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AUGUST 15, 2014
SERVING NORTHERN WORCESTER COUNTY
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41ST WHITE MARLIN OPEN Only one white meets both weight and length requirements and takes top $1.2M prize–Page 41
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Town expects hard decisions on many events Council adopts final, most critical measure to quantify how public resources used
JOSH DAVIS/OCEAN CITY TODAY
California-based autism nonprofit, Surfers Healing, sends expert surfers to the beach on 37th Street in Ocean City to teach 200 children how to surf on Wednesday, Aug. 13. Sebastian Poole, 8, experiences the thrill of surfing with a little help from a surfer friend.
When surf boarding brings healing Day for 200 children with autism to experience wave riding for firsthand fun
By Clara Vaughn Staff Writer (Aug. 15, 2014) Surfers, volunteers and family members gathered on the beach at 37th Street Wednesday to cheer children on as they rode waves to shore during Ocean City’s fifth annual Surfers Healing, a day for children with autism to experience surfing firsthand. More than 100 volunteers helped host the event, which included surf rides with professional surfers, lunch, games and time to spend together as families.
For mother of two Carrie Zolan, it marked the third year she made the trip to Ocean City. “It’s truly amazing,” said Zolan, who brought her sons Lucas, 12, and Adam, 10, from Kensington for the day on the beach. Lucas is “very quiet and shy with a lot of things,” she said, “but when we get him on the water, he’s alive. You can just see a total change in him.” In addition to the sense of achievement he gets from surfing — something his mother has never done — Lucas receives cheers from the crowd and surfers. “They’re with these cool dudes who are telling them they’re cool,” Zolan said. “It’s an amazing environment.”
Surfers Healing started as a nonprofit 14 years ago after pro surfer and founder Izzy Paskowitz paddled out with his son Isaiah, diagnosed with autism at age 3. Seeing the profound effect surfing had on his son, Paskowitz and his wife Danielle founded Surfers Healing, which now hosts more than a dozen camps across the United States and Canada for thousands of children each year. For Ocean City volunteer and surfer Jim Jung, it’s one of the highlights of his summer. “I’ve been looking forward to it since the day after last year’s camp,” said the Baltimore native. “As soon as the kids hit that water, it’s like everySee RIDING Page 3
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By Zack Hoopes Staff Writer (Aug. 15, 2014) City Council adopted the final, and likely most critical, measure this week to further quantify how public resources are being used to sponsor the myriad of private events held in the resort. “We certainly don’t want to curb any activity in the Town of Ocean City,” said Councilman Joe Mitrecic. “This is just looking to put a value on what our equipment and personnel are worth.” Following behind two policies which created new fee schedules for event applications and banner placement on city-owned hangers - earlier this month, Special Events Superintendent Frank Miller presented a new, comprehensive policy on for the use of town-owned equipment and staff. “There are costs associated with doing events, but we don’t have any type of policy stating that a promoter has to pay for those uses,” Miller said. “What you see here are competitive costs with other sources that private event promoters could go to for these same resources.” The newly-revised Town Asset Request forms specify the unit cost of any piece of town hardware, including maintenance, transport, and depreciation – traffic cones, per instance, are valued at $2 per day per cone. The city’s mobile stage is $350 per day. The intent, Miller noted, is not that the town will hold every event to the exact cost calculated on the TAR form. But it will give the council a baseline for weighing the investment in any given event versus the potential positive economic impact for the town. In many cases, it may push proSee RESORT Page 6
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