County ends planning for golf course spray irrigation As recently reported by Joe Reynolds on oceanpinesforum. com, Worcester County officials have informed Ocean Pines Association officials that planning for the possible use of treated wastewater from the Ocean Pines Wastewater Treatment Plant on the Ocean Pines golf course has ended. OPA General Manager John Viola confirmed that the OPA is in receipt of a letter indicating that the county is no longer interested in pursuing the proposed construction of a new irrigation system on the Ocean Pines golf course costing about $3 million, with another $1 million or so in debt service costs. The project also would have included an underground piping system to send treated wastewater from the treatment plant to the golf course. The OPA Board of Directors had given the project a tentative nod of approval for planning purposes, contingent on many details to be worked out. There was considerable behind-the-scenes and public opposition to the project. Ocean Pines resident Grant Helvey made several presentations to the OPA board in opposition. In the end, opposition by county commissioners Chip Bertino and Jim Bunting helped kill the project, which would have been paid for by Ocean Pines homeowners in higher quarterly utility bills.
March 2022
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Approved budget reduces assessment by $100 to $896
Directors approve spending plan at Feb. 23 monthly meeting By TOM STAUSS Publisher ust when it seemed he and his staff would be taking some well-deserved bows for offering up a revised budget that would lower the 2022-23 lot assessment by $71, General Manager John Viola upped the ante and recently posted a revised budget that would lower the assessment by $100, taking it down from the current $996 to $886. The Board of Directors liked what Viola and Controller/Director of Finance Steve Phillips proposed in the second revised “proposed” budget for the fiscal year that begins this coming May. 1. The directors unanimously approved the revised budget including the lower assessment at the board’s Feb. 23 monthly meeting. Viola had presented the first iteration of the “revised proposed budget” back on Jan. 19. The final version was
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posted on the OPA Website Feb. 19, along with detail on how he and Phillips arrived at the additional $29 reduction in assessments. It was a mix of additional revenue in golf greens and carts fees and more food and beverage profit at the Yacht Club. But most of the additional assessment decrease is coming by using more of the accumulated operating fund surplus at the end of the 2020-21 fiscal year for “one-time assessment reduction.” The transfer from the operating fund to General Administration will be $650,000, equivalent to $77 in a lower assessment, according to a reconciliation schedule included in the approved budget. In the Jan. 19 revision of the budget, Viola had proposed that $450,000 would come out of last year’s operating surplus to fund the assessment decrease, the To Page 3
OPA Board OKs 30-plus by-law changes for referendum vote; controversial proposals targeting Farr, Lakernick withdrawn ~ Special four-page report begins on Page 34 ~