Council must stick with the Boardwalk Subcommittee

Originally published in the Ocean City Sentinel

by Dave Breeden

To the Editor:

The Boardwalk Subcommittee, which held its first meeting on Saturday, Feb. 7, deserves recognition not just for the data it assembled, but also for something equally important and harder to measure: it has begun to restore goodwill in Ocean City.

For months, the Wonderland issue has been deeply divisive. Instead of calming those tensions, the city too often fueled them through repeated votes and reversals on unnecessary rehabilitation designations, a lack of visible leadership in activating the north end, and an absence of any meaningful conversation about compromise. The result has been a community that felt pulled apart at the very moment it should have been working together.

The subcommittee has started to change that.

By focusing on facts, by not taking sides, and by committing to a thoughtful process aimed at long-term solutions, it has lowered the temperature. This is a difficult task.

And a frustrating one. Many may have wanted more solutions to result from the first meeting. That is, unfortunately, not how it works. Data can be confusing, even contradictory at times, until it is further examined. But the subcommittee has shown residents that there is a path forward, grounded in facts, transparency, and shared purpose. That alone has value that cannot be overstated.

In fact, some of Ocean City’s softer economic indicators may well reflect the uncertainty and chaos surrounding how Wonderland was handled by the city. That moment called for the city to lead, to bring people together and work toward a collective solution. Instead, the city became a source of division. Only when the subcommittee was formed did we begin to see a shift toward stability and confidence.

Despite this, members of council continued to undermine the work. Pete Madden suggested the subcommittee would fail, and others on council suggested moving ahead before the subcommittee finished its work. They created headlines when they should have been hoping for success.

To their credit, the subcommittee members pressed forward anyway. At times, it felt as if they were swimming against a current of conflict and competing financial interests. But they kept moving. And for that, they deserve our sincere thanks. The data presented on Feb. 7 clearly demonstrated the value of serious work and research, and underscored the need for additional analysis.

Which is why this next item is so disturbing: rumors now abound that the rehabilitation issue may return to City Council on Feb. 19.

Why now? Why interrupt a process that is finally working? The subcommittee is doing exactly what it was asked to do and that is gathering facts, identifying trends, and working toward solutions that can serve the entire community. Why step in the way just as meaningful progress is being made?

I believe there is only one reason the rehabilitation path remains so important to the developer. It’s not the tax relief as his lawyer already said he does not need that. Instead, rehabilitation largely eliminates the public process (and the Planning Board expertise) and shifts key decisions behind closed doors, where the developer’s financial ties to members of government become its most powerful negotiating tool. It is where he gets what he wants, and the city pays the consequences. It is not where the community comes together to determine what is best for the town as a whole. It’s where he can call in his loan to the mayor.

City Council must resist the urge to return to that path. Keep this process open. Keep it transparent. We have already seen the good that comes from working in the light: calmer conversations, broader participation, and a renewed sense that solutions are possible. We also know what happens when decisions are pushed back into the shadows.

The subcommittee has created something valuable and that is a chance to heal, to listen, and to build a solution that works not just for today, but for years to come. Council should let that work continue to its fruition.