ELECTION: Council to talk about
GUESS WHO’S BACK?
holding local election simultaneously with national balloting, not becoming a part of it PAGE 8
Fifty-three-year-old John Cary is back on the Ocean City Beach Patrol after a 30-year absence PAGE 18
INSIDE THIS ISSUE: BUSINESS . . . . . . . . . 44 CLASSIFIED . . . . . . . . 86 ENTERTAINMENT . . . . 53 LEGALS . . . . . . . . . . . 89
LIFESTYLE . . . . . . . . . 49 OPINION . . . . . . . . . . 20 OUT&ABOUT . . . . . . . . 55 SPORTS . . . . . . . . . . . 41
FIREWORKS, CONCERTS AND CONTESTS FOR THE FOURTH…PAGE 49
Ocean City Today WWW.OCEANCITYTODAY.NET
JUNE 29, 2012
Are crosswalks
FREE
ZACK HOOPES ■ Staff Writer
F
As State Highway Administration lays new walkways, police find common sense difficult to enforce
OCEAN CITY TODAY/ZACK HOOPES
State Highway Administration workers install a new brick-patterned thermoplastic crosswalk at Coastal Highway and Dolphin Avenue, a design SHA engineers hope will make crossings more visible to pedestrians.
ollowing an alarming number of pedestrian accidents in the first month of the summer season, the State Highway Administration has been making crosswalk improvements at several key points along Coastal Highway. But despite changes in infrastructure, the Ocean City Police Department says it is running up against a lack of any legal ground for preventative enforcement. Since May 28, at least eight pedestrians have been struck by vehicles, two of them fatally,as they have attempted to cross the street in Ocean City. In the majority of cases, the victims were either not in a crosswalk, or crossing against the signal, following an alarming trend of vacationers running across Coastal Highway mid-block, often from the raised brick median where drivers do not expect then to be. Matthew Jude Cheswick, 22, a Towson University student from Cooksville, was killed May 28 while standing in the bus lane at 54th Street. He was struck by a drunk driver, Diogo Miller Facchini, who fled the scene but was later apprehended. A week later, on June 4, Samantha Sweitzer, 15, an Allegany High School student from LaVale, was killed while attempting to cross Philadelphia Avenue at 21st Street. She reportedly was not in the crosswalk and going against traffic. And in the most recent incident, June 21, a 19-year-old woman from Glen Burnie was hit while attempting to cross from the west side to the east side of Baltimore Avenue, roughly 20 feet north of the 2nd Street intersection. Her injuries were not life-threatening, although police reported that she was being treated for abrasions and knocked-out teeth. In response, the State Highway Administration has been installing brickpatterned crosswalks at high-risk intersections, according to Ken Cimino, assistant district engineer for SHA District 1, which covers Dorchester, Wicomico, Somerset, and Worcester counties. “We’ve identified several half-mile corridors that are high risk, using a three-year average of pedestrian accidents from 2008, 2009, and 2010,” Cimino said. “You can’t force them [pedestrians], but you can encourage them to move to the marked crossing.” See STATE on Page 14
OCEAN CITY TODAY/ZACK HOOPES
The Sea Watch condominium has become the most recent site of contamination with Legionella — the waterborne bacteria that causes Legionnaire’s disease.
Legionella bacteria discovered in water at North OC condo ZACK HOOPES ■ Staff Writer (June 29, 2012) Legionella — the bacteria that causes the form of pneumonia known as Legionnaire’s Disease — continues to haunt the resort, as a North Ocean City condo has recently tested positive for the bacteria. Meanwhile, the multiparty suit relating to last fall’s contamination at Plim Plaza was recently moved from Baltimore City to Worcester County’s court in Snow Hill. According to Worcester County Health Department Nursing Manager for Communicable Disease Debra Stevens, the Sea Watch condo at 11500 Coastal Highway was tested recently after a hospital elsewhere in the country reported a case of Legionnaire’s in a patient who said they vacationed in the area during the time in which they would’ve contracted the bacteria. “There’s a system in place to report those cases, and the department does an investigation with the idea of trying to prevent anyone else from getting sick,” Stevens said. “When a person has traveled, that is also reported. We were able to identify that the patient, in the late spring during the time they would’ve gotten sick, stayed at the Sea Watch. We had also been notified of a previous possibility in the fall, and when you have two or more cases with a common experience, that See SEA WATCH on Page 29