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OPA candidate Trendic using ads to insert levity

(June 18, 2015) The Ocean Pines Association Board of Directors isn’t exactly known for its energetic sense of humor, so it’s worth noting when a candidate for office attempts to bring a lighter touch during a political campaign.
That’s exactly what Belgrade, Yugoslavia native Slobodan Trendic, 59, is attempting to do with a series of colorful, cartoony signs posted around the community.
“I’m trying to maintain a little sense of humor because all too often the board members and others really take things too seriously, which really causes friction and confrontation,” he said. “I’m trying to do my best to avoid that, and I think as the community members drive around and notice my signs, they will speak for themselves what is so different about me.
“Like President Lincoln’s old motto said, use your humor to entertain your friends and disarm your adversaries,” Trendic added. “That’s going to be my style.”
Trendic also hopes to bring a worldly perspective to what is, as he sees it, an extremely diverse community in Ocean Pines.
“I’m probably the first Ocean Pines candidate that is not a naturalized U.S. citizen,” he said. “I think I bring a very interesting perspective to the community in that capacity, not only as a former Yugoslavian and now citizen, but also as somebody that has traveled all over the world and has seen many, many other places in ways that other people have not. We all come from different places and we have managed to successfully integrate into one cohesive community.”
Trendic, a former IT executive with three decades of experience in the private sector, came to the United States in 1978. He bought a summer home in Ocean Pines in 2008, and moved to the area with his wife five years later.
Last year, Trendic filed for the board before stepping down early and throwing his support behind candidates Dave Stevens and Pat Renaud. The pair eventually won the election, and proceeded to reorganize the power structure on the board of directors.
“Maybe I’m just looking for more punishment,” Trendic said with a laugh. “Last year I felt there were two candidates that I was really able to relate to. I felt that there was a huge need for change at the board level in order to proceed with the reforms that we needed to undertake, and by staying in the race I would have, probably, complicated the prospect of two good candidates getting elected.”
Ironically, Trendic said the presumed lock-step team of Stevens, currently board president, and Board Secretary Renaud, has not always gone as originally advertised.
“If you saw recent dynamics at the board level you will probably conclude that Pat Renaud and Dave Stevens are no longer like thinkers,” he said. “I think there’s friction building up, which is, unfortunately, very unhealthy. I was most disturbed by Pat’s vote to approve the current fiscal budget, specifically raising HOA dues. I think it’s just not really what I would call creative leadership. It’s maybe public sector behavior, but not something that I would have expected from somebody coming from the private sector.”
This year, Trendic said, he’s in the race for the long haul.
“Keep in mind that I’m a Yugoslav,” he said. “We’ve been known to be of tough skin. I have no intention of dropping out this time short of somebody running me over with a bus. I was a team player last year, but this year people have urged me to run and they have high expectations – and I’m not going to let them down.”
What really motivated his second foray into candidacy, Trendic said, is the fact that he has “lost confidence in the board and the general manager.”
“That is the overriding factor for my decision to run,” he said. “I’m running as a representative of all homeowners who are not happy with the board’s performance and with the GM’s performance, whether they’re part-time homeowners or full-time homeowners.”
Trendic’s main issue with General Manager Bob Thompson, he said, is the contract approved by the previous board, in 2014.
“Under the previous president, the board has structured a compensation package that I feel is just outrageous,” he said. “We pay the GM a $165,000 base salary with upwards of $40,000 in bonuses and a benefits package. All that added up and you’re probably looking at over $225,000.”
No other community on the Eastern Shore, Trendic suggested, pays a managing executive as much as Ocean Pines pays Thompson.
“Even the Ocean City manager doesn’t make this type of money,” he said. “Even across the bridge, the city manager of Annapolis doesn’t make that much money. The problem I have is it’s a package put together for the GM that is just not sustainable, and it’s really a wasteful use of our financial resources. That is really what caused me to start speaking publically and become more involved with the community last year.”
Trendic also tied Thompson to the new yacht club, indicting the GM further for failing to meeting budget estimates during its first year.
“Everything I’ve read [suggests to] me and others that Bob Thompson was greatly behind the whole project,” he said. “He was running the show and he was involved from the design phase all the way to the execution. And I can understand why – every executive would want to have a project that would define his success, maybe his legacy, but let’s face it, the majority of people I have spoken to are really disappointed with the yacht club at many levels.”
The facility, Trendic said, was originally presented at a $4.2 million cost to the community.
“The original budget has been exceeded by 25 percent,” he said. “I don’t call that a success.”
Trendic went on to criticize the financial performance of the yacht club, although he did go on record against shutting the facility down during the winter.
“We continue to lose money in huge ways and this is one of the amenities that should stand on its own and not be subsidized,” he said. “It’s not just open to residents of this community and homeowners – it’s open to the public. It kind of begs the question, which amenities do we run as profit and loss centers and which amenities need to be subsidized?”
The golf course, yacht club and beach club, Trendic suggested, should all turn profits. Outsourcing some of those facilities, he added, could help towards that goal.
“I think once and for all we need to put this to rest,” Trendic said. “We need to clearly identify which amenities should be profitable, which amenities should be free of charge and which need to be subsidized because they are unable to make a profit.
“[Outsourcing] is nothing new,” Trendic continued. “Governments all over the world have been doing it for years. Private sector all over the world has been doing it for years. There are certain functions that every entity nowadays pretty much shares in common, and those are the ones that you farm out to third party companies that can do it cheaper, better, faster.”
Trendic singled out the beach club as a “jewel that’s been neglected.”
“It’s not only a jewel for us, but also for visitors, for our families, our renters, and it’s a first impression to many of the new comers,” he said. “When you go to the beach club and you look at the restroom facilities there, it’s really embarrassing. I’ve been to a lot of third-world countries, and I have seen the worst. It reflects on us in a very negative way. As a board member, I would not be able to allow that to continue.”
He also proposed Ocean Pines use franchise fees from utilities, like Mediacom and Sandpiper, as earmarks for specific expenditures, rather than simply adding to the general fund.
One of Trendic’s boldest ideas is to use Mediacom fees in order to build the necessary infrastructure to liberate the community from its stranglehold. In order to save money on the project, he suggested Ocean Pines find a way to work with the county during a planned replacement of water pipes in the area.
“Mediacom has a monopoly in Ocean Pines – they own the infrastructure,” he said. “If I was on the board and responsible for this I would put in place a plan, I would work with the county leadership in a cooperative way, and I would follow their trucks as they dig ditches and I would lay down fiber optics cables. The biggest investment in laying down a fiber-optic network is really in the labor involved to dig ditches and bury those cables.
“We have an opportunity of a lifetime,” Trendic continued. “The new pipes are going last a hundred years. Imagine if we lay down fiber optic cable behind the county workers in the same trenches, what would that mean to us if we own our own fiber optic infrastructure? We would be able to take over our own cable infrastructure and invite service providers like Verizon, AT&T and Mediacom to come in and offer their services. This is the kind of creative leadership that we need in Ocean Pines.”
Trendic admitted he did not have all the knowledge required to find the right solutions to every problem in Ocean Pines, but said there were plenty of residents who did.
“One of my biggest goals is to reach out to whole the community,” he said. “There are executives in this community that have the skills and expertise to do almost anything. There are a number of people here that are smarter, more experienced, more skilled than any currently sitting board member – or any of the seven candidates for the board, me included. I would love to motivate those people to step forward and volunteer either as a board member or as a member of an advisory committee.
“We need help, and this is going to be one of the things I’m going to focus on,” Trendic continued. “I think my personality, my personal skills and my professional experience hopefully will make a difference in bringing the board together to work in a more harmonious way.”