JOSH DAVIS/BAYSIDE GAZETTE
Members of the Ocean Pines Elections Committee last Friday discuss association policy for candidate advertising.
By Josh Davis, Associate Editor
(May 17, 2018) The Ocean Pines Elections Committee last Friday decided not to pursue additional measures related to candidate advertising in association publications.
Last month, the committee unanimously approved a motion to ban advertising, but the board of directors, on April 28, voted 4-1 to reject the ban.
Director Slobodan Trendic, the committee liaison, was the only board member in support. Director Tom Herrick abstained and Director Ted Moroney, also currently a candidate for office, was not present during the meeting.
Trendic, during a committee meeting Friday, said now would be the time to act or put the matter off for the year. The candidate filing deadline passed last week and the summer Ocean Pines Report publishes soon.
“The reason the change to the advertising policy was requested was because the newsletters that are mailed are really paid for by the entire association,” Trendic said. “Having one candidate advertise in that same publication that the entire community pays for may not be appropriate, especially if those homeowners don’t favor that particular candidate. They don’t want to subsidize that publication and those ads.”
Committee Chairman Steve Habeger said, “There’s been no rules in the past.” According to Habeger, of the four candidates running last year, two bought ads.
“It surprised me, just speaking for myself, because I thought political ads were not allowed in Ocean Pines publications,” he said. “It became a gray zone – there was ambiguity in some of the documents – so two candidates bought ads and two didn’t.
“We want to clarify this and reduce the ambiguity,” Habeger added.
Committee members discussed asking for a disclaimer in political ads, stating they did not represent an association endorsement. Instead, the group decided to defer the matter.
“We’re getting late in the game,” committee member Mark Heintz said. “I think we should put this off until next year.
“We have things we have to do now. I think it’s going to muck up [the process] and people are going to be confused,” he continued. “We accept the outcome [of the board vote] and let’s put that off.”
Habeger said the current policy is administrative and to change it would require a board vote.
“Slobodan is on point with his notion that this is a decision point,” he said. “If we want to do anything in this current election cycle, today is the decision point. And I’m reading, let it ride until the next time.”
He added a recommendation for next year could be included in the post-election committee report, due 30 days after election results are delivered. Habeger said the report last year was substantial, perhaps five or six pages long and including several proposed changes.
The committee similarly put off an item last year, requiring an immediate announcement of vote totals after ballots are counted. The board initially voted the matter down, but in February voted 5-2 to adopt the policy.
Habeger said the committee would brief all of the candidates on association policies and procedures during the annual candidate draw, when position on the ballots is determined. The meeting is scheduled for Friday, June 8.
He said the deadline for content in the summer Ocean Pines Report, overseen by the marketing department, is likely mid-June.
As for advertising in other local media, Habeger said the committee would not offer a briefing.
“I do not view it the responsibility to keep candidates aware of deadlines of things beyond this committee’s [purview],” Habeger said.
“Their buying of ads in local papers is on them,” Heintz said. “We’re not the advertising police … that’s politics. We’re not political with this committee. We are transparent and nonbiased, and I don’t think we should go there, because it’s only trouble.”
Habeger added, “We are not your campaign advisers. We run an election which is absolutely fair to all.”
“It’s our job to be aggressively agnostic,” he said.