To the editor:
More than 100 attended the town hall meeting on north end pump station plans on Nov. 14 at the Ocean City Free Public Library.The pump station presentation on Saturday by Mr. Applegate of Paulus, Sokolowski and Sartor (PS&S) was another example of the administration’s lack of competence on a significant capital project.
If you are going to have a town meeting, Mayor Gillian, at least rehearse it and ask your (consultant) presenter typical questions, so that he doesn’t come across unprepared and vague. In fact, it would important for you to know the answers, too. It is called being prepared.
1) The presenter couldn’t quanitify the improvement in drainage. Really, spend $8 million, of which $5 million is a grant, and you can’t quantify the improvement. Aren’t engineers professionals that quantify things?
2) The presenter didn’t know at what tide height the pumps would come on or go off but that they could be adjusted. Refer to No. 1, so how effective will the pumps be?
3) Unfortunately, some areas along Bay Avenue don’t have bulkheads, so tidal flooding will shut down the pumps. There is the idea everyone has tried to pound into the administration over and over — your plan must be integrated whether it be the Baker plan from 33rd to 26th or this 30-square-block area.
Other mess-ups include replacing the sod on the soccer field this fall, only to dig it up in two years — good coordination fellas. The lack of public notification for Sixth Street residents on what is coming. Now they know. Remember the vow the administration would never surprise anyone like the “house” near Tennessee Avenue boat ramp? How soon they forget.
Drainage is a hard problem that requires intelligent planning and logical common sense questions. However, bring a “prime time player” worthy of the task at hand and do your own “thoughtful” questioning. Test him beforehand.
This project, if not designed and thought through, will be a calamity. It will make the folly known as the 29th Street firehouse reconstruction — where you have spent $92,000 in architectural and engineering fees and have nothing to show for it as the bids came in at $2 million — seem small. If Czar Engineering didn’t know the cost was going to be that high, chances are they are the wrong architect/engineer for the project. Or the Mayor just wants to keep redesigning the firehouse for fun. I guess Wonderland is now on 29th Street.
I applaud the administration for receiving a $5 million grant for the pump station. But now the hard part begins — can you execute? So far, the answer is no.
Michael Hinchman
Ocean City
