Talks of ‘hard decisions’ coming up, support for hotel, need for change
OCEAN CITY – City Council Vice President Pete Madden is running for mayor against four-term incumbent Jay Gillian and longtime city Councilman Keith Hartzell, who unsuccessfully challenged Gillian in the last election.
The three-term at-large councilman made his announcement at the end of February on the last day to file nomination papers. The Sentinel conducted a Q&A last week with Madden.
Similar Q&A stories on Gillian and Hartzell were published previously and can be found online at the newspaper’s website, ocnjsentinel.com.
You’ve been mostly supportive of the Gillian administration’s measures during your nearly 12 years on City Council, including budget and capital projects. What are the areas or issues you can point to where you have had different positions than the administration?
I’m a big believer that you have to go to get along so I’m always looking to get to the best, not necessarily my answer. So I believe in a lot of what we’re doing, and as long as we’re taking action and moving in the right direction, I’m all for it. It doesn’t necessarily have to be exactly the way that I would draw it up in my head because there’s many different ways to get to the same end goal.
I’ve been on board with a lot of the work we’re doing, and it’s not that I’m running because I’m against things that we’ve done, or things that we’re doing, I’m running because I just believe as we go forward I’m the best one suited to help lead this town into the future.
You have said it is time for “a little different direction going into so many hard decisions we have to make coming up.” What are those hard decisions and why do you believe you’ll decide them differently than either Jay Gillian or Keith Hartzell?
Just bringing a different perspective. I work in town. My job is surrounded by the people, whether they’re coming here for a week, they’re coming here the second home or they live year round. And I talk to those people every day, listening to what people are saying. I believe that the town wants change and wants somebody different running, and I think that I can help in that respect.
You said your talents would be more effective as mayor than as a council member. As a councilman you’ve had partial veto power over budgets and other things the administration proposes. What would make you more effective as mayor?
One of my strengths is being able to communicate with everyone.
I think it’s part of the reason why I was selected by the council to be the president as many times as I had. I’ve been president seven of the 12 years I’ve been on council, including when I was in my mid-30s.
Communication, I believe, is the key to all this – council communicating with each other, the administration communicating with council. That would be my best strength moving forward.
Have there been specific capital projects you have not supported and do you think the city has been too aggressive on its capital improvement plans since you’ve been in office? Where do you see it going forward from here?
Everyone in town pays taxes, they want to be able to touch, see, feel what’s happening. If you’re just raising taxes and there’s nothing that you see or feel from that, people get pretty upset. I’m a big believer in the capital improvements because you have to continually make sure that things are moving in the right direction, moving forward in town. I’ve been a proponent of what we’ve done capital wise.
If anything, looking back, we probably should have done more when interest rates were significantly lower because the debt was so much cheaper. But as rates have come up, and taxes start to come up, we have to dial it back, but maintain a good amount of capital improvement so that the infrastructure, the beach, the boardwalk, everything is first class, because that’s what we are, a first-class town.
You have said in your profession running a major real estate office in Ocean City you come into contact with a wide swath of people from residents to second-home owners to renters and that gives you a good feel of the pulse of the city. What have they told you about the leadership in the town and what did they say that encouraged you to run for the city’s top elected position?
They believe that there’s only so long that you should really be in government in one position. And I think the other thing is people really want a kind of a younger, fresher approach. It’s tough because at my stage of life, I’ve got work, kids, activities. I’m all over the place. That’s why most people don’t do it when they’re in their 30s and 40s, and they wait until in their 50s, 60s, 70s.
Life perspective changes through all those times. I think there’s a ton of value to somebody who’s been around a long time, and he’s been doing something for a long time, and he can really learn a tremendous amount. But there’s also a ton of value in somebody who’s got the energy and enthusiasm at that stage of life to be able to do things, and get things done.
You have drawn considerable ire from a segment of the population over your consistent support for going after a rehabilitation designation for the Wonderland Pier property, including when you surprised people, and some of your colleagues, when you tried to revive it soon after council voted down the referral to the Planning Board in August. Explain your thought process on why you have been a contrarian on that issue?
I believe in action. I believe in moving things forward. There is no idle speed and standing still. You’re either moving forward or backwards. So if we’re not doing anything up there, we’re moving backwards.
In speaking with everybody in town, I believe it’s four or five to one that are in favor of a hotel up there. And I really believe even the folks that are against the rehabilitation designation, they’re still in favor of doing something that doesn’t fit in that zone.
It’s really not what we’re doing, it’s how we do it. And in order to get to that how, we have to give the designation, we have to negotiate with the property owner and do what’s best for the town.
Would you then say you are for Mita’s hotel proposal for the Wonderland property?
One hundred percent. I support the hotel. Again, the how we do it, that’s the thing that we really have to dive deep into, but we have to get to that point. And right now we’re not even close to that point. So, and I think, as you’ve seen, the council also has grown more towards, “Hey, we need to move forward with this, not sit still.”
In the beginning, kind of everybody was really afraid to move forward. When you go back to the hotel, we’ve got a proven brand that’s looking to come into our community and invest in our community. Again, I think that that’s sitting down and figuring out the best way to do that, but what he has and what he’s proposing, I think is great for the community. Let’s dig down deep into how we do it, and make sure it fits exactly what the integrity of Ocean City is.
Looking back over your 12 years as councilman, including seven as council president and another two years as vice president, are there things you wish you would have done differently?
No. Everything happens for a reason and I try to learn from everything. We do both good and bad. So to go back and change anything, I wouldn’t change anything. However, I do think a tremendous amount.
Let’s parse your a sentence in your announcement for mayor that the city demands a mayor who listens, sets clear expectations, demands accountability and keeps the city moving forward. Can you explain what, in that statement, is not happening now and how you would improve that?
I think everybody can always do a better job listening. As far as accountability, it’s the people always come first. If you don’t have the right people involved, you really can’t take the next step. So I’m a big believer that you get the right people on the bus, put them in the right seats, and the direction of the bus kind of determines itself, because you have the right people, having spirited dialogue and debate on what we should do, shouldn’t do. It’s all with the same common goal of moving forward.
To me, that’s where the kind of accountability comes in, getting those right people there and in the right seats.
Does that mean you envision changes in the administration or in city staffing?
I think that anytime you have a change in leadership, it tends to come with some changes in philosophy, on what you’re doing. I am not looking to make any major changes. I believe we have a lot of great people in the city, but I would take the first several months to kind of evaluate what everybody does, who’s doing it, and make sure the right people are doing the right thing. Maybe somebody’s in a position that they’d be better suited in a different position. And then it’s building that culture in which everybody’s maximizing everything we can get out of people.
I’m a big believer in you hire five, work them like 10 and pay them like eight. You don’t need a million people to do something, you need the right people to do it. You take care of them and everybody’s got the same common goal.
Overall, why do you believe you’re a better choice for mayor than Jay Gillian or Keith Hartzell?
I think my biggest asset and why I’m a better choice is being able to communicate with everybody and to get everybody on the same page to move forward in the right direction. If council is not on the same page, the administration can propose every great idea in the world, but it doesn’t go through and doesn’t move forward.
If council proposes ideas, and the mayor’s not on the same page, again, it doesn’t move forward.
Everybody’s got to be on the same page. It doesn’t mean we have to go along, but we’ve got to figure it out and have the same common goal and direction. That’s what I plan to bring.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
