JOSH DAVIS/BAYSIDE GAZETTE
Ocean Pines Elections Committee member Ginger Situla last Friday discusses the committee’s role in education board of director candidates.

Pines committee on Friday considers role in advising those running for office

By Josh Davis, Associate Editor

(Feb. 21, 2019) No candidates have yet filed for the 2019 Ocean Pines Board election, but the committee that oversees the voting is already well into discussing its role in the process.

Elections Committee Chairman Steve Habeger, last Friday, went over language in an introductory letter he said was meant to “start the conversation with the candidates.”

Those would be sent, presumably, after candidates are confirmed as eligible. The deadline to announce candidates is June 1.

Along with serving as an introduction and reminder of key election dates, the letters also ask candidates a series of questions, with those answers published in the summer Ocean Pines newsletter.

Committee member Bob Windsor said he wanted something broad to allow candidates to introduce themselves to voters. He said questions should be “along the lines of, ‘what do you think is the biggest issue’ [and] ‘what’s your plan to resolve it?’”

Committee Chairman Steve Habeger agreed, saying broader questions don’t focus on the negative.

“I would prefer not to ask them to talk about [specific] issues, because that immediately says, ‘let’s talk about all the things that are wrong,’” he said. “I’d like to broaden it and let people talk about where things are not going well and where things are going well.

“‘What’s your top priority?’ I think, is a good way to allow people to express their perspective,” Habeger added.

Also likely in the candidate questionnaire, based on the conversation last Friday, is “describe what you would bring to the OPA Board,” and a question designed to assess candidate knowledge of association finances.

“I think it’s important that we bring up finances, because you’ve gotta know finances on this board,” committee member Mark Heintz said. “We’ve had a couple candidates in the past that really didn’t know what they were talking about – and I think they realized they were in too deep when they were trying to run.”

Association President Steve Tuttle, the top voter-getter in the last election, said he liked those three questions.

“I think the finances is a much bigger part of the board member’s responsibility than I think a lot of people realize,” Tuttle said.

“The fundamental job of the association is to collect money from members and provide services,” Habeger said. “Finances are the absolute rock of the foundation of this association.”

Tuttle went on to say new board members received a four-inch binder of governing documents and the most recent budget, along with an invitation to a daylong orientation meeting. Habeger compared the information onslaught to having to drink from a fire hose.

What the committee should not attempt to do, the members agreed, is spend too much time educating candidates prior to the election.

Heintz wondered if the search committee, tasked with recruiting candidates, should attempt to do that.

“I think the search committee needs to get this information out that you’d better start reading up on,” he said. “We don’t necessarily have to do this, because that’s not our job.”

“I don’t think it’s the search committee’s job either, to horse candidates up – to advise them,” Habeger said.

Habeger agreed some candidates during public forums last year “demonstrated a lack of awareness,” but said it was not the role of either committee to provide an education.

“What I noticed at the candidate forum was that some candidates said, ‘Well, I don’t happen to know much about (whatever the subject was), but here’s my plan to get educated.’ And other candidates … never articulated even a notion of how they were going to get themselves up to speed, and I thought it helped me decided who I was gonna vote for,” Habeger said.

“I thought it was a really important thing for the candidates to put themselves out to the electorate of how good a candidate they were,” he added.

Habeger said after the election last year he went through governing documents related to the search and elections committees.

“It’s not there to advise the candidates … about how to run successfully or anything like that – that’s up to them,” he said. “We are running the election fair to every candidate.

“I’m not too sure it’s our job or the search committee’s job to advise candidates or nominees on how to be a better candidate – that’s up to them,” Habeger added.