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Berlin Police Chief Concerned Over Officer Shortage

BERLIN -- Police Chief Arnold Downing warned the Mayor and Council Monday that the number of active Berlin Police Department (BPD) officers could drop into the single digits. “We don’t want it to get to that point,” said Downing. The chief added that because of the disparity in pay and benefits between Berlin and surrounding areas, this was an issue the town might have to worry about for a long time. According to Downing, one officer has recently resigned, another has submitted...READ MORE

Ground Broken On New Salisbury Zoo Clinic

SALISBURY -- Government and Salisbury Zoological Park officials joined together to break ground on a new Animal Health Building Monday. “The construction of this project is very important to the future of the Salisbury Zoological Park,” said Zoo Director Joel Hamilton Once completed, the facility will provide more space and means with which to keep zoo animals healthy. Among the sections of the new building, there will be a room for surgery, necropsy, multiple holding areas and...READ MORE

Berlin Starts Project ‘Wish List’ For Slots Revenue

BERLIN -- The Mayor and Council began drafting a “wish list” Monday for all the projects they hope slot revenue will be able to finance in the future. “There’s quite a bit of latitude with what can be done with video lottery money,” said Mayor Gee Williams. Topping the list is the often discussed new police station on the east side of Route 113. Property for the station was purchased last summer. The six-and-a-half-acre parcel is located at the corner of Bay Street...READ MORE

Boardwalk Street Performer Regs Tightened

OCEAN CITY – Street performer guidelines became even stricter this week, as the ordinance outlining their regulations to perform on the Boardwalk moved toward first reading. A couple of weeks ago, City Clerk Kathy Mathias and Police Chief Bernadette DiPino presented the Mayor and City Council with proposed regulations on street performers on the Boardwalk. Due to congestion and noise complaints, Mathias and DiPino requested the council consider 18 specific locations for the street...READ MORE

OC Council Approves Firm’s 2011 Marketing Plan

OCEAN CITY – Following some debate and recommendations from the Tourism Advisory Board (TAB) the town’s advertising firm MGH received approval to run with their marketing plan for 2011. On Tuesday, MGH President Andy Malis explained this year’s concept is to reinforce the key message, “In 2011, Ocean City equals an even greater vacation value.” Malis explained there is a huge opportunity to reach existing visitors, encourage repeat visits and bring on newcomers...READ MORE

Snow Hill’s Blues Jam Returns With All Star Lineup

SNOW HILL – Snow Hill’s Art and Entertainment District’s 4th Annual Blues Jam will be held on Friday, April 15 from 7-11 p.m. Headline entertainment this year includes Daryl Davis and the Snow Hill Blues Jam All Stars, which includes vocalist Margo Resto and instrumentalists Angel Resto, Mike Armstrong and Burley Strand. According to Ann Coates of Snow Hill’s Art and Entertainment District, the event usually holds three headliners but this year they minimized it to two so...READ MORE

Berlin Axes Utility Commission

BERLIN -- Fourteen years after first becoming a town entity, the Berlin Utility Commission (BUC) was disbanded Monday with little in the way of protest. The elimination comes at a unique time, with the town finalizing negotiations for a new energy supplier this week. At a public hearing held by the Mayor and Council, only Erik Quisgard, the head of the BUC, spoke up in defense of the organization. “I disagree with the disbanding,” he said. The commission’s primary role for the...READ MORE

Berlin Says New Power Contract Will Reduce Utility Bills

BERLIN -- Berlin officials are hoping a new power contract will reduce resident energy bills by about 12 percent this summer. That decrease will be shown in the Price Cost Adjustment (PCA) section of resident electric bills and will be phased in over a three month period beginning in August. “PCA charges represent just over one-third of the cost per kilowatt hour for residential customers, so the savings provided through the new contract will have a measurable impact for Berlin electric...READ MORE

Dew Tour Leads Council To Approve Skate Park Repairs

OCEAN CITY – The world’s oldest skate park will soon undergo some repairs, thanks largely to last week’s announcement that the Dew Tour is coming to town. Recreation and Parks Director Tom Shuster said that the Ocean Bowl Skate Park is the oldest continuously operated skate park in the United States. “It is also one of the assets that we have that makes us a tourist destination community,” Shuster said on Tuesday. According to Assistant Director of Recreation and...READ MORE

Summer Flounder Regs Loosened

OCEAN CITY -- The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Fisheries Service this week announced the 2011 recreational summer flounder regulations including a minimum keeper size one inch smaller than last year. The DNR Fisheries Service on Tuesday announced the 2011 summer flounder regulations, which include a three fish per angler creel limit, an 18-inch minimum keeper size, which is an inch shorter than last year, and a season that will run from April 15 to Nov. 30. After several years...READ MORE

Tuesday’s Election Will Bring New Faces To Council

SALISBURY -- Regardless of the outcome, Salisbury’s City Council will get a dramatic makeover next Tuesday when as many as three new faces could join the town’s five-member elected body. Six candidates will vie for three open seats during Salisbury’s City Council Election on Tuesday. Salisbury’s city government includes a mayor and five council members. The council terms are staggered to provide continuity and prevent a complete turnover in a single year, similar to the...READ MORE

City Council Votes Down Proposed Taxi Fare Increase

OCEAN CITY – After much discussion from various cab companies in Ocean City, the City Council decided this week to not increase fares, which some had suggested was needed. Last year there was an increase in cab’s maximum initial fare of $3.20, maximum mileage charge of $2.20 per mile (22 cents every 10th of a mile), and the maximum wait time of 33 cents per minute was established as Ocean City’s code on taxicab rates. Larry Bode, owner of Casino Express Taxi, spoke to the...READ MORE

SEED School Reaching Out To Eastern Shore Students

OCEAN CITY – The SEED School of Maryland is reaching out to the Eastern Shore to provide students with a supportive structural academic environment. The school is located in Baltimore and is a five-day-a-week boarding school. It was opened through the SEED Foundation, which opens and supports college-preparatory, public boarding schools that provide a 24-hour-a-day nurturing environment designed specifically for children who would benefit from SEED’s comprehensive model and the...READ MORE

City Targets Dirty Properties

SALISBURY -- The Mayor and City Council discussed at this week’s meeting proposed ordinances to clean up the streets and properties of rubbish and nuisance trees and plants throughout the city. The first ordinance discussed defined rubbish as “trash from normal household living conditions…tree branches, yard trimmings, tin cans, metals, mineral matters, glass, abandoned or inoperable machinery, unregistered marine equipment, including boats and towing trailers (in which the...READ MORE

Fatal Hotel Fall Ruled Accidental

OCEAN CITY -- A local man’s fatal fall from a sixth-floor room at a north-end hotel in Ocean City early last Wednesday morning was officially ruled an accident this week by the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office. Shortly after 4 a.m. last Wednesday, a local man, later identified as Gregory Sean Pierce, 46, of Berlin, fell to his death from the sixth-floor room at the Fenwick Inn on 138th Street under what appeared to be at the time suspicious circumstances. The victim’s body was...READ MORE

Safety Standards Questioned After Last Week’s Incident

OCEAN CITY -- Last week’s tragic accident involving a local man falling through a sixth-floor hotel window to his death below highlighted the need for a close examination of the resort’s testing and inspection process for the countless similar hotel and condominium windows throughout Ocean City, and it appears there are safeguards in place. Last Wednesday, a local man fell through a window on the sixth floor of the Fenwick Inn in an incident ruled accidental this week by the Maryland...READ MORE

Salisbury Council News In Brief

SALISBURY – During this week’s Mayor and City Council meeting, several agenda points including bids, ordinances and resolutions were approved. Bids Awarded To Purchase Police Department Equipment The council approved the police department’s request for property room evidence lockers at the expense of $14,306 and equipment to support two automated license plate recognition systems at the expense of $17,148. According to Major David Meienschein, the police department’s...READ MORE

Man Facing 20 Years In Jail For Child Porn Possession

OCEAN CITY -- A West Ocean City man indicted in February on federal child pornography possession charges pleaded guilty this week in U.S. District Court and now faces as many as 20 years in prison. Lawrence King III, 41, was arrested last October and charged with 13 counts of possession of child pornography when members of the Maryland State Police Computer Crimes Unit served a warrant on his Golf Course Rd. home after receiving information from authorities in Anne Arundel County. King is a...READ MORE

New Employee Pension Policy Approved

OCEAN CITY – Last week, the City Council decided on new city employee retiree health benefits and a couple weeks before that new starting pay was approved. This week, the council checked off the list new employee pension plans as well. Mary Jo Gary of Mercer returned to the Mayor and City Council this week with a continuance of the presentation on alternative pension plans for new city employees. Gary returned with answers to the council’s previous requests. One request was to...READ MORE

OC Police Horse Roy Retires

OCEAN CITY -- After 14 years of dedicated service, one of the Ocean City Police Department’s most decorated and beloved mounted patrol horses, Sundancer Royal, better known as “Roy,” is retiring, OCPD officials announced this week. Roy came to the OCPD in 1997 at the young age of just four, but has become a fixture with the department’s mounted unit for the last 14 years. During Roy’s service with the OCPD, he has been involved in hundreds of arrests and several...READ MORE

Berlin Seeks End To Hotel Conflict

BERLIN -- Within the next few weeks, Berlin’s Historic District Commission (HDC) will have to decide if a months’ old case is worth pursuing, especially since pursuit will likely mean the town will end up in court with one of its biggest businesses. At Monday’s Mayor and Council meeting, Town Attorney Dave Gaskill weighed in on a controversial decision Mayor Gee Williams made regarding the HDC last November. At the time, Williams chose to instruct the town’s code...READ MORE

Plea Agreement Means Life Without Parole For Leggs

SALISBURY -- Accused murderer Thomas Leggs, charged with kidnapping, raping and killing an 11-year-old girl in Salisbury in 2009, will spend the rest of his life behind bars after a plea agreement was reached last week, removing the option for the death penalty while ensuring consecutive sentences of life without the possibility of parole. Leggs, 31, of Salisbury, was indicted in January 2010 on first-degree murder, kidnapping, a first-degree sex offense and other charges for the death of Sarah...READ MORE

Partners Start Skimmer Island Restoration Work

OCEAN CITY -- In what could turn out to be a test case of sorts, the dredging of the navigation channel at the entrance to a West Ocean City marina began this week with the sand deposited on nearby Skimmer Island, just north of the Route 50 bridge, in an effort to restore critical nesting habitat for a handful of threatened bird species. The Maryland Coastal Bays Program, in conjunction with multiple public and private entities including Worcester County, the Army Corps of Engineers, the...READ MORE

Community Embraces Family Displaced By Fire

OCEAN CITY -- In typical fashion, the generous resort community circled the wagons and rallied in an outpouring of support for a family displaced by a fire at their home early last Monday with a pair of highly successful fundraising events this week. Around 5:30 a.m. on March 21, a fire was reported at a single-family home in West Ocean City. The residence was occupied at the time by local residents Damon and Kim Deppe, along with their four children, all of whom were able to escape unharmed....READ MORE

Dew Tour Is Worth Getting Excited About

Dew Tour Is Worth Getting Excited About Ocean City is gaga over the Dew Tour, and that’s exactly how it should be. The buzz alone created by this event over the last week has given Ocean City just what it needs this time of year -- a reason to get out in front of eyeballs that are surely having some spring fever. The Dew Tour, which began in 2005, is an action sports tour, featuring extreme events in a variety of mediums and in a unique setting. The Ocean City stop, July 21-24, will...READ MORE