Ocean City Today
4 NEWS
NO HALLS, NO WAY! DON’’T T GAMBLE WITH THE FUTURE OF YOUR TOWN!
THE NEW MAJORITY’S “FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE” SPENDING: Decision to remove Former City Manager Dennis Dare from office after 29 years of service… Cost to the Town $306,468 Potential penalties Mayor Meehan saved the town by vetoing 7 of the 11 new ordinances introduced by The New Majority in November 2010… Meehan saved the Town $1.5 million 2 additional ordinances vetoed by Mayor Meehan because of the potential cost to the taxpayer: Closing the Defined Benefit Pension System… Cost to the Town $50,000 in the first year, as much as $950,000 in 2030 Closing the Retiree Health Care Plan… Cost to the Town $800,000 in 2011 and an additional $800,000 in 2012 Fiscal Year 2013 budget includes a one-cent decrease from the proposed property tax rate, saving the average taxpayer $20… Cost to the Town $863,000 “If you want to look at it badly, you can. You can see me as some sort of gambling degenerate, if that’s what you’re looking for.” – Joe Hall, (Ocean City Today 4/27/12)
TE’S DEBA ATE TE JOIN US FOR A CANDIDATE’S OPEN TO THE PUBLIC The FOP w would ould like to invite ALL CANDIDATES to attend!
Tuesday, October 30, 2012, 6:00 PM Grand Hotel & Spa, 2100 Baltimore Avenue City, cean City, MD 21842 Ocean Candidates, please RSVP to ocmd.fop10@gmail.com This message has been authorized and paid for by The Fraternal Order of Police, Ocean City, Lodge 10. This message has not been authorized or approved by any candidate. Glen McIntyre, President
OCTOBER 5, 2012
OCEAN CITY COUNCIL BREIFS Continued from Page 3 Cymek asked Monday that council implement the new codes as of Nov. 1. “This will allow builders and contractors to choose the code that best suits them in this period,” he said.
HSA contribution adjusted Council moved to approve a change that will see the city contributing four percent more annually to the Health Savings Accounts of employees in the High Deductible Health Plan. Since the plan was established last year, the city’s policy has been to make an annual contribution to the employees’ accounts equal to the deductible in the corresponding insurance program. Last week, the city’s benefits planner, Bolton Partners, noted that federal law has increased the minimum deductible allowed for HSAs to still qualify for preferential tax treatment. This increases deductibles from $1,200 to $1,250 for individuals and from $2,400 to $2,500 for couples or families. Bolton recommended that the city correspondingly increase its annual contribution. 18 employees have enrolled in the plan so far.
Grant application Ocean City Development Corporation Executive Director Glenn Irwin requested the council to back his application for state funding to partially redevelop the Fat Daddy’s restaurant location on Baltimore Avenue just north of Dorchester Street. “We wish to partner with Fat Daddy’s for a new mixed-use project,” Irwin said. “This is a brand new program from the state that just came out a few weeks ago.” The state has $2.5 million under the Maryland Strategic Demolition and Smart Growth Impact Fund, of which Irwin would request $90,000 to cover demolition costs for the upper floors of the property. These floors, he said, had been used for seasonal employee
housing, but have been condemned for some time, making the building essentially two-thirds uninhabitable. Fat Daddy’s owners Ed and Lisa Braude have attempted to secure financing for the project, but have been unsuccessful. If the state is able to sponsor the initial demolition, however, Irwin said the project is much more likely to get further support from lenders. Mayor Rick Meehan asked Irwin if he had reservations about gutting a building that was a “historic landmark.” “Actually, I’m probably the only one that considers that a landmark,” Meehan said, noting that the current Fat Daddy’s location is where he opened his first retail store in Ocean City some decades ago.
Server replacement OKd Council approved a sole source purchase of a new AS/400 computer system, bypassing a formal bid process and using the only vendor – SPS VAR, LLC – that City Engineer Terry McGean said both sells certified IBM products and is qualified to transfer the software and data from the city’s existing system to the new device. “This is the system that we run all our accounting on, our utility billing, our building permits,” McGean said. “It’s basically the critical piece of operating software in the Town of Ocean City.” Although IBM still supports the city’s current hardware, it can no longer be upgraded. “The size of the AS/400 used to be about like that podium. Now it’s smaller than a desktop PC,” McGean said. The city’s aging system, he noted, has reached a point where it will be more expensive to maintain that it will be to replace. The city currently pays over $13,000 per year in service charges, but the new system will come with three years of service included in the $36,768.93 cost.
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