Directors belatedly approve Seacrets lease renewal Ocean Pines Association Secretary Colette Horn at the Oct. 2 regular monthly meeting of the Board of Directors announced a previous email vote approving a new five-year Seacrets lease. Such contract extensions have become routine over the decades and rarely are viewed as controversial. The arrangement is regarded as mutually beneficial. It turns out that OPA President Doug Parks signed the lease extension May 1, about five months before the board ratified it in an email vote. ~Page 5
Board OKs site in Bishopville area for bulkhead staging The Board of Directors, in a closed session Oct. 2, unanimously approved a contract for a bulkhead staging area outside of Ocean Pines. “Having the staging area will save us money and give us flexibility in terms of how we approach the work,” General Manager John Viola said. Over a three-year period, the net savings will be about $100,000 after lease payments are sub~ Page 10 tracted out.
OPA drops fees as leverage in CPI court cases Director Frank Daly’s proposal to allow the Ocean Pines Association to recover legal fees for action taken against property owners who violate restrictive covenants received a lukewarm reception from his peers, and was ultimately defeated in a 4-3 vote. Directors Larry Perrone, Collette Horn, Steve Tuttle, and Doug Parks were opposed, while Daly, Tom Janasek, and Camilla Rogers were in favor. ~ Page 13
October 2019
www.issuu.com/oceanpinesprogress
THE OCEAN PINES JOURNAL OF NEWS & COMMENTARY
COVER STORY
Lawsuit over denial of petition drive pending Petitioners’ attorney accuses OPA and directors of ‘bad faith’ in denying request for referendum on board spending authority By TOM STAUSS Publisher
S
hould a dispute over a petition drive that seeks a referendum vote of the Ocean Pines Association membership on a proposal to curb Board of Directors spending authority remain unresolved, an Oct. 6 letter from the petitioners’ attorney to the Board of Directors and OPA attorney Jeremey Tucker makes clear the matter is headed to court. The OPA was given notice that if it wants to avoid the costs of litigation and possibly incurring plaintiff’s legal expenses and punitive damages, it had three days in which to respond with a plan to conduct a public hearing and initiate steps to conduct a referendum. That deadline came and went, with Tucker reportedly asking for an extension because a Jewish holiday fell within the window of days available for board consideration and action. As this edition of the Progress was going to press, the OPA had not yet responded to the petitioners’ request for a hearing and referendum. OPA Vice-president Steve Tuttle,
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OPA Counsel Jeremy Tucker’s opinion on whether a petition on board spending authority was valid for purposes of a referendum has been challenged by the lawyer hired by the petitioners.
who recently proposed that the board initiate a referendum to reduce board spending authority but received no support for it, said in an Oct. 8 telephone interview that the board was awaiting a response and recommendation from Tucker on how to respond to the petitioner’s attorney’s letter. He said the board would most likely meet in closed session to dis-
cuss options. The question on the referendum ballot as formulated by the petitioners would be whether OPA members support reducing the threshold for board-authorized capital spending without a referendum to $1 million from the current 20 percent of the annual revenue collected from assessments. Tuttle’s recently proffered version would have set the threshold at 12 percent of the annual revenue, about $1 million currently. The 12 percent threshold in Tuttle’s version would allow the board’s spending authority to increase with inflation over time. The petitioners’ attorney, Bruce F. Bright of the Ocean City law firm of Ayres, Gordy and Jenkins, argued that Tucker’s legal rationale for resisting the petitioners’ request for a public hearing and referendum led to a result that violated OPA bylaws and reflected bad faith, a broad indication that should the petitioners file suit against the OPA and individual directors, asking for compenTo Page 30
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