Next Ocean City Council Debate Set for Tuesday Night

The next debate in between candidates for the at-large council seats in this year’s non-partisan municipal elections takes place Tuesday night, 7 p.m. at the high school.

The debate is sponsored by the Democratic and Republican clubs of Ocean City.

Residents will be hoping to get more information out of this week’s debate.

On April 23, the Ocean City Community Association sponsored a pair of forums with candidates for council and the mayoral candidates that served as a meet and greet. There was no interaction between candidates, and residents’ questions were not made public.

The reason for the format change given by Ocean City Community Association President Bob Barr was that one of the board members lost his questions due to a computer crash prior to the debate.

Barr, who is also the president of the Ocean City Democratic Club, said the person responsible for the questions for this week’s debate has “triple backed up” their computer.

For tonight’s debate, candidates will be asked the same number of questions, but they won’t be asked the same questons.

Instead, questions will be pulled blindly from a bowl and presented to the candidates. Candidates will be given an opportunity to respond to questions posed to other candidates. Candidates will also make closing statements, in which they will be able to address anything they like.

Three at-large council seats are up for grabs in the May 13 elections. Incumbent Council Vice President Michael Allegretto and incumbent Councilman Keith Hartzell are running for re-election. Michael Hyson, Peter Madden and Eric Sauder are challenging the incumbents for their seats.