October-Early November 2014
410-641-6029
Vol. 10, No.7
www.issuu.com/oceanpinesprogress OPA approves “non-lethal” controls for resident geese It may be time for some Ocean Pines residents to think about moving south – not just for the winter but permanently. At least that’s what Ocean Pines Association officials are hoping will happen. The Board of Directors during its Sept. 27 monthly meeting unanimously approved the use of several supposedly non-lethal methods to try to control the resident Canada goose population at the North Gate and Memorial ponds. ~ Page 9
Community groups complain about Yacht Club policies
It didn’t take long for community and civic groups that are accustomed to using the Ocean Pines Association’s facilities for little or no cost to start complaining about the fees being charged for use of “their” new Yacht Club. Some showed up for the Sept. 27 Board of Directors’ meeting just to ask for the fees to be eliminated, arguing that as property owners they have already paid for the new amenities and shouldn’t now be charged more money to hold events there. ~ Page 15
B&F panel seeks change to reporting on waterfront reserve The Ocean Pines Association’s Budget and Finance Committee is asking for a change in the way that revenue flowing into the OPA’s bulkheads and waterways reserve is reported in the reserve summary that is part of the OPA’s monthly financial documents. The request was addressed during the Board of Directors’ regular monthly meeting Sept. 27, but with no motion presented to implement it. The committee’s board liaison, OPA Treasurer Jack Collins, said the committee would simply “like to know how to implement” the proposed change. ~ Page 23
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THE OCEAN PINES JOURNAL OF NEWS & COMMENTARY COVER STORY
Stevens to appoint task force to address capital improvements OPA president indicates that general manager will still be involved with plan development but the board will take control of process and final product By TOM STAUSS Publisher hile General Manager Bob Thompson will continue to have a role in developing a new capital improvement plan for the Ocean Pines Association, OPA President Dave Stevens has indicated that the Board of Directors and a task force to be appointed soon will assume direct control over the process. Stevens’ signaled the board’s primary role during the board’s monthly meeting Sept. 27 when advising his colleagues of a special meeting he was calling for Oct. 18, with the primary agenda item to include discussion of the capital improvement plan. Earlier this year, Thompson was told by former OPA President Tom Terry that the board would be expecting a revised CIP from the general manager in November, and Thompson has previously acknowledged that looming deadline. Stevens said during the Sept. 27 that “the board needs to take over (the CIP process) and get people in the community involved,” as well, but at the same time he said the process would be “in conjunction with the GM and staff.” In a follow-up interview, Stevens reiterated that the process that he envisions does not “marginalize” Thompson and that he doesn’t want the board to “get in the way” of the general manager completing a draft CIP for board review in November, consistent with the direc-
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tive from earlier in the year. In November of last year, Thompson also delivered part two of a draft CIP to the board – it contained a socalled rack and stack of proposed capital projects -- but the directors Dave Stevens under Terry took no action on it. Some of its contents influenced the development of the current year’s capital budget, however, so in a sense it became a working planning document for Thompson, even if not officially approved by the board. Stevens said he didn’t want a recurrence of that this year and to help avoid it, he said he would be appointing a task force or ad hoc committee to oversee the fine-tuning and reformatting of whatever it is that Thompson produces in November. Task force meetings would be open to the OPA membership for input, Stevens said. The OPA president said he was not expecting Thompson to deliver a draft CIP that would be in a format and contain all the detailed information that Stevens thinks should be part of a well-crafted plan.
“He’s had more than three years to develop the kind of plan that I think we need and he hasn’t done it,” Stevens said of the general manager. “There’s no reason to think” that the latest draft iteration of the CIP “will be any different, but let’s wait and see,” he added. The OPA president said he foresees that the task force to be appointed will divide the list of future capital projects that he expects Thompson to deliver in November into two broad categories – major and smaller projects. “That’s a reasonable and good way to go,” he said, adding that some projects will be included in a five-year timeframe while others would be projected out further. Last November’s draft plan did include a timeline for projects up to about ten years but did not break them down into major and smaller categories. Stevens said one way to distinguish major from smaller is to define major as projects that cost $1 million or more. Citing examples of each, he said he expected the proposed reconfiguration of the Manklin Meadows tennis complex would be in the smaller category, while a renovation or reconstruction of the Country Club would be major. The OPA president said a primary responsibility of the task force will be to lay out both engineering and use requirements or justifications for each of the projects included in the CIP, someTo Page 20
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