If the Ocean Pines Association Board of Directors were to say to General Manager Bob Thompson, “We’ve got to hand it to you,” the majority might be thinking about his walking papers. That’s certainly how it appears, given the obvious friction between Thompson and some of the directors, a circumstance highlighted during Saturday’s meeting, when… Read more »

The Ocean Pines Board announced this week that there will indeed be a change of management at the golf course this year, with Landscapes Unlimited taking over from Billy Casper Golf. There will certainly be a lot of debate on whether the timing is right to make a change, as Billy Casper Golf supporters have… Read more »

As Ocean Pines looks to the future and, hopefully, tries to determine how much and on what they will need additional member funding for, board members should follow the recent example of the Town of Berlin. Given the opportunity to make a landmark purchase of the old Tysons chicken plant and faced with a decision… Read more »

The Ocean Pines board should reconsider its stance on continuing the so-called 5-year funding plan until a proposal for those monies is in place and put to referendum.   The special assessment was instituted about six years ago and billed as a short-term increase that would be dissolved after that timeframe. The intent was to… Read more »

Recent events in Berlin made for big headlines with an ensuing rush to get a “big story” pressing a daily media outlet go awry.  An example of why rash decisions by both adults and kids can have unfortunate consequences. The firestorm kicked off with an unseemly posting by one student on Instagram, quickly followed by… Read more »

As disturbing as it was, people shouldn’t read too much into the vandalism spree that ruined cars and defaced buildings in Berlin last week. This was not the result of a societal upheaval or the emergence of a hate group that threatens to grow and develop, but was the work of one or more young… Read more »

The goal of any government or homeowner’s association is to give the public the kind of community it wants at a cost it is willing to pay. Establishing the cost factor is the easier of the two to accomplish, because it’s just math, aided by a good read of the public’s mood. Much more difficult… Read more »

It is not the people who are serving who need to be considered when granting a government body the authority to impose subjective standards, it is the people who might serve in the years ahead. That is the situation with the town’s proposed amendment to the zoning code giving the Planning Commission the legal right… Read more »

Raising the alarm based on first impressions and perceived, but not necessarily real, problems generally accomplishes little, because the critical outburst is usually the result of instinct rather than solid information. That’s the case with the Town of Berlin’s proposed purchase of the former Tyson poultry plant. The operative word here is “proposed,” because nowhere… Read more »

Two thousand fourteen, 2014 or MMXIV. No matter how we might write it, it still comes out the same. The results are in and no matter what we think of the 12 months past, 2014 is over and out. There are, of course, all kinds of years besides this one – fiscal years, legislative years,… Read more »