Citizens ask about ‘Chicken Little’ card over high-rises, why city is landscaping Tabernacle
OCEAN CITY — During public comment at Ocean City Council’s meeting Thursday evening, one person questioned fear-mongering using a playful game board analogy and another questioned why the city was paying to maintain the Ocean City Tabernacle grounds.
Frank Worrell, who regularly appears before council, said he was working on a game called Ocean City Zone-opoly. The players, he said, aren’t the top hat, scotty dog or thimble used for Monopoly, but instead members of City Council and the administration.
“One player says another is trying to build high rises on the boardwalk, even though all the players know it is against the rules,” Worrell said. “In my game, the accuser must draw a red card and a card from the No Chance in Hades pile. Nobody wants a red card. This card is called a Chicken Little card.”
This card doesn’t have Chicken Little running around saying the “sky is falling,” Worrell said. Instead he is saying, “‘High rises are going up on the boardwalk! High rises are going up on the boardwalk!’”
Worrell was apparently referring, at least in part, to Councilman Keith Hartzell, who is running against incumbent Jay Gillian for mayor. Part of Hartzell’s platform is fighting against allowing high-rise hotels or condos on the boardwalk.
Last year City Council closed a loophole that could have allowed condos on the boardwalk, where high-rises are not a permitted use.
Hartzell acknowledges high-rises are not allowed on the boardwalk but said part of his reason for running for mayor is to ensure they do not get built in the future after several boardwalk property owners told him they want to put housing there to support their businesses.
Worrell said rules for building on the boardwalk fall to the planning and zoning boards and appointments to the boards are made by council, not the administration.
“Council is responsible for choosing the right people,” he said.
Any exceptions to the rules would eventually go before council.
He asked how could he put a rule into his Ocean City Zone-opoly “to prevent fear-mongering and alternate facts.”
Ocean City Tabernacle
City resident David Breeden questioned why council was approving a large landscaping contract with A. Guzzo Landscaping that included funding for maintaining the Ocean City Tabernacle grounds.
The total contact, approved later in the consent agenda before council, will pay $189,254 to Guzzo, the low bidder. He said it includes a line item for spending $721 a week for 32 weeks for a total of $23,072 at the Tabernacle.
“The Tabernacle isn’t public property,” Breeden said. “It’s private property.”
He said the city started maintaining it in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic when it used to house Ocean City Fire Department personnel. That, he believed, was the rationale for the maintenance then.
Breeden said taxpayer dollars can’t go toward improving private lands.
“Why are we spending $23,000 this year to maintain private property?” he said.
He noted all the other areas, with the exception of the Welcome Center on the Route 52 causeway, are public lands. He called it a “slippery slope” if the city decided to pay for maintaining private property.
No one on council or the administration provided a response to his query.
The entire consent agenda, including that item, was approved 7-0.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff