Police: Fatal fall in resort occurred during argument

OCEAN CITY -- The accidental fall from a sixth-floor window of an Ocean City hotel room that resulted in the death of a 46-year-old man occurred during a nonphysical argument with his girlfriend, according to the police report.

According to the report, Gregory Sean Pierce of Ocean Pines was in a room at the Fenwick Inn early in the morning on March 23 with his girlfriend of about one year. They had an argument that culminated with Pierce shattering the window and falling out, his girlfriend told police.

The Ocean City Police Department provided a copy of the department's investigative report about the incident after the Delmarva Media Group filed a Maryland Public Information Act request to obtain it.

At about 7:30 p.m. March 22, Pierce and his girlfriend took a taxi to Pickles Pub at 706 Philadelphia Ave., where they drank alcohol, the report said. Pierce's girlfriend told police she was not sure how much they had to drink, but that they were both "buzzing" when they left the bar after a few hours, according to a portion of the report filed by Detective Todd Speigle, who interviewed Pierce's girlfriend twice.

The couple returned to their room at the Fenwick Inn, 13801 Coastal Highway, where they began arguing, his girlfriend told police. Pierce left the room, and his girlfriend said he told her by phone he had gone to McDonald's and then Dunkin Donuts. He eventually returned to the hotel by taxi.

An argument began concerning a missing change purse and debit card, both of which belonged to the girlfriend, according to the report. When Pierce's girlfriend asked him to help her find the purse, he believed she was accusing him of taking it, she told police.

According to his girlfriend, Pierce lifted up a dresser and ripped a door out. He also punched the room's microwave before he went to the window and began to pound on it with both fists while growling.

Pierce's girlfriend said she was sitting on the chair near the desk situated on the other side of the room when Pierce was striking the window, according to Speigle. She got up and started walking toward Pierce, and was going to ask him what he was doing, she said, but before she could, the glass shattered and Pierce "went out" the window into the hotel parking lot.

Pierce was pronounced dead at the scene, shortly after police and paramedics responded at 4:08 a.m.

Two hotel guests in a room near Pierce's told PFC Daniel Jacobs they had heard arguing between a man and woman coming from the room on and off between 2-4 a.m. One guest said that he heard a loud crash at about 4 a.m., and the arguing "abruptly stopped."

The Delmarva Media Group has filed a Maryland Public Information Act request with the Maryland

Office of the Chief Medical Examiner's to obtain an autopsy report from the incident. The report was a factor in the death being declared an accident.

smuska@dmg.gannett.com
410-213-9442, ext. 14

 

9 arrested after alleged attack in OC

Group allegedly approached, assaulted two men downtown

 

OCEAN CITY -- Nine men were arrested and charged with two counts each of assault in the first degree and two counts each of assault in the second degree following an altercation in downtown Ocean City early Sunday morning.

At about 1:15 a.m., Ocean City Police responded to reports of a fight in progress in the area of Somerset Street and Atlantic Avenue, where they located two men who said they were approached and attacked by a group of men. One of the suspects also stole a wallet and cellphone from one of the victims, police said.

Police located six suspects in two vehicles shortly after receiving a description from the victims. At about 3:39 a.m., they located three additional suspects in another vehicle, according to police spokeswoman Jessica Waters.

Each suspect was identified by the victims and subsequently arrested and charged.

Dover residents D'Andrew Jamar Chandler, 18, Jamera Ebon Fisher, 19, Julian Dominique Freeman, 22, Randall Eugene Harris, 18, Keontre Lamar Hynson, 18, and Craig Tyrone Powell, 25, were arrested. Zamale Razeek Ameer Bull, 19, of Harrington, Del.; Robert Algernon Hill, 20, of Camden, Del.; and Duante Markes Morrison, 18, of Magnolia, Del., were also arrested.

In addition to the assault charges, Chandler was charged with possession of a firearm, handgun in a vehicle, possession of marijuana and possession of paraphernalia, according to police.

Morrison was charged with handgun on person and handgun in vehicle, and Hill was charged with robbery, one count of theft less than $1,000 and two counts of theft less than $100.

All nine suspects were transferred to the Worcester County Jail on bonds ranging as high as $25,000, with the exception of Bull, who was held without bond.

smuska@dmg.gannett.com
410-213-9442, ext. 14

 

Linked by Habitat Magazine (www.habitatmag.com)

Condo owners sue their bookkeeper

 

OCEAN CITY -- Assateague House Condominium's council of unit owners is seeking more than $1 million in damages from William W. Scott and Scott & Company, Inc., an accounting firm that kept the condo association's books.

The owners allege that the company misappropriated $437,400 of the owners' funds from three accounts, according to a civil suit they filed against Scott in Worcester County Circuit Court. The condo units are located on Worcester Street in Ocean City.

Assateague House hired Scott and his public accounting firm on June 1, 2008, for a monthly fee of $650, to do "accounting and certain management functions" for the owners, according to the complaint. Late in 2008, Scott and the company allegedly began misappropriating funds from Assateague House's accounts, and continued to do so through at least Dec. 20 of last year, the complaint reads. Scott did not return a message seeking comment for this story.

Assateague House is seeking $500,000 in punitive damages along with the total of the misappropriated funds and $100,000 for fees and costs of accountants, attorneys and condominium managers, according to the complaint.

The complaint alleges that Assateague House's money market reserve, construction and operating accounts were included in the misappropriations. An amount of $325,791 was allegedly taken from the money market reserve account by way of direct checks to Scott & Company. The complaint states that $73,600 in checks to Scott & Company was taken from the construction account, and $26,810 was taken from the operating account in the form of direct checks to Scott & Company, while $11,216 was misappropriated through checks to the San Remo Condo Association.

According to the complaint, Assateague House hired Scott and his company after Scott represented himself as a certified public accountant, something the council later learned he was not. Scott is not a registered CPA in the state, according to the Maryland Board of Public Accountancy.

Unauthorized advances were also made upon Assateague House's open line of credit, totaling $125,000, according to the complaint. The borrowed funds were allegedly paid into Assateague House's accounts to compensate for the misappropriations.

Assateague House is also seeking compensatory damages of $20,150 for payments for "31 months of worthless service" that ended in February.

"The services provided by Scott & Company to Assateague House were unprofessional, abhorrent and worthless," the complaint reads. "Scott & Company was and is not entitled to be paid anything for such services."

smuska@dmg.gannett.com
410-213-9442, ext. 14

 

OC will offset low revenue with cuts

Public safety will be hit the hardest

 

OCEAN CITY -- A proposed Ocean City budget continues the trend of recent years by matching lower revenue with lower expenditures.

City Manager Dennis Dare proposed a $73.6 million budget that includes less spending for each of the city's general fund categories, with the exception of a slight increase of about $50,000 in debt service.
That increase is due to a potential bond issue for the Boardwalk reconstruction project, according to Budget Manager Jennie Knapp. For a third consecutive year, the budget does not include a pay raise for employees.

The largest proposed cut slices more than $1 million from public safety expenditures compared to last year. Knapp said the largest cut comes from the absence of federal homeland security grants the police department usually receives. Those funds aren't shown on the budget proposal but are added to the budget as they're received.

The public safety departments were also able to cut some of their expenditures through personnel changes. In many instances, retiring employees were replaced by younger workers who, because of their lack of seniority, are paid less than their position's previous holder, Knapp said.
"That has been part of (Dare's) plan," Knapp said. "There's a lot of savings, and this is the first year we've actually seen those savings."

The proposed budget anticipates revenue that is down about one percent from 2011 and more than four percent from 2010.

Proposed spending is about $69.8 million, down about three percent and seven percent from 2011 and 2010, respectively. Some $3.8 million -- about five percent -- of revenue not spent in the general budget will go to enterprise funds that are not self-supporting. They include the airport, transportation, capital projects and Roland E. Powell Convention Center funds.

Ocean City Council President Jim Hall asked if there were any jobs full-time employees were taking on that could be "subbed out" to nonresort entities for a cheaper price. An example he gave could be a company or individuals willing to clean out bus interiors during the summer, when the service is needed the most.

"There might be somebody out there who's willing to do that for a cheap price, and then we don't need them in the winter and won't have to pay benefits and those sorts of things," Hall said. "I really want to try and get something like that into all these departments."

The proposed budget keeps the town's tax rate at 39.5 cents, and a slight drop in the net assessable real estate property tax base, from $10.3 billion to $10.28 billion.

Included in the budget is a figure of more than $600,000 as expected funds from the city's share of slot revenue from the Casino at Ocean Downs. Dare wrote in a letter to the council that the money could be used to pave roadways and conduct storm drain repairs.

Father, daughter work to save terns, skimmers

Leftover sand restores nesting ground

Regional ecologist Dave Brinker of the Department of Natural Resources Natural Heritage Program and his daughter, Laurel, 12, visited Skimmer Island to set up decoy royal terns and photograph the island after dredged sand was added to the mass in the Sinepuxent Bay. / LAURA EMMONS/THE DAILY TIMES

 

OCEAN CITY -- A little more than a year ago, Dave Brinker and his daughter, Laurel, stood bayside at Second Street in Ocean City and looked out at Skimmer Island, a small, sandy expanse of land just north of Route 50's Harry W. Kelley Memorial Bridge.

They were upset. They'd been unable to get the necessary permits to bring dredged sand to the island in time to launch an effort to restore it as suitable nesting ground for royal terns and black skimmers.
"Dad, just make it happen," Laurel had pleaded; her father is a regional ecologist for the Department of Natural Resources. Dave Brinker had to wait one more year, but his project is now a reality.

In the last two weeks of March, sand dredged to clear the Ocean City Fishing Center's navigation channel was transported to the island, which had eroded through the years and was virtually uninhabitable for the two bird species. Both have seen declining populations due to the loss of about 300 acres of breeding grounds in the coastal bay area in the last two decades.

Dave and his 12-year-old daughter boated to the spit of land this week to take photographs of the island's new look and plant wooden royal tern decoys. They hoped the gray, black and orange doppelgangers would coax more terns to move back to the island for this year's nesting season, which starts within the next two weeks, according to Dave Brinker.

"That's why it was so important to get this sand out here before April, because there's really only about a two-week window to do this kind of thing," he said.

The island has been shaped to allow nature's storms and tides to maintain it as an ideal place for the birds to nest, he hopes. They're attracted to places like Skimmer Island mainly because they're a predator-free environment.

Many of the area's royal terns have nested for the last few years on small pieces of land north of Ocean City -- in areas Dave Brinker calls some of the most "sub-optimal areas" on the East Coast for terns to establish colonies.

Dave Brinker has worked to restore the island since September 2009, when he sent out a "Hail Mary email" soliciting aid from pretty much everyone in his contact list.

Roman Jesien, a Maryland Coastal Bays Program scientist, replied, asking him if he wanted the sand that is dredged every year from the waters at the fishing center. They were looking for new locations to get rid of the sand and figured it was a no-brainer to give it to a guy who really needed it, Jesien said.
So far, everything has gone as planned, Jesien said. He hopes to use the Skimmer Island project to contribute dredged sand there and other local areas that need filling on a yearly basis.

"We're really considering trying to continue this beneficial use of dredge material," he said.
The cost of transporting the sand to the island was about $200,000, an amount the DNR would have been unable to fund if it had to procure the sand itself, Dave Brinker said.

smuska@dmg.gannett.com
410-213-9442, ext. 14

 

 

 

OC Police agree to contract without assured raises

 

OCEAN CITY -- Ocean City Police have come to a new two-year contract agreement with resort officials.

The Town Council and the Fraternal Order of Police signed the contract after about a month of collective bargaining negotiations that at one point reached an impasse, according to Mayor Rick Meehan, who thanked the FOP for engaging in dialogue and discussion on the road to reaching a deal.

There are no significant changes from the previous contract, which means officers won't garner a cost of living increase or any other kind of raise in the next two years unless the town's other employees do, according to Pfc. Vance Row, of Ocean City's FOP Lodge No. 10.

Ninety-eight percent of FOP's members voted to ratify the new contract, according to Cpl. Glen McIntyre, president of the lodge.

"We know the town is in economic strain, and we are willing to do what it takes to help out," Row said. He said voluntarily waiving the wage increases police were entitled as part of their collective barganing agreement in 2009 saved the city about $1 million.

Resort police have a vested interest in the town "just as much as everybody else," McIntyre said at council's Monday night meeting, adding that they would continue to put their best foot forward to protect the town.

The agreement was reached near the "11th hour," McIntyre said, when FOP members met with council members Mary Knight, Lloyd Martin and Doug Cymek to hammer out a deal.

"I'm very proud to be able to say we came to an agreement, and cooler heads prevailed," council President Jim Hall said.

In other matters, the council voted unanimously to delay proposed changes to Boardwalk street performer regulations for at least 30 days. Council members plan to meet with street performers, town officials and law enforcement to "work out some issues" with the proposed changes, Hall said. He is optimistic the entities can compromise and come up with new regulations that "make everybody happy," he said.

For now, busker rules will stay as they were, with one exception: performances are forbidden at North Division Street, to avoid spectator congestion that could cause safety issues. The street is the main mode of entry to the Boardwalk for emergency vehicles.

Council also voted to enact a defined contribution pension plan and a high-deductible health insurance plan option for new town hires. Both will go into effect if Meehan signs the ordinances.

The vote was 4-3 on both ordinances, with president Jim Hall and members Joe Hall, Brent Ashley and Margaret Pillas supporting the changes. Mary Knight, Doug Cymek and Lloyd Martin opposed them.
Knight said that during the police contract discussions, FOP members presented statistics and data that indicate the two new plans will hurt the town's ability to recruit public safety employees.

"I keep hearing people say they believe these changes are going to be beneficial, but since they had statistics, I'm also going to use the word believe, and say I believe this will hurt us," she said.
In January, council prevented six new recruits from enrolling in the police academy until Ocean City established a defined contribution plan for new hires.

smuska@dmg.gannett.com
410-213-9442, ext. 14

 

Written for the USA Today, but a shutdown was avoided last-minute.

Campers fear closure

Assateague prepares to vacate visitors, transition to skeleton crew

Matthew Cloud, left, and Scott Fincham, both of West Virginia pitch their tent despite the warning that they could be asked to leave their campsite in Assateague Island National Park due to a possible government shutdown. / AMANDA RIPPEN WHITE/THE DAILY TIMES

 

BERLIN -- A forced unpaid vacation for the federal workers at Assateague Island National Seashore is interrupting planned vacations for many campers.

Unless they got word of a miracle breakthrough Friday in budget talks in D.C. to avert a government shutdown, park rangers planned to close the park gates at midnight and make their way around the island's campsites to formally inform paying visitors they had 48 hours to vacate the premises. Then, all but a small skeleton crew of park employees will begin an indefinite furlough mandated by a government shutdown.

Bill Packer, 52, of Philadelphia had to cut in half his annual two-week stay at the park with his wife, Caroline Packer, 50. The couple arrived with friends last weekend and paid in advance for their stay.

"They came around today and told us to get a refund and then play it by ear. So at least they let us know what was going on," Bill Packer said.

The Packers decided to travel to a state park in Delaware to finish their vacation. State parks aren't directly affected by any federal government shutdown. Camping at Assateague Island State Park, adjacent to the national parkland, is closed for the off-season until April 27.

During a shutdown, every park employee will be inactive except for a few National Park Service police, who are available to the remaining campers in case of an emergency and will enforce the park's closing, said Carl Zimmerman, a management assistant at the park.

A couple of special events scheduled for the weekend were canceled as a result of the closing including a beach cleanup by the Assateague Mobile Sportsfishermen's Association, Zimmerman said.

"It's a shame, but this is out of our control," Zimmerman said. "We're hopeful that a bill will be passed soon so we can get back to the business of serving the public."

Matthew Cloud, 33, of Martinsburg, W.Va., drove four hours Friday morning with two of his friends for a weekend fishing and camping getaway that had taken about six months to plan.
 

"When you have a wife and kids, it gets more and more difficult to coordinate a weekend when we can do this, and it's kind of unfortunate for us to have it cut short since we don't get to do this often," said Cloud, adding that he felt fortunate to have a 48-hour period to clear out. "It's not like they told us we had to be out of here by one in the morning."

 

Cloud's friend, Scott Finchman, 36, said park rangers had been accommodating to campers.
"They're good guys, and none of this is their fault," he said as he finished pitching his tent.
Hank and Karen Cheney, 64 and 62, of St. Johnsbury, Vt., took the news of the closing in stride.

The couple had been planning to continue to Norfolk, Va., and Fairfax, Va., to visit family after their Assateague stay, and said they'd either visit sooner or continue to another state park before making the 800-mile drive home in their RV.

"If they need us to leave, then we aren't going to have a problem with that," Hank Cheney said.
Meanwhile, Girl Scout Troop 980 will have to find alternate entertainment in Philadelphia due to the shutdown.

The Salisbury group of fourth- and fifth-graders spent Friday night camping in the Franklin Institute, a museum that is unaffected by the shutdown, as part of a program they used cookie-selling funds to finance.

They'd initially planned to visit the Liberty Bell at the Independence National Historic Park as a supplement to the trip that they've been planning since fall, but the park is closed during the shutdown.

"It's disappointing, but the girls are pretty laid-back and the Franklin Institute part of the trip is really the big thing," troop leader Angie Robinson, 39, said in a phone interview.

The troop will instead visit the still-open Independence visitor's center in hopes employees there will be able to point them in the direction of other activities.

smuska@dmg.gannett.com
410-213-9442, ext. 14