{"id":3136,"date":"2019-06-05T16:49:56","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T16:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fairnessintaxes.com\/?p=3136"},"modified":"2021-09-01T17:29:01","modified_gmt":"2021-09-01T17:29:01","slug":"dig-at-councilman-on-oc-flooding-page-leads-to-flap-over-city-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fairnessintaxes.com\/dig-at-councilman-on-oc-flooding-page-leads-to-flap-over-city-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Dig at councilman on OC Flooding page leads to flap over city program"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Posted: <\/span>Wednesday, June 5, 2019 8:29 am<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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OCEAN CITY \u2013 Suzanne Hornick was bothered by flooding in her neighborhood so much that she approached city council years ago to complain.<\/p>\n

In 2015, those complaints led to Hornick forming the OC Flooding Committee, a citizen group advocating for flood mitigation from periodic tidal flooding.<\/p>\n

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Hornick, a West Avenue resident, said frequent tidal flooding damages homes and vehicles.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The city responded with flood mitigation projects throughout the island, which includes building pumping stations, replacing crumbling drainage pipes, elevating roadways and installing new check valves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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These measures have lessened the severity of floodwaters, but flooding still occurs in low-lying streets and alleys, causing headaches for property owners and motorists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hornick said while the city is doing a lot, it\u2019s still not enough from her perspective.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She went to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and asked if the city could participate in the Coastal Keepers flood monitoring program.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The pilot program uses pole-mounted bands that measure the depth of floodwaters: minor, moderate and\/or major. During tidal flooding, neighborhood volunteers take photographs of the water levels against these bands and send the results to the DEP.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe data provided will be shared with the City of Ocean City and with the residents of Ocean City to build a positive relationship that creates an understanding of the flooding and the issues\/impacts associated with the flood waters,\u201d according to information the DEP sent the city.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hornick said she assembled volunteers and identified locations for the reflective bands. The city bought the bands and the city installed them on poles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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According to information the DEP sent the city, the 27 flood monitoring point locations include: the end of Oxford Lane, Victoria Lane, West Avenue and 47th Street, West Avenue and 42nd Street, Bay Avenue between Waterway and 30th streets, Haven Avenue between 35th and 34th streets, Haven Avenue between 33rd and 32nd streets, Simpson Avenue and 32nd Street, Simpson Avenue and 30th Street, Haven Avenue and 27th Street, West Avenue between 6th and 4th streets, Pleasure Avenue between 7th Street and 6th Street, Fifth Street near the Boardwalk, Fifth Street next to parking lot, and Corinthian Avenue and Fifth Street.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The resident volunteers record information on data collection sheets and submit them with their photos to a special Coastal Keepers email address.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe DEP has already started to engage citizen participation up and down the coast to help monitor and track flooding in different communities,\u201d Ocean City Chief Financial Officer Frank Donato said. \u201cWhat they\u2019re looking to do is engage citizens to educate about flooding and also to use the data that they collect to track the frequency and severity of storms.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Though the Ocean City Flooding Committee was working with the city, Hornick said it came with a specific condition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt started out because it was a contentious relationship with the city that the DEP said we will work with you but you can\u2019t be mean to the city on Facebook,\u201d Hornick said. \u201cAnd I did not point out that was a violation of my right to free speech and said OK, fine.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hornick said the Ocean City Flood Committee\u2019s group Facebook page has 3,500 members that comprise residents, property owners and visitors. The page displays photos of flooded streets and properties, taken by residents who share these images.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But it wasn\u2019t a photo of waist-high flooding that landed her in trouble with the city.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In April, Hornick posted a link to an article about why it\u2019s dangerous to drive through flood waters featuring a picture of a man in a speedboat driving down the street.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Along with the article, Hornick wrote, \u201cThis makes me think of our drunk councilman Tony Wilson when he wrecked his boat on Labor Day. But it\u2019s a good reminder to never drive (or boat) on flooded roads. In addition to damaging the vehicle it damages surrounding property. Also, our flooding is salty.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Wilson, who represents the Third Ward, was charged Sept. 3, 2018 with operating a vessel while intoxicated in an incident that injured Ocean City resident John Albertson. According to State Police, Wilson\u2019s boat struck a sandbar and Albertson was forcefully ejected from the vessel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Wilson is scheduled to appear before Superior Court Judge Rodney Cunningham tomorrow, June 6 for an initial deposition conference in Atlantic County Criminal Court in Mays Landing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Needless to say, the city wasn\u2019t happy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Donato sent an email with the screencapture of Hornick\u2019s post to Rick Brown, NJDEP Office of Coastal & Land Use Planning, who worked with Hornick on the Coastal Keepers program.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI know your office has monitored the content of the Ocean City Flooding Group Facebook page from time to time to verify that the postings are strictly flood related. You shared with me your concern on behalf of the State that a public partnership with groups like this should stick completely to the subject matter with any and all outreach. A concern that we absolutely agreed with,\u201d Donato wrote. \u201cUnfortunately, the screen shot below is a posting from today. At this point this is the last straw for our Mayor in regards to the City participating in projects with her group.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Donato told the Sentinel that the post about Wilson was the second one in which Hornick engaged in politics instead of discussing flood mitigation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe content of the Facebook page was to remain strictly about flooding. At the end of the day, it wasn\u2019t,\u201d Donato said. \u201cThe DEP called her about another issue that was politically motivated that was on the Facebook page and warned her to keep the content strictly about flooding.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Donato said Hornick has sent the city requests for public records about the city\u2019s response to her Facebook post.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt was the mayor\u2019s instruction to me to send the email to the DEP and it\u2019s unfortunate. That\u2019s why there\u2019s personal Facebook pages and group Facebook pages and certain things belong on personal pages and certain things belong on group pages,\u201d Donato said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Brown did not return the Sentinel\u2019s phone request for an interview.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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DEP spokesman Larry Hanja told the Sentinel that Hornick could still submit photographs and participate in the Coastal Keepers program; she was reprimanded for misrepresenting the OC Flooding Committee\u2019s Facebook page as a DEP-sanctioned page.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe continue to welcome her photos. We just advised her that she shouldn\u2019t represent the Facebook page as being sanctioned by the DEP,\u201d Hanja said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Asked why she mentioned Wilson at all on the page, Hornick replied, \u201cbecause I\u2019m stupid. I don\u2019t know. It was just tongue and cheek. It was not a moral judgment, it was simply a statement of fact, of public record by the way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She said the city didn\u2019t alert her that her post was a violation of the agreement she made with the state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIf they had said to me \u2018that\u2019s not nice,\u2019 I would have said, \u2018you are right\u2019 and I\u2026 would have put an apology saying while the information is factual, it was mean and I apologize,\u201d Hornick said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She said the whole ordeal is impacting her health, and that she put \u201chundreds and hundreds of hours of work\u201d into the project, along with time, money and effort.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hornick said some residents are reticent to participate because they\u2019re afraid of retaliation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI have a lot of people saying, \u2018We can\u2019t do this because if the city finds out we\u2019re involved, they\u2019ll hurt our business.\u2019 I heard that a lot. All of these business owners they can\u2019t all be off the wall. There has to be some basis in truth for that that people are scared of the city,\u201d Hornick said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hornick said the Ocean City Flooding Committee wanted to partner with the schools on flood mitigation education. Such a program would make potential grant funding available to the local schools, as well as provide possible educational resources, Hornick said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hornick requested electronic copies of all correspondence between the city and the DEP including screenshots or photos that concern her and Ocean City Flooding Committee group or the Coastal Keepers program dated from Jan. 1, 2018 to April 22, 2019.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The city sent her three compact discs filled with emails, some of which she surmised were \u201credacted.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe whole thing is ridiculous and it\u2019s a huge violation of my civil rights among other things. You don\u2019t get to tell somebody what they can and cannot say and then penalize them,\u201d Hornick said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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City public relations officer Doug Bergen said the city had \u201cvery little to do with that project or that decision (to banish Hornick from the project).\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a DEP program,\u201d Bergen said. \u201cRoger Rinck helped put up the bands, but there\u2019s really not much other involved with the city on that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Rinck, the city\u2019s engineering manager, did not return a phone call for an interview.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The OC Flooding Committee in March announced its split from Fairness In Taxes, a local taxpayer advocacy group.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe will continue to develop partnerships we have formed with the city, state, school district, scientific community and national groups that will help us advocate for OC and all its residents,\u201d Hornick wrote in an email March 3 to FIT.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Those partnerships would apparently be quashed with one Facebook post.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThey\u2019re putting the needs of a drunk driving councilman who has yet to apologize to the city for his illegal behavior that he was arrested for over the needs of the citizens,\u201d Hornick said. \u201cI just want to make the city a better place.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted: Wednesday, June 5, 2019 8:29 am OCEAN CITY \u2013 Suzanne Hornick was bothered by flooding in her neighborhood so much that she approached city council years ago to complain. In 2015, those complaints led to Hornick forming the OC Flooding Committee, a citizen group advocating for flood mitigation from periodic tidal flooding. Hornick, a …<\/p>\n

Dig at councilman on OC Flooding page leads to flap over city program<\/span> Read More \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[87],"spectra_custom_meta":{"_edit_lock":["1561125935:6"],"_edit_last":["6"],"_wp_page_template":["default"],"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":["80"],"site-sidebar-layout":["default"],"site-content-layout":["default"],"theme-transparent-header-meta":["default"],"stick-header-meta":["default"],"_yoast_wpseo_content_score":["30"],"_uag_page_assets":["a:9:{s:3:\"css\";s:263:\".uag-blocks-common-selector{z-index:var(--z-index-desktop) !important}@media (max-width: 976px){.uag-blocks-common-selector{z-index:var(--z-index-tablet) !important}}@media (max-width: 767px){.uag-blocks-common-selector{z-index:var(--z-index-mobile) !important}}\n\";s:2:\"js\";s:0:\"\";s:18:\"current_block_list\";a:2:{i:0;s:14:\"core\/tag-cloud\";i:1;s:11:\"core\/search\";}s:8:\"uag_flag\";b:0;s:11:\"uag_version\";s:10:\"1706048605\";s:6:\"gfonts\";a:0:{}s:10:\"gfonts_url\";s:0:\"\";s:12:\"gfonts_files\";a:0:{}s:14:\"uag_faq_layout\";b:0;}"],"rank_math_primary_category":["80"],"rank_math_news_sitemap_robots":["index"],"rank_math_robots":["a:1:{i:0;s:5:\"index\";}"],"rank_math_analytic_object_id":["66"],"rank_math_internal_links_processed":["1"],"_uag_css_file_name":["uag-css-3136.css"]},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"OC FIT GUY","author_link":"https:\/\/fairnessintaxes.com\/author\/meltaylor\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Posted: Wednesday, June 5, 2019 8:29 am OCEAN CITY \u2013 Suzanne Hornick was bothered by flooding in her neighborhood so much that she approached city council years ago to complain. In 2015, those complaints led to Hornick forming the OC Flooding Committee, a citizen group advocating for flood mitigation from periodic tidal flooding. Hornick, a…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fairnessintaxes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fairnessintaxes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fairnessintaxes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fairnessintaxes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fairnessintaxes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fairnessintaxes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fairnessintaxes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fairnessintaxes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fairnessintaxes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}