Police Force Too Big
Editor:
Cocoa Beach, Fla. has a population about 12,000 while Ocean City, Md. has a population of 8,000. Cocoa Beach has 36 full-time police officers while Ocean City has 98 full-time officers.
Cocoa Beach has many major events and an influx of large numbers of people like Ocean City does. However they manage to provide adequate policing with 36 officers. Ocean City has far too many full time officers and yet another excessive burden on the taxpayers.
Bob Richardson
Ocean City
Council Meeting
Videos Need Work
Editor:
What good are audio/visual provisions if they’re not effective? The Town of Ocean City records their council meetings, including the current budgetary work sessions, both visually and audibly. However, both are severely lacking.
Routinely, many of the elected officials, staff and public speakers either mumble, speak too softly into the microphones or converse in vague generalities.
Although they could provide limited headsets, like the County Commissioners do, it still would not be comprehensible, or even audible, to everyone else, whether present or viewing online at home.
Visually, the large presentation screen projects print and other images that almost completely lack contrast. This could be corrected very simply by turning down/off some or all of the lights. The only other equipment, a monitor, to the left of the dais, is entirely too small for anyone present to see anything.
I respectfully request that immediate corrections be made, in the interest of the general public having meaningful access to this budget season’s timely work sessions (now-appearing) and all other subsequent meetings. Thank you, in advance, for your conscientious consideration of these vital matters.
Ellie Diegelmann
Ocean City
Search For Facts
With Seismic Testing
Editor:
There has been much published in the recent years about the potential impacts concerning the BOEM directives. Let get the facts straight for everyone.
According to the BOEM 788-page document on the seismic testing slated for the area off Ocean City and Delaware: “This Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) covers the potential significant environmental effects of multiple geological and geophysical (G&G) activities on the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) in the Mid- and South Atlantic Planning Areas. It evaluates the types of G&G surveys and activities in the three program areas managed by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM): oil and gas; renewable energy; and marine minerals.”
So, seismic testing is just not for gas and oil. The deep scan of the ocean substrate is required for these projects, such as wind farms and sand for beach replenishments. Why? Shipwrecks, WWII armaments, existing cables, and historical anthropological artifacts, all have to be accounted for. Is this our fate? That human need and greed supersede our role as sentient beings on this planet?
And if you observed as I did, the pictures of seals that The Dispatch published last week, then please question the lack of scientific rigor associated with this ecosystem devastation.
“Thirty-nine species of marine mammals occur or may occur within the AOI, including 34 cetacean species, one sirenian (the Florida subspecies of the West Indian manatee), and four pinnipeds (gray seal, harbor seal, hooded seal, and harp seal). The manatee and the four seal species probably do not occur in the AOI currently; therefore, only 34 marine mammal species are potentially impacted. Six of the potentially impacted marine mammal species are endangered species, including five baleen whales (NARW, blue whale, fin whale, sei whale, and humpback whale) and one toothed whale (sperm whale). The IPFs affecting marine mammals are active acoustic sound sources, vessel and equipment noise, vessel traffic, aircraft traffic and noise, trash and debris, and accidental fuel spills.”
Probably do not occur? That a Federal agency would violate the due process of NEPA in this matter is astounding. NEPA standards require any federal agency to verify substantive evidence in published documents, especially for anticipated impacts of this magnitude. Where is the review here?
At the end of the day we are facing an industrialized ocean which will limit species density and diversity. And for Ocean City, the potential losses for commercial fishing industry are catastrophic. All the tournaments and the hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.
Gregg Rosner
(The writer is the executive director of 302ocean.org.)
Relay Effort Underway
Editor:
What started as one man walking around a track in Tacoma, Washington 30 years ago this spring has grown into the world’s largest movement to fight back against cancer. Today, more than four million people participate in American Cancer Society Relay For Life events in 6,000 communities worldwide. Relay For Life of Wicomico County is one of them, and I want to encourage people from every part of our community to get involved. Plans are underway for the American Cancer Society Relay For Life of Wicomico County event, set for Oct. 2-3, at Winterplace Park in Salisbury.
We have made tremendous progress in recent years. The five-year survival rate for all cancers has climbed to 68 percent. The Relay For Life event celebrates this. We also know there is more work to do to finish the fight once and for all.
Community volunteers are the backbone of this movement, and we need more to join our team. Together, our efforts will help save lives by funding groundbreaking research and increasing our understanding of prevention and early detection. The Relay For Life program also helps to fund important support for families facing cancer and ensures cancer patients’ voices are heard on important public policy issues.
Now is the time for Wicomico County individuals, families, clubs, faith-based groups, and businesses to help finish the fight against cancer by participating in the Relay For Life event. Celebrate survivors. Remember loved ones no longer here. Pledge to fight back against this disease. I invite everyone to form a team and volunteer for the American Cancer Society and the Relay For Life event today. Visit relayforlife.org or call 1-800-227-2345 for more information about local opportunities.
Kendall E. Guy
(The writer is the people lead/online chair for Relay For Life of Wicomico County.)