We know the mayoral race in Ocean City is going to make for an interesting spring, now the May 10 election potentially became a whole lot more interesting.
On Sunday afternoon, Jay Gillian formally announced his bid for a fourth consecutive term as mayor. He is going to face Keith Hartzell, who has been serving on Ocean City Council even longer than Gillian has been in office, and possibly others.
It is expected to prove a competitive race with at least two well-known candidates with long records.
The interesting twist is what may happen in the Ocean City Council race.
There are three at-large seats up for election. Hartzell is giving up his seat to run for mayor. That leaves two incumbents, Pete Madden and Karen Bergman, running for re-election. They have already taken out nominating petitions.
That isn’t a surprise.
The twist, as of Monday, is two of the other potential candidates who may enter the race – sitting Second Ward Councilman Tomaso Rotondi and former First Ward Councilman Michael DeVlieger. There are two others, Donna Moore, a regular speaker before council who lost her bid for a First Ward seat in a special election in November, and John A. “Tony” Polcini.
There is plenty of time for more people to enter the race and until any of the six returns his or her petitions, which are due March 7, they aren’t officially candidates. (A candidate needs 97 signatures – 1 percent of the 9,654 registered voters – for an official petition, but many get extra signatures in case some get challenged or it turns out the person signing isn’t a registered voter.)
Until any become formal candidates and state their intentions, it remains speculation why a sitting councilman and a former councilman would run against the two incumbents.
DeVlieger quit his council post in August saying he was overtaxed with responsibilities and wanted to spend more time with his family. He said something had to give and that wasn’t his family or his work. However, he has appeared to speak in public comment before council. He is an ardent opponent of the Ocean Wind I wind turbine project planned off-shore.
DeVlieger may just miss being on council, which allowed him a very public soapbox.
As for Rotondi, it’s no risk for him if he runs. If he loses, he gets to stay as the ward councilman. If he wins, the new council could appoint a replacement in the Second Ward until a special election is held. Rotondi may fit the bill of a public official with higher political aspirations who wouldn’t mind testing himself among voters on a broader stage – citywide rather than in a single ward.
It also could be that Rotondi’s and DeVlieger’s candidacies are part of a political power play to try to get Madden and Bergman voted off of council. (It would be a bit of a long game if DeVlieger resigned from his seat in August because he had the intention of running at-large this spring for another seat.)
Over the past year or so, anyone who watches City Council has seen substantial disagreement, at times bordering on ill will or antagonism, between Madden and Bergman, who have been supporters of the Gillian administration, and the five others – DeVlieger, Rotondi, Hartzell, Third Ward Councilman Jody Levchuk and Fourth Ward Councilman Bobby Barr, the council president. That was evident through a bunch of 5-2 votes before DeVlieger quit. (His First Ward replacement, Terrence Crowley Jr., has been more independent in his voting.)
Madden and Bergman have pointed out a number of times that they were excluded by the other members in discussions and votes about to go before council and were taken by surprise when it was evident the majority already had formulated plans among themselves. In turn, some in that majority have taken issue with the peers they believe have made them look bad before constituents.
The overarching internal debate among members of council is their role in city government.
For most of Gillian’s time in office, there was harmony and likemindedness in the relationship between his administration and council. It is something the mayor has touted for why the city was able to accomplish so much work on infrastructure and flood mitigation and other issues.
Since it became evident Hartzell would challenge Gillian for mayor a little more than a year ago, that unity began to fray as the council majority began to push for a greater and more active role in how the city is run. Madden and Bergman argued their role was not to directly run the city – something that should be left up to the administration and professionals – but to provide oversight.
That may well be an issue in the council election this spring, which will give voters something else to weigh in on. For now, it’s just speculation. And there is nothing untoward about elected officials – past, present or future – jockeying for office.
When the candidacies become official, we will be curious to hear why each one of the candidates says he or she is running for office, for the first time or again, and how they view their role. We also will see if any of the council candidacies tie into the mayoral race.
Although this hasn’t been typical in the past decade, there have been times when different slates of candidates ran on a mayoral ticket. In the late 1990s, in fact, there were three mayoral candidates, each with his (or her) own slate of council candidates.
It will be interesting watching the council race develop.
The last day for Ocean City residents to register to vote in the May 10 election is Tuesday, April 19.