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Gazette Editorial: Anticipating results of Ocean Pines’ audit

Nobody doesn’t like a good mystery, which is what the forensic audit of the Ocean Pines Association’s finances has become as it enters its second, and possibly final, phase.

Association members know — or can find out on the community’s web page — what the auditors have accomplished to date, but they won’t learn anything about what the investigation has found so far.

The online summary lists only the steps the auditors have taken during their scouring of the books, an effort that included subpoenaing and checking bank records, meeting with Worcester County Bureau of Investigation detectives and attempting to examine point-of-sale data for 2016-2017.

The information gleaned from these efforts won’t be released until the final package is presented to the OPA Board of Directors on a yet-to-be-determined date. But with each periodic update filed by the firm, the process has become more intriguing, as the auditors apparently have suggested they have found some interesting things.

As General Manager John Bailey said this week of the phase I findings by Gross Mendelsohn & Associates, “They have some substantial things to report on.”

That doesn’t sound like nothing, but no good will come from guessing and indulging in speculation at this juncture, and association members — and the media — must resist that urge.

Even though indications are that this investigation has turned a corner, as auditors switch their focus from food and beverage operations to public works, all anyone can do is wait with increasing anticipation to see how this story turns out.