Council Needs To Slow Down And Deliberate

Editor:

I am shocked and appalled by the blatant, consistent, wholesale 4-3 votes by the Ocean City Council members.

This is not what I cast my vote for in October 2010. I believed the campaign promises of searching for fiscal responsibility in these troubling times. I believed in the campaign promises of representing the interests of the residents of Ocean City. I believed that there would be a refinement and trimming of the waste and fat in the budget. This is not what I’m seeing on the Cable Broadcast and reading in print in your newspaper.

I expected a comprehensive, holistic, careful, review of the budget, city agencies etc. with an emphasis on dialogue, compromise, cooperation, and good will. I did not expect a rush to judgment, in your face, defiant, uncooperative, and uncompromising vote of 4-3 on every issue.

I did not expect a vote that encompasses no research, no deliberation, no détente, and takes no prisoners. This is not what I voted for and this is not what I think the spirit of the city council should be about and the perception of the community should reflect.

In November, I asked an Ocean City Council member if Ocean City was going into bankruptcy. I asked if we were on the brink of disaster. I know about cities in distress such as Camden, N.J., Chester, PA. Baltimore, MD etc. I was told “No.” Ocean City has $20 million in a reserve account. So what’s the urgency? Why can’t we be responsible to our current city employees and to our future employees?

We have 300,000 weekly reasons or eight million seasonal reasons every year to make a difference. It seems to me that if we want to keep them coming, we better be careful who we cut and what we do to our future employees. These tourists are the lifeblood of our budget. Let’s be reasonable. What we do in haste; we can repent in leisure.

Priscilla Pennington-Zytkowicz
Ocean City