Ocean City Mayoral Candidate John Flood Reveals His Plans

By Donald Wittkowski Mayoral candidate John Flood discusses what he plans to do in his first few days in office if he wins the May 8 municipal election. He also lays out his proposal for creating more parking spaces in town in this article, the second in a series of stories published in OCNJDaily.com leading up to the election. In addition, he is raising concerns about the tax and financial implications of the city's proposed five-year, $100 million capital plan on property owners. He also wants to take a second look at the proposed $17.5 million police administration building, one of the high-profile projects in the capital plan. His comments follow in this question-and-answer format. Please describe what you plan to do in your first days of office. On my first day in office, there will be no noticeable changes to the public. It will be the middle of summer and everything that is scheduled will continue as planned. Also, I would like to ensure all of the employees of the city that if they like their job and want to continue to work hard for the city, they have nothing to worry about. I don't care who hired them or who they supported publicly. The only thing that matters is that we all serve the community to the highest level possible. I would issue the following policies/planning guidelines:

• All road and drainage projects and other projects that are under contract will continue as planned. All other projects that have not gone out to bid will be re-evaluated and, if needed, broken down into more manageable parts that can be completed during an off-season. If the total project cannot be completed within an off-season, there needs to be a plan to restore the road to useable condition no later than May 1. Like the Boardwalk replacement, the city did no more than could be completed between the fall Block Party and Palm Sunday. No road should be opened up, excluding emergencies, without a plan to restore the road. Residents need to know there is an end date. All other projects will begin the process of "concept, design, fund and implement."

• All ordinances must be opened up for public comment prior to being introduced on first reading, and we need to use technology to receive public comments. Ocean City is a community that at times is physically separated from some residents and second homeowners. We are extremely fortunate to have a large group of people that care a lot about the town. They also represent a vast wealth of knowledge and different perspectives that can be harnessed – if they are just asked. I will use technology to try to harness it. Ordinances should be posted on the city's website at least two weeks prior to first reading. Explanation and supporting data should be included. The first ordinance to go through this process for Council's consideration will be to take advantage of the state law allowing municipalities to reduce the distance you can park from a stop sign from 50 feet to 25 feet. My parking proposal would create more than 750 new parking spaces and would help with the parking shortage that is particularly acute during the busy summer tourism season.

• Behind the scenes, we will begin to evaluate our capital financing on how to best deal with the $128 million of permanent financing to be issued in 2019 and 2020 and how best to manage it.

John Flood wants to take a second look at the city's capital plan, its debt and the impacts on the local tax rate. As one example of your concerns about the overall pace and financial implications of the capital plan, what project might that be and how would you address it? One of the larger and most visible projects that hasn't moved forward is the police administration building. They've had several studies; they haven't nailed down a location. I think my program that I've done before at the library with "concept, design, fund and implement" is ripe for this project. We need to do a needs-assessment - find out exactly how the building is used and how the people there use it. We need to investigate, not just that, but what are the trends in police activity. What do you see as the biggest issue facing Ocean City both in the short term and the long term? Right now, everybody's happy because they see all this work being done. And all of this work being done is being touted by the mayor as his accomplishment. But what he's failing to tell you is that in the next two years, the town is scheduled to go out for $128 million in new debt, which will have to be repaid at a higher interest, and we're going to begin to pay back the principal. The capital projects and the capital spending are a big issue in my mind. The infrastructure has long exceeded its useful life. It needs to be replaced. But we're doing too much, too fast and a lot of it isn't being done responsibly. We can't stop, but I believe we need to re-evaluate and slow the pace of some of the projects, both to get them done correctly and at the best cost. The plan of how much work and to pay for it is as important as the physical plans for the projects. I don't see how, in some way, it's not going to lead to a larger tax increase. Almost 50 percent of our current debt for all the work that's being done lately is put on the credit card. It's being charged, and we're paying interest only. But that bill's going to come due in the next couple of years. Whether I'm the mayor or Mayor Gillian's the mayor, or anybody else, that bill is coming due. The mayor's failed to talk about that reality.