Dear Friends, The beach and Boardwalk are Ocean City's top attractions. They are natural locations for social gathering -- and that will only get worse as the weather gets warmer. They also draw many people into Ocean City -- from the towns just across the bridge all the way out into the surrounding states.Two of the most urgent mandates to slow the exponential spread of COVID-19 are to eliminate social gathering and to limit movement from place to place.To leave the beaches and Boardwalk open would ignore both those mandates. I understand that nobody is happy about not having access to these outdoor areas. But these are not normal times.
We all have to make sacrifices to make sure this pandemic does not spread through our community, our region and our nation. My greatest hope is that one day we look back on this as a temporary inconvenience. By now, we all know the ultimate price that can be paid for not taking this pandemic seriously.I don’t want to look back and wish we could have done more. Warm regards, Mayor Jay A. Gillian
