If the Ocean Pines Association Board of Directors wants   its suggested bylaws amendments to get a good reception from voters at this spring’s referendum, the easiest thing to do is to cut the most controversial proposals from the ballot.

As was evidenced by the outrage expressed at the board’s town hall meeting Saturday, the offending revisions involve stricter candidate and voter qualification rules sponsored by board member Frank Daly.

Right or wrong, and watered down from their original form, these proposed amendments bubbled up in a cauldron of resentment left over from last year’s political circus.

Anyone who has been paying attention would conclude that Daly’s amendments aim to punish political opponents and to legitimize that board’s failed attempt to keep current board member Rick Farr off the ballot by declaring him a non-property owner.

Farr, obviously, did win a seat after a Worcester County Circuit Court judge gave last year’s board a good public thrashing for playing cutesy with the rules. Obviously, the survivors of that debacle have yet to get over it.

It makes no difference how much effort the bylaws committee devoted to writing and rewriting these possible amendments. That is not the issue, even though it is being suggested that the committee’s diligence ought to be rewarded with a positive response. It doesn’t work that way.

The committee did what it could with the Daly amendments, but it was like asking a top chef to make bad ingredients taste better.

Not all the proposed revisions, of course, warrant a “no” vote. Since the bylaws were last updated in 2008, some portions need to be made current, while fuzzy language in other sections should be made more precise.

That is for the voters to decide in this spring’s referendum, which will be more productive if the board presents voters with a ballot free of real and perceived post-election baggage.