JOSH DAVIS/BAYSIDE GAZETTE
Members of the Ocean Pines Election Committee on Friday look over final vote totals before announcing election results. Preliminary totals suggested Steve Tuttle, Frank Daly, Ted Moroney and Esther Diller were elected to the Ocean Pines Board of Directors.

By Josh Davis, Associate Editor

(Aug. 10, 2018) Based on preliminary vote totals on Friday, Steve Tuttle and Frank Daly have each earned three-year terms on the Ocean Pines Association Board of Directors.

Tuttle was the leading vote getter, with 2,322, and Daly finished second with 2,048 votes.

Director Ted Moroney, the lone incumbent in the election this year, finished third with 1,809 votes, and Esther Diller finished fourth with 1,549. Both earned one-year terms on the board, because of the resignations of Pat Supik this year and Brett Hill last year.

Paula Gray narrowly missed election, finishing fifth with 1,526 votes, followed by Arie Klapholz, 833, and Gregory Turner, 771.

Tuttle, the only candidate present during the count, said he was pleased with the results.

“I feel it’s a great challenge that I’m facing. It’s got a steep learning curve, but I’m committed to putting the time and the effort in [required for] serving on the board,” he said.

Tuttle said he spent much of the campaign knocking on doors in neighborhoods including Teal Bay and the Whitetail Sanctuary. He attributed the victory to “just talking to people,” an approach he said would continue as a board member.

“Absolutely. I really want to hear what people’s concerns are,” he said. “I’m committed to trying to respond to emails, when people contact me, or phone calls.”

He said the number-one topic on most people’s minds was the recent culling of about 300 resident Canada geese. His position, he said, was “the board did the right thing.”

“They were between a rock and a hard place [and] I don’t think they had any choice,” he said.

Assessments were the second most-popular topic, Tuttle added.

“It would be great if we never had to raise assessments, but things cost money,” he said.

Diller, contacted after results were announced, said she was “looking forward to working with the board and making some very well-needed changes and improvements for our community.”

“I think we have a good group of people that are on there and I think we can get a lot done,” she said.

Diller said her top priority was leaning more heavily on outsourcing.

“Outsourcing has worked so well with Matt Ortt with the yacht club. We’ve had tremendous success with that,” she said. “It just goes to show how good outsourcing can work.

“People are afraid of it and there’s no reason to be afraid of it, and I think Matt Ortt has done a great job in showing that to everybody,” Diller continued. “I’d like to work some outsourcing in for backroom and accounting and finance. It doesn’t mean getting rid of people – it means utilizing the same people we have underneath a professional management group who knows how to manage HOAs.”

Daly and Moroney were not immediately available for comment.

The Ocean Pines Elections Committee oversaw the vote count, held in the East Room of the community center, and Chairman Steve Habeger announced the totals Friday morning. The official validation of the results was scheduled Saturday morning, during the Ocean Pines annual meeting.

Habeger on Friday said of the roughly 7,600 ballots mailed to Ocean Pines homeowners, four were not counted because more than the allowed number of candidates was marked.

“Last year 41 people voted for more than the allowed [number], so I think our efforts to be clear were successful,” Habeger said.

He said 3,105 total ballots were counted.