OCEAN CITY – Elected officials this week reflected on the past year full of infrastructure and capital improvement progress and discussed 2014 priority items.
Besides the the opening of a new Art League of Ocean City’s Center for the Arts on 94th Street, the expansion of the Roland E. Powell Convention Center and the completion of the reconstruction project of the town’s famous Boardwalk, Council Secretary Mary Knight read between the lines in looking back at 2013.
One of the major highlights of 2013 was the reinstatement of the Mayor and City Council’s commissions, Knight said. In 2010, the former council majority voted to eliminate the commissions, reasoning all city business should be brought before the full Mayor and City Council at the same time versus having matters discussed on a commission level first.
In January of last year, following elections in November of 2012, the new council voted to reinstate the Police, Tourism and Recreation and Parks Commissions.
“The effect of that with the Tourism Commission we have been able to accomplish I think some very major things,” said Knight, who chairs at that subcommittee.
One of the successes of the Tourism Commission this year was the development of the Tourism Metric Report, which is a tool used to measure Ocean City’s tourism and success of marketing efforts through several different resources, such as room tax, food and beverage tax, trash collection, website visits, requests for Visitor Guides, collection of visitors area codes as well as demoflush estimates. Monthly Tourism Metric Reports are posted on Ocean City’s website, OCocean.com under the media section.
“It gives everybody a better picture in what is happening in Ocean City,” Knight said.
Another initiative passed forward from the commission level was the implementation of a Tourism Strategic Plan, Knight pointed out.
“Which will help us determine so much, such as who we want to market to, what events are effective, are special events effective, so our role in this ever changing tourism market of this new millennium,” she said.
A Request For Proposals (RFP) for a tourism strategic plan was released on Thursday. Sealed bids for the tourism initiative are due by Jan. 28.
The RFP reads the town “is soliciting proposals for a five-year strategic plan for tourism. The project will encompass interviewing key Ocean City tourism stakeholders, evaluating Ocean City tourism assets and conducting a market analysis to incorporate into a strategic plan that will serve as a blueprint for Ocean City’s tourism marketing, identifying target and niche markets and priorities for FY 2015-2020.”
One of the issues the council tackled this year was balancing the budget, not raising the taxes, and staying at constant yield, Knight said. In the process, the council learned installing parking meters in new areas may not have been the way to go in filling a budget gap.
In July, the town received a successful petition opposing the new paid parking areas and the parking ordinance was repealed by the council as a result.
“It taught us a lot because the parking meter issue and the petition showed that we listened. We had an idea, we thought it would work, the public went through the right procedure, we heard them and the parking meters were removed,” Knight said.
In moving ahead into 2014, Knight is looking forward to the completion of the Tourism Strategic Plan, ongoing discussions with Worcester County in achieving a tax differential for Ocean City, having a jet team return to the OC Air Show and the completion of the Performing Arts Center (PAC) at the convention center in November.
Knight concluded she is also looking forward to the election in November as there is a new delegate district to represent Ocean City, West Ocean City and Ocean Pines in Annapolis.
“Hopefully, we can get someone in the area that can fight for Ocean City and its tourism, such as getting schools to start after Labor Day, those types of things that really affect Ocean City, as well as how involved we are with international students,” she said.
Councilman Dennis Dare, who is Ocean City’s former city engineer and city manager, was pleased to see so many infrastructure improvements accomplished in 2013, such as the completion of the reconstruction of Ocean City’s iconic Boardwalk, the completion of the new Caroline Street Comfort station on the Boardwalk, receiving funding to construct a new Fire Station 4 uptown, the beginning of the new PAC and the ongoing reconstruction of St. Louis Ave.
In 2014, Dare has set two goals — accomplishing a tax differential from the county and beginning the process to dualize Rt.90.
“It is just inherently wrong that property owners in Ocean City are paying for services that they don’t receive. That is the root of other issues … they [property owners] are paying in the magnitude of $500 a year for services that don’t receive, and can save that money moving out of town, if we want to improve the livability in Ocean City a tax differential is paramount,” he said.
Dare explained Route 90 was built in the 1960s when north Ocean City was barley developed and at that time it was built with plans to eventually expand it from two lanes to four.
“Now it [north Ocean City] is virtually fully developed and it is way past time to dualize Route 90,” he said. “When you get into public safety and emergency evacuations and a number of other issues, it is just very important. I know it won’t get done in 2014 but it needs to be slotted in.”
Councilman Joe Mitrecic agreed the budget process this past year was certainly a highlight as the tax rate remained the same as well as the reinstatement of the commissions “showed its worth”, such as when the Recreation and Parks Commission brought forward the recommendation to approve a visit from the 16th Century replica of the Spanish Navy tall ship the Nao Victoria Galeon to Ocean City in August, which turned out to be a great success.
Another highlight Mitrecic brought up was the land swap with the Ocean City Development Corporation (OCDC) to build a new Ocean City Beach Patrol Headquarters and reaching the design stage for the building.
A few weeks ago, the initial design of a three-story building with the entrance facing the corner of Talbot Street and Philadelphia Ave. was brought before the full Mayor and City Council. A subsequent design with a few tweaks will be presented in the near future.
As part of the council’s approval to move forward with a new beach patrol headquarters, the council accepted OCDC’s proposal of a land swamp of OCDC parking lots in the Dorchester/Talbot streets block for the city-owned lots where the existing beach patrol home stands in the Dorchester/Somerset streets block. Once the existing facility is demolished, those lots will then become temporary parking lots instead.
In addition, the OCDC will pay 35 percent of the cost of the new OCBP building and site improvements over the 20-year bond life, not to exceed $2 million. These assisted funds would come from the Inlet Parking Lot fund, which is the dedicated funding source, established a decade ago to fund downtown revitalization projects by OCDC.
In moving forward to 2014, Mitrecic’s goals are to also maintain the same tax rate during the upcoming budget season.
“Hopefully we will be able to do the same thing this year as we did last year,” he said. “We made the cuts necessary, brought the tax rate in the same, and provided the services that we need.”
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