Was wrong to label Flooding Committee questions ‘accusations’
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – Councilman Keith Hartzell apologized for letting his response to public comments about flood control projects at the Aug. 13 City Council meeting turn antagonistic.
Hartzell, speaking at the Thursday, Aug. 27 council meeting, said he made a mistake after Suzanne Hornick and other members of the Ocean City Flooding Committee read a long letter asking the city to delay voting on five contracts related to flood-control projects in the city. The committee questioned why the city was choosing one particular firm, ACT Engineers, Inc., instead of another it felt was more qualified, and why the city didn’t have a comprehensive island-wide plan for controlling flooding from storms and tides.
Hornick spoke again at last week’s council meeting, and apologized for the “misunderstanding” that led to Hartzell and Council President Bob Barr’s critical response, and to a lengthy angry response from City Engineer George Savastano. She said the city was choosing ACT Engineers because of the “personal relationship” the city had with the firm, but should have said the “ongoing professional relationship.” She used the term “personal” because the resolutions authorizing contracts with ACT included the wording that the city had “prior businesses with these companies.”
Hornick said she didn’t mean to imply there was anything “illegal” or “unethical.” She said she was a “straight shooter” without a hidden agenda. “I was not trying to catch you doing something wrong.”
However, she reiterated the Flooding Committee’s concerns about the contracts and chastised the response the committee members got and the lack of any support from council.
“I think it was inappropriate for Mr. Hartzell to ask Mr. Savastano to respond in such a negative way with his leading question and it was equally inappropriate for George to berate us for what he thought we were saying. Moreover, Mr. Barr should have given me the opportunity to clarify the misunderstanding when I asked to instead of yelling ‘no.’
“I’m disappointed,” she added, “that not one council person thought it important to support all of the residents asking for the resolution to be pulled for discussion. Nor did anyone from council or the city contact us to discuss it further.
“You all said you put the residents first but we were completely ignored. That is not why we gave you the privilege of representing us on City Council,” Hornick said.
Although council members are not supposed to respond to citizens in the public comment session, Hartzell again broke protocol at Thursday’s meeting to respond. This time, he wanted to explain himself.
He said he was watching Savastano take notes as the Flooding Committee made its presentation, but he erred when he asked the engineer to respond to the committee’s “accusations.”
“I should have said, ‘could you answer the questions’ rather than ‘accusations,’ though I took most of the letter as accusation,” Hartzell said. “When I said ‘accusation’ it opened the door …. That’s a regret on my end. I went to George’s office two days ago to apologize to him. I told him I used the wrong word. I infused some emotion into it … and all the questions should have been answered.
“Sometimes while you’re up here you don’t always choose the right words. And the ability for either one of us to say that didn’t go the way we planned, it wasn’t what we meant, I think that’s important, a step in the right direction,” Hartzell said.
The councilman said it would help in the future if citizens who are going to ask questions at the council meeting give council members an idea of what’s coming so they are better prepared to respond. As council rules dictate, council members are not supposed to respond to citizens at the meeting.
He said even if council got a CliffsNotes version of the concerns, that would help, referencing the study guides college students use to get the gist of long assignments in a short time.
“If we knew earlier what some of the comments are we could be more responsive,’ Hartzell said, pointing out that “George didn’t know where everything was going to come from and I didn’t do a good job of following up with the question.”
That said, Hartzell defended the city’s decisions to approve the contracts and the work the city has done on flood mitigation during Mayor Jay Gillian’s term.
“I hope we’ve cleared the air and we can move forward,” he said. “We all need to work together.”
“We need to be more responsive to what each other is saying and try to give our opinions to one another in the manner we’re doing tonight. I want to say thanks to the Flooding Committee for coming up and saying that. Hopefully my explanation will be received well too and we can all move forward,” he said.
Councilman Michael DeVlieger said although he “wasn’t involved in the fray” at the last meeting, that perhaps what happened could be “a teachable moment” because he was taking in the committee’s comments “with less than an open mind.”
He said he respected Hornick attending the meeting to explain what she was thinking. “I hope that clears the air. If we were less than cordial in response, I hope you understand maybe it was just a miscommunication.”
At the public comment session toward the end of the meeting, Hornick got up to speak again.
“Thank you for your apologies. I agree it was a huge misunderstanding,” she said. She noted the committee would work to provide communication in advance of the council meeting. She pointed out the agenda is posted only 48 hours before the meeting and suggested if they had 72 hours it would be better.
Before that, Barr had asked Savastano if he wanted to comment. “I’m good,” was Savastano’s response. Barr did not say anything about his own prior criticism of the Flooding Committee’s comments.