Donald Wittkowski

Jordan Cope was able to help out a condo owner at the shore whose fabulous bay views were being spoiled by the sun’s glaring rays and heat. “All of the heat came blaring in,” Cope said. Cope, the owner of Coastal Reflections, easily fixed the problem by installing a protective layer of tinted film on the windows to block the heat and glare without ruining the bayfront views for the condo owner. His professional window treatment and tinting company, based in Dennis Township, offers home and business owners an increasingly popular way to protect their property from excessive heat and sunlight and also give them more privacy and safety.

Ocean City Councilman Michael DeVlieger announced Thursday night that he will step down from the governing body in August to focus on his family and professional career. DeVlieger was first elected as the First Ward councilman in 2012 and won re-election in 2016 and 2020 without facing any opposition. For the past two years, he has served as Council’s vice president. Surprising his fellow Council members, he told them that the Aug. 12 meeting will be his last on the seven-member body.

Best-selling author and nationally known environmental advocate Michael Shellenberger scoffs at the notion that ocean wind farms, like the one proposed off the South Jersey coast, are a good source of renewable, green energy. He regards them more as an industrialized threat to the environment, to the commercial fishing industry, to marine life and wildlife. “The big push to industrialize the East Coast will ruin the East Coast. It’s a gross environmental injustice,” he said. Shellenberger will be in Ocean City on Thursday, July 15, to present his views on the wind farm industry during a forum that will focus on a proposal to build 99 towering wind turbines off the South Jersey coast.

Marcel Manhim’s iconic 1930 Ford Model A has air-conditioning. Not the air-conditioning we think of today, though, with our modern cars. The Model A’s windshield tilts outward to allow fresh air to flow into the car while it is on the road, keeping the driver nice and cool in the process. Other quaint features include a rumble seat, a pull-down shade for the back window to keep out sun glare and a storage box strapped onto the rear of the car that doubles as the trunk. These oddities – in those days, they were innovations – gave car buffs a glimpse of the past during the 65th annual Antique Auto Show presented by the Jersey Cape Region of the Antique Automobile Club of America.

City Council on Thursday night blasted state legislation that would speed up development of a proposed offshore wind energy farm as a blatant power grab that strips Ocean City and other local communities of New Jersey’s longstanding tradition of home rule. “Essentially, they’ve taken our right to home rule away from us,” said Councilman Michael DeVlieger, the governing body’s most outspoken critic of the wind farm project. In the latest salvo by Ocean City opposing the wind farm, Council voted 7-0 to approve a resolution that denounces state legislation that would make it easier for the Danish energy company Orsted to build the project off the South Jersey coast.

Cape May County representatives are denouncing state legislation that they say would prevent towns or counties from having any local control over a controversial wind energy farm proposed by a Danish company off the South Jersey coast. They say the proposed legislation preempts New Jersey’s time-honored tradition of home rule and would give a foreign company extraordinary power to build a project over the objections of local elected officials. “Suddenly, we’ve got a private, foreign company that is determining our position here. For the Legislature and governor to consider taking away home rule is shameful,” Cape May County Board of Commission Director Gerald Thornton said. Thornton and other critics of the wind farm proposed by the Danish energy company Orsted are also troubled by its possible harmful impacts on the shore’s multibillion-dollar tourism industry, commercial fishing operations and the environment...

Sparks flew Thursday night during a City Council meeting that included some testy exchanges between members of the governing body over two contracts. In separate action, one of the contracts was tabled, while the other was approved by a 4-2 vote following heated debate. Early on, tensions were high among the Council members, but the tone quieted down later on and became conciliatory near the end of the meeting at the Ocean City Music Pier.

City Council introduced an $87 million municipal budget Thursday night that includes a smaller tax increase than initially proposed thanks to federal stimulus funding that helps offset local revenue losses suffered during the pandemic. The spending plan calls for a penny increase in the local property tax rate. The increase translates into an extra $50 annually in taxes for a home assessed at $500,000, Frank Donato, the city’s chief financial officer, said during remarks to Council.

Ocean City police officers will have to be extra careful in how they handle juvenile offenders who are smoking pot or drinking alcohol on the beaches, the Boardwalk or other parts of town this summer. In a dramatic twist, police may be the ones at risk of getting arrested – not the offenders, Police Chief Jay Prettyman said. New Jersey’s legalization of recreational marijuana this year includes legal restraints that will dramatically change the way officers statewide respond to underage offenders who are smoking pot or drinking alcohol. “You will very rarely, if ever, see a juvenile charged with a complaint,” Prettyman said during a 90-minute town hall meeting Saturday attended by about 100 residents and members of City Council at the Ocean City Tabernacle.

The Deauville Inn and its 240 employees have emerged from the pandemic together and are poised for a big recovery as the summer tourism season approaches at the Jersey Shore. The landmark restaurant overlooking Corson’s Inlet in the tiny town of Strathmere, between Ocean City and Sea Isle City, has been given a sweeping makeover under Tim Fox’s ownership since late 2019.