Election offers promise of “a better Ocean City”

Ocean City is the place I chose, drawn here, like so many of us, by something rare: a town where generations gather on the same Boardwalk, where the same break still draws surfers like me out before sunrise, and where the rhythm of summer carries the memory of every summer that came before.

That inheritance is real. The question on the ballot May 12 is what we do with it.

A better Ocean City works to maintain its livability. Streets that breathe. Mornings where the sun washes over you on the way to the coffee shop, the porch, the bay. Lights on in the windows throughout the year, not just from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Neighbors for all seasons – the ones who shovel your walk in February and wave from the porch in July.

That’s what Ocean City is to me, but that special place doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by design: smaller builds that fit the streets they sit on instead of dwarfing them, real incentives for preservation so the buildings that tell our story aren’t quietly traded away one demolition permit at a time, parking and circulation that work for residents and visitors alike, and a deliberate effort to rebuild our long-term, year-round population – the families, the workers, the retirees, the surfers who’ll paddle out in February, the young couples – who turn a seasonal town into an actual community.

A better Ocean City sees a compromise rise at 600 Boardwalk like mayoral candidate Keith Hartzell has spoken to – not a fight that drags on for another decade, not a giveaway dressed up as progress – genuine compromise that protects scale, character, and public access while still rewarding good-faith investment. Something we can all get behind. Something we can all embrace. Something that moves us forward – together,

A better Ocean City has a City Council that both partners with and pushes back against the administration. That is what a healthy governing relationship looks like.

The Faulkner Act gives Council real authority, and a Council that uses it – asking hard questions, holding genuine hearings, saying yes when yes is warranted and no when it isn’t – is the definition of good leadership and is the kind of independence and integrity we believe Jim Kelly and Sean Barnes possess.

Good governance is like reading a wave: You negotiate with the wave, every one is different, but you don’t let it carry you wherever it pleases – where you end up together is collaboration between surfer and Mother Nature.

A better Ocean City has a mayor for everyone, not just the donor list, the development pipeline, and the people who already have his ear. A mayor for the people – walking the streets, sitting on benches, stopping into shops, and really listening. On the Boardwalk, at the playground, in the parking lot, at the post office, talking with residents, not at them. Solving problems where they actually live, in conversations that don’t require a public records request to surface. That’s the kind of leadership we need to build our town one neighbor at a time.

A better Ocean City develops true fiscal restraint led by successful, experienced business people like Hartzell, Kelly, and Barnes. We carry one of the heaviest debt burdens of any shore community in New Jersey – roughly 20 cents of every dollar we appropriate goes to debt service, nearly double what comparable towns like Avalon spend. None of this is fatal. All of it is fixable, but the fix is unglamorous and needs to begin sooner than later: question every line item, scrutinize every bond ordinance, save every nickel where a nickel can be saved. Nickels add up to dollars.

Dollars add up to a town that can invest in its future without mortgaging it.

A better Ocean City protects what cannot be replaced. The buildings that line our streets are the physical record of who we have been. Once they are gone, they never return. We can build new things and keep faith with old ones at the same time.

And a better Ocean City means everyone has a voice. The year-round residents and families that move to Ocean City raising children here, the summer family on their 40th visit, the retiree who chose this town for its quiet, the dawn patrol regular checking the swell before work, the young couple wondering whether they can afford to stay. Our Ocean City believes should all be heard, that all matter, and that we can all move forward together – not as factions, not as winners and losers, but as neighbors in this town we all love.

This is not a radical vision. It is the ordinary, decent, well-run town that Ocean City has been at its best – and can be again. On May 12, if you feel like I do, vote for Keith Hartzell for mayor and Sean Barnes and Jim Kelly for Council, because a Better Ocean City is on the ballot.

The author, Richard Crawford, is an Ocean City resident and surfer. (Paid for by Our Ocean City PAC)