Donald Wittkowski

West 17th Street is an enclave of mostly upscale bayfront homes accessible by crossing a tiny bridge off Bay Avenue. The neighborhood, essentially a narrow island jutting out into the back bay, is vulnerable to tidal flooding because of its location and the low-lying topography. Hoping to reduce the chronic flooding, Ocean City is preparing to start construction on a nearly $1.5 million project that will include a stormwater pumping station, new drainage and outfall pipes, elevating the road where possible, repaving and landscaping improvements.

The Ocean City Housing Authority is entering a critical phase in the next several months in its plan to develop a 60-unit project that will replace the aging Pecks Beach Village housing complex. Jacqueline Jones, the housing authority’s executive director, described a series of key preliminary steps that are needed for the design, financing and construction of the estimated $22 million to $23 million project.

Ocean City's beaches between Seaview Road and 14th Street have been elevated, widened and rebuilt as part of a $24.4 million replenishment project that added 1.5 million cubic yards of new sand. Visitors call them clean and "very nice."

A new survey conducted for the Ocean City Free Public Library shows that it continues to have strong loyalty among its users, but that it has not yet been able to climb back to pre-pandemic levels in the number of visitors.

During the busy summer tourism season, cars, trucks, bicycles and pedestrians all share space on Ocean City's congested roadways. The results can be tragic. A 21-year-old woman from New Hope, Pa., was struck by a car on Aug. 11, 2021, at the intersection of 26th Street and West Avenue. She died from her injuries two days later. Hoping to improve safety on some of the most heavily traveled roads, Ocean City is asking Cape May County to install flashing crosswalk signs at seven intersections to help pedestrians navigate their way.

Ocean City has become the latest community to call for an investigation into whether a series of whale deaths at the Jersey Shore and elsewhere along the East Coast are being caused by development work on a proposed offshore wind energy project. Mayor Jay Gillian and City Council want an immediate halt on the Ocean Wind 1 project pending the competition of a full investigation into seven whale deaths along the New Jersey and New York coast since early December.

Cecilia Gallelli-Keyes said she will treasure the friendships that her family developed with so many of their guests and employees at the Tahiti Inn in Ocean City. The Gallelli family owned the Tahiti Inn since 1989, but now they have sold the motel to an investor who has been on a buying spree of late in Ocean City.

Tolls were up. Traffic was down. In a nutshell, that’s what happened in 2022 on the five toll bridges linking the Cape May County beach communities.

Danish energy company Orsted announced Wednesday that it is buying out its U.S. partner to take full control of a controversial wind energy farm proposed off the South Jersey coast. Orsted and New Jersey-based Public Service Enterprise Group entered into a partnership in 2020 to jointly develop the Ocean Wind 1 project, but now PSEG is selling its 25 percent stake to Orsted. Terms of the deal were not announced.

Ocean City will try to rein in groups of rowdy teenagers that have been disrupting the vital summer tourism season two years in a row by giving police more power to take juveniles into custody. City Council gave final approval Thursday night to a new ordinance that will classify a litany of minor offenses such as underage drinking, curfew violations and littering as a “breach of the peace” to allow police to detain juveniles who allegedly break local laws.