OCEAN PINES — With incumbent Worcester County Commissioner Judy Boggs not seeking re-election this year, the race for the District 5 seat is wide open. Four candidates have filed for the position, each coming in with a unique background and platform, though there is a large amount of agreement between the four on some of the major issues in Ocean Pines.
Tom Wilson
The lone Democrat in the field, Tom Wilson, is running his campaign under the slogan “we can do better,” with the idea being that county government needs to be more transparent and more accountable to citizens for the votes officials make and the performance of individual departments.
“I think we can do that with performance budgeting, with results oriented budgeting and show people what the plans are, what we’re going to do and hold people accountable for doing a bad job or a good job,” he said.
Wilson is the current president of the Board of Directors for the non-profit Diakonia. He has held the position for two years and served as treasurer for the board prior to that. Working for a non-profit in Worcester has been a fulfilling experience for Wilson.
“It’s kind of opened my eyes a lot about things that go on in the county. I’m also on the board of Lower Shore Land Trust,” he said.
It ties in with some of Wilson’s previous work as the Director of Financial Management for the Peace Corps.
“I have a lot of expertise in financial management that I think I can bring to bear to help the County Commissioners and help the county do a better job,” he said.
Besides developing more of a performance based government, Wilson has renovating Route 589, Ocean Pines’ arterial highway, high on his list. He’d like to see the county cooperate with the State Highway Administration (SHA) to see a viable project in the works in the very near future.
“We need to get that back on the table. It’s not going to get better,” Wilson said.
Other platform planks include addressing Worcester’s huge unemployment spike during the off-season, improving transparency by streaming commission meetings online or on television and stopping the “adversarial politics” that he sees cropping up between the county and municipalities.
Wilson will eventually face one of three Republicans in the general election next fall.
Ray Unger
Candidate Ray Unger will be running with significant experience in public office including two years with the Worcester County Board of Education Advisory Board and two full terms on the Board of Directors of the Ocean Pines Association, where he served as vice president.
Unger is heading into the election cycle with a laundry list of issues that he plans on examining as a commissioner including pursing federal funding for health services, monitoring closely how much water and sewer capacity is used in Ocean Pines and pushing for the return of some highway user funds from the state.
“I think that has to be looked at by the commissioners because a request has to be made to increase those funds,” he said.
Fighting to keep county taxes low is also a priority.
“Worcester County taxes are among the lowest around and so are the fees. We’re very fortunate that we can do what we do,” Unger said. “I don’t see anything coming in the next year-and-a-half or two years that would justify a tax increase.”
Like Wilson, Unger is mindful of Worcester’s lack of year-round employment opportunities and hopes that a focus on emerging technology and making the county more business friendly could be the answer.
“We need some high-tech outfits to come in here. We’ve had one or two over the last couple years look and decide to go down to Virginia. We’ve got to make those changes,” he said.
Chip Bertino
Candidate Chip Bertino has a background in media, including owning and operating The Courier newspaper. Bertino acknowledged this is both a help and hindrance during his campaign since as a member of the media he will always be under the microscope. But Bertino has promised that his paper will not be used as an unfair platform to give himself more face time than his opponents nor will it become a conflict of interest if he’s elected. He will run his opponents’ ads in his paper next to his own and charge them the same rate as anyone else.
While being in the media puts some extra pressure on Bertino, it does have a lot of advantages. Bertino pointed out that he has significant experience in the private sector as a business owner and has been a perennial attendee at every variety of board, commission and council meeting in Worcester for years.
“I just feel that given the amount of time I’ve spent listening to commissioner deliberations and staff recommendations, testimony at public hearings, I think I can enter the conversations at this point with a strong voice at the county level and with a familiarity of the issues that are faced by county government going forward,” Bertino said.
A lot of Bertino’s platform will focus on putting Ocean Pines on a fair playing field. He asserted that the Pines receives the lowest amount of county grant funding per capita for the services they provide and that’s something that he wants to change.
“I think it’s important that Ocean Pines continues to work towards being on an equal footing when it comes to other municipalities when it comes to county grants,” he said.
Like his opponents, Bertino is also distressed to see people, especially young people, leaving the county because they can’t find full-time, year-round work at a competitive wage.
“We need to give families a reason to stay in the county … I don’t think that a good life, a good family wage, should be across the bridge,” he said, adding that he thinks a small but cost effective government would be useful in attracting the businesses that could provide those wages.
Grant Helvey
The final candidate in the field is Grant Helvey. Stating that he’s been involved with civic affairs for most of his life, Helvey is bringing a mixed bag of experience to the table including 24 years on the corporate staff of the Bel Atlantic Phone Company. After retiring from his position in telecommunications, Helvey moved to Ocean Pines and created a private mortgage lending business.
The crux of Helvey’s campaign is his belief that government has run out of control at every level: county, state and federal.
“I think that government has grown too large and it is consuming too much of the economy through taxes. I would like to see no growth of the county budget,” he said. “I would like to see the county budget not grow any larger than it is and I would like to limit spending.”
Helvey is in favor of trimming the budget but stressed that he would not be in favor of cutting essential services like emergency response. But Helvey would like to take a look at county spending on things like land preservation and parks and recreation as well as where the majority of the county budget goes — education.
“I think it’s important to question whether we’re getting a bang for our buck out of the school system, for example,” he said.
Helvey is also committed to doing away with some of the regulations that he feels are choking growth in the county. A specific example he gave was with the Ocean Pines Yacht Club, which was forced to change certain building materials because they didn’t fit with Worcester’s design guidelines for what he feels are purely aesthetic reasons.
“There’s so much regulation that it interferes with free enterprise,” he said.
Route 589 is also a priority for Helvey, who wants to see renovations to the road but only to the degree that is necessary. He is not in favor of adding things like walking or biking lanes to the highway as he feels they would be excessive and underused.
Though the four candidates come from different walks of life with their own ideas of how to be a commissioner, there was some unanimous agreement on several points. All four favor the county pushing back harder against state interference. They each mentioned different issues ranging from the Phosphorous Management Tool to changing the state’s wealth-based formula for educational funding, but all agreed that the commission needs to take a firmer stance even when the fight feels impossible.
“I think it’s an uphill battle and I think it’s like David and Goliath,” said Helvey.
All of the candidates also plan on continuing the legacy of town hall meetings started by Boggs. Wilson favored a slight modification, however, and would hold meetings to preview coming agendas instead of afterwards in review.
“I would like to change it so we’re bringing issues to people before they’re voted on, not tell us what happened but tell us what’s going to happen, what the issues are, so we can focus on that and give people the chance to have input,” Wilson said.
No matter who is eventually elected, the commission will be a different body next year than what it is today due to the departure of three incumbents. But it could be good to get a dose of fresh blood, according to Bertino.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the commissioners, as a body, being re-invented every so often,” he said.
The three Republican candidates will square off this June in that party’s primary. Unless a write-in candidate opts to challenge Wilson, he will skip the primary and face the remaining Republican candidate in the general election next November.