(Dec. 29, 2016) A record number of candidates entered the ring in yet another heated Ocean Pines election that resulted in three new board members, the resignation of a sitting board member and the entire membership of an advisory committee, and the termination of General Manager Bob Thompson.
When candidates were certified in May, a dozen men and women were among those seeking three seats on the board, although businesswoman Sharona Ezaoui would drop out of the race in June.
Eleven others remained: Frank Daly, Slobodan Trendic, George Simon Jr., Tom Janasek, Doug Parks, Steve Lind, Brett C. Hill, Ray Unger, Patricia Supik, Jack Collins and Larry Perrone.
It did not take long before Thompson became the central issue of the campaign.
During the first of three candidate forums, in June, business owner Hill hammered Thompson, saying his office lacked accountability, did not do proper research and enjoyed a “rubber stamp” coming from the board of directors.
“The majority of the proposals for spending that come in front of that board are a website, an EBay listing – there aren’t real quotes,” he said. “How do we run a $14 million budget and not solicit competitive quotations?
“I run $120 million budget every year [and] I get bids on everything,” Hill continued. “The board has to hold the GM accountable to that, and the GM is responsible for doing that research, bringing the vendors, soliciting for RFPs and holding his staff to a level of prudent spending of our money. That’s how the relationship is supposed to work and that’s how I would see it work on the board of directors.”
Thompson again became a target during a second forum, in July.
Lind, a former police officer, was the first to mention Thompson and did so during his opening remarks.
“It doesn’t take a detective to figure out that for the last three elections the general manager has been ‘the’ campaign issue,” he said. “The general manager has been the center of much of the controversy and much of the divisiveness, and for the good of the community this personnel issue must be quickly resolved before we can get back to conducting the people’s business.”
Lind said he had never seen such “political battling” over a general manager during his 17 years of residence in the Pines.
“We need to take politics and personality out of the GM office,” he said. “Simply sitting at the table and voting on spending projects based only on the facts and opinions of one unelected person – the manager – is not enough.”
Parks said he was concerned that the general manager “dominates … most, if not all, of the discussion.”
Trendic called Thompson’s $165,000 base “outrageous,” and blamed him for deteriorating infrastructure, outdated information technology, “ongoing controversy” at the yacht club and a lack of transparency.
“Do you know that the board pays our general manager the same salary that [the] Maryland state governor makes?” he asked.
Trendic went on to say the “key difference” between the roughly five or six candidates focused on ousting Thompson was just how fast they would move to do so.
“As your new board member, I will move promptly to address our concerns with the general manager’s performance. I believe that has been the root cause of most controversies that has plagued the board and divided us as a community,” he said.
Hill said Ocean Pines had “too much money sitting around in the hands of, really, one person.”
He said Thompson was at fault for the poor performance of several amenities. During the Fourth of July weekend, for example, Hill said business at the yacht club suffered because of a broken credit card machine and a tiki bar that was “shut down … with 150 people on the deck to watch fireworks.”
“How is that a board of director’s problem? That’s management,” he said. “Management has to be fixed, and the board of directors is responsible for doing that.”
During a final forum at the Ocean Pines Library, the debate began with a question about Thompson, when the moderator asked if any of the candidates would have supported his recent contract renewal.
Five of the six candidates answered “no.”
Trendic called Thompson’s contract “outrageous,” and said the average community manager salary was about $63,000 in the U.S., and that the top 10 percent had average salaries of $123,000. Thompson has a base salary of $165,000.
“The numbers speak for themselves. These are the things we need to correct,” he said.
Trendic continued to hammer Thompson during his closing statements, insisting that the general manager was the cause of most controversies in Ocean Pines. He drew a line between candidates who believed “all is well,” and those who did not.
“Within [the latter] group of candidates, the key difference is at which speed some of us will move to address these issues,” he said. “As your new board member, I will move promptly to address the concerns related to the general manager’s performance.”
Adding to the controversy surrounding Thompson was the Ocean Pines Elections Committee, which similarly fell under fire. Specifically, several of the candidates did not approve that election rules in the association called for ballots to be counted during a closed session.
That spilled over just prior to a committee meeting in late July, when committee Chairman Bill Wentworth lashed out at Director Tom Herrick.
Wentworth confronted Herrick, the board’s liaison to the committee, apparently angry that Herrick did not aid the committee when the board in June considered removing the words “in closed session” from Resolution M-06, which explains vote-counting procedures in Ocean Pines.
When Herrick asked Wentworth to explain exactly what was bothering him, Wentworth replied, “Be quiet long enough for me to tell you.”
Wentworth said accusations of impropriety were affecting the current election cycle, and that the issue should have been dealt with after the election. Officially, the board of directors tabled the issue, but several candidates have discussed showing up when votes are being counted.
“It’s all geared up now. These people are nuts,” Wentworth said. “It’s become personal with me … because of all the B.S. I’ve got to put up with, with all these goofballs.
“I hope they show up and try to do something, because half of them are going to get locked up,” Wentworth added, referring to several candidates who threatened to bring lawyers to the vote count.
Wentworth went on to say if the board had changed the rules in June, “There wouldn’t have been any election.”
“Next year, I don’t give a hoot in a hell storm how it’s going to happen,” he said. “If I decide I’m going to resign at the end of this year [as chairman], this is just a small part of it. I’m tired of being micromanaged.”
Committee member Judy Butler said that, as the appointed board secretary, Herrick needed to “support the current rules for this election committee.”
Because of the controversy, Butler said the elections committee was being portrayed as “the bad guy.”
“We are not the bad guy,” she said. “We are owners and occupants of this Ocean Pines Association. We chose to help do this election. We are not the ones who made these rules, and we are the ones who have to take care of this.
“If nobody can stand up for us, then nobody is going to do this job in the future and you can just contract out the whole thing, which is maybe what should be done,” Butler continued. “Now, is that good, or would you rather have five members of this community who care about this community enough to do this job, to be in this room and count those votes? It is very discouraging to think that this board doesn’t support us.”
At least one candidate, Hill, filed a complaint with the Maryland Attorney General’s Office that alleged the committee’s closed-door vote counting process violates the Maryland Homeowners Association Act.
“I will be at the vote count with my attorney, and I expect the vote count to be open,” he said. “I would hope that the board and the elections committee would do what I feel is the right thing and just do not go into closed session. Leave it open and leave it transparent.
“If they want to postpone making changes to the resolution until after the election, that’s fine, but at least for this election I would hope that they would concede this to transparency and push this through until there’s a better long-term solution to the problem.”
Hill, Trendic, Lind, Janasek and others made good on the threat to show up during the vote counting, although no on-duty attorneys were present.
They were not let into the room where the elections committee and a contractor worked on tabulating votes, although Thompson did appoint a “third-party” to watch the process, selecting then-Controller Art Carmine to do so.
While Hill and others were not exactly pleased with that selection, it was apparently enough to hold off further legal action.
Still, Hill said being locked out was “extremely disappointing.”
“I expected more out of the elections committee and the administration,” he said. “I guess we’ll see where it goes the next couple of days.”
Asked, if elected, how big of a priority changing the rules would be, Hill replied, “It has to start day one.”
“This can never happen again,” he said. “It needs to be an independent, but transparent process so that both sides – administration and the board – can see an accurate and nonconflicting process, as well as [having] the association participating. There has to be some assurance that everything is being done by the books and following the rules.”
On the following day, it was announced that Hill was the leading vote getter, followed by Trendic and Supik.
Hill led the way with 1,900 votes, followed by Trendic with 1,520 and Supik with 1,428.
Rounding out the vote totals were Frank Daly, 1,028, Steve Lind, 875, George Simon, 816, Jack Collins, 782, Tom Janasek, 770, Doug Parks, 576, Larry Perrone, 342 and Ray Unger, 242.
Three directors, Tom Terry, Bill Cordwell and Collins, went off the board. Terry served two consecutive terms and could not run again because of term limits, and Cordwell opted not to run for reelection after serving one term.
When candidates were certified in May, a dozen men and women were among those seeking three seats on the board, although businesswoman Sharona Ezaoui would drop out of the race in June.
Eleven others remained: Frank Daly, Slobodan Trendic, George Simon Jr., Tom Janasek, Doug Parks, Steve Lind, Brett C. Hill, Ray Unger, Patricia Supik, Jack Collins and Larry Perrone.
It did not take long before Thompson became the central issue of the campaign.
During the first of three candidate forums, in June, business owner Hill hammered Thompson, saying his office lacked accountability, did not do proper research and enjoyed a “rubber stamp” coming from the board of directors.
“The majority of the proposals for spending that come in front of that board are a website, an EBay listing – there aren’t real quotes,” he said. “How do we run a $14 million budget and not solicit competitive quotations?
“I run $120 million budget every year [and] I get bids on everything,” Hill continued. “The board has to hold the GM accountable to that, and the GM is responsible for doing that research, bringing the vendors, soliciting for RFPs and holding his staff to a level of prudent spending of our money. That’s how the relationship is supposed to work and that’s how I would see it work on the board of directors.”
Thompson again became a target during a second forum, in July.
Lind, a former police officer, was the first to mention Thompson and did so during his opening remarks.
“It doesn’t take a detective to figure out that for the last three elections the general manager has been ‘the’ campaign issue,” he said. “The general manager has been the center of much of the controversy and much of the divisiveness, and for the good of the community this personnel issue must be quickly resolved before we can get back to conducting the people’s business.”
Lind said he had never seen such “political battling” over a general manager during his 17 years of residence in the Pines.
“We need to take politics and personality out of the GM office,” he said. “Simply sitting at the table and voting on spending projects based only on the facts and opinions of one unelected person – the manager – is not enough.”
Parks said he was concerned that the general manager “dominates … most, if not all, of the discussion.”
Trendic called Thompson’s $165,000 base “outrageous,” and blamed him for deteriorating infrastructure, outdated information technology, “ongoing controversy” at the yacht club and a lack of transparency.
“Do you know that the board pays our general manager the same salary that [the] Maryland state governor makes?” he asked.
Trendic went on to say the “key difference” between the roughly five or six candidates focused on ousting Thompson was just how fast they would move to do so.
“As your new board member, I will move promptly to address our concerns with the general manager’s performance. I believe that has been the root cause of most controversies that has plagued the board and divided us as a community,” he said.
Hill said Ocean Pines had “too much money sitting around in the hands of, really, one person.”
He said Thompson was at fault for the poor performance of several amenities. During the Fourth of July weekend, for example, Hill said business at the yacht club suffered because of a broken credit card machine and a tiki bar that was “shut down … with 150 people on the deck to watch fireworks.”
“How is that a board of director’s problem? That’s management,” he said. “Management has to be fixed, and the board of directors is responsible for doing that.”
During a final forum at the Ocean Pines Library, the debate began with a question about Thompson, when the moderator asked if any of the candidates would have supported his recent contract renewal.
Five of the six candidates answered “no.”
Trendic called Thompson’s contract “outrageous,” and said the average community manager salary was about $63,000 in the U.S., and that the top 10 percent had average salaries of $123,000. Thompson has a base salary of $165,000.
“The numbers speak for themselves. These are the things we need to correct,” he said.
Trendic continued to hammer Thompson during his closing statements, insisting that the general manager was the cause of most controversies in Ocean Pines. He drew a line between candidates who believed “all is well,” and those who did not.
“Within [the latter] group of candidates, the key difference is at which speed some of us will move to address these issues,” he said. “As your new board member, I will move promptly to address the concerns related to the general manager’s performance.”
Adding to the controversy surrounding Thompson was the Ocean Pines Elections Committee, which similarly fell under fire. Specifically, several of the candidates did not approve that election rules in the association called for ballots to be counted during a closed session.
That spilled over just prior to a committee meeting in late July, when committee Chairman Bill Wentworth lashed out at Director Tom Herrick.
Wentworth confronted Herrick, the board’s liaison to the committee, apparently angry that Herrick did not aid the committee when the board in June considered removing the words “in closed session” from Resolution M-06, which explains vote-counting procedures in Ocean Pines.
When Herrick asked Wentworth to explain exactly what was bothering him, Wentworth replied, “Be quiet long enough for me to tell you.”
Wentworth said accusations of impropriety were affecting the current election cycle, and that the issue should have been dealt with after the election. Officially, the board of directors tabled the issue, but several candidates have discussed showing up when votes are being counted.
“It’s all geared up now. These people are nuts,” Wentworth said. “It’s become personal with me … because of all the B.S. I’ve got to put up with, with all these goofballs.
“I hope they show up and try to do something, because half of them are going to get locked up,” Wentworth added, referring to several candidates who threatened to bring lawyers to the vote count.
Wentworth went on to say if the board had changed the rules in June, “There wouldn’t have been any election.”
“Next year, I don’t give a hoot in a hell storm how it’s going to happen,” he said. “If I decide I’m going to resign at the end of this year [as chairman], this is just a small part of it. I’m tired of being micromanaged.”
Committee member Judy Butler said that, as the appointed board secretary, Herrick needed to “support the current rules for this election committee.”
Because of the controversy, Butler said the elections committee was being portrayed as “the bad guy.”
“We are not the bad guy,” she said. “We are owners and occupants of this Ocean Pines Association. We chose to help do this election. We are not the ones who made these rules, and we are the ones who have to take care of this.
“If nobody can stand up for us, then nobody is going to do this job in the future and you can just contract out the whole thing, which is maybe what should be done,” Butler continued. “Now, is that good, or would you rather have five members of this community who care about this community enough to do this job, to be in this room and count those votes? It is very discouraging to think that this board doesn’t support us.”
At least one candidate, Hill, filed a complaint with the Maryland Attorney General’s Office that alleged the committee’s closed-door vote counting process violates the Maryland Homeowners Association Act.
“I will be at the vote count with my attorney, and I expect the vote count to be open,” he said. “I would hope that the board and the elections committee would do what I feel is the right thing and just do not go into closed session. Leave it open and leave it transparent.
“If they want to postpone making changes to the resolution until after the election, that’s fine, but at least for this election I would hope that they would concede this to transparency and push this through until there’s a better long-term solution to the problem.”
Hill, Trendic, Lind, Janasek and others made good on the threat to show up during the vote counting, although no on-duty attorneys were present.
They were not let into the room where the elections committee and a contractor worked on tabulating votes, although Thompson did appoint a “third-party” to watch the process, selecting then-Controller Art Carmine to do so.
While Hill and others were not exactly pleased with that selection, it was apparently enough to hold off further legal action.
Still, Hill said being locked out was “extremely disappointing.”
“I expected more out of the elections committee and the administration,” he said. “I guess we’ll see where it goes the next couple of days.”
Asked, if elected, how big of a priority changing the rules would be, Hill replied, “It has to start day one.”
“This can never happen again,” he said. “It needs to be an independent, but transparent process so that both sides – administration and the board – can see an accurate and nonconflicting process, as well as [having] the association participating. There has to be some assurance that everything is being done by the books and following the rules.”
On the following day, it was announced that Hill was the leading vote getter, followed by Trendic and Supik.
Hill led the way with 1,900 votes, followed by Trendic with 1,520 and Supik with 1,428.
Rounding out the vote totals were Frank Daly, 1,028, Steve Lind, 875, George Simon, 816, Jack Collins, 782, Tom Janasek, 770, Doug Parks, 576, Larry Perrone, 342 and Ray Unger, 242.
Three directors, Tom Terry, Bill Cordwell and Collins, went off the board. Terry served two consecutive terms and could not run again because of term limits, and Cordwell opted not to run for reelection after serving one term.