Ocean View News

Exciting things are happening at the Coastal Leisure CHEER Center in Ocean View. A new director has been hired, and March is already filled with fun things to do.

Work on two early phases of the construction of the new Indian River Inlet Bridge is revving up, with removal of excess soils from the existing faulty embankments set to begin the first week of April and work begun last week on geotechnical investigations into how the faulty embankments came into being and whether the state has grounds for a claim against their builders.

Ocean View officials plan to keep a close eye on the town’s finances in the next six months, with deep concern expressed during their budget process for the 2009 fiscal year about whether a revenue forecast that includes two large proposed developments is too rosy to be realistic.

On a relatively light evening for the Ocean View Town Council, council members held a first reading of an ordinance change, introduced another and formally introduced the proposed budget documents for their coming fiscal year.

Though the prospect of partial road closures raised deep concerns in area businesspeople when the project was announced last year, it has been business pretty much as usual along Route 26 since the start of the Millville sewer project on Jan. 2. And, for the most part, business owners are happy to see what is happening with the project — even if it is fleetingly inconvenient.

As the word “green” gains in popularity and usage as a synonym for “environmentally friendly,” it might be easy to lose sight of exactly which environment is being referenced. For the Waehlers of Ocean View, “environment” not only meant the environment in which people live on Earth but the environment inside which they live most of the time — as in peoples’ homes.

As spring finally warms and greens the Delmarva Peninsula, bicyclists from all over the mid-Atlantic region will shift into gear and head to Fenwick Island. The Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce’s annual Ocean-To-Bay Bike Tour is a favored season-opening ride, organizers noted.

When plans were first announced for the sewer work along Route 26 in Millville, businesses dotting that area were understandably concerned. There was fear that the road work would not only cause traffic problems in front of their businesses, but that, more importantly, it would prevent customers from getting to their businesses.

It’s the return of comedy at Bear Trap Dunes on Wednesday, March 5, with headlining acts Pat O’Donnell and Jeff Pirrami, “The Fat Rat Bastard,” performing to a limited 120 seats.

Welcome to CoastalPoint.com 2.0! If you’ve visited our Web site in the last few weeks, you’ll already have noticed the appearance of the first phase of months of behind-the-scenes work by our staff on The Point’s Web presence.

Maribeth Fischer started the first Writers at the Beach conference in 2005, to raise money for mitochondrial disease, a disease that has since claimed the life of her two nephews, Sam and Zachary Juhlman.

After deliberation by both the Ocean View Planning and Zoning Commission and representatives from Savannah’s Landing, who gave their input to the commission, a 2-1 vote was cast Feb. 21 to defer action on a proposed shopping center, including a gas station, within town limits.

Ocean View Town Council members plan to introduce at their March meeting an ordinance that would refine permitted uses in the town’s small commercial district. The ordinance, developed by Administrative Official Charles McMullen, is a response to concerns that the value of property for residential use might one day lead to the demise of all of the town’s commercial businesses.

It has only been a matter of days since Richard Nippes was welcomed aboard the Ocean View Council, through a tight election earlier this month. But now that he has the floor, he’s wasting no time in aiming for change in the town, with hopes of reviving the culture and history of Ocean View.

Men and women of law enforcement and fire departments undoubtedly dedicated their time and experience, risking their own lives for those of the public and for the betterment of their communities.

After contentious discussion of the issue at last week’s town council meeting, Ocean View Mayor Gary Meredith and Councilman Roy Thomas spent time this week working out a compromise solution designed to maintain the town’s take-home policy for police vehicles.

Low-income residents of Ocean View who may have been wondering how they were going to pay potentially thousands of dollars in hook-up costs for mandatory connections to the town’s new central water system may have gotten their answer at a Nov. 6 meeting of the town council.

Ocean View is nearing adopting of a revised version of the town’s voting district map and the related verbal descriptions. The two were found to conflict during this year’s council election process, leading to controversy over which candidates should have been running for a seat representing District 2.

Ocean View officials are considering whether to use the Lampe House, adjacent to the town park, for a headquarters for the town’s public works department as shortages of funds and space leave the town administration stuck in the closet — literally.

Maestro Julien Benichou has always had a deep, assertive connection with music, ever since his early days practicing in a children’s chorus in his native France. From there, he dabbled with musical performance until he took a keen partiality to conducting and composing in his early teens.

Longtime Coastal Leisure CHEER Center Director Sheree Stephens is no longer working at the Ocean View senior center, after being arrested at the center Jan. 11 on theft and other charges and led away from her workplace in handcuffs by state police.

Two new homes nestled back in Ocean Way Estates, built by custom builder E.S.B. Inc., are turning the heads of passers-by. The solar panels atop the roof may be one of the most noticeable features of the houses, though for these eco-friendly dwellings, they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

Ocean View Town Manager Conway Gregory announced Jan. 22 that two candidates have filed to run in April 12’s elections for the town council seat representing District 3, while one candidate has filed for the office of mayor. Both Mayor Gary Meredith and District 3 Councilman Norman Amendt are term-limited and cannot run for re-election.

With a wave of new development ongoing in many of the area’s towns, local Realtors and municipal officials are, in some cases, discovering that their town codes don’t allow for some increasingly frequent situations. One such case involves the planned Fairway Village community in Ocean View, where a sizeable advertising sign has run afoul of the town’s signage allowances.

Existing standards for public roads in Sussex County are admittedly less stringent than those imposed by the State of Delaware, but that could cease to be the case under a directive passed by the Sussex County Council at their Tuesday, Jan. 8, meeting.