Rick Meehan

mayor · active 1985–present

Ocean City's longest-serving modern mayor. Elected to the City Council in 1985, council president for much of the 1990s, and mayor since 2006. In 2021 he presided over the town's record COVID-rebound fiscal year, the acceleration of the police body-camera program after the Boardwalk use-of-force videos, and the town's escalating fight against nearshore offshore wind turbines.

In the record (158)

1985 · 1985-04-24
Roland E. Powell became mayor in April 1985 — sixteen years after this record first met him as a councilman in the town's advertisement in the Messenger's centennial edition
The prayer on 24 April was offered "with me and the rest of the Council, Mayor-elect Powell and Councilman-elect Meehan": "grant the elected representatives of our community gathered here tonight the wisdom, the foresight, the judgement and the will to govern our Town, preserve its heritage and guard its future." In August 1969 Powell was one of seven councilmen named in a full-page advertisement standing beside a $3 million convention hall that had not yet opened. He would be mayor for most of the next three decades. Councilman Feehley had resigned on 7 March and a special election was set.
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1985 · 1985-06-17
Asked by the state Secretary of Transportation what to name for Harry Kelley, the council chose the Route 50 bridge over Route 90 by four votes to two, and told Annapolis to use his middle initial and spell Kelley his way
Regular meeting of 17 June 1985, comments from the Mayor. Mayor Powell: "I got a call from the Secretary of Transportation; they'd like some input on what we'd like to name for Harry Kelley." Councilman Moore: "I still think it should be Route 50 Bridge." Council President Trimper: "if they're going to do one, do any highway or anything that it be the Route 90 Bridge." Powell counted: "One 50 and one 90." Hurley, Route 50. "Two 50s." Ellis, "Three 50s." Trumpower: "Make it an even two hundred." Meehan: "It's really immaterial to me but I did favor 90." Powell: "It sounds like 50; do you want to go ahead and send it in?" Hurley: "I've read a hundred letters about the man or more and his initial was always in there. I would suggest that the initial be put in." Ellis: "Harry W. Kelley." Trimper: "And make sure they spell Kelley the way he did." The synopsis, item 23: "Vote was 4 for Rte. 50 and 2 for Rte. 90. Letter will be forwarded." The Route 50 bridge is the Harry W. Kelley Memorial Bridge.
Harry W. Kelley Roland E. "Fish" Powell Granville Trimper
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1986 · 1986-01-06
The council met fifty-two times in 1986 — the first year it sat weekly — and opened the year by lifting a building moratorium
"DISCUSSION ON BUILDING MORATORIUM … Then I think we probably need a motion to go ahead and lift the building moratorium." Mayor Roland E. Powell in his first full year; Council President Granville Trimper; Councilmen Duggan, Meehan, Moore, Ellis, Trumpower, Hurley; City Manager Anthony W. Barrett; City Solicitor Guy Ayres III; City Engineer Dennis Dare; City Planner Jesse Houston; Zoning Administrator Blaine Smith; Clerk/Treasurer Sheldon Dietert. In 1946 the council met thirty-one times; in 1957, forty; now every week of the year.
Anthony W. Barrett Dennis W. Dare Granville Trimper Guy R. Ayres III Jesse Houston
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1986 · 1986-07-07
The charge for the town cutting an owner's uncut lot rose from $25 to $35 per 5,000 square feet by Resolution 1986-6
City Solicitor Ayres at the regular meeting of 7 July 1986: "Resolution 1986-6 increases the grass cutting charge from $25.00 for 5,000 square feet of land or a fraction thereof to $35.00." Councilman Meehan moved it (twice giving the wrong number - "What'd I say that time?"), Councilman Trumpower seconded, and the vote was unanimous. The clerk's summary: "Resolution 1986-6 - increases the grass-cutting charge of $25.00 for 5,000 sq. ft. of land." It passed the same night as six revenue ordinances raising building, sign, site-plan, mobile-home and appeals-board fees and a resolution on port wardens' permit fees.
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1988
The year the sand was actually pumped is recorded here from forty-eight sets of council minutes and nothing else
About 1.67 million characters. Mayor Roland E. Powell; Council President Granville Trimper; Councilmen Feehley, Hurley, Meehan, Steckman, Trumpower, Hall; City Manager Anthony W. Barrett; City Solicitor Guy Ayres III; City Clerk Carol Davis. The environmental groups whose objection Hurley describes are known to this record only through the mouths of the men who waited them out.
A. C. Davis Anthony W. Barrett Granville Trimper Guy R. Ayres III
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1988 · 1988-10-20
Council President Granville Trimper finished fifth in the October 1988 election with 913 votes, tied with Hank Westfall, and George Hurley was elected president over Rick Meehan by four votes to three
At the organizational special session of 20 October 1988 Lucy Gaffney of the Board of Election Supervisors read the results of the Tuesday election: "Roland E. Powell for Mayor - Total 1,495; for Council: Brent Ashley - 254; Vincent Gisriel, Jr. - 1,146; Sally S. Hacking - 1,132; James S. Hall - 1,262; Richard W. Meehan - 1,217; Granville Trimper - 913; Henry B. Westfall - 913." Four seats were filled; Trimper, president through the whole beach-replenishment fight, was out. Councilman Steckman: "We had a virtual 60% turnout." Steckman nominated Meehan for president; the vote was four to three for Hurley, who said he hoped "to fill the seat of a big man who sat here before who certainly had my respect. I sort of hate to see him go." Meehan was elected secretary unanimously. Mayor Powell: "Most of all I guess we've all got to thank God that we have made it through this election ... no name-calling or anything of that nature." On 7 November Councilman Feehley, noting that the Charter leaves a tied election to the new Council, moved for a run-off election instead; the Solicitor agreed the Council deciding was "an almost untenable situation".
Granville Trimper Vincent Gisriel Jr.Roland E. "Fish" Powell
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1989
Vincent Gisriel, Jr. — the private citizen who had stood at the podium in 1987 and 1988 taking the capital plan apart — took a seat on the council, and Granville Trimper left the chair he had held through the whole beach fight
Mayor Roland E. Powell; Council President George Hurley; Councilmen Feehley, Hall, Meehan, Steckman, Councilwoman Sally Hacking, and Councilman Vincent Gisriel, Jr. Gisriel had argued for tax relief on beach easements in February 1987 and warned about fifty million dollars of bonds in February 1988; he is now on the other side of the rail. Trimper had been president through the Trident Report, the governor's opposition, the emergency ordinances and the dredges.
Granville Trimper Vincent Gisriel Jr.
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1989 · 1989-04-17
The council refused a national beach-volleyball tour its July stop, six to one, because the tournament was a DeKuyper promotion "presented by Playboy" and "we try to project a family resort image"
Peter Turnapoll asked the regular meeting of 17 April 1989 for tentative approval of the "DeKuyper DeVotion by DeOcean Beach Volleyball Series", a fifteen-market tour due in Ocean City on 15-16 July with sixty or seventy teams, ten to twelve courts on about a block of beach, 96 Rock on a stage, a $20 entry fee per team and a gross of T-shirts for the Leukemia Society, Polaroid buttons taken "with a local Playboy Playmate", and a boomerang frisbee called the Wheezer. Councilman Hall: "we don't allow selling on the beach period" - the town would not even let its own Beach Patrol sell T-shirts there. Councilman Steckman: "the contest is co-sponsored by Playboy? ... I have a major problem with that because we try to project a family resort image and that definitely does not play for that... I don't think Jim Beam brand... represents Ocean City for what we believe Ocean City's all about. I make a motion to deny the request." Councilman Gisriel echoed him. Turnapoll argued that the two Playmates "will be the most dressed people you'll have" and that "when President Carter decided to give an interview he didn't go to Time Magazine... he went to Playboy"; Councilman Meehan replied that everyone he knew with a subscription "says they bought it for the articles." The motion to deny carried six to one, Feehley opposed, and Meehan told the promoter to go back through Tom Perlozzo of Recreation and Parks with the town as co-sponsor, as a volleyball tournament had been run the year before.
Vincent Gisriel Jr.
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1990
The document count doubles to 94 as work sessions, correspondence packets and bid documents begin to be filed with the minutes — from here the record is an archive rather than a transcript
About 1.73 million characters. The change matters for how every later year of this campaign must be read: verbatim argument gives way to filed paper, and the kind of sentence that made 1972 and 1988 legible becomes rarer. Mayor Roland E. Powell; Council President George Hurley; Councilman Richard Meehan as Secretary; Councilmen Feehley, Gisriel, Hall, Steckman; Councilwoman Sally Hacking; City Solicitor Guy Ayres III; City Clerk Carol L. Jacobs.
Guy R. Ayres III Vincent Gisriel Jr.
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1990 · 1990-10-01
Councilman Hall proposed a Springfest for April 1991, 'very similar to Sunfest', to open the season early, and the council approved a committee to plan it against the Chamber's printing deadline - the first appearance of the festival in the minutes
Item 16 of the regular meeting of 1 October 1990, "Discussion Regarding Springfest": "A presentation then followed by Councilman Hall to initiate a Springfest to be held tentatively in April very similar to Sunfest to expand the season and bring tourists into Town earlier in the year. The project would start small and hopefully over the years be expanded to be as good a production as Sunfest. He also suggested using Pete Richardson to chair this event because of his proven experience." Hall in the transcript: "You can't measure in my mind the amount of money, fun, and a great time that Sunfest brings to Ocean City ... based on the overwhelming response I got from the groups in Town, hotel/motel and the Downtown and those type of groups, that it's, it's, it's a dead winter." Councilman Meehan: "I was here when the first year of Sunfest; and I can tell you, it's come a long way from a, a trailer on the 7th Street parking lot ... I think it's a heck of an idea" and proposed a Springfest Committee of the City Manager, Bob Rothermel, Jim Hall and himself. Hall: "we can't wait and I'll tell you why ... All the printed material for the Chamber ... They're getting ready to send to print their mail-out information." Later in the meeting Hall thanked the council "for your approval of Springfest" and asked it "to please be patient with it because it, it really it's gonna be a huge undertaking for the staff." On 5 November the new council was told the Springfest committee "really becomes part of the Convention Hall Commission."
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1990 · 1990-10-18
Roland Powell was re-elected mayor 1,598 to 511 over Steve Johansen, Jim Mathias led the council poll with 1,283, Buck Mann and Hank Westfall took the other two seats, and incumbents George Feehley and Glenn Steckman lost; Rick Meehan became council president
At the organizational meeting of 18 October 1990 Catherine Smith, secretary of the Board of Supervisors of Elections, read the results: "For Mayor, the totals were Steve Johansen: 511. Roland E. Powell: 1598. For Council, Brent Ashley: 161. James Dembeck: 738. Rudy DiDio: 165. George W. Feehley: 815. Charney L. Harris, Senior: 339. Walter Buck Mann: 1,090. James N. Mathias: 1283. Glenn Steckman: 810. And Henry Hank Westfall: 864." The agenda carried the oaths of office for Mayor Roland E. Powell and "Councilmembers A. James N. Mathias, Jr. B. Walter C. Mann C. Henry B. Westfall", then the election of a Council President and Secretary; the 5 November minutes are headed by "President Meehan" with Councilmen Mann, Mathias and Westfall sitting. Council President George Hurley had not stood - on 15 October Steckman "wished him well in his bid for county election" - and on 24 July Hurley had said "I won't be here to worry about the budget next year." Steckman on 15 October "took this opportunity to thank everyone on the staff and Council for his past four years."
Roland E. "Fish" Powell James N. "Jim" Mathias Jr.
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1991 · 1991-01-07
In the week before the Gulf War air campaign, the council waived its special-event rules and fees so the Peace Alliance of the Lower Shore could hold a Sunday peace vigil with ministers and guitars on the Inlet parking lot
At the regular meeting of 7 January 1991 (item 9 of the clerk's synopsis), "Ms. Jane Harrington, representing the Peace Alliance of the Lower Shore, made an appearance to request use of the Inlet parking lot for a peace vigil on Sunday at 4:00 p.m. Because of the short notice, there had not been time to fill in the special events form. She explained that there would be some guitar music and different ministers." City Solicitor Ayres "stated that this gathering was different than those requiring the special events permit." Councilman Gisriel "moved to approve and waive the normal requirements and fees"; Councilman Hall seconded; President Meehan "suggested that Ms. Harrington meet with the City Manager and the Police Department to coordinate this. The vote was unanimous." The Sunday in question was 13 January 1991, two days before the United Nations deadline for Iraq to leave Kuwait; the special session of 25 January would be debating a lighted yellow ribbon for City Hall's front door.
Vincent Gisriel Jr.
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1991 · 1991-02-20
Offered a tugboat for the fishing reef, the council balked at $5,700 to move it, then voted $2,000 as a one-third share once service clubs and the county commissioners were said to be paying the rest
At the work session of 12 February 1991 (synopsis item 11): "A tug boat has been offered to the City that could be sunk near the Blenny but moving it would be at the City's expense, $5,700. No interest was shown at this time." Eight days later, at the regular meeting of 20 February, President Meehan reported that the proposer "has since gone to some members of the private community, some of the local service organizations. And he believes he has a commitment from them for one-third of the money. And he also told me that he believes that the county commissioners will also agree to pay one-third of the costs which will decrease the cost to the Town from $5900 to $2,000 ... I spoke to the Mayor prior to the meeting tonight and although he voiced opposition to the $5900 expenditure, he thought that by the other parties becoming involved and our costs being reduced to 33% that he would endorse us going ahead." Councilwoman Hacking: "I make a motion that we expend that $2,000 ... for the purpose of sinking a boat as long as we're not having to go out there and watch it happen." Meehan: "We're inviting everybody that ever was on it to come down and watch it go under." Hall: "Some'll be invited to stay on it." Councilman Gisriel asked how far out the Blenny lay - "I've been confused about whether our corporate limits are two-to-three miles" - and was told "It's out by the Jackspot," about twelve miles. The vote, taken after the chair had nearly adjourned without it, was unanimous, subject to the private and county money being appropriated. On 15 April City Manager Dare reported a letter from John Foster of DNR saying "we could come up with the same scenario that we had with the USS Blenny," and the council authorized the solicitor to negotiate the contract of sale; the 1 July agenda still carried an "inquiry as to date of tug sinking."
Maryland Department of Natural Resources Vincent Gisriel Jr.Dennis W. Dare
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1991 · 1991-03-26
A motion to ban dogs from the beach year round, prompted by a Century I complaint about droppings, failed 2-3 after Mayor Powell said seagulls and Boardwalk splinters were the bigger problem
Work session of 26 March 1991, synopsis item 11: "Councilman Westfall read a letter of complaint into the record from property owners in Century 1 concerning dogs and dog droppings. Councilman Westfall then moved to not allow dogs, leashed or unleased, on the beach year round. Councilman Gisriel seconded the motion. Mayor Powell stated this would take an ordinance to enact into law. President Meehan felt this was more of a nuisance problem and should be resolved in some other manner than to just disallow them on the beach. Councilman Mann reiterated it was an enforcement problem. Mayor Powell agreed and felt there were more problems with seagulls and splinters from the Boardwalk. President Meehan suggested tabling the motion and having the Police Commission review this for action. More discussion followed and the vote was 2-3 and did not carry." Dogs were already barred from the beach in season; the motion would have extended the ban through the winter.
Roland E. "Fish" Powell Vincent Gisriel Jr.
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1991 · 1991-04-15
The 1991 beach parcel bids ran from $350 for 70th Street to $6,225 for 5th Street, and Patrice Bell held four of the eight stands
President Meehan read the year's beach parcel awards into the record at the regular meeting of 15 April 1991 (item 12): "the Caroline Street parcel was awarded to Patrice Bell for $606. Talbot Street parcel was awarded to Patrice Bell for $1,701. The 5th Street parcel was awarded to Kenneth Edmunds for $6,225. 59th Street to Ron Steen, 750. 70th Street, William Boyles, $350. 121st Street, Patrice Bell, 1,351. 122nd Street, Patrice Bell, 1,351. And 130th Street, Ron Steen for $750. And there's a note here that the Talbot Street, Caroline Street, and 5th Street parcels are for two years while 59th Street, 70th Street, 121st Street, 122nd Street, and 130th Street parcels are for one year only." The bids had been opened at the April meeting of the Beach Mediation Board; Councilman Mann moved to accept them "per your reading" and the vote was unanimous. The spread - eighteen to one between the downtown stand nearest the Boardwalk crowds and a mid-town street end - is the going price of beach-chair and umbrella rights in the first summer of the widened beach.
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1991 · 1991-10-07
Twice in 1991 the council refused residents permission to keep pet snakes - two pythons in June, and in October a pair their owner had kept for nine years and said were hibernating - and gave the second owner two weeks to get them out of town
Regular meeting of 17 June 1991, synopsis item 11: "Mr. Jalyn Owens made an appearance to request permission to house his two pet python snakes in Ocean City which are not allowed per City code. He informed the Council that they are in a lock-proof cage and he would be responsible for them. Councilman Gisriel moved to deny the request with a second from Councilman Mathias. The vote was unanimous." President Meehan: "Many people would have just gone ahead and, and moved their snake into town and I thoroughly respect you for coming forward and asking. I'm sorry we couldn't accommodate you." (The next speaker, the chairman of the election board, opened with "I'm wondering if our position on the agenda means the election board is a snake pit.") On 7 October (item 8, "Request to keep two snakes in Ocean City") Anthony Kolb of 128th Street asked again. Councilwoman Hacking: "I do believe that we turned down a request maybe three months ago for a young man that came up and asked the very same question. So I certainly would not, you know, in all fairness be able to say yes tonight." Kolb: "I've had 'em for over nine years and they've never been loose. They're caged right now. They're in hibernation ... the cage won't even be opened for nine months at which time I will probably not even be in Ocean City." Gisriel: "my instincts say the majority of the community is opposed to that just out of maybe a perceived fear that they might get loose and wander." Councilman Hall, on the realtor who had no objection: "They're all nuts." Mayor Powell: "I'm opposed to it." The denial was unanimous; Kolb asked for "a couple weeks to get 'em out of town" and was given two. Don Hastings, next up to present Sportsfest '91, said he was "glad I'm presenting Sportsfest and not Snakefest."
Vincent Gisriel Jr.Roland E. "Fish" Powell
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1991 · 1991-10-07
A month after the cable company priced televising council meetings at $40,000, radio station WETT got unanimous leave to broadcast them live at no cost to the town, as it had in 1988
On 3 September 1991 Brian Lynch of United Artists Cable told the council that putting meetings on cable would "initially cost the Town $40K"; with no budget allocation and the new chambers unfinished, "it was decided to contemplate it at a future date" (synopsis item 15). At the regular meeting of 7 October (item 6), Wayne Cannon of WETT: "Basically what we're asking you is nothing new because we've broadcast the one before you back in 1988 ... you voted seven, zero to have us do that. And it worked out very well. We did it I guess about four or five months. The clarity was great ... WETT, as you know, is sort of the fiber of Ocean City for many years. We've covered a lot of the hurricanes and storms. And the Mayor can remember, as a fireman, when there was a fire whistle would go off, everybody'd turn to WETT to find out where it was. And fishermen would come in on the Inlet where - honing in on the signal there with WETT." He added that the station would simulcast over United Cable's Channel 41, that "the Rick Meehan reports" ran down the agenda after every meeting, that the City Manager would have a monthly show called Focus on Ocean City, and that from that Thursday "the Governor of the State of Maryland will be a part of WETT ... broadcasting live from the State House" in a phone-in every Thursday from 3:30 to 4:00. "The City would incur no expense ... a well-run, well-produced show starting exactly at 7:30." Councilman Mathias moved to accept, Councilman Hall seconded, and the vote was unanimous with Councilman Westfall absent; broadcasts were to begin with the next meeting.
James N. "Jim" Mathias Jr.
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1992
A hundred and six documents and a changed council: Meehan in the chair, Mathias and Mann arriving, Gisriel still on the floor
Mayor Roland E. Powell; Council President Richard Meehan; Councilmen Gisriel, Hall, Mann, Mathias, Westfall; Councilwoman Sally Hacking; City Manager Dennis Dare; City Solicitor Ayres; City Planner Jesse Houston; Finance Director Martha Bennett. About 1.35 million characters across 106 documents — more paper than 1990 and less text, the archive form settling in.
Dennis W. Dare Guy R. Ayres III Jesse Houston Vincent Gisriel Jr.
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1992 · 1992-03-02
An Indiana carriage company asked to run two horse-drawn carriages for hire in the Philadelphia Avenue bus lane from 15th to 30th Street, and was refused unanimously because the lane belonged to the buses
Elizabeth and Leah DeBoy of Touch of Elegance Carriage Company, Whitestown, Indiana, told the 2 March 1992 regular session they wished to "run two carriages here in Ocean City" on the restricted bus lane, June through September, "from 6:00 to 1:00 a.m.", with the horses stabled at a farm outside Salisbury. City Solicitor Ayres: "I think you need a permit from the Mayor and Council to bring a horse into Ocean City." Councilman Hall: "I've never seen a horse with brake lights." President Meehan said the lane "has been placed there expressly for the service of ... the bus itself", and Councilwoman Hacking, noting the council had "just denied about a month ago a request to utilize the bus lane for another form of transportation", moved "with regret" to deny; Mathias seconded "Regretfully" and the vote was unanimous. Gisriel recalled one earlier carriage request in Caine Woods, also denied, with only weddings and holiday events allowed.
Vincent Gisriel Jr.
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1992 · 1992-03-16
The Maryland Mass Transit Administration came to City Hall to commend Council President Meehan for the one-dollar all-day fare, crediting it with a 119 per cent jump in ridership from 1.125 million to 2.5 million in a single season
Alan Winn, Director of the MTA's Capital and Statewide Programs Division, presented a certificate of commendation at the 16 March 1992 regular session: "The one dollar all day fare emanated right here from government and it emanated from Council President Meehan ... Ocean City transformed a 25-bus transit system into a bus system of over or about 65 buses, partially through the donation of our 37 buses. A 119% increase in transit ridership resulted from the last season. That's from 1.12 - 1.125 million to 2.5 million just last season. And a 15% increase in fares were collected over the prior season." He added that what occurred "was probably the, the largest sustained ridership of any transit system in the country". Meehan answered that "it takes an awful lot of people to do something like that ... it's really a team effort."
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1992 · 1992-07-06
The council let the Cactus Juice beach volleyball tournament go ahead with Hair Cuttery haircuts and Nestea samples but refused a 30-foot inflatable Margarita Schnapps bottle over the beach, then voted 6-1 to strip the Molson inflatable from the Beach Patrol's own lifesaving contest
At the 6 July 1992 regular session an addendum was sought for "the previously approved Cactus Juice Volleyball Tournament on July 18 and 19": "the Hair Cuttery will be doing hair cuts while the tournament is in progress with proceeds donated to the Leukemia Society. Samples of Nestea (iced tea) will be given away from a booth in the area. A 30-foot inflatable Margarita Schnapps bottle and 10-foot inflatable Nestea bottle would be flown over the area. Also a live broadcast would be going on at the same time. Mayor and Council voiced concern regarding the image the liquor bottle presents and any loud music ... Councilwoman Hacking pointed out that the Beach Patrol contest approved earlier has always had a Molson inflatable as have other tournaments of which the Mayor and Council were not aware. Councilman Mann moved to approve deleting the inflatables and keeping the music volume to a minimum ... The vote was unanimous. Councilman Gisriel then moved to have the Molson inflatable deleted from that contest if in fact it would be there. Councilman Mathias seconded. The vote was 6-1 with President Meehan in opposition." The Beach Patrol contest was the Mid-Atlantic Surf Lifesaving Championships of 15 July, approved the same night on Captain Schoepf's request.
Ocean City Beach Patrol Vincent Gisriel Jr.
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1992 · 1992-10-20
In the 20 October 1992 election 2,626 voters returned Mayor Powell 2,015 to 457 over Mr. Harris and put George Feehley and Lee Duggan on the council, while sitting members Vince Gisriel (915) and Sally Hacking (1,049) lost their seats
Mary Adeline Bradford, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Elections, certified the result at the special organizational session of 22 October 1992: "We had 2626 voters. For Mayor: Mr. Harris, 457; Mr. Powell, 2015. Mr. Powell is elected Mayor. For City Council: Lee Duggan, 1238; George Feehley, 1319; Vince Gisriel, 915; Sally Hacking, 1049; Jim Hall, 1530; Richard Meehan, 1616; Glenn Steckman, 1205. The four Councilmen elected: Rick Meehan, Jim Hall, George Feehley, Lee Duggan." Councilman Mathias moved to accept the results. Duggan had left the council by 1987 and Feehley had lost his seat in 1982; both returned. Gisriel, the citizen critic of the beach programme who had won a seat in 1989, finished last of seven. The December work sessions list the new council as Meehan, Westfall, Mathias, Hall, Duggan, Feehley and Mann.
Roland E. "Fish" Powell Vincent Gisriel Jr.
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1993
Ocean City Today was founded in 1993 — the town's second modern paper, nine years after the Maryland Coast Dispatch — and this corpus holds neither for the year
Ninety-five documents, about 1.67 million characters, one source. Mayor Roland E. Powell; Council President Richard Meehan; Councilmen Duggan and Feehley returned, Hall, Mann, Mathias, Westfall. Twenty years after the Democratic Messenger's plant was graded for bank parking, Ocean City has two hometown papers and this record still reads only the minutes.
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1993 · 1993-08-16
When the Wicomico and Caroline Street beach-stand franchisee defaulted in August 1993, the neighbouring operators bought the rest of the season for $75 and $86, and the defaulter was barred from ever bidding again
Synopsis of 16 August 1993, item 13: "With the recent default of the beachstand franchise holder for Wicomico and Caroline Streets, offer was made to the adjacent franchise holders to bid for the remainder of the season. For Caroline Street the high bid of 75 from Ken Edmunds and for Wicomico Street the high bid of $86 from Paul Stock was asked to be accepted. Councilman Mathias moved to accept; seconded by Councilman Hall. The vote was 6-1 with President Meehan opposed. Mayor and Council were informed that the confiscated boxes were stored at the 65th Street impound lot. The defaulted franchise operator may not bid for any beach stands in the future."
James N. "Jim" Mathias Jr.
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1994
Ninety-eight documents and about 1.92 million characters, with Richard Meehan giving way to George Feehley in the chair through the autumn
Mayor Roland E. Powell; Councilmen Duggan, Hall, Mann, Mathias, Westfall; City Manager Dennis Dare; City Solicitor Ayres; City Planner Jesse Houston; City Clerk Carol L. Jacobs. Both Meehan and Mathias would later hold the mayoralty.
Dennis W. Dare Guy R. Ayres III Jesse Houston
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1994 · 1994-06-06
A flier campaign showing a bloated figure "feeding City Council with your money" killed the plan to put 700 parking meters on the side streets, and the council balanced the FY-95 budget instead by selling 600 surplus meters at $175 apiece
At the regular session of 6 June 1994, before the first reading of the FY-95 budget ordinance, Councilman Feehley read from a flier - "Certain members have decided to install parking meters on every street from the Inlet to the Delaware Line" - and from an advertisement that "shows a grotesque, bloated figure wallowing in money, stuffing money in its mouth. 'Feeding City Council with your money.' I wish the person who put this ad out would stand up and explain it to me. Hale, you raised your hand." Hale Harrison, from the floor: "I'm not gonna explain it to you, George. As you know, I'm the one that put the ad in, and I have no apology to make." Feehley: "I still say it was misleading and malicious." Councilman Duggan told Harrison that the Holiday Inn at 67th Street had 60 to 70 toed-in spaces on its two streets and the proposal asked for six of them, and that the claim of 4,000 meters was "an outright lie" - "I'll call it 'Harrison's Law'." President Meehan then withdrew his support for the meters "because of the amount of revenue that it was in reality going to actually produce" and recommended recognising $75,000 of extra interest and "the sale of 600 of the parking meters with an anticipated sale price of $175 apiece which comes to $105,000" - "to get rid of the ghosts and not have 'em sitting in the closets ready to jump out at us every year." The vote was 5-2, Duggan ("you're passing a budget that is not balanced") and Feehley opposed. The mayor added that meters had been installed downtown that season "without any authorization or any ordinance"; the sale, Ordinance 1994-20, passed second reading on 5 July.
G. Hale Harrison
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1994 · 1994-07-05
With Alan Jackson and Frankie Valli lost, the council booked Three Dog Night with the Beach Boys and the Everly Brothers for a beach concert on Sunday 4 September, and the mayor asked whether that was "three dogs doing some kind of..."
Regular session of 5 July 1994, continued discussion of beach concerts and fireworks. Councilman Mann for the Convention Center Commission: "we've lost the opportunity to have the Alan Jackson concert. And that means only the Beach Boys, the Everly Brothers, and - we lost the Frankie Valli part of it. We've filled it with - who's the group, Rick?" President Meehan: "Three Dog Night." Mann: "And we can have 'em on Sunday night instead of Monday night. And we feel that that would be a better attraction 'cause people would still be in town." Councilman Westfall asked "Is that the same costs?" - "Yes... within a couple dollars" - and the motion carried for "a late afternoon concert on Sunday, September 4th, on the beach." Later that evening Russell Maykrantz thanked the commission for bringing back the Beach Boys, who "put Ocean City on the map last year", and Mayor Powell asked: "Is that, is that three dogs... Is that three dogs doing some kind of...?" Laughter; Maykrantz: "The Mayor knows 'em, doesn't he?" Mann: "Quote of the week." Powell: "Mr. Maykrantz, I'm not up on all that stuff." Maykrantz: "All right, there's no room for Lawrence Welk here."
Roland E. "Fish" Powell
Source · checked 2026-09-10
1994 · 1994-09-19
The deer population at the municipal airport had grown into a problem, and the council handed the decision to the Department of Natural Resources after one councilman said he had a scope
President Meehan reporting the Airport Commission meeting at the regular session of 19 September 1994: "the next item was a discussion about the deer population out at the airport. This problem has intensified as the deer population has grown and we were basically given three options on what to do in order to address this. And it's our recommendation that we work with the Department of Natural Resources in developing a method of population control. And we authorized the Department of Natural Resources to be contacted so that they could make a decision regarding the deer population, not the Airport Commission or the Mayor and Council." Councilman Mann: "Send Jimmy out there." Meehan: "Well, we discussed some of the other possibilities and Hank had dibs. He said he had a scope. So we decided that's when we better turn it over to the Department of Natural Resources." Mayor Powell: "I got a couple boys..." The same report recorded that Kurth and Company of Washington had been authorised by the State Aviation Administration to help find a scheduled commuter air service, the result of the mayor's letter of 10 May.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
1994 · 1994-09-19
A year after the petition fight, the council changed the charter so that a referendum petition needs signatures equal to 40% of the voters who voted in the previous election, and has forty days instead of twenty to gather them
Regular session of 19 September 1994, item 6: "At the previous work session a recommendation by the members of the Board of Supervisors of Elections to use 40% of the voters voting in a previous election be the number needed for a petition to referendum. This was prepared as Charter Resolution Amendment 1994-1. Councilman Feehley moved to pass; seconded by Councilman Mathias. Vince Gisriel made an appearance favoring the resolution but requested that the 20-day period presently stipulated in the Charter be extended to 40 days. The motion was amended to include this. The vote was 6-1 with President Meehan opposed." Gisriel, the former councilman who had run the 1993 petition, was elected to the council the following month. Earlier the same evening Feehley had failed to get a second for a motion that any capital project competing with private enterprise - "Lighthouse Sound, swimming center, ice rink, and covered tennis courts" - go to referendum, even after Duggan narrowed it to projects over $100,000.
Vincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
1994 · 1994-12-19
The base charge for an Ocean City ambulance run rose from $100 to $135 so that the town's bills would match what Medicare would reimburse
Regular session of 19 December 1994, item 14: "Resolution 1994-20 changes the base rate for ambulance charges to $135 from $100 in order to conform with Medicare requirements for reimbursement. Councilman Meehan moved to adopt; seconded by Councilman Duggan. The vote was unanimous." The same meeting took the first reading of Ordinance 1994-28, which removed the prohibition on corporations bidding for the vehicle-vending franchise.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
1995
Ninety-eight documents and about 2.23 million characters — the archive still growing, and still the only source
Mayor Roland E. Powell; Council President George Feehley; Councilmen Duggan, Gisriel, Hall, Mann, Mathias, Meehan; City Manager Dennis Dare; Finance Director Martha Bennett; City Solicitor Ayres. Two hometown papers had been publishing for years by now and neither is held here.
Dennis W. Dare Guy R. Ayres III Vincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
1995 · 1995-03-20
The Play It Safe programme for graduating seniors in June had given 4,000 free bus rides in 1994, double 1993's 2,000, and for 1995 added a human gyro and a human fly at the Caroline Street pad, with the town as co-sponsor
Dan Harris, introduced by President Feehley as "this year's Citizen of the Year," and Polk Miles, Worcester County Health Department's prevention coordinator, appeared at the regular meeting of 20 March 1995 (item 5D) for the Ocean City Drug and Alcohol Abuse Prevention Committee: "our Play It Safe event that we do each June. It'd be through the whole month of June ... we provide activities for all our kids and children coming down here, teens coming down for graduation ... opportunities other than drugs and alcohol." They asked for two dances at the Sunset Room on 8 and 15 June, two events at the Caroline Street pad on 19 and 20 June - "the human gyro which we had last year ... a human fly" - the town's insurance umbrella, a sandwich board, and the bus passes: "Last year you provided over 4,000 rides, which was a good increase from 1993 where we had 2,000." Councilman Meehan moved approval, co-sponsorship so the fees could be waived, and the ride-all-day coupon in the booklet; it passed unanimously. Harris said the Mayor and City Council would be printed on the back of the booklet this year.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
1995 · 1995-06-05
The town rejected two $14,000-a-show bids for its Fourth of July fireworks and then paid Pyrotecnico $40,000 against a $28,000 budget, because the recent shows had been lacklustre
At the work session of 11 April 1995 (item 4) the fireworks bids were opened: "Zambelli Internationale, New Castle, PA - no bid; Pyrotechnics, Lancaster, PA - $14,000 per show; Pyrotecnico, New Castle, PA 14,000 per show." Bob Rothermel explained that Fire Art, which had put on a show at the Princess Royale the previous Wednesday, "doesn't bid the Town of Ocean City because of the cost-per-shell requirement; they prefer to submit a program with a cost attached." Councilman Meehan "suggested rejecting these bids and rebidding it with a $40K allocation, which is the budgeted amount for FY-96," and the bids were rejected unanimously. At the regular meeting of 5 June (item 24): "RFP's for 4th of July fireworks had been reviewed with recommendation to Pyrotechnico for $40,000. As the budgeted amount was $28,000, Mayor Powell asked from where the additional funds would be tapped. Comments followed that the recent fireworks have been lackluster and that more money should be spent with funds coming from the General Fund. Councilman Hall moved to award to Pyrotechnico; seconded by Councilman Mathias. The vote was unanimous."
Roland E. "Fish" Powell
Source · checked 2026-09-10
1995 · 1995-08-21
A Seaweed Lane resident who had kept a Burmese python for years was given retroactive permission for it, on condition of warning signs front and back, and the mayor complained the council was becoming lenient about exotic animals
Regular meeting of 21 August 1995, item 7: "Laura Sanders of 602A Seaweed Lane requested permission to house a Burmese python. Ms. Sanders has had the snake for a number of years with no problems but it had recently come to pass that no formal permission had been requested. Councilman Mathias moved to permit the snake with certain conditions; those being that a sign be posted on the front and back of the house alerting outsiders that the snake was on the premises and that if any complaints arose, the Mayor and Council would review this immediately." Councilman Meehan had the permit limited to this one snake at these premises; "Mayor Powell voiced concern that the Council was becoming lenient on this topic and that Animal Control should be reminded about code restrictions." A further amendment required the owner to report at once if the snake got loose. "The vote was 4-2 with Councilmen Gisriel and Duggan opposed and Councilman Mann absent." Two weeks earlier (7 August, item 8) the council had approved a potbellied pig for a Delaware Association of Realtors fundraiser at the Princess Royale, the special-event permit being unnecessary on private property but the non-domesticated animal needing the council's leave.
Roland E. "Fish" Powell James N. "Jim" Mathias Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
1996
1996 is Roland Powell's last year as mayor, closing the eleven-year term that began with Harry Kelley's death and ran through the pumping of the beach
Ninety-three documents, about 2.26 million characters. Council President George Feehley; Councilmen Duggan, Gisriel, Hall, Mann, Mathias, Meehan; City Manager Dennis Dare; Finance Director Martha Bennett; City Solicitor Ayres. Powell had first appeared in this record as a councilman in the town's full-page advertisement in the Democratic Messenger's centennial edition of August 1969.
Dennis W. Dare Guy R. Ayres III Vincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
1996 · 1996-05-20
A tenant asked to keep a five-foot iguana that relieved itself in his bathtub, and the mayor, who wanted nothing to do with "a damned snake", asked the solicitor whether a permit holder could walk one down the Boardwalk
Regular meeting of 20 May 1996, item 15, request to house an iguana, with Council Secretary Hall in the chair. Mayor Powell: "Five foot long. Where does it go to the bathroom and how is this maintained?" Bob Noonan: "I put it in the bathtub is where he usually goes." Councilman Meehan: "Is this what we want to promote in Ocean City? I mean why not get a flock of chickens ... and put 'em in your spare bedroom?" Powell: "Where does this thing stop? ... You've got a five-foot animal living in a cage in a - probably a small unit, multi-unit place, that does his business in the bathroom in the bathtub ... Move across the bridge and get yourself an acre of land ... the majority of people including myself don't want anything to do with a damned snake." Noonan explained the police had seen an empty aquarium through his porch window, Animal Control had asked whether he housed a snake, and he had since sent the snake to his brother in Baltimore; he was a renter in a second-floor unit and needed a sign on his door. Powell: "Guy, can - are they able to take these animals and walk 'em down the Boardwalk or down the beach? ... How about the snake? Can you walk down the Boardwalk with a snake around your neck? ... It's not a damned bit funny to me." City Solicitor Ayres: "I think the ordinance deals with housing one. I don't think it deals with someone who drives into town and wants to walk down the Boardwalk and back. I'm not aware of any law that prohibits that." The permit was approved unanimously with Hall abstaining and Feehley absent. It was the year's second exotic-animal permit; Diana Peterson's two-foot ball python in a 500-gallon aquarium had been approved on 3 January, and the black rat snake followed in August.
Roland E. "Fish" Powell Guy R. Ayres III
Source · checked 2026-09-10
1996 · 1996-10-17
The October 1996 election results were read into the record on 17 October: James Mathias 1,424 for mayor against George Feehley 664, John Staley 456 and Margaret Pillas 364, and Nancy Howard led the council poll with 1,684, so that the elections chairman opened with "this'll be the last time I'll be saying gentlemen"
Special session of 17 October 1996, the organizational meeting, chaired by Council Secretary Hall because "Council President Feehley resigned his seat to run for Mayor and his resignation takes effect the day after the election." Mary Adeline Bradford, chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Elections: "For Mayor: George Feehley 664; James Mathias 1424; Margaret Pillas 364; John Staley 456. The winner for Mayor, James Mathias. For Council: Seymour Bridge 254; Douglas Cymek 561; Leroy Duggan 1571; Jim S. Hall 1465; Joseph T. Hall 750; Nancy Howard 1684; Lloyd Martin 961; Richard Meehan 1516; Stanley Rodman 259; Pat Sadowski 966; Kyle Sandler 142; Glenn Steckman 1287; Henry Westfall 946. Those elected for full four-year terms: Nancy Howard, Leroy Duggan, Richard Meehan, Jim S. Hall. And elected to fill the remaining two years of Councilman Mathias's term: Glenn Steckman." Councilman Gisriel questioned why poll watchers were sent out at 7 p.m. before the count (the board "took 'may' to mean 'may' and not 'shall'") and learned that "five or six" absentee ballots marked with a check instead of the X the Charter requires had been disallowed on the City Solicitor's reading. Feehley, without a vote: "I was asked to send in a letter of resignation this time which I thought was not necessary because up to now, a Councilman stayed a Councilman until the next group was sworn in." The results were accepted on Mann's motion, Meehan seconding. Richard Meehan was council president by the next regular meeting on 21 October.
James N. "Jim" Mathias Jr.Vincent Gisriel Jr.Guy R. Ayres III
Source · checked 2026-09-10
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.
Dennis W. Dare Hal Adkins Vincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
1997 · 1997-01-06
The Worcester County Performing Arts Society asked the council on 6 January 1997 to back an Ocean City symphony orchestra, on a $60,000 start-up budget and $17,000 of special-event money the town already spent on musicians
Connie Meadows, for the Worcester County Performing Arts Society, brought Don Buxton, conductor of the Dover Symphony Orchestra, to the regular meeting of 6 January 1997 as the proposed conductor. She asked for "your moral support and your confirmation that you believe the formation of a symphony orchestra in this area would be of economic benefit to the city," for rehearsal, performance and storage space, and for the town to "give it a name ... Whether it would be the Ocean City Symphony or the Mid-Atlantic Regional Symphony." The proposal carried "a $60,000 proposed budget for starting up" with $15,000 hoped from corporate support, and pencilled the town in at $17,000 - the sum Recreation and Parks had spent the previous summer on the July 4th beach concert ($10,000, per Tom Perlozzo) and Sundaes in the Park ($7,000). She read the council a meeting-planners' magazine: "Vegetating on beaches is out. Stimulating the senses is in." Dr. Tom Elliott, conductor of the Salisbury Symphony Orchestra, came to the microphone to say his orchestra had been working eleven years for a place in Ocean City and "we'd love to be part of it too." Council President Meehan: "I personally think your time has come." Councilwoman Howard: "things like a symphony orchestra, the art museum, the art gallery, these are the heart of Ocean City." Perlozzo's memo of the same day agreed "in this fiscal year only" to use the orchestra at Arts Atlantica and July 4th, with "reservations committing year after year." The matter was sent to the Tourism Commission, meeting 16 January.
James N. "Jim" Mathias Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
1997 · 1997-03-03
The Jesus at the Beach festival was allowed back for 28-30 July 1997 with a bigger stage and, for the first time, permission to sell event T-shirts on the beach - a sand sculpture of Jesus on the front, Ocean City on the back
Gary Steger asked the regular meeting of 3 March 1997 for the annual Jesus at the Beach festival, held with a convention. Three things were new: a larger stage on the beach because "the reviewing stand I think is like 8-by-24 and that was very hard. We have three different groups"; T-shirts - "in the past we haven't had T-shirts ... we didn't sell them on the beach because we're very sensitive to what was going on in Ocean City during those times ... many people did ask us for them on the beach last year and we refused ... So, so we are requesting specific event-dated T-shirt, you know, a picture of a sand sculpture of Jesus on the front with a name and Ocean City on the back and the dates of it"; and the street end at Caroline Street for vans and trailers, because "We actually did park there last year and got a ticket." Council President Meehan: "There's a bit of capitalism in all of us if you can find it." Councilman Hall moved approval subject to the Fire Marshal on the street end; the vote was unanimous.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
1997 · 1997-03-17
A friend invited the council on 17 March 1997 to a $5-a-head benefit for Terry Rodden, a 33-year-old mother of three with acute leukaemia whose family owed $26,000 on a first $130,000 round of treatment and $1,000 a month for prescriptions
Anita Lewis, at the regular meeting of 17 March 1997: "Ocean City is a family community. This is a family in need. It's one of your tax-paying citizens." Asked by Councilman Hall to tell the public why: "Terry and Phil Rodden have lived in Ocean City over 30 years. Terry is 33 years old. She has three children, and she's been struck with acute myeloid lymphoma, which is a very aggressive type of leukemia. ... Their first go-round of medical bills were $130,000 of which their insurance paid 80%; but that still left them with $26,000 owed. The first chemotherapy was unsuccessful, so she had to go back and undergo bone marrow which was donated by her 17-year-old son ... they do not have a prescription card, and her prescriptions are over $1,000 a month." She had asked a hundred people for donations and "I haven't had a no yet": dinners for two, movie tickets, bowling, golf, raceway games, baked goods, restaurant food, and a live remote from 97.1 the Fox. The benefit was Sunday 23 March, 1 to 6 p.m., at the Mellow Beach Sunset Bar behind the Kitty Hawk on 46th Street bayside, "a $5.00 donation at the door." Council President Meehan: "it's also the right thing to do."
Source · checked 2026-09-10
1997 · 1997-12-31
A referendum petition against the $600,000 purchase of the trailer park west of the airport for a runway protection zone was counted at a special session on 31 December 1997 and failed by eleven signatures - 1,158 valid of the 1,169 the charter required
Ordinance 1997-20 authorised buying the Sapperstein property near Route 611 in West Ocean City for the airport's Runway Protection Zone, "in the amount of $600,000," 90 per cent from the FAA and 5 per cent from the Maryland Aviation Administration; it passed second reading 5-2 on 12 November 1997 over the objections of the trailer park's residents, one of whom had found the nearest comparable park "in Delaware for $61,000, nowhere near the price the state is offering." A petition to referendum was filed at 10 a.m. on Monday 29 December. Mary Adeline Bradford, chairman of the Board of Election Supervisors, reported to the special session of 31 December: "There were 1353 signatures submitted; 20 were not Ocean City addresses; 42 were duplicate signatures; 132 were not registered Ocean City voters; one was an invalid date of a signature; for a total of 1,158 signatures. Based on the Charter Resolution 1994-1, the valid total needed is 1,169. The petition fell 11 short of the required number for a successful petition." Councilman Gisriel questioned the count line by line; Bradford: "if we err, we err on the side of the voter." The document is filed under the 15 December meeting but is dated 31 December 1997 on every page.
Vincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
1998
Clay Stamp appears in the record as Emergency Manager — the town's storm response now a named post rather than a mayor phoning weather stations
Ninety-five documents, about 1.49 million characters. Mayor James N. Mathias, Jr.; Council President Richard W. Meehan; Councilman Lee Duggan as Secretary; Councilmen Gisriel, Hall, Mann, Steckman; Councilwoman Nancy L. Howard; City Manager Dennis Dare; City Clerk Carol L. Jacobs. In 1978 Kelley had listened to three or four weather reports and supposed they were wrong; in 1984 the town assembled a disaster vehicle out of bid lots without knowing what to put the radio in.
Dennis W. Dare Vincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
1999 · 1999-01-12
A council hearing on hydraulic clam dredging heard that Ocean City had no sea-grass beds before 1991 and now had beds a thousand feet wide, and a councilman called the coastal bays "our little pond in the back yard and it's fished out"
For the work session of 12 January 1999 the council invited Dr Donald Boesch of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, DNR biologists, the National Park Service and the Natural Resources Police, "precipitated", President Meehan said, by "the continual fishing and dredging in the bay ... year round". Boesch: "in 1990 and before, as best we have records, you didn't have grass beds here along Ocean City ... they've only begun to return since 1991 and ... every year we see a slight expansion of those grass beds." Aerial photographs showed scarring in the beds from boat propellers and clam dredges; DNR's Lee Carr said the bed off the convention centre ran "over 1,000 feet out in some areas", and the Natural Resources Police confirmed dredging was lawful anywhere more than 300 feet from shore - "300 feet is a city block," City Manager Dare put in. Councilman Hall: "This is our little pond in the back yard and it's fished out. There's nothing left in it. We need help." Bill Outten of DNR said the delineation task force had 23 members, "like 6 of 'em are watermen". Mayor Mathias closed by rejecting "closure, banning, prohibiting" in favour of "a balanced program", and County Commission president Jeanne Lynch, in the audience, said the county would take the same subject up the following Tuesday.
Maryland Coastal Bays Program James N. "Jim" Mathias Jr.Dennis W. Dare
Source · checked 2026-09-10
1999 · 1999-01-19
Twenty Boardwalk merchants testified against the non-profit T-shirt tables, and the city solicitor told them the last attempt to remove them had cost the town $50,000 to $75,000 against "what we refer to as the Church of the Holy T-Shirt"
The regular session of 19 January 1999 held a public hearing "to consider the economic effects to the local economy as a result of the non-profit vendors on the Boardwalk. Since One World One Family Now was allowed to place tables on the Boardwalk several years ago in order to display their T-shirts, many complaints have been leveled to the Mayor and Council." Twenty speakers are listed, from the co-owner of the T-Shirt Factory ("now I have a guy who's taking probably $500 to $1,000 away on any given day from a particular store") to Boardwalk jeweller Jeff Thaler, who said the vendors "started setting up tables on the trashcans". A voice from the floor put the loss at "$2 million out of the economy every summer". City Solicitor Ayres explained why the town had settled for a daily rotation ordinance after the last suit: "The last time we just stayed in U.S. District Court ... My guess is that cost the Town somewhere between $50--- and probably $75,000. Because what happens is, these become civil rights cases ... in the last case we had the ACLU; we had a law firm representing what we refer to as the Church of the Holy T-Shirt; and we had another law firm representing a couple of the entertainers." He added that the shirts had changed since the court saw them: "a little smaller message, a little smaller whale, and a much bigger Ocean City, Maryland." The council closed the hearing 4-0 and voted to extend the rotation schedule year-round.
Ocean City Boardwalk Guy R. Ayres III
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2000
Ninety-six documents, about 1.6 million characters, and a quiet year — the beach is built and the convention centre rebuilt, and the town has run out of large things to argue about
Mayor James N. Mathias, Jr.; Council President Richard W. Meehan, with President Lee Duggan later; Councilmen Gisriel, Hall, Steckman; Council Members Nancy Howard and Fitzsimmons; City Manager Dennis Dare; Emergency Services Director Clay Stamp; City Clerk Carol L. Jacobs. From here the record's subject changes: what a resort buys once it has finished building.
Dennis W. Dare Vincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2000 · 2000-10-17
Mayor Mathias was re-elected on 17 October 2000 with 2,030 votes to Bonita Gisriel's 692, four council seats went to Meehan, Howard, Joe Hall and Jim Hall, and the first of two ballot questions lost by 31 votes
At a special session on 19 October 2000 Mary Adeline Bradford, chair of the Board of Election Supervisors, "presented the results of the election held on Tuesday, October 17, 2000. With 2,828 people voting, the results were as follows: For Mayor - Bonita Gisriel 692, James Mathias 2,030. For Council - George Feehley 1,124, James S. Hall 1,266, Joseph T. Hall II 1,299, Nancy Howard 1,476, James McGinniss 674, Richard Meehan 1,536, Joseph Mitrecic 1,232, Margaret Pillas 1,036, Paul Stewart 319. The successful candidates were: Mayor Mathias, Richard Meehan, Nancy Howard, Joseph Hall, and James Hall. Ballot Question #1 - 1,134 votes In Favor; 1,165 votes Against. Ballot Question #2 - 1,344 votes In Favor; 764 votes Against." Steven Hales, Clerk of the Circuit Court, swore in the winners; Joe Hall took his seat beside the incumbents. Meehan was re-elected council president without opposition, and Jim Hall beat Erin Fitzsimmons 5-3 for council secretary, the mayor casting a vote. The work session of 12 September had identified the two questions as "collective bargaining/binding arbitration and purchase of property as part of airport flight safety zone," to be placed "in the order the petitions were received"; the minutes do not say which was Question 1. Councilman Lee Duggan did not stand - at the 16 October meeting a citizen "wished Councilman Duggan well wishes in his retirement." Councilman Vincent Gisriel, Jr., whose seat was not up, stayed on the council; the minutes do not state the mayoral challenger's relationship to him.
James N. "Jim" Mathias Jr.Vincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2001 · 2001-07-04
The Mayor and Council met at 11 a.m. on the Fourth of July 2001 and, by unanimous emergency ordinance effective that day, made the town's alcohol-free dance clubs close at 2:30 a.m. after police described after-hours crowds mixing with drunks leaving the bars, ecstasy dealers arriving from out of state, and crack laid out in a cup holder
President Meehan opened the special session: "I know the 4th of July is not the most opportune time to meet, but we felt, based on the circumstances, it was necessary that we do so." City Solicitor Ayres explained that the dance clubs, "because of the expanded hours now going until 5 and 6 o'clock into the morning," were "mixing people who have consumed alcoholic beverages, many of whom are intoxicated, who are leaving the bars and nightclubs at the required closing time of 2:30," with "certain criminal elements" driving "two even three hours" to arrive at 2:30 or 3 a.m. Chief Massey asked to amend the moratorium Ordinance 2001-10, which had set no hours: the after-hours clubs had generated "about 188" police reports and "about 160 arrests." Det. Sgt. Lee Fisher of the Maryland State Police said a "core group of ecstasy investigators" had put undercover officers in the clubs since Memorial Day and watched known distributors from elsewhere in Maryland and Delaware "roll in" at the 45th Street Village around 2 a.m. An Ocean City sergeant told the council that "probably 50% of the individuals we arrest have some type of controlled dangerous substance on them" and that the week before "there were 20-25 rocks of crack cocaine laying in a cup holder in plain view." Councilman Jim Hall moved the hours - "No person shall operate a dance club during any hours other than 4:00 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. of the following day" - and the council passed it unanimously, Gisriel absent, then voted unanimously to ask the mayor to sign it as an emergency ordinance, "effective today," with copies delivered to every affected club.
Ocean City Police Department Maryland State Police Guy R. Ayres III
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2002
Ninety-six documents, about 1.55 million characters, one source — and a council that has shrunk to a settled group
Mayor James N. Mathias, Jr.; Council President Richard W. Meehan; Councilmen Jim Hall, Steckman, Gisriel; Council Member Nancy Howard; City Manager Dennis Dare. The same names recur through the whole of block 1.5, which is itself a fact about the town: the people who settled the beach question stayed to govern what it produced.
Dennis W. Dare Vincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2003 · 2003-09-15
The Ocean City Lacrosse Classic, an event the town had seeded with four years of funding, made the cover of Sports Illustrated and a two-page story inside
At the 15 September 2003 regular session "Councilman Mitrecic displayed a copy of last month's issue of Sports Illustrated where on the cover was a photograph of the Ocean City Lacrosse Tournament and featured inside was a two-page story." The Tourism Commission minutes of 4 September, attached to the same session, add Recreation and Parks Director Tom Shuster's report that "The Ocean City Lacrosse Classic made the cover of Sports Illustrated. Rick Meehan stated the lacrosse classic was the one of the first events co-sponsored by the Town with the plan to trim back funding as the event became successful. Tom stated they received funding for four years and now this event made the cover of Sports Illustrated."
Source · checked 2026-09-10
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.
Dennis W. Dare Guy R. Ayres III Hal Adkins Vincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2004 · 2004-10-21
Councilman Gisriel resigned his seat to run for Mayor and lost to Mathias 1,633 to 1,331 in an election of 3,034 voters, while Rick Meehan topped the council poll with 1,749 and newcomer Jay Hancock took a seat
Work session of 14 September 2004, item 14: "Following the procedures outlined in Section 506(B) of the Charter, Councilman Gisriel resigned his position as Councilman, effective October 20, 2004, as he will be pursuing the office of Mayor of the Town of Ocean City." Special session of 21 October 2004: "Mary Adeline Bradford, Chair Person of the Board of Election Supervisors ... presented the results of the election held on Tuesday, October 19, 2004. With 3,034 people voting, the results were as follows: Candidates for Mayor - Vincent D. Gisriel, Jr. 1331; James N. Mathias, Jr. 1633." For council the clerk's two-column table reads Richard W. Meehan 1749, Jim S. Hall 1573, James 'Jay' Hancock III 1277, Nancy L. Howard 1218, Joseph T. Hall II 1183, Margaret L. Pillas 1133, Richard Garzony 1112, Joe Coleman 1062, Jim E. McGinniss 865, Mary P. Knight 828, Sarah J. Conway 405, Seymour C. Bridge 314, Norma R. Flicop 178 and Mary D. Kanely 165. "Those earning four-year seats were: Richard Meehan, Jim Hall, Jay Hancock, and Nancy Howard. The two-year unexpired term was awarded to Joe Hall." Steve Hales, Clerk of the Circuit Court, swore them in; Meehan was re-elected Council President and Jim Hall Council Secretary, and Meehan "gave special thanks to former Councilman Gisriel whose resignation was effective yesterday." The 2002 turnout had been 2,219.
James N. "Jim" Mathias Jr.Vincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
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.
Dennis W. Dare Hal Adkins
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2006
Mathias's last full year as mayor, with Council President Richard W. Meehan — who succeeds him — in the chair beside him
Councilman James S. Hall as Secretary, later Councilman Lloyd Martin; Councilmen Gisriel, Mann, Joseph Hall; City Solicitor Guy R. Ayres III; City Clerk Carol Jacobs; Planning Director Jesse Houston; Zoning Administrator Blaine Smith. Ninety-four documents, about 2.34 million characters, including Planning and Zoning Commission transcripts. Meehan had been council president on and off since 1992.
Guy R. Ayres III Jesse Houston Vincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2006 · 2006-06-12
Mayor Jim Mathias resigned on 12 June 2006 to fill the late Delegate Bennett Bozman's seat in the House of Delegates, and Council President Rick Meehan was sworn in as mayor the same evening
The packet for the special session of Monday, 12 June 2006 carries three items - "NOTICE OF RESIGNATION OF MAYOR JAMES N. MATHIAS, JR.", "OATH OF OFFICE ADMINISTERED MAYOR RICHARD W. MEEHAN" and the election of a new council president and secretary - together with Mathias's letter to the City Clerk of that date: "The unfortunate death of our Maryland State Delegate Bennett Bozman has left a vacancy in our legislative district which, by Maryland State Constitution must be filled ... I, James N. Mathias, Jr., have received the unified nomination of both the Wicomico and Worcester County Democratic State Central Committees and my nomination has been affirmed by Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. Pursuant to the Constitution of Maryland Declaration of Rights, Article 35, that no one shall hold two publicly elected offices simultaneously, I hereby tender my resignation as Mayor of Ocean City, Maryland effective upon the oath of office for Delegate to the Maryland House of Delegates for District 38B being administered." The clerk's covering letter to the Maryland Municipal League adds that "Council President, Richard W. Meehan will be sworn in as Mayor at a Special Meeting this evening to begin at 7:00 in the City Hall Council Chambers." The clerk's minutes of the special session survive only as a blank scan, but the regular session of 19 June 2006 opens with "Mayor Richard Meehan" presiding over "Council President Jim Hall", and records Berlin's Mayor Thomas Cardinale congratulating "Mayor and Council for the recent changes in leadership".
James N. "Jim" Mathias Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2007
Richard W. Meehan became mayor — the council president of the nineties and 2000s, in the chair at last
Ninety-two documents, about 2.31 million characters, including Planning and Zoning Commission transcripts. Planning Director Jesse Houston; Zoning Administrator Blaine Smith; Emergency Services Director Theobald. Meehan had first appeared as Council Secretary in 1990 and had been president through most of the beach-settlement aftermath.
Jesse Houston
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2008 · 2008-03-03
City Manager Dennis Dare and his wife Liz were grand marshals of the 2008 St. Patrick's Day Parade, which ran southbound from 45th to 61st Street on 15 March
The parade permit was approved at the regular meeting of 19 February 2008: "St. Patrick's Day Parade and Festival, on Saturday, March 15, 2008, starting at 12:00 p.m., from 45th to 61st Street - southbound. Council Secretary Nancy Howard moved to approve; seconded by Council Member Jim Hall. The vote was unanimous." At the regular meeting of 3 March the mayor "announced that Dennis and Liz Dare are the Grand Marshals for the St. Patrick's Day Parade on March 15, 2008", in the same list of remarks in which he congratulated the Hotel-Motel-Restaurant Association on its Convention Center show, called the St. Patrick's Day soccer tournament at Northside Park a success, and promoted the Parrotheads' Mardi Gras at the Carousel. Two weeks later, on 17 March, the minutes open: "Mayor Meehan gave an Irish Blessing."
Dennis W. Dare
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2008 · 2008-03-03
A seal that washed ashore in January was released by the Baltimore Aquarium in March, and as it went back into the water a second seal came ashore at 59th Street and was rescued too
Among the mayor's remarks at the regular meeting of 3 March 2008: "He attended the Baltimore Aquarium's release of Seaca the seal that washed ashore in January. He said that just after this release, another washed ashore on 59th Street, so the Aquarium rescued a second seal." The clerk gives the animal's name as Seaca; nothing else about either seal appears in the year's minutes (searched 'seal', 'aquarium').
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2008 · 2008-10-23
1,521 of 6,470 registered voters turned out for the October 2008 town election; Jay Hancock lost his seat, Nancy Howard retired after twelve years, Doug Cymek and Joe Hall came in, and Joe Mitrecic kept the presidency 4-3
At the organizational meeting of 23 October 2008 Mary Adeline Bradford, chair of the Board of Election Supervisors, "reported that 1521 ballots (including 121 Absentee and 4 Emergency Absentee Ballots) were cast out of 6470 registered voters in the Town of Ocean City." Results: "Richard W. Meehan (Incumbent-unopposed) 958; Herbert Brent Ashley 776; Douglas S. Cymek 844; James S. Hall (Incumbent) 917; Joseph T. Hall, II 828; James W. Hancock, III 598; Mary P. Knight (Incumbent) 858; Sean Rox 355." Worcester County Clerk of Court Steve Hales swore in Meehan, Jim Hall, Knight, Cymek and Joe Hall. "Council Member Mary Knight moved to appoint Joe Mitrecic as Council President; seconded by Council Member Lloyd Martin. The vote was 4-3 with Council Members Jim Hall, Margaret Pillas and Joe Hall opposed." Lloyd Martin became Council Secretary unanimously. Three days earlier, at the last meeting of the old council, Howard "expressed gratitude for the support she received from her parents, citizens, and City Staff during her 12 year tenure" and was given a Life Saving Station print; Jim Hall "thanked everyone for supporting him during his eleven and a half years as a council member." A ninth candidate, William J. Steiner of 1209 Atlantic Avenue, had been struck from the ballot on 30 September because he registered to vote the day after the filing deadline, the three incumbent candidates abstaining from that 4-0 vote.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2008 · 2008-12-01
Firefighter-paramedics Derrick Simpson and Delbert Baker pulled two swimmers out of a rip current in the early hours of 28 September 2008, were themselves injured, and were given a mayor's proclamation in December
Regular meeting of 1 December 2008: "Mayor Meehan issued a Proclamation honoring Ocean City Firefighter Paramedics Derrick Simpson and Delbert Baker who, in the early hours of September 28, 2008, risked their lives to rescue two distressed swimmers caught in a rip current." The rescue had already reached the council two days after it happened: the work-session minutes of 30 September 2008 carry the clerk's bracketed note "[Recently, two Paramedic/Fire Fighters were injured as a result of a 2:00 a.m. surf rescue]" against Council President Mitrecic's question to the City Solicitor "about the feasibility of invoking penalties on night swimmers." Earlier in the year, on 21 July, the mayor had proclaimed 22 July 2008 "Ed Jankiewicz Day honoring his bravery in saving the life of a drowning victim in early July 2008."
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2009
Eighty-nine documents and about 2.71 million characters — the densest year in the corpus, and still a single source
Mayor Richard W. Meehan; Council President Lloyd Martin; City Manager Dennis Dare. Thirty-six years after the county paper stopped and twenty-five after the Maryland Coast Dispatch was founded, this record still reads Ocean City only through its own government.
Dennis W. Dare
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2009 · 2009-03-10
Mayor Meehan vetoed the council's first small-wind-turbine ordinance on 3 March 2009, not to stop turbines but because it kept bayfront ones 1.1 times their height back from the water; the council re-wrote it as a conditional use
Ordinance 2009-3, "amending Chapter 110, entitled Zoning, to allow small wind energy systems," passed second reading on 17 February 2009 6-1, Joe Hall opposed, after which citizen Finn McCabe thanked the planning staff for it. The Mayor's letter of 3 March 2009 to the City Clerk and Council President: "Please be advised that, pursuant to Section C-410 of the Ocean City Charter, I have elected to disapprove (veto) Ordinance 2009-3 ... I am completely in favor of permitting and encouraging Small Wind Energy Systems (turbines) in the Town, and support the majority of the ordinance. However, I believe that the ordinance as written will preclude the optimal use of these systems in some circumstances. Specifically, I believe that properties with frontage on the open bay waters should be allowed to situate free-standing turbines closer to the water than 1.1 times the height of the turbine as specified in the ordinance." He recommended "a new ordinance ... that would permit free-standing turbines in all zoning districts by Conditional Use, and permit the Planning Commission and Mayor and City Council to allow a property with frontage on the Isle of Wight or Assawoman Bay to place a turbine no closer to the water than the minimum setback." At the 10 March work session, item 8, after a first motion was withdrawn, "Council Member Joe Hall moved to permit all requests for small wind energy systems by Conditional Use; seconded by Council Secretary Lloyd Martin. The vote was 5-1 with Council Member Mary Knight absent, and Council Member Jim Hall opposed." The replacement, Ordinance 2009-6, passed second reading unanimously on 20 April.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2010
Ninety documents and about 4.37 million characters — nearly twice any earlier year, because the packets now carry full engineering specifications and bid documents
Mayor Richard W. Meehan; Council President Lloyd Martin; City Manager Dennis Dare; Special Projects/Grants Coordinator Wayne Pryor. The record's growth is no longer a growth in deliberation but in attachment: more paper, less argument. The kind of sentence that made 1972 and 1988 legible is now rare.
Dennis W. Dare
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2010 · 2010-10-21
Council President Joe Mitrecic lost his seat in the 19 October election; two nights later the new council chose Jim Hall as president 4-3 over Lloyd Martin, tied 4-4 on the secretary, and voted 4-3 to dissolve every council committee
Barbara Schmitt of the Board of Election Supervisors presented the results at the organizational meeting of 21 October 2010: "For Mayor: Richard W. Meehan (unopposed) 954. For Council: Brent Ashley 775, Charles Paul Borchini, Jr. 124, Warren James Disbrow 173, Lloyd Martin 863, Joseph M. Mitrecic 734, Margaret Pillas 855, Sean Rox 311." Martin, Pillas and Ashley took the three seats; Mitrecic, who had presided all year, was out. Disbrow was the American Legion chaplain who had led the council's prayer through the year. "Council Member Jim Hall received 4 votes, and Council Member Martin received 3 votes. Council Member Jim Hall presides as Council President." For secretary, "Council Member Lloyd Martin received 4 votes, and Council Member Joe Hall received 4 votes. A tie vote goes to the successor so Council Member Lloyd Martin remains as Council Secretary" (the mayor voting under Charter section C-404). Then, as an item not on the agenda, "Council Member Joe Hall moved to dissolve all Council committees and appointments ... The vote was 4-3 with Council Members Martin, Knight and Cymek opposed." The 4-3 line of Jim Hall, Joe Hall, Pillas and Ashley against Martin, Knight and Cymek held through the December votes on employee pay and benefits.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2011 · 2011-02-22
Retired Sportsland owner Lloyd E. "Eddie" Jester was given a Key to the City in February 2011 for sixty years of service to the town
Under Items Presented by the Mayor and Council at the regular meeting of 22 February 2011 (Regular Session #4), the clerk recorded: "Mayor Rick Meehan presented retired Sportsland owner Lloyd E 'Eddie' Jester with a Key to the City for 60 years of service for the Town." The same item list carried the Red Cross Month proclamation and the vote to hire 140 seasonal police officers. The minutes give no other account of Jester's sixty years.
Ocean City Boardwalk
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2011 · 2011-08-26
Hurricane Irene forces the first full mandatory evacuation of Ocean City since Hurricane Gloria in 1985.
On Thursday, Aug. 25, 2011, Mayor Rick Meehan declared a local state of emergency and, with Gov. Martin O'Malley (who declared a statewide emergency and said 'We are ordering a mandatory evacuation of the barrier island of Ocean City'), ordered everyone off the island ahead of Hurricane Irene. The town's hurricane action plan entered Phase 1 early Thursday (visitors urged to leave, residents to secure property); the goal was full evacuation by 5 p.m. Friday, Aug. 26; and Phase 3 took effect at midnight Friday — everyone out except emergency personnel, incoming traffic limited to emergency vehicles, alcohol sales banned, and businesses asked to close. An estimated 125,000–150,000 visitors and roughly 7,000 residents were in town when the order came; about 100 state troopers assisted, and the seasonal international-student workforce was bused out (some to Towson University). Roughly 300 residents stayed behind. Meehan noted it was the town's first ordered evacuation since Hurricane Gloria in 1985.
Source · checked 2026-08-05
2011 · 2011-08-28
"We dodged a missile": Ocean City reopens Sunday morning, hours after Irene passes, with only superficial damage.
Sunday morning, Aug. 28, with damage assessments barely finished, Mayor Rick Meehan declared 'We dodged a missile' and reopened the town — residents and business owners streamed back across the Route 50 bridge that same morning, and Meehan announced Ocean City was 'back open for business.' Police Chief Bernadette DiPino characterized most damage as superficial; the most visible losses were the tip of the oceanfront fishing pier at the Inlet and the tower at the pier's entrance. Gov. O'Malley reported 'very little damage' in Ocean City. Tourists were back on the Boardwalk within two days, though businesses counted the cost of losing a peak August weekend to the evacuation.
Ocean City Fishing Pier Ocean City Inlet & Jetty Route 50 Drawbridge (Harry W. Kelley Memorial Bridge)Ocean City Boardwalk
Source · checked 2026-08-05
2011 · 2011-09-06
A citizen who picked debris off the beach every day, Kathy Fisher, received the first Surfrider Recognition Award and a Key to the City in September 2011
Regular Session #16, 6 September 2011, Items Presented by the Mayor and City Council, item C: "Surfider President Terry Steimer presented Citizen Kathy Fisher with the first ever the Surfrider Recognition Award for her daily effort to remove debris from the beach. Mayor Meehan presented her with a Key to the City." It was the third Key to the City recorded in the year, after Eddie Jester's in February and a week before Sam Villani's. Steimer had told the council on 2 May that "75% of all trash in the ocean is land-based" and that the "Please Leave Only Your Footprints" logo was by then printed on 350 beach trash receptacles.
Surfrider Foundation, Ocean City Chapter
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2011 · 2011-09-13
Dennis Dare's twenty-one years as City Manager ended in September 2011 behind a closed door: after a special closed session on 8 September the mayor was signing as "Mayor/Interim City Manager," a councilman was asking for the status of Dare's exit agreement in October and November, and in December the town hired Springsted to search for a successor
Dare gave the report from the City Manager at the regular meeting of 6 September 2011 as usual. Two days later the clerk minuted a "Special Closed Session" of 8 September: "City Solicitor Guy Ayres and City Manager Dennis Dare were absent. Council President Jim Hall called this Special Session to order at 4:00 p.m. ... then, Council Member Ashley moved to convene into closed session to discuss the appointment, employment, assignment, removal or resignation of appointees, employees or officials over whom it has jurisdiction ... The vote was unanimous. [The Council did not reopen the meeting on this day.]" At the work session of 13 September Mayor Meehan reported that "he has met with all Department Heads as acting City Manager," and from 11 October every attendance list opens with "Mayor/Interim City Manager Rick Meehan." Under Comments from the Mayor and Council on 17 October and again on 7 November, "Council Member Cymek asked for a status on City Manager Dare's exit agreement." The regular meeting of 19 December recorded: "On December 13, 2011, the Pension Committee voted, in the open session of the Pension Meeting, to contract with Springsted, Inc. for City Manager Search services. Senior Vice President John Anzivino reviewed Springsted's search process." The minutes never state a resignation, a dismissal, or the terms; Dare had been City Manager since 1990, and the same four-member council majority (Jim Hall, Joe Hall, Pillas, Ashley) had on 3 January refused, 3-4, to lift the public-safety hiring freeze, and it was to that council that the mayor delivered his written objections to the twelve employee-benefit ordinances on 18 January.
Dennis W. Dare
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2011 · 2011-09-13
Fire Marshal Sam Villani retired in September 2011 after thirty-five years and was given a Key to the City and a proclamation at the work session
Item 3 of the work session of 13 September 2011 was headed "RECOGNITION OF FIRE MARSHALL SAM VILLANI'S RETIREMENT: Mayor Meehan presented Sam Villani with a Key to the City and issued a Proclamation in Appreciation of his 35 years of service." Villani had been at the council table as recently as 14 June, when he told the street-performer discussion that "generators should not be permitted on the boardwalk because of the shock hazard and hot exhaust." On 3 October the mayor concurred with the Fire Commission's recommendation to appoint Assistant Chief David W. Hartley as Fire Marshal in his place, and the council voted the appointment unanimously.
Ocean City Volunteer Fire Department
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2011 · 2011-11-01
State Senator Jim Mathias and Delegate Mike McDermott came to the council chamber in November 2011 to present commendations to five retiring Ocean City police officers, whose outdated pistols were then sold to serving officers at $250 apiece
Work session of 1 November 2011, item 2: "Mayor/Interim City Manager Rick Meehan, Maryland State Senator Jim Mathias, Maryland State Delegate Mike McDermott and Police Chief Bernadette DiPino presented commendations to Ocean City Police Officer Retirees Victor Bunting, Robert Noll, Charles Bean Jr., Brasure Lynch and Barry Neeb." Item 3 followed directly: "Chief Bernadette DiPino requested permission to: (1) sell outdated pistols @ $250.00 a piece to patrol officers within the Department; and (2) use the proceeds of this sale to purchase new weapons for incoming officers. She explained that traditionally, the Department allows retirees to keep their weapons as retirement gifts." Bunting, as a captain, had asked the council on 14 June for legislation letting the department review criminal histories of taxi and tow drivers. Mathias is the same senator the council had voted on 11 January to ask, by letter from the mayor, "to re-district Ocean City to the Baltimore Sector rather than the Hampton Roads Sector (for future federal port protection grant opportunities)."
Ocean City Police Department James N. "Jim" Mathias Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2012
Dennis Dare, City Manager since 1990, is now a Council Member — and David L. Recor holds the post he held for twenty-two years
Mayor Richard W. Meehan; Council President Lloyd Martin; Zoning Administrator Blaine Smith; Planning Commission chaired by Pam Greer Buckley. Ninety-four documents. Dare had been City Engineer through the whole beach fight before taking the manager's chair; he now sits on the body that appointed him. Some documents in the 2012 folder belong to other years, so every quotation must carry an internal date.
Dennis W. Dare David L. Recor
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2012 · 2012-01-03
Police Captain Robert Bokinsky was given a Proclamation of Commendation and a Key to the City for 31.5 years of service at the first meeting of 2012
Under Items Presented by the Mayor and City Council on 3 January 2012: "Mayor /Interim City Manager Rick Meehan, accompanied by Ocean City Police Chief Bernadette DiPino, presented Captain Robert Bokinsky with a Proclamation of Commendation and a Key to the City for his 31.5 years of service to the Town." The Key to the City was the town's standard retirement gift that year: it went to retiree Janice Cropper on 6 February, to Sergeant Gary Holtzman on 14 February, to Lieutenant Richard Currence (34 years) and PFC Douglas Hunt (24 years) on 13 March, and to Thomas Collins for eight years as Tow Hearing Officer on 16 July.
Ocean City Police Department
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2012 · 2012-05-21
The 21 May meeting opened with a moment of silence for former Council Member and police officer Jay Hancock, and a request for prayers for a Public Works employee hurt in a car accident
Prayer and Pledge, regular session of 21 May 2012: "Mayor /Interim City Manager Rick Meehan led a moment of silence for Former Council Member and Police Officer Jay Hancock. Pastor Sean Davis of Ocean City Baptist Church led the Prayer and Mayor /Interim City Manager Rick Meehan led the Pledge of Allegiance. Mayor Meehan mentioned that Public Works Employee Dave Quilter was in a serious vehicle accident and asked for thoughts and prayers for he and his family." The same evening the Mayor proclaimed 27 May to 2 June Hurricane Awareness Week.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2012 · 2012-09-17
The Mayor proclaimed 8 September 2012 Tony's Pizza Day for the fiftieth anniversary of the pizza shop Tony Russo opened at 1st Street and the Boardwalk in 1962, two years after arriving from Sicily with a dollar
Items Presented by the Mayor and City Council, 17 September 2012: "A. Proclamation Honoring Tony Russo and Family for their 50th Year Anniversary of Tony's Pizza in Ocean City." The proclamation in the packet: "Tony Russo, owner of Tony's Pizza, came to the United States with his mother at the age of 19 in November of 1960 from Sicily. He only had a dollar in his pocket and couldn't speak a lick of English... When Tony Russo arrived in the U.S., he worked at the Squire Cafe in Dundalk and by 1962 he came to Ocean City and opened Tony's Pizza on 1st Street and the Boardwalk... In 1997, the Russo family rebuilt Tony's Pizza as it is today with the kitchen and indoor seating on the first floor and a full bar and ocean deck on top. The small pizza shop on the corner grew from seating 100 to almost 800... the Russo family are looking to the future and plan on keeping the family business alive for 'at least another 50 years'. NOW, THEREFORE, I, Richard W. Meehan... do hereby proclaim September 8th, 2012 as TONY'S PIZZA DAY in Ocean City", signed 7 September 2012. The Beauty Spot Awards were presented the same evening.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2012 · 2012-09-25
Planning Director Jesse Houston retired after thirty years with the town, and the Mayor's resolution of appreciation dated his career from 1982
Item 2 of the 25 September 2012 work session was "Retirement Recognition for Jesse Houston, Director of Planning and Community Development". The resolution in the agenda packet, "IN APPRECIATION OF JESSE HOUSTON, 30 YEARS OF SERVICE": "Jesse Houston has contributed Thirty (30) years of dedicated service to the Town of Ocean City, where he began his career in 1982; and WHEREAS, Jesse Houston has played an integral role at the Department of Planning and Community Development of the Town of Ocean City for the past Thirty (30) years... I, Richard W. Meehan, Mayor of the Town of Ocean City, Maryland, along with the Ocean City Council, do hereby commend Jesse for his Thirty (30) years of devoted service and wish him a happy and healthy retirement", sealed 30 September 2012. Houston had presented the design-guidelines zoning ordinance, the sustainable-community application and the boardwalk noise study in his last winter.
Jesse Houston
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2012 · 2012-11-05
A week after Hurricane Sandy the Mayor thanked staff for managing the storm and asked for an 'Under Construction' sign on the Boardwalk so onlookers would know the rebuilding was not storm damage, while a council member asked about sending a work crew to New Jersey
Regular session of 5 November 2012, the first meeting after Sandy passed on 29 October. Comments from Citizens: "Joe Groves commended staff on recovery from Hurricane Sandy". Comments from the Council: "Council Member Margaret Pillas asked about dispatch a work crew to New Jersey. Mayor Meehan advised that sending aid is a function of the State of Maryland... Mayor Meehan thanked the participating staff for the excellent management of Hurricane Sandy; and, he suggested that staff post an 'Under Construction' sign on the boardwalk so onlookers know that it was not destroyed by the storm." The Boardwalk's Phase II reconstruction had been bid on 31 July. The same evening the bids for the Caroline Street comfort station and stage were opened, Black Diamond Builders low at $938,750 against a staff estimate of $950,000, and the Noise Control Board chairman won a vote to raise noise fines to $1,000.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2013
Ninety-one documents and a staff list that has become professional: an ICMA-credentialled manager, a CPA finance administrator, a city engineer and a tourism director
Mayor Richard W. Meehan; Council President Lloyd Martin; Council Secretary Mary Knight; Council Member Dennis Dare; Council Members Pillas, Michael James; City Manager David L. Recor, ICMA-CM; City Solicitor Guy Ayres; Zoning Administrator Blaine Smith; City Engineer Terence McGean; Finance Administrator Martha J. Bennett, CPA; Tourism Director Donna Abbott. In 1957 the town's whole professional staff was a clerk who told the councilmen privately that a bond issue was needed to get Ocean City out of the hole.
Terry McGean Dennis W. Dare David L. Recor Guy R. Ayres III
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2013 · 2013-07-01
Two Ocean City police officers, Thomas Geoghegan Jr. and Joshua Adickes, died in a plane crash off the coast on 30 June 2013, and the mayor opened the next night's meeting by acknowledging them
Regular session of 1 July 2013, Prayer and Pledge: "Mayor Rick Meehan acknowledged the loss of fallen Ocean City Police Officers Thomas Geoghegan, Jr. and Joshua Adickes who passed away in a plane crash off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland on June 30, 2013. Beach Patrol Lieutenant Ward Kovacs led the prayer and Pledge of Allegiance." The same meeting saw Mayor Meehan swear in the new Police Chief, Ross Buzzuro. Geoghegan appears in the OCPD 2012 Year-End Report, presented to the council on 29 January 2013, among the Bronze Star recipients: "CPL Charles Kelley, DET Thomas Geoghegan."
Ocean City Police Department
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2013 · 2013-08-19
Governor O'Malley, Senator Cardin, Congressman Ruppersberger, Senator Mikulski's representative and Comptroller Franchot came to the beach replenishment anniversary ceremony, and the mayor's report of it was about the comptroller's support for starting school after Labor Day
Regular session of 19 August 2013, Comments from the Mayor and City Council: "Mayor Meehan said he was glad to hear, at the Beach Replenishment Anniversary Ceremony, State Comptroller Peter Franchot's positive comments about the legislative initiative to make the first day of school after Labor Day. Also, he said that Governor O'Malley, Senator Ben Cardin, Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger and Senator Barbara Mikulski's Representative all spoke about how the local, County, State and Federal partnership made the beach replenishment project happen." The Tourism Commission of 12 August had recorded the plan: "Melanie Pursel has been working with the Comptroller's office regarding schools starting after Labor Day news conference scheduled for August 15 on the boardwalk in front of the museum," and the Mayor "mentioned that there will be a celebration on Saturday ... for the new boardwalk and the 25 year of beach replenishment." On 3 September the Mayor added that "State Comptroller Peter Franchot will be in town to tour the new Art League Building."
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2014
Eighty-eight documents and about 4.48 million characters, with a police chief, an emergency services director and a tourism director all named in the record
Mayor Richard W. Meehan; Council President Lloyd Martin; Council Member Dennis Dare; Council Members Mary Knight, Michael James; City Manager David Recor; City Solicitor Guy Ayres; Police Chief Ross Buzzuro; Emergency Services Director Joe Theobald; Tourism Director Donna Abbott. The largest annual volume in the corpus, and still one source.
Ross C. Buzzuro Dennis W. Dare David L. Recor Guy R. Ayres III
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2014 · 2014-02-10
Two taxi companies asked the Police Commission to raise the metered rate from $2.20 to $3.00 a mile, the first change since 2010, and were told to come back with four years of costs
Police Commission minutes of 10 February 2014, item 3: "John Donahue of Nite Club Taxi and Charles Stooksbury of American Veterans Taxi requested the Police Commission's recommendation to increase the per mile rate from $2.20 per mile to $3.00 per mile. The current rate has been in existence since 2010. The per mile rate is split 50/50 between company and taxi driver. The taxi driver must pay for their own gas out of this rate. Gas prices about the same as in 2010; however, cost of living has risen since 2010. Owners supply vehicles and advertising. Present cost is $9.80 for the first 3 miles - includes loading charge + $2.20 per mile. Average fare length in Ocean City is approximately 25 blocks, which is less than 2 miles." Councilman Dare and Mayor Meehan moved to have the two owners "analyze their costs over the past four years and return to the March Police Commission meeting"; the commission "believes it might be time for some sort of increase, preferably an incremental increase." When Donahue returned on 10 March the ask had grown to $3.71 a mile and the loading charge was itemised at $3.20; the commission sent the question to the full council.
Dennis W. Dare
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2014 · 2014-02-10
The mayor told the Tourism Commission that the volunteer-run St. Patrick's Day Parade had given $22,000 in Stephen Decatur scholarships and $10,000 to Coastal Hospice the year before; the 2014 parade ran 136 units and a record crowd
Tourism Commission, 10 February 2014: "The Mayor reminded everyone that the upcoming St. Patrick's Day Parade is put on entirely by a volunteer organization and has become one of the biggest weekends in town between New Year's and Memorial Day. It is a fund-raising event. Last year, they gave $22,000 toward high school scholarships at Stephen Decatur High School and also donated $10,000 to Coastal Hospice. They would appreciate any support that you may be able to give." On 13 March Buck Mann of the Chamber "reported the coming weekend's St. Patrick's Day Parade will be bigger than ever with 136 units participating. All agreed the event has grown into a signature spring kick off with hotels and bars experiencing strong sales." At the regular meeting of 24 March Council Member Mitrecic "said that this year's Saint Patrick's Day parade had a record breaking turnout."
Ocean City Tourism Commission
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2014 · 2014-04-01
The council let a widower put a small memorial plaque to his wife on the 119th Street dune
Work session of 1 April 2014, Council Requests: "Mayor Meehan asked the Council to consider approve Luis Granados, III's request to install a small memorial plaque on the 119th Street dune to honor Ann Horner-Granados. Council Member Brent Ashley moved to approve; seconded by Council Member Cymek. The vote was unanimous." It sat at the end of an agenda that had retired the Recreation and Parks Director after fourteen years, given a fire engine listed as surplus to "a local fire department in need of an additional engine" instead of selling it on govdeals.com, and approved the final design of the Beach Patrol headquarters.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2014 · 2014-06-16
A Brazilian army colonel who had travelled to Ocean City to study the Beach Patrol's life-saving methods was given a Key to the City
Regular meeting of 16 June 2014, first item under Items Presented by the Mayor and City Council: "Mayor Rick Meehan presented a Key to the City to Colonel Jose Maria de Andrade P. Filho from Brazil, who travelled to Ocean City to observe the life-saving techniques of the OC Beach Patrol." The same summer the mayor was handing out Keys to retiring firemen and public-works men; this one went to a foreign officer who had come for the surf rescue technicians.
Ocean City Beach Patrol
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2014 · 2014-07-15
The mayor put the summer's J-1 foreign student workforce at more than 5,000 and gave a Key to the City to the State Department official who ran the exchange programme
Work session of 15 July 2014, Acknowledgements and Recognitions: "Mayor Rick Meehan thanked Robin Lerner of the Department of State Cultural and Educational Affairs, Melanie Pursel of the Greater Ocean City Chamber of Commerce, and Carrie Linch of the Ocean City Maryland Seasonal Workforce Committee for their efforts in organizing the J-1 Students program in Ocean City. [There are over 5,000 J-1 students in the program.] Mayor Meehan presented Robin Lerner with a Key to the City." The bracketed count is the clerk's. The Chamber had told the Tourism Commission in February that a state workforce planning grant was being used "to see what the gap is in workforce needs", and in August the mayor "recognized the International Students and Student Task Force who were in the forum" at the 12 August work session.
Ocean City Chamber of Commerce
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2014 · 2014-08-18
Asked to move a street performer from in front of the Plim Plaza, the mayor reminded the council that the ACLU had taken the town to court over performers twice and won both times
Regular meeting of 18 August 2014, Comments from the Public: "Joe Moore asked the Council to consider the position of the street performer in front of the Plim Plaza on 2nd Street. Council Member Joe Mitrecic moved to refer this matter to Police Chief Ross Buzzuro; seconded by Council Member Pillas. The vote was 6-1 with Dare opposed." Under Comments from the Mayor and City Council: "Mayor Rick Meehan advised that the street performer issue has been addressed on numerous occasions. The Town was challenged by the ACLU in Court and the Town lost both cases. He stated that he is committed to resolving the issues caused by certain performers."
Ross C. Buzzuro Dennis W. Dare
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2014 · 2014-10-20
The Elks Lodge's Hometown Heroes programme hung banners for serving soldiers on the Boardwalk and then handed each banner to the soldier or the soldier's family at a ceremony
The programme was approved at the work session of 14 January 2014 as item E, "Request to Approve Military Banner Program presented by Pat Riordan, Ocean City Elks Lodge Veteran's Committee. Council Member Brent Ashley moved to approve the Military Banner Program as presented; seconded by Council Member Cymek. The vote was unanimous." At the regular meeting of 20 October 2014, under Comments from the Mayor and City Council, Mayor Meehan "shared that the Hometown Heroes Boardwalk Banner program, hosted by the Elks Club, was a heartwarming success. He said the soldiers were recognized in a ceremony and the banners were given to the soldier or the soldier's family."
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 McGean Dennis W. Dare David L. Recor Guy R. Ayres III Hal Adkins Diana Chavis
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2015 · 2015-01-20
Charter buses got year-round permitting on a unanimous vote, taken from a Tourism Commission recommendation in the same minute as a decision to send welcome letters to the new state legislators
Regular meeting of 20 January 2015. Council Secretary Knight reviewed the Tourism Commission minutes of 12 January 2015, from which two recommendations were carried: "Council Member Cymek moved to accept the Tourism Commission's recommendation to provide year-round permitting for Charter Buses; seconded by Council Member Hartman. The vote was unanimous"; and "Council Member James moved [to] accept the Tourism Commission's recommendation to send Welcome Letters to the new State Legislators; seconded by Council Member Dare. The vote was unanimous." A town whose season is its subject extends a permit to the whole year without comment, and in the same breath introduces itself to Annapolis.
Dennis W. Dare
Source · checked 2026-09-04
2015 · 2015-01-20
The mayor thanked Comptroller Peter Franchot, Senator Jim Mathias, Delegate Mary Beth Carozza and Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger for attending the grand opening of the Performing Arts Center, and reported that Governor-elect Larry Hogan had signed the school-after-Labor-Day petition
Comments from the Mayor and City Council, regular meeting of 20 January 2015: Mayor Meehan "advised that while at a press conference in Annapolis about the School-After Labor Day initiative, Governor-Elect Larry Hogan signed the petition. Thirdly, he thanked all who attended the Grand Opening of the Performing Art Center including Maryland State Comptroller Peter Franchot, Senator Jim Mathias, State Delegate Mary Pat [sic] Carozza, and Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger. He also thanked City Engineer Terry McGean, Convention Center Director Larry Noccolino, Becker Morgan, Whiting Turner and the Maryland Stadium Authority for their hard work and dedication." The opening itself had been announced at the 5 January meeting: "the Grand Opening of the Performing Arts Center, featuring the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, on Friday, January 17, 2015 at 6:30 p.m." - and on 5 January the mayor had also said he would stand "in front of the State Treasury Building" with Franchot on 7 January "to acknowledge receipt of a petition with 10,000 signatures in support of the School-After-Labor-Day initiative."
James N. "Jim" Mathias Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2015 · 2015-03-16
The 2015 St Patrick's Day parade, approved a month earlier under a new memorandum of understanding with a 75 per cent fee discount, was cancelled because the weather of 14 March "caused a public safety issue"
Comments from the Mayor and City Council, regular meeting of 16 March 2015: Mayor Meehan "was sorry to see that the St. Patrick's Day parade was cancelled; however, the weather caused a public safety issue." The parade had been on the council's papers all winter. On 20 January the Recreation and Parks Committee's recommendation "to establish a Memorandum of Understanding with the Delmarva Irish Association's St. Patrick's Day parade" was accepted unanimously, and on 19 February the council approved the "Private Event Approval Request and Memorandum of Understanding for the St. Patrick's Day Parade - March 14, 2015" with three amendments, the last to "apply the 75% discount to Total Fees Paid to the Town." The Shenanigans St. Pat's 5K Run for the same day was approved on the consent agenda.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2015 · 2015-06-09
The Board of Elections certified 1,477 valid signatures on the petition to cap the property tax rate by charter amendment - 249 more than the 1,228 needed from 6,141 registered voters - and two weeks later the council voted unanimously to ask the Circuit Court whether the amendment was lawful rather than put it on the ballot
Work session of 9 June 2015, item A, "Discussion of Board of Supervisors of Elections Communication Regarding Petition to Amend Charter Pertaining to Property Tax Levy": "Mary Adeline Bradford, Chairman of the Board of Elections, read the June 1, 2015, letter to the Mayor and Council confirming 1,787 signatures were submitted, 310 were invalid and 1,477 valid registered voter signatures were certified by the Board of Elections. The Annotated Code of Maryland stipulates the number of signatures needed for a charter amendment shall be based on twenty (20%) percent of the number of registered voters on the rolls at the time the petition was submitted. There were 6,141 registered voters on the rolls at the time the petition was submitted. Twenty percent of that total is 1,228." Tony Christ, who led the drive, thanked "petitioners who signed." At the work session of 23 June, after closed session: "Motion to move Charter Amendment Petition for Declaratory Relief in Circuit Court for independent judicial review, because the proposed Charter Amendment that caps the property tax rate constitutes an unlawful rollback and violates State law. RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]." Mayor Meehan then set out the town's figures against the petition's proposed return to the 2009 rate of 38 cents: the assessable base had fallen from $12,105,325,297 in 2009 to $8,390,862,470, the rate was now .4780, property tax revenue was $40,207,662 "or $5 million less than in 2009", and full-time employees were down from 622 to 533. On 20 July Joe Moran handed the clerk filings in a federal suit by "Ocean City Taxpayers for Social Justice"; on 3 August the solicitor said he had moved to dismiss it and that "if the Court says it has to go to the voters, then it will go to the voters."
Guy R. Ayres III
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2015 · 2015-07-20
City Manager David Recor's resignation was "mutually agreed and accepted" in closed session on 20 July 2015; from the next meeting the minutes style Rick Meehan "Mayor/Acting City Manager", a search firm was hired on 11 August and candidates were interviewed on 10 December
Regular meeting of 20 July 2015, Report of Closed Session: "Action taken in Closed Session: The Mayor and Council have mutually agreed and accepted City Manager David Recor's resignation." In public comments the same evening "Nelson Cockrell inquired about City Manager David Recor's vehicle accident." On 28 July the minutes record "Mayor and Acting City Manager Rick Meehan"; on 11 August, in a second closed session, "Motion to approve Bob Slavin of Slavin Management Consultants for city manager search firm. RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]", and the mayor asked "to transfer the former city manager vehicle to the Police Department". Slavin sat in the closed session of 12 November on personnel matters, and the closed session of 10 December 2015 lists among those present "Human Resource Director Wayne Evans and City Manager Candidates." Recor had presented the FY16 budget message on 7 April and was still in attendance at the 14 July work session.
David L. Recor
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2015 · 2015-08-11
Former Council President George Hurley died in August 2015, and the town flag stayed at half staff until sunset on Friday the 14th
Work session of 11 August 2015, recorded under the motion to adjourn: "Mayor Rick Meehan acknowledged the passing of former Council President George Hurley. The Town of Ocean City flag will remain at half staff until sunset Friday, August 14, 2015." It was the same meeting at which the mayor, acting as city manager since David Recor's resignation, had the former city manager's car transferred to the police department. Two other deaths were marked from the chair later in the year: former auxiliary police officer Edward Fritz, "who contributed over 900 hours of service to the town" (19 October), and former County Commissioner Louise Gulyas (21 December).
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2015 · 2015-08-17
Eleven street performers told the council the new Boardwalk rules had them sleeping outside City Hall to sign up for a space, banned their umbrellas and stopped them at 1 a.m. while the bars ran to 2, and the mayor conceded the town had "learned a lot this summer"
Comments from the Public, regular meeting of 17 August 2015, the first summer under Ordinance 2015-11: "Several street performers expressed concerns about the new regulations: Alexander Dawson, Ion Lucian Ionescu, Fracer Ascorra, Wayne Jordan, Joseph Smith, Jessica Brown, David Presley, Alex Young, Mike Moeller, Damien Magarelli, and Daniel Israel." The clerk listed the grievances: "Vacant spaces (including prime spaces), inability to spontaneously use vacant spaces due to sign up process, inability to share spots ... Inability to leave items unattended for more than 15 minutes, particularly for restroom break - Inability to use umbrellas for shade - Sleeping outside City Hall to sign up for a designated space - Talbot Street west location too far off Boardwalk - 9th Street space size too small - 1:00 a.m. stop time vs. bars closing at 2:00 a.m. ... Face painting and face painting products compared to henna products; Touching patrons (costume characters) vs. applying products (face painting)." Mayor Meehan answered that "the Clerk has allowed spaces to be shared and umbrellas have been permitted for sun protection. There are unattended [sic] consequences. Space sizes will be re-evaluated, the 15 minute wait period was never intended to curtail visits to the restroom ... We've learned a lot this summer, and it makes sense to revisit some of these items." The ordinance had been ratified on 15 June with props raised "from 4' to 5'" and the hours extended "to 1:00 AM"; by 7 December a lottery was being proposed and a letter read for performer Mike Moeller blamed "overnight line-ups on J1 Visa performers."
Diana Chavis
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2015 · 2015-12-15
Christy Jo Theodore retired after 31 years in the Solid Waste Department and was given a proclamation and a Key to the City at the last work session of the year
Work session of 15 December 2015, Acknowledgements and Recognitions: "Retirement Recognition of Solid Waste Office Administrative Christy Jo Theodore. Mayor Meehan presented a proclamation and Key to the City to Christy Jo Theodore for 31 years of service at the Solid Waste Department." She was listed in the staff attendance as "Solid Waste Office Associate Christy Jo Theodore." The Key to the City was the year's routine retirement honour: Police Corporal Scott Bernal received one with a proclamation on 4 May, Emergency Services office associate Carol A. Boyles on 1 December (Engineering Manager Russell Jones, honoured the same day, was "not in attendance"), and Convention Center sales director Fred Wise a proclamation on 26 May.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2016
Every memo of the winter is routed "THRU: Mayor Rick Meehan, Acting City Manager" — the charter clause the council studied in 1995 doing its work without comment
"The Mayor shall act as the City Manager of the Town during the pendency of any vacancy in the position of the City Manager, and during such time shall be the chief administrative and financial officer." David Recor has gone; the mayor is running the administration until a successor arrives, and the charter says he must. Twenty-one years after the council read that section into its papers alongside national research on what a mayor is, the sentence is simply exercised. It is also the answer, thirty-one years late, to the question Feehley raised four weeks after Harry Kelley's funeral: what the City Manager system had left the mayoralty to be.
David L. Recor
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2016
Three hundred and ninety session documents, about 7.69 million characters, filtered from the full packet set — and one source
Mayor Richard W. Meehan, also Acting City Manager this winter; Council President Lloyd Martin; City Clerk Diana Chavis; City Solicitor Guy Ayres; Human Resources Director Wayne Evans; Finance Administrator Martha Bennett.
Guy R. Ayres III Diana Chavis
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2016 · 2016-01-26
Winter Storm Jonas took the power out at the Convention Center with 3,500 Trinity Motivation attendees inside, put Beach Patrol rescue swimmers into National Guard vehicles, damaged the fishing pier and the beach, and ended as a Presidential disaster declaration
The storm of 22-24 January 2016 reaches the clerk's minutes only as thanks: at the work session of 26 January "Mayor Meehan recognized various Town departments and agencies for the hard work, coordination and communication during Winter Storm Jonas. Repairs to the Ocean City Fishing Pier are being addressed by franchise holder Bayshore Development." The Department Activity Report of 16 February fills it in. The Convention Center "Lost power during Jonas on Saturday night while Trinity Motivation (3,500 attendees) was here; Fire Chief was instrumental with firefighters and EMS as a 'just in case', client was thoroughly impressed with our response." The Beach Patrol "Outfitted and provided rescue swimmers for MSP and MD National Guard for Winter Storm Jonas and staffed EOC for part of the storm." Engineering was "Working with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to repair damage to the beach suffered during Jonas. The DNR contractor is currently removing debris and opening vehicle cross overs. DNR is preparing a contract to haul excess sand built up in the Downtown area north for dune repairs." Public Works was re-fabricating "all signs that were lost during 'Jonas' storm," and a 7th-and-8th-grade mid-nighter at Northside Park was cancelled. By April Emergency Management was assembling "the Town of Ocean City Reimbursement Request for the Presidential Declaration from Winter Storm JONAS January 2016."
Ocean City Beach Patrol
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2016 · 2016-02-09
The vacancy that had made the mayor Acting City Manager ended on 9 February 2016, when Mayor Meehan swore in Doug Miller as City Manager at the start of a work session
Under Acknowledgements and Recognitions at the work session of 9 February 2016: "A. Oath of Office for City Manager Doug Miller. Mayor Richard Meehan swore in City Manager Doug Miller." The staff list for that meeting is the first of the year to carry "City Manager Doug Miller" and the closed-session roll the first to list "Mayor Richard Meehan" without the Acting City Manager title he had carried since December. The search had run through Slavin Management Consultants: the closed session of 22 December 2015 at the Convention Center, reported on 4 January, was attended by "Bob Slavin of Slavin Management Consultants and City Manager Candidates." On 4 January Herb Pawlukewicz had suggested from the floor that "the new city manager not receive vacation benefits until after one year of service." By 16 February Miller was reviewing the tentative work-session agenda in the City Manager's slot, and by 5 April he and the Budget Manager were presenting the FY17 budget.
Doug R. Miller
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2016 · 2016-03-15
The mayor closed a March work session by recording the death of Jim "Big Bake" Baker, a former captain of the Ocean City police, as the passing of "an Ocean City icon"
At the end of the work session of 15 March 2016, before the council reconvened into closed session, the clerk wrote: "Mayor Meehan thanked everyone for their participation and help with the very successful St. Patrick's Day Parade and recognized the passing of an Ocean City icon, Jim 'Big Bake' Baker, former captain of the OCPD." The parade had been held the Saturday before, 12 March, and broadcast live for the first time by WRDE in partnership with the Delmarva Irish American Club (acknowledged at the 16 February meeting). The minutes give no date of death and no age.
Ocean City Police Department
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2016 · 2016-04-15
At the budget wrap-up the council raised the Inlet Lot to $3.00 an hour on weekdays to match weekends, and set street and municipal-lot parking at $2.00 an hour from April through October
At the FY17 budget wrap-up of 15 April 2016 City Manager Doug Miller raised four parking items, among them "proposed increase to Inlet Parking Lot rate to $3.00 per hour in season." Public Works Director Hal Adkins said paid parking seven days a week through all of May and September "could generate additional parking revenue of $47,000"; Budget Manager Jennie Knapp put the Inlet Lot rate increase at "a 20% increase or additional revenue of approximately $488,000." The motion as amended changed the Inlet Lot "from $2.50 to $3.00 per hour on weekdays in high season to match existing weekend rate and change shoulder season rate from $1.50 to $2.00 per hour," and a second motion, as amended, set CALE street parking and the municipal lots other than the Inlet Lot at "$2.00 per hour from April 1 through October 31." Mayor Meehan "opposed charging for parking on weekdays in April." Adkins noted the seasonal workforce schedule would have to be extended two weeks. Resolution 2016-07 adopting the dates and rates followed on 18 April.
Doug R. Miller
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2016 · 2016-08-09
Fire/EMS Deputy Chief Charles "Chuck" Barton retired after more than 33 years with a proclamation and a Key to the City, the form the town used for every long-serving retiree that year
At the work session of 9 August 2016, under Acknowledgements and Recognitions: "Mayor Rick Meehan presented Chuck Barton with proclamation and Key to the City, recognizing 33+ years of dedicated service. Fire Chief Chris Larmore spoke of Chuck's integrity, commitment and honesty." Barton had sat through the winter's closed sessions on the firefighters' shift dispute and presented the ambulance-billing contract in March; the Fire Department's activity report dates the announcement of his retirement to 3 August. The same proclamation-and-key form was used in 2016 for building custodian Rosemary Twigg (32 years, 29 March), engineering administrative associate Barbara Scheleur (27 September), Firefighter/EMS Lieutenant Ray Wooten (11 years, 1 November) and human resources specialist Dolores Conn (19 years, 29 November).
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2016 · 2016-08-15
After complaints about shark fishing off the north-end beach, the council banned chumming and blood-baiting within 600 feet of the shore by emergency ordinance, with a fine of up to $1,000
At the regular meeting of 15 August 2016, under an ordinance to amend Chapter 106 (Waterways), the clerk recorded that "Recent concerns about shark fishing on the beach using chumming or blood baiting methods prompted recommendations to amend Chapter 106, Section 4, Surf Fishing and Casting, to prohibit the activity. Beach Patrol Captain Butch Arbin expressed concerns with sharks being lured onto the beach. Mayor Meehan added conducting a business in the Beach Reserve District is not allowed." Solicitor Ayres proposed three new sections: 106-133, "It shall be unlawful for any person to fish by utilizing those methods commonly known as 'chumming' or 'blood baiting' by said person or in concert with others from the beach or within 600 feet from the beach at any time of the year"; 106-134, against "a baited hook sent into the ocean either by means of propulsion or by a water vessel"; and 106-135, making a violation a municipal infraction "subject to fine of not more than $1,000." Ordinance 2016-18 was approved and then adopted as an emergency ordinance the same night, the Mayor concurring. The staff memo in the packet says the complaints came from "the north end of town."
Ocean City Beach Patrol
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2016 · 2016-09-06
Tropical Storm Hermine shut the ocean on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend - the Beach Patrol staffed the entire beach to enforce a swimming ban and the trams did not run - and the mayor thanked Governor Hogan for his support
At the regular meeting of 6 September 2016, two days after the storm passed, City Manager Doug Miller "thanked employees who manned city services during Hurricane Hermine as well as allied agencies who sent resources," and Mayor Meehan "thanked Governor Hogan for his support during Hurricane Hermine." The Department Activity Reports of 19 September and 17 October name it Tropical Storm Hermine, 2-6 September, and record the Beach Patrol "Staffed entire beach enforcing the swimming ban" and then "Returned all stands to beach by 10:00 AM Sunday"; Engineering found "there was no additional beach damage due to Hermine"; Public Works had "Storm (Hermine) cleanup completed Tuesday on the boardwalk, beach, streets, etc."; and Transportation reported "Labor Day weekend hampered by Tropical Storm Hermine on Saturday had excellent ridership on Friday and Sunday/Monday at 48,884 while Trams closed Saturday of Labor Day Weekend but still managed $23,122 in revenue in the three remaining days." An after-action meeting was held on 20 September.
Ocean City Beach Patrol Doug R. Miller
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2016 · 2016-09-06
The county commissioner for Ocean City told the council a Boardwalk busker's amplified electric violin outside Shenanigans could be heard a block and a half away, and the mayor answered two weeks later that the busker, the commissioner and the busker's defender all had the same right - free speech
Under Comments from the Public at the regular meeting of 6 September 2016, Worcester County Commissioner Joe Mitrecic "shared his personal experience with a street performer playing an amplified electric violin outside of Shenanigans Restaurant, making it impossible to hear restaurant music. When leaving the restaurant, the violin could still be heard a block and a half away. Performers infringe on the rights of citizens and visitors by not allowing them to enjoy the Boardwalk. It would be beneficial to the Town if Mayor and Council revisited ordinance." Chloe Ferber then "inquired if street performers undergo background checks." At the next regular meeting, 19 September, George Leukel "stated street performers are added entertainment," and the clerk recorded the mayor's reply: "the Mayor noted buskers have the right to perform on the Boardwalk; George Leukel has the right to criticize Joe Mitrecic's comments; and Joe Mitrecic has the right to come before Mayor and Council to express concerns. They are all the same thing - the right to freedom of speech." The year had already rewritten the performer ordinance from first-come-first-served to a Monday lottery (Ordinance 2016-06, first reading 21 March), with a six-foot height limit on props and umbrellas allowed until sundown.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2016 · 2016-11-07
Eight months after the council approved the Surf Club's Adopt-Your-Beach programme on condition there be no signs, its founder brought the council Governor Hogan's citation naming Ocean City the Cleanest Beach on the East Coast
At the work session of 15 March 2016 Effie Cox and Wyatt Harrison of the Ocean City Surf Club proposed Adopt-Your-Beach: "Each participant will adopt block areas, from east of the dune to the waters edge, to clean a minimum of four (4) times per year between April and November. Ms. Cox requested City provide and maintain signage." Council members balked at the signs and at publishing the litter data - "Several Council Members opposed additional signage at street ends" - and approved the programme "without signage; collected data for internal use." At the regular meeting of 7 November: "Council Member DeLuca congratulated Effie Cox, Ocean City Surf Club, the Green Team and the amazing volunteers for their continued support and efforts in bringing to fruition the Adopt-Your-Beach program. Effie Cox presented Governor Hogan's citation for the Cleanest Beach on the East Coast." On 21 November Cox and the mayor, "On behalf of Governor Hogan's Office," handed Adopt-Your-Beach volunteer service certificates to Sandi Smith, Gail Blazer and Council Member DeLuca.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2016 · 2016-11-10
In the November 2016 municipal election Rick Meehan was returned as mayor unopposed with 1,894 votes, newcomer John Gehrig Jr. topped the council poll with 2,026, and Doug Cymek lost his seat after eight years
At the organizational meeting of 10 November 2016 Board of Supervisors of Elections member Jamie Albright certified the results: "For Mayor: Rick Meehan 1894. For Council: Douglas S. Cymek 1175; Dennis W. Dare 1355; Tony DeLuca 1496; John Gehrig, Jr. 2026; Mary Knight 1310." Five candidates had stood for four seats (the list approved 17 October showed Meehan "running unopposed"). Worcester County Clerk of Circuit Court Susan Braniecki swore in Meehan, Dare, DeLuca, Gehrig and Knight; Lloyd Martin was re-elected Council President without opposition, and Mary Knight Council Secretary after Gehrig's nomination of Matt James "died due to lack of second." The council "thanked Doug Cymek for eight years of dedicated service." Election Day bus service to the polls was free, and 938 riders took it. Worcester County Commissioner Joe Mitrecic led the prayer and pledge.
Dennis W. Dare
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2017
Three hundred and sixty-six session documents, about 7.69 million characters, one source
Mayor Richard W. Meehan; City Manager Doug R. Miller; City Clerk Diana Chavis; Finance Director Martha Bennett; City Solicitor Guy Ayres. Ayres has been City Solicitor across this entire block and most of the previous two.
Doug R. Miller Guy R. Ayres III Diana 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."
Hal Adkins
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2017 · 2017-02-28
In one work session the mayor handed out two Keys to the City, to Police Lieutenant Howard Whaley after thirty years and to Zoning Administrator Blaine Smith after thirty-one
Under Acknowledgements and Recognitions at the work session of 28 February 2017: "Chief Buzzuro thanked Police Lieutenant Howard Whaley for his dedication, professionalism and high level of service to the community for 30 years. Lt. Whaley will continue his service as a reserve officer for the Town of Ocean City. Mayor Meehan presented a proclamation and Key to the City." Then: "Mayor Meehan presented a proclamation and Key to the City to Blaine Smith for 31 years of service, commenting on Blaine's integrity, honesty and the respect of all who had the pleasure of working with him. He read two letters into the record, one from Joe Moore and another from Al Wendling. Planning and Community Director Bill Neville stated what an honor it had been to work with Blaine. Jeff Thaler and Robert Herron spoke briefly as well." The year's other retirement recognitions in the minutes were Parks Superintendent Calvin Ginnavan, 37 years (25 April, proclamation and Key to the City); Detective Corporal Brett Case, 28 years (30 May); Police Lieutenant Todd Wood, 28 years (26 September); and Human Resources Specialist Dolores "Miss Dee" Cockrell, 19 years (28 November, proclamation and Key to the City).
Ross C. Buzzuro
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2017 · 2017-04-14
The Recreation Boosters got their glass of Springfest and Sunfest wine raised from $5 to $6 at the budget wrap-up, eight days after the council had refused it two votes to five
At the FY18 budget meeting of 6 April 2017, under Special Events and Festivals, "Recreation Boosters requested an increase for wine sales from $5.00 to $6.00 per glass. Revenue is donated to sponsor programs. Council posed several questions and suggested request be revisited at budget wrap up." A motion by Dare, seconded by Gehrig, "to authorize OC Recreation Boosters increase wine sales from $5.00 to $6.00 per glass starting with Springfest" was recorded as withdrawn, 2 to 5. At the wrap-up of 14 April, under "COST FOR WINE AT SPRINGFEST/SUNFEST": "OC Recreation Boosters requested approval to increase cost of wine from $5.00 to $6.00 per 6 oz. glass. Mayor Meehan noted Boosters are volunteers with proceeds given back to the Recreation Department. Recreation Superintendent Kathryn Gaddis noted Booster volunteers Harry Howe, Frank Miller and Brenda Moore support fee increase." The "Motion to increase price of wine from $5.00 to $6.00 per glass" then carried.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2017 · 2017-04-14
The council cut the town's $5,000 prize for the season's first white marlin during the budget hearings, and put it back nine days later after the fishing industry rallied and the Marlin Club offered to match it
At the FY18 budget meeting of 5 April 2017, under Special Appropriations, the council "Discussed $5,000 special appropriation for catch of first White Marlin" and carried, 5 to 2 (Martin and DeLuca opposed), a "Motion to eliminate $5,000 special appropriation for first White Marlin caught each season." At the budget wrap-up of 14 April the item came back: "Mayor Meehan stated prior vote to eliminate $5,000 for first White Marlin caught brought concern and rallying by community and fishing industry. Mayor was contacted by John Griffin, former Maryland Secretary of State and a member of the Maryland Sport Fishing Association who, in conjunction with the Marlin Club, match the $5,000 contribution. Requested continuing support of this important tradition and make it more recognizable by promoting with private industries and the Marlin Club." The council then approved a "Motion to allocate $5,000 as donation prize money for first White Marlin caught and work with fishing industry to promote angler tradition; Motion amended to fund from Tourism Sponsorship line item." On 17 April Scott Lennox of Fishing OC and Dave Messick of Hooked on OC "thanked Mayor and Council for reinstating the $5,000 award," and Glen Mumbauer suggested certificates for every white marlin caught under the tagline "White Marlin Capital of the World." The prize was paid on 3 July 2017, when the mayor presented "a $5,000 cash award" to angler David Taylor "for catching first white marlin of the 2017 season on June 17 in the Poorman's Canyon aboard Reel Buster."
Ocean City Marlin Club
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2017 · 2017-04-14
The council put $2,500 of town money into Worcester Warriors Against Opiate Addiction at the FY18 budget wrap-up, in a year when citizens raised the heroin epidemic from the floor at three meetings
At the budget wrap-up of 14 April 2017, under Special Appropriations, after moving $4,500 from the police department's spaying and neutering budget to the Humane Society ("making total funding $19,500. [Requested $15,000]"), the council carried a "Motion to appropriate $2,500 to Worcester Warriors Against Opiate Addiction." The subject had come from the public microphone on 6 February, when Alvin Wendling "commented on street performers and local heroine epidemic" (the clerk's spelling), and it came again on 21 August: "Tony Christ requested support of a CD and sponsorship of a children's music show in an effort to reach out to the young community regarding the prevention of heroin addiction. Mayor Meehan commended his efforts, acknowledging the major problem of heroin addiction in today's world." Christ was back on 20 November to promote his 4 December Performing Arts Center charity event "Brian's Song," and on 4 December "thanked Mayor, Council, citizens and business owners for contributing and supporting the 'Brian's Christmas Songbook' event."
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2017 · 2017-05-08
Springfest 2017 counted 106,334 people over its four days despite a wet Friday, with 1,797 at the Joan Jett concert and 1,800 at Josh Turner
The Tourism Commission minutes of 8 May 2017, filed in the council packet of 15 May, record under Special Events: "Frank Miller reported that Springfest wrapped up on a positive note, despite the weather issues. Attendance was down on Friday, but rebounded on Saturday and Sunday. Total Springfest attendees were 106,334. Total attendees for Josh Turner concert were 1,800. Total attendees for Joan Jett were 1,797." The commission that morning was chaired by Council Secretary Mary Knight, with Mayor Meehan, Councilman John Gehrig, Todd Ferrante of OCDC, Will Lynch of HMRA and Stephanie Meehan of the Chamber of Commerce as members. The same page notes Convention Center Director Larry Noccolino's new marquee sign on Coastal Highway "dedicated to the Performing Arts Center."
Ocean City Tourism Commission
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2017 · 2017-06-10
On a Saturday in June the council met specially and passed, as an emergency ordinance in a single sitting, a public-nudity law declaring that Ocean City "has never been a topless beach and will not become a topless beach"
The special meeting of Saturday 10 June 2017 had one item: "First Reading - Ordinance to Amend Chapter 58, Entitled Offenses and Miscellaneous Provisions of the Code of the Town of Ocean City, Maryland (offenses involving public nudity or state of nudity). City Solicitor Ayres read entire ordinance into the record." One citizen, Caroline Larkin, "expressed concern over female toplessness." The minutes carry the council's statement: "Mayor and Council received hundreds of calls and emails from residents and visitors expressing concerns due to inaccurate information recently circulated. Each year thousands of families visit our beaches to relax in an atmosphere free of this type of activity; we respect their rights. This ordinance provides clarity as to the position of the Mayor and City Council that they will not allow women to be topless on the beach or on any public property within the city limits. Ocean City has never been a topless beach and will not become a topless beach." Ordinance 2017-10 was approved on first reading and then, by a second unanimous motion with the mayor concurring, enacted as an emergency ordinance; the meeting adjourned at 12:20 PM. Five days earlier, at the regular meeting of 5 June, Alvin Wendling had already "expressed concern of bare chested women on the beach."
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2017 · 2017-09-18
A delegation of the Women's Association of Mayors of the West from Haiti sat in the council chamber on 18 September and was acknowledged by the mayor before the prayer and pledge
The clerk's minutes of the regular meeting of 18 September 2017 open, immediately after the call to order and before the prayer, with a single line: "Mayor Meehan acknowledged the Women's Association of Mayors of the West-AFMO in Haiti." Nothing further about the visitors - their names, their number, the purpose of the visit - appears in the minutes, the meeting outline or any attachment in the 2017 packets (the word Haiti occurs in no other 2017 document). It is the only foreign visit recorded in the year's clerk's minutes. AFMO is the association's French acronym; the West (Ouest) is the department of Haiti that contains Port-au-Prince.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2018
Three hundred and forty-seven session documents, about 5.62 million characters, one source
Mayor Richard W. Meehan; City Manager Doug R. Miller. The volume falls for the first time since 2010 without the town's business shrinking — a change in what gets filed rather than in what gets done.
Doug R. Miller
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2018 · 2018-06-18
The mayor acknowledged the death of Boardwalk Elvis, Norman Webb, from the council table on 18 June 2018
In Comments from the Mayor and City Council at the regular meeting of 18 June 2018, after welcoming the Maryland State Firemen's Association to town, Mayor Meehan "acknowledged the passing of Boardwalk Elvis (Norman Webb)." The clerk gives him no other title; the nickname is the record. It is the only death of a private citizen noted in the 2018 minutes.
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.
Ross C. Buzzuro Hal Adkins
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2019 · 2019-05-24
Governor Hogan and Mayor Meehan planted the first beach umbrella of the season at Somerset Street on 24 May 2019, re-enacting a 1946 photograph to open the town's hundred days of summer
Under Comments from the Mayor and City Council at the Regular Meeting of 20 May 2019, the clerk recorded that "Mayor Meehan commented on room tax increase public hearing in Snow Hill, Bay Bridge AAA Press Conference, and planting the first umbrella of the season at Somerset Street with Governor Hogan to reenact the 1946 beach photo and kick off 100 days of summer." The Department Activity Report in the 17 June packet dates it: the Communications Manager "served as emcee of the ceremonial planting of the beach umbrella by the Governor and Mayor on May 24," and the Special Events division listed "assisting with recreation of Mayor/Governor umbrella photo ceremony - celebrating start of season." The same weekend the Woodward WreckTangle obstacle course at 3rd Street had its ribbon-cutting.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2019 · 2019-06-01
Captain David Nolan took the first white marlin of 2019 on 1 June in the Washington Canyon aboard the Uncle Keith, and the mayor handed him a $5,000 cheque for it
Under Acknowledgements and Recognitions at the Work Session of 30 July 2019: "Presentation of First White Marlin Catch Award Check. Mayor Meehan presented a $5,000 award to Captain David Nolan for catching the first White Marlin of the 2019 season on June 1 in the Washington Canyon aboard 'Uncle Keith.'" Two months earlier, at the Regular Meeting of 20 May, the council had raised its Fish OC sponsorship "from $10,000 to $15,000" so that Fish OC could "cover cost of certificates for each person catching their first White Marlin," the cost including "certificate production, mailing, and submissions from captains"; Council Member Gehrig abstained "due to current working relationship with Fish OC owner."
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2019 · 2019-06-17
The Maryland State Firemen's Association held its 127th annual convention in Ocean City in June 2019, and the town's new Jellyfish Festival added a free First Responders Day on 20 June in partnership with it
At the Regular Meeting of 15 April 2019 the council took the Jellyfish Festival addendum: "Culture Changers, LLC, is partnering with the Maryland State Firemen's Association and requested approval to hold First Responders Day on Thursday, June 20, 2019, within the Jellyfish festival footprint. This is a free event paying tribute to Police, EMS, Fire Fighters and Armed Forces." The association's own annual events passed on consent on 6 May. On 17 June, under Comments from the Mayor and City Council: "Mayor Meehan welcomed Maryland State Fireman's Association 127th Annual Convention, thanked Bryan Lilley and staff involved for the successful Air Show and discussed concerns of offshore wind turbine installations." The Special Events Director had told the April budget hearing that his five-person department produced "34+ events" and oversaw "165+ private events" a year, the Jellyfish Festival being the new one.
Maryland State Firemen's Association
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2019 · 2019-09-03
City Solicitor Guy Ayres died in the late summer of 2019 after forty-one years advising the town, and the council replaced him with his own firm a month later
The Regular Meeting of 3 September 2019 opened, before the prayer and pledge, with the clerk's line: "Mayor Meehan recognized the passing of City Solicitor Guy Ayres and his commitment to the City for the last 41 years." Ayres had sat through the year's closed sessions on the 67th Street gym lease and the Advanced Marina land swap, and his last appearance in the staff list is the Work Session of 11 June. Through September the minutes name "Town Legal Counsel" Mark Cropper, Heather Stansbury and Bruce Bright in his place; on 7 October the council reported from closed session a "Motion to accept proposal for legal services from Ayres, Jenkins, Gordy and Almand, P.A., and to appoint the firm as legal counsel for the Town of Ocean City."
Guy R. Ayres III
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2019 · 2019-11-04
The mayor proclaimed for Joerg Leinemann, the first Eagle Scout of Ocean City Troop 261 - chartered by the American Legion in 1946 and pinned by Mayor Harry Kelley in 1974 - on his Outstanding Eagle Scout Award
Regular Meeting of 4 November 2019: "Proclamation Recognizing Outstanding Eagle Scout Award Recipient Joerg Leinemann. Boy Scout Troop 261 was recognized, and a proclamation was presented acknowledging Joerg's Outstanding Eagle Scout Award, the highest achievement or rank attainable by local, state or regional levels through distinguished service to the Boy Scouts of America profession and community." The proclamation's recitals in the packet carry the troop's own history: "OC Troop 261 was chartered by the American Legion in 1946 and is part of the Del-Mar-Va Council Tri-County District"; "Joerg Leinemann achieved his Cub Scout Arrow of Light badge in 1969 and became the first Eagle Scout of OC Troop 261 and awarded his Eagle ribbon by Mayor Harry Kelley in 1974"; he then "established his Ocean City business, Carpets by the Ocean, Inc., having just completed its 45th year anniversary," and "currently serves as the Unit Advancement Chair for OC Troop 261." The same evening the mayor proclaimed the 25th anniversary of the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians.
Harry W. Kelley
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2020
Three hundred and thirty-three session documents and about 7.05 million characters, in which the pandemic is heavy in only seven sessions
Mayor Richard W. Meehan; City Manager Doug Miller; Police Chief Ross Buzzuro. The town that spent 1988 trying to get the Baltimore Sun's Sunday magazine to write about beach replenishment is now fielding Reuters — and what it says to them is not in this record either.
Ross C. Buzzuro
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2020 · 2020-03-22
On Sunday 22 March 2020 the mayor closed the beach and Boardwalk until 15 April, with one exception written in: town residents could walk their dogs there in groups of no more than two adults
At a special meeting on Sunday 22 March 2020, after a closed session, "Mayor Meehan read the Declaration to Close the Beach and Boardwalk to combat the spread of the Novel Coronavirus: Effective Sunday, March 22, 2020, at 5:00 PM, the Ocean City Boardwalk and all beach areas, including beach access points, shall be closed until April 15, 2020 ... Residents who reside within the corporate limits of Ocean City will be allowed to walk their dogs on the beach or boardwalk in groups of no more than two adults and minor children at any time. Social distancing will remain a requirement. This will remain in effect until which time it is abused or ignored. Restaurants on the Boardwalk will be allowed to remain open to carry out service only." On 29 March the closure was extended to 30 April and the Inlet lot added; the declaration of 28 April, extending it to 15 May, widened the exception so residents could "walk their dogs, exercise or otherwise sit, lay or play on the beach in groups of no more than two adults and minor children." The 4 May declaration reopened the beach, Boardwalk and Inlet lot from Saturday 9 May; by 12 May the city manager was reporting that the "Prohibition of dogs on the beach and Boardwalk will be enforced."
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2020 · 2020-03-31
From 31 March 2020 no hotel, motel or vacation rental in Ocean City could take a guest who was not one of seventeen listed kinds of 'Essential Lodger' - journalists and airline crews among them
At a virtual special meeting on 31 March 2020, after a closed session reached "a consensus to move forward with a declaration regarding commercial lodging and rental restrictions", the mayor read the order: "Effective immediately, hotels, motels, vacation rentals [which shall include those properties rented directly by the owner or through any third-party rental company or host platform] and other commercial lodging establishments shall not accept any occupants, regardless of when the reservation was made, or extend an existing reservation for persons other than Essential Lodgers. These restrictions shall remain in place through April 30, 2020." The definition ran from (a) "healthcare professionals" through first responders, National Guard, law enforcement, government employees, "airline crew members", patients and their families, "journalists", people stranded by COVID travel impacts, people burned or flooded out of their homes, those sheltering from domestic violence or homelessness, hotel employees and contractors, Ocean City residents temporarily unable to live at home, to (q) anyone working for an "Essential Business" under the Governor's order. "Voluntary compliance is our goal. Non-compliance could be subject to civil or criminal penalties and/or impact a business or rental license." The mayor "noted the HMRA director supports the declaration." On 3 April the council adopted emergency Ordinance 2020-02 so that a breach of a Chapter 18 order was a misdemeanour "punishable by a fine of not more than $500 and/or incarceration for a term not to exceed three months"; on 28 April the lodging order was extended to 22 May.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2020 · 2020-06-04
The first outdoor dining permits on public property were granted table by table at a 4 p.m. special meeting on 4 June 2020: four two-tops for the Bearded Clam, fifteen tables in Upshur Lane for Phillips Crab House behind concrete Jersey barriers
On 1 June 2020 the council decided that requests to put restaurant tables on public sidewalks and streets would come to it rather than staff, and that "Mayor and Council meet Thursday, June 4, at 4:00 PM to consider public property use requests" - "Meetings will be scheduled every business day at 4:00 PM not to delay application." At that meeting Planning Director Bill Neville reported five applications, one withdrawn: "Applicants are instructed to place tables to insure 36 inches of open sidewalk for public use ... Permit approvals are temporary up to 6 months or until rescinded by Mayor and Council." The motions: "4 two-top tables along 45' of public sidewalk for the Bearded Clam at 15 Wicomico Street"; "3 high-top tables along 40' of public sidewalk for Crawl Street Tavern at 19 Wicomico Street"; "7 picnic tables located along 90' of frontage for Layton's Family Restaurant on 1601 Philadelphia Avenue with Jersey barrier requirement"; and "15 tables in approximately 200' of Upshur Lane between Baltimore Avenue and Philadelphia Avenue ... for Phillip's Crab House at 2004 Philadelphia Avenue, with wall barrier at west side of street." Staff had "agreed not to recommend on-street outdoor dining areas; however, if the Mayor and Council feel otherwise, the use of Jersey barriers was strongly recommended." Mayor Meehan "reemphasized temporary outdoor dining permits are for seated patrons only." By 9 June fifty-four private-property requests had been approved and the Cork Bar had six tables on the Wicomico Street end deck next to the Boardwalk; by 15 June "No new applications for outdoor dining on public property have been received."
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2020 · 2020-07-06
The $5,000 first-white-marlin award for 2020 went to angler Carl Sauer and the crew of Reel Escape, Captain Chris Miller, for a fish taken in the Washington and Norfolk canyons
First item under Items Presented by the Mayor and City Council at the regular meeting of 6 July 2020, held with the council part in chambers and part on Zoom: "Presentation of First White Marlin Catch Award Check. Mayor presented a $5,000 award to angler Carl Sauer and Reel Escape crew for catching the first White Marlin of the 2020 season, captained by Chris Miller, in the Washington and Norfolk Canyons." The next item was a proclamation making July Recreation and Parks Month, and the meeting went on to move the Fourth of July fireworks to New Year's Eve.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2020 · 2020-10-19
Life-Saving Station Museum curator Sandra Hurley retired in October 2020 after 39 years, the longest of five Keys to the City the mayor handed to retiring employees that year
First item of the regular meeting of 19 October 2020, the first held back in the council chambers since March: "Retirement Recognition of Museum Curator Sandra Hurley. Mayor Meehan presented a proclamation and Key to the City to Ocean City Life-Saving Museum Curator Sandra Hurly recognizing 39 years of dedicated service." The clerk spells the name both ways. The same proclamation-and-key went that year to Electronic Services Manager Bob Dimaio for 25 years (28 April), Fire/EMS Deputy Chief David Hartley for 28 years (12 May), and on 15 December to Police Records Management Supervisor Michelle Monico for 22 years and Property/Evidence Technician Mary Marshall for 35. On 2 November the departing Council Member Dennis Dare "shared thoughts about 38 years of public service."
Dennis W. Dare
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2021 · 2021-04-30
With the J-1 pipeline broken, the mayor received El Salvador's ambassador to the United States to ask that Ocean City be made a destination for that country's H-2B seasonal workers
Comments from the Mayor and City Council, regular meeting of 3 May 2021: "The Mayor met with El Savador Ambassador H.E. Milena Mayorga on April 30, 2021, to discuss tourism and the H2B Visa program in hopes that Ocean City will be considered as a work destination for El Salvador H2B program participants." The Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee minutes in the 17 May packet put it beside the staffing problem: "J-1 Visa Students: The actual number of students expected to be in Town this year remains uncertain. Milena Mayorga, Ambassador from El Salvador, visited with Town leadership on April 30th and is hopeful that seasonal workers from El Salvador may be able to join the Town workforce." The mayor's activity report for July still listed "Continued discussions with El Salvador for employment options." A week after the visit, on 11 May, the council also voted to have the mayor write to Governor Hogan about enhanced unemployment benefits "due to the extreme shortage of workers."
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2021 · 2021-05-02
A motorist jumped 25 to 35 feet from the Route 90 bridge into the Assawoman Bay to pull a face-down infant from the water after a five-car crash, and the council gave his family and the family of the boat that picked them up Keys to the City
The fire and police chiefs' incident narrative, attached to the 16 August 2021 regular meeting, records that "At 1447 hours on May 2, 2021, a serious vehicle collision occurred on the Route 90 Bridge" - "a mass casualty incident (MCI) that involved 5 vehicles and a total of 8 victims" - with one vehicle "dangling on the bridge railing over the Assawoman Bay." Jonathan D. Bauer, whose own car had been struck, was pointed at the water by an occupant with whom he shared no language: "Jonathan looked over the bridge and noticed an infant in a baby seat floating in the water ... The baby was now face down in the water." He told his 13-year-old daughter Ava to stay at the car, took off his shoes, "jumped over the bridge railing and descended some 25-35 feet" into about four feet of cold water, swam to the baby, and tapped her back until "she coughed up some more water and opened her eyes." Alayna Oertel, on a family pontoon boat, saw the jump, had her father run the boat over and readied life vests; the Oertels carried the pair to a boat ramp where paramedics were waiting, and the infant was flown by State Police Medevac to a children's trauma center. Under Items Presented by the Mayor and City Council on 16 August: "Fire Chief Bowers and Police Chief Buzzuro presented a summary of the May 2, 2021, Rt. 90 Bridge mass casualty incident, recognizing heroic efforts of civilians, OC 911 Dispatchers, OC Volunteer/Career Fire Department, OCPD and mutual aid units ... Mayor Meehan presented the Oertel family and Bauer family with a Key to the City."
Ocean City Police Department Ocean City Volunteer Fire Department Ross C. Buzzuro
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2021 · 2021-06-01
The mayor gave a proclamation and a Key to the City to 96-year-old Shelia Mary Hurst Brex, a Women's Royal Naval Service veteran who had lived in West Ocean City since 1947 and run the Mast Restaurant and Motel with her head-boat-captain husband
Under Acknowledgements and Recognitions at the 1 June 2021 work session: "Recognition of WWII Veteran and 75-Year Ocean City Community Member Shelia Mary Hurst Brex. Mayor Rick Meehan presented a proclamation and Key to the City to 96-year-old Shelia Mary Hurst Brex, recognizing her service in WWII and her 75-year contribution to the local community." The proclamation in the packet gives the life: born 20 May 1925 in Chester, England; "On February 4, 1944 Shelia was drafted into WWII" and commissioned that June into the Women's Royal Navy Service "as a specialist small arms" instructor attached to a Canadian torpedo-boat flotilla; married a US Merchant Marine midshipman, Edward Oscar Brex Jr., in England on 2 April 1946; naturalised at Wicomico County Circuit Court on 10 September 1957; "In early 1960, Shelia and Captain Edward Brex purchased a dock at the West Ocean City Marina in the commercial harbor. Captain Brex operated two head boats as a business. The 'Taurus' named for Shelia's birth month, and the 'Pisces' named after Captain Brex's mother's birth month. Together, for decades, they operated the Mast Restaurant and Mast Motel, both on Harbor Road, West Ocean City." She had been "a parishioner at St. Mary's By the Sea Catholic Church in Ocean City" for 75 years.
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2021 · 2021-09-20
The mayor gave the Boy Scouts of America a Key to the City for its recruiting drive, and Council Member Paddack named two new Eagle Scouts, Kurt Leinemann and Gabriel Bradley, at the same meeting that honoured a 26-year police lieutenant and the year's Beauty Spot gardens
Items Presented by the Mayor and City Council, regular meeting of 20 September 2021: "A. Retirement Recognition of Ocean City Police Lieutenant Brian Mongelli. Mayor Meehan and Police Chief Buzzuro presented a proclamation to Lieutenant Brian Mongelli for 26 years of service. Commissioner Joe Mitrecic presented a commendation from Worcester County. B. Proclamation to Support Boy Scouts of America Recruiting and Fundraising Efforts. Mayor Meehan presented a Key to the City and a proclamation recognizing Boy Scouts of America recruiting and fundraising efforts. Council Member Paddack acknowledged two new Eagle Scouts, Kurt Leinemann and Gabriel Bradley. C. Ocean City Beautification Committee Beauty Spot Awards. Mayor Meehan and Beautification Committee Chair Donna Greenwood presented the 2021 Beauty Spot Award Winners." The winners' list in the packet names nine residential gardens (the Hoffmans at 800 32nd Street, the Siegels on Dolphin Street, Pamela Schultz on Edgewater Avenue, the Lawrences on Loop Road, the Taylors on Nantucket Road, Judy Jameson on West Biscayne Drive, Pam Mason on Chesapeake Drive, the Kallises on Bering Road and the Wheelers at 300 14th Street), four condominiums (Tiara West, Orleans Court, Triton's Trumpet and the Gateway Grand) and one commercial winner, Jolly Roger Park at 30th Street. The mayor's August activity report records he had "Met with the Del-Mar-Va Council Boy Scouts of America" beforehand.
Ross C. Buzzuro
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2021 · 2021-10-26
The COVID-rebound summer delivers 'the largest single level of growth in the town's history': FY2021 revenues beat budget by $5 million and room tax tops even pre-pandemic 2019 by $2.6 million.
Presenting the annual comprehensive financial report on Oct. 26, 2021, Finance Director Chuck Bireley reported FY2021 revenues of just over $95 million against a $90 million budget, expenditures $10 million under budget, and a $10.6 million positive variance in the general fund — 'the largest single level of growth in the town's history.' Room tax revenue rose nearly $3.5 million over FY2020 and more than $2.6 million over pre-COVID FY2019, pushing unassigned fund balance from about $23 million (30%) to nearly $29 million (37%) — against a long-stated 15% goal. The town also received $3.4 million in federal American Rescue Plan funds. 'Fiscal year 2021 was a very, very good year for the town of Ocean City,' Bireley concluded.
Source · checked 2026-08-05
2021 · 2021-12-17
Maryland's PSC approves 1,654.5 MW of Round 2 offshore wind off the resort coast over Ocean City's objection to 853-foot turbines as close as 13 miles out.
On Dec. 17, 2021, the Maryland Public Service Commission approved with conditions the Round 2 offshore wind projects — Ørsted's Skipjack Wind Phase 2.1 and US Wind's Momentum Wind — totaling 1,654.5 MW, projected to create over 10,000 direct jobs and nearly $1 billion of in-state spending. The town spent 2021 fighting the projects' scale and proximity: its official position noted US Wind planned 'supersized 853-foot tall turbines' — roughly three and a half times taller than the town's tallest building — as close as 13 miles offshore, versus the 17 miles previously stated publicly. Mayor Rick Meehan: 'There is no question they will be visible from our shoreline especially when they are lit up at night... It is a threat to our environment, our property values, our economy, and the future of Ocean City.' The town demanded the turbines be moved farther east, a fight that continued into litigation in later years.
US Wind, Inc.
Source · checked 2026-08-05
2021 · 2021-12-20
After the summer's Boardwalk use-of-force videos, Ocean City signs a $2.4 million Axon contract to put body cameras on every officer by summer 2022 — three years ahead of the state mandate.
Maryland's 2021 police-reform package required body-worn cameras statewide by 2025, but Ocean City accelerated its own deadline to the summer 2022 season after the June Boardwalk incidents put OCPD's use of force under scrutiny. On Monday, Dec. 20, 2021, Chief Ross Buzzuro and Capt. Mike Colbert pitched a roughly $2.4 million five-year contract with Axon Enterprise covering all 116 full-time officers plus seasonal officers, taser upgrades, drones, and digital evidence management; the council moved ahead facing a Dec. 31 deadline after which the price would have jumped about $500,000. Cameras became part of the OCPD uniform in June 2022.
Ross C. Buzzuro
Source · checked 2026-08-05
2022
Three hundred and sixteen session documents about 6.61 million characters, filtered from a retrieval that was still running when the pass was written — 1,182 files of 1,765
Mayor Richard W. Meehan; City Manager Doug R. Miller; City Engineer Terry McGean. The incompleteness is recorded rather than hidden: this year was read from two-thirds of its own packet set, and a later pass over the remaining 583 files could change what the year contains.
Terry McGean Doug R. Miller
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2022 · 2022-09-06
Mayor Meehan vetoed the valet-tandem parking ordinance written for the Margaritaville project, and the council's override failed two votes to five
Ordinance 2022-14, adding tandem (stacked) parking to the zoning code's off-street parking division for the downtown and upper downtown overlay districts, was adopted on 18 July 2022 over the mayor's stated objection to the removal of the words "and subject to the Planning Commission approval" from Sec. 110-934(c): "It needs to first be determined if proposed development is constrained by the availability of land for off-street parking. A lot with 90,000 square feet is not constrained." The 6 September minutes carry the item as "VETOED Ordinance 2022-14 ... Jim Mathias spoke in support of the veto. Motion to override veto letter issued August 2, 2022, and have Ordinance 2022-14 pass as written. FAILED [2 TO 5]" with Buas and Gehrig the two ayes. Opponents at every reading had been counsel for Harrison Hall Hotel and the Sea Mist condominium, arguing the ordinance was an illegal "special" law for one developer. At the 13 December joint session with the Planning Commission, "The Mayor and Council had no desire to discuss tandem parking any further and directed staff to spend no more time on this matter."
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2022 · 2022-11-08
Ocean City voters raised the mayor's salary from $30,000 to $50,000, and council pay from $10,000 to $20,000, by ballot questions carried about three to two
Certified results read at the organizational meeting of 10 November 2022: "Ballot Question 1 Increases Mayor salary from $30,000 to $50,000 For: 1,223 Against: 823. Ballot Question 2 Increases Council President salary from $11,000 to $23,000 Increases Council salary from $10,000 to $20,000 For: 1,210 Against: 845." The idea had been raised at the 11 January work session ("Council leaning towards a referendum on the 2022 ballot. Requested mayoral salary comparables") and the city manager's budget introduction on 23 March carried the comparables "with a recommendation to increase the mayor's salary from $30,000 to $50,000." Ordinance 2022-28 enacting the new salaries passed second reading on 5 December. On the same ballot Rick Meehan was re-elected mayor unopposed with 1,760 votes; Matt James (1,566), Will Savage (1,436) and Carol Proctor (1,247) took the three council seats and incumbent Mark Paddack (749) lost his.
Source · checked 2026-09-10
2023 · 2023-04-17
The ride-all-day municipal bus fare rose from $3 to $4 and the Boardwalk tram from $4 to $5 on 1 May 2023, a rise the budget attributed to fuel and driver pay after $1.9 million of COVID transit relief ran out
At the regular meeting of 6 March 2023, reporting the 14 February Transportation Committee, Mayor Meehan moved "to increase the bus fare from $3 ride all day to $4 ride all day on a year-round basis and to increase the tram fare from $4 to $5 beginning May 1, 2023. A public hearing is required for the bus fare increase." Approved 5 to 1. The City Manager's budget introduction of 23 March put the reason plainly: "The budget recognizes a $1 increase to the ride-all-day bus fare and the one-way tram fare to offset additional costs for fuel and driver salaries." The instruments followed at the regular meeting of 17 April 2023: "Resolution 2023-06 Increasing Municipal Bus Fare (increases the ride-all-day Ocean City municipal fixed route buses and para transit service from $3 to $4 beginning May 1, 2023)" and "Resolution 2023-07 Increasing Boardwalk Tram Fare (from $4 to $5 beginning May 1, 2023)", both adopted unanimously. The transportation budget that year had lost "$1.9 million in COVID relief grant funding received in FY23" and counted on a "$119,000 increase in FY24 projected fares."
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2023 · 2023-05-01
Mayor Meehan announced the death of former Councilman Doug Cymek at the 1 May 2023 meeting and ordered the town's flags to half-staff in his honour
Regular meeting of 1 May 2023, under Comments from the Mayor and City Council: "Mayor Meehan expressed sorrow for the recent passing of former Councilmember Doug Cymek along with thoughts and prayers for his family. Flags will be placed at half-staff in his honor." Cymek sat on the council in the 2010s; he seconded the 2015 motion to draft the designated-smoking-areas ordinance. The same spring the council noted two other losses: at the work session of 10 January "Mayor Meehan recognized the sudden passing of Ocean City Volunteer Fire Company Deputy Chief John Fisher, III," and on 15 May the Mayor "acknowledged the passing of prominent Ocean City resident and former Planning and Zoning Commission member John Staley who served on the commission for 27 years."
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2023 · 2023-06-02
The first white marlin of the 2023 season was caught and released at 1:30 p.m. on 2 June in the Baltimore Canyon by angler Joe Huk aboard the Restless Lady II, and the town's $5,000 prize was handed over on 18 September
Regular meeting of 18 September 2023, item 4.A, "Presentation of Award Check for 2023 First White Marlin Catch and Release": "Mayor Meehan awarded a $5,000 prize to Captain Chris Huk, Angler Joe Huk, first mate Tanner Virden and several Huk family members aboard the Restless Lady II." The Tourism Director's memorandum of 8 September: "The Town of Ocean City awards a $5,000 cash prize to the angler reeling in the first White Marlin of the season ... On Friday, June 2, 2023 at 1:30 p.m., Angler Joe Huk along with Vessel Captain Chris Huk and First Mate Tanner Virden caught and released the first White Marlin of Ocean City's 2023 season while fishing aboard the Restless Lady II in Baltimore Canyon. A catch report was filed with the Ocean City Marlin Club and confirmed and validated by Marlin Club's Scott Lenox. Charter member Chris Ragni aboard his Bills Layer also confirmed the catch." The 2018 fish had come on 13 June; the 2023 one was eleven days earlier.
Ocean City Marlin Club
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2024
Five town employees retired with a proclamation and a Key to the City in 2024 - a police corporal, a golf assistant superintendent, the risk manager, a public works safety coordinator and a police lieutenant - 132 years of service between them
The clerk's minutes carry each under Acknowledgements and Recognitions. 30 January: "Police Corporal Sydney Findley was recognized for serving 28 years with the Ocean City Police Department with a proclamation and a Key to the City presented by Mayor Meehan and Police Chief Buzzuro." 27 February: "Mayor Meehan, Recreation/Parks Director Susan Petito, Golf Superintendent Joel McTavish and Former Golf Superintendent Joe Perry presented a proclamation and a Key to the City to Mark Longanecker for 32 years of service" at Eagle's Landing. 28 May: "Mayor Meehan and City Manager McGean presented a proclamation and Key to the City to Christine Parks for 16 years of service" as Risk Manager. 11 June: "Mayor Meehan and Public Works Director Hal Adkins presented a proclamation and Key to the City to Roger Steger for 32 years of service" as Public Works Safety/COOP Coordinator. 1 July: "Mayor Meehan and Police Chief Buzzuro presented a proclamation and Key to the City to Lieutenant Jeffrey Heiser for 24 years of dedicated service. Delegate Wayne Hartman and Senator Mary Beth Carozza also presented commendations." The key is the town's standard retirement token in this decade; the Heiser ceremony is the only one at which the state delegation appeared.
Ross C. Buzzuro
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2024
The Director of Tourism and Business Development is Tom Perlozzo, who appears in this record as Recreation and Parks Director in 1990 writing a memo about beach volleyball courts, and as Chamber president in 2011
Mayor Richard W. Meehan; City Manager Terence McGean. Two hundred and eighty-three session documents, about 5.95 million characters, filtered from 1,198 packet files covering 107 meetings. The continuity of personnel across this record is itself a fact about the town: the people who settled the beach question stayed to govern what it produced, and their successors are often the same people in different chairs.
Terry McGean
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2024
Mayor Meehan noted three deaths from the chair in 2024 - Dean Langrall, a former Board of Zoning Appeals member, in February; Bill Paul, a recreation booster, in August; and Bruce Kennington, a former board member, in September
Each is a single line under Comments from the Mayor and City Council. 5 February 2024: "Mayor Meehan acknowledged the passing of former Board of Zoning and Appeals member and long-time, Ocean City friend Dean Langrall." 19 August 2024: "Mayor recognized the passing of longtime, prominent Recreation Booster, Bill Paul." 16 September 2024: "Mayor Meehan recognized the passing of former board member Bruce Kennington and extended condolences to his family on behalf of the Mayor and Council." The minutes give no dates of death, no ages and no moment of silence; the 2024 record's only obituaries are these three sentences.
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2024 · 2024-02-05
The special events director told the Tourism Commission in February 2024 that the just-ended Winterfest had drawn its second-best attendance in more than thirty years, and the Mayor reminded members that the St. Patrick's Day Parade was the town's largest single-day event
Tourism Commission minutes of 5 February 2024, attached to the 13 February work session packet, Special Events: "Director Miller stated Winterfest was a resounding success with attendance that was second best in its 30-plus years. Train display equally successful." Then: "St. Patrick's Day Parade. With no Tourism Commission meeting scheduled for March, Mayor Meehan wanted to remind members that the largest, single one-day event that brings in the largest impact to the Town is the St. Patrick's Day Parade being held on March 16th. Melanie Pursel and Phil Baker will cohost the livestream broadcast along with Dave Messick filming the event. Delmarva Irish Club is seeking sponsorships for the production part of the parade and also to give scholarships to deserving high school students in Worcester County." The same minutes announce the marketing department's new vehicle: "the purchase of a new 1975 VW van decked out front to back with the brand logo," for a "Catch a Ride 2.0" campaign extending from six to twelve markets, with the tourism director thanking the city manager "for pushing the purchase of the van through the ranks." The HMRA reported that its 50th spring trade show on 3-4 March had "the largest ever with 442 exhibitor booths."
Ocean City Tourism Commission Ocean City Hotel-Motel-Restaurant Association
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2024 · 2024-06-02
The town paid its $5,000 prize for the first white marlin of 2024 to the boat Fish On, whose angler released the fish at 1:33 PM on 2 June, 25 miles east of the Baltimore Canyon
The City Clerk's cover sheet for the 1 July 2024 regular meeting states the rule and the catch: "The Town of Ocean City awards a $5,000 cash prize to the angler reeling in the first White Marlin of the season. Captain Andrew Dotterweich and Angler Jake Emche will attend to accept the cash prize for the first White Marlin of the season. The Marlin was caught on June 2 at 1:33 PM aboard Fish On which was 25 miles east of the Baltimore Canyon. The catch report was filed with the Ocean City Marlin Club and confirmed and validated." Fiscal impact: "$5,000 budgeted in FY24 Tourism Department Budget." The clerk's minutes of 1 July record that "Mayor Meehan and Marketing Coordinator Fiona O'Brien awarded the $5,000 cash prize to Captain Andrew Dotterweich and Angler Jake Emche" under Items Presented by the Mayor and City Council. The award is a catch-and-release prize - the fish was not brought to the dock - and it is paid out of the tourism budget, not the recreation one.
Ocean City Marlin Club
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2024 · 2024-06-17
Mayor Meehan presented a Pride Month proclamation to the Stephen Decatur High School Gender and Sexualities Alliance on 17 June 2024, and a Juneteenth proclamation to the Worcester County NAACP at the same meeting
Items A and B under Items Presented by the Mayor and City Council at the Regular Meeting of 17 June 2024: "A. Proclamation Recognizing June as Pride Month - Mayor Meehan presented a proclamation to the Members of the Stephen Decatur High School Gender and Sexualities Alliance. B. Proclamation Recognizing Juneteenth Day - June 19 - Mayor Meehan and Recruitment, Inclusion and Diversity Specialist Kia Briddell presented a proclamation to Worcester County NAACP President Ivory Smith." The town had opened the year the same way: on 16 January the Mayor "read a proclamation into the record recognizing January 15, 2024, as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day," and on 5 February he gave a Black History Month proclamation to NAACP President Ivory Smith and committee chair Dr. Jacques Conway. The Art League's report to the Tourism Commission on 3 June lists a Pride film night on 15 June, a drag show on 21 June and "the OC Pride Parade on June 24."
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2024 · 2024-08-05
On 5 August 2024 Mayor Meehan put the town's position on US Wind into the minutes as numbers - 114 turbines, each at least 938 feet tall, 10.7 miles out, the whole length of the island - and said the town would sue the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management if it approved the project
Under Comments from the Mayor and City Council at the Regular Meeting of 5 August 2024, the clerk recorded the Mayor's offshore wind update at unusual length: "The Town of Ocean City is against the project as proposed. The project consists of 114 turbines, each a minimum height of 938 feet, that are 10.7 miles off the coast and will run the entire length of the island. The Town has consistently advocated for the turbines to be located further offshore but to no avail. A majority of state and federal elected officials supports the project. If the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issues a favorable Record of Decision, the Town will file suit against BOEM. We have hired a law firm and co-plaintiffs are on board. The Town supports green energy. Nearly 50% of the energy supplied to Ocean City is via solar energy. We are good stewards of our environment; however, with no support to move the wind farm project further offshore, we have no choice but to oppose it. Resident, property owners and visitors are encouraged to write state elected officials." A month later, on 3 September, the council amended the 2024 Strategic Plan to "MOVE Anti-Offshore Wind Advocacy from Management Top Priority to Policy Top Priority," and the FY25 legal budget adopted in April had added $75,000 for "specialty counsel (wind farm, union contract negotiations and personnel issues)."
US Wind, Inc.
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2025
Guy Ayres, city solicitor since the 1970s, is gone — the town is advised by City Attorneys Heather Stansbury and Maureen Howarth
Mayor Richard W. Meehan; Council President Matthew M. James; Council Secretary Tony DeLuca; Council Members John F. Gehrig Jr., Jacob H. Mitrecic, Carol L. Proctor, William C. Savage III, Larry R. Yates; City Manager Terry McGean; Deputy City Manager Elton JR Harmon; City Clerk Diana Chavis. Ayres advised this council on the dune line in 1975, on Lucas v. South Carolina in 1993, and on public notification against Vince Gisriel for thirty years. A Mitrecic sits on the council forty-five years after Joseph Mitrecic first appears in this record.
Terry McGean Guy R. Ayres III Diana Chavis Vincent Gisriel Jr.
Source · checked 2026-09-02
2025 · 2025-02-18
The Mayor's Black History Month proclamation of 18 February 2025 went to the Worcester County NAACP president and to Yvonne McWilliams, granddaughter of Pearl Bonner, who owned the Henry Hotel
Regular meeting of 18 February 2025, Items Presented by the Mayor and City Council: "Proclamation Recognizing February as Black History Month. Mayor Meehan presented a proclamation to Worcester County NAACP President Ivory Smith, Yvonne McWilliams, granddaughter of Pearl Bonner, owner of the Henry Hotel, and Nancy Howard of the Henry Hotel Foundation." The Henry Hotel enters this record in the 1939 assessment list; in 2025 its owner's granddaughter stands in the council chamber.
Henry Hotel Foundation
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2025 · 2025-05-27
Recreation and Parks Director Susan Petito retired on 27 May 2025 with a proclamation and a Key to the City for 39 years of service, one of four town employees so honoured that year with 123 years between them
Work session of 27 May 2025, Acknowledgements and Recognitions: "Mayor Meehan and City Manager McGean presented a proclamation and Key to the City to Susan Petito for 39 years of service." The council then approved Kate Gaddis, the recreation superintendent, as the new director. The Key to the City went to three others on retirement in 2025: Wastewater Collections Purchasing Technician John Burke, 21 years (28 January); Police Sergeant Joseph Bushnell, 25 years, with commendations sent by Delegate Wayne Hartman and Senator Mary Beth Carozza (1 April); and Deputy Fire Chief Chris Shaffer, 38 years (29 July).
Terry McGean
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2025 · 2025-07-22
The ordinance that would have ended short-term rentals in the R-1 and MH districts was put to a special election on 22 July 2025 and lost, 800 votes for to 834 against, after a petition of 1,090 signatures forced the referendum
Ordinance 2025-04 - amended on the floor on 18 February 2025 by a 4-3 vote (James, DeLuca, Savage and Yates for; Gehrig, Mitrecic and Proctor against) to impose a 5-night minimum stay for 2025 and 2026 and "a 31-night minimum length of stay effective January 1, 2027, and, at that time, sunset all short-term rental licenses in R-1 and MH districts", and adopted on second reading 4-3 on 3 March - never took effect as written. On 17 March Mayor Meehan complained that the petitioners' advertisements "are not stating that regulations apply to R-1 & MH neighborhoods only." The petition was delivered to City Hall on 21 April; at the regular meeting of 19 May, Board of Supervisors of Elections Chairman Mary Adeline Bradford read the results into the record: "Petition efforts were successful with 1,090 signatures obtained. A Special Election is scheduled for Tuesday, July 22, 2025 at the Roland E. Powell Convention Center." At the work session of 29 July Mrs Bradford reported: "Special Election results: 1,380 votes cast in person; 255 absentee ballots; total of 1,635 votes; 800 votes in favor; 834 votes against the ordinance; 1 ballot cast with no vote. Ordinance 2025-04 failed by referendum." The council accepted the results unanimously. What survived was the moratorium on new licences (Ordinances 2025-05 and 2025-06), which the council extended through 3 January 2027 on 1 December after another evening of two dozen speakers. On 25 November the planning director laid out fourteen lettered options, from a 7-night minimum to a licence cap, for the council to begin again.
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2025 · 2025-08-18
On 18 August 2025 the council unanimously added skateboards to the vehicles allowed on the boardwalk from midnight to noon in summer, and the clerk recorded that the Mayor did not support the change
The Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee had recommended on 16 July that boardwalk bicycle hours change to "12:00 AM to 12:00 PM", and the council agreed on 21 July. Resolution 2025-19, "Establishing the Periods and Times Bicycles, Class 1 Electric Bicycles, Pushcarts and EPAMDS may be Operated on the Boardwalk (to permit midnight to noon from Saturday of Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day)", came to the regular meeting of 18 August, where the motion was "to amend Resolution 2025-19 to include skateboards and Adopt as amended" - approved unanimously, moved by DeLuca and seconded by Mitrecic. The next line in the minutes: "Mayor does not support this Resolution change." Resolution 2025-27 of 3 November restated the periods for "Bicycles, Class I Electric Bicycles, Non-motorized Skateboards, Roller Skates, Pushcarts and EPAMDs" without changing them. The same summer a resident asked for a dedicated Coastal Highway lane for golf carts and low-speed vehicles (15 September), and the council moved to keep bicycles and electric scooters off the sidewalks when state law changed on 1 October (26 August).
Source · checked 2026-09-11
2025 · 2025-09-02
The town's $5,000 cash prize for the first white marlin of 2025, caught and released, was presented on 2 September to Captain Bobby Layton and angler Hannah Melvin
Regular meeting of 2 September 2025, the first item under Items Presented by the Mayor and City Council: "Award Check Presentation for 2025 First White Marlin Catch and Release. Mayor Meehan awarded the $5,000 cash prize to Captain Bobby Layton and Angler Hannah Melvin." The prize is the same $5,000 the town paid in 2018. The council had already given the White Marlin Open 30 feet of parking on Jacqueline Avenue between 14th and 15th Streets through 2030 (Traffic Regulation 2025-01, 18 August), and skipped its August meeting: "There is no meeting the week of White Marlin Open."
Source · checked 2026-09-11

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Rick Meehan

In the record (158)

Roland E. Powell became mayor in April 1985 — sixteen years after this record first met him as a councilman in the town's advertisement in the Messenger's centennial edition

Asked by the state Secretary of Transportation what to name for Harry Kelley, the council chose the Route 50 bridge over Route 90 by four votes to two, and told Annapolis to use his middle initial and spell Kelley his way

The council met fifty-two times in 1986 — the first year it sat weekly — and opened the year by lifting a building moratorium

The charge for the town cutting an owner's uncut lot rose from $25 to $35 per 5,000 square feet by Resolution 1986-6

The year the sand was actually pumped is recorded here from forty-eight sets of council minutes and nothing else

Council President Granville Trimper finished fifth in the October 1988 election with 913 votes, tied with Hank Westfall, and George Hurley was elected president over Rick Meehan by four votes to three

Vincent Gisriel, Jr. — the private citizen who had stood at the podium in 1987 and 1988 taking the capital plan apart — took a seat on the council, and Granville Trimper left the chair he had held through the whole beach fight

The council refused a national beach-volleyball tour its July stop, six to one, because the tournament was a DeKuyper promotion "presented by Playboy" and "we try to project a family resort image"

The document count doubles to 94 as work sessions, correspondence packets and bid documents begin to be filed with the minutes — from here the record is an archive rather than a transcript

Councilman Hall proposed a Springfest for April 1991, 'very similar to Sunfest', to open the season early, and the council approved a committee to plan it against the Chamber's printing deadline - the first appearance of the festival in the minutes

Roland Powell was re-elected mayor 1,598 to 511 over Steve Johansen, Jim Mathias led the council poll with 1,283, Buck Mann and Hank Westfall took the other two seats, and incumbents George Feehley and Glenn Steckman lost; Rick Meehan became council president

In the week before the Gulf War air campaign, the council waived its special-event rules and fees so the Peace Alliance of the Lower Shore could hold a Sunday peace vigil with ministers and guitars on the Inlet parking lot

Offered a tugboat for the fishing reef, the council balked at $5,700 to move it, then voted $2,000 as a one-third share once service clubs and the county commissioners were said to be paying the rest

A motion to ban dogs from the beach year round, prompted by a Century I complaint about droppings, failed 2-3 after Mayor Powell said seagulls and Boardwalk splinters were the bigger problem

The 1991 beach parcel bids ran from $350 for 70th Street to $6,225 for 5th Street, and Patrice Bell held four of the eight stands

Twice in 1991 the council refused residents permission to keep pet snakes - two pythons in June, and in October a pair their owner had kept for nine years and said were hibernating - and gave the second owner two weeks to get them out of town

A month after the cable company priced televising council meetings at $40,000, radio station WETT got unanimous leave to broadcast them live at no cost to the town, as it had in 1988

A hundred and six documents and a changed council: Meehan in the chair, Mathias and Mann arriving, Gisriel still on the floor

An Indiana carriage company asked to run two horse-drawn carriages for hire in the Philadelphia Avenue bus lane from 15th to 30th Street, and was refused unanimously because the lane belonged to the buses

The Maryland Mass Transit Administration came to City Hall to commend Council President Meehan for the one-dollar all-day fare, crediting it with a 119 per cent jump in ridership from 1.125 million to 2.5 million in a single season

The council let the Cactus Juice beach volleyball tournament go ahead with Hair Cuttery haircuts and Nestea samples but refused a 30-foot inflatable Margarita Schnapps bottle over the beach, then voted 6-1 to strip the Molson inflatable from the Beach Patrol's own lifesaving contest

In the 20 October 1992 election 2,626 voters returned Mayor Powell 2,015 to 457 over Mr. Harris and put George Feehley and Lee Duggan on the council, while sitting members Vince Gisriel (915) and Sally Hacking (1,049) lost their seats

Ocean City Today was founded in 1993 — the town's second modern paper, nine years after the Maryland Coast Dispatch — and this corpus holds neither for the year

When the Wicomico and Caroline Street beach-stand franchisee defaulted in August 1993, the neighbouring operators bought the rest of the season for $75 and $86, and the defaulter was barred from ever bidding again

Ninety-eight documents and about 1.92 million characters, with Richard Meehan giving way to George Feehley in the chair through the autumn

A flier campaign showing a bloated figure "feeding City Council with your money" killed the plan to put 700 parking meters on the side streets, and the council balanced the FY-95 budget instead by selling 600 surplus meters at $175 apiece

With Alan Jackson and Frankie Valli lost, the council booked Three Dog Night with the Beach Boys and the Everly Brothers for a beach concert on Sunday 4 September, and the mayor asked whether that was "three dogs doing some kind of..."

The deer population at the municipal airport had grown into a problem, and the council handed the decision to the Department of Natural Resources after one councilman said he had a scope

A year after the petition fight, the council changed the charter so that a referendum petition needs signatures equal to 40% of the voters who voted in the previous election, and has forty days instead of twenty to gather them

The base charge for an Ocean City ambulance run rose from $100 to $135 so that the town's bills would match what Medicare would reimburse

Ninety-eight documents and about 2.23 million characters — the archive still growing, and still the only source

The Play It Safe programme for graduating seniors in June had given 4,000 free bus rides in 1994, double 1993's 2,000, and for 1995 added a human gyro and a human fly at the Caroline Street pad, with the town as co-sponsor

The town rejected two $14,000-a-show bids for its Fourth of July fireworks and then paid Pyrotecnico $40,000 against a $28,000 budget, because the recent shows had been lacklustre

A Seaweed Lane resident who had kept a Burmese python for years was given retroactive permission for it, on condition of warning signs front and back, and the mayor complained the council was becoming lenient about exotic animals

1996 is Roland Powell's last year as mayor, closing the eleven-year term that began with Harry Kelley's death and ran through the pumping of the beach

A tenant asked to keep a five-foot iguana that relieved itself in his bathtub, and the mayor, who wanted nothing to do with "a damned snake", asked the solicitor whether a permit holder could walk one down the Boardwalk

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

The Worcester County Performing Arts Society asked the council on 6 January 1997 to back an Ocean City symphony orchestra, on a $60,000 start-up budget and $17,000 of special-event money the town already spent on musicians

The Jesus at the Beach festival was allowed back for 28-30 July 1997 with a bigger stage and, for the first time, permission to sell event T-shirts on the beach - a sand sculpture of Jesus on the front, Ocean City on the back

A friend invited the council on 17 March 1997 to a $5-a-head benefit for Terry Rodden, a 33-year-old mother of three with acute leukaemia whose family owed $26,000 on a first $130,000 round of treatment and $1,000 a month for prescriptions

A referendum petition against the $600,000 purchase of the trailer park west of the airport for a runway protection zone was counted at a special session on 31 December 1997 and failed by eleven signatures - 1,158 valid of the 1,169 the charter required

Clay Stamp appears in the record as Emergency Manager — the town's storm response now a named post rather than a mayor phoning weather stations

A council hearing on hydraulic clam dredging heard that Ocean City had no sea-grass beds before 1991 and now had beds a thousand feet wide, and a councilman called the coastal bays "our little pond in the back yard and it's fished out"

Twenty Boardwalk merchants testified against the non-profit T-shirt tables, and the city solicitor told them the last attempt to remove them had cost the town $50,000 to $75,000 against "what we refer to as the Church of the Holy T-Shirt"

Ninety-six documents, about 1.6 million characters, and a quiet year — the beach is built and the convention centre rebuilt, and the town has run out of large things to argue about

Mayor Mathias was re-elected on 17 October 2000 with 2,030 votes to Bonita Gisriel's 692, four council seats went to Meehan, Howard, Joe Hall and Jim Hall, and the first of two ballot questions lost by 31 votes

Ninety-six documents, about 1.55 million characters, one source — and a council that has shrunk to a settled group

The Ocean City Lacrosse Classic, an event the town had seeded with four years of funding, made the cover of Sports Illustrated and a two-page story inside

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

Councilman Gisriel resigned his seat to run for Mayor and lost to Mathias 1,633 to 1,331 in an election of 3,034 voters, while Rick Meehan topped the council poll with 1,749 and newcomer Jay Hancock took a seat

Ninety-four documents and one source, in the year the town was told its seasonal workforce needed feeding

Mathias's last full year as mayor, with Council President Richard W. Meehan — who succeeds him — in the chair beside him

Mayor Jim Mathias resigned on 12 June 2006 to fill the late Delegate Bennett Bozman's seat in the House of Delegates, and Council President Rick Meehan was sworn in as mayor the same evening

Richard W. Meehan became mayor — the council president of the nineties and 2000s, in the chair at last

City Manager Dennis Dare and his wife Liz were grand marshals of the 2008 St. Patrick's Day Parade, which ran southbound from 45th to 61st Street on 15 March

A seal that washed ashore in January was released by the Baltimore Aquarium in March, and as it went back into the water a second seal came ashore at 59th Street and was rescued too

1,521 of 6,470 registered voters turned out for the October 2008 town election; Jay Hancock lost his seat, Nancy Howard retired after twelve years, Doug Cymek and Joe Hall came in, and Joe Mitrecic kept the presidency 4-3

Firefighter-paramedics Derrick Simpson and Delbert Baker pulled two swimmers out of a rip current in the early hours of 28 September 2008, were themselves injured, and were given a mayor's proclamation in December

Eighty-nine documents and about 2.71 million characters — the densest year in the corpus, and still a single source

Mayor Meehan vetoed the council's first small-wind-turbine ordinance on 3 March 2009, not to stop turbines but because it kept bayfront ones 1.1 times their height back from the water; the council re-wrote it as a conditional use

Ninety documents and about 4.37 million characters — nearly twice any earlier year, because the packets now carry full engineering specifications and bid documents

Council President Joe Mitrecic lost his seat in the 19 October election; two nights later the new council chose Jim Hall as president 4-3 over Lloyd Martin, tied 4-4 on the secretary, and voted 4-3 to dissolve every council committee

Retired Sportsland owner Lloyd E. "Eddie" Jester was given a Key to the City in February 2011 for sixty years of service to the town

Hurricane Irene forces the first full mandatory evacuation of Ocean City since Hurricane Gloria in 1985.

"We dodged a missile": Ocean City reopens Sunday morning, hours after Irene passes, with only superficial damage.

A citizen who picked debris off the beach every day, Kathy Fisher, received the first Surfrider Recognition Award and a Key to the City in September 2011