Thoughts From The Publisher’s Desk

It’s been a pet peeve of mine for years to see police officers talking on their cell phones in uniform in their vehicles. I see it just about every day and I find it aggravating. It’s just wrong to be sitting at a stop light next to a cop, watching him talk on his Blackberry or iPhone about what is obviously not police business. It’s one of those “do as I say, not as I do” instances that gives the men and women in blue a bad reputation.
However, it appears the Ocean City Police Department is not going to be one of the law enforcement agencies executing an option to be excluded from Maryland’s hands-free law. Apparently, most agencies across the state keep the exception in their General Orders.
“We as an agency felt that we didn’t want to go down that road. We wanted to be more restrictive. Our restriction is in cases of an emergency an officer can use a cell phone without a hands free device but once that immediate emergency is over they either go to a hands free device or some other type of form of communication,” Guiton said.
That’s a good thing.

The same story regarding major transportation projects in Worcester County has been written for about the last five years.
The focus remains on Route 113 and continuing to reach the goal of dualizing the entire road that extends from the Delaware line south to the intersection of Routes 113 and 13 in Pocomoke.
What that essentially means is Worcester County should not expect any other major projects to be coming down the pipe until Route 113 is completed. That could be a number of years and the problem is it’s unknown exactly how long it will take to complete as a result of ongoing funding uncertainties.
That leaves Route 589 in particular in the lurch. That is a road that needs a major overhaul at some point, as commercial development continues to sprout along it and Ocean Pines becomes more and more of a year-round community.
To me, Route 589 is actually much more important from a prioritizing perspective than the Route 50 bridge so long as the span’s structure can be maintained to a safe degree. The Route 50 bridge traffic problem is an issue six weekends out of the year, at best, while Route 589 is a challenge throughout the year.

The revenue numbers from the Casino at Ocean Downs amaze me every month.
I haven’t actually been in the casino since the day it opened, but from what I hear, it’s busy almost every night and particularly on the weekends. However, it’s still startling to see that it generated more than $4.2 million in October. That’s 20-percent more than last October’s figures. Even more amazing is the gross gaming revenue per machine per day data. For October, it came in at $170.89.

The new House of Delegates District 38C seat is going to feature a crowded field and the primary in June will be key in sorting through the contenders.
This week’s news that local resident and community volunteer Judy Davis has entered the field brings the total to three official candidates, but word is there could be as many as four more residents joining the mix, including Ocean City businessman Michael James, who almost became the lower shore’s senator in 2010, and Charlene Elliott-Carr, who is the chief financial officer for the Purple Moose Saloon on the Boardwalk and has been a liquor industry lobbyist in Annapolis for years.
While Davis officially announced her intent this week, James and Elliott-Carr are privately discussing it, according to sources. Elliott-Carr announced her run on her Facebook page last month, but has not officially filed. James, who lost to Senator Jim Mathias in a tight race in 2010 and previously barely missed a seat in 2006 on the House of Delegates, appears to be privately deciding his course, but insiders expect him to be a candidate.
Stay tuned as this race will be most interesting because there is no incumbent to stake an early advantage.