3/7/14 Ocean City Today

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OC Today WWW.OCEANCITYTODAY.NET

MARCH 7, 2014

SERVING NORTHERN WORCESTER COUNTY

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SPRING AHEAD Remember to set clocks hour ahead by 2 a.m. Sunday

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City, AARP to host Smart Meter forum

Minimum wage likely to pass House

DP&L customers will now pay $17/month

Seasonal exemption for resort shot down

By Zack Hoopes Staff Writer (March 7, 2014) The Town of Ocean City, along with the local Chapter 1917 of the American Association of Retired Persons, will be sponsoring a town hall-style meeting Wednesday, March 12, to address issues relating to the installation of so-called “smart meters” in the resort area. Incidentally, the Maryland Public Service Commission announced last week that it had approved a permanent opt-out of the smart meter upgrade – but also authorized utility companies to levy an additional fee for those who decline to switch. Delmarva Power and Light could charge area customers an up-front $75 fee, and $17 per month after that, to optout of smart meter installation. The March 12 meeting will begin at 11 a.m. at the Ocean City Senior Center, located on 41st Street next to the convention center. Speaking at the event will be Jim Smith, DP&L’s Public Affairs Manager, as well as Jonathan Libber, President of Maryland Smart Meter Awareness. Both Smith and Libber will give presentations of roughly 20 minutes each, followed by audience questions via microphone or submitted on question cards to be provided. Chapter 1917 President Chris Norris will moderate. “We didn’t want it to be a debate, more of a town hall See SMART Page 4

OCEAN CITY TODAY/LISA CAPITELLI

POWER PLAY Last weekend, 175 hockey players, ranging in age from 5 to 8 years old, participated in the inaugural Mite Beach Bash on the ice rink at the Carousel Resort Hotel and Condominiums on 118th Street. See story on page 28.

MSA testing gets extension Exams pushed back following two more snow day closures

By Clara Vaughn Staff Writer (March 7, 2014) The Maryland State Department of Education is extending the window for Maryland School Assessment (MSA) testing following another snowstorm that closed local schools Monday and Tuesday. The original MSA reading and mathematics testing on paper started last Monday, March 3, and was slated to end Wednesday, March 12. That window now runs through Friday, March 14.

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Public schools in the state give the benchmark tests to students in grades 3-8 over four days, selected by local school districts. Worcester County Public Schools had planned to give the tests March 7-12, but has actually bumped them up a day to March 6-11, said Coordinator of Public Relations and Special Programs for the schools Barbara Witherow. “It’s not optimal because it takes away from our instructional time,” Witherow said of the school closings, which included Monday and Tuesday of this week. “What you have is only one day of instruction before the tests start.”

So far, Worcester schools have seen eight inclement weather closings this year. “We wish we didn’t have them, but we can’t be bringing kids in to school when the roads aren’t safe,” Witherow said. The snow has already impacted end-of-semester exams for the county’s high school students, who were scheduled to take the tests Jan. 23-24, both days the schools closed for snow. The closings have surpassed the three snow days built into the 2013-2014 school calendar, meaning the school year will end later than the original date of June 12. See MSA Page 5

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By Zack Hoopes Staff Writer (March 7, 2014) While Six Flags appears to riding the gravy train – or gravy roller coaster, as it were – through the state’s minimum wage hike, Ocean City businesses stand to get hit full-on with the goose of increased labor costs. Maryland’s House of Delegates is poised to pass a final reading today of a bill that will raise the state’s minimum wage incrementally over the next two years to $10.10 by 2016, a mandate many local businesses have feared. However, a provision of Governor Martin O’Malley’s original proposal, which would raise the margin for tipped workers from 50 to 70 percent of the minimum wage, was axed by the House Economic Matters Committee on Tuesday. As it stands of press time, the House bill will keep tipped workers’ minimum at half of the current federal minimum of $7.25, meaning a wage of $3.63 for most servers and bartenders who make up a large portion of the resort workforce. But a wholesale exemption for all seasonal workers was shot down on the floor of the House Wednesday morning during the bill’s second reading. “We fought this morning quite a bit,” said Delegate Mike McDermott (R-38B), who sought a provision that would exempt anyone working in the Town of Ocean City See MINIMUM Page 4 We Service All HVAC Brands

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