Administration: Ramp can come down in two hours if needed; city worked to accommodate business
OCEAN CITY — After several Ocean City Council members asked the city to take down the newly reinstalled ramp at 10th Street to give Playland’s Castaway Cove more access to rebuild, Business Administrator George Savastano said they were blowing the situation way out of proportion.
“That (ramp) was put up in two days and it can come down in two hours,” Savastano said near the end of the May 26 council meeting. “We are making a mountain out of a molehill. This isn’t going to be resolved at this table.” He said he has never seen a project issue resolved around a council table, through the media or on Facebook.
“They are resolved by professionals sitting in a room and working them out professionally,” he said.
Playland suffered a catastrophic fire in January 2021 and has been rebuilding, using an access off 10th Street where a ramp to the boardwalk was removed to allow the business to deliver materials and heavy equipment.
The city replaced the ramp Monday, May 23, over the objections of Playland President Scott Simpson and Vice President Brian Hartley, who pleaded with the city to keep that area open and offered an alternative including building a shorter stairway for pedestrians on the south side of the street and putting in curb cuts to keep that access open.
The city had argued that it has gone out of the way to accommodate the business, including leaving the ramp down through all of last summer’s busy tourism season, but was putting it back up for public safety reasons. There is a narrower ramp on the north side of the street.
Councilman Tom Rotondi said there is so much talk of “unity in the community,” a slogan Mayor Jay Gillian used in his May re-election campaign, that the city should continue to help the business by removing the ramp so the big boardwalk attraction — one of the two amusement parks — could rebound faster. The other, Gillian’s Wonderland Pier, is operated by the mayor.
Councilman Terrence Crowley Jr. said there should be a way to be reasonable and good neighbors because all businesses on the boardwalk benefit when a place such as Playland is fully functional.
Council President Bobby Barr said everyone vowed to do everything they could to help Playland after the fire, but as time goes on, people forget. He said the city needs to give Playland access to restore its business. “That location is important not just to Playland but that whole end of the boardwalk.”
He added that if roles were reversed, and Gillian suffered a tragedy at his Wonderland Pier park, he would be arguing the same thing.
Savastano responded that in his 41 years as an engineer, and serving as engineer to Ocean City along with his role as business administrator, his “first obligation is to public safety, health and welfare.” He said the city doesn’t make decisions in a vacuum and that the resort bends over backward to accommodate businesses. Playland, he said, is no exception.
He said the police department believes having that ramp in place is better and safer for pedestrians and the department wanted it reinstalled for last summer.
The city made the decision to leave the ramp down last year to help Playland, even though the plan — including the business’ time estimate — was for the work to be done and the ramp back in place for summer 2022. Other issues, including supply chain delay, held up the work.
He said the city and the business owners could set up a schedule and that if need required it, the ramp could be taken down temporarily.
“We will work this out reasonably. It’s that simple. It’s a good thing the ramp is in place for this weekend,” Savastano said in the meeting right before Memorial Day weekend. “If we find out there’s a delivery and it would accomplish their objectives, we can take it out in two hours. It’s that easy. It’s not that complicated. I look forward to working things out.”
City Solicitor Dorothy McCrosson said there is not an adversarial relationship between the administration and Playland and that she spoke with the principals of the business to explain what the public works department needed.
“Council should have faith in the administration and look at its track record working with people, including this very important business,” McCrosson said. “Have some faith that this will continue.”
Hartley, who appeared during public comment, said he didn’t believe repeatedly removing the ramp for deliveries made sense and pointed out there have been delays with many issues before the city, including the new boardwalk bathrooms being built at 10th and 11th streets, acquiring the Palmer Center properties, with the Speitel affordable housing facility and others. He advocated for allowing the business to install a stairway on 10th Street instead.