By TOM STAUSS/Publisher 1/1/2006

Anything’s possible in the up-and-down world of possible sites for a north county YMCA, but Tom Cetola, county commissioner and acting chairman of the Seaside YMCA steering committee, seems to think that a site behind the Harley Davidson dealership on Seahawk Road across from Stephen Decatur High School is now the Y’s most likely future home.

He seems almost ready to pound the final nail in the coffin for the previously favored site on Gum Point Road, just south of Ocean Pines. Almost, but not quite, because he’s still urging the completion of findings of fact that are supposed to accompany a decision by the county’s Board of Zoning Appeals. The BZA this past summer rejected an application for a special exception that would have authorized a YMCA on Gum Point Road.

Until those findings are produced, the YMCA board in Salisbury has no basis to decide whether to appeal the decision to Worcester County Circuit Court, Cetola told the Progress.

Inexplicably, incompetently, and perhaps even in violation of zoning law, the BZA and its lawyer has not yet produced findings to support its decision this past summer rejecting the special exception. It’s been almost four months since the rejection vote occurred, and normally findings would have been produced long before now. The suspicion increases day by day that the foot-dragging is purposeful, in support of relocating the YMCA to a site far removed from Ocean Pines and Route 589 and its alleged traffic congestion.

In the meantime, Cetola said he’s heard second-hand that the YMCA board is not likely to spend any YMCA money to support an appeal of the BZA decision. Money for an appeal would have to come from Worcester County supporters.

Up until now, legal services on behalf of the Gum Point Road site have been provided for free by Ocean City attorney Mark Cropper, but, Cetola said, Cropper’s been hired by the owner of some 150 acres – you guessed it – behind Harley Davidson. The owner is willing to donate about 22 of those 150 acres or so for a YMCA, provided that the county commissioners rezone that portion of the property that isn’t already zoned for commercial, Cetola said. Water and wastewater treatment services would also have to be provided, with a few possibilities existing for that.

Cropper, Cetola said, has already been before the YMCA board in Salisbury on behalf of the developer, who wants to build some sort of retail recreation complex on the site.

“I think Mark favors the property behind Harley Davidson over Gum Point Road,” Cetola said, basing that assessment on a recent conversation with the lawyer.

And if that’s true, Cropper might be in no position to provide free legal services to the YMCA board if its directors want to appeal the Gum Point Road decision. His other client’s legal interests would conflict, and it’s plausible to believe that Cropper would represent his paying client under those circumstances.

“I wish Mark had not let it be known publicly that he was pushing one of the four sites we’re looking at for a Y,” Cetola said. Originally, YMCA officials said they would decide their next move based on their assessment of the findings of fact, but that may no longer be the case.

Hence, Cetola’s assessment that the Gum Point Road site is on life support.

It’s not a done deal, though, and handicapping the YMCA site location is like playing Whack-A-Mole in an arcade.

But a site near the high school would confront Ocean Pines officials with some interesting choices. OPA president Glenn Duffy has said a month or so ago that, if the Y isn’t built on Gum Point Road just south of Ocean Pines, or in the vicinity of Ocean Pines, the OPA will have to revisit its earlier reluctance not to build its own indoor swimming pool.

In the not-too-distant future, the OPA could gain title to the Gum Point Road site, the result of an agreement with the original donor of the Gum Point Road site.

If title shifts to the OPA, the OPA in turn will be faced with some fascinating options on what it should do with the acreage.

Stay tuned, as this saga probably still has many twists and turns ahead.