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Ocean Pines BOD candidates clash at annual forum

(June 30, 2016) Eleven of the 12 candidates for Ocean Pines Association Board of Directors met last Wednesday evening during the only association-sponsored forum of the election season.
While no one candidate scored what could be considered a knockout blow, several did differentiate themselves in terms of the issues and their approach to governance, as well as their overall view of Ocean Pines.
Newcomer George Simon, for instance, addressed the perception of dysfunction amongst the current directors and juxtaposed that with his experience in construction.  
“I’ve seen dysfunction. We may have some issues with the board where they may not get along, but I can tell you – this is not dysfunction,” he said. “If you want dysfunction you can go … into Ocean City.
“We have a good plan here. We have a good general manager. We just need a board that can work together and get the things done in this community and save us money. That’s all we need,” he added.
Comprehensive Planning Committee Chairman Frank Daly said his priority was “to get the board [of directors] functioning like a board.”
“Right now it functions like a sixth grade student council,” he said. “We need people in there that are going to provide the right kind of oversight, demand the right kind of accountability and do the kind of in-depth work on proposals that spend your money wisely,” he said.
Similarly, Tom Janasek said his priority was to get the board working together.
“There’s [been] so much dissention on the boards for the past six years – there’s so much infighting,” he said. “You go to these meetings and … they last two hours because people are bickering and talking. There’s no negotiation on the board. There’s no speaking back and forth. It drives me crazy.”
He used the example of Director Tom Herrick asking about the possibility of outsourcing the general manager position, which he said was shot down without enough review “like he had just told them he was going to take their dog away from them.”
“We really need to stop all the bickering and infighting on the board … I’m telling you, I will do what I say I’m going to do,” Janasek said. “The priority would be [to] get the board functioning, whether it be with this GM or whatever GM – get these projects done. We have a problem with getting projects done … we need another study like we need a hole in the head.”
By-laws & Resolutions Chairman Doug Parks carried part of that logic over to a question on whether several ailing bridges should be repaired or replaced. Safety, he said, far outweighed whether the county or state would cover all or part of replacement.
“Replacement obviously comes with a cost, but there’s also a warrantee, there’s [added] longevity to that bridge that will address what I think is a very important problem – that is the safety, both for the people going over that bridge [and] the people that are going under that bridge,” he said. “This topic has been on the books far too long. We’ve had a lot of discussion about it. It’s time to make an informed decision – it’s not time, as others have said, to have another study.”
Budget and Finance Committee Chairwoman Pat Supik said the bridges issue partially hinged on “assessment by professionals,” but agreed that if safety was an issue, Ocean Pines should move to replace without or without county or state funding.
She tied the issue into the debate on reserves, saying if Ocean Pines did not have adequate stockpiles “everything becomes a major problem.”
“Bridges that are falling apart, we all agree, would be a little bit dangerous. If we don’t have the reserve funds to immediately take care of those bridges when they need to be taken care of, then we’d have to go borrow the money,” she said. “We wouldn’t be sitting here making the decision because we wouldn’t have the ability to do that.”
Slobodan Trendic spoke in defense of outsourcing, citing the yacht club and information technology as particular areas where Ocean Pines could improve.
“Outsourcing is not a novelty,” he said. “It’s basically an efficient, effective way to bring new ways of running our facilities and our amenities. My philosophy is very simple. We are [an] association. We should do in-house what we have to do in-house because nobody else should or can. But, I also … believe that we should [not] be competing with local businesses. We should form partnerships.
“Let the professional restaurant owners come in and run the yacht club,” he continued. “IT, our information technology infrastructure, is another example of a perfect area that needs to be outsourced … we are running systems that belong [in] the MIT museum. We don’t have the IT systems; we don’t have human resources systems. As a board, you can’t plan – as a general manager you can’t plan – unless you have the right tools.”
Steve Lind also recommended outsourcing the yacht club operation, and said his biggest concern with the amenity was that it was not doing enough business during the summer.
“We have a bayfront place, [an] absolutely gorgeous place [with a] marina, tiki bar, pool,” he said. “We go there on a Monday night or a Thursday night, there’s nobody there – in July and August.
“I think we should concentrate on increasing the summer business to where it should be, considering we’re in a resort area, and then maybe we will be able to keep the yacht club open maybe Thursday, Friday and Saturday and Sunday in the winter and still break even,” he continued. “I truly believe the problem is we just don’t make enough in the summer. We have three months to make a fortune and we’re not doing it.”
Sharona Ezaoui admitted she was “not a politician,” but repeatedly encouraged the leadership to listen and work together.
“I’m good at doing stuff,” she said. “I have ideas that I can do, but I’m not a politician. I would like to be part of the board to [make] decisions, because I know … I can help.”
Business owner Brett Hill hammered General Manager Bob Thompson, saying his office lacked accountability, did not do proper research and enjoyed a “rubber stamp” coming from the board of directors.
“The majority of the proposals for spending that come in front of that board are a website, an EBay listing – there aren’t real quotes,” he said. “How do we run a $14 million budget and not solicit competitive quotations?
“I run $120 million budget every year [and] I get bids on everything,” Hill continued. “The board has to hold the GM accountable to that, and the GM is responsible for doing that research, bringing the vendors, soliciting for RFPs and holding his staff to a level of prudent spending of our money. That’s how the relationship is supposed to work and that’s how I would see it work on the board of directors.”
Former Director Ray Unger, on the other hand, stuck up for Thompson.
“The general manager and the comptrollers run the organization as far as the dollars are concerned. It’s our job [on the board] to make sure we don’t give them too much or we give them too little,” he said.
The system has worked so well, in fact, that Unger said he could not remember a time when the board had to call for a special assessment.
“There have been enough long-term looks by the board and by the general manager to level this thing out to the point where there’s not too much excessive spending,” he said. “We always have worked together very closely, on the board with the GM.”
Improvements to the Manklin Meadows Racquet Sports Complex came up several times. Director Jack Collins, the only incumbent in the group, admitted he had “no idea what was approved” when the board last voted on the matter.
“There was $150,000 that was jammed through, and that “$150,000 – I think – was spent, not to move a playground or anything of that nature. It was spent to do some stormwater mitigation,” he said. “I don’t understand that $150,000 deal at all.”
Collins said the original concept was estimated to cost $250,000. That, however, “expanded,” and he said that was because the county demands new construction is “very, very cognoscente of the demands on the environment.”
As a solution, Collins said Herrick suggested repainting existing tennis courts for pickleball use, which would require no costly stormwater mediation.
“Now, we’re going to look at the possibility of buying, renting, or maybe even building some platform tennis courts,” he said. “Platform tennis courts means you play on a platform, so you’re up in the air … if you build it on a platform, which platform tennis is supposed to be, your stormwater mitigation is seriously reduced.”
Collins went over his time limit during each of the four times he spoke, and was reprimanded by moderator Bill Wentworth more than once.
During closing remarks, Wentworth went as far as pulling the microphone out of his hand, leading to a brief exchange of words between the two.
“It’s not all about you, Jack,” Wentworth said.
“Take it easy,” Collins said.
“You need to take it easy,” Wentworth said.
The remainder of the roughly two-hour debate went relatively smoothly. Perhaps the most common theme of the evening was whether or not, as Supik put it, “the sky is falling.”
“I just look around and I think, well living in Ocean Pines right now I [feel] about the farthest from the sky is falling,” she said. “Financially, we are on good ground operationally. If you add up the last three year’s bottom line, it’s positive.”
Supik said the assessment had grown by just $7 during the last three years. She juxtaposed that with her Mediacom Internet bill, which “goes up $1.20 every month.”
“I think the numbers speak for themselves,” she said. “I also think that the board needs some introspection and maybe a little direction to get running in a positive fashion. Other than that, I think Ocean Pines is on a great track.”
Simon had a similar view. He admitted “writing checks is not fun,” but said assessments largely paid for the police, fire, public works and recreation and parks services that made the association a special place.
“We live in, what I feel, is one of the better places that you can live,” he said. “I moved out of Baltimore and I came down here for a reason. I raised my children here. This is one of the safest places that you can be.
“We want generations of our family to live here,” he continued. “We want this to remain the kind of place that people want to live in. I understand that [paying assessments is] tough, but if you look around at the other places around here – Berlin, Ocean City and other neighborhoods around here – we actually have it pretty good.”
Janasek was more critical. He said he used many of the amenities in Ocean Pines, but that the yacht club, in particular, was subpar as illustrated by $17,000 loses in May.
“I would love for everybody to go to the yacht club, but [between] you, me and the wall, the service and the food are not that great,” he said. “We haven’t had a business plan. These new [restaurants] are eating our lunch.”
He said he was running to “change the philosophy.”
“I come to the board meetings, I complain about things, I talk about stuff I don’t I like as long as I’ve had the chance to do so,” he said. “I have the opportunity to do something now, to be on the board, so it’s put up or shut up for me. If I’m going complain, I might as well be on the board and see what I can do to change what’s going on.”
Hill said the “contentious” board meetings he had seen recently were poorly representing the Pines.
“This is my first opportunity to step up, and I’m taking that opportunity. I feel a sense of social responsibility to my community because I see a problem and I want to help fix it,” he said.
He said it was “completely disappointing” to see several amenities not ready for the summer during each of the last three years, and blamed the administration.
“That’s poor management,” he said. “The board has a responsibility to hold management accountable, see that things are staying on track [and] if they’re not on track make hard decisions to pull things back together. That’s the type of leadership I want to bring to the table.”