Donald Wittkowski

City Council introduced an ordinance Tuesday to bring Ocean City in line with the federal government’s new flood maps for the National Flood Insurance Program. Utilizing the latest mapping technology, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is updating the nation’s flood maps for the first time since 1984 to reflect the current flooding risks to coastal communities. “Flood hazard mapping is an important part of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), as it is the basis of the NFIP regulations and flood insurance requirements,” FEMA says on its website...

Ocean City will receive more than $1 million in state funding for a major dredging project to clear out sediment-choked lagoons along the back bays. At its meeting Tuesday, City Council is scheduled to approve the funding agreement with the New Jersey Department of Transportation’s Office of Maritime Resources for the dredging of the Carnival Bayou lagoon. Council is holding its meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, instead of its normal schedule of 7 p.m. Thursday...

Chase Aleszczyk, 11, was hoping to reel in a sand shark or a sting ray. His 8-year-old sister, Colbie, was looking to catch a flounder or a sea bass. Unfortunately, the fish were eluding them Saturday. “I had three bites, but no fish,” Chase said, shrugging his shoulders. “I’m still waiting to catch something, too,” Colbie added...

Never say there is no such thing as beginner’s luck. Just ask Ginger Mumman. Competing in her very first beauty pageant, the 10-year-old blonde was crowned Little Miss Ocean City 2018 on Friday night amid a crowded field of 27 contestants ranging in age from 8 to 12...

Rookie firefighter Robert Hart’s very first day on the job in 1954 coincided with the grand opening of the then-new Ocean City firehouse on the corner of 29th Street and West Avenue. He didn’t rush out to battle any fires on that day while working the midnight shift, but he did experience the excitement of receiving his first two-week paycheck for what was then his $3,100 annual salary. “I got a paycheck, a meal and a nap – all on the first day,” Hart recalled, laughing...

The financially struggling Ocean City Housing Authority is running at a $100,000 loss as it awaits a crucial payment from Washington, D.C., that has been held up by delays in getting the federal budget approved. Jacqueline Jones, the housing authority’s executive director, said the agency will be “very, very low on cash” through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. “That’s a great concern, obviously,” Jones told the authority’s commissioners while giving a financial report during their monthly board meeting Tuesday...

A sentencing hearing for a former top Ocean City Housing Authority executive who was caught in an embezzlement scheme has been postponed for three weeks amid ongoing efforts to clean up and restructure the troubled agency since she was removed. Alesia Watson, who was fired from her job as the housing authority’s executive director a week after she pleaded guilty to embezzlement on May 8, was scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday in federal court in Camden. However, officials said Monday her sentencing has been pushed back until Sept. 7...

Madison Leigh Kennelly jokingly refers to herself as a beauty pageant “guru.” Now there’s another pageant-related title she can call herself: Miss Ocean City 2018. The 18-year-old York College sophomore beat out 11 other contestants Saturday night at the Music Pier in her first attempt to become Miss Ocean City...

A new agreement approved Thursday will allow Ocean City to send sediment dredged from its lagoons and back bays to the town of Pleasantville, but some local residents believe the deal is a way for a wealthy community to dump its “toxic slime” on a poor municipality. Ocean City wants to get rid of the muddy sediment as it moves ahead with a comprehensive dredging program, but Pleasantville plans to use the material as fill for its Lakes Bay waterfront redevelopment area, a proposed project that would include homes, retail shops and office space...

A former Ocean City lifeguard who lost his job after he narrowly failed a swimming test has been awarded nearly $128,000 by a Superior Court jury in his age-discrimination lawsuit against the municipality. Paul McCracken claimed in his litigation that city officials “concocted a scheme” to get rid of older lifeguards by imposing new fitness requirements that made the running and swimming tests required of the Beach Patrol members more rigorous...