27. Ocean City’s Ethical Quandary
I had no plan to write this piece prior to reading two of this week’s articles in Ocean City’s recently combined papers. One dealt with the present ethical quandary of the town, while the other highlighted the heroic moral certitude of a courageous act. None of us are perfect, but we expect more from our public officials and trust that they are representing our interests. The pier deal serves as a good example of unethical practices by the Mayor and Council and may add clarity to the current debate.
Now, let's return to the town’s ethical quandary. Last week, Pete Wimbrow penned a riveting piece on the 80-year anniversary of the “Great Escape.” During World War II, 76 men escaped from Stalag Luft III, a German prisoner-of-war camp for allied flyers. However, 73 were apprehended and paid the ultimate price. This heroic act showed a moral certitude that sharply contrasts with the cowardly ethical machinations of our town council’s inability to articulate a clear understanding of what is ethical.
Rather than providing clarity, Mr. Gehrig and City Solicitor, Ms. Stansbury, add ambiguity by attempting to make political behavior subjective, as outlined in an article written by Bethany Hooper (March 22, 2024). Their machinations on ethics are hard to stomach, let alone understand.
Mr. Gehrig asks, “When we have expenses entertaining, is it a violation of ethics to have expenses to entertain other elected officials?” Also, “Gehrig then asked how the ethics policy would affect an official’s ability to accept gifts” (Hooper, p. 6, col. 2, para. 3). Gehrig's concern about retaliation raises questions about his own ethical stance.
Mr. Gehrig voted in December 2019 to extend the pier lease by another 25 years (with 9 years remaining on the original lease) on the approximately 5.7-acre pier property, which housed approximately 28 businesses. The pier property is the most valuable property in Ocean City, while his private company (D3) is paid handsomely to manage all the websites of the franchise leasehold. This action was, at the very least, unethical. His business relationship should have led him to recuse himself from any involvement in the pier deal.
Prior to that vote, Mr. Gehrig sat on a three-person committee that met privately with the franchise leaseholder for almost a year. This was unethical.
In December, before the final vote, the committee neither received nor solicited any competitive bids for the 25-year lease extension of the City-owned property. That was unethical.
Mr. Gehrig admitted to never reviewing the leases or income received by the franchise leaseholder during the year to determine a fair rental price for the city. That too, Mr. Gehrig, was unethical.
Mr. Gehrig, it was unethical to extend a lease that still had 9 years to run, wasn’t it?
It was unethical to extend the pier lease for 25 years when it still had 9 years to run.
The Council's failures on the pier lease may have cost the town tens of millions over the next three decades. Are you getting a better idea of what ethics are, Mr. Gehrig? Mayor, you would never take money to extend and protect the pier deal, right?
The Council’s failure to secure clear title on the pier property, the town’s most valuable possession, further muddies the water, reducing the importance of the town. Can you name another deal done by the council that was negotiated for 11 months in private, was never bid out, was not evaluated to determine a fair price for the city, was negotiated 9 years before the lease expired, and added 25 additional years on top of the 9? Thirty years still remain.
Mary Knight and Dennis Dare, who sat on the committee with Gehrig that met in private for 11 months and negotiated the pier deal, neither ran for reelection, adding to the appearance of impropriety.
Ms. Stansbury, our legal representative, takes the opportunity to add more ambiguity to the definition of ethics: “I believe what it would do is it would allow us to actually go in and amend this ordinance . . . and put something in here that would be perhaps less stringent than the state code.” Also, Stansbury said “there are some gifts elected officials can accept and some gifts they must report.” What about the gifts they shouldn’t accept, Ms. Stansbury?
Ms. Stansbury later failed to release the minutes from the closed meetings the committee of three held (Gehrig, Dare, and Knight) over the pier deal, despite the advice to release the minutes by the Open Meetings Compliance Board. That was unethical. You are presently withholding anything in writing from the state, such as the audit itself, regarding our ethics code revisions. It would also be unethical, so please make it public. Ms. Stansbury, I understand your law firm makes a lot of money off the town, but you don’t work for the council’s best interest; you work for the town, that is, the people not in the meetings.
Although we hold out hope for honesty in our elected officials, the reality of our politicians' ethics tells a different story. During the 2010-2019 period, alleged and actual misconduct by legislators in the United States Congress included "13 bribery and corruption, 16 sexual harassment cases, 22 campaign and election violations, 62 ethics violations, and 10 other crimes" (Govtrack.US). The consequences of these actions were... During the 2020s, there have been 1 contempt of Congress, 2 reprimands, 3 resignations, 4 censures, 5 guilty pleas in court, 1 expulsion, and 68 fines by House/Senate (Govtrack.US, Legislative Misconduct Database). We have six more years to go to complete the 2020s! Also, consider the allegations swirling around both presidential candidates.
The Council’s failure to open the City Solicitor position to bidding after we lost Guy Ayers was also unethical, depriving the town of applications from young lawyers from Harvard and Yale with no political ties to the town.
Having a double standard by allowing councilmen to remain on the council when they live outside of Ocean City unnecessarily darkens the residency rule and is unethical.
The pier deal irreparably harmed the town and taints all those Ocean City politicians involved in the approval vote.
Mr. Buas clearly understands the ethical responsibilities of local politicians; he was noticeably absent for the first reading of Ordinance 2024-2 adoption of new ethics guidelines. He was not on the council during the pier deal. We are just waiting for him to chime in on ethics.
We will close this with another statement by Ms. Stansbury regarding ethics: “It’s a philosophical issue…” Making ethics relative leads to ambiguity, which in turn leads to corruption.