Totally unrelated as they are, the Berlin Little League’s tournament season and the Ocean Pines Association’s employee compensation study should be subject to one piece of advice: temper your expectations. For followers of the pay study, it means the results probably won’t turn up anything radical, such as most employees being woefully underpaid or grossly… Read more »
Editorial
Disagreeing: it’s how we’ve always done it
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 »
Roundabout way SHA deals with Route 589
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 »
Berlin could learn from Rehoboth Beach’s past
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 »
Audit report should be read by Pines voters
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 »
Audit available to OP residents for review
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 »
Pines better off with in-house management
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 »
Do more than thank them for their service
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 »
Berlin at crossroads of preservation and cost
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 »
Low approval rates impacting elections
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 »