OCEAN CITY — Just like at sessions before City Council over more than a year, a host of citizens passionately weighed in Thursday evening to oppose or support a rehabilitation designation at the former Wonderland Pier amusement park site.
In a meeting moved to the Ocean City Music Pier from council chambers to accommodate the expected crowd, which ended up sizable but not as large as at past meetings, opponents fought the designation while supporters from the business community urged council to act.
In the end, council voted 5-2 to approve the designation. (See related story.)
Some of the opponents
Resident Lou Ann Caldwell drew the ire of Third Ward Councilman Jody Levchuk when she claimed the boardwalk businessman was representing himself, not the constituents, hoping for a pot of gold and the ability of boardwalk property owners to tear down their stores and make millions. She asserted he was compromised, should recuse himself and resign from council.
Although council is not supposed to respond during public comment, Levchuk yelled “Absolutely false.” He apologized for the outburst later in the meeting.
Matthew B. Wieliczko, from the law firm representing the Plaza Place Civic Association, more than 40 properties in a nearby neighborhood, said council should wait to vote until Councilman-elect Jim Kelly is seated July 1 because the June 25 vote looks contrived specifically to allow council Vice President Pete Madden to vote before he leaves office and the vote that night would disenfranchise the people who voted for Kelly.
Wieliczko also said Levchuk and Pete Madden should recuse themselves, but noted he was not alleging any wrongdoing. He said both had interests and claimed Levchuk owned boardwalk property. Levchuk again interjected, saying the assumptions were false.
During the second public comment section, Paul Levchuk defended his son and said he and his wife own all the boardwalk properties and that his councilman son rents from him.
Resident Peter Muhic asserted conflicts of interest, including Mayor Jay Gillian being indebted to Eustace Mita, who bought the Wonderland site from him in 2021. He alleged bankruptcy documents showed Gillian had a strong incentive to close the amusement park and said if there were any dealings between council and the mayor, that was a problem. Muhic said all emails and texts would be discoverable in a legal action.
Resident Marie Crawford said she witnessed Gillian participating in council meetings during the process and that city solicitor Dorothy McCrosson, who advised council during the rehab vote process, knew about the bankruptcy documents and failed to protect council.
Resident Jim Turteltaub said Mita knew the zoning when he bought the property and that the redevelopment process isn’t for private owners, but what is best for the public.
Resident Dave Hayes said 600 Boardwalk did not meet the criteria for rehab and said reports on the condition of the property are “fatally flawed.” He said if the property were truly in imminent danger of collapse, why wasn’t the area closed and taped off by the city?
“Designating 600 Boardwalk as a property in need of rehabilitation is a gross abuse of New Jersey Housing and Redevelopment Law,” Hayes said. “It is an atrocity to use the rehabilitation designation where the clear intent is to demolish the existing structures and replace them with development that is radically different in use, density and community impact.”
Marie Hayes added the city should not cater to the needs of any developer and that a rehab vote would be a “mockery of government transparency.”
Some of the supporters
Wes Kazmarck, representing the Boardwalk Merchants Association, Business and Neighborhood Development (BAND) and the Tourism Commission, said the business community stood united behind the rehabilitation designation. The support for it, he said, only grew after the Boardwalk Subcommittee presented its report June 12 to the public.
Downtown Merchants Association President Caitlyn Quirk said after the better part of a year, council has done its due diligence and gathered enough facts and should vote to approve it to move Ocean City forward.
Janet Galante, a business and property owner representing the Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce, simply asked council to vote in favor of the designation. So did Bill McGinnity, a restaurant owner representing the city’s Restaurant Association.
“You’ve earned a vote,” he said. “We’ve talked this thing to death … . We need you to push this through.”
Mark Raab, representing a family that owns multiple rental properties on the boardwalk, said the north end of the boardwalk has been suffering since the closure of Wonderland without an anchor to attract patrons. He said for the first time in 40 years, one property will be boarded up for the season because they could not get a tenant and prospects for next year are even dimmer.
“Thousands of people are going to walk by a boarded-up store and wonder why,” he said. “Do we want Ocean City to be another second-homeowners vacation stop, which will make a dramatic tax burden on locals, or truly be a great family resort?
“Redevelopment is the right thing to do. We’re out of time,” Raab said.
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
