Articles

City Votes To Hold On To Robin Drive Property

OCEAN CITY - After hearing the opinions of numerous residents of Robin Drive at a public hearing Tuesday, the Mayor and Council decided to not sell a piece of municipal property on the road. Wayne Hartman came before the Mayor and Council in June to request to purchase the municipal property that is adjacent to 333 Robin Drive. Hartman purchased the apartments across the street a few years ago and renovated the run-down building. He explained that he hoped to use the property as additional...READ MORE

OC Council Upholds Project's Stop Work Order

OCEAN CITY - The Rivendell project has seen its fair share of problems along the road to completion and faced several issues of contention, but the controversy reached a pinnacle this week with the Mayor and Council denying the request to lift the stop work order on the building. At the end of July, it came to the attention of Blaine Smith, Zoning Administrator, as well as the owners of the Rivendell project, BPG Residential VI, LLC, that the building was five feet taller than what the plans...READ MORE

State Says Route 589 Work Could Start As Late as 2011

SNOW HILL - Work on an expanded, safer Route 589 may not begin until 2011, state highway officials said Tuesday. 'Keep in mind, this schedule is the worse-case scenario,' said assistant project manager Tessa Young of the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA). District Engineer Donnie Drewer confirmed that the 2011 construction start is a worst-case schedule, but said he did not know what the earliest date would be. 'It's not funded for construction,' Drewer said. 'Each one of those four...READ MORE

Freeman Admits To Letting Baby Die In Toilet

OCEAN CITY - Armed with what essentially amounts to a jailhouse confession, prosecutors are moving forward this week with first-degree murder charges against an Ocean City woman who has admitted letting her full-term or near full term infant die in the toilet she was sitting on when she gave birth to it in 2004. Now two weeks after the discovery of four fetuses in and around the Sunset Drive home of Christy Freeman, 37, of Ocean City, there are still more questions than answers, but the one...READ MORE

Moped Accident On Route 50 Kills Man

BERLIN - A 56-year-old Cambridge man was killed last Saturday when the moped he was operating failed to yield the right-of-way and collided with an oncoming vehicle on Route 50 at Route 346. Around 8:30 p.m. last Saturday, Berlin Police responded to an accident involving a moped on Route 50 at its intersection with Route 346 in Berlin. The investigation revealed the moped, driven by Robert Joseph Davidson, Jr., 56, of Cambridge, was traveling westbound on Route 50 when it attempted to make a...READ MORE

SHA To Let County Look At Route 113 Phase Plans

SNOW HILL - The next phase of the Route 113 dualization will begin in March 2008, and before then the County Commissioners would like to vet the design to avoid problems like the median at the highway's Route 12 intersection. After some prodding during an appearance in front of the Commissioners Tuesday, State Highway Administration (SHA) District Engineer Donnie Drewer agreed to show the commissioners the plans that have already been designed.  The commissioners have been attempting to...READ MORE

Tourism Commission Renews Opposition To Slots In Md.

OCEAN CITY - It is no secret that Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and Governor Martin O'Malley have been proponents of slots in Maryland, and it is also no secret that slots have been both lauded and vehemently opposed by people all over the state as well as in Ocean City. With this in mind, it was decided at last week's Tourism Commission meeting to take the latter stance and be vehemently opposed to slots in Maryland. Over the past several years, legalizing slot machines in Maryland...READ MORE

280 New Homes Okayed For River Run Community

SNOW HILL - River Run will gain 280 homes, not the 408 originally approved, in the final build out of the community. The Worcester County Planning Commission approved the planned unit development plan last week. The plan includes single-family homes, townhouses, a reconstructed clubhouse and a driving range. 'We think we've come up with a fairly good plan for you,' consultant Larry Whitlock told the Planning Commission. The design keeps construction away from the waterfront and uses natural...READ MORE

ACT Establishes Permanent Endowment Fund

BERLIN - Assateague Coastal Trust (ACT) announced on Monday the establishment of a permanent endowment fund at the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore to benefit its programs in perpetuity. The creation of the 'Assateague Coastal Trust Founders' Endowment' was made possible by recent memorial donations in honor of two ACT founders who passed away this year, Judith Colt Johnson and Ilia Fehrer. 'We are deeply grateful for the life and legacy of these conservation pioneers,' said ACT...READ MORE

Berlin Rape Suspect Handed Suspended Sentence Days Prior

BERLIN - A Berlin man was arrested for first-degree rape and first- and second-degree assault late last week just over two weeks after receiving a suspended jail sentence for an assault on the same victim after a year-long pattern of abuse. Last Thursday, detectives with the Worcester County Bureau of Investigations (WCBI) responded to Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury in reference to an alleged rape of a 40-year-old victim. Through the course of the investigation, the suspect in...READ MORE

Cops Seek Armed Robbery Suspect

OCEAN CITY - Resort police this week are looking for a suspect in an armed robbery at a downtown hotel early Monday morning. Shortly before 5 a.m. on Monday, Ocean City Police were called to the Stowaway Grand Hotel to investigate an armed robbery. According to police reports, the suspect confronted the desk clerk with a handgun and demanded she take him to the safe. The suspect reportedly forced the clerk to open the safe and removed an undisclosed amount of money. The suspect then forced the...READ MORE

Council Wants Close Look At Transit Concerns

OCEAN CITY - The ADA paratransit services came under scrutiny at Monday night's City Council meeting, ending with the unanimous decision that the issue needs to be examined more closely. Robert Melvin came before the Mayor and Council to voice his concern over the transportation provided from Ocean City to Berlin. He made specific reference to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as it pertains to public transportation and the Statewide-Specialized Transportation Assistance Program...READ MORE

OCPD Restrictive Order Sails Past Council

OCEAN CITY - The general order outlining restricted duty status for sworn police officers of the Ocean City Police Department was passed unanimously at Monday's City Council meeting. General order 500 H-3 addresses restricted duty status, and the positions offered to those injured in the line of duty as well as those injured outside of the line of duty. Restrictive duty status provides sworn personnel of the police department the opportunity to perform administrative tasks in lieu of taking...READ MORE

Planning Comm. Holds Off Vote On New Plant Discharge

SNOW HILL - The new wastewater plant planned for Berlin on the old Tyson chicken processing site will discharge treated effluent to a local creek for 10 years, Worcester County planning officials heard last week, a practice that the town hopes will be countered by better nutrient management in other areas. Plans for an expansion of the current plant to remedy capacity and nutrient issues had gone all the way to the Worcester County Planning Commission before developer Troy Purnell's offer to...READ MORE

Proposed Hotel Gets Green Light To Build In OC

OCEAN CITY - At a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting on Tuesday, it was unanimously agreed to approve the proposed Clipper Hotel, after the commission agreed that it was an ideal project for the downtown area. The proposed three-story structure, which will be located at 1107 North Baltimore Avenue, will consist of seven hotel suites and one employee-housing unit. The three-stories make it ideal for the downtown area, which is trying to stay under five stories to maintain its downtown charm....READ MORE

Report: Ocean City, Assateague Water Quality Fine

OCEAN CITY - Water quality at beaches across the country were deemed unsafe for swimming for a record number of days last year and the number of no-swim days more than doubled from the year before, but the waters around coastal Worcester County including Ocean City generally received a clean bill of health with one major exception. According to 'Testing the Waters: a Guide to Water Quality at Vacation Beaches,' an independent report released this week by the Natural Resources Defense Council...READ MORE

Water System Connection Backed

SNOW HILL - Plans to connect the Ocean Pines and Glen Riddle water systems were endorsed by the County Commissioners this week. The Ocean Pines Service Area Advisory Board backed the plan in a mid-July memorandum. The 12,000-resident, year-round community needed more water, but another well would have cost too much, said Advisory Board Chair Dart Way. A new well in Ocean Pines, on the south side of the community, would have cost $2 million and required tapping into a deeper aquifer of iron-laced...READ MORE

Leaderboard Shaken Up In White Marlin Open

OCEAN CITY - Minutes after the scale opened for day four of the 34th Annual White Marlin Open around 4 p.m. yesterday, a new leader emerged and a new fortune was possibly won, but hundreds of boats still out in the canyons off the coast last night and about 150 more still fishing today, it remains to be seen if sport fishing's newest millionaire will still be smiling at the close of the event tonight. Fortunes are often won or lost in an instant in the White Marlin Open as one boat after another...READ MORE