By Elizabeth Bonin, Staff Writer

Wor. votes to use computer lab in OP library, but that action violates contract

(Jan. 16, 2020) Although the Worcester County Treasurer’s Office intends to move into one of the two computer labs at the Ocean Pines Library, the county’s ground lease with the Ocean Pines Association suggests that can’t happen.

By Elizabeth Bonin
Worcester County Commissioners voted to use one of the two computer labs in the Ocean Pines
Library on Cathell Road for the county treasurer’s office, though that violates the contract between Ocean Pines and the county.

On Tuesday Jan. 7, County Treasurer Phil Thompson presented the Worcester County Commissioners with a two-fold request – to relocate the treasurer’s satellite office to the library and to approve an FY20 over-expenditure of $7,088.33 for office furniture.

According to Thompson, the current office at the Isle of Wight facility has reached its capacity.

“Our concerns with the current Isle of Wight facility include an aging facility with ongoing mechanical issues, parking concerns with regard to public access, sporadic telecommunications and internet service as well as security concerns,” Thompson said. “The ensuing search led us to the Ocean Pines Library.”

Two county departments, review and permitting and environmental programs, left the Isle of Wight facility for those reasons in July 2018. Thompson emphasized the importance of maintaining a treasurer’s office in northern Worcester County since residents use the office to pay tax bills, pick up permits and renew driver’s licenses, among other services.

He told commissioners he believes that the Ocean Pines Library location solves all the issues that the old facility presented.

“[It has] good internet service, good phone service, and I think simply strength in numbers as we will be a component of the Ocean Pines Library will considerably improve the security environment that we work in,” Thompson said. “The library director and her staff have absolutely welcomed us.”

The computer lab specifically was determined a good match because its use has decreased with the rise of technology.

Thompson told the commissioners the office would occupy 200 square feet within the 15,000 square-foot library. New furniture would be necessary because of the different shape and size of the office. Thompson said the office will maintain one full-time staffer at that location.

The commissioners unanimously approved both the move and the over-expenditure, with Commissioner Joshua Nordstrom absent.

When asked by County Commissioner Jim Bunting, Chief Administrative Officer Harold Higgins said he wasn’t sure if the county receives revenue from departments occupying the Isle of Wight building, but he did know that the health department, soon to be the only department occupying the property, would foot the electric bill.

Bunting insisted that the county should see revenue from the health department.

“We own the building,” Bunting said. “We’re going to move and incur a little bit of cost of moving to another spot. Are we going to have any revenue from that building?”

The discussion, however, could be moot, because the 99-year lease between the county and Ocean Pines for the library stipulates that the property cannot be used for anything except library services, according to Dick Brady, who was the president of the Ocean Pines Association when the contract went into effect in the 1990s.

He said that the association held a referendum to allow the county to have the land for $1 a year, and then it drew up a contract to ensure that the county could not use the library for any other purpose.

“The people of Ocean Pines said ‘We don’t trust anybody,” Brady said. “We want a contract that says they’ll never do it, otherwise we’ll have all kinds of offices there.”

Brady added that if the county wanted to modify the lease, the proposal is supposed to go through a referendum.

“A lot of people forget that we even wrote that,” Brady said.

The contract was not mentioned during the commissioners meeting.