December 2015 ocean pines progress

December 2015 - January 2016 Vol. 11, No. 10

THE OCEAN PINES JOURNAL OF NEWS & COMMENTARY

443-359-7527www.issuu.com/oceanpinesprog-

COVER STORY

To Page 28

Guidance calls for GM to use zero-based budgeting method

Directors descend into argument over golf business plan

Irritated that they didn’t receive copies of a draft business plan for golf course operations and mem-bership until weeks after it was submitted to the Ocean Pines As-sociation, some members of the Board of Directors say they are be-ing intentionally left out of discus-sions with Landscapes Unlimited, the new golf management firm.

~ Page 26

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Steen’gifts’ OPA with Beach Club bathroom plans

The Board of Directors has charged the general manager with using a zero- based budget ap-proach in the preparation of the fiscal 2016-17 Ocean Pines Associ-ation budget, but approved budget guidance did not include stronger language offered by Director Jack Collins that would have urged the general manager to either main-tain the existing rate of the annu-al property assessment or lower it based on a thorough assessment of the needs of the organization.

The directors approved the bud-get guidance document, with just a few final revisions, at their Nov. 19 monthly meeting.

~ 1

Developer Marvin Steen gave thanks and an early Christmas present to the Ocean Pines Associ-ation Board of Directors during a Nov. 19 meeting. Steen approached the board during the public com-ments segment of the meeting to thank the board for supporting re-visions to his plans for a new de-velopment that will become part of Ocean Pines and then presented directors with schematic designs and a scope of work for renovation of the Beach Club bathrooms.

~ Page 16

OPA golf working group unhappywith golf course business plan

Directors take issue with modest proposed increase in membership; golf course manager to consider revising goal

By TOM STAUSSPublisher

All is not well with Landscape Unlimited’s stewardship of the Ocean Pines golf course that be-

gan in June, with three Ocean Pines Association directors advising the golf course manager that it needs to do much more in rebuilding a depleted membership base, consis-tent with a promise LU executives made before being awarded a three-year management con-tract earlier this year.

While relations be-tween LU executives and the Board of Directors’ working group remain cordial, it is clear that the working group of OPA President Pat Renaud, directors Tom Terry and Bill Cordwell, and Gener-al Manager Bob Thomp-son, are taking issue with how the company has been performing in the early months of its con-tract.

Of particular concern is the company’s plans to rebuild sagging golf membership, which a report prepared by the working group said might even decrease next year.

There are reports that some members have said they are planning to leave to join other golf courses in the area.

Apparently some of the membership erosion is attributable to continued op-

position within the membership base to the management change earlier this year, in which a slim board majority vot-

ed to replace Billy Casper Golf with LU.Using the executive summary of an

LU draft business plan submitted in September, the OPA golf working group, in a recent quarterly meeting with LU

executives, cited a reference to an LU objective of growing “member numbers.”

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No answers forthcoming on audit report misrepresentation

At least one Ocean Pines Associa-tion director remains concerned about a significant misrepresen-

tation in the 2014-15 audit report com-pleted earlier this year by TGM Group of Salisbury.

Ocean Pines Forum owner-manager Joe Reynolds, during the Nov. 19 Board of Directors meeting, rose during the public comments segment to commend Director Tom Herrick for responding to his (Reynolds’) request to get to the bot-tom of who authorized misinformation to appear in the audit report regarding the status of bulkhead replacement in Ocean Pines. Herrick, Reynolds said, was the only director who responded to his inquiries.

Reynolds said that he and Herrick had both contacted the OPA president and general manager for answers, but that neither responded to the requests for information. Calls to the auditing firm also went unanswered, Reynolds said.

The audit report indicated that the OPA has embarked on a new program of bulkhead replacement, when in fact

no such program has been approved by the board or even proposed by General Manager Bob Thompson.

Thompson, in fact, has said more than once in public settings that the original 35-year replacement program is winding down, in its final stages, but that there remains a need for the $465 per year waterfront differential paid by owners of most bulkheaded property in Ocean Pines over and above the base lot assessment of $921.

He has said that the OPA will need to start a new bulkhead replacement pro-gram at some point, but he has offered little rationale for it or quantified the funds needed for it.

More recently, he has said that an ongoing reserve study will address the condition of bulkheads, after earlier in the year saying that bulkheads would not be part of the reserve study. He has never resolved that particular contra-diction. Release of the reserve study in the coming months will no doubt clarify that particular issue.

On page 40 of the audit report, at the


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bottom of Schedule 26, the auditors say in a footnote that the original 35-year program to replace all bulkheads in Ocean Pines “ended in fiscal year 2013-2014.” The footnote says the program “started over after an extensive survey of the oldest bulkheads” on May 1, 2014.

There was no such extensive survey conducted, or any survey, for that mat-ter. Thompson has said publicly that the statement in the audit report was in error, seeming to blame the auditors for the misrepresentation. He said that he would make a call to the auditing firm for an explanation. If he made the call, the results of it have never been dis-closed.

Not readily apparent and indeed, easily missed, Schedule 26, unlike the other schedules in the audit report, was marked “unaudited.” That suggests that the auditors may not have been respon-sible for its inclusion in the audit report, or at least were not taking responsibility for its content.

That raises the question: If the au-ditors were not responsible for the mis-representation in the audit report, who was? It was that question that Herrick has been pursuing, only to be rebuffed so far by those he’s asked for answers.

The issue is related to the status of the OPA’s bulkhead and waterways re-serve, which some members of the OPA Budget and Finance Advisory Commit-tee believe is too flush with cash relative to what has been spent in recent years

on bulkhead replacement and the ab-sence of new program.

The implication is that the OPA con-tinues to collect a waterfront differen-tial that arguably is too high or may not even be needed until a new replacement program is launched, which presuppos-es.

According to the audited reserve summary contained in Schedule 25, it appears there was $637,928 in bulkhead and waterways spending between April 30 of 2014 and the year that ended on April 30 of this year.

At that time, the bulkheads/water-ways reserve contained $912,213. That increased by $822,367 on May 1, much of it from the waterfront differential. As of June 30, the balance in this fund was $1.7 million, roughly twice what

has typically been spent on bulkhead re-placement in recent years.

As of Oct. 31, the balance was $1.666 million.

According to the auditors, bulkhead replacement should be costing the $686,000 per year based on 108,930 linear feet of bulkheading and current replacement costs of $210-225 per lin-ear foot. Close to that apparently was spent in 2014-15, according to the audit report.

It is unknown whether anything close to that will be spent during the current fiscal year.

Sandpiper agreementnear finalization

Ocean Pines Association President Pat Renaud told the Progress in early December that the OPA and Sandpiper Energy are very close to finalizing an agreement that will usher in several years of natural gas conversion in Ocean Pines. He said an agreement could be announced by the end of the fiscal year if the final draft of the agreement is ap-proved by both parties.

He said the agreement will include a satisfactory resolution of one key is-sue, reimbursement of legal expenses incurred by the OPA in pursuit of a new franchise agreement. He declined to say whether a franchise fee will be includ-ed as part of the agreement, but he said a lot of people will be “pleasantly sur-prised” by the agreement.

That could suggest that the franchise fee isn’t part of the pact, because many Sandpiper customers would probably object to the fee if, as suggested, it would be passed on as part of their monthly bills.

It’s been estimated that a $150,000 franchise fee would cost Sandpiper roughly $2 per month in higher fees.

Renaud praised Thompson for his ef-forts to negotiate an agreement on be-half of the OPA.

Santa to appearat Pines’ events

Despite the area’s beach location and relatively mild temperatures, Santa Claus and his posse has already made appearances at several Ocean Pines events, with more to continue during December. Santa began his visit to Ocean Pines with “Breakfast with San-ta Claus & Friends” on Saturday, Dec. 5, from 8 – 11 a.m. at the Ocean Pines Community Center.

The Reindeer Lane Gift Shop, also held on Dec. 5, is a holiday “store” where children ages 12 and under could pur-chase gifts for family and friends. Items for children and adults, all nominally priced, were available.

Following these events, Santa will be visiting with children weekly in White Horse Park, located across from the com-munity center. He will be available for lap-sitting, pictures and wish lists every Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. until Sunday, Dec. 20. There is no charge for this Santa experience.

December 2015 - Early January 2016 Ocean Pines PROGRESS 5

OCEAN PINES BRIEFS

From Page 4

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

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Santa will don swim trunks and flip-flops at the 8th annual “Swim with San-ta” on Saturday, Dec. 12, from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at the Sports Core Pool, located at 11143 Cathell Road. The fee is $6 for swimmers and $3 for non-swimmers. Donations of food and unwrapped toys will also be accepted on behalf of the Worcester County Sheriff Department’s “Christmas for the Needy” program.

All of these events are open to the public.

Author offers prizesfor aspiring writers

A Berlin author is challenging read-ers in a contest based on his recently published suspenseful book, and offer-ing $150 in prizes.

Chris Conway wrote “The Devil’s Voice,” about a disturbed, institution-alized man named Michael, who, guid-ed by the voices he hears, manages to regularly escape. Meantime, local police struggle to determine who’s been brutal-ly killing young, attractive women.

Participants in the contest need only to read the intriguing book then chose a contest. Either write either a detailed dream that Michael might have or write an alternate ending to the book. Each must be 300 or fewer words.

The first-prize winner for each con-test will receive $50 the second-place winner in each contest will be awarded $25. Winners will be announced, and the cash prizes awarded, at a book signing and event to meet the author at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday Jan. 6 at the Berlin li-brary.

All entries are due by 5 p.m. Dec. 20. E-mail them to [email protected] and [email protected].

Books are available at libraries in Ocean Pines, Ocean City, Berlin, Salis-bury and Snow Hill. They are also for sale in local shops including Dazzle and A Bagel And … in Ocean Pines, online from Amazon and from the author.

Conway is sponsoring the contest, he said, to give aspiring writers an op-portunity to showcase their talents. He also wants to encourage education about institutionalization, and the dangers of closing institutions and releasing some clients into society before they are capa-ble of living on their own.

For more information, call 410-208-8721.

Rec Department plansseveral winter bus trips

The Ocean Pines Recreation and Parks Department has several bus trips planned for this winter.

A trip to Washington for “Matilda

Terry calls for faster OPA action on maintenance violations Thompson cautions against fast-tracking

unless safety issues existBy ROTA L. KNOTTContributing Writer

Director Tom Terry wants to streamline and expedite the Ocean Pines Association’s process

for handling property maintenance vi-olations. “Sometimes we need to move quicker on these things,” Terry said during a Nov. 19 review of violations of the restrictive covenants submitted by the Department of Compliance, Permits and Inspections for action by the Board of Directors.

At issue was the property at42 Ocean Parkway, where CPI found numerous maintenance violations, including an open water meter hole that is full of wa-ter, trash and debris, weeds, a broken gutter, and a window that is open to the weather. CPI said the property, which has been cited for violations in the past, appears to be abandoned.

The owner of the property is also re-portedly delinquent on his OPA assess-ments for the last two years and has a current balance due of $2,423.52. Liens have been placed on the property.

CPI recommended finding the prop-erty in continuing violation of the dec-laration of restrictions and sending the issue to legal counsel, who would send a letter to the owner demanding clean-up.

Terry argued that another letter, even if it is from the OPA’s attorney, isn’t likely to get the job done.

“I don’t think this guy’s going to pay any attention to a lawyer letter,” he said. He pointed out that the property owner has already left unclaimed four certified letters from the association regarding the matter.

“When someone ignores communica-tions after communications” Terry said there needs to be a way to expedite the process.

He said the OPA needs to take action to “go in and do what we can.”

Generally that means entering onto the property, repairing it as needed, and

then billing the property owner for the cost, even without a guarantee of pay-ment.

Director Cheryl Jacobs said the board needs to realize that with liens already filed against the property, it is unlikely that the OPA will be able to recoup any funds expended to enter onto the prop-erty and clean up a lot or made needed cosmetic repairs.

She said when a situation like this exists where the property owner is not responsive and a lien exists already, “we’re not going to get our money back.”

Terry asked OPA General Manager Bob Thompson about the procedure for having public works employees enter onto the property to rectify maintenance issues.

Thompson said the board has the right to fast track action against any property owners on whose property a vi-olation exists.

He said fast-tracking action against a property owner would give staff the ability to resolve issues without coming back to the board for further action.

Typically that is done when a safety violation exists. “If you look at this, this is unsightly… but deeming it unsafe…” is another matter, he said.

In the absence of a clear safety con-cern, Thompson said the next step in the association’s procedure for bringing a property into compliance is to refer it to the OPA attorney, who will then send a letter under the law firm’s letterhead to the owner seeking resolution of the issue.

If that doesn’t do the trick, then the property comes back to the board for re-view again.

At that point the board can then ei-ther direct staff to enter onto a proper-ty and clean up maintenance issues or

direct the attorney to file suit against property owners in order to bring them into compliance.

Thompson said he is concerned about the board abandoning that process to ex-pedite action on properties if no safety concern is present.

He said if the board were to fast track action against the owner of 42 Ocean Parkway, then it would set precedent for similar action on other properties in the future.

“This process for cleaning up some-thing like this just takes too long,” Terry responded. “This started in August” and it will be at least another month before anything is done on the property, he said.

Terry said the board needs to have a discussion about streamlining the pro-cess.

Director Jack Collins said he agreed with Terry about the need for a discus-sion. But he was concerned about in-fringing on the rights of property own-ers. He said the last time this issue was discussed OPA legal counsel cautioned the board about that issue.

Terry responded that discussion was more specific to the removal of so-called junk vehicles from a lot. Those are con-sidered personal property and the OPA must seek an injunction from the court in order to remove them, he said.

Collins said Terry made a good point about the need to clean up problem properties sooner than is currently be-ing done.

“I think we’ve got to protect the neighborhoods and the community,” he said. “I just don’t want to see us get our-selves into a jam.

“How do we pursue it, Tom?” he asked Terry.

Terry responded that the board needs

to have a discussion around the process and then get advice from legal counsel about what the OPA can and cannot do to resolve maintenance violations in the community.

He said he was not prepared to make an official suggestion for change to the process during the Nov. 19 meeting but simply wanted to bring up the issue for consideration.

“I think we’ve had these decisions before,” Director Dave Stevens said. If legal counsel is going to once again be asked to weigh in on the matter then the OPA needs to keep a record of it, he added.

Stevens made a motion that was ap-proved by the board to find 42 Ocean Parkway in continuing violations of the restrictive covenants and to forward it to counsel for a legal letter to be sent to the owner.

His motion included having staff dis-cuss the issue with legal counsel to de-termine if it is appropriate to fast track clean-up of the lot by having public works enter onto the property and do so, even if no safety issue exists.

The board also reviewed and acted on a CPI violation found on the property at 6 Tiller Lane. That violation consisted of a box trailer being located on the prop-erty.

Collins asked how long the regula-tion prohibiting box trailers has been in place.

Thompson responded that it is in the declaration of restrictions, intimating that it has existed since the inception of Ocean Pines.

“It’s in DRs?” Collins responded and then asked if the restrictive covenants make any reference to the parking of boats and trailers and similar vessels or vehicles on numbered lots.

Thompson couldn’t tell him exactly what the covenants say about them but added “there is clarification in there.”

the Musical” at the Kennedy Center is scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 9. The cost to attend this performance is $120 per person, including a ticket to the show and transportation.

Another Kennedy Center trip is set for Saturday, Jan. 23, for “A Gentle-man’s Guide to Love & Murder.” The fee for this musical is $95 per person, in-cluding show ticket and transportation.

NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility will be the featured destination for a trip on Feb. 16. Tour companion Steve Habeger, a former employee at Wallops, will host-the facility tour. The cost is $35 per per-son. Additional trips are scheduled for March 22 and April 19.

The buses for these trips, which are open to the public, will depart from the Ocean Pines Community Center. Reser-vations are required. Refunds will not be issued for cancelations unless vacant seats can be filled. For more information or to register, call 410-641-7052.


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BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Community survey to help guidecomprehensive planning process

By ROTA L. KNOTTContributing Writer

Consultants retained by the Board of Directors to develop a compre-hensive plan for the Ocean Pines

Association are preparing to send out a survey to all property owners to garner input regarding future facilities priori-ties and community needs.

Steven Cohen, chairman of the Com-prehensive Plan Committee, provided an update on the project, which was contracted out earlier this year to the Business Economic and Community Outreach Network (BEACON) at Salis-bury University, during a Nov. 19 board meeting.

The OPA retained BEACON to de-sign a series of planning analysis mod-els and accompanying decision support tools to assist the association in explor-ing the benefits, consequences and fis-cal outcomes of a variety of community planning scenarios.

“This is a process. It’s not a decision. We’re putting data together so you as a board understand where we are, where

we should be, and what the people want,” Cohen said of the comprehensive planning process.

He told directors that Memo Diriker and his students at SU have complet-ed a series of telephone interviews and conduced two focus groups to gather in-put.

One focus group was composed of Ocean Pines’ so-called “movers and shakers” and the other was made up of average property owners, he said.

“Something came up during those discussions that they decided to have a third focus group in order to get an understanding of what that means,” Co-hen said of the consultants.

He said comments were made during the focus groups that “we’d like to be where we were 40 years ago” in Ocean Pines but he didn’t know exactly what that meant.

Apparently neither did the consul-tants and that’s why they want to hold another focus group.

Once that initial work is complete, Diriker will meet with the OPA board to

discuss the data gathered from the focus groups.

Meanwhile BEACON is also drafting a list of potential questions for inclusion on a survey that will be distributed to every Ocean Pines property owner.

The Comprehensive Plan Commit-tee will do an initial vetting of those recommended questions and then bring them to the OPA board for approval. The goal is to distribute the survey in March, probably through a mass mail-ing, although that detail has not been finalized.

The board will be asked to decide how to distribute the survey and to approve the cost of mailing.

Cohen said the committee is discuss-ing the best way to distribute that sur-vey in order to maximize the response by property owners.

He said BEACON has recommend-ed mailing the survey to every property owner because that will likely generate the best response rate.

The goal is to achieve a 15 to 20 per-cent return rate.

Once the survey process is complete, BEACON will tabulate that data, and in-corporate it, along with the focus groups and telephone interview data into a fi-nal report that will be used in phase two of the comprehensive planning process. That will involve developing a series of scenario models.

The scenario analysis tool will help the OPA to understanding its long-term planning vision; decide on certain future scenarios, and determine how each of those scenarios in the future would yield results.

Cohen said the comprehensive plan is not meant to be a static plan that is completed and simply sits on a shelf.

He called it “a living document.”

From Page 5

Violations

Collins asked if there is a possibil-ity that a particular section of Ocean Pines does not have a reference to box trailers in the DRs?”

Thompson replied, “Not to my knowledge.”

The directors voted unanimously to find the property in continuing vi-olation of the restrictive covenants and send the issue to the OPA attor-ney for action.


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Board finally adoptsbudget guidance

to general managerStevens withdraws

motion to delay action, votes to approve instead


Failing to delay approval of a budget guidance document that provides directives to the general manager

as part of the Ocean Pines Association’s fiscal year 2016-2017 budget process, Director Dave Stevens ultimately with-drew a motion to table discussion of the issue. Instead he voted for the original motion to approve the document after being assured that his concerns about the budget guidance were being ad-dressed.

Director Tom Terry, who serves as OPA treasurer, developed the budget guidance based on input from the Bud-get and Finance Advisory Committee and his fellow directors.

To kick off discussion at a Nov. 19 board meeting, he offered a motion that the board accepts the proposed budget guidance to the general manager for fis-cal year 2016-2017.

He said the board received input from Budget and Finance and discussed the issue at a September board meeting.

Following that board meeting, he drafted the budget guidance document to facilitate input from board members.

Stevens immediately offered a mo-tion to table further action on Terry’s motion to approve the budget guidance. He wanted to hold a separate meeting devoted just to the issue of budget guid-ance.

“I believe that there are sufficient numbers of discussion topics and points

that in order to do it properly we should do this in a special open meeting,” he said. “I believe that this deserves a lot more time.”

Director Jack Collins offered a second to Stevens’ motion to table the topic and said he too believed that special meet-ings can be helpful.

He said during his first year as a board member, Terry was president and created a series of working meetings with agendas that were limited to one or two topics.

He said he found those meetings to be very useful to him as a board member and in engaging the community in open discussion about various topics.

Director Bill Cordwell was not inter-ested in having more meetings.

“I was part of those work sessions and I thought that they were a thorough waste of our time. There were no mo-tions made. There were no votes taken during those closed sessions,” he said.

“The premise was good,” Cordwell said, adding that was for the board to discuss issues during special meetings in order to lessen the debate when a vote was ready to be taken during a reg-ular monthly meeting, but he said “they didn’t work.”

He said what actually happened was that the board simply had lengthy de-bates on the same topics at two meet-ings instead of one.

“I can’t remember one thing that I got out of those work sessions other than another meeting,” Cordwell said. “We’re in an open meeting now. Let’s discuss this guidance. How long can we wait?”

He said last year the board dilly-dal-lied and didn’t give its budget guidance

December 2015 - Early January 2016 Ocean Pines PROGRESS 9BOARD OF DIRECTORS

To Page 10

From Page 8

Budget guidance

to General Manager Bob Thompson un-til Dec. 3. The budget was essentially done by that point and is likely 80 to 85 percent complete for fi scal year 2-16-2017 already, he said. “We’re so far down the road this might be an effort in futil-ity.”

Director Cheryl Jacobs said he thinks the board has completely lost track of what the budget guidance document and Terry’s motion is all about. She said it is simply to put before the board the Budget and Finance Advisory Commit-tee’s suggestions to the general manager for consideration when he is preparing the budget.

“And I think that’s all we need to vote

on,” Jacobs said. After that any board member has a right to provide addition-al input on building the budget, she said.

Terry agreed and said the budget guidance process is simply the draft-ing of general guideline from the board to the general manager with topics at a “high level.” It suggests the board’s interest in certain issues, projects and policies. He said the board agreed to the budget guidance process at a Sept. 24 meeting.

“At this point ladies and gentlemen we either vote for this thing or don’t bother to do it at all,” Terry said. He said if the discussion is tabled again the board shouldn’t even bother to proceed with budget guidance.

“This is becoming a silly process. We’re not following what we agreed to

do in September. The document was done well in advance of when it needed to be done to give it to the general man-ager and if we don’t vote for this thing up or down today, I think we might as well just skip it and not even bother to do it,” Terry said.

Stevens ultimately withdrew his mo-tion to table Terry’s motion for approval of the budget guidance and a lengthy discussion about various items includ-ed -- or not -- in the document ensued. After being assured that their concerns were either addressed by language al-ready included in the budget guidance or would be handled separately during the budget process, both Stevens and Collins supported Terry’s motion for ap-proval. The motion passed unanimous-ly.

GM provides update on reserve study, bridge repairsDirectors expected to decide soon between

bridge re pair, replacement options By ROTA L. KNOTTContributing Writer

The fi rst draft of a reserve study of the Ocean Pines Association’s fa-cilities and its ability to fund their

maintenance is due from consultants Design Management Associates Inc. of Richmond, Va. later this month. OPA General Manager Bob Thompson during a Nov. 19 Board of Directors meeting

said the reserve study is well under way.The OPA hired DMA to perform an

interactive reserve analysis that will detail how long the components of vari-ous facilities will last, where in that life cycle they are and the cost to replace

them. Thompson said the consultants fi rst looked at a schedule of components and expenditures bulkheads, roads and bridges, and was then set to move on to studying the OPA’s other facilities. He said he had a conference call with DMA

the previous week and reviewed a pre-sentation on their progress so far. He said the reserve study is “looking good.”

The OPA is pursuing with a three-pronged approach to planning for im-provements in Ocean Pines that in-cludes developing a reserve study, a comprehensive plan and fi nally a cap-ital improvement plan. The reserve study, essentially a snapshot of facility conditions, will give the CIP critical in-formation while the comprehensive plan will direct the CIP in the long term. The CIP itself is a more operationally based document that will be used day-to-day to make facility improvements.

Director Dave Stevens asked where the consultants are getting their data.

Thompson replied that DMA per-formed a site visit in October to study the OPA’s facilities and gather informa-tion about them. Additionally, the OPA’s auditors and comptroller provided DMA with a chart of assets and other fi nan-cial information.

“So they are using our chart of assets, the basis for our deprecation contribu-tion?” Stevens asked. “And their own visual inspection?”

Thompson responded “You’re right on target. That’s exactly right.”

10 Ocean Pines PROGRESS December 2015 - Early January 2016 BOARD OF DIRECTORS

From Page 9

GM Report

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Meanwhile, the OPA is planning for both the immediate repair and replace-ment of the Ocean Parkway and Club-house Drive bridges. The bridges will be able to remain open while the repairs, at at $243,100 per bridge, are being made.

Thompson said the board of directors will have to decide which to approve, but the repair option is well under way. Re-pairs are the responsibility of the OPA, while 80 percent of replacement costs are supposed to be funded by the coun-ty from pass-through state and federal grants, depending on availability.

Thompson said DBF Engineering has completed permit applications for the Maryland Department of the En-vironment and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the design drawings are 50 percent complete. He estimated that the permit approval process will take three to four months from the date of submission in late November, and that a request for proposals will be released by Dec. 15 and will due back by Feb. 15. A contract award will be made in late Feb-ruary with repair work expected to take six weeks per bridge.

DBF Engineering is also developing construction costs per linear foot for re-

placement of both bridges using either timber and precast concrete construc-tion. Thompson said he expects to pres-ent the cost analysis to the board at its December meeting and directors will need to decide which option to pursue.

DFB will then refine costs estimates based on the type of bridge construction selected, with the final estimate due by Jan. 30. Costs will include construction, mobilization, detour and engineering. Then the board will make the final de-cision regarding which path to pursue.

The OPA also has to RFPs out for bids, one for redevelopment of the Manklin Meadows Recreation Complex and another for stormwater improve-ments along St. Marin’s Lane.

Thompson said specifications and fi-nal design drawings for the changes at Manklin Meadows have been submitted to Worcester County for approval, and critical area review is under way at the state level. Plans call for reconfiguration of the playground, community gardens and parking to make way for more plat-

form tennis and pickleball courts.Proposals for the project are due to

the OPA by Dec. 14, with anticipated re-view and recommendations to the board by December meeting. Construction will begin in mid-January, weather permit-ting, and be completed by April 30.

The OPA is also preparing for the replacement of four existing drain-age pipes located at the intersection of St. Martin’s Lane and White Horse Drive. Bids were due back to the OPA by Nov. 30.

Star Charities donationAt the Nov. 6 monthly meeting of Star Charities at the Ocean Pines Library, a check in the amount of $500 was donated to the Worces-ter County Veterans Memorial Foundation. Pictured (left to right) are Star Charities volunteers with Marie Gilmore, president of the Worcester County Veterans Me-morial Foundation, as she accepts the donation; Peggy Rhumburg, Gilmore, Lee Tilghman, Star Char-ities President and Founder Anna Foultz, Irmgarde Heinecke, Barbara Peletier, Sandy McAbee, Mary Evans, and Robin Beall.

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December 2015 - Early January 2016Ocean Pines PROGRESS 11BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Board guidance documentcalls for GM to use

zero-based budgetingCollins’ call for lower assessments or ‘no increase’

is watered down by directorsBy ROTA L. KNOTTContributing Writer

The Board of Directors has charged the general manager with using a zero- based budget approach

in the preparation of the fiscal 2016-17 Ocean Pines Association budget, but ap-proved budget guidance did not include stronger language offered by Director Jack Collins that would have urged the general manager to either maintain the existing rate of the annual property assessment or lower it based on a thor-ough assessment of the needs of the or-ganization.

The directors approved the budget guidance document, with just a few fi-nal revisions, at their Nov. 19 monthly meeting.

Director Tom Terry, OPA treasurer, drafted the budget guidance document based on input from the Budget and Finance Advisory Committee and his fellow directors. In the document, the board says the budget needs to take into account repairs, renovations, and upgrades to the OPA physical assets. It also needs to account for effective man-agement and operation of the various amenities and departments of the Asso-ciation.

“In proposing a budget, the Gener-al Manager needs to make every effort to focus on the vision of the OPA to be a premier resort community, offering exceptional value and quality of life to property owners who are diverse in age, economic status and interests, and to primarily provide residents the facili-ties, services and amenities that are at-tractive, affordable, safe and enjoyable. In addition, where possible, to take into account the economic climate which impacts the members of the OPA and to take advantage of the appropriate advice and counsel needed for selected areas.”

The document is provided to Gener-al Manager Bob Thompson as a way to convey the board’s initial interests, di-rections and policy positions for the bud-get cycle. This document is not meant to cover every item of a proposed bud-get but does provide a policy framework around which the budget can be crafted.

Terry offered the motion to approve the budget guidance, with Director Cheryl Jacobs offering a second. Follow-ing discussion the motion carried unan-imously.

Director Jack Collins was a strong supporter of including language in the document specifically stating that the property assessment should not be raised or there should be a “concerted ef-

fort to reduce expenditures where there are identified efficiencies and unneeded funds.”

Terry declined to include that specific language in the document, saying “It’s


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the nature of doing a good budget.”But Jacobs said she believes the doc-

uments as drafted covered that topic by simply directing the general manager to use a zero-based budget process. Collins agreed that addressed his concern.

During review of the budget guid-ance, Terry said two suggestions had been made that were not included in the document. They were to evaluate wheth-er or not to use Ocean Pines share of lo-cal impact funds from the Ocean Downs Casino to cover the cost of bridge repairs and a suggestion that a proposed 3 per-cent pool of money for employee salary increases be removed.

Director Bill Cordwell questioned the issue related to employee raises. He said he thought the intent was to delay the employee raises pending a human re-sources study. However, he said “to my knowledge there is no HR study being done.” Therefore he wasn’t in favor of excluding employee raises.

Terry agreed that the guidance from the Budget and Finance Committee was to complete a study of the salary struc-ture. It will be up to the general man-ager to make a recommendation in the budget regarding that proposal.

The document says the budget should include any new positions deemed nec-essary to carry out the mission and to meet the FY 2017 objectives of the as-sociation, and should eliminate any po-sitions not deemed necessary. Addition-ally, the board would like the budget to include a technology position via direct hire or consultation to meet the needs of a major IT improvement plan.

Overall the budget guidance docu-ment includes a reaffirmation of the OPA vision statement to assure the budget will support Ocean Pines as a “premier resort community, offering exception-al value and quality of life to property owners who are diverse in age, economic status and interests, and to provide res-idents the facilities, services and ameni-ties that are attractive, affordable, safe and enjoyable.”

The document states that the allo-

cation of operating dollars should focus on having staff with the skill sets nec-essary for an organization the size the OPA and able to deliver quality services, while effectively reducing unnecessary expenditures. Process improvements and increased staff productivity should be based on the inclusion of expanded investment in and use of updated tech-nology.

In its budget guidance the board said that the capital dollars included in the upcoming year’s spending plan should continue the capital funding approach utilized by the OPA to build and use re-serves inclusive of depreciation expense. The FY 2017 budget should continue with the capital funding provided to support the major capital repairs, en-hancements, or replacement of existing major assets, as well as provide for the repair and/or replacement of smaller general assets. As part of the capital budget, the funding of road resurfacing costs should continue to utilize the ca-sino Local Development Funds, which have been restricted by the legislation for infrastructure purposes.

At the request of Director Dave Ste-vens, the board agreed to include lan-guage in the document that the capital budget include only the actual funding needed to assist in evaluative studies and work needed to support the devel-opment of full project proposals. The proposals will be brought to the board for full approval at a later time. All de-preciation that is not included in the proposed yearly assessment should be identified in a separate report. The FY 2017 budget should continue with the capital funding provided to support the major capital repairs, enhancements, or replacement of existing major assets, as well as provide for the repair and/or replacement of smaller general assets. The FY 2017 budget must also address those capital needs for new capital as-sets.

While the actual budget under de-velopment for board approval is focused on the single fiscal year 2017, the board said in its guidance that the budget must address and be built on the con-

To Page14

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Pines moving closer, but nodeal yet with Sandpiper Energy

(Nov. 26, 2015) OPA Board PresidentPat Renaud hinted last Thursday duringa public meeting in the AssateagueRoom that the association was on theverge of inking a new deal with Sand-piper Energy.

The directors then went behindclosed doors to discuss a contract andemerged two and a half hours later withno deal, but acknowledging thatprogress had been made.

Essentially, the package being dis-cussed would allow the energy companyto convert the more than 8,400 homesin the community from propane to nat-ural gas.

“It went well, I think,” Renaud said oflater that day of the board’s discussion.“We’re very close. We’re working on thecontract and trying to get to a resolu-tion.”

Renaud said the directors went overa series of questions that were conveyedto General Manager Bob Thompson,whom the board designated to lead thenegotiations with the company last June.

“Hopefully we’ll have something bythe end of the year, but I’m not positiveon that,” Renaud said. “Bob has workedvery hard in trying to get them to see ourpoint of view, and they have, on the otherhand, worked very hard to see their pointof view.

“I think we’ve come to some remedi-ation that will please everybody,” Re-naud continued. “At least, I hope so.”

In October, Renaud said a franchisefee, one of the obstacles in the negotia-tions that date back more than a year, wasapparently off the table. He backtrackedslightly from that position last week.

“I don’t know if there’s anything to-tally off the table,” he said. “Where wegave something, they gave something.We never gave anything without gettingreciprocity from them.

“What I see is that they are anxious toclose the deal. I think we are anxious too,but not as anxious as they are,” Renaudadded.

Sandpiper has already convertedpropane lines in several communities inWorcester County, including Berlin andWest Ocean City, and had hoped to dothe same in Ocean Pines last year, whentalks stalled.

“I think it makes them look kind ofbad that [Sandpiper] is going ahead withWest Ocean City and with Ocean Citywithout Ocean Pines, because we’re thebiggest fish in the pond, so to speak,” Re-naud said. “I think they want to closethat deal.”

Once the contract is signed, Renaudsuggested Sandpiper would almost im-mediately start converting lines in OceanPines, although he said a full conversioncould take several years.

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Pines moving closer, but nodeal yet with Sandpiper Energy

(Nov. 26, 2015) OPA Board PresidentPat Renaud hinted last Thursday duringa public meeting in the AssateagueRoom that the association was on theverge of inking a new deal with Sand-piper Energy.

The directors then went behindclosed doors to discuss a contract andemerged two and a half hours later withno deal, but acknowledging thatprogress had been made.

Essentially, the package being dis-cussed would allow the energy companyto convert the more than 8,400 homesin the community from propane to nat-ural gas.

“It went well, I think,” Renaud said oflater that day of the board’s discussion.“We’re very close. We’re working on thecontract and trying to get to a resolu-tion.”

Renaud said the directors went overa series of questions that were conveyedto General Manager Bob Thompson,whom the board designated to lead thenegotiations with the company last June.

“Hopefully we’ll have something bythe end of the year, but I’m not positiveon that,” Renaud said. “Bob has workedvery hard in trying to get them to see ourpoint of view, and they have, on the otherhand, worked very hard to see their pointof view.

“I think we’ve come to some remedi-ation that will please everybody,” Re-naud continued. “At least, I hope so.”

In October, Renaud said a franchisefee, one of the obstacles in the negotia-tions that date back more than a year, wasapparently off the table. He backtrackedslightly from that position last week.

“I don’t know if there’s anything to-tally off the table,” he said. “Where wegave something, they gave something.We never gave anything without gettingreciprocity from them.

“What I see is that they are anxious toclose the deal. I think we are anxious too,but not as anxious as they are,” Renaudadded.

Sandpiper has already convertedpropane lines in several communities inWorcester County, including Berlin andWest Ocean City, and had hoped to dothe same in Ocean Pines last year, whentalks stalled.

“I think it makes them look kind ofbad that [Sandpiper] is going ahead withWest Ocean City and with Ocean Citywithout Ocean Pines, because we’re thebiggest fish in the pond, so to speak,” Re-naud said. “I think they want to closethat deal.”

Once the contract is signed, Renaudsuggested Sandpiper would almost im-mediately start converting lines in OceanPines, although he said a full conversioncould take several years.

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cept of a multi-year foresight.Major projects, as identified in the

Board of Director’s objectives ffor FY 2/17, should be used as a guide for plan-ning.

Projects, such as road resurfac-ing, community drainage issues, and technology upgrades and any related improvements and/or replacements, should be specifically analyzed and in-cluded in the budget.

The document specifically states that the budget must include an IT improve-ment plan along with a needs and jus-tification document, which may cover multiple fiscal years for full implemen-tation after FY 2017. The board recog-nized that will likely require additional funding be allocation for that effort.

As it relates to the amenities, the document says the financial results should be budgeted on a realistic basis and reflect continuing efforts to increase revenues through greater usage, as well as decreasing expenses where feasible. Significant increases or decreases of more than 5 percent in FY 2017 bud-geted revenues or expenses, compared either to the FY 2015 budgeted or pro-jected levels, should be supported by the amenity’s business plan and appropri-ately explained or justified. Additionally, the budget should emphasize increased

marketing for broader utilization of the amenities, as well as an assessment of pricing policies pertaining to non-mem-ber utilization.

At the presentation of the proposed budget to the board in January, the gen-eral manager will present a report on each capital item that was listed in the

current fiscal year’s budget. The report will state if the capital monies will or will not be expended during the current fiscal year. The general manager will highlight those items that will not be expended during the current fiscal year but have been included for renewed ap-proval in the proposed budget.

The document adds that the board’s review and understanding of the pro-posed budget must be enhanced by hav-ing business plans, or business cases, for major programs or services, as well as for the operations of most significant amenities, such as the Yacht Club, golf and aquatics.

Boat Club board membersAt the Nov. 8 change of watch dinner and dance at the Ocean Pines Yacht Club, new board members of the Ocean Pines Boat Club were inducted. Shown are, front, Doris Lloyd, commodore; Nancy Engelke, director; second row, Steve Stein, director; Janet O’Brien, secretary; Pat Marchesiello, rear commodore; third row, Dave Lloyd, editor-in-dhief; Fred Heinlen, treasurer; Walt Lischak, fleet captain; Rich Marchesiello, vice commodore; Tom Southwell, director; and Stuart Glassman, director. Not pictured, Tim Collins, director.

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Stevens scores victory, has ‘placeholder’funds removed from budget guidance


Director Dave Stevens scored one out of three in his bid to have a trio of revisions incorporated

into a document that provides guidance from Board of Directors to the general manager regarding development of the Ocean Pines Association’s 2016-17 bud-get. The board agreed to revise language in the budget guidance regarding “place-holder” funding for capital projects, but declined to zero out the legacy reserve fund or to clarify who is responsible for developing a capital improvement plan.

During a Nov. 19 board meeting, Ste-vens wanted to know why his sugges-tions were not incorporated into a draft of the budget guidance as presented by OPA treasurer Tom Terry. Terry said Stevens missed the deadline for submit-ting his comments but that they could be discussed at that meeting. Stevens initially wanted to table discussion of the documents and hold a special meet-ing on the subject but eventually with-drew a motion to do so. Instead the board approved the budget guidance in a unanimous vote.

Among Stevens’ recommendations was the removal of “placeholders,” fund-

ing designated in the replacement re-serves for capital projects that may or may not happen during the fiscal year. He cited funding allocated for a new police station and White Horse Park bathrooms as examples in the current year’s capital budget. He said they are projects that are not supported by the fiscal year budget and have never been approved by the board; they are simply projects that are being considered.

Stevens said their inclusion, along with a potential funding allocation, ap-pears to reduce the reserve fund bal-ance, even though they are “not real projects.” He said they are listed as capital items that in the budget and added up $1.675 million.

“That is extremely misleading,” he said. “Fundamentally it’s fantasy, fan-tasy budgeting.”

Instead, Stevens recommended that the budget guidance document instruct the general manager to only include funding for appropriate engi-neering costs and studies that may be needed during the fiscal year to move a project forward.

Terry agreed that the engineering or study cost that may actually be spent during the year could be put in as a

placeholder instead of the total estimated project amount. He did not support a zero allocation for projects until the board of-ficially approves them as capital projects to be completed. He also cautioned that if the general manager then wants to move forward with a project later in the year, no funding will be allocated to do so.

“It’s not a capital project until the board approves it,” Stevens said.

“I believe we have a level of agreement as to what the guidance would be,” Terry responded and agreed to make the change to the document.

The budget guidance was revised to state that the board requests the budget include only the actual funding needed to support evaluative studies and work done to support future proposals for a full proj-ect approval.

“In other words the assumption isn’t that the project has been approved but there does need to be dollars in budget,” Terry said, “On projects that will later be presented for full approval by the board.”

Director Bill Cordwell said removing the large funding allocation just gives board members the opportunity to not support projects because the full funding isn’t in the budget.

“We’ll never get anything done. Never,”

he complained.Terry responded that the general

manager can present projects to the board for approval whether or not they are included in the budget.

Stevens also wanted the budget guid-ance document to specify that the gen-eral manager should zero-out the legacy reserve, also known as the five-year re-placement plan. He said the OPA is com-ing to the end of that plan and funding in that reserve and had agreed previous-ly to eliminate that fund.

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Terry said that doesn’t need to be included in the high-level budget guid-ance. Instead he said that is “certainly something we can do as a board.” He said the board can just tell the general manager to transfer remaining funds from the reserve and zero-out that col-umn in the budget.

Cordwell said the board should seek counsel from the OPA’s auditor, control-ler and general manager before moving forward on that issue. “I think there may be some problems with doing that and would like to know ins and outs,” he said.

Terry agreed and said the board can address that issues “offline” while work-ing on the budget. “We really don’t know what the impact would be,” he said.

Stevens said the draft budget guid-ance document says that the fiscal year 2016-17 budget should continue the capital funding provided to support

BOARD OF DIRECTORS16 Ocean Pines PROGRESS December 2015 - Early January 2016

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major capital repairs, enhancements or replacement of existing major assets as well as provide for repair and/or re-placement of smaller general assets. That language ignores the board’s deci-sion last year regarding zeroing out the legacy reserve, he argued.

Terry said that sentence does not ref-erence from where the money comes to support the projects. “It is a boilerplate sentence which simply says make sure your budget includes capital needs of the organization because last year capi-

tal budget we got didn’t have (sufficient) capital dollars in it. We had to add a lot of stuff,” he said.

Stevens said the language can be in-terpreted to mean that the OPA should continue doing things the way it has been done, including keeping the five-year funding plan.

“That’s my problem with it,” he said.The third item on Stevens’ list was

to clarify who is responsible for the de-velopment of the capital improvement plan. As drafted the document says that “using the previous capital plan struc-ture the budget should clearly provide a formatting mechanism which will

be utilized to provide for FY16-17 and longer term needs based on an updated capital improvement plan and reserve study.”

“Is anything happening on this?” Stevens asked. Terry said that the doc-ument simply referenced an updated capital improvement plan. It doesn’t say who’s doing it. “It says to the general manager pay attention to an updated capital improvement plan,” he said, add-ing, “Your issue is valid on another topic as to who is actually doing the work.”

Stevens said the budget guidance to the general manager is “predicated on the fact that that’s being done.”

Developer ‘gifts’ board with plansfor Beach Club bathroom renovation

Steen tells board that oceanfront amenity is in good condition except for lower level bathrooms, backing Collins in effort to renovate rather than replace Ocean Pines’ popular summer amenity

By ROTA L.KNOTTContributing Writer

Developer Marvin Steen gave thanks and an early Christmas present to the Ocean Pines Asso-

ciation Board of Directors during a Nov. 19 meeting. Steen approached the board during the public comments segment of the meeting to thank the board for sup-porting revisions to his plans for a new development that will become part of Ocean Pines and then presented direc-tors with schematic designs and a scope of work for renovation of the Beach Club bathrooms.

Steen, who paid for the initial propos-al development work himself, had local contractor Sens, Inc. evaluate the exist-ing conditions of the men’s and women’s bathrooms, changing rooms and show-ers at the Beach Club on 49th Street in Ocean City and create a plan to renovate them. He said the proposed project is “something for next year’s budget” and asked that the board consider including the renovation as part of its fiscal year

2016-2017 spending plan. “I think it would be a great idea,”

Steen said. “That building is in great (condition) besides the restrooms.”

The total cost of the project as pro-posed by Sens, Inc. is $462,600. The proposal is for a complete renovation of the men’s and women’s changing rooms,

bathrooms and showers at the Beach Club, with all necessary labor, material, equipment and project supervision.

The sketch plan and scope of work in-clude design drawings, demolition and removal of existing concrete floor, fram-ing, sprinkler, plumbing, HVAC and electrical work as required for the new

facilities. It does not include the cost of items such as permits, meter, tap or im-pact fees, performance bonds, site work, building and ground signage, utilities and telecommunications installation.

“This is tearing everything out and going brand new,” Steen said.

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December 2015 - Early January 2016Ocean Pines PROGRESS 17BOARD OF DIRECTORS

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Director Jack Collins asked who authorized Steen to have the proposal drawn up.

Steen responded “nobody,” adding that he took the initiative himself and had the contractor visit the amenity over the summer. “It’s a great building and a lot of people got there,” he said. But, “It’s 40 years old” and needs some

work.He said Sens Inc. is a good company

that put together a good proposal for the project. But, he acknowledged that the OPA may need to seek bids from other contractors before completing the work at the Beach Club.

Collins thanked Steen for taking the initiative and suggested that the project be considered during the board’s fiscal year 2016-17 budget process. He said


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the net revenue at Beach Club is approx-imately $150,000 annually. Based on the contractor’s cost estimate, he said that means the bathroom renovation project is something the OPA should strongly consider.

“This particular project pays for itself in approximately four years,” he said.

Collins, during recent board debate over board guidance to the general man-ager in the preparation of the 2016-17 OPA budget, recommended the inclusion of Beach Club renovations in next year’s budget. Without the effort of Steen and Sens, Inc., to develop a cost estimate for the bathroom renovation, it’s doubtful that General Manager Bob Thompson would have been in any position to in-clude Beach Club renovations in his draft budget for next year, even if he wanted to.

There has been no indication that Thompson favors moving Beach Club renovation to the “front burner” of OPA capital improvements, or whether he favors renovation over a new building. In previous iterations of a capital im-provement plan for the OPA, Country Club renovation or replacement has been treated as a priority over the Beach Club, but Collins – now with the added boost of a detailed estimate donated to the OPA by Steen and Sens, Inc. –has some leverage in his effort to make the

Beach Club an immediate priority. He also has Steen on his side in de-

claring that the Beach Club, with the exception of the lower level bathrooms, is in a good condition, needing renova-tion, not replacement. Since his appoint-ment as general manager more than six years ago, Thompson has generally sup-ported replacing aging amenities over renovations.

The draft budget for 2016-17, includ-ing a proposed capital spending plan, will be the first clear indication whether Thompson supports the renovation ap-proach to the Beach Club over replace-ment.

Steen said renovating the bathrooms and the Beach Club became a “hot top-ic” several years ago but the OPA never moved forward with the project.

Director Dave Stevens thanked Steen for providing the information and cost estimate for the Beach Club bath-room renovations. He said the issue did surface previously, right after the OPA built the new Community Center, and a request for proposals was circulated. Numerous responses to the RFP were received and the price tag for the work at that time was more than $300,000, but no action was ever taken to proceed with the project.

Stevens said the board at that time decided it was too expensive. “So we didn’t do it,” he said, “But the problem didn’t go away, did it?”

Steen started his comments to the board by thanking directors for support-ing revisions to his plans for the Triple Crown Estates duplex development that will become part of Ocean Pines. He plans to develop a 92-acre property off Gum Point Road that abuts south Ocean Pines with 30 duplex units.

By February 2016, Steen is hoping to break ground on Triple Crown Estates. “I’ll be able to move some dirt and go to work on it.” He’s planning to have the first duplex building ready for home-owners by May.

The project has been in development for many years and was originally pro-posed as a 60-lot single family home community. While the units will still become part of the OPA, the developer opted to revise the plans to include the duplex units in response to changes in the real estate market since 2008 and to make the units more affordable for those who live and work in the area to own.

He approached the board in May, seeking its support of the revised devel-opment plans, and the board agreed to do so. He said that support was the key to garnering approvals for the latest in-carnation of the development from both the Worcester County Planning Com-mission and the County Commissioners.

“If I hadn’t gotten your approval, it would not have happened, I can assure you,” Steen told the directors. “They lis-ten to Ocean Pines” he said of the com-missioners.

The OPA directors in May wrote a

letter of support for the duplex version of the project because the characteris-tics of the development remain the same as originally proposed with the 60 sin-gle-family home design.

By an agreement negotiated with the OPA as part of a failed effort to develop a Northern Worcester County YMCA in 2002, every home sale in Triple Crown Estates will generate a $6,500 payment to the Ocean Pines Association. That payment is compensation to the OPA for equivalent dwelling units reserved to Steen for water and wastewater treatment capacity. While technically the OPA does not “own” EDUs that are controlled by Worcester County, Steen nonetheless years ago decided to com-pensate the OPA for the loss of EDUs that the OPA could have employed for some future purpose.

Following a public hearing last month that netted just a few questions about the project, the commissioners gave their unanimous endorsement to the project. In response to concerns from one nearby property owner, the commis-sioners conditioned the approval on the developer not using a gravel access road that intersects with Gum Point Road during the construction process.

Steen consented to that condition, saying he didn’t plan to use that road during project development anyway. Ad-ditionally, he said no construction traf-fic will access the site via King Richard Road in Ocean Pines’ Sherwood Forrest section, Section 10, which was recent-ly repaved after installation of a sewer force main linked the nearby casino and racetrack with the Ocean Pines waste-water collection system.

Instead all construction traffic will reach the development site using a dirt road that has direct access to Route 589.

That road will ultimately serve as an emergency exit from Triple Crown Estates. The inclusion of an emergency exit was a caveat to the endorsement of the OPA so that there will be another way for residents to leave Ocean Pines should it be necessary under major storm conditions. The emergency exit will be gated so it cannot be used at any other time. According to the consultants, the emergency exit road is bordered by farm ditches that will preclude vehicles from simply driving around the gate.

Chilli cook-offThe Democratic Women’s Club of Worcester County held a chili cook-off Nov. 14 at the Ocean Pines Community Center with lots of chili and fixin’s for a crowd of guests to choose from and vote for their favorite. Kay Hickman of Ocean Pines was declared winner. Shown from left: Em Hensch, Tom Wilson, Kathy Emmert, Diana Gross, Senator Jim Mathias, Women’s Club President Judy Butler, Irene Daly, Vicky Wallace, Jean Fry, Karen Bray, June Bray, and Harriet Batis.

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Board tangles over golfoversight, votes 4-3to uphold Renaud

appointmentsMinority directors object to non-golfers serving

on working group that is meeting with Landscapes Unlimited executives on golf course management


After more than two months of bickering and an hour-long dis-cussion during a Nov. 19 board

meeting, Directors fi nally settled a dispute over the appointment of three board “liaisons” to Landscapes Unlimit-ed, the company with which the Ocean Pines Association contracted to manage the golf course.

The directors voted 4-3 to approve OPA President Pat Renaud’s appoint-ment of himself, Bill Cordwell and Tom Terry as the three board liaisons to LU, with Cheryl Jacobs joining the trio in voting for themselves to serve. Directors Dave Stevens, who blasted Renaud for unilaterally making the appointments several months ago, Jack Collins and Tom Herrick voted in opposition.

Renaud made the motion follow-ing another lengthy discussion about whether or not the appointments met the requirements of the OPA bylaws since he had not sought board consen-sus on them. Sitting silent through most of the debate, OPA General Manager Bob Thompson ultimately spoke up and suggested the board resolve the issue by taking a vote on the appointments. The vote on the motion resulted in the 4-3 approval.

Stevens initially broached the is-sue of the legality of the appointments during the board’s October meeting, con-tending that the president was required to bring them before the board so mem-bers had an opportunity to object. But it

was Herrick who brought it up again in November.

As part of the OPA’s contract with LU, up to three representatives can be ap-pointed to serve as OPA liaisons and to sit in on monthly meetings with LU and Thompson as well as quarterly meetings with LU senior representatives. Herrick said three representatives had been in place already, having been appointed by Stevens while he was OPA president, and there was no need to change them. Stevens had appointed Collins and two Ocean Pines golf members as the liai-sons.

Herrick wanted to know if the OPA president has the power to make such appointments without bringing them before the board for consideration.

“The answer to that I believe is yes,”

Cordwell immediately chimed in. “The president appointed the three people last year. This president chose to ap-point three other people.”

Herrick then asked if those commit-tee members represent the board or represent the president. “Why were the three people on there let go with no ex-planation why they were no longer on committee?” he asked.

“That’s up to the president,” Cordwell responded.

Herrick said that issue needed to be addressed, again asking if the three liai-sons are board representatives or simply the president’s representatives to LU.

Jacobs told Herrick he was actually posing two different questions.

She said Herrick’s original question was whether or not Renaud had the authority to make the appointments. She said the answer is that he does have that authority just as Stevens did. Previously, Stevens said he had made his appointments last year but only af-ter asking the directors in place at the time whether they had any objections to them.

“If you have a problem with the peo-ple that he (Renaud) picked, that’s a separate issue,” Jacobs told Herrick. “Do you have something to point toward that says he does not have the authority?”

Stevens said it’s not just an issue of whether or not the president has the right to make the appointments but

rather that they should be brought be-fore the board so that directors have an opportunity to air any objections. He repeated his previous assertion that he did that as president and there were no objections to his appointments of golf li-aisons last year.

But with Renaud’s motion on the table and the opportunity to object to the new president’s appointments fi nal-ly arising, Stevens said, “Now that we have a legal motion, I will say I object” to them.

Stevens cited Renaud and Cordwell’s objections to hiring LU as the golf course management company as a reason they should not serve as liaisons to the fi rm. He said there was no reason that the li-aisons he appointed couldn’t have con-tinued to serve.

“I think they’re the wrong people,” Stevens said of Renaud, Terry and Cord-well.” He said they are not “people who will not convey to the rest of the board a sense of what LU is doing and why.”

Collins said the reason liaisons were included in the contract with LU was to “open up the process” so the board and property owners would know what is being done by the company at the golf course.

He said the three members originally appointed were all golfers with exten-sive knowledge of the course.

“They were summarily dismissed and other people were appointed. The appointees are not in the same genre,” Collins said, adding that Renaud and Terry are not golfers.

Jacobs, also a non-golfer, said she thinks that it’s appropriate to have peo-ple who are non-golfers meeting with LU “because not all of this community cares as much about the golf course as some of you who are avid golfers.” In fact, there are about 150 households in Ocean Pines with annual golf member-ships, out of more than 8400 lots in the community.

Cordwell, who is a golf member, agreed with Jacobs, saying of LU “My concern is them being successful, which makes the community successful. My fi rst responsibility is to the community.”


From Page 20Golf oversight

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Herrick, however, said the three li-aisons are supposed to help the golf management company succeed. He said people who are familiar with golf can to help accomplish those goals, but he doesn’t see how those who are not famil-iar with golf can help LU be successful in managing the golf course.

After allowing other directors to de-bate the issue, Renaud ultimately ad-mitted a mistake in making the appoint-ments.

“If you want me to admit that I should have brought it to the board when I changed the three representatives, I’ll admit it. I won’t deny it,” he said.

But then he said that Stevens admit-ted to doing the same thing.

“No I didn’t,” Stevens said.“Don’t mince words,” Renaud told

him.“Don’t change my words,” Stevens re-

sponded.“You find it in the minutes. Find that

we voted on it,” Renaud said of Steven’s committee appointments.

“I didn’t say there was a motion. I said I brought it to the board’s atten-tion,” Stevens told him.

Renaud then turned to Herrick, who brought up the issue, and asked what he wanted the board to do.

Herrick said he wanted the board to discuss “Does any one particular board member have to right to do something

unilaterally on their own without board approval?”

Jacobs again said, “That’s not what you asked.” She reminded him that his original question was if the president has the authority to make appoint-ments. “He (Renaud) answered. End of discussion.”

“Where do you see him getting the authority?” Herrick asked.

Jacobs responded by saying that no OPA document says the president doesn’t have that power “and so he (Re-naud) has taken that position.”

Stevens said that OPA bylaws do ad-dress appointments to committee and advisory bodies, clearly stating that they are made by the president with consent of board of directors.

“This is not a committee,” Jacobs said, adding it’s three board representa-tives to LU based on contract language.

“That’s even worse. If they’re board representatives then the board has the right the absolute right to know what they’re doing,” Stevens said.

“Based on what?” Jacobs asked.Stevens said based on the bylaws.Collins added “or even common cour-

tesy.”In a subsequent email response to a

Progress follow-up question, Jacobs re-iterated that she does not believe the bylaws apply to the president’s appoint-ment powers in the instance of a non-ad-visory committee made up of board members. [See article elsewhere in this edition of the Progress for details.]

Cordwell defendshimself against

‘attack on integrity’Collins questions Cordwell for saying he’s not a board

liaison to Landscapes Unlimited; Stevens calls out Cordwell for claim that he has more experience than Collins or

Stevens on golf course issuesBy ROTA L. KNOTTContributing Writer

Director Bill Cordwell went on the offensive during a Nov. 19 Ocean Pines Association board meeting

to combat what he perceived as an at-tack on his integrity. Cordwell is one of three board members appointed to serve as board liaisons to the new golf course management company, but other directors questioned that appointment because of his previous opposition to hiring Landscapes Unlimited for the job.

“Now I believe my integrity was ques-tioned in the paper because I was one of the ones appointed this year. What I be-lieve this president did was actually put somebody on the board, me, as a mem-ber of the golfing community, that’s over there two, three days, four days a week

that knows what’s going on over there,” Cordwell said, regarding his appointment as a liaison to LU.

OPA Pres-ident Pat Re-naud appoint-ed himself, Cordwell and Director Tom Terry to act as the board’s intermediaries with the golf manage-ment company this past fall. But in Oc-tober former OPA President Dave Ste-vens took issue with the appointments, alleging that they were made improper-

Bill Cordwell


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Cordwell

ly and should have been brought to the board for consensus or objection.

He said that’s what he did when he was president and appointed three liai-sons to then golf management company Billy Casper Golf. He added that there was no reason to replace the people he appointed with new liaisons.

At the November board meeting, Di-rector Tom Herrick again broached the issue, asking if the president has the authority to make such appointments. Cordwell was the first to speak up in defense of Renaud’s actions. He said the previous liaisons never even bothered to ask for his input on the golf operations, despite the fact that he said he has the most experience with the amenity of anyone on the board.

“Up until this point, last year’s group still hasn’t asked me one question about what was going on over there, has never asked me opinion one or had me involved at all,” he said. Instead, he said he had to “take the unusual step” of getting up from his board seat and approaching the board as a private property own-er instead during the public comments segment of a board meeting to state his opinions on the golf course.

“The other people on that committee, I don’t believe know a whole lot about what’s going on over there,” he said of the three previous liaisons. Included among them was Bob Kessler, known

for keeping detailed golf membership statistics and financial data over many years, and Jack Collins, an OPA director who, like Cordwell, is a long-time Ocean Pines golf club member.

Somewhat ironically, Cordwell ap-peared to be impugning the expertise of previous liaisons in much the way he seemed to be suggesting his own exper-tise and integrity had been impugned.

Cordwell added that this year the president appointed other board mem-bers – Renaud and Terry - to serve as liaisons who, while they may not be golfers, do have previous business expe-rience. He said he thinks that is a good approach.

He said his appointment was sin-gled out for criticism because he voted against hiring LU to manage the OPA’s golf course.

“Well so what?” he said, acknowledg-ing that he was supportive of continuing to work with Casper instead of retaining LU.

The majority of board members voted to contract with LU, he said, so now that it is the company in charge of manag-ing the golf course, he wants to see LU succeed.

“They’re our management company now and we’re gonna help them succeed. If they can’t do it then that’s on them, but we’re gonna help them do that,” Cordwell said.

The trio of liaisons has provided feed-back to LU regarding its draft business and membership development plans, he

said. “We had a lot a lot of issues that need to be discussed,” he said, adding that the previous committee members wouldn’t have been right for the job. “And we didn’t need a group of cheer-leaders saying ‘you guys are doing great.’ They had issues that needed to be discussed.”

According to Cordwell, the commit-tee spent three hours meeting with LU’s representatives to review plans. He said he believes they “had a good discus-sion with these folks. They had some problems. We’re gonna help them work through it.”

He said that golf management in gen-eral and committee of board liaisons in particular has become very contentious and didn’t need to be.

“I want that course to succeed and if they’re the management company that makes its success good for us, good for everybody, good for the community,” Cordwell said.

While Cordwell was speaking, Direc-tor Jack Collins laughed, perhaps sug-gesting that he was not convinced by much of what his colleague had to say about the work of the new golf liaisons.

Cordwell’s immediate response was to call him out on it. “Can I help you Mr. Collins? Because you’re part of this thing here. Not one time did you both to ask me what I thought about this whole process. You didn’t want me there” when Collins served as the board’s official golf liaison before the oversight working group was revamped by Renaud.

Collins said a lot of time, effort, work and thought went into the decision-mak-ing process when it came to the board’s action to change golf management com-panies earlier this year.

“Bill, before you attacked me I was going to compliment you on your posi-tion in being pro-active in allowing this particular manager to be successful. And I think that’s what we’re all about,” he said.

Still, he said, he was unclear just who the liaisons were representing on the committee that is meeting with LU.

“There are a couple things that I want to get clear in my head,” he said. “You are the board liaison to LU and any meetings they have?’ he asked Cordwell.

Cordwell said he was not. Accord-ing to him, OPA General Manager Bob Thompson is the board’s liaison to LU. Cordwell made no attempt to define the role of himself, Terry and Renaud in relation to LU. Later, Terry did, saying that the three OPA liaisons were defined in the LU contract.

Nonetheless, the relationships seem murky at best.

Cordwell’s declaration of Thompson’s preeminent role was a direct contradic-tion of what Thompson said during the Oct. 29 board meeting, when he referred to Cordwell as the board’s liaison to LU. Minutes of the Oct. 29 meeting had been approved earlier during the Nov. 19 meeting, with neither Cordwell nor any other director questioning its accuracy.

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During the Oct. 29 meeting, Thompson said he had not provided directors with copies of documents provided to the liai-sons by LU because that he wasn’t the liaison, Cordwell was.

Collins made it abundantly clear that he was confused by the apparent contra-diction between Cordwell and Thomp-son’s contrasting declarations on who is the board’s offi cial golf liaison.

“So in other words, you have no func-tion or role vis-a-vis Landscapes Unlim-ited and the board of directors?” Collins queried Cordwell again.

He responded, “That’s correct.”“You have none?” a perplexed Collins

again pushed Cordwell. Then Collins addressed Thompson.

“Since you (Cordwell) are not in-volved, I’ll ask Bob.” Collins asked Thompson about the timing of LU’s pro-posed business plan and membership development plan and when the full board will be able to see and comment on the fi nal document.

Collins was not the only director to fi nd fault with the new golf working group’s activities to date.

Dave Stevens took issue with Cord-well’s statement that Cordwell has the most experience of board members when it comes to the golf course.

He said he has been an Ocean Pines

From Page 24

Cordwell golf course member since 1978, well be-fore Cordwell arrived on the scene to play golf and serve on the Board of Di-rectors.

Cordwell didn’t comment, but Re-naud did.

“We did the job. We went and talk-ed to the people. We don’t have any fi -nal vote,” Renaud said regarding LU’s plans.

He said other board members could have brought any issue they wanted dis-cussed with LU to the attention of the liaisons. “You could have brought any-thing into that you wanted to,” he said.

Stevens asked “how?” when the other board members were not invited to par-ticipate in the meetings with LU.

Renaud then asked why it would be necessary to have the whole board at-tend those meetings when there are rep-resentatives appointed to serve on their behalf.

In rebuttal, Collins pointed out that Co rdwell had just said he doesn’t serve as a liaison for his fellow directors, a role apparently reserved for Thompson.

Thompson neither confi rmed nor de-nied his role as the board’s liaison.

“I’m not making any comment on policy,” he said.

Collins then said, “You understand the dilemma I have. I thought I had a board liaison. I don’t have one. I have to deal directly with you in order to de-velop information as it unfolds,” he told

Thompson. “So I’m not attacking you, Bob. Don’t get me wrong. I’m trying to develop the information that I need to know as to what’s going on as far as this contract is concerned and as far as the relationship between Landscapes Un-limited and this organization.”

Collins and other directors have re-ceived copies of a draft business plan submitted to Thompson and the three board liaisons, but Collins told the Prog-ress that the document as initially dis-tributed did not include a section on re-building golf membership.

Thompson told the Progress recently that the membership section was being tweaked by LU in consultation with the golf working group.

As for the full business plan, Thomp-son told the board during the Nov. 19 meeting that a fi nal draft would be in-cluded as part of his draft 2016-17 OPA budget in early January.

All seven directors will have the op-portunity to review and consider the business plan, including ideas to rebuild membership, during the budget review process, he said.

Craft Club treeMembers of the Pine’eer Craft Club participated in the Christmas Celebration sponsored by Ocean Pines Association by decorating a tree in front of their Craft and Gift Shop in White Horse Park. The tree was decorated in a red and white theme with pine cones and fl owers attached to red ribbons and wooden spoons depicting a Santa face. Pictured are, left to right, Margaret Lamphier, Linda Brindley, Luz Castillo, Nancy Walsh, and Janet Rosensteel.


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Some directors claim golf liaisons exclude them from oversight roleStevens, Terry descend into heated argument

over golf course business plan


Irritated that they didn’t receive cop-ies of a draft business plan for golf course operations and membership

until weeks after it was submitted to the Ocean Pines Association, some members of the Board of Directors say they are be-ing intentionally left out of discussions with Landscapes Unlimited, the new golf management firm.

During what began as a discussion about the appointment of board liaisons to LU and turned into a lengthy debate about just who those liaisons represent and what their role is in relation to LU, Director Jack Collins asked when the draft business plan was received by the OPA. He pointed out that it was dated Sept. 23, 2015.

OPA General Manager Bob Thomp-son said he couldn’t pinpoint an exact date. “You’re asking me something I’m not going to be able to answer,” he told Collins, but added that the planning document was received sometime in that general timeframe of late Septem-ber or early October.

“I got this on Nov. 2, which is about 40 days later,” Collins complained. “And I’m wondering why.” He asked why the full board was not provided with copies of the draft business plan as soon as it was received by the OPA and why the board wouldn’t be involved in the “infor-mation gathering process” and meetings with LU regarding the plan.

“I can’t answer you directly,” Thomp-

son said. He said there have been sev-eral versions of documents submitted to the OPA. He said LU provided multiple documents to him as part of the budget preparation process. There was a mem-bership development program or plan that LU had crafted for consideration as well. “I just don’t want to give you a wrong answer,” he told Collins.

Thompson then said that LU first submitted a membership development plan. The business plan was the second document received buy the OPA but it was also inclusive of the membership development plan, which is a required document for the budgetary process.

He said there are dates built into the contract with LU regarding delivery of required documents.

“So I have all the documents that were delivered to you by Landscapes Unlimited. Or are there other docu-ments?” Collins asked.

Thompson responded that if he has the draft business plan with the includ-ed membership plan then he has what was provided.

“This is final document? This is what’s going to happen?” Collins asked.

“No sir,” Thompson said, adding that LU met the requirement to have a draft

plan to the OPA by Nov. 1. That docu-ment was reviewed by the committee of board, staff and LU representatives.

“That was a draft document for re-view, any comment, concern, those type things. At a subsequent meeting we did that. They went back and are making changes to that,” he said of LU. He said he had just received a new draft of the plan but had not yet had an opportunity to review it.

Collins asked if the board will have the opportunity to read the original draft and then compare it to the revised version. He also wanted to know when it would be available for public scrutiny.

Thompson said once the document is completed the full board will receive the final version, adding that while it is in draft format it is not public because it’s still a working document. Once it is finalize it will be made public, he said.

Under tense questioning from Col-lins, Director Bill Cordwell, one of three board members appointed by OPA presi-dent as liaisons to LU, said that did not serve as a representative or liaison for the full board to LU. Cordwell said the general manager is the liaison to LU.

So Collins turned his questions to Thompson.

“I’m willing to work under those guidelines. I don’t think they’re the best guidelines by the way but I’m willing to work under those guidelines because I don’t have a (board) liaison to this par-ticular management company. You’re it,” he told Thompson. The general manag-er simply responded that he isn’t going to engage in policy issues such as board appointments.

“When do we get to ask a question about this with LU?” Director Dave Ste-vens wanted to know. “This isn’t just execution or operations. This is policy,”

he said of the proposed business plan. “When do we get to find out what’s be-hind what they’re writing down in this document?”

Cordwell then contradicted his ear-lier statement that he wasn’t a board representative and said “that’s what we did at this meeting. The three board rep-resentatives.”

“No. No. When does the entire board get to hear it?” Stevens asked again.

Director Tom Terry, another liaison to LU, said it will be presented to the board as part of the fiscal year 2017 bud-get process.

“When it comes to the budgetary pro-cess this business plan is no different than any other business plan which is put into overall budget and delivered to board by general manager,” he said. “That is when the final non draft of busi-ness plan is due.”

As for the committee’s meeting with LU, Terry said it was an “oversight meeting” at which they reviewed the document and provided “what I believe to be some cogent guidance on some of the things they were talking about.” He said it was a positive meeting and that the committee did not in any way in-dicate that its input was a vote of the board.

“Quite frankly some of the objectives that were in that draft document didn’t live up to what was the understanding of what we thought we were going to get,” Terry said.

Stevens asked, “Who’s understand-ing?”

“The board’s understanding,” Terry replied.

“Not the board’s understanding,” Ste-vens said.

That was the moment when the dis-cussion turned vitriolic.

“Ok you want me to put it out there pal. I’ll put it out there. No, I’ve had enough,” Terry shouted at Stevens. As an example of areas where LU needed guidance, Terry cited an apparent unag-gressive approach to boosting golf mem-bership by only ten members next year.

“The advice was provided that you might want to relook at those numbers. That’s what I’m talking about. It’s ad-vice and help. The implication that we somehow voted on anything, we didn’t.”

Terry tried to continue, and Stevens tried to cut him off.

“The final document comes too… don’t interrupt me. I didn’t interrupt you,” Terry said. “The draft documents have been provided to you. The final document will be given along with the overall budget.”

But Stevens argued that’s not what the golf management contract says should be provided. He read contract language that says the plan is supposed to include goals and milestones that serve as the basis for “monthly reporting to OPA general member and the three designated OPA board representatives.”

Stevens said those representatives are in place and must report back to

Dave Stevens Tom Terry

q

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board and answer any questions from other directors. That, he said, hasn’t hap-pened. But Stevens insisted that it is not the responsibility of those liaisons to ne-gotiate or discuss with LU what the busi-ness plan should or should not contain.

Terry said during the budget process when the business plan will officially be reviewed, any board member can chal-lenge any of the assumptions included within the document.

Stevens said the contract says the board of directors is entitled to all doc-uments that are provided. He said the implication is that directors are entitled to receive them in a timely manner, to be able to read them and ask questions.

“Nothing else makes any sense,” he said.

Stevens said the trio of representa-tives has been excluding part of the board from the decision making process.

Terry said that’s not true. “If you have questions submit them,” he saud,

“Are you saying as a board member we can have dialogue with LU? Because I’ve been told I can’t do that,” Collins asked.

Stevens then wanted to know “Can we attend meetings?”

Terry said that defeats the point of having representatives if the full board attends the meetings with LU.

“I’ve been told I don’t have a repre-sentative,” Collins said referring to Cord-well’s comment about not be a liaison for the full board.

Ultimately the board voted 5-2 to have a public meeting with LU to discuss the status of golf operations and planning at the course.

Board votes 5-2 for open meeting with LU execsStevens wins support from Renaud and Terry

for open session; initial draft of membership plans called for an increase of only ten members


Representatives from Landscapes Unlimited, the firm contracted to manage the Ocean Pines Associa-

tion’s golf course, may be summoned to a public meeting shortly with the Board of Directors to discuss their business plan.

Following a lengthy discussion about board liaisons to LU and the status of the company’s plans for improve golf op-erations and membership, Director Dave Stevens offered a motion during a Nov. 19 board meeting to request a meeting with LU.

In the motion he said that at the earli-est possible convenience the OPA general manager should call a special meeting of the entire board and LU to discuss the company’s draft business plan. Of partic-ular interest is the company’s proposal to boost sagging annual membership in the Ocean Pines golf course amenity. General Manager Bob Thompson told the direc-tors that he just received an updated ver-sion of the company’s proposal.

The board approved Stevens’ motion in a 5-2 vote, with Stevens and Directors Jack Collins, Tom Herrick, Tom Terry, OPA President Pat Renaud in favor and

Directors Bill Cordwell and Cheryl Ja-cobs opposed.

Feeling left out of discussions being held between Renaud and two other board members, Cordwell and Terry, appointed to serve as liaisons to LU and the golf management company’s representatives, Stevens said he be-lieves the full board would benefit greatly by meeting with LU to discuss its business plan, which is a contract requirement.

Renaud initially took issue with Stevens’ accusation that information has not been shared by the LU board liaisons with other directors in a timely fashion.

“We did the job. We went and talked to the people. We don’t have any final vote,” he said of discussions with the golf management company’s executives about the proposed business plan. “You could have brought anything into that you wanted to,” he told Stevens.

“How?” Stevens asked, saying that there was no opportunity to do so be-cause the liaisons didn’t ask for input from their fellow directors and they were not invited to attend a recent quarterly meeting with LU.

Renaud wanted to know why it is necessary to have a meeting of the full board with LU when there are repre-sentatives appointed to do so.

Collins, who gave a second to Ste-vens’ motion, responded because the objective of having liaisons to LU was to “open up the process” so the board and the community would know what LU plans to do at the golf course.

Renaud ultimately voted in favor of the motion but said the board liaisons identified about 20 areas included in the draft business that they felt needed revisions, including an initial member-ship plan that only hopes to boost par-ticipation at the golf club by ten new members.

He said he would like the opportu-nity to distribute a report summarizing that meeting to all directors prior to a meeting with LU.

Cordwell argued that there is no need for a meeting of the full board with LU because the trio of liaisons is in place to report back to their peers.

But Stevens said that is “not at all the same thing.” He said he doesn’t know what questions that committee asked of LU. They may not have been the same questions he has regarding the business plan. He told Renaud all board members should have the op-portunity to meet and ask questions of LU’s representatives “and not see a subsequent proposal that was changed because of your questions.”

Terry said that he believes every board member has a right to request a

meeting to discuss and go over draft doc-uments if they want to do that.

“I have no objection to that,” he said and asked Renaud to submit his sum-mary of the previous meeting with LU to directors as soon as possible. He said he believes that needs to be circulated before the board meets with LU so ev-eryone understands where they are in the process of developing the business plan, which will be the basis for next fis-cal year’s golf budget.

Jacobs argued that those discussions should take place in closed session be-cause they are contractual in nature.

Collins responded that it is not a con-

tractual matter and any meeting should be open to the public.

Stevens agreed and said they are is-sues of “policy and understanding” not specific to the golf management con-tract.

OPA General Manager Bob Thomp-son reminded the board that the busi-ness plan will be submitted by LU along with their budget for the golf to support their budget numbers for fiscal year 2017.

During the budget process the board will spend several days reviewing the golf course spending plan and that is typically when representatives from LU would be present to answer questions from directors.

He said those meetings are open to the public.

“So you would have an audience during the budget process,” he said.

Jacobs wonders whether lower expenses have affected

Pines’ golf course quality Collins defends Landscapes Unlimited’s personnel

management since take-over; Thompson says LU manages chemical expenses differently than previous manager


Lower than anticipated expen-ditures at the Ocean Pines golf course have prompted the Ocean

Pines Association to take a closer look at how Landscapes Unlimited is managing the amenity’s finances. Cuts in personal expenses over the summer were the re-sults of running the facility with limited staff, according to OPA General Manag-er Bob Thompson.

During his Nov. 19 general manag-er’s report to the Board of Directors, Thompson said the golf course closed out the month of October below budget. Net revenues were $35,846 less than

budgeted but expenses were also $9,327 less than budgeted for the month. Over-all the golf course finished the month $26,519 behind budget projections. However, a year-over-year comparison of financials reveals the golf course is $9,751 ahead of last year for the same period.

“Golf revenues were slightly behind for the month,” Thompson said. The first weekend in October was essentially lost to play because of inclement weather, he said. Still, he said revenue continues to be off a little, but at the same time ex-penses are down as well. The reduction in expenses “has been a trait” since LU

q


From Page 27

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expenses are below budget at the golf course. She wanted to know if LU is sim-ply saving money to the detriment of the amenity. She asked if they do not have sufficient personnel or are not perform-ing course maintenance the way they should.

“I expressed concern about that and we’ve talked about that through the summer months,” Thompson said. “During the summer I had some con-cerns because the actual labor costs were way down.”

Director Jack Collins offered to “edu-cate” Jacobs about the golf course’s per-sonnel situation. He said that when LU came on board as the course manager, there was existing staff at the amenity who had been there for some time. The salaries of those employees reflected pay increases that were garnered through-out their employment. When LU as-sumed control of the golf course, two of those long-time employees resigned.

“It took them some time to replace those two individuals, which means they had less salary expense during that period, combined with the fact that they would hire somebody with a lower rate of expense than the two people that left,” Collins said as justification for the drop in personnel costs.

He asked Thompson if he would agree

with that assessment, but the general manager simply responded with a terse “no comment.”

“It’s just a point of information. That’s all,” Collins said.

Thompson said things seem to be go-ing well with golf course maintenance, seeming to allay concerns that golf course quality has been adversely af-fected. “I have not seen a slide in chem-ical application or care of the course, the maintenance side,” he said.

The reason some of LU’s expenses are below for the summer months for maintenance reflects an “accounting differential,” Thompson said, explain-ing that LU applies expenses within the budget differently from the way that Billy Casper Golf, the previous man-ager, did. He said LU expenses an item purchased on the maintenance side, such as chemicals for application on the golf course, during the month it’s actu-ally used, whereas the previous vendor expensed those items at the time they were purchased.

So if items were purchased in bulk at certain times of year, then the expense would hit the budget in that month. While LU may still buy in bulk, the company doesn’t book the expense un-til the item is actually used, Thompson said. “Neither way is a bad way to do it. As a matter of fact, this way is a little easier because you can actually look at the numbers tightly against what the month expenses were,” Thompson said of LU’s method of expensing purchases.

The OPA working group cited 143 memberships in March of 2015 but only 116 memberships as of September of this year, a loss of 27, excluding lifetime members that recently have dropped be-low 20.

According to a written summary of the meeting, OPA working group mem-bers challenged LU’s draft membership plan that showed an increase of only ten new members in 2016-17, which would not have rebuilt the membership to where it was before the June 1 transfer of operational authority from BCG to LU.

“LU agreed they needed to re-look at the projected growth objectives in their Membership Plan,” the summary said.

The OPA team told LU executives at the meeting that there are “loyal mem-bers” of the Ocean Pines golf club “who are not saying that they could likely be leaving for other courses in the area,” which Renaud told the Progress in a brief interview in early December could reflect continuing opposition among some golfers to the change in manage-ment earlier this year.

According to the meeting summary, OPA representatives asked about any actions LU has taken to identify for-mer golf members who had given up their Ocean Pines memberships “and how many have been contacted to entice them to return.”

From Page 1

Cover story The summary indicated that LU ex-ecutives said that had identified more than 300 previous members but that there been no effort to contact them.

When OPA working group members suggested revising the target member-ship growth to 32, or about 10 percent of the lost memberships over the years, LU executives “agreed to review the possibility of revising the target,” while conceding that they don’t have a good handle on how many individuals in the 300 memberships lost over the years are still available to be contacted.

Elsewhere in the meeting summary, three components of a membership re-building plan were listed.

They included an easier membership registration process, a bundling of golf and aquatics memberships, and a pro-gram of planning and executing member events.

The easier membership registration apparently involves allowing would-be members to sign up at the golf pro shop.

The meeting summary said that Thompson recommended that “the pro-cess could be enhanced by allowing the LU team to gather the appropriate docu-mentation to include a completed appli-cation and the acceptance of a check for fees at the golf course.”

LU personnel then would be required to bring this information to OPA Ad-ministration building no later than the next business day for processing of the membership and actual depositing of

To Page 30


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Cover story

the check. But new members would still be re-

quired to come to administration build-ing to have his/her picture taken for a membership card, so this proposal ap-parently falls well short of a one-stop shopping scenario.

In another component of LU’s mem-bership plan that did not go over well with OPA working group members, LU executives proposed a bundling of golf and aquatics memberships as a way of boosting membership in both.

According to the meeting summary, “after discussions of pros and cons it was determined this strategy would proba-bly not be supported and was not a good fit for the OPA community, which does not generally support one amenity’s revenues being used to offset another amenity’s costs unless there is a direct synergy.”

A third component of the LU strategy, the planning and managing of important member events, was “understood and generally supported” by the OPA work-ing group, which qualified that support by advising “it would take some work by the LU team to have OPA membership buy in to the change.”

[See story at right for coverage of oth-er issues addressed in the meeting.]

OPA working group, LU officialsbutt heads in quarterly meetingIssues range from outside play to mold concerns at the Country Club


While much of a recent quarter-ly oversight meeting between the Ocean Pines Association’s

golf working group and Landscapes Un-limited executives focused on the com-pany’s plans to resuscitate Ocean Pines’ sagging golf membership rolls, other issues surfaced as well, ranging from complaints about outside play to mold concerns at the Country Club.

LU Regional Manager Scott Nissley’s demeanor in dealing with Ocean Pines golf members also found its way into the discussion, with working group mem-bers gently suggesting some attitude adjustment.

A written summary of the meeting prepared by OPA President Pat Renaud, and tweaked by working group mem-bers Tom Terry and Bill Cordwell, both OPA directors, and General Manager Bob Thompson, detailed those concerns.

According to the summary, the work-

ing group asked for clarification of what LU executives, in a recently submitted business plan for the golf course ameni-ty, called the golf general manager/head golf professional management model. Essentially the model establishes the local golf pro, in this case John Ma-linowski, as the head of the LU’s Ocean Pines organization, with course super-intendent Rusty McClendon reporting to him.

Under Billy Casper Golf manage-ment, the local superintendent had re-ported to a regional BCG executive.

The OPA group endorsed this ap-proach because it establishes a clear operational line of authority, in which Malinowski reports to Thompson about day-to-day operations at the golf course and other concerns.

The working group also made clear to LU executives that the OPA prefers “quality product” over cost containment.

“We all agreed the standards could be modified slightly to maintain the product at a lower cost but shared the concern that cost savings alone are not the answer,” the summary says.

The working group and LU execu-tives also addressed a contentious is-sue over whether LU has been keeping commitments to certain outside groups made by Billy Casper Golf, the previous manager, which has generated com-plaints among golf members about tee time availability.

The OPA representatives wanted to know whether contracts with these groups precluded LU from changing tee times to accommodate golf members.

According to the meeting summary, “LU said it never determined if there were contracts but would be using con-tracts in the future to better manage

these outside groups.”Working group members told LU

executives “that blaming BCG, which has been done in numerous Golf Mem-ber Council meetings on various issues, was not productive in that there were and are many OPA golf members who did support the change” in management from BCG to LU.

“We all agreed to move forward with LU as our team and manage for success while leaving BCG out of the discus-sions,” the summary says.

Another area of contention involved a recent incident in which LU told a local golf group that it could not accommodate them and book their events on the upper level of the Country Club, because the second floor is under the control of the OPA and particularly the Ocean Pines Yacht Club.

Working group members cited the management contract which makes clear that LU is responsible for the en-tire Country Club building, and not just the cleaning of it and paying for utilities.

According to the summary, LU was advised that the Yacht Club would noti-fy them “immediately upon a potential booking of the upstairs of the Country Club, to ensure availability. “

The issue of mold in the Country Club also surfaced during the meeting, involv-ing recent comments by LU’s regional manager, Scott Nissley, that “some of their employees seemed to always be sick and it might be from the building”.

The OPA group asked if LU was re-questing “something to be done in this regard” by the OPA. According to the summary, LU asked for more time to re-view this situation and “they would get back to Bob Thompson” about possible

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From Page 30

Working group

remedies.Hours at the Tern Grille were dis-

cussed at the meeting, with OPA repre-sentatives suggesting that the 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. schedule makes it more difficult to serve golfers with earlier and later tee times. The summary indicates that LU will “look into” the possibility of ad-justing the hours as a way of increasing revenues at the Grill.

The OPA team complained about

lack of response from the OPA for re-pairs has been reported” to OPA golf members.

“The LU Executive team agreed the critical issues have already been ad-dressed,” the summary indicates, with a few minor items remaining

OPA representatives then inquired as to the status of a planned “deep cleaning” of the Country Club, with LU officials informing the OPA that it was continuing to obtain bids for the work.

Meeting participants also discussed LU’s practice of double bookings to man-age tee times, which the OPA represen-tatives said was not “customer-centric,” according to the summary.

LU’s response was that double book-ing allows for better management of tee sheets to accommodate last-minute can-cellations and no-shows, and that the “is being successfully deployed at the ma-jority of their other courses with great success.”

The OPA working group also advised Nissley, the regional manager, that he need to have a “softer presence” in his meetings with OPA golf members, and that he needed “to remember that the OPA course is not populated with cor-porate memberships” like other courses managed by LU. He was also told that the OPA golf members “have a very per-sonal sense of ownership” of the golf course.

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less than timely response to regulatory items identified in a recent visit to the Ocean Pines Country Club by LU’s na-tional food and beverage manager. The summary indicates that the OPA “made it very clear we expected much more urgent response from LU in matters of regulatory compliance.”

Part of the meeting involved discus-sion of financial performance, focusing on the “continued decline in revenues punctuated by the continual decline in membership.”

All agreed that “steps need to be tak-

en to reduce these trends,” the summa-ry says.

Meeting participants also dealt with maintenance and cleanliness of the Country Club, with the summary indi-cating that there have been some divi-sions between the OPA and LU over the timeliness of requested repairs, which are the responsibility of the OPA, and cleaning, which is LU’s responsibility under the contract.

The OPA working group “referenced many comments being made by LU during Golf Council meetings where

Gift shop celebratesfirst anniversary

The Dazzle Gift shop, locat-ed in the Manklin Station shopping center in Ocean

Pines, just inside the South Gate, is celebrating its one-year anni-versary throughout the month of December.

Owner Joyce Landsman opened the gift shop as a way of providing affordable and useful gifts and gift baskets and holiday decor “so that people in the community don’t have to travel to get things.”

She said that her shop tries hard “to give people variety, quali-ty and good service.”

The shop, which hosted an an-niversary ribbon-cutting on Dec. 4 with the Ocean Pines Chamber of Commerce, conaints a variety of items including accessories, jewl-ery, gourmet foods and dips, baby items, and much more

Customers are encouraged to select whichever items they like and combine them in a gift basket.

“We do gift baskets to order, so nothing is really premade,” she said. “We will do whatever they want to put in, at any price they want, and the gift wrapping is complimentary.”

The gift-wrapping is often con-sidered a gift in itself judging by the reaction of her many happy customers.

CAPTAIN’S COVE December 2015 - Early January 2016Ocean Pines PROGRESS 33

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County treasurer refusing to cashCove association, developer checksfor property taxes; no reason given

Aqua transaction also affected; Hearn says ‘no one present’ in clerk’s officeto accept property transfer documents


Something peculiar seems to be hap-pening in Accomack County, partic-ularly in County Treasurer Dana

Bundick’s office and the clerk’s office in Accomac, the county seat, where deed transfers are normally recorded.

It’s the rare county in America that isn’t eager to accept tax payments from property owners, but for some reason that seems not to be case in the treasur-er’s office of Accomack County.

Bundick has been engaged in a pro-tracted dispute with the Captain’s Cove developer, CCG Note, LLC., over proper-ty valuations on which property taxes are levied, so perhaps there is some rea-son related to that which could explain why she is not cashing developer checks for property taxes owed by the develop-er.

The logic could be that to cash a check is to admit that the amount paid

indicates that the tax liability has been satisfied in full.

That, apparently, the county treasur-er has so far been unwilling to concede.

But according to Tim Hearn, the Cap-tain Cove property association’s presi-dent, there is no conceivable reason why the county treasurer is not depositing two checks totaling roughly $37,000 from the Cove POA for property taxes this year.

“She’s not giving us any answers. She’s not responding to us or our law-yers, giving us any explanation at all for why she’s not depositing our checks,” Hearn said.

He said the Cove POA, which origi-nally had sided with the developer in at-tempting to reduce assessed valuations on unimproved lots in Captain’s Cove from the traditional $4,000 to closer to $1,000, has decided to pay property tax-es on Cove-owned lots on the county’s “full evaluation.”

Hearn said the Cove POA changed its stance earlier this year in reaction to criticism from some within the Cove year-round residential population that the Cove, in disputing the higher lot valuation and declining to pay taxes on POA-owned lots based on that higher valuation, was in effect a tax deadbeat, costing everyone else in the county more for government services as a result.

While Hearn said that he didn’t agree with that viewpoint from a “busi-ness standpoint,” he said the Cove board took notice of community sentiment and decided to pay on the higher valuations, at least until such time as the coun-ty acknowledges that the lower $1,000 valuations on many unimproved lots in Captain’s Cove, especially in current unbuildable areas without roads or util-ities, is closer to true market value.

Indeed, a case could be made that, until such time as roads and utilities are installed in these undeveloped ar-

eas, the resale value of many so-called unbuildable lots is effectively zero.

The Cove POA has embarked on a road construction program in areas that lack them, but completing them could take up to five years or so according to recent estimates.

CCG Note, unlike the Cove POA, is continuing to battle the Accomack Coun-ty treasurer’s office over lot valuations, Hearn said, noting that the state asses-sor’s office has backed the CCG Note ar-gument for lower assessments.

The developer, too, has sent checks to the county that have gone undeposited, well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Hearn said.

Those payments have been based on the lower assessed valuations that the developer contends is more realistic giv-

en market conditions.So far, he said, Bundick has not

budged from her position that unim-proved lots in undeveloped parts of the Cove are worth $4,000.

Should she finally capitulate to mar-ket conditions as they are, it could result in lower assessed valuations throughout Captain’s Cove, Hearn said.

Property owners, especially those who own unimproved property, would see a decline in property taxes they owe the county.

While many owners of unimproved property in the Cove pay ridiculously low property taxes around $24 a year,

34 Ocean Pines PROGRESS December 2015 - Early January 2016 CAPTAIN’S COVE

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From Page 33

County treasurer

reduced assessed valuations would re-duce it even further, perhaps by as much as 75 percent.

Hearn also said the county is refusing to accept payment for various taxes and fees associated with the pending sale of Captain’s Cove Utility Co. assets to Aqua Virginia, which he said is related to the offi ce of the county clerk’s appar-ent unwillingness to accept any of the documentation to facilitate the property transfers.

He said the county treasurer’s offi ce is located in the same offi ce as the coun-ty clerk’s.

Hearn said the county would collect roughly $200,000 from Aqua in a com-bination of recordation taxes, transfers fees and property taxes if it simply would accept new property deeds for re-cordation in the county courthouse.

“No one’s there at the clerk’s offi ce” to accept the deed transfer documents, Hearn said, calling the situation bizarre and something he has never encoun-tered before in his dealings with county governments.

He noted that Amazon is purchasing about a 1000 acres in the county for a so-lar plant, and he wondered if the county was refusing to record documents asso-ciated with that sale, along with accept-ing the sizable fees and taxes that are part of that.

“Accomack County really could be fl ush if somebody would cash the checks,” Hearn said.

Winter hours – Pool hours at the Marina Club’s indoor swimming pool have been changed for the winter.

It’s open Monday 8 a.m. to noon, Wednesdays through Fridays 8 a.m. to

noon and 4 to 8 p.m., Saturdays and Sunday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The pool is closed on Tuesdays.

A receptionist will be on hand until 7 p.m. on each of the days the pool is open until 8 p.m. The library hours are the same as for the receptionist.

Association policy is for a receptionist to be on hand when the pool is open for use.

The Marine Club restaurant’s hours are Mondays 5 to 9 p.m., closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Thursdays 5 to 9 p.m., Fridays 4 to 11 p.m., Saturdays noon to 11 p.m. and Sundays noon to 9 p.m.

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December 2015 - Early January 2016Ocean Pines PROGRESS 35OPINION

COMMENTARY

Time to change how the OPA pays for golf?A version of this commentary was published in the Progress during the summer of 2013, with particular attention on golf and aquatics. Since then, aquatics operations have improved, with losses now expected to fall below $100,000 for the current fiscal year. Golf, however, is projected to lose $150,000 for the year, excluding depreciation. Golf-related funded depreciation will cost property owners in the neighborhood of $450,000 this year, meaning the Ocean Pines golf course will cost property owners somewhere close to $600,000 in subsidies this year if estimates hold.

Given plummeting amenity memberships and revenues, it may be time for the Ocean Pines Association to take a hard look at the way

it finances amenity operations, particularly golf. Aquatics is on a glide path to financial health and probably doesn’t need the light shock therapy herein suggested for golf.

There may be a way to cure golf deficits and required subsidies once and for all, while giving recreation-minded members of the association, or at least the occasional golfer who takes advantage of the area’s substantial array of golf choices, a renewed sense that they are indeed receiving something of tangible value in Ocean Pines for their annual lot assessments.

Golf relies substantially on prepaid membership fees for its revenues, supplemented by greens and cart fees. Golf is also reliant on outside play by non-members – often in the form of package rounds – a fact of life that will probably be necessary for the foreseeable future.

The audited results for 2014-15, as well as operating results well into the current fiscal year, show that golf membership and revenues generally are falling well short of what is needed to make this department self-sustaining. The first draft of a membership plan forwarded to the OPA by Landscapes Unlimited, the golf course management company, showed a very unaggressive increase of ten memberships for next year over the current low number of roughly 115.

While that number probably will be revised upward under pressure from the OPA’s golf oversight team, it most likely reflects Landscapes Unlimited’s unfiltered and unfettered prognostication of what’s really possible in Ocean Pines, in today’s economic and competitive climate.

That this first iteration of a membership plan differs substantially from what LU at one time suggested was possible – an aggressive increase in membership revenue to roughly match that from non-member revenue – is duly noted. Surprising? Not really.

It may be that any significant increase in golf membership under the current model is unrealistic, regardless of which management company happens to be in day-to-day charge of the golf course. Should the OPA decide at some future date to return to in-house management, thereby saving itself roughly $75,000 or so in annual management fees, that, too, would probably have no or only limited impact on membership prospects.

It may be that the current membership model for revenue generation has outlived its usefulness and relevance to a community that is much more diverse than it was when the membership structure was devised some 40 odd years ago. It may be that it’s time to replace it, or at least modify it to a significant degree, in a way that’s fair to Ocean Pines property

owners and residents while putting golf on a sounder financial footing.

The way of accomplishing that would incorporate an idea that’s been kicked around behind the scenes for years, if not decades, but never acted upon – for reasons of politics and probably because there really was no need for it. In earlier decades, ending sometime in the 1990s, golf was a net revenue generator for the OPA, something not true for quite some time. In fact, the uncomfortable truth is that the OPA probably never will achieve break-even operations in golf under the current membership model, given adverse demographics and the over-saturation of golf courses in northern Worcester and nearby Sussex counties.

To remedy this, the OPA should explore the possibility of diverting a portion of each year’s lot assessment dollars to the golf department, giving all property owners a tangible benefit in exchange for this. All property owners could be entitled to play the golf course anytime during certain established hours for no additional green fees. Or they could be given a certain number of free passes to the course to be used at any time. (Cart fees would be assessed on the day and time of play, or cart packages could be purchased in advance, as is done currently.) Or some combination of “free” afternoon play or reduced cost morning tee times could be offered as part of this basic golf membership.

It would not be necessary to eliminate all membership categories in golf, but they could be streamlined and simplified. Afternoon memberships probably would be eliminated entirely. Premium annual memberships in golf would be established, entitling those who purchase them certain advantages. Premium golf members, for instance, might have first call on tee times before 11 a.m. They might be given a certain number of riding carts at no or reduced cost. Enough incentives would need to be incorporated into premium golf memberships to help persuade current members to keep them and, perhaps, entice a few new ones to join.

This is in effect the Columbia, Md., model, in which the base lot assessment pays for access to some community amenities, with certain restrictions; premium memberships provide added value which carry an extra cost for those willing to pay for them. OPA Director Tom Terry is very familiar with this model, having lived in Maryland’s largest homeowner-association-managed community for many years.

This hybrid membership system would preserve some degree of prepaid annual membership revenue and would not be quite the shock to the system that a pure assessment-based system would. It might, therefore, be more acceptable to an OPA membership resistant to change.

Should many more Ocean Pines property owners and residents take advantage of the “basic” golf membership included as part of their annual lot assessment, there would be an increase in revenues from riding carts. The number of revenue-producing rounds from Ocean Pines property owners and residents on the course would increase.

If limited access to the golf course is in included in the base lot assessment, there might be some erosion in revenues produced by daily use greens fees, and some current members may drop their memberships because they’re not that keen on morning tee times. Again, however, more rounds played by more people would generate more cart revenue sufficient to offset

at least some portion of that lost revenue. An important point is that adopting this hybrid

golf membership model would not have to result in assessment increases. Indeed to make it more palatable to non-golfers in the community, every effort should be made to ensure that assessments are not increased to pay for this restructuring.

Currently, General Manager Bob Thompson is projecting a $150,000 operating loss for golf this year, or roughly $18 per Ocean Pines property. Assuming this number is still looking realistic when next year’s budget is debated and approved in the first quarter of 2016, a transfer of $150,000 from assessments to golf operations could be included in next year’s budget. A break-even operation or surplus would thereby become realistic, unlike most golf budgets over the years.

One way to “pay for” this $150,000 transfer is to reduce, or eliminate, a portion of the hidden $450,000 in golf-related depreciation that is part of the current budget. Most of that depreciation expense is attributed to golf drainage and green improvements completed in recent years. It is regrettable that the current generation of property owners are surreptitiously charged every year, through funded depreciation, for the replacement of these amenities, say, 50 or 100 years from now, if indeed these particular improvements will ever need replacing.

The unfortunate reality is that depreciation expense is collected on these assets, to be spent on capital projects unrelated to golf drainage and golf greens. There will be no measurable loss if a portion of this golf-related depreciation expense is diverted instead to benefit current property owners.

In addition, the question might as well be asked: Does the OPA really need to be spending $75,000 or so in golf management expenses, when the current vendor has, more or less, admitted there really may not be any realistic way of increasing golf membership under the existing model? The current golf pro and golf superintendent and much of their staffs were inherited from previous management; they would every reason to stay in Ocean Pines were the golf course to revert to in-house OPA management. As a practical matter, the change would hardly be noticed.

Naturally, there will be association members who will object to this suggested change in membership structure; it wouldn’t be Ocean Pines if the objections were not strenuous and heart-felt. The sad fact is that there are many people who don’t use the amenities and who don’t want to finance them. That their assessment dollars would be diverted for that very purpose will not sit well with some.

The proper response to that concern is to minimize the pain but forge ahead anyway. Opponents will need to be reminded that assessment dollars are already being used to subsidize losing amenities, with little direct benefit to those who subsidize but don’t use them. In that sense, non-golfers would be no worse off than they are now.

At least under this hybrid model, there would be more incentive – or, more accurately, less disincentive – for at least some of the non-users to partake of the golf course amenity that they are paying for.

And maybe, just maybe, there would be less infighting over amenity losses and a greater feeling, spread over more OPA members, that they’re getting more for their assessment dollars than they had been previously. – Tom Stauss


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OPINION December 2015 - Early January 2016Ocean Pines PROGRESS 37

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COMMENTARY

Beach Club bathroom renovation is overdue

While it’s too soon to know for certain whether a majority of the Board of Directors and

General Manager Bob Thompson will embrace the idea, the proposal to reno-vate the bathrooms at the Ocean Pines Association’s oceanfront Beach Club in Ocean City is long overdue.

There’s no good reason whatever not to do this project sometime next year, probably in the fall after the prime summer season, to give the OPA suffi-cient time to develop a request for pro-posals, send it to area contractors, fully vet and consider bids, and then award a construction contract.

Fall is better so contractors bidding on the project have sufficient lead time to work the project into their construc-tion schedules.

Ocean Pines developer Marvin Steen once again has done his community a huge service by arranging with a local contractor, Sens, Inc., for a no-cost in-spection of the facility from top to bot-tom and a cost estimate for a complete tear-out and renovation of the lower level bathrooms.

The inspection suggests that the building, though roughly 40 years old and open to the elements, was built to last, with the very best in exterior and roofing materials. Only the lower level bathrooms are in questionable condi-tion, and this has been the case for de-cades. From plumbing, to electrical to HVAC, the lower level is where the OPA should be focusing its attention.

That Marvin Steen was able to secure an estimated cost for this work, without

the need for the OPA to hire a structur-al engineer or an architect, at consider-able cost, is truly remarkable. When the time comes to draft a RFP for the proj-ect, Sens Inc.’s work product, detailed designs included, will provide the basis for it.

It’s only fair that Sens should have the opportunity to submit a bid to be considered with all others, in a fair and open transparent bid process, some-thing that has not occurred in recent years as much as it did at one time in Ocean Pines.

That Sens did not charge Steen for the work it did, and the fact that Steen arranged for it on his own volition, vali-dates the adage that sometimes private initiative can accomplish a task much faster and for less money than when done by government or quasi-govern-mental entities such as homeowner as-sociations.

Roughly five years ago, when the OPA was working on the replacement of the old Community Center, the board of directors at that time also looked at a Beach Club renovation in addition to paving the parking lot.

The parking lot paving project has been plugged into the OPA capital bud-get, at least in its draft iterations, for every year since then, only to fall to the budget axe, in part because the bene-fit of a few additional parking spaces is not worth the cost of asphalt.

At the same time, one year has fol-lowed another with Beach Club reno-vation barely warranting any discussion at budget time.

Meanwhile, conditions at the OPA’s most popular amenity have been al-lowed to deteriorate, other than some modest cosmetic improvements in the bathrooms made by the general man-ager a few years back. Other projects – from Yacht Club replacement to swim-ming pools to the golf course – have had a higher priority.

Steen correctly has concluded that this needs to change, and he has an ally in Director Jack Collins, who has been urging his colleagues to join him in moving Beach Club bathroom renova-tion to the front burner in the coming fiscal year. Collins, of course, cannot do this alone.

OPA President Pat Renaud began his term in office in September with a sincere declaration that he wanted his year as president to be one that was productive – in his words, he very much wanted less board discussion and more board action. Renovating this key amen-ity is one way to make that happen.

It probably doesn’t hurt that Steen had a much to do with Renaud’s success-ful campaign for the board in 2014. No

doubt when Steen sits down with the OPA president personally to lobby for this project, Renaud will listen intently. If he gets behind it, it’s likely other di-rectors will follow.

Unfortunately, there’s already been some pushback against the idea from some directors, Renaud told the Prog-ress in a recent interview.

He’s not sure he will join Collins in pushing for this project in next year’s budget. At the same time, Renaud knows the work needs to be done.

Renaud said some directors are of the opinion that Beach Club improvements need to wait their turn in a so-called “rack and stack” of projects contained in the OPA’s capital improvement plan, which was last updated in 2012.

Yes, a new CIP needs to done, but de-lays in completing it should not be used as a pretext for not doing a renovation that everyone knows is needed. A CIP is just a set of guidelines and can be changed to reflect a new reality. That reality is Marvin Steen’s timely interven-tion on behalf of his community. -- Tom Stauss

An unpleasurabledining experience

I wanted to share our experience at the recent Ocean Pines Boat Club change of watch banquet held recently at the Ocean Pines Yacht Club.

First let me say the staff was moving

quickly and seemed to know what they were doing.

That being said the food was an entirely different matter.

They offered a choice of rib eye or flounder. The flounder was cold and fishy tasting, the rib eye was over-cooked and dry. It obviously was pre-cut and sitting in a warming box for a long period of time. The rolls were served right from the refrigerator, cold, and they tasted stale.

The topper, however, was that they recycled potatoes from Sunday brunch to serve with this awful meal.

I left most of mine uneaten as did my wife with her flounder.

A man replaced our rolls with fresh baked rolls with an apology, but it was too late. I have no idea who he was, as he did not introduce himself, but he was not a member of the wait staff.

This experience was not pleasurable to anyone seated at our table.

My wife and I were the owners of a 750-seat banquet center in Pennsylvania. Having been a chef for 30 years, I am very familiar with the correct way to serve a meal. I have hand cut and served over 3000 prime rib dinners in my time, all successful and served with pride.

That can’t be said of this poorly-run venue. It’s no small wonder why they fail again and again.

Marlin WertOcean Pines

LETTER

38 Ocean Pines PROGRESS December 2015 - Early January 2016 OPINION

The Ocean Pines Progress, a jour-nal of news and commentary, is published monthly throughout the year. It is circulated in Ocean Pines, Berlin, Ocean City, and Captain’s Cove, Va.Letters and other editorial sub-missions: Please submit via email only. Letters should be original and exclusive to the Progress. In-clude phone number for verifica-tion.

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LIFE IN THE PINESAn excursion through the curious by-ways and cul-de-sacsof Worcester County’s most densely populated community.

By TOM STAUSS/Publisher

LIFE IN THE PINESAn excursion through the curious by-ways and cul-de-sacsof Worcester County’s most densely populated community.

By TOM STAUSS/Publisher

Directors clash over golf management issues

That last Board of Directors meet-ing, if nothing else, suggests that election wounds don’t always heal

as quickly as they should.It also provided some proof, as if it

was really needed, that the current board is as divided now as it ever has been. The familiar 4-3 divide is present on occasion, with some nuanced evidence that there are actually three identifiable factions contending for influence.

OPA President Pat Renaud and for-mer OPA President Tom Terry rarely if ever disagree; they are more or less the faction that can dictate the outcome of any particular vote. Directors Jack Col-lins, Dave Stevens and Tom Herrick and have emerged as solid allies, and lately Cheryl Jacobs and Bill Cordwell have joined together, especially as it relates to contentious golf-related issues.

Jacobs, as befits her calling, is more cerebral and analytical; the thin-skinned Cordwell is quick to take offense and hold grudges and, let’s not sugarcoat it, goes off on rants and tangents that suggest he’s just the latest in a long line of former directors who couldn’t wait for his three years of board servitude to mercifully expire.

All of this played out during the Nov. 19 board meeting, during marathon de-bates over golf course management and then again on belated “guidance” to the general manager on the 2016-17 budget, already well on its way to a first draft. The multi-meeting discussions on bud-get guidance could have gone for another meeting or two, had a motion by Stevens been approved, but he mercifully with-drew it before it could be voted down.

The discussion over golf course man-

agement, particularly the degree to which a three-member board oversight group updates the other four directors on LU-related issues, revealed board divisions that predated the election of Herrick and Jacobs to the board this past August.

When a 4-3 majority of the board ear-ly this year selected Landscapes Unlim-ited to replace Billy Casper Golf as the Ocean Pines golf course management company, it left bruised feelings among the minority directors, particularly Cordwell, who was not shy in proclaim-ing his opposition to the decision not to retain BCG. At the time, a board majori-ty consisting of Renaud, Collins, Stevens and former director Marty Clarke car-ried the day in selecting LU. Cordwell and Terry were in the minority at the time.

Subsequently, Renaud became in-creasingly untethered to his erstwhile allies, forging a close working relation-ship with Terry and a defacto alliance with him on matters large and small, be-ginning with the adoption of the 2015-16 OPA budget last winter. By the August reorganization of the board following the election, Renaud and Terry contin-ued their close association, aligning themselves with Jacobs and Cordwell in voting Renaud in as the new OPA president, replacing Stevens. Alliances have a way of splintering, as proven by

Renaud peeling away from his former allies earlier this year, but so far there is no evi-dence that Renaud and Terry see the world through different-colored lenses.

One of Renaud’s first actions as president was the appointment of a three-member working group of directors – himself, Terry and Cordwell – who, along with General Manager Bob Thompson, are serving as the OPA’s liaisons with LU. There was no board vote on the appointments initially. Collins previously had been the board’s golf liaison. He found himself marginalized, as three board colleagues, two of whom (Cordwell and Terry) had opposed the decision to ease BCG, replaced Collins and two non-directors as the liaisons to LU.

The manner in which Renaud replaced the former LU working group with himself, Terry and Cordwell has been a sore point with Collins and Stevens in recent months, but it was not until the Nov. 19 meeting that it became clear that Herrick, the top voter getter in this past summer’s election, was joining Collins and Stevens as critics of the process, if not the actual composition of the Renaud-Terry-Cordwell-Thompson working group.

Stevens and Collins argued that having two or three non-golfers on the oversight panel would not produce the best outcome, while Terry and Cordwell and Renaud all suggested that having LU cheerleaders as working group members would not be effective oversight. Jacobs went so far as

to suggest that non-golfers – who happen to comprise a substantial majority of Ocean Pines property owners – should be represented on the panel. Indeed.

The debate also centered on the president’s power to appoint a working group of directors without board debate and concurrence. Herrick, the board secretary, had himself listed on the meeting agenda on the issue of whether the president had the power to unilaterally appoint working group members without at least bringing the matter up for board discussion.

In earlier meetings, Stevens argued vociferously against the notion that Renaud had that power, repeatedly telling his colleagues that, as president, Stevens had always at least made an effort to consult with them before making a personnel move. He cited OPA bylaws which indicate that advisory committees require board concurrence of presidential appointments.

Exhibiting her training as a law-yer, Jacobs took exception to that interpretation of the bylaws, argu-ing that the three-member working group under the LU contract was not an advisory committee within the meaning and context of the bylaws.

q

December 2015 - Early January 2016Ocean Pines PROGRESS 39OPINION

That she came up with an arguable case for a gray area within the OPA bylaws is not particularly remarkable. Finding loopholes and poorly worded language in governing documents and contracts are what lawyers are trained to do.

Loopholes 101 is a first-year course in typical law schools throughout the land.

Somewhat ironically, Renaud grudg-ingly seemed to admit that perhaps he had erred in not clearing the appoint-ments with the full board before making them, not that it really made any differ-ence.

Cordwell, who has been absent from many recent board meetings, was pres-ent at the Nov. 19 meeting, not shy in making his sentiments known.

When Renaud, on Thompson’s sug-gestion, called for a vote on the member-ship composition of the three-member golf working group, it passed, 4-3. No surprise that Renaud, Terry, Cordwell and Jacobs were in the majority. That would have been the outcome had Re-naud been inclined to bring up the mat-ter for discussion and a vote back in Sep-tember.

In a subsequent vote, however, Re-naud and Terry split from Cordwell and Jacobs to hold a special, open public meeting with LU executives to discuss their business plan for the coming year, particularly as it relates to a plan to re-build the sagging golf membership roles in Ocean Pines.

Prior to the vote, Terry at one point lost his cool when he was pressed to di-vulge questions from the golf oversight group to LU executives in recent meet-ings about the business plan.

Visibly upset with the interrogation, Terry revealed that the initial draft of the membership rebuilding plan for next year called for a scant ten-member in-crease in the rolls, which would the total under what was inherited this spring.

Indeed, if that is in fact what LU offi-cials truly believe is possible this coming year, they have wittingly or unwittingly undermined the fundamental rationale for why the company was hired to man-age the golf course.

In the run-up to their selection as the new golf course management firm, an LU executive made it clear that rebuild-ing the membership was a prime objec-tive of the company, even going so far as to state that if his firm failed in that endeavor, they expected to be replaced.

The metric of success was specified: membership revenue was to match revenue from non-member rounds, in a rough 50-50 equilibrium. There even was a reference to a “proprietary” strat-egy for rebuilding membership.

Even with the disclosure of an ane-mic membership plan, or perhaps be-cause of it, Terry found himself in agree-ment with Stevens and Collins that an open meeting with LU executives to dis-cuss the business plan and membership strategy in particular would be a good idea.

That was over the objections of Ja-

cobs and Cordwell, who argued that such a meeting was unnecessary and in any event should be held behind closed doors because it involved a contractual matter.

Thompson suggested that a full de-bate over the company’s business plan could occur during the regular budget process in January and February, but Collins and Stevens argued that they didn’t want to wait that long to explore LU’s business plan.

In the end, both Terry and Renaud seemed to agree with Stevens and Col-lins, and Thompson was directed to con-tact LU officials and set a date for the confab as soon as possible.

The vote for an opening meeting passed 5-2, with Jacobs and Cordwell in opposition.

The unexpected 5-2 vote probably does not portend a sudden softening of hard feelings surrounding the subject of golf management.

If LU executives can’t make a case for why they initially expected only a modest increase in membership next year, then Stevens and Collins may in time regret their call for an open public meeting.

It doesn’t require much imagination to foresee calls to return to in-house management of the golf course if LU can’t produce the promised membership gains, with a meaningful down-payment in the first full year of operating the course.

Indeed, a return to in-house manage-ment already might be just a matter of timing.

LIFE IN THE PINESFrom Page 38

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2015 Ford F-150 XL$31,692

#P2896

2015 Ford F-150 XL2015 Ford F-150 XL2015 Ford F-150 XL2015 Ford TAURUS SEL$27,192

2015 Ford TAURUS SEL2015 Ford TAURUS SEL

END-OF-YEARBLOW-OUT

December 2015 ocean pines progress

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