(Sept. 15, 2016) Several dozen Berlin residents “met the candidates” last Wednesday during a political forum – likely the only one of this election cycle – presented by the Coastal Association of Realtors.
Moderator Joseph Wilson, from CAR, joined mayoral candidates District 2 Councilwoman Lisa Hall and incumbent Gee Williams, along with District 2 hopefuls Jack Orris and Zack Tyndall, during the roughly 90-minute discussion.
All the candidates appeared to have similar views on growth, job creation and preserving the small-town charm that has become synonymous with Berlin.
Everyone also agreed the town was headed in the right direction, although some were quicker than others to call for measures to keep the town as is.
Asked about Berlin’s most-valuable asset, all four candidates concurred that the people and generally convivial atmosphere of the town was its best quality.
Tyndall, who grew up in the area, recalled a “desolate downtown” during his youth.
“I’ve seen a downtown where I’d walk up and get a milkshake at Rayne’s Reef. That, pretty much, was the extent of my walk,” he said.
Now, he said, the town was a thriving and vibrant place.
“I like that part of Berlin and I want to see that continue,” he said.
While he wasn’t born in Berlin, Orris said he was “smart enough to move here and invest [his] life here.” He said the “Americana aspect” of the town was its best feature.
“Everyone’s seen the movies that were filmed here,” he said. “It’s the charm that a lot of small towns in America have lost that Berlin has maintained to keep. And that’s not easy to do. The council and mayor have done a good job doing that.”
Williams, another native, said the “spirit and attitude of the citizens of Berlin is our greatest asset.” While that took several decades to foster, he said the town now operates on a “common spirit of cooperation and collaboration that’s always emphasized here over competition.”
“People are just moved by it. Whether you’re a resident or one of our many guests, I believe the fact that you can experience this spirit, this attitude, makes all the difference,” he said. “I walk into some small towns that are beautiful, but I don’t feel anything … that’s not Berlin.
“We’re sharing an attitude and an optimism,” Williams added. “Believing in Berlin is ultimately what makes this a special place.”
Hall agreed and said there were few towns like Berlin, although she added its small-town charm needed to be preserved.
“It’s a special place,” she said. “We have the people that are welcoming all these new folks into Berlin and treating them like they were born and raised in Berlin … we need to protect that.”
She said her son, who was raised in Berlin, has been looking for an affordable home there for more than a year.
“He just can’t afford to buy a house in Berlin in his price range, so he’s just signed on a house in Ocean Pines and that breaks my heart,” she said. “The folks that were born and raised in Berlin are now having a hard time finding a home in their price range.”
As a solution, she suggested organizations such as CAR could work with the mayor and council to transform foreclosed properties.
“There should be a way that we could think outside the box and try to get these homes occupied,” she said.
Asked about his approach to annexation, Williams said it was a natural part of growth, although he cautioned it had to be “thoughtful.”
He said he had experienced this when it took he and his wife “24 years to get annexed into Berlin” in a home they purchased about 40 years ago.
“I know what this town was like when it refused [annexation] and said it was basically against the religion … people were not welcome. I was told that my wife, who lived in Ocean City, that I’d married a foreigner,” he said.
“Things have changed a lot and I don’t think annexation helter-skelter is the answer,” Williams said, adding, “What you do not grow through annexation you leave to total chance.”
Hall again said the town needed to be protected from certain types of growth.
“A town like Berlin needs to grow from within and protect its borders,” she said. “We need to finish the infill lots in Berlin, which is 300 new homes, before we start annexing in more property and creating more costs with developing … infrastructure. Why don’t we protect the size of our town [and] protect the small-town charm?”
She added that the town should look into hiring a professional urban planner to assist the planning and zoning department.
Tyndall and Orris also favored growing within existing town limits rather than expanding through annexation.
“Annexation … is natural progression,” Tyndall said. “However, I also feel that we have many underserved areas within our community and some infrastructure that we need to focus on before we start that improvement process.”
Orris said he was not “anti-annexation,” but added, “I’m focusing on what we have now.”
“[Annexation] can be done overtime after we focus on what we already have,” he said. “It’s a fine line. I would be lying if I said I had the perfect plan to get people here into town, fill up these lots and everything is utopia. I don’t have that plan right now. That’s what I would definitely work on should I be elected to the council.”
Looking at job creation, Orris called Berlin a “grant-writing machine” and said the town was headed in the right direction in that department.
Tyndall called for an approach to creating new jobs that was in line with Gov. Larry Hogan’s statewide efforts.
Maryland is open for business, so is Berlin,” he said. “You can’t overtax. If we create so many overhead costs for businesses then it’s going to be difficult for them to succeed. We’re almost setting them up for failure to begin with, so that’s something we need to look at.”
Hall said one of the biggest issues of the 21st century was how the country would bring back manufacturing jobs that had been lost to cheaper labor overseas.
“I was raised in a union household. My father had a union shirt factory in Salisbury. I was the kid that couldn’t buy anything that wasn’t made in America, because my dad would look at it when he came through the door,” she said.
At the end of his career, Hall said her father’s factory received materials already cut out by workers in Costa Rica, which were then brought back to be assembled in the U.S.
“To see my father, who has a die-hard union, made-in-America man, go and have to have an interpreter running around with him in his plant … that’s a problem,” she said. “It’s a problem that’s not going away.”
She cited Pocomoke business Hardwire, which manufactures armor protection for people and vehicles, as the kind of operation Berlin needed to attract to the town.
“Not all of our children are going to college,” she said. “There are the people that want to work and stay in the area, but where are they going to work?”
She said the average family in Berlin makes about $33,000 a year, according to the last census.
“How are they affording to live in Berlin, or live period?” she said. “Fifteen percent are living under poverty. I know more than half the children in Worcester County go to bed hungry every night.
“We all are going to have to work together, working with the governor, working with his office, working with the county officials, working with big business owners – those are the folks that are going to need to get together and work and see what we can bring into this area,” Hall added.
Williams noted that Berlin was the only community on the Eastern Shore – and possibly in the state – that lowered property taxes during the last eight years.
“What we’re trying to do is create a place that is a livable,” he said. “I don’t believe that traditional manufacturing jobs are going to be a significant part of Berlin’s future. It’s just not going to happen. There are places in this country … that basically would give away everything for anything.”
Instead, Williams said he wanted to see technology-based jobs brought to Berlin.
“I am confident that we are on the cusp of bringing some of those jobs here, because the people who like to do that work and who are qualified to do that work do not want to live in cities, certainly, and they don’t want to live in the ‘burbs anymore. The suburbs are the slums of the future,” he said.
“We don’t want everybody, and quite frankly we need to be able to reinvest in the people who are here who need the help,” Williams continued. “Our attitude is not to become the cheapest place to live in the Eastern United States … the race to the bottom is a bottomless pit.”
Responding to an audience question about blighted properties, Hall said the existing code needed “more teeth,” comparing the issue to a toddler whose mother wasn’t paying attention.
“Oh, Mommy really means that. I’d better pay attention. That’s how we’ve got to get to these blighted [properties],” she said.
Williams agreed with the “teeth analogy” when it came to current code.
“We can only have what you allow us,” he said. “We want to be more aggressive, but we do not want to destroy what we’re trying to save.”
Another resident said he was concerned by the $19.4 million fiscal year 2016 budget, which he said had increased by 42 percent since 2012.
According to Williams, the actual increase in spending was not as pronounced because about $3 million was tied to one-time capital expenses – largely Berlin Falls park – and that the actual budget was closer to about $15.5 million.
“This year’s budget is an anomaly,” he said, adding that the town was not under any pressure to increase the tax rate.
Orris said developing the park, a former Tyson’s Chicken plan, and potentially running a trolley from that site to the downtown shopping district would help generate new revenue.
Berlin Falls was also a popular option with Hall, who was an early proponent of its purchase. She supported building a skate park and having youth programs at the site, on Old Ocean City Boulevard.
“In the past eight years, this mayor and council has spent a lot of money bringing the town up to the 21st century, infrastructure wise,” she said. “Now, the next four years I think we need to start giving amenities back to the residents of Berlin … we’ve got the town in good shape, now let’s listen to the residents.”
Tyndall, meanwhile, suggested adding a new generator to the power plant, which he said could increase revenues there by 20-30 percent.
During closing remarks, Tyndall said he was concerned about the lagoons at Berlin Falls. A former paramedic, he noted that an 8-year-old boy drowned in a similar lagoon at North Side Park in Ocean City.
“I think we need to look at installing some form of a safety measure for the kids,” he said. “I’ve seen kids die, and I don’t want to see that at our park. That’s something we need to focus on, and with the winter season coming it needs to be one of the top priorities.”
Orris compared Berlin to a party where “everybody is trying to get in.” That’s not necessarily a bad thing, he said, but the guests don’t get to make the rules.
Following that metaphor, he said developers needed to adhere to design standards set by the town.
“I still want to keep stressing that it’s the people and the small-town charm that make Berlin what it is,” he said. “Even though I wasn’t lucky enough to be born here, I picked up on that right away and that’s something I think everybody here can agree that we don’t want to lose.”
Williams said serving as mayor for two terms has been “one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life.”
“I believe that I have the responsibility – not just an opportunity – to finish putting in place some of the key foundation blocks that have allowed our community to go from desperation to opportunity,” he said. “I think we are on course to meet the challenges that are ahead of us – none of them are in any way an imminent threat to our way of life that we have worked so long to create.
“Some people want to make you believe that any growth is a threat to our quality of life, and that’s just not so. It’s how you grow, how you place your assets [and] what to do with what you have,” he continued. “We have to prepare for the generations that follow, and in my case, I know I’m very concerned about making sure we do that in the best possible way, because my daughter, son-in-law and my grandchildren live here in Berlin.”
Hall said she had “met a lot of people” during her eight years on the council, both in Berlin and traveling across the state.
“It’s been very rewarding,” she said. “I like the idea that municipal government is kind of nonpartisan – I don’t know half the people, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans [and] I don’t care. We just work together on committees for a common cause.
“I would really like to protect Berlin, I’d like to work for the residents of Berlin, I’d like to see something done with the Tyson property,” Hall continued. “I think there’s opportunities there if we reach out to do industrial or other business-type things there. It doesn’t have to be all of a park – it’s 60-some acres.”
She said the point of purchasing the property was to protect it from out-of-state developers, and that police and nonprofits would make for good partners in developing Berlin Falls.
“At least, we now can control what’s being done there, and I’m sure if we look there’s a lot of opportunities,” she said.
Last Thursday, the day after the forum, CAR announced its endorsement of Williams and Tyndall.
The Berlin municipal election is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 4 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Districts 1 and 2 will vote at Buckingham Presbyterian Church on 20 South Main Street. Districts 3 and 4 will vote at the multipurpose building on 130 Flower Street.
Moderator Joseph Wilson, from CAR, joined mayoral candidates District 2 Councilwoman Lisa Hall and incumbent Gee Williams, along with District 2 hopefuls Jack Orris and Zack Tyndall, during the roughly 90-minute discussion.
All the candidates appeared to have similar views on growth, job creation and preserving the small-town charm that has become synonymous with Berlin.
Everyone also agreed the town was headed in the right direction, although some were quicker than others to call for measures to keep the town as is.
Asked about Berlin’s most-valuable asset, all four candidates concurred that the people and generally convivial atmosphere of the town was its best quality.
Tyndall, who grew up in the area, recalled a “desolate downtown” during his youth.
“I’ve seen a downtown where I’d walk up and get a milkshake at Rayne’s Reef. That, pretty much, was the extent of my walk,” he said.
Now, he said, the town was a thriving and vibrant place.
“I like that part of Berlin and I want to see that continue,” he said.
While he wasn’t born in Berlin, Orris said he was “smart enough to move here and invest [his] life here.” He said the “Americana aspect” of the town was its best feature.
“Everyone’s seen the movies that were filmed here,” he said. “It’s the charm that a lot of small towns in America have lost that Berlin has maintained to keep. And that’s not easy to do. The council and mayor have done a good job doing that.”
Williams, another native, said the “spirit and attitude of the citizens of Berlin is our greatest asset.” While that took several decades to foster, he said the town now operates on a “common spirit of cooperation and collaboration that’s always emphasized here over competition.”
“People are just moved by it. Whether you’re a resident or one of our many guests, I believe the fact that you can experience this spirit, this attitude, makes all the difference,” he said. “I walk into some small towns that are beautiful, but I don’t feel anything … that’s not Berlin.
“We’re sharing an attitude and an optimism,” Williams added. “Believing in Berlin is ultimately what makes this a special place.”
Hall agreed and said there were few towns like Berlin, although she added its small-town charm needed to be preserved.
“It’s a special place,” she said. “We have the people that are welcoming all these new folks into Berlin and treating them like they were born and raised in Berlin … we need to protect that.”
She said her son, who was raised in Berlin, has been looking for an affordable home there for more than a year.
“He just can’t afford to buy a house in Berlin in his price range, so he’s just signed on a house in Ocean Pines and that breaks my heart,” she said. “The folks that were born and raised in Berlin are now having a hard time finding a home in their price range.”
As a solution, she suggested organizations such as CAR could work with the mayor and council to transform foreclosed properties.
“There should be a way that we could think outside the box and try to get these homes occupied,” she said.
Asked about his approach to annexation, Williams said it was a natural part of growth, although he cautioned it had to be “thoughtful.”
He said he had experienced this when it took he and his wife “24 years to get annexed into Berlin” in a home they purchased about 40 years ago.
“I know what this town was like when it refused [annexation] and said it was basically against the religion … people were not welcome. I was told that my wife, who lived in Ocean City, that I’d married a foreigner,” he said.
“Things have changed a lot and I don’t think annexation helter-skelter is the answer,” Williams said, adding, “What you do not grow through annexation you leave to total chance.”
Hall again said the town needed to be protected from certain types of growth.
“A town like Berlin needs to grow from within and protect its borders,” she said. “We need to finish the infill lots in Berlin, which is 300 new homes, before we start annexing in more property and creating more costs with developing … infrastructure. Why don’t we protect the size of our town [and] protect the small-town charm?”
She added that the town should look into hiring a professional urban planner to assist the planning and zoning department.
Tyndall and Orris also favored growing within existing town limits rather than expanding through annexation.
“Annexation … is natural progression,” Tyndall said. “However, I also feel that we have many underserved areas within our community and some infrastructure that we need to focus on before we start that improvement process.”
Orris said he was not “anti-annexation,” but added, “I’m focusing on what we have now.”
“[Annexation] can be done overtime after we focus on what we already have,” he said. “It’s a fine line. I would be lying if I said I had the perfect plan to get people here into town, fill up these lots and everything is utopia. I don’t have that plan right now. That’s what I would definitely work on should I be elected to the council.”
Looking at job creation, Orris called Berlin a “grant-writing machine” and said the town was headed in the right direction in that department.
Tyndall called for an approach to creating new jobs that was in line with Gov. Larry Hogan’s statewide efforts.
Maryland is open for business, so is Berlin,” he said. “You can’t overtax. If we create so many overhead costs for businesses then it’s going to be difficult for them to succeed. We’re almost setting them up for failure to begin with, so that’s something we need to look at.”
Hall said one of the biggest issues of the 21st century was how the country would bring back manufacturing jobs that had been lost to cheaper labor overseas.
“I was raised in a union household. My father had a union shirt factory in Salisbury. I was the kid that couldn’t buy anything that wasn’t made in America, because my dad would look at it when he came through the door,” she said.
At the end of his career, Hall said her father’s factory received materials already cut out by workers in Costa Rica, which were then brought back to be assembled in the U.S.
“To see my father, who has a die-hard union, made-in-America man, go and have to have an interpreter running around with him in his plant … that’s a problem,” she said. “It’s a problem that’s not going away.”
She cited Pocomoke business Hardwire, which manufactures armor protection for people and vehicles, as the kind of operation Berlin needed to attract to the town.
“Not all of our children are going to college,” she said. “There are the people that want to work and stay in the area, but where are they going to work?”
She said the average family in Berlin makes about $33,000 a year, according to the last census.
“How are they affording to live in Berlin, or live period?” she said. “Fifteen percent are living under poverty. I know more than half the children in Worcester County go to bed hungry every night.
“We all are going to have to work together, working with the governor, working with his office, working with the county officials, working with big business owners – those are the folks that are going to need to get together and work and see what we can bring into this area,” Hall added.
Williams noted that Berlin was the only community on the Eastern Shore – and possibly in the state – that lowered property taxes during the last eight years.
“What we’re trying to do is create a place that is a livable,” he said. “I don’t believe that traditional manufacturing jobs are going to be a significant part of Berlin’s future. It’s just not going to happen. There are places in this country … that basically would give away everything for anything.”
Instead, Williams said he wanted to see technology-based jobs brought to Berlin.
“I am confident that we are on the cusp of bringing some of those jobs here, because the people who like to do that work and who are qualified to do that work do not want to live in cities, certainly, and they don’t want to live in the ‘burbs anymore. The suburbs are the slums of the future,” he said.
“We don’t want everybody, and quite frankly we need to be able to reinvest in the people who are here who need the help,” Williams continued. “Our attitude is not to become the cheapest place to live in the Eastern United States … the race to the bottom is a bottomless pit.”
Responding to an audience question about blighted properties, Hall said the existing code needed “more teeth,” comparing the issue to a toddler whose mother wasn’t paying attention.
“Oh, Mommy really means that. I’d better pay attention. That’s how we’ve got to get to these blighted [properties],” she said.
Williams agreed with the “teeth analogy” when it came to current code.
“We can only have what you allow us,” he said. “We want to be more aggressive, but we do not want to destroy what we’re trying to save.”
Another resident said he was concerned by the $19.4 million fiscal year 2016 budget, which he said had increased by 42 percent since 2012.
According to Williams, the actual increase in spending was not as pronounced because about $3 million was tied to one-time capital expenses – largely Berlin Falls park – and that the actual budget was closer to about $15.5 million.
“This year’s budget is an anomaly,” he said, adding that the town was not under any pressure to increase the tax rate.
Orris said developing the park, a former Tyson’s Chicken plan, and potentially running a trolley from that site to the downtown shopping district would help generate new revenue.
Berlin Falls was also a popular option with Hall, who was an early proponent of its purchase. She supported building a skate park and having youth programs at the site, on Old Ocean City Boulevard.
“In the past eight years, this mayor and council has spent a lot of money bringing the town up to the 21st century, infrastructure wise,” she said. “Now, the next four years I think we need to start giving amenities back to the residents of Berlin … we’ve got the town in good shape, now let’s listen to the residents.”
Tyndall, meanwhile, suggested adding a new generator to the power plant, which he said could increase revenues there by 20-30 percent.
During closing remarks, Tyndall said he was concerned about the lagoons at Berlin Falls. A former paramedic, he noted that an 8-year-old boy drowned in a similar lagoon at North Side Park in Ocean City.
“I think we need to look at installing some form of a safety measure for the kids,” he said. “I’ve seen kids die, and I don’t want to see that at our park. That’s something we need to focus on, and with the winter season coming it needs to be one of the top priorities.”
Orris compared Berlin to a party where “everybody is trying to get in.” That’s not necessarily a bad thing, he said, but the guests don’t get to make the rules.
Following that metaphor, he said developers needed to adhere to design standards set by the town.
“I still want to keep stressing that it’s the people and the small-town charm that make Berlin what it is,” he said. “Even though I wasn’t lucky enough to be born here, I picked up on that right away and that’s something I think everybody here can agree that we don’t want to lose.”
Williams said serving as mayor for two terms has been “one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life.”
“I believe that I have the responsibility – not just an opportunity – to finish putting in place some of the key foundation blocks that have allowed our community to go from desperation to opportunity,” he said. “I think we are on course to meet the challenges that are ahead of us – none of them are in any way an imminent threat to our way of life that we have worked so long to create.
“Some people want to make you believe that any growth is a threat to our quality of life, and that’s just not so. It’s how you grow, how you place your assets [and] what to do with what you have,” he continued. “We have to prepare for the generations that follow, and in my case, I know I’m very concerned about making sure we do that in the best possible way, because my daughter, son-in-law and my grandchildren live here in Berlin.”
Hall said she had “met a lot of people” during her eight years on the council, both in Berlin and traveling across the state.
“It’s been very rewarding,” she said. “I like the idea that municipal government is kind of nonpartisan – I don’t know half the people, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans [and] I don’t care. We just work together on committees for a common cause.
“I would really like to protect Berlin, I’d like to work for the residents of Berlin, I’d like to see something done with the Tyson property,” Hall continued. “I think there’s opportunities there if we reach out to do industrial or other business-type things there. It doesn’t have to be all of a park – it’s 60-some acres.”
She said the point of purchasing the property was to protect it from out-of-state developers, and that police and nonprofits would make for good partners in developing Berlin Falls.
“At least, we now can control what’s being done there, and I’m sure if we look there’s a lot of opportunities,” she said.
Last Thursday, the day after the forum, CAR announced its endorsement of Williams and Tyndall.
The Berlin municipal election is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 4 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Districts 1 and 2 will vote at Buckingham Presbyterian Church on 20 South Main Street. Districts 3 and 4 will vote at the multipurpose building on 130 Flower Street.