MediaWize

Two major events take center stage in Ocean City this weekend. “Star Trek,” “Roots” and “Reading Rainbow” icon LeVar Burton will be special guest at the OC-Con Comic Book and Memorabilia Festival on Saturday and Sunday (April 6 and 7) at the Ocean City Music Pier. Girls Weekend will showcase all that Ocean City’s downtown retail district has to offer and provide a great reason to escape to the shore Friday through Sunday (April 5 to 7). Details follow on those events and more coming up this spring and summer in Ocean City.

United Methodist Communities at The Shores will hold presentations on April 10-11 about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. The programs are free to the public and will be held at UMC at The Shores at 2201 Bay Avenue in Ocean City.

The Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce announces that Karen Bergman, Councilwoman and Director of Catering for the Flanders Hotel, will receive the 2019 Salute to Working Women Award and will be honored at the Chamber of Commerce Luncheon on April 24 at the Flanders Hotel. The award recognizes women in business for their outstanding professional and personal achievements.

The John R. Elliott HERO Campaign For Designated Drivers has been selected by the 17th annual Garden State Film Festival (GSFF) to receive the 2019 Broader Vision Award for the Campaign’s HERO Video Network. The independent film festival’s award highlights the HERO Campaign’s mission of ending drunk driving tragedies through the promotion of safe and sober designated driving. The HERO Campaign’s HERO Video Network is being honored for “film making dedicated to the greater good” at the festival’s awards banquet Sunday, March 31 at the Berkeley Oceanfront Hotel in Asbury Park.

Atlantic City Electric will continue with service upgrades causing temporary power outages in different parts of Ocean City. Following are the locations and days for outages scheduled during the week of April 1-5.

Mayor Jay Gillian says Ocean City is working to correct misleading information by a nonprofit group studying rising sea levels that claims coastal towns have lost billions of dollars in home value due to flooding. Ocean City rose to the top of the list in the study, not because flooding is any worse than anywhere else, but because it has so much real estate value, he says. The reality is that Ocean City's combined real estate value climbed from $7 billion to almost $12 billion during the period of the study, the mayor points out in his weekly message to the public. He believes that investing in Ocean City real estate is about as safe a bet as you can make.

Free tree seedlings will be available to Ocean City residents on April 1 as part of the New Jersey Tree Recovery Campaign. This program helps communities replace trees damaged or destroyed by Superstorm Sandy. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday, April 1, residents will be able to pick up tree seedlings at City Hall (861 Asbury Avenue), the Ocean City Community Center (1735 Simpson Avenue) or the 46th Street Welcome Center (46th Street and West Avenue).

Prime Events 18th annual All-Star Saturday will be held on Saturday with top seniors from the Cape-Atlantic League facing off in the final two basketball games of four that celebrate the present and future of the CAL. The games are being played in the Dixie Howell Memorial Gymnasium at Ocean City High School. The two high school games, starting at 3:30 p.m., will match the best CAL seniors. The all-star teams were selected based on the all-star voting of the league’s coaches.

An Ocean City man was sentenced Wednesday to 19 years in prison for killing his girlfriend, Cape May County Prosecutor Jeffrey H. Sutherland and Chief of Detectives Paul Skill announced in a press release. On July 22, 2017, Paul Kline, 49, was charged with the death of Denise Weber, 54, also from Ocean City. Kline pled guilty to aggravated manslaughter on Feb. 1, 2019.

Freeholder E. Marie Hayes, an Ocean City resident, and Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton, of Cape May Court House, are officially off and running in the November election for two spots on the Cape May County Board of Chosen Freeholders. Tapped for the Republican ticket at the recent GOP Convention in Avalon, the two incumbents filed their nomination petitions earlier this week. They were then sworn in officially by Rita Marie Fulginiti, the Cape May County clerk.