Hal Adkins
public works director · active c. 1997–c. 2024
Public Works Director of Ocean City for some twenty-five years. On 8 April 2004 he laid out twenty-seven years of Eagle's Landing to a special session called to answer a letter from the FAA — land acquired with federal and State aviation help specifically for a cross-wind runway, forty further acres of the Mumford Farm taken in 1986, and approval in December 1989 for a golf course on an interim basis with a ten per cent revenue accounting that was still being clarified through the 1990s. In October 2019 it was Adkins who brought the town's homeless population to the Police Commission, because his staff were finding people sleeping at the transit centre and on the beach by the Inlet lot.
In the record (12)
1997
James N. Mathias, Jr. became mayor in 1997 — the councilman who had sat through the beach fight, the convention centre bond and the open-meetings argument
Council President Richard Meehan; Councilmen Duggan, Gisriel, Hall, Mann, Steckman returned; Councilwoman Howard; City Manager Dennis Dare; Public Works Director Hal Adkins; Superintendent of Transportation Woodrow W. Shockley. Ninety-eight documents, about 1.86 million characters. Mathias had seconded the 1994 motion to thank Senator Smelser for restoring a quarter of a million dollars to the beach fund; he would later serve in the Maryland Senate.
Rick MeehanDennis W. DareVincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2001 · 2001-06-26
Gov. Parris Glendening cuts the ribbon on the $4.356 million West Ocean City Park and Ride, which opens July 3 and carries 119,807 riders in its first season.
Located on Route 50 just west of the Harry Kelley Memorial Bridge, the intermodal facility offered some 700-710 parking spaces, a free-parking/$1 ride-all-day link into the resort's bus system, and connections to Worcester, Wicomico and Somerset county buses. Ninety percent of the cost was funded by the Maryland Department of Transportation. Over 20,000 tons of concrete rubble from Ocean City and 250 tons of recycled glass (blended into the asphalt) went into construction, with 181,000 sq. ft. of wetlands mitigation. Its first big test came at Sunfest, when it shuttled 22,220 people over four days — 10,583 on Saturday, Sept. 22 alone. 'Sunfest was a key event to test the facility and it passed with flying colors,' said Public Works Director Hal Adkins.
Route 50 Drawbridge (Harry W. Kelley Memorial Bridge)
Source · checked 2026-08-06
2004
Eighty-nine documents and about 2.29 million characters, with Joseph Hall II and James Hall both on the council alongside Lloyd Martin and Joseph Mitrecic
Mayor James N. Mathias, Jr.; Council President Richard Meehan; Councilmen Vincent Gisriel, Jr., Joseph Hall II, James Hall, Lloyd Martin, Joseph Mitrecic; Council Member Nancy Howard; City Manager Dennis Dare; Public Works Director Hal Adkins; City Solicitor Guy Ayres III. Martin and Mitrecic would both later serve as mayor or council president; the bench of the next twenty years is assembled here.
Rick MeehanDennis W. DareGuy R. Ayres IIIVincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2005
Ninety-four documents and one source, in the year the town was told its seasonal workforce needed feeding
Mayor James N. Mathias, Jr.; Council President Richard Meehan; Councilmen Joe Hall, Jim Hall, Hancock, Lloyd Martin, Joseph Mitrecic; Council Member Nancy Howard; City Manager Dennis Dare; Public Works Director Hal Adkins; Deputy City Clerk Virginia A. d'Eustachio. What the students themselves said, and what their housing was actually like, is not in this record at all — the two accounts of them here are both given by other people on their behalf.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2009 · 2009-09-21
After a citizen's six-month campaign, the town approved a $5 one-way curb-to-curb ride for disabled residents to medical appointments in Berlin, three days a week, as a pilot to run until April 2010
Bob Melvin first "asked the Council to consider a city-wide effort to raise funds for door-to-door transportation services into Berlin" at the regular meeting of 16 March 2009; a committee with Councilwoman Pillas, Shore Transit and the county was appointed on 31 March, and on 15 June the council wrote to the County Commissioners asking that Shore Transit include Ocean City in its curb-to-curb route. Regular meeting of 21 September 2009, unfinished business: "Public Works Director Hal Adkins made a recommendation to initiate a pilot program to provide curb-to-curb ADA Transit Services for ADA eligible patrons ... having non-emergency medical appointments, who desire curb to curb service originating within the corporate limits of Ocean City to a destination within the corporate limits of Berlin. The service, he proposed, will be offered on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays (or whatever three days per week will be most productive) for a one-way fee of $5.00 ... Council Member Jim Hall moved to accept the recommendation and approve the $5.00 one-way fee per passenger (with the provisions that the Pilot Program would run until April 01, 2010 ...). The vote was unanimous." On 1 December the council approved the memorandum with Shore Transit, which "agreed to reimburse the Town $32.00 per round trip," and on 7 December Adkins explained that donated funds would become "vouchers for ADA Patrons claiming hardship," the driver placing a voucher in the farebox; "All other ADA-qualified patrons will pay $5.00 per one-way trip."
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2010 · 2010-04-13
The council voted unanimously to abolish the town's recycling programme, saving about $1 million a year, because processing recyclables cost $394 a ton against $162 a ton to burn everything at Covanta for electricity
At the work session of 13 April 2010, item 9: "Public Works Director Hal Adkins, accompanied by Public Works Deputy Director Dick Malone, proposed to eliminate the Recycling Program, which will save the Town $1 million dollars annually. He explained that recycling is no longer economically sustainable as evidenced by a cost comparison for solid waste disposal at $162.00 per ton, against processing recyclables for $394.00 per ton. All waste will be transported to Covanta Energy where it will be reduced and converted into electricity." Item 10 set the mechanics for on or about 26 April: "Any blue bins left curbside will be collected. Residents desiring to continue recycling must curb their recyclables in a cardboard box; then, in the future, find a Worcester County Disposal sight (i.e. the West Ocean City Walmart parking lot). City-owned barrels, used by Bars & Restaurants to collect glass, will be removed. Condominium and town home collections will be discontinued." Cardboard collection stayed mandatory; the drop-off centres on Worcester, 39th, 66th, 94th and 130th Streets were removed, the oil and antifreeze site on 66th Street kept. "Council Member Jim Hall moved to accept this recommendation to eliminate the recycling program; seconded by Council Secretary Lloyd Martin. The vote was unanimous." On 3 May the mayor "thanked the Town's citizens and businesses for adjusting well to the new solid waste policy."
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2010 · 2010-08-16
The winter Coastal Highway bus deployment was cut from three buses a shift to 'Two, Two and One', saving about $109,000, over residents' objections that night-shift workers who missed a bus would wait an hour in the cold
At the public hearing of 16 August 2010, required by the Maryland Transit Administration before any change in deployment, Public Works Director Hal Adkins explained that the council had chosen at its 12 May budget wrap-up "to reduce the level of service during the winter months from a deployment of three buses in the morning, three buses in the afternoon and three buses in the evening to what we know at staff level is 'Two - Two and One'" - one bus on the ten-to-six graveyard shift, Sunday to Thursday, from 1 November 2010 to 3 April 2011 - for "a reduction in savings of roughly One Hundred and Nine Thousand Dollars ($109,000.00)." Beverly Butler of English Towers: "I'm really worried about those women or men who miss that bus by two minutes and then they stand there for another fifty-five or sixty minutes ... I sure wouldn't like to be working until two o'clock in the morning and then miss that bus by a minute or two minutes." She added that she paid "five dollars a day" to park at eight in the morning for her grandchild's junior beach patrol camp. Patrick McKenna: "I just think it would be a shame just to go from being in the United States to being in Bangladesh." A sign language interpreter attended.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2012 · 2012-03-05
After ten years at $1 for an all-day ride, the West Ocean City Park and Ride shuttle fare went to $3 all day or $1 a boarding, to match the Coastal Highway bus, over a resident's letter that a family of four would now pay $12
Public Works Director Hal Adkins opened the public hearing of 5 March 2012: "the Park & Ride itself was open in the summer of 2001... the service between the West Ocean City and the Downtown Transit Center at South Division was in fact free. There was no charge to ride that bus the first summer. It was the following summer, the summer of 2002, that the Mayor & Council implemented a one dollar ride all day pass, and that is the fee structure that has been in existence for the last ten years. We are now proposing to modify that fare structure, so in fact, it would be equivalent to Coastal Highway. It would be a three dollar ride all day, or a one dollar boarding." The $3 pass would now carry a rider "anywhere on the island at all up to, and including 146th Street"; a coupon book was "Twenty coupons for fifteen dollars." Adkins read into the record an email from Judy H. Davis of West Ocean City: the young workers at the mall stop "laden with packages, probably 75% of the bags from the Dollar Tree... that extra dollar it will cost to ride across the bridge could have been a loaf of bread", and for a day-tripping family "the $1 fare to ride the shuttle for the day - $4 total has now become $12 dollars for an all day pass". Joe Hall moved "to make the change to have parity throughout the transportation system", carried unanimously, to take effect by opening day of Springfest 2012 pending Maryland Transit Administration approval; Resolution 2012-5 was ratified 2 April.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2015
From 2015 the IQM2 packets include every attachment: 1,541 files retrieved for the year, of which 336 are actual session records carrying about 8.29 million characters
The year and every year after it must be triaged by filtering to documents whose opening pages are a session record. Mayor Richard W. Meehan; Council President Lloyd Martin; Council Secretary Mary Knight; Council Members Doug Cymek, Dennis Dare, Tony DeLuca, Wayne Hartman, Matt James; City Manager David L. Recor, ICMA-CM; City Solicitor Guy Ayres; City Clerk Diana Chavis; City Engineer Terence McGean; Public Works Director Hal Adkins; Finance Administrator Martha Bennett. The corpus's problem has inverted since 1934: the difficulty is no longer that nothing survives but that too much does.
Terry McGeanRick MeehanDennis W. DareDavid L. RecorGuy R. Ayres IIIDiana Chavis
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2017 · 2017-01-17
By four votes to three the council re-cut the Inlet parking lot's rate table into twenty-minute steps, with the first twenty minutes free and $2 for the next twenty, so the lot could stop handling coins
Reporting the Transportation Committee at the regular meeting of 17 January 2017, Mayor Meehan said that "To increase Inlet lot efficiency and eliminate need for coin currency, he requested Council consider a resolution to change the parking rate structure to calculate time on 20 and 30 minute increments rather than the current 10 and 15 minute increments, change free time from 30 minutes to 20 minutes, and change handicap free time from 90 minutes to 60 minutes." Council Member James wanted the 30 free minutes kept and Council Member Hartman wanted the lost-ticket charge cut to $48 in season and $32 off season. The motion that carried 4 to 3 (Martin, Knight, Dare, DeLuca for; Gehrig, Hartman, James against) set: "Seasonal Rate 0-20 minutes free, 21-40=$2, 41-60=$3, $1.00 within each additional 20 minute period, lost ticket maximum charge=$72; Handicap Parking 0-60 minutes free, 61-80=$4, 81-100=$5, 101-120=$6; Off Season: 0-20 minutes free, 21-30=$1, 31-60=$2, $1.00 within each additional 30 minute period, lost ticket maximum charge $48." The same night the council spent $30,631.40 to convert the lot's tickets to barcodes. When Resolution 2017-01 came for adoption on 6 February, Public Works Director Hal Adkins gave the figures behind it: "there were 442,100 transactions during the 2016 summer season of which 92,705 or 21% of those transactions were free (less than 30/90 minutes). Of the 92,705 free transactions, 79.6% were in and out of the Inlet Parking Lot in less than 20 minutes. Also noted four (4) lost ticket transactions took place during the 2016 summer, and the full $72 lost ticket fee has never been charged."
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2019
Three hundred and sixty session documents, about 8.41 million characters, one source
Mayor Richard W. Meehan; Council President and Police Commission Chairman Lloyd Martin; Council Secretary Mary Knight; Council Member Matt James; City Manager Douglas Miller; Police Chief Ross Buzzuro; Public Works Director Hal Adkins. The largest character count in the corpus, and the year that produced its first count of the homeless — both facts about what a government writes down.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2019 · 2019-10-16
The first passage in this corpus that counts the town's poor: forty homeless people identified, twenty-four of them not housed — and it arose because Public Works staff asked for help
"Department of Public Works Director Hal Adkins joined the meeting to describe two situations that his employees are experiencing. One situation is occurring at the transit center where there seems to be homeless individuals who are sleeping on the benches and sidewalk. The second situation is that there are people sleeping in vehicles and/or sleeping on the beach near the inlet lot." And: "Lt. Eade joined the meeting to speak to the homeless situation in Ocean City and discussed the Homeless Outreach Team (HOT). HOT is comprised of members of the OCPD, Worcester County Health Department, Social Services, Diakonia and other resources. When HOT first began there were 40 homeless identified in the Town, 24 of whom have not been housed. HOT goes out every 2 weeks and speaks with the homeless and offers them resources and information to help get them off the street. HOT received recognition from the State Health Department and Governor Hogan for their work in Worcester County." Diakonia, founded 1972, is here doing the work in a police committee's minutes. And the detail that stays: some of the people sleeping at the Inlet are not homeless at all.
Source · checked 2026-09-02