Committee vote a sad day for Pines

Editor,

On September 20 2025, the Ocean Pines Board of Directors majority voted to disband most of the advisory committees in our home owner’s association, which existed for several decades.  This day will be one of the saddest in Ocean Pines history when Directors with limited to no experience working in any of these committees decided they knew better now.

Reasons included that the Ocean Pines management organization is now larger and has the “capability” to replace committee work, “lines of communication” between the committees and board were “inefficient and strained,” and the sitting committees were just “searching” for things to do.  In my over 30 years as a project manager in the environmental industry, when there was a communication problem, I worked to resolve the breakdown and learned how to work with colleagues, not find ways to cut off communication channels.  The Board has the luxury of high authority in this association and it is their responsibility to properly lead and communicate with other groups of people.

As a former committee member and observing other committees, all of these members come from professional backgrounds with skills, talents, and energy ready to serve.  We are not sitting robots waiting to be turned on to act.  In my experience, the committees did not insist on or push certain actions, but only made recommendations with the full understanding that most may not be implemented based on further Board consideration.  We all accepted that condition.  We just wanted clear feedback as that was our experience as professionals.

It is a fallacy that committee work could easily be replaced with a paid staff member in the management organization.  The committees provided many beneficial services for free, which represented what home owners desired in their association.  I agree that some past committee actions were awkward, but that is what people do.  We are not programmed robots.  That is when leadership needs to step up and lead, not eliminate.

It is another fallacy that intermittent ad-hoc workgroups could operate anything like the past committees.  What will likely happen in the future is that Ocean Pines management will have to outsource at a great expense to business entities to fulfill some of those services, as has occurred in Captain’s Cove.  Say good-bye to the low assessment fee and to most of the services we received through the committees.

We can only hope that in the near future we can get new Board members with intelligent insight to repair the severe damage we now suffer.  Unfortunately, it will be highly challenging to re-create the strength of the past committees that evolved over several decades.

Tim Peck
Ocean Pines