Dear Friends,
At last night’s City Council meeting, our CFO, Frank Donato, reviewed my administration’s proposed budget with the council members, and presented a PowerPoint summary of all the details of the budget.
The administration’s budget includes a zero tax rate increase, and includes funding to ensure we continue with additional projects to improve our infrastructure and way of life. As I stated in my State of the City address earlier this month, with everything that’s going on in the world, I think it’s important to come in at zero this year. The Mayor’s budget can be viewed here; and last night’s PowerPoint presentation can be viewed here.
Tomorrow night from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., the Ocean City School District PTA will be hosting a “Someone Special” Dance at the newly renovated Civic Center, at 6th Street and the Boardwalk, for students and families of the Ocean City Primary School. The event is being supported by the Ocean City High School Key Club, and is a nice opportunity for students and families to enjoy each other’s company.
The Ocean City Environmental Commission along with the Ocean City High School Environmental Association will be planting beach plums Saturday at 10 a.m., at the 57th Street and Central Avenue beach access road, rain or shine. The public is invited to participate in this event, and the beach plum cuttings will be provided by Jalma Farms.
Alma George will provide instructions on how to plant the beach plums, along with an overview of the benefits of beach plums to the coastal environment. Volunteers should be dressed for cool weather, with work gloves and hard-soled shoes, along with shovels to dig a 2-foot deep hole, and buckets for topsoil.
Work continues on the Boardwalk restrooms at 11th Street. Crews continue to make good progress on the project, and remain on schedule to move to 10th Street by the end of the month.
Replacement of fencing at the 35th Street Little League fields is also progressing nicely, along with improvements to the fields and dugouts, in preparation for the opening of the baseball season.
Public Works crews continue to make a big push to get beaches ready for the summer season. The team has installed beach access mats from the north end to 40th Street, and anticipates that all beach accesses will be provided with mats at every dune crossover well before the summer season.
And finally, I’d like to wish Elton John a happy 75th birthday.
I hope everyone enjoys the weekend.
Warm regards,
Mayor Jay A. Gillian
