Running for office in Ocean City
Ocean City may be nonpartisan when it comes to the mayor and City Council, but people who live here know there are politics aplenty.
One political message underlying the current race for five council seats in the May 14 election is the fear of who might raise a ruckus (take issue with the administration). Candidates perceived as potentially disagreeable are facing those perceived as unlikely to raise a fuss even though both types may not see themselves either way.
On council, there often disagreements and dissension, as should be expected, but little truly fractious. Most candidates, incumbents and challengers alike, talk about their independence, but history shows there is agreement on council and between council and the administration on the vast majority of issues.
That wasn’t the case two years ago when then-councilman Keith Hartzell challenged incumbent Mayor Jay Gillian. A year before the 2022 election disagreements among council members and between some of those councilmen and the administration became far more pronounced, part of setting the stage for the intense campaign ahead.
Things hadn’t been that disagreeable since the Bud Knight and Sal Perillo administrations at least a decade and a half earlier.
Gillian won, as did three at-large candidates, all backed by the same organizing forces that have helped determine winners for decades in the resort.
It is an uphill fight for anyone challenging the status quo in Ocean City; there is a requirement to motivate residents to the polls to overcome the advantage in numbers of voters largely dedicated to keeping things as is.
Fallout from that election season is evident this year.
It is no surprise the status quo group is running Paul Stryker for the Second Ward against Hartzell. It isn’t shocking the administration wouldn’t want to repeat the contentious nature of 2022 (and 2021).
However, the group put up Stryker even though there was an incumbent, Tom Rotondi, already in the ward, and is backing Amie Vaules in the Third Ward against another incumbent, Jody Levchuk.
Rotondi and Levchuk have disagreed with the administration on some issues here and there, but generally have been supportive. They may have committed the ultimate sin by appearing in a Hartzell campaign ad in 2022.
The same forces are backing Sean Barnes in the at-large race against former councilman Michael DeVlieger. It would be hard to view DeVlieger as an anti-administration guy. DeVlieger is outspoken, especially when it comes to wind farms, which a lot of people in the city oppose.
The status quo group also is supporting incumbents Terry Crowley Jr., who is unopposed in the First Ward, and Dave Winslow in the Fourth Ward. Winslow is facing former school board member Cecelia Gallelli-Keyes.
When the new political action committee called FOCUS — Families of Ocean City United in Success — announced its endorsements, that was another non-surprise. The outcome looked predetermined.
The group showed it is team status quo with how it prefaced its decision-making in part on “an approach to governing that recognizes the role of City Council” and that the candidates “are free of personal and political agendas.”
That adds up to “agreeable.”
What is surprising about the non-surprise is that, perhaps with the exception of Hartzell, the non-endorsed candidates — Levchuk, Gallelli-Keyes and DeVlieger — don’t see themselves as having agendas that run counter to the administration. And the endorsed candidates — Crowley, Stryker, Vaules, Winslow and Barnes — though supportive, don’t see themselves as administration sheep.
From what we have know of all the candidates, not one runs counter to the FOCUS credo of “upholding the foundational principles of Ocean City” it defines as culture, heritage, values, integrity and faith.
The difference is whether voters will agree that not always toeing the line goes against the group’s other two foundational principles — image and reputation.
The administration is very touchy about its image. Every elected official and business owner is sensitive about the reputation of a resort that lives on its family-friendly reputation, but when governing, does raising a little ruckus always endanger that?
David Nahan is editor and publisher of the Ocean City Sentinel, Upper Township Sentinel and The Sentinel of Somers Point, Linwood and Northfield.