Ocean Pines residents elected, from left John Learner, Jeff Heavner and Elaine Brady to the OPA Board of directors.  

By Cindy Hoffman, Staff Writer

New board of directors will assume control by tending to needs instead of wants

(Aug. 31, 2023) With the validation of the 2023 election results Saturday, the Ocean Pines Association gained three new members of board of directors: Elaine Brady, John Latham and Jeff Heavner.

Election Committee Chair Tom Piatti reported that the validated voting totals showed that Brady was the top vote getter with 2,293 votes and Latham came in second with 2,237 votes. Both of these candidates will serve three-year terms.

Heavner, with 1,849 votes, will serve out the remaining one-year term of Frank Daly, who resigned before the end of his term in office to move to Florida. Candidate Jerry Murphy received 1,460 votes.

After her victory became official, Brady said, “I’m looking forward to serving this wonderful community and appreciate the community’s support in allowing me to. My highest priority is to proactively work to expedite cleaning up unkempt properties along with continued maintenance of our amenities. It is imperative to maintain property values in any aging community.”

“I would like to send a sincere thank you to the owners of Ocean Pines for putting their confidence in me to help lead the future of our community,” Latham said.

“I am humbled by the overwhelming support that I received during the campaign. I had the opportunity to speak with many residents and discussed many subjects that are top of mind for them. I want to help support the needs of our community.”

In looking towards the first couple of months, Latham said his focus would be on becoming more familiar with the budget process and some of the larger projects that may be coming along, such as the Ocean Pines Volunteer Fire Department Station, golf irrigation and the racquet center.

“I am happy and humbled to have gained the confidence of Ocean Pines to execute the responsibilities of a director,” Heavner said. “I ran on a theme of independent thinking to [make] decisions that are in the best interest of supporting our lifestyle and home values.

“I will refine my perspective by listening to the opinions of homeowners, drawing from my past leadership experience and applying a commonsense approach.

“As a board, I want to help us be fair, equitable and transparent, engage in open team discussion and work within the rules. I do have a couple of ideas to float concerning a 12-month playbook and advisory committee board meeting involvement.

Regarding potential roles on the board for Brady, she said that decision remained with the other board members. Heavner, citing his strong organizational and communications skills, said they might be utilized in the secretary position.