By Greg Ellison

(Sept. 16, 2021) Mayor Zach Tyndall’s cancellation last week of a meeting with Maryland Department of Natural Resources officials about helping the town with Heron Park has outraged some town officials, who believed the gathering set for last Friday could have led to the state’s participation in the park’s development and big relief for the town.

Speaking during the Town Council meeting on Monday, Tyndall confirmed the meeting with state representatives was scheduled on Sept. 10 and that he mailed council members and DNR officials on Sept. 7 to cancel the meeting.

“I also work for Salisbury University and sometimes when I have something that pops up on the schedule, a meeting has to be moved,” he said. “That’s happened regularly since I was elected mayor and we move things around so I can attend.”

Councilmember Jay Knerr, however, expressed frustration over the meeting being cancelled at the last minute.

“The mayor had picked the date for the Friday meeting,” he said.

Knerr said DNR officials had expected to tour Heron Park and to consider its development options.

“It still could have happened,” Knerr said.

Knerr said Tyndall could have been informed about the meeting discussions after the fact.

“There were no decisions that were going to be made, but to get these folks down from Annapolis, it takes a lot of effort,” he said.

In addition to talking about a site cleanup, DNR officials also discussed the possibility of purchasing the site with intentions to return the property to Berlin.

“The idea was that DNR would buy the park with their ‘Open Space,’ funding, which would allow us to pay off the debt service,” he said. “Then DNR would deed the property back to the town to use as an open space area.”

Berlin is paying $200,000 annually through 2045 to clear the debt incurred from purchasing the former Tyson operating plant located on Old Ocean City Boulevard.

Also left fuming was Berlin business owner Ann McGinnis Hillyer, who worked with Brad Hoffman to form the Better Berlin Group in hopes of building a stage area at the site.

During a meeting in March, Better Berlin representatives suggested the town retain ownership of the park to stage events and generate revenue from renting the location for special events.

“I spoke with Mayor Tyndall months ago about conversations I had with colleagues at DNR about Heron Park,” she said. “I told him that DNR may be interested in helping Berlin both reduce the debt burden using Program Open Space funding [and to] clean up the park to make it more usable to residents.”

Hillyer said state officials had a list of questions they wanted answered as they considered their options, and numerous stakeholders were invited to attend the Sept. 10 meeting.

“We had five high-level state people and project managers coming, most of whom were scheduled to come from Annapolis,” she said.

She said that when Tyndall asked to call off the meeting, “I told him I thought this was a bad idea [and] that it would make Berlin look bad,” she said. “It was disrespectful to the state staff who were willing to come to Berlin from Annapolis to explore options to help the town.”

Regardless of Tyndall’s reasons, Hillyer said the late change was ill advised.

“At best, the cancellation was not only unnecessary, but unprofessional,” she said. “At worst, the mayor intentionally subverted a promising opportunity that would benefit Berlin and our taxpayers.”

On Monday, Tyndall said there is no word yet on reconvening the meeting.

“Contact was made with them and we’ll reschedule that meeting [but] it is not rescheduled as of this moment,” he said.

Knerr is certainly not happy about the recent turn of events.

“There was a lot of money at stake and a lot of efforts put forth to make this happen,” he said. “It was a mistake to cancel that meeting in my opinion.”

Hillyer is now calling on the council to salvage what she sees as a damaged relationship.

“I hope that the council members can act to ensure that we do not entirely lose this opportunity.”