The Commissioners of Ocean City
government · founded 1880
Also known as Town of Ocean City; Mayor and City Council of Ocean City
Ocean City's municipal corporation, created by Chapter 209 of the Maryland Acts of 1880, approved April 10, 1880. Three commissioners, elected every two years by resident voters and by any Worcester County man who owned real estate in town, serving without pay; they appointed a clerk, a collector, a bailiff (who was allowed to double as lamplighter) and elected a treasurer from their own number. Powers: ordinances for health, nuisances, loose livestock, gunfire and firecrackers; fines to ten dollars; a property tax capped at 75 cents per hundred; a dog tax; and two days a year of compulsory street labour from every man over twenty-one. The direct legal ancestor of the modern Mayor and City Council of Ocean City.
In the record (43)
1880 · 1880-04-10
The 1880 charter draws the town as a strip between two Stephen Taber deeds, anchored on the Ocean City Bridge Company's bridge.
Section 2 of Chapter 209 fixes the corporate limits: "Beginning at a point in Synepuxent Bay at or near the easternmost end of the Ocean City Bridge Company's bridge," south along the bay to the south line of the land Stephen Taber conveyed to Granville Stokes by deed of August 28, 1879, east across Atlantic Avenue to the ocean, north along the surf to the north line of the land Taber conveyed to Hillary E. Pitts, Benjamin Jones Taylor and George W. Purnell, trustees, by deed of July 28, 1876, then north 76 1/8 degrees west across the beach to the bay and back down to the bridge. The commissioners were ordered to have "a survey made by a competent surveyor of all the streets and avenues of said town" and to set a stone at the north and south sides of every east-west street at its intersection with Atlantic Avenue. The original town of Ocean City is, legally, the ground between two parcels Stephen Taber sold — the same New York congressman who patented the 280-acre beach tract in 1869.
Ocean City Bridge CompanyStephen TaberDr. Hilary R. PittsB. Jones TaylorGranville StokesGeorge W. Purnell
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1880 · 1880-04-10
Ocean City's first laws: no firing guns or firecrackers, no loose swine or geese, a fifty-cent dog tax, two days a year of street labour, and a hundred-dollar ceiling on the town lock-up.
Section 11 of the 1880 charter is the resort's original police power, and it reads like a list of what the beach's summer nuisances actually were: ordinances to preserve the health of the town by "preventing the erection of all privies, sinks or any place for the deposit of refuse and unwholesome matter, without cement cases for the contents of the same"; to "prevent, restrain or regulate the running at large of horses, cattle, swine and geese"; "to prohibit the firing of guns and pistols, or the shooting of fire crackers within said town"; and "to prohibit and disperse the tumultuous meetings of idle, dissolute or drunken persons." No fine could exceed ten dollars, and no jail term ten days in the Worcester County jail. The commissioners could build "a strong room or lock-up for the detention of violators" — "provided the cost of said lock-up and lot of ground does not exceed the sum of one hundred dollars." Section 20 required every ordinance to be "immediately made public by printed handbills posted in not less than five conspicuous places in said town," and Section 18 provided that nothing should "prevent the bailiff from acting as lamplighter and receiving pay in said capacity." The money sections are as revealing. Section 14 capped the property levy: "the said tax shall not exceed seventy-five cents on the one hundred dollars for any one year," with the collector's commission capped at five per cent and the county assessment used as the base until the town made its own. Section 12 imposed "an annual tax of fifty cents on the owner of every dog, and one dollar on the owner of every bitch," and authorised the killing of any dog whose owner could not be found or would not pay within a month. Section 13 required "each male inhabitant of said town, of twenty-one years of age and upwards, to work in the streets, lanes and alleys of said town, under the supervision of the bailiff, at least two days in each year," up to four; skipping it after written notice cost two dollars.
The town's whole justice system, land included, was budgeted at one hundred dollars — and the sheriff moonlighted lighting the lamps.
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1880 · 1880-04-10
Ocean City becomes a town: Chapter 209 of the Acts of 1880, approved April 10, creates "The Commissioners of Ocean City."
"AN ACT to incorporate the 'Town of Ocean City,' Worcester County" — Chapter 209 of the Maryland Acts of 1880, approved by Governor William T. Hamilton on April 10, 1880 (Session Laws, 1880, pp. 338-345). Section 1: "the inhabitants of the 'Town of Ocean City,' in Worcester county, be and they are hereby constituted a body corporate, by the name of 'The Commissioners of Ocean City,' and by that name may sue and be sued, have and use a common seal and have perpetual succession." Five summers after the Atlantic Hotel opened, the beach acquired a legal personality: three unpaid commissioners, a clerk, a treasurer, a bailiff, a tax power and a police power. Maryland's General Assembly sat biennially in even years, so 1880 was the first legislative opportunity after the resort was demonstrably a going concern.
Ocean City was a hotel with a railroad for five years before it was a town. April 10, 1880 is the paperwork catching up with the sand.
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1880 · 1880-05-03
The charter sets Ocean City's first election for the first Monday in May 1880, at the Excursion House, with the polls open from 2 to 5 in the afternoon.
Sections 3-5 of Chapter 209: on the first Monday in May 1880 (May 3) and every two years after, the town was to elect three commissioners, each an owner of real estate in Ocean City, serving without pay. The electorate was unusually wide for a resort with almost no permanent residents — "the legal voters of Ocean city who have resided within its corporate limits six months preceding the election, AND the male citizens of Worcester county, who own any interest in real estate or in houses in said town." Non-resident cottage and lot owners from the mainland could vote in the beach town's elections from the first day. The first election was to be held "at the 'Excursion House' in said town" — the railroads' 1877 picnic shelter, the only building in Ocean City that was nobody's hotel — judged by two justices of the peace from Berlin election district number three, polls open two o'clock to five o'clock P.M., returns to the clerk of the Circuit Court within two days. No record of who actually won has been found in this pass.
The town's first ballot box sat in a railroad picnic shelter, and it was open for three hours.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
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1886 · 1886-04-07
Maryland empowers the Commissioners of Ocean City to extend the town half a mile north and half a mile south.
Chapter 474 of the Acts of 1886, approved April 7, empowered "the Commissioners of the town of Ocean City, Worcester county" to extend the town's bounds in two pieces. The northern extension began at the Atlantic Ocean end of the line of the land Stephen Taber conveyed to Hilary R. Pitts, Benjamin Jones Taylor and George W. Purnell, trustees, by deed of July 28, 1876 — "and now the northern limit of said town" — and ran a half mile north along the ocean, west to Synepuxent Bay, and back. The southern extension ran a half mile south from the original south boundary, bay to ocean. Section 2 required the commissioners to have the additional territory "carefully surveyed and marked." The act is permissive: it grants power to extend, and no source found in this pass shows the survey being made or the extension taking effect.
Six years after Ocean City was incorporated inside a rectangle of somebody else's farmland, the state handed the town a mile of new beach — and this is the first act of the Maryland General Assembly ever addressed to Ocean City's own municipal government rather than to the men who owned it.
Stephen TaberDr. Hilary R. PittsB. Jones TaylorGeorge W. Purnell
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1890 · 1890-06-01
The Eleventh Census counts 85 people in Ocean City — the town's first federal population figure since 1880's 49.
Ocean City was enumerated as an incorporated place at the Eleventh Census of June 1, 1890 and returned 85 inhabitants, against 49 in 1880 and 365 in 1900. The same tables put Worcester County at 19,747 (up from the county's 1880 figure and still short of the 20,865 it reached in 1900); Ocean City's election district — District 3, East Berlin, which took in the town and part of Berlin — held 2,898 people, and Berlin town itself 974. Ocean City was thus about four-tenths of one per cent of its county: eighty-five year-round residents on a barrier beach that filled with thousands every August. The 1890 population schedules themselves burned in the 1921 Commerce Department fire, so no name-by-name list survives; the published statistical volumes are all that remains, and this fact is taken from the Census Bureau's own 1912 comparative bulletin, which reprints the 1890, 1900 and 1910 counts side by side.
Eighty-five people. The resort's whole permanent population in 1890 would not fill one modern condo floor.
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1892 · 1892-04-04
Maryland rewrites the Ocean City charter: three commissioners, elected the first Monday in May 1892 and every second year after, serving without pay.
Chapter 302 of the Acts of 1892, approved April 4, repealed and re-enacted sections 156 and 169 of Article 24 of the Code of Public Local Laws, title "Worcester County," sub-title "Ocean City." New section 156: "the legal voters of Ocean City who have resided within its corporate limits six months preceding an election and all male persons, who own any interest in real estate in said town, of the age of twenty-one years, and upwards shall elect by ballot on the first Monday in May 1892 an[d] in every second year thereafter, three persons, who are owners of real estate in said town, or interested therein, to be commissioners of said town, to serve for two years from the date of their election... and the services rendered by said commissioners shall be gratuitous and without pay." New section 169 gave the commissioners "power to pass all ordinances necessary to give effect and operation to the powers vested in them, and likewise the authority to provide for the appointment, and compensation of all such offices, besides the baliff, as they may deem necessary for the protection, and general police regulation of said town." The Annapolis Evening Capital listed it among the bills Governor Frank Brown signed, describing it as "Amending the charter of Ocean City and providing for a town government." The franchise is the striking part: a Baltimore or Washington man who bought a Sinepuxent Beach Company lot could vote in Ocean City without ever living there.
The first Monday in May 1892 was May 2 — the first firmly dated municipal election in Ocean City's history, and the reason we finally have a name to put in the town's government.
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1892 · 1892-05-10
A tax-sale notice proves Ocean City had been levying and collecting corporation taxes since 1887 — five years the town's own record had gone silent.
An order nisi of the Circuit Court for Worcester County, dated May 10, 1892 and published for three weeks in the Democratic Messenger, recites the machinery of a municipal government the campaign had been unable to see: "WHEREAS Baldwin F. Williams, collector of corporation taxes for the town of Ocean City, in Worcester Co., in the State of Maryland, for the years 1887, 1888, 1889 and 1890, did make sale of all that lot and parcel of land lying and being situate at said Ocean City which is described as Lot No. 119 on the plat of said Ocean City... being the same lot of land which is assessed to George W. Mallen on the tax books of said Ocean City to pay the taxes levied upon said parcel of land for the years 1887, 1888, 1889 and 1890 by the commissioners of said Ocean City." The sale was ratified, and on the November 19 deed list the lot changed hands: "Cornelius Coffin from Baldwin F. Williams, collector, lot No. 119 at Ocean City. $28.00." The county levy for 1892 also carried an allowance to D. C. Hudson for "assessing prop[erty] in Ocean City." So there were commissioners, tax books, an assessor and a collector at Ocean City through the whole of the period the newspapers otherwise pass over in silence.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1892 · 1892-05-10
"Hon. W. Sydney Wilson has been elected mayor of Ocean City" — the first Ocean City officeholder this research campaign has found by name.
Wilmington's Evening Journal carried the line in its peninsula-news column on May 10, 1892, a week after the first Monday in May election required by the new charter [fact:1892-charter-amended-two-year-commissioners]. The Snow Hill Democratic Messenger corroborated it independently in August, in a long Ocean City letter: "The police arrangements are excellent and one seldom hears of a disturbance or disorder of any kind. The Mayor, Sidney Wilson, personally supervises affairs, and his management is thorough and systematic." The same column names a town policeman, George Truitt. In October the Messenger added that "Mr. William S. Wilson and family arrived home from Ocean City, where they spent the summer in their magnificent cottage. Mr. Wilson, who is the mayor of Ocean City, takes a great deal of interest in the welfare of Maryland's city by the sea, and predicts a more successful season next summer than this, which was the best in the history of the place." Wilson was a Snow Hill lawyer, a summer cottager, and — the June 11 Messenger notes — "a director in the Sinepuxent Beach Company."
Ten researched years, 1878 through 1891, produced no Ocean City officeholder at all. 1892 produces one in three separate papers — and he is a Snow Hill man with a beach cottage and a seat on the land company's board.
Sinepuxent Beach CompanyWilliam Sydney Wilson
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1893
The town sells lots at auction for six years of unpaid corporation taxes, and the notices name Ocean City's tax collector and its Board of Commissioners.
Through the first half of 1893 the Democratic Messenger carried, week after week, collector's sale notices signed "BALDWIN F. WILLIAMS, Collector of Corporation Taxes for Ocean City." The first ran from March 4 against Lot No. 129, seized for taxes owed "to the Board of Commissioners of said Ocean City" for the years 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1891 and 1892 — six consecutive years unpaid. The lot is described as being "on the North Corner of Caroline Street and Philadelphia Avenue, and is described as Lot No. 129 on the plat of said Ocean City filed among the land records of said Worcester County with the deed from Stephen Taber and wife to Hilary B. Pitts, B. Jones Taylor and George W. Purnell as Trustees" — the founders' 1876 purchase, still the town's root of title. A Circuit Court order nisi of August 17, 1893 ratifying the sale records the lot as assessed to Edward W. LeCompte "(and alleged to be the property of the heirs of James A. Stewart, deceased)" at Liber I.T.M. No. 4, folio 538. A second round of notices ran from April 29 against Lots 81 and 194 for 1890–1892 taxes, sold on the premises May 27, and a third against Lot 183, assessed to Manners, Fisher & Co., sold July 22.
Baldwin F. WilliamsGeorge W. PurnellDr. Hilary R. PittsB. Jones TaylorStephen Taber
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1893
Ocean City has a mayor, and 1893 is the first year the campaign can name him: William Sidney Wilson.
Thirteen years after the town was incorporated, the Snow Hill Democratic Messenger finally puts a name to the office. On May 6, 1893 it noted that "William S. Wilson, Esq., has the prettiest cottage at Ocean City. He is Mayor of the town and since his induction into office Ocean City has been steadily improving." The paper used the title again on May 27 ("Mayor Wilson and family went down to their cottage"), quoted him in July via a Baltimore Sun correspondent on why the resort was growing — "it is due to the fact that the men who are pushing the interests of the place are working men" — and on August 26 printed his full name in the report of the Vice-President's visit: "William Sidney Wilson, Esq., Mayor of Ocean City, gave his distinguished visitors the freedom of the city." Wilmington's Evening Journal called him "Syd Wilson" on July 24 and said that Ocean City without him "would not be Ocean City. He knows everybody and everybody appears to know him." He was a Snow Hill man who summered on the beach; on September 30 the Messenger reported that "William S. Wilson and family have returned home from Ocean City where they spent the summer." The same August 26 dispatch describes the office itself: "The mayor of Ocean City is an important personage. He is required to be hospitable and attentive to many guests during the season and to look after the comfort and well-being of all sojourners on the beach."
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1894 · 1894-03-27
The 1894 charter empowers the city council "to provide for the erection of board walks upon the sidewalks of said city" — and lets the mayor appoint three policemen.
Section 162 of Chapter 128 lists the council's ordinance powers: preserve the health of the city; restrain horses, cattle, swine and geese from running at large; prohibit the firing of guns and pistols and regulate firecrackers and fireworks; disperse "tumultuous and disorderly meetings of idle, dissolute and drunken persons"; work and mend the public streets; open, close, alter and widen streets; pay the police; and "provide for the erection of board walks upon the sidewalks of said city." Penalties were capped at ten dollars an offence, recoverable before a justice of the peace, with up to ten days in the county jail at Snow Hill for non-payment and an appeal to the Circuit Court; the mayor could remit any fine at his discretion. New section 156 A let the mayor, with the council's advice, appoint up to three regular policemen "and as many specials as he may deem necessary." This is the earliest Maryland statute yet found in this campaign that names board walks at Ocean City, and it puts them under municipal power ten years after the earliest reported planking on the beach. — 1895 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: The police half of section 156 A was being exercised in full by the summer of 1895: 'The police, three in number, have gone on duty for the summer. They are in new uniform and wear new badges. They have adopted the uniform of the Philadelphia police' (Democratic Messenger, 13 July 1895). Three is the statutory maximum of regular policemen. In November 1895 the town authorities also passed an ordinance for the destruction of unmuzzled dogs on the streets, which is the §162 health-and-animals power in use. The BOARD WALK half of §162 remains unevidenced: 208 pages of the county paper for 1895 contain no instance of 'board walk' or 'boardwalk', and no council action on walks was found.
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1894 · 1894-03-27
Chapter 128 of 1894 abolishes Ocean City's commissioners and creates "the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City."
Approved by Governor Frank Brown on March 27, 1894, Chapter 128 repealed sections 155, 156, 157, 159, 160, 162 and 168 of the Ocean City sub-title of Article 24 of the Code of Public Local Laws — and section 156 of Chapter 302 of 1892 — and re-enacted them with amendments, adding new sections 156 A, 159 A and 162 A. Section 155 constitutes "the inhabitants of Ocean City, in Worcester County, Maryland... a body corporate, by the name of the 'Mayor and City Council of Ocean City,'" with perpetual succession and a common seal, and fixes the limits from mean low water in the Atlantic at the north line of South Seventh Street, west to Sinepuxent Bay, north to the south line of North Seventh Street, and back to the ocean. Section 156 orders an election by ballot "on the first Monday in May, in 1894, and in every second year thereafter," of one mayor and three city councilmen, all of whom must own or be interested in real estate in the city, to serve two years. The vote belonged to resident legal voters of six months' standing AND to every male person twenty-one or over holding any interest in Ocean City real estate — so non-residents elected the town's government. Section 159 A gives the mayor a veto overridable only by unanimous council vote, and requires a written report on "the condition of municipal affairs" after each election; section 160 has the council meet monthly and elect one of its number president. This is the act behind the Maryland Manual's list of Ocean City mayors, which begins in 1894 and had until now no explanation. It also reconciles the campaign's 1892 finding that the Wilmington papers already called W. Sydney Wilson 'mayor of Ocean City' in May 1892: Chapter 302 of 1892 elected three commissioners and a bailiff and used the word mayor nowhere, so the 1892 usage was journalistic. In March 1894 the newspapers' word became the corporation's name.
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1894 · 1894-05-07
William S. Wilson is elected Ocean City's first statutory Mayor on the first Monday in May 1894 — the second term the papers gave him under that title.
The Snow Hill Democratic Messenger of May 19, 1894 reported: "On Monday of last week William S. Wilson, Esq., was re-elected Mayor of Ocean City. He is the right man for the place and does more for Ocean City probably than any other one man." Monday of the week before was May 7, 1894 — the first Monday in May, the date fixed by Chapter 128. The Maryland Manual's list of Ocean City mayors opens with "1894-1896 William S. Wilson." A Snow Hill lawyer of the firm Wilson & Collins who summered in his own Ocean City cottage, he is named in the Messenger of July 14 as "W. Sidney Wilson," who "says he is entirely out of politics; his law business and his official duties as mayor of Ocean City take up all his time," and on June 30 as "Hon. William S. Wilson... A few months since Mr. Wilson was re-elected Mayor of Ocean City and his duties as such require him to spend most of the summer at that delightful resort." The word "re-elected" is exact: the press had called him mayor since May 1892. What changed in 1894 is that the title became law — and that, not the man, is why the Maryland Manual's series begins here.
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1894 · 1894-06-02
Four Ocean City lots are seized and sold at public auction for unpaid 1893 town taxes.
A collector's advertisement running in the Democratic Messenger from May 12, 1894: "By virtue of authority vested in me as Collector of Corporation taxes for Ocean City, Worcester County, Maryland, for the year 1893, I have levied upon and seized all those lots and parcels of land situate at said Ocean City and described and known as Lots No. 81, 127, 54 and 65 on the plat of Ocean City." Lot 81 was assessed to Robertson & Dixon, Lot 127 to the estate of Elijah Carey, Lot 54 to S. M. Bealings and Lot 65 to Dr. Anderson; all four were sold on the premises at 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 2, 1894, to satisfy taxes owed "to the Board of Commissioners of said Ocean City" for 1893. It is the plainest surviving trace of what the Panic of 1893 did to Ocean City property owners, and it names the town's tax collector for 1893: Edwin E. Williams. — 1894 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: No new evidence; recorded here only so the next agent knows the 1894 Delaware and D.C. tail was read against it and produced nothing. The 226 pages contain no Ocean City tax-sale matter at all.
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1894 · 1894-06-09
In June 1894 the town lays new walks on the cross streets and renews "the front walk" so people can keep their feet out of the sand.
The Democratic Messenger's Ocean City column of June 9, 1894: "The Town Commissioners are laying new walks on the cross streets and renewing the front walk so that the people can 'keep their feet out of the'" — the sentence runs off the column, but the sense is plain. Two things matter for the long-running argument about when Ocean City got a boardwalk. First, a continuous "front walk" already existed in June 1894 and was old enough to need renewing. Second, the paper still calls the body "the Town Commissioners" ten weeks after Chapter 128 renamed it the Mayor and City Council — the old name outlived the statute in local usage. — 1894 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: Re-read against the Worcester County Library portal's own scan and confirmed word for word on page 3 of the issue of 9 June 1894: 'The Town Commissioner[s] are laying new walks on the cross streets and renewing the front walk so that the people can "keep their feet out of the sand."' The existing citation is a bare loc.gov issue URL with no page; the portal citation resolves to an actual file, democratic_messenger_usa_maryland_snow_hill_18940609_english_3, satisfying method note 4.
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1895
The town sells lots and seizes hotel furniture for unpaid corporation taxes — including an iron safe and four suites of bedroom furniture out of Congress Hall.
Ocean City's tax troubles ran right through 1895 in the Democratic Messenger's legal columns. From March into May the Circuit Court for Worcester County ratified collector's sales of town lots: Lot No. 81 "on the plat of said Ocean City," assessed to Robertson & Dix, and Lot No. 127, assessed to Elijah Carey, both sold for taxes "levied upon said lot for the year 1893 by the Commissioners of Ocean City"; and Lot No. 183, assessed to Manners, Fisher & Co., for the taxes of 1891 and 1892. The same lots 81 and 127 had been advertised for seizure a year earlier [fact:1894-lots-sold-for-unpaid-corporation-taxes], so 1895 is the year the court signed off. Then, on April 27, the collector went after chattels: "By virtue of authority vested in me as Collector of Corporation taxes for Ocean City, Worcester County, Maryland, for the year 1894, I have levied upon and seized all the following personal property in Congress Hall at Ocean City aforesaid, to wit: 1 Iron Safe and 4 Suits of Bed-Room Furniture," to satisfy taxes owed by Mrs. Margaret L. Beckenbaugh "to the Commissioners of Ocean City." The Beckenbaughs had already lost their Ocean City real estate and hotel property at a mortgage sale advertised in January, held in front of the Atlantic Hotel in Berlin. Three years into the depression that began in 1893, the town was still collecting by levy.
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1895
William S. Wilson serves out his term as Mayor of Ocean City through 1895 — and advertises that he spends most of the week on the beach.
The Maryland Manual's list of Ocean City mayors gives "1894-1896 William S. Wilson," so the two-year term won under Chapter 128 of 1894 [fact:1894-first-mayor-william-s-wilson, fact:1894-mayor-and-city-council-charter] ran through the whole of 1895; the charter's next election fell on the first Monday in May 1896. Wilson himself supplies the contemporary corroboration, in a card he ran in the Snow Hill Democratic Messenger from late July: "I desire to notify my clients and the public, that I will be in my office in Snow Hill every Tuesday, during the summer months, — the rest of the week at Ocean City, and will come home on call. W. S. Wilson." A Snow Hill lawyer running his practice one day a week so he could sit in the town he governed is as close as 1895 comes to a description of the office.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1895 · 1895-07-13
Ocean City's three policemen are named in print for the first time — Albert Carey, Lemuel Mumford and William Purnell — wearing badges inscribed "Ocean City, Md."
The Democratic Messenger of July 13, 1895 carries the item in its Ocean City notes: "[The policemen] are in the employ of Ocean City and not of the company. They are this year supplied with badges inscribed Ocean City, Md. The members of the police are Albert Carey, Lemuel Mumford and William Purnell." Three men is exactly the establishment the 1894 charter allowed: new section 156 A let the mayor, with the council's advice, appoint up to three regular policemen and as many specials as he thought necessary [fact:1894-charter-empowers-board-walks-and-police]. The distinction the paper draws — town men, not company men — is the point of the paragraph: the Sinepuxent Beach Company owned the beach, the Atlantic Hotel and most of the lots, and 1895 is the year the town put its own name on the badge. It also very likely identifies the "Policeman Carey" who arrested the two boys who robbed the bridge keeper's till in July 1894 [fact:1894-bridge-store-robbery-first-policeman].
Sinepuxent Beach CompanyAlbert CareyFrancis Henry Purnell
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1898 · 1898-04-09
Chapter 528 of 1898 repeals the 1894 charter and reincorporates Ocean City, fixing its bounds from South Seventh to North Fifteenth Street and moving the election to August.
Approved 9 April 1898, Ch. 528 repealed Ch. 128 of 1894, s. 169 of Ch. 302 of 1892, and eight sections of Art. 24 of the Code of Public Local Laws (title 'Worcester County', sub-title 'Ocean City'), and re-enacted them 'for the purpose of reincorporating Ocean City.' It is the first act to state the town's limits precisely: from mean low water in the Atlantic at the extended north line of South Seventh Street, west along that line to Synepuxent bay, north along the bay to the south line of North Fifteenth Street, and back to the ocean. The franchise stayed as it had been since 1880 — six months' residence, or any interest in real estate in the town for any male of twenty-one and upwards — but the election moved from the first Monday in May to the FIRST MONDAY IN AUGUST, 'in 1898, and in every second year thereafter,' with terms running from the second Monday in September and the polls open only from 2 to 6 p.m. Sec. 6 let the Mayor appoint up to three regular policemen, one of whom might be chief, plus specials. Sec. 9 carried forward, word for word, the 1894 power 'to provide for the erection of board walks upon the sidewalks of said city,' alongside powers over health, nuisances (extending to the middle of Synepuxent bay), livestock at large, firing guns and fireworks, disorderly meetings, streets, building lines and fire engines; penalties capped at ten dollars and ten days in the county jail. Sec. 11 authorised a dog tax of fifty cents a dog and one dollar a bitch, with unclaimed animals to be killed. Sec. 16 ratified every ordinance and contract already made. — 1898 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [reviewed]: Page correction, checked against the volume itself. Chapter 528 begins at the FOOT of p. 1241, not p. 1240 — p. 1240 is still the tail of Chapter 527, a Baltimore County school-fines act. The body runs pp. 1242-1250 and "Approved April 9, 1898" stands at p. 1250. Note also a chapter-number discrepancy inside the act itself: the repealing clause cites sec. 169 of Ch. 302 of 1892 in the heading and Ch. 309 in the body.
Four years after Ocean City first got a mayor, the legislature tore the charter up and wrote a bigger one — and quietly slid the election from May to August, out of the empty spring and into the middle of the season, when the lot owners were actually on the beach.
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1899
Ocean City sues its own railroad for unpaid taxes and wins in the Court of Appeals — and the State promptly uses the ruling to claim $60,000 from the same company.
The Democratic Messenger of 18 March 1899 reported the decision: "Judge Briscoe rendered the opinion in the suit brought by the mayor and city council of Ocean City against the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway Company to recover certain taxes alleged to be due and unpaid by the defendant company … The principal question presented by the appeal is whether the property formerly owned by the Wicomico and Pocomoke Railroad in Ocean City, and now owned by the appellant company, is exempt from taxation, under section 2 of chapter 133 of the acts of 1886. The court says: 'We are of the opinion that the property of the defendant company … is liable for taxation, and, for the reasons we have given, the court committed no error in rejecting the appellant's prayers, so the judgment will be affirmed.'" The Messenger returned to it on 26 August under the head "Claims $60,000 Taxes": the old Eastern Shore Railroad had been exempt under its charter, the new owners "refused to pay taxes to the city authorities of Ocean City," the suit "was instituted by Mayor C. J. Purnell, and Councilmen Powell, Dennis and Adkins and resulted in a verdict in their favor, by the Court of Appeals," and State Tax Collector Parlett was now claiming $60,000 in state taxes on the strength of it, against the company's attorney's denial.
A resort of a few hundred winter residents took the railway that made it to Maryland's highest court, and beat it — and Annapolis then followed the town through the door it had opened.
Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayWicomico and Pocomoke RailroadClayton J. PurnellJames Z. PowellDavid J. Adkins
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1899 · 1899-06-05
Mayor James Z. Powell resigns at a council meeting on 5 June 1899, Clayton J. Purnell is elected in his place — and Powell then takes a seat on the council he had just chaired.
The Democratic Messenger of 10 June 1899: "At a meeting of the city council of Ocean City held last Monday Mr. James Z. Powell, then mayor, resigned and Clayton J. Purnell, Esq., was unanimously elected to succeed him. Mr. Powell was afterwards elected a member of the city council vice Mr. Cornelius Collins resigned." The Delaware Gazette and State Journal of 15 June carried it independently in its Maryland column: "Clayton J. Purnell has been elected mayor of Ocean City, vice James Z. Powell, resigned … James Z. Powell has been elected a councilman at Ocean City, succeeding Cornelius F. Collin, resigned." By August the county paper was calling him "Mayor C. J. Purnell" as a matter of course, and naming his council alongside him — Powell, Dennis and Adkins. The Maryland Manual's mayors list dates Purnell's term from 1900; the contemporary press puts him in the chair from June 1899. — 1899 FULL PASS, 2026-08-11 [confirmed]: Confirmed word for word from a second, independent filming of the Democratic Messenger of 10 June 1899 held by the Worcester County Library, which reads 'vice Mr. Cornelius Coftin resigned' where Chronicling America reads 'Collins' — the Delaware Gazette's 'Cornelius F. Collin' remains the best reading of the retiring councilman's name. No new evidence bears on the Maryland Manual conflict, which should stand as recorded.
Purnell succeeded Powell as mayor in June 1899 — a year earlier than the Maryland Manual's list shows.
James Z. PowellClayton J. PurnellDavid J. Adkins
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1900 · 1900-10-03
The council votes unanimously to bond the town for water works — Ocean City's first documented municipal capital project.
From an Ocean City dispatch of 3 October 1900: "The Ocean City Council met today to take action on the important question of bonding the town for water works. It was unanimously resolved to take immediate steps to have water works put in, to be completed on or before the first day of June next. Fully 90 per cent of the taxpayers indorse the improvement." The power had been sitting on the books for two years: the 1898 charter (Ch. 528) authorised $30,000 in bonds for water and sewerage. This is the answer, so far as 1900 gives one, to the question of what the town spent its own money on — water, on a deadline set by the opening of the next season, and not the board walk. No 1900 source in the corpus records any town appropriation, contract, ordinance or subscription for the walk itself. The council's other recorded act of the year was an appointment: "Cyrus Purnell has been appointed chief of police at Ocean City" (late June, in time for the season). Mayor Clayton J. Purnell presided over the town in this year; the Maryland Manual dates his term from 1900, the contemporary press from a council vote of 5 June 1899.
Ninety per cent of the taxpayers for it, a completion date set by the summer season, and the whole thing resolved in one meeting. Small towns could move.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1901
No municipal election is recorded at Ocean City in 1901 - and the town's own government leaves almost no trace in a year of 3,115 pages.
Ocean City's mayor through 1901 was Clayton J. Purnell, and no election, no council meeting, no ordinance, no levy and no appointment is reported anywhere in the 3,115 Chronicling America pages read for this year. The one glimpse of the corporation acting is the day after the April fire, when "the city council employed men and all day they poured ocean water over the smouldering ruins." The silence has a structural cause: the Snow Hill Democratic Messenger, which carried the town's council news, has no digitised issues at all for 1900 or 1901 in Chronicling America, and the Worcester County Library's own portal holds none either. It also has a legal shape - Chapter 569 of 1902 moved the town election to the first Monday in August "in 1902, and in every second year thereafter", which is consistent with 1901 having had no election to report. Recorded as an absence measured across a named corpus, not as a finding that nothing happened.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1901
The water works the council voted in October 1900 to have finished by 1 June 1901 were still not finished in February 1902.
On 3 October 1900 the Ocean City council resolved unanimously to bond the town for water works "to be completed on or before the first day of June next", with "fully 90 per cent of the taxpayers" said to endorse it. Whether that deadline was met has been open since the 1900 pass. It was not. The Democratic Messenger's Ocean City column of 22 February 1902 - reached by a dates=1901/1902 boundary query, since Chronicling America holds no Messenger at all for 1900 or 1901 - reports: "The men who have [been] working on the water works left Wednesday morning for Laurel, Md. They will return to complete their work when the weather becomes better." So the works were under construction, by a contractor's gang that also worked in Sussex County, and unfinished eight months after the promised completion date. No 1901 source in the 3,115 pages read mentions the water works at all.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1902 · 1902-04-11
Chapter 569 of 1902 rewrites Ocean City's charter: five councilmen, a biennial August election, and a vote for every man who owns a foot of the beach.
Approved 11 April 1902, Ch. 569 repealed sections 2 and 3 of Ch. 528 of 1898 and re-enacted them. It kept the corporate name "Mayor and City Council of Ocean City," but enlarged the council from three members to five, moved the election to the first Monday in August "in 1902, and in every second year thereafter," and set terms of two years running from the second Monday in September. The suffrage clause is the consequential part: the electorate is "the legal voters of Ocean City who have resided within the corporate limits six months preceding an election, AND all male persons who own any interest in real estate in said city of the age of twenty-one years and upward" — that is, non-resident property owners vote. Every officer must be a real-estate owner in the town or interested therein, and only three of the five councilmen need be legal residents; the mayor need not be one at all. Sitting officers held over until successors qualified under the new Act.
This is the statute that made a Washington real-estate man eligible to be mayor of a Maryland town he did not live in. Four months later he was.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1904 · 1904-04-08
Maryland ratifies every act of Ocean City's mayor and council since 1902 — because it was not sure they were legal.
Chapter 457 of the Acts of 1904 repealed and re-enacted sections 2 and 3 of Chapter 569 of 1902 and then, in section 2, declared that 'all official acts of the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City, and of either of them, since the passage of the said Chapter 569 of the Acts of 1902 … be and they are hereby ratified, confirmed and made valid.' The re-enacted section 3 restates the franchise and the calendar: the legal voters resident within the corporate limits six months before an election, together with all male real-estate owners in the city aged twenty-one and upward, elect by ballot on the first Monday in August, in 1902 and every second year thereafter, one Mayor and five City Councilmen — all of whom must own real estate in the city or have an interest in it, and at least three of the Council must be legal residents — to serve two years from the second Monday in September. Approved 8 April 1904.
A legislature does not retroactively validate two years of a town's official acts unless somebody has noticed they might be void. The 1902 charter amendment left a hole; 1904 filled it in, and left behind the clearest statement of who could vote in Ocean City: residents of six months' standing, plus any man anywhere who owned a lot.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1904 · 1904-04-12
The state lets Ocean City borrow $5,000 more — for streets this time — and caps the town's whole debt at $20,000.
Chapter 561 of the Acts of 1904 recites that under Chapter 528 of 1898 the Mayor and City Council were authorised to borrow up to $30,000 for a water supply against fire and for a sewerage system, but that they had 'borrowed money only to the amount of fifteen thousand dollars and have issued bonds only to that extent,' and that there was 'grave doubt' of their authority to borrow for anything but the water and sewer works. The Act therefore authorises an additional $5,000, 'for the purpose of providing funds for the improvement of the public streets, avenues, lanes, alleys and ways of said city and for any other public improvements, works or repairs,' expressly limiting the town's total authorised bonded indebtedness to $20,000. Bonds are to run $100 to $1,000 each, signed by the Mayor and countersigned by the treasurer, sold at not less than par; the town must levy annually for interest and principal, invest any surplus as a sinking fund, name a depository by resolution before issuing, and publish an itemised statement of the expenditure of the proceeds once a year in a Worcester County newspaper.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1904 · 1904-04-12
Half the liquor licences and half the road taxes: 1904 hands Ocean City two slices of the county's money.
Two more acts of the 1904 session paid the town. Chapter 631 added section 136A to Chapter 411 of 1896: 'One-half of all said license fees collected … for licenses issued for the sale of intoxicating liquors within the corporate limits of Ocean City for the period of time beginning May 1, 1904, and ending April 30, 1906, shall be paid by the said Clerk of the Court of Worcester County to the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City.' Chapter 655 directed the Board of County Commissioners of Worcester County to pay the Mayor and Council of Ocean City, annually from 1 April 1905, one-half of all sums levied and collected for road and bridge taxes on property within the corporate limits, 'to be expended by the Mayor and Council of Ocean City for the repairs, maintenance and improvement of the streets and roads within the corporate limits of Ocean City as a part of the public roads of Worcester County.' Both approved 12 April 1904.
Add these to the $5,000 street-bond authority of the same session and 1904 is the year Ocean City stopped being a village the county tolerated and started being a municipality with an income — funded, fittingly, by the bar tab.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1904 · 1904-08-01
Two tickets, one warm but good-natured fight: Capt. Christopher Ludlam is re-elected mayor and the People's ticket loses.
'The election for Mayor and City Council of Ocean City was held Monday afternoon. Two tickets were in the field, and the fight was a warm but good natured one, resulting in a victory for the regulars who represent the faction already in power, over the people's ticket, which was headed by Wm. T. Taber. Capt. Christopher Ludlam was re-elected Mayor and the following councilmen were also elected: James Z. Powell, Reverdy J. Dennis, Thomas J. Cropper, John D. Showell and John L. Johnson.' The paper adds that the Mayor and City Council 'will enter upon their new terms on September 1st'; the charter as re-enacted the same spring (Ch. 457 of 1904) says the term runs from the second Monday in September, which in 1904 was 12 September.
This is the first Ocean City municipal election this campaign has been able to read as an election — two slates, a named challenger, and a full council. The town's own books had been stolen in 1896 and the eleven-year blank that followed is the reason a one-paragraph item in a Snow Hill weekly is the best surviving record of who governed the beach.
Christopher LudlamJames Z. PowellReverdy J. DennisThomas J. CropperJohn D. ShowellJohn L. JohnsonWilliam T. Taber
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1904 · 1904-08-25
Ocean City puts five $1,000 coupon bonds on the market — the first municipal borrowing this campaign has caught the town actually doing.
Over the names of 'CHRISTOPHER C. LUDLAM, Mayor' and 'JAMES Z. POWELL, Treasurer,' the town advertised in the county paper that on or before Thursday 25 August 1904 at 3 p.m. sealed proposals would be received by the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City for the purchase of five coupon bonds of $1,000 each, dated 1 July 1904, the first maturing 1 January 1920 and one each succeeding year until all were due; interest payable semi-annually in January and July at the Exchange and Savings Bank of Berlin, Md.; the bonds free from all taxation; the right reserved to reject any and all bids. The notice cites 'chapter 501 of Act of 1904'; the act actually authorising the issue is Chapter 561 (see conflicts). The interest rate is illegible in the OCR of the notice and is not asserted here.
Christopher LudlamJames Z. Powell
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1906 · 1906-04-03
Ocean City's only act of the 1906 General Assembly extends its half-share of the town's liquor licence fees to 30 April 1908.
Chapter 371 of the Acts of 1906, approved 3 April 1906, adds Section 136 B to Chapter 411 of the Acts of 1896 as re-enacted by Chapter 631 of 1904: "One-half of all said license fees collected under the provisions of the preceding section for licenses issued for the sale of intoxicating liquors within the corporate limits of Ocean City for the period of time beginning May 1, 1906, and ending April 30, 1908, shall be paid by the said clerk of the court of Worcester county to the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City." The 1904 grant had been written to expire on 30 April 1906, so this act simply renews it. It is the ONLY entry under Ocean City in the volume's Worcester County index — the town that took five acts out of the 1904 session took one out of 1906, and the alphabetical index carries no 'Ocean City' heading of its own at all. Nothing in the 1906 session touches the sea wall, the charter, the bonds or the streets.
1904 gave the town powers; 1906 just renewed the bar tab that paid for them.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1910 · 1910-04-07
Chapter 247 of 1910 makes Ocean City's water rents a tax lien on the property — the town had built a waterworks and could not collect for it.
Approved 7 April 1910, Ch. 247 adds a new Section 19a to Ch. 528 of 1898, the act that reincorporated Ocean City: "from and after the 10th day of April, 1910, all rents accruing and becoming due and payable to the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City for water furnished by said Mayor and City Council from the municipal waterworks system shall be deemed and considered and are hereby declared to be a tax lien on the property for which the said water is supplied, and shall be collectible as other taxes are collectible in said Ocean City." The 1898 charter had authorised $30,000 of six-per-cent bonds for water works and sewerage; twelve years on, the town was reaching for the tax collector to make the system pay for itself.
A small act with a whole municipal story inside it: build the utility on borrowed money, then discover that billing for it is the hard part.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1918 · 1918-08-05
Edward M. Scott is elected mayor of Ocean City, and W. B. S. Powell -- mayor since 1912 -- goes onto the council.
The Messenger of 27 July 1918: "New Mayor And Council For Ocean City. Last Tuesday night a Citizens' meeting held at Ocean City [nominated the] following ticket to be voted for at the election to be held Monday, August 5th. For Mayor, Edward M. Scott. For Councilmen: William B. S. Powell, Christopher Ludlum, E. E. Collins, Dr. Frank Harmonson, L. D. Lynch." Two weeks later the paper's page-five headline: "Scott Elected Mayor Of Ocean City, Md." This matters beyond the town: the campaign's registry has carried W. B. S. Powell as mayor of Ocean City from 1912 to 1921, and the 1918 election ends that. Powell did not leave public life -- he stood on the same ticket for councilman, and won -- but from August 1918 the mayor of Ocean City is Edward M. Scott. Note also that the whole thing is settled by a single "Citizens' meeting" nominating one uncontested ticket: this is a town of a few hundred winter residents running itself by acclamation.
W. B. S. Powell was mayor from 1912; in August 1918 Edward M. Scott was elected mayor and Powell became a councilman
Edward M. ScottWilliam B. S. PowellChristopher LudlamDr. Frank J. Harmonson
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1918 · 1918-08-13
Worcester County declares the Deep Sea Products Company's fish factory at Ocean City a public nuisance.
From the County Commissioners' proceedings printed in the Messenger of 17 August 1918: "Resolved that the fish factory of the Deep Sea Products Company at Ocean City be adjudged a public nuisance, and that the Clerk be instructed to write to the company to this effect, and to notify them to abate same at once." A resort town and a fish-rendering plant on the same sand bar, and the county taking the resort's side -- in the middle of the season, and in a year when the same county was helping Washington put the fishery under federal control.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1933 · 1933-09-18
The City Council of Ocean City signed a brief for a Chesapeake ferry — one of only two named town bodies all year
Sixteen Eastern Shore trade, municipal and service organisations filed a brief with the Public Works Administration supporting a $425,000 loan for a ferry between Chesapeake Beach and Hudson, Md. Among the signatories, listed in the Evening Star of 18 September: 'Lions Club of Berlin and Ocean City, Md.; City Council of Ocean City, Md., and the Ocean City Hotel Owners' Association.' In a year with no county newspaper, the council appears exactly once, and never with its members' names.
Source · checked 2026-08-10
1977 · 1977-02-21
Maryland's open meetings requirements arrived and the council drafted its own exemptions, candidly: nobody wanted reporters on the mayor's shoulder while he evacuated the town
"(A) Emergency meetings where the nature of the emergency, as determined by the Chief Executive Officer or a majority of the Council, dictates that full public access would unduly interfere with the attempts of the public officials to cope with said emergency." And in the room: "We don't want the Mayor to have a couple of reporters sitting on his shoulder when he is trying to evacuate the Town of Ocean City in the event of an emergency." Eighteen years after the county paper had accused the Commissioners of doing their business behind closed doors, the argument arrives at the resort with the roles reversed — the town writing its own rules for when the public may be shut out.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
1983 · 1983-02-21
Resolution 1983-1 put Atlantic City into a formal resolution to prove a resort must never stop building — the same city Kelley had cited eight years earlier to prove a resort must never let itself rot
"Whereas, Ocean City is experiencing record levels of tourist crowds, economic growth and construction of new dwelling units, which is particularly significant in the current depressed economy of the rest of the country; and Whereas, a building moratorium because of the unavailability of sewage facilities would have a 'chilling effect' on developers, builders and financial institutions … Whereas, if new construction is halted, the tax base of the Town of Ocean City would be depressed and the entire economy of both Ocean City and Worcester County would be adversely affected; and Whereas, tourism is the primary industry … and the number of tourists is directly related to the number of accommodations available … and Whereas, the Mayor and City Council of Ocean City are cognizant of the disastrous effect on a resort community that does not continue to grow (i.e. Atlantic City, New Jersey)." The resolution's logic is a closed loop — more rooms make more tourists make more tax base — and it is the clearest statement in this record of why the building never stopped. The moratorium it opposed arose from the capacity of the northern sewage interceptor.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
1997
Ridership rose 113 per cent to 2,543,793 after the 1991 dollar all-day pass — and Ocean City makes the largest local government contribution of any transit system in Maryland, with only 10 per cent of operating costs covered by federal and state aid against 38 to 65 per cent elsewhere
"Since the implementation of a major fare and service level change in 1991, annual ridership has steadily increased. In 1991, annual ridership soared over 113% to 2,543,793 passengers. In 1993, monthly patronage during the summer tourist months averaged more than 850,000 riders. This is a tremendous achievement for any transit system … Impetus for these improvements is rooted in the Town's and the Governor's desire to reduce frequent periods of traffic congestion on Coastal Highway." And the complaint: "Federal and state operating assistance constitutes only about 10% of the system's operating costs. The combined state and federal operating assistance levels for other locally operated transit systems range from 38% to 65%. Consequently, the Town of Ocean City is required to make the largest local government contribution of any locally operated transit system in Maryland." The same pattern as the beach: a service the State wants, paid for by the town.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
1997 · 1997-01-06
The first item Mathias handled as mayor was a plaque from Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, thanking Ocean City for its help after Hurricane Fran
"Mayor Mathias read a letter and inscription of a plaque presented to the Town of Ocean City from the Town of Wrightsville Beach, NC, for assistance during Hurricane Fran." Powell had led the delegation south "right after Hurricane Fran wreaked its force", and thanked the council and the residents "for allowing this trip which provided positive results for that town." A town that spent the 1980s asking Annapolis for a million dollars for its own beach is now the one that sends help.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2001
Ocean City is named a 2001 All-America City by the National Civic League.
Announced Saturday evening at the close of the competition in Atlanta, Ocean City was one of 10 winners chosen from 30 finalists nationwide. The town's presentation featured three community projects: the RAAM (Reducing Availability of Alcohol to Minors) program with Play It Safe, special-needs housing (Children's House by the Sea on 66th Street — the only pediatric respite house of its kind in the country — and Diakonia), and the Maryland Coastal Bays program. "The Town of Ocean City is extremely proud to be an All-America City," said Mayor Jim Mathias. The town celebrated with the 'Daewoo Presents Ocean City's All-America City 2001 Celebration Laser Show' with fireworks over Labor Day weekend.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
2001 · 2001-06-08
Pat Svehla of Catonsville boats the season's first white marlin on June 8 — three weeks earlier than 2000 — earning $5,000 from the town.
Fishing aboard the Box Lunch, captained by Gary Stamm, Svehla reeled in the first white marlin of the 2001 season at 12:20 p.m. on Friday, June 8, about 64 miles off Ocean City, using a 30-lb. line baited with ballyhoo — then released the fish. The catch came about three weeks earlier than 2000's first white (July 1). The town's traditional award: $5,000 from the Town of Ocean City plus $1,000 from the Ocean City Marlin Club, presented at a fall banquet.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
2023 · 2023-07-17
Having lost before the Public Service Commission, Ocean City escalated to the federal level and bought the expertise: $175,500 for peer review of the US Wind construction and operations plan
The council approved a contract with SLR International Corporation, working with Smultea Environmental Sciences, Climate Arts & Science Experts and Chronicle Heritage. The City Manager's memo is careful about who his consultants have worked for: "I then had a series of meetings with SLR to refine their scope of work and make sure they had no conflicts of interest given the City's position on the US Wind project as it is currently proposed in the COP. SLR did do a small job for Ørsted in the past and they have done extensive work for wind farm developers in Europe but none for US Wind or any company affiliated with US Wind." And explicit about what is bought: "SLR will review each item in the COP that impacts either the Town of Ocean City or the location of the turbines including impacts on the Horseshoe Crap [sic], Right Whale, visual impacts, cultural and economic impacts and many others. This work is highly specialized and the cost reflects that. The fee will be based on actual time and expenses not to exceed $175,500."
Source · checked 2026-09-02