Berlin, Ocean Pines News Worcester County Bayside Gazette
As we mark the 243rd anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we ought to be asking ourselves how independent we are in our thinking about the role of government. Clearly, we are not as independent as we once were, in terms of government requiring us to do certain things whether we like… Read more »
Agitating for or against highway projects can be a frustrating and angry business, because it so often appears that the government agencies involved shrug off the local insistence that urgent attention is needed. Protests, recommendations, expressions of concern and even years of cries for help seem to evoke no response, at least beyond the inevitable… Read more »
Several decades ago, the town of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware proposed extending its zoning authority a mile beyond its municipal boundary to control what officials saw as uncontrolled growth near the town’s Rehoboth Avenue entrance on Route 1. It either couldn’t or didn’t want to annex that swath of land contiguous to its town limits and… Read more »
The Gross Mendelsohn accounting firm’s report of its forensic audit of Ocean Pines’ food and beverage operation and the public works department should be required reading for all property owners who plan to vote in this summer’s election. In addition to the report’s compilation of numbers and its explanations of how the Beach Club and… Read more »
With each passing month during the course of the forensic audit of the Ocean Pines Association’s ledgers, speculating about what the investigation might reveal became almost a parlor game amongst a fair number of property owners. Those would be the ones who, for various reasons, keep a close eye on the association’s management and board… Read more »
In most instances, the local administration of community or business affairs is better than regional or broader corporate management, which frequently suffers from a lack of knowledge about the area it serves. As many an operator of a corporate-owned outpost will admit, a fair amount of time is wasted trying to work around one-size-fits-all directives… Read more »
Dear veterans and active duty military personnel: Thank you for your service … whoever you are. Chances are we don’t know you, what you’re like, where you’re from or what you’ll be doing tomorrow. Still, it makes us feel patriotic to say it, like we’re in this with you all the way, even though we… Read more »
Letter writer Jeff Smith makes a good point this week: no one wants to see a repeat of the money scramble Berlin officials and residents experienced during this year’s budget process. It’s certain that the mayor and council don’t want to go through that mess again, and property owners, who never like tax surprises, will… Read more »
When most people in Ocean Pines rate the current board of directors’ performance as between fair and poor, it’s no wonder candidates aren’t lining up to vie for one of the three seats up for election this year. That’s according to the results of the community survey conducted last summer by the Communications Advisory Committee…. Read more »
The irony of the Town of Berlin’s budget and taxation predicament is if it had focused on maintaining a financially self-sufficient water and wastewater operation 10 or 15 years ago, kept tax rates closer to that of other area towns, and not devoted so many resources to infrastructure improvements and revitalizing the town’s economy and… Read more »