OCEAN CITY — Before his announcement that he will be running for a fifth term as mayor of Ocean City, Jay Gillian sat down with the Ocean City Sentinel for a Q&A. Questions are in bold. Answers have been edited for length.
Personally, this has been a tough time for you. You had to suffer through the end of Wonderland Pier and now are going through the personal bankruptcy. Why do you want to continue being mayor?
Because I believe I’m good at it, I believe my track record over the last 16 years has proven that I’ve been a very good mayor. I have put a great team together, which I think has benefited everybody. I want to continue all the great work that we’ve done. You know, I just love Ocean City.
You’ve had almost an unending stream of capital projects during your time in office, such as flood mitigation and rebuilding the boardwalk, changing the pattern from past administrations that did not do a lot of capital reinvestment in the resort. Do you stand behind the value of these projects?
It’s helped the taxpayers. It’s kept our taxes down, our services are up. Home values have doubled. It’s one of the reasons I ran for mayor. Before I got here, they didn’t want to spend any money. We had great interest rates, we got a lot of grants, especially with (dredging) our back bay, but the timing was all right and City Council was great; they understood that we needed to take care of our infrastructure. We’ve also built great relationships with all the utilities — the gas, water electric company.
It’s been a perfect storm of getting things done. I’m very proud of it because of the team we put together.
The one thing this administration does is we’ll come up with an idea, and then we really vet it out. We look at everything, whether there’s grants, how it benefits the taxpayer.
They talked about the boardwalk for years; we fixed it. The back bays, you couldn’t get out there, and it wasn’t just about boating, it was about safety. The beaches, we have replenishments tip to tip.
The downtown’s flourishing, our business community’s doing great. At the end of the day, your investment in Ocean City is your home, and if you don’t do the infrastructure, your home won’t be worth what it’s worth. I think that’s what we’re supposed to do as a government, to take care of you, your asset. I’m proud of that.
This will be the third time you’re running against City Councilman Keith Hartzell, whom you’ve defeated in 2018 and 2022. (Hartzell hasn’t made a formal announcement but has been out campaigning.) What will that be like for you?
I don’t really get into that. He’s been running for over six years and that’s great. I love democracy. But I focus on what I’ve done and what I want to do. I think if you go down that road and worry about who’s running against you, you forget why you’re here. And I’ve never done that. I’ve always respected it.
Everyone that’s ran against me, I’ve always liked. We might disagree on how things get done, but there’s proven leadership here. Are we going to hit a thousand percent all the time? No.
There’s some things that I wish we would have gotten done that politics got in the way and it has cost the taxpayers money, but at the end, I think you focus on yourself, you have integrity, you run on what you’ve done.
In 16 years, there’s not too much that I think you can complain about what we’ve done here in Ocean City.
One thing that’s going to be coming up is going to be the fact that over the past three years, city budgets have raised taxes 17 percent. How do you justify that?
City services. What do you want to cut out? Ocean City, they love what we have. They love the beach mats, they love the senior center, the community center, the (playing) fields that we do for the kids.
Everything that we do, we look at community wide. We’re going to have a good budget coming out.
That’s the one thing about being the mayor of Ocean City. It’s not always going to be easy, the decisions I have to make to make sure we have the best police, the best fire, the best public works, making sure all of our things are maintained.
We plan for everything. And again, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about (Chief Financial Officer) Frank Donato. He’s an absolute rock star, how he understands how city government works and the finances. That’s why we are where we’re at. At the end of the day, whether it’s our debt, our budgets, we are very conservative. We really do take our time and make sure that when we bring a budget, it’s the best for the taxpayers.
In December, you announced to the public you were filing for personal bankruptcy tied to the end of your family business, Wonderland Pier, in 2024. How does that relate to what you do as mayor of the city?
It gives me, personally, an opportunity to take care of my obligations and bring a plan so I can go on with my life.
In city government, it’s not just me. It’s our professionals. That’s why we’ve been so successful in Ocean City, because I have a team that is responsible, they have their professional licenses. There’s so much protection there between my team and City Council. It’s an impossibility for my personal life to interfere with my mayor’s life.
I just keep moving forward. I keep doing what I think is right for Ocean City. I just hope people understand there’s a difference with bankruptcy. It’s just a way of just resetting myself. I wish I wasn’t there.
In a municipality, there are checks and balances. City Council votes on the budget. You have professional staff. I have such a great team here in Ocean City. That’s why we’re successful. I wish I had the same team at Wonderland. We’d be Disney.
The former Wonderland site at 600 Boardwalk is going to be a continuing issue whether owner Eustace Mita continues with his plans for a hotel there or if he sells the property to someone else. As mayor, what is your role with that property?
There’s none. It’s a council issue, plain and simple. Our council president formed a subcommittee and I hope that works out. We have eight miles here and I know that (the property) is a big issue, but so is the beach replenishment, the dredging. There’s so much going on in Ocean City, so for me as the mayor, I’m in the administration that runs the city, City Council is legislation. They’re the ones that make the rules and the laws.
When I look at Sixth Street, I don’t want it to be a blight. I want to see what the council and the community come up with, but, you have to let the process go. I know people are upset that Wonderland’s gone, but this is a council issue. There are policies and procedures in place, and if they would just let that play out, everybody will have a say in this.
On a personal level, what would you like to see in place of Wonderland?
I think I have a responsibility as mayor to get the facts and see what the community wants. If I say what I want personally, then in today’s world and social media, that gets thrown out and turned into 10 different stories. I want something that’s going to thrive. I was there for a long time. Whatever is there, I want it to benefit the community, I want it to benefit the neighborhood, I want it to benefit the school. I just hope the majority of the community loves it because there’s so many ideas of what could go there.
Whatever goes there is going to be spectacular, because that’s what we do here in Ocean City.
After almost 16 years in office, do you have any regrets as mayor?
There’s been some tough, tough times here, but no, I don’t have any regrets because you don’t get a redo. I’ve had the greatest life in the world, and I’ve had some good things and bad things. I thought about that over the last few months, what could I have done differently, but if you live in the past it doesn’t help. You learn from the past. Education is huge with me. If you don’t keep moving forward, you just get lost. And I think I’ve been able to do that.
The one thing that being mayor has taught me is to get out of the past and look toward the future. Know that things are going to change. I know people love traditions and they want to re-enact what they did last year or for multiple years, but it’s hard. Once time passes, you’ve got to focus on today.
One thing I’ll say is that I’ll change my mind.
That’s one thing that is difficult as the mayor. You get different information. You change your mind, then all of a sudden someone says, ‘Well, that’s not what you said a week ago or two weeks ago.’ You don’t want a mayor that’s not going to change his mind when he gets new facts.
We talked when you closed Wonderland Pier in October 2024. I asked then if you planned to run for mayor again and you said yes. Since then, has there been any time when you’ve changed your thinking about that?
It’s been a constant because you have to have some sort of self awareness. I believe I’ve been building great teams. I have a high bar, I love Ocean City and I think I’ve put myself out there.
I don’t think there’s not too much that people don’t know about me, whether they want to believe it or not.
Obviously, I’m a better mayor than I was an amusement operator, but I love this team, the citizens are great. You walk around town and people are so nice. I think about the team we put together and I just love being around them. I love getting things done.
I think about what we’ve done over the 16 years, all the flood mitigation projects. That is what really drives me is, I want to stay ahead of the flood mitigation and really make sure our quality of life is good.
Before we started, there were roads you couldn’t get down for a couple days with all the flooding. I think one of the things I’m most proud about is the quality of life over last 16 years has gotten better for so many people.
You know, whether it’s been the flooding or the senior center, the different things we’ve done, I love bragging about Ocean City. From what I hear people are excited and they’re happy.
I know I can’t make everybody happy. You really have to do what is the best for the majority. It’s not a job where you’re well liked a lot of times, because you have to make decisions that some people don’t want to hear.
That’s the one thing I will never do. I’m never going to tell you what you want to hear; I’m going to tell you the truth. I know a lot of politicians will go to your house and say exactly what you want to hear and I will never do that. Hopefully people understand why.
– STORY and PHOTO by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
