Before Ocean Pines Association members get too excited over the prospect of finding real dirt via a forensic audit of the association’s finances, they should consider a variation of what is known as Hanlon’s Razor rule of reasoning. It postulates, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” In this case, the… Read more »

As rumors swirled for almost a year about the possibility that several key personnel were offered contracts by then acting Ocean Pines General Manager Brett Hill, some board members elected not to talk about it. Presumably, they hoped the matter would just go away, eventually, but, once again, that strategy is coming back to haunt… Read more »

When looking at expenses and debt, as the Ocean Pines Association Board of Directors has been doing during the current budget process, it’s easy to miss the smaller things that will, when taken in total, make a difference. A recent patron of an Ocean Pines lunch spot, for instance, noticed that the liquor bottles at… Read more »

Print is dead … until it makes a mistake, criticizes a public figure or releases an uncomfortable set of facts. Then, the phone rings and the letters flow. Clearly, someone is reading local newspapers or this uncomfortable circumstance wouldn’t occur, which is why the dead-print assertion by a member of the Ocean Pines Board of… Read more »

It’s almost as if “Professor” Harold Hill, as played by Robert Preston in the 1962 film “The Music Man,” is singing in the streets: “Trouble, oh we got trouble right here in River City.” The difference in this version is that con man Harold isn’t singing about the moral dangers of shooting pool, but about… Read more »

Ocean City Today and Bayside Gazette ended the practice of posting police beat items on their web pages last week, after recognizing that, unlike print articles, online information can live forever, even when it is incomplete and unfair. This decision was prompted by an increasing number of requests from people who wanted their names removed… Read more »

The question of how much money the Ocean Pines Association should keep in reserve to cover the major expenses of maintaining its assets such as buildings, roads and bulkheads continues to haunt its budgetary discussions. It has done so again, as the administration, in concert with the budget committee, prepares to ask the OPA Board… Read more »

Most people have no idea who the public works and utility crews are in their towns and communities, or what they do beyond provide services they take for granted — until a pipe bursts or a street is impassible because of repairs, maintenance or construction. They don’t realize, except every other year or so, the… Read more »

Pocomoke City Manager Bobby Cowger isn’t just managing the community’s government affairs, he’s doing things, things that could have been done long before this hometown boy got his hand on the tiller. Going back to his days in business, as a Worcester County Commissioner, and later as the head of the county’s Department of Liquor… Read more »

At the last Town of Berlin council meeting, there was plenty of good that came out of Councilman Dean Burrell’s questioning of the recently released marketing video of the town. Burrell did the right thing by bringing up the issue in public rather than allowing any misunderstanding to fester behind the scenes. As a representative… Read more »