012 BRER Affiliates, Inc. An independently owned and operated broker member of BRER Affiliates Inc. Prudential, the Prudential logo and the Rock symbol are registered service marks of Prudential Financial, Inc., and its related entities, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Used under license with no other other affiliation with Prudential. Equal Housing Opportunity. Prudential PenFed is an independently owned and operated member of BRER Affiliates, Inc. PenFed membership is not required to conduct business with Prudential PenFed Realty

34 Ocean Pines PROGRESS September-Early October 2013

CAPTAIN’S COVE

September-Early October 2013 Ocean Pines PROGRESS 35

CAPTAIN’S COVE

FORECLOSURE SALE OF REAL ESTATE IN CAPTAIN’S COVE

October 4, 2013, 12:00 PM

To be held at the Marina Club in Captain’s Cove Subdivision 3323 Dock Court, Greenbackville, VA 23301 The following properties will be auctioned: Section/Lot: 1-0504, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A10100050400 Assessed Value: $7,500.00 Minimum Bid: $1,900.00

Section/Lot: 6-0006, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A50200000600 Assessed Value: $17,500.00 Minimum Bid: $800.00

Section/Lot: 12-0096, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A70200009600 Assessed Value: $4,000.00 Minimum Bid: $1,000.00

Section/Lot: 3-1477, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A30100147700 Assessed Value: $57,500.00 Minimum Bid: $4,300.00

Section/Lot: 1-0768, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A10100076800 Assessed Value: $20,300.00 Minimum Bid: $800.00

Section/Lot: 8-0004, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A50300000400 Assessed Value: $17,500.00 Minimum Bid: $2,000.00

Section/Lot: 12-0107, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A70200010700 Assessed Value: $4,000.00 Minimum Bid: $900.00

Section/Lot: 1-0843, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A10100084300 Assessed Value: $7,500.00 Minimum Bid: $1,100.00

Section/Lot: 9-0043, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A50400004300 Assessed Value: $17,500.00 Minimum Bid: $1,400.00

Section/Lot: 12-0113, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A70200011300 Assessed Value: $4,000.00 Minimum Bid: $900.00

Section/Lot: 3-1604, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A30100160400 Assessed Value: $17,500.00 Minimum Bid: $1,700.00

Section/Lot: 9-0044, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A50400004400 Assessed Value: $17,500.00 Minimum Bid: $1,600.00

Section/Lot: 13-0081, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A70100008100 Assessed Value: $4,000.00 Minimum Bid: $800.00

Section/Lot: 3-1767, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A30100176700 Assessed Value: $7,500.00 Minimum Bid: $900.00

Section/Lot: 9-0112, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A50400011200 Assessed Value: $17,500.00 Minimum Bid: $1,400.00

Section/Lot: 13-0238, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A70100023800 Assessed Value: $4,000.00 Minimum Bid: $1,100.00

Section/Lot: 3-1833, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A30100183300 Assessed Value: $7,500.00 Minimum Bid: $1,200.00

Section/Lot: 9-0163, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A50400016300 Assessed Value: $17,500.00 Minimum Bid: $1,600.00

Section/Lot: 13-0343, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A70100034300 Assessed Value: $4,000.00 Minimum Bid: $900.00

Section/Lot: 4-1917, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A40100191700 Assessed Value: $17,500.00 Minimum Bid: $1,700.00

Section/Lot: 11-0027, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A50100002700 Assessed Value: $17,500.00 Minimum Bid: $1,000.00

Section/Lot: 13-0359, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A70100035900 Assessed Value: $4,000.00 Minimum Bid: $900.00

Section/Lot: 4-1964, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A40100196400 Assessed Value: $17,500.00 Minimum Bid: $1,000.00

Section/Lot: 12-0012, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A70200001200 Assessed Value: $4,000.00 Minimum Bid: $1,000.00

TERMS: Announcements made at auction time take precedence over any print, electronic, or verbal information, including but not limited to the Minimum Bid. Successful bidder will be required to deposit with Trustee a deposit (non-refundable) in an amount equal to Minimum Bid or 10% of successful bid (whichever is greater) in cash or certified funds at time of sale, with the closing to occur within thirty days of the date of said sale. Written one-price bids will be accepted for any of the properties pursuant to the terms set forth in Va. Code § 55-516. There is no warranty relating to right, title, interest, or the like in this disposition. Property is being sold pursuant to Va. Code § 55516, and title will be conveyed pursuant to statute and subject to all liens or encumbrances as provided in said statute. All information for review by appointment only or one hour prior to auction time at auction location. Notwithstanding the Minimum Bids set forth above, the Trustee reserves the right to accept and/or reject all offers. Time is of the essence. Other conditions may be announced at the sale.

Section/Lot: 13-0372, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A70100037200 TRUSTEE: Assessed Value: $4,000.00 Pender & Coward, P.C., Minimum Bid: $1,000.00

Section/Lot: 5-0004, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A40300000400 Assessed Value: $17,500.00 Minimum Bid: $900.00

Section/Lot: 12-0080, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A70200008000 Assessed Value: $4,000.00 Minimum Bid: $900.00

Section/Lot: 13-0360, Captain’s Cove Tax Map No. 005A70100036000 Phone: (757) 490-6261 Assessed Value: $4,000.00 Email: capcove@pendercoward.com Minimum Bid: $800.00

222 Central Park Ave., Virginia Beach, VA

36 Ocean Pines PROGRESS September-Early October 2013

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September-Early October 2013 Ocean Pines PROGRESS 37

Monday, Sept. 9 The Friends of the Ocean Pines Libary, monthly meeting, 10 a.m., Ocean Pines library. Refreshments 9:30 a.m. The program features Dr. Benjamin Beck, who will discuss his work to save the endangered gold lion tamarin monkey in Brazil. He is the author of a book on the subject, Thirteen Gold Monkeys. 410-208-4014. Basket Bingo, Church of the Holy Spirit, 100th Street and Coastal Highway, Ocean City, 7 p.m. Longaberger baskets, Vera Bradley bags, cash, raffles and refreshments. Tickets $20 in advance and $25 at the door, call Martha, 302-436-7866, or the church office at 410-723-1973. Tuesday, Sept. 10 Ocean Pines Association, Board of Directors work session, Administration Building, White Horse Park, board room, 4 p.m. Topic: draft capital improvement plan. Thursday, Sept. 12 Ocean Pines Garden Club, monthly meeting, Ocean Pines Community Center, 10 a.m. Featuring Travis Wright, executive chef/owner of The Shark on the Harbor in West Ocean City,

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HAPPENINGS speaking on cooking with fresh herbs. Business meeting to follow. Fall meeting, Democratic Club of Ocean City/Berlin, 10:30 a.m., guided tour of Rackliffe Plantation House, 273-year-old house near Assateague Island recently restored by group of local citizens. Cost is $15 for club members and $25 for non-members. 410-600-0552 by Sept. 9 to reserve. Dutch treat lunch to follow at the Assateague Island Oasis. Saturday, Sept. 14 Fall Open House, Pine’eer Craft and Gift Shop, White Horse Park, Ocean Pines, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Door prizes and refreshments. The store features seasonal handcrafted home décor, jewelry, and fashion accessories created by members of the Pine’eer Craft Club. Fall flea market, sponsored by the Friends of the Worcester County Commission for Women, 8 a.m. to noon, Ocean Pines Community Center. Fundraiser to help finance organizational projects and activities including the McGuffey Bookworm Project, Suddenly Single and Worcester G.O.L.D. To donate items or for additional information, contact Mary Stover at 410-726-1795. Tuesday, Sept. 17 The Worcester County Commission for Women, monthly meeting, 5-6:30 p.m., Ocean Pines library, 11107 Cathell Road, Ocean Pines. Open to women of all ages. Seeking for shortterm assignments such as grant writing and event planning. For information, contact Chairman Donna Main at 410632-5040. Wednesday, Sept. 18 Ocean Pines Association, Board of Directors, regular monthly meeting, 3 p.m., Ocean Pines Community Center, Assateague Room.

Thursday, Sept. 19 The Pine’eer Craft Club, monthly meeting, Ocean Pines Community Center, 9:45 a.m. After the business meeting, members will create a stamped sweatshirt; cost $3. Please bring fresh or silk fall leaves. All residents of Ocean Pines and surrounding communities welcome. Saturday, Sept. 21 Bus trip to the National Book Festival, National Mall, Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the Friends of Ocean Pines Library, Deadline for reservations Sept. 11. Bus to leave Ocean Pines library at 7 a.m., to return by about 8:30 p.m. Short rest stop in Easton in the morning, and a stop for fast food near Annapolis on the return trip. $35 per person. Checks payable to Friends of the Ocean Pines Library with home phone number, cell phone number and e-mail address to Jean Fry, 6 MacAfee Court, Ocean Pines, MD 21811. 410-2084269. Information sheets and entry form available at the library. Wednesday, Oct. 2 Ocean Pines Association, Board of Directors, work session, Administration building, White Horse Park, board room, 4 p.m. Topics include budget guidance. Saturday, Oct. 5 The Parke at Ocean Pines’ fall community yard sale, 7 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., driveways in the Parke, South Ocean Pines. Clothes, lamps, artwork, household items, electronics, and furniture. Saturday, Oct. 26 & Sunday, Oct. 27 Autumn Home and Condo Show, Ocean City Convention Center, 10 a.m.6 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Sunday.

Interior and Outdoor displays, showcasing new products and ideas on remodeling, decorating, accessorizing, and renovating. Arts and crafts, free drawings, Health Craft cooking show, door prizes, free parking.

Ongoing

Pine’eer Craft Club, White Horse Park, Ocean Pines, open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Handcrafted home decor, jewelry, and fashion accessories, created by members of the Pine’eer Craft Club. Pancake breakfast every Saturday, 8 a.m. till noon, Ocean City Airport, to support the Ocean City Aviation Association’s Huey Memorial Display restoration and continuous maintenance fund. The display is located near the Terminal and requires no security procedures to view. Contact Tom Oneto, 410-641-6888, or Airport Operations,410-213-2471. Suicide Grievers’ Support Group, 3rd Wednesday every month, 6 p.m., Worcester County Health Department, Healthway Drive, Berlin, adjacent to Atlantic General Hospital. Open to anyone who has lost a friend or loved one to suicide. Free of charge. Quiet listening, caring people, no judgment. 410-629-0164 or www.jessespaddle.org. Kiwanis Club meets every Wednesday at 7:45 a.m. in the Ocean Pines Community Center except Wednesday, Nov. 14, and the third Wednesday of the month when they meet at the Woodlands in Ocean Pines from January through May 2013 for an evening dinner meeting starting 6 p.m., $18 per person. Doors open 5:30 p.m. all 410-641-7330. Ocean Pines plant clinic, Ocean Pines library lobby, every Tuesday 1-4 p.m. May 1 until Sept. 25. Got plant problems or bugs? Bring your bagged samples by and let expert master gardeners find solutions to your questions. Sanctioned duplicate bridge games,

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Friday, Sept. 6 Presentation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, covered pavilion, Sturgis Park, Snow Hill, 7 p.m. Brown Box Theatre Project of Boston. Bring your beach chair or blanket.

38 Ocean Pines PROGRESS September-Early October

OPINION

COMMENTARY Capital improvement planning takes center stage

busy and even portentous year of policy-making begins anew with a work session of the Ocean Pines Association’s board of directors on Sept. 9. The subject of the work session, the draft capital improvement plan that will govern capital spending in Ocean Pines for the next ten years – at least if one OPA director has his druthers – is one that ought to be of interest to every OPA member who cares about how his assessment dollars are invested. The work session on the 9th won’t come close to clarifying the shape of that ten-year improvement plan, but perhaps it will clarify the process by which the plan will take shape. It is the goal of Director Dan Stachurski, whose motion to begin a process was made in September of 2012, to have an approved version of a plan, including a well thought-out list of future capital projects, signed, sealed and delivered by the time he retires from the board in August of next year. Other directors are just as engaged as Stachurski in wanting a concrete, workable plan in place. One would think that goal is achievable. Two years from the time an enabling motion was passed should be sufficient to have an actionable plan in place to guide OPA capital investments in the coming years. The former board of directors engaged in some friendly debate this past July over whether the general manager had complied with the letter and spirit of Stachurski’s 2012 motion calling for the GM to present a proposed “rack-and-stack” of major capital projects by this past June. Some directors felt the general manager had missed the deadline, while others more or less acknowledged that he did miss the deadline but that it didn’t really matter. Stachurski seemed to straddle the competing opinions by saying what had been presented, an initial phase in the plan, was a step forward. More recently, he seems to be suggesting that perhaps he had been too diplomatic in his previous asFrom Page 37 Ocean Pines Community Center, Sundays 1 p.m., Mondays noon, Tuesdays 10 a.m. Partners guaranteed. $5, special games $6. Third Sunday of every month is Swiss teams (no partner guaranteed for teams). Felicia Daly, 410-208-1272; Pat Kanz, 410-641-8071 The U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, Flotilla 12-05, meets the first Monday of each month at 7:30 p.m. in the U.S.C.G. Station, Ocean City. Visitors and new members are welcome. Dennis Kalinowski, 410-208-4147. Web site http:// a0541205.uscgaux.info. Kabbalah class with Saturday services, coffee, juice and bagels, 9:30 a.m., Saturdays, Temple Bat Yam, 410-6414311. Life after loss support group, second and fourth Tuesday of each month at the Community Church at Ocean Pines,

The capital improvement plan is not just some musty document that will end up on some shelf somewhere, ignored and then forgotten. It’s a blueprint for major (and even minor) capital spending over the foreseeable future in Ocean Pines. It’s a big deal. sessment; he now freely acknowledges that what Thompson presented this past June was not what Stachurski wanted and expected to be delivered this past June. It achieves little to extensively relitigate what did or did not happen this past summer, other than to acknowledge what didn’t happen, achieve some degree of insight into why it didn’t, and then to double down on efforts to make up for lost time. The capital improvement plan is not just some musty document that will end up on some shelf somewhere, ignored and then forgotten. It’s a blueprint for major (and even minor) capital spending over the foreseeable future in Ocean Pines. It’s a big deal. It’s among the top three issues that newly reelected OPA President Tom Terry wants to consider and resolve in the current board term. Moreover, a piece of the plan will directly affect the drafting of the OPA budget for the 2014-15 fiscal year, a process that will begin at the staff level in October. To the extent that the deadline to present a proposed rack-and-stack this past June was missed, pushing back the time frame in which a plan can be voted on by the board and perhaps put to a referendum vote of OPA members, it impinges on

the ability of staff to draft a capital budget for next year in line with the thinking of a board majority. This is not a fatal flaw in the process, just an inconvenience fact. It just means that capital expenditure requests and decisions in the next budget cycle will be less plan-driven than they could be. The process will be more or less ad hoc, not dissimilar to the way that the OPA has made its capital decisions in previous years. Unfortunately, political considerations may have influenced the decision to delay making the GM’s proposed rack-and-stack public this past summer. Understandably, the GM did not want his proposals to become issues in this past summer’s board election. Fair enough. The election is behind us; there is no longer a plausible reason to withhold release of the general manager’s proposed rack-and-stack. It’s not as if it’s holy writ, handed down from Olympus. It’s a draft, a starting point. It will be added to and subtracted from before it becomes anywhere close to official OPA policy. Another reason for why there perhaps was some skittishness in the release is that, if rumor has it, it contains at least one controversial proposal – an idea for a new OPA administration building for the Sports/Veterans Memorial Park in the vicinity of Route 589 and Cathell Road. If indeed the general manager has such a new facility in mind, there’s little to be gained by sitting on it; just let it out there and let the debate begin. If there’s a case to be made for it, well, then, he should make it as best he can. We can hope that the work session on the 9th will move the ball forward on the CIP in a meaningful, even measurable way. Process is important, but endless debates over process is not what Ocean Pines needs. The sooner the general manager releases phase two of the CIP draft, the better ; it’s the substance that Stachurski’s motion of September, 2012, called for. It’s now September, 2013. The proposed rackand-stack is overdue. – Tom Stauss

HAPPENINGS 11227 Race Track Road, Berlin, 11 a.m. Help in coping with any type of loss. 410641-5433. Worcester County Democratic Club meeting, fourth Thursday of each month, 7 p.m., Marlin Room of Ocean Pines Community Center. No December meeting. Club membership is not required. All those interested in Democratic platforms and agendas are welcome. Beach Singles, every Thursday, 4-6 p.m., Castaways, Coastal Hwy. at 64th Street, Ocean City, 45+ singles for socializing and monthly activities, 302436-9577. Republican Women of Worcester County, fourth Thursday of each month,

11 a.m. meeting (doors open at 10:30), lunch at noon, local restaurants. For information, call membership chair Barbara Loffler at 410-208-0890. January through June and again September and October. Dinner meeting in November. No meetings July, August and December. YOGA, James G. Barrett Medical Office Building, Berlin, rotunda, Tuesdays 5:30-6 p.m. All levels welcome. Contact Georgette Rhoads at 410-641-9734 or grhoads@atlanticgeneral.org with any questions. Cost: $72 for 8 sessions, or $10 drop-in fee for first time. T.O.P.S. of Berlin, Group 169, Atlantic General Hospital, Conference Room 1. Mondays 5-6:30 p.m. Take Off Pounds Sensibly is a support and education-

al group promoting weight loss and healthy life style, meeting weekly. For more information contact Edna Berkey, 410-629-1006. Bereavement Support Group, Atlantic General Hospital, Conference Room 1, 7-8 p.m. Fourth Wednesday of every month. Pre-registration is not necessary. For further information, please call Pastoral Care Services, 410-641-9725. American Legion Post 166 Auxiliary monthly general meeting, Ocean City, third Tuesday of the month at the post, 11:30 a.m. Tai Chi classes, Wednesdays, 4-5 p.m. and 6-7 p.m., Mondays 4-5 p.m., James G. Barrett Medical Office building, corner of Healthway Drive and Old Ocean City Boulevard, Berlin. There are 2 sessions offered on Wednesdays, one 4-5 p.m. and one 6-7 p.m.

OPINION

September-Early October 2013 Ocean Pines PROGRESS 39 OPINION

Pines election proves the adage: Every vote counts

ith the OPA board of directors newly reorganized and even reenergized by a couple of new directors, one even brazen enough to nominate himself for OPA president and treasurer, it’s not too late to hit the pause button for a moment and reflect just how different the landscape could have been with just one relatively slight deviation in the election results. Only 76 votes separated the third place finisher, OPA President Tom Terry, who was testing the Fates by running for reelection as an incumbent, and Roland Langevin, the outspoken critic of OPA General Manager Bob Thompson and Pines governance in general, who finished fourth. By any measure, 76 votes is a close election. Had a half plus one of those 76 households voted differently, casting a ballot for Langevin instead of Terry, say, then the complexion of the new board of directors would be radically different than it is today. One obvious change is that Terry would not now be serving in his fourth consecutive term as OPA president. Who might be serving in his stead is anyone’s guess. A board with Langevin in and Terry out might still be wrangling over the OPA presidency. Assuming that Dan Stachurksi continued to decline to serve as president in his final year as a director – he has already announced he won’t be running for reelection to the board next summer – it’s anyone’s guess as to which director might have been able to attract four votes. Who it might have been is not obvious. Sharyn O’Hare took herself out of the running in the hopes that a year as vice-president will earn her the chops to, possibly, take on the top job next year. Former OPA Treasurer Terri Mohr is retiring to the less visible and congenial role of OPA secretary, in charge of drafting meeting agendas and writing up minutes. She reportedly had no interest in the presidency. Given her full-time employment, that’s a sound decision. The same applies to O’Hare, who continues to work seven days a week as a Realtor. Juggling a full-time job and the OPA presidency isn’t a job for someone with a host of occupational and home life obligations. Newly elected director Bill Cordwell has his hand full in his new role as treasurer; he will have challenge enough proving to those who care – and that’s a relatively small universe of diehard political junkies – that he can think outside the box constructed by the newly reappointed, influential assistant treasurer, former OPA director, and shrewd

The board later in September will be looking at a “business plan” that Thompson was asked to produce to justify a An excursion through the curious cul-de-sacs An excursion through theby-ways curious and by-ways and cul-de-sacs winter operation at the Country Club. of Worcester County’s County’s most densely community. of Worcester mostpopulated densely populated community. Or more accurately, to produce a By TOM STAUSS/ By TOM Publisher STAUSS/Publisher business plan that makes a good guess at how much the operating loss will be. No one, least of all Thompson, is under behind-the-scenes influencer-in-chief, have had the votes to remove the genthe delusion that the enterprise will be Pete Gomsak. eral manager, the possibility would have positive financially for the OPA. Marty Clarke is not that far away in been a cloud hanging over board relaThe real division on the board is time from fending off a challenge to his tionships and deliberations from the whether it matters that shifting restaucontinued service on the board for some outset. OPINION rant operations over from the Yacht alleged infraction, the content of which While the new seven-member board Club to the Country Club will require hardly anyone can remember. Still, he’s will have its differences and debates, at member subsidies. not likely to be supported by a board ma- first blush it would seem that the potenA board majority appears to believe jority for president. tial for collegiality is greater than the that the investment is worth the cost, Collins, who collected more votes in alternative. ostensibly because it will give managethis summer’s election than anyone else, A board with Terry out and Langevin ment time to prepare the staff for the is still somewhat of an enigma politi- in could have been a tinderbox, just waitlaunch of new Yacht Cluband in the AnProgress, excursion through the curious by-ways and cul-de-sacs excursion through thethe curious by-ways cul-d ThetoOcean Pines aAn journal of cally. Will he align himself mostly with ing explode over the least provocation. spring. of Worcester County’s most densely populated community. news andand commentary, isofpublished Clarke in the evitable battles to come? Langevin O’Hare, Thompson’s most County’s Worcester most densely populated comm That, at least, is the hope and the monthly throughout theboard, year. probably It isPublisher Who can say, but until his true colors loyal supporter onTOM the Publisher By TOM STAUSS/ By STAUSS/ prayer. A triumph of hope over experiemerge it would have been difficult for would haveinbeen sparring partners circulated Ocean Pines, Berlin, Westfrom ence? Let’s fervently hope not. a majority of his colleagues to trust him the outset. Ocean City, Snow Hill, Ocean City and Here’s some free advice to Langevin, for the presidency. It’s anyone’s Capain’s Cove,Va. guess how this would who could easily have won this past Nominating himself for two of the have played out in the policy arena goLetters and other editorial submissions: summer with more smiles and less vitelected positions on the board was good ing forward. Please submit via email only. We do not riol targeted at Thompson: Honey, not theater but probably did little to endear The faxes board a majorthat task at hand accept orhas submissions require vinegar, is the ambrosia of a winner. himself to his colleagues. inretyping. dealingLetters with a draftbe capital should originalimproveand Once you’re elected, of course, all bets Had Langevin been elected to the ment plantofor Ocean Pines. A board exclusive the Progress. Include phonewith are off. board instead of Terry, it’s not too dif- Terry out and Langevin in could and ficult to imagine a Clarke-Collins-Lan- would have dealt with it, perhaps just gevin coalition agreeing to nominate as effectively and amicably as the group Nottingham Lane, one from among that trio for president that is 127 in place to do so. Maybe. Ocean Pines, MD – probably Clarke. The same is true for another vexing But more difficult to imag- issue to face the board in the coming ine is which candidate a Stachur- months: what to do with the expiring The Ocean Pines Progress, a journal of PUBLISHER/EDITOR PUBLISHER/EDITOR ski-O’Hare-Mohr-Cordwell bloc could golf management contract at the golf news and commentary, is published Tom Stauss Tom Stauss The Ocean Pines Progress, a journal of have decided upon for president. course.tstauss1@mchsi.com Consensus may be difficult to armonthly throughout the year. It is news and commentary, is published In the end, Stachurski might have rive at tstauss1@mchsi.com even with all the directors more circulated in Ocean Pines, Berlin, West 410-641-6029 monthly throughout the year. It is circubowed to pressure and a certain inevita- or less getting along with one another on 410-641-6029 Ocean City, Snow Hill,Berlin, Ocean City City, and lated in Ocean Pines, Ocean Advertising bility, accepting the post under extreme a personal level. Capain’s Cove, Va. Advertising and Captain’s Cove, Va. duress. Usually, though, when people are on Letters and other othersubmissions editorial submissions: Letters and should be ART DIRECTOR Then the games would have begun: the same page and wavelength on a perPlease submit via email not sent via email only. Weonly. do We not do accept ART DIRECTOR Rota Knott Of late, Stachurski has been chafing sonal level, it’s easier to arrive at a reaaccept faxes or submissions submissions that require faxes or other that require Hugh Dougherty over some of Thompson’s management sonable solution even when facing the retyping. Letters Letters should be original and and moves, or inaction, as the case may be. most vexing of challenges. CONTRIBUTING exclusive to to the the Progress. Progress. Include Include phone phone The OPA bylaws and long-standing Look to WRITERS Washington,WRITER D.C., for eviCONTRIBUTING number for verification. practice in Ocean Pines envision a close dence of what happens when people are Rota Knott Knott working relationship between a GM and poles apart ideologically and personally. 127 Nottingham Lane, Ginny Reister Inkwellmedia@comcast.net 127 Nottingham Lane, OPA president. Langevin, for his part, is not fading Ocean Pines, MD. 21811 443-880-1348 While Stachurski has manifestly into the woodwork. He may be back for Ocean Pines, MD mellowed since his more hard-charging another run for the board next summer. PUBLISHER/EDITOR days as president and director in the He’s shown up at the two board meetTom Stauss PUBLISHER/EDITOR PUBLISHER/EDITOR 2000s, he’s not mellowed to a degree ings that followed the election, with tstauss1@mchsi.com Tom Stauss Tom Stauss that would make a Thompson-Stachur- provocative things to say both times. 410-641-6029 tstauss1@mchsi.com tstauss1@mchsi.com ski bromance a walk in the park. Round one had him flaying the board for 410-641-6029 Terry, on the hand, can get along with giving Thompson a $5000 performance ADVERTISING 410-641-6029 Advertising almost everyone who makes a minimal bonus; it actually was the former board Tom Stauss Advertising effort to get along with him. that did so, but perhaps that’s a quibART DIRECTOR ART DIRECTOR He can be assertive, but that’s not bling technicality. ARTRota DIRECTOR Rota Knott necessarily his default mode; his natFive of the seven current directors Knott Hugh Dougherty ural state is one that allows everyone were on the previous board, although in CONTRIBUTING to speak his mind, even if it results in fairness one of them was not inclined to CONTRIBUTING WRITERS meetings that run a little too long. hand out a bonus to the general manWRITERSWRITER CONTRIBUTING Rota Knott Assuming that the presidency and ager. Rota Knott Ginny Knott Reister other elected roles were finally resolved, Round two had Langevin suggesting Ginny Reister Susan Canfora Inkwellmedia@comcast.net a board with Langevin in and Terry out that training of staff for the new Yacht would probably already be girding for Club should occur at the new Yacht Club, 443-880-1348 PROOFREADING a fight over Thompson’s role as general not at the Country Club where, over the Joanne Williams manager. winter months, much of the training will While Langevin early on would not probably be happening.

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Local Trade,11Owner, Owner,Loaded, Low Miles, Local Trade, Lthr.,XClean Moonroof

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Crew Local Trade, 1 Owner, XClean $ LocalCab, Trade, 1 Owner, Moonroof, Nice Car

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Trade, 1 Owner, Clean LocalLocal Trade, 1 Owner, Extra Clean, Cap

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Tax & tags not included.

1 Owner, Local Trade Clean Local Trade, 1 Owner,

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nADA retail $16,000

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2 PROOF LIMIT $ $ $

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OF LIMIT PROOF LIMIT

iles, XClean

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Tax & tags ‘04reserves gmC‘10 SierrA 1500 ‘01 merCeDeS Conv. ‘06 jeep WrAngLer the right run not view our entire inventory online 24/7 at 4x4 The Guide ‘10 ForD FoCuS rA mAzDA 3 Seto4x4 ‘05 hyunDAiSLk230 tuCSon included.