Although Mr. Gomsak is certainly more than qualified for a board position, I thought his answers to Candidate Forum questions were based on what I perceived to be his strong belief that the Board is and should be the operational management of Ocean Pines.  On that topic, I disagree.  We hire and pay significant funds to professionals to operate our homeowners' association.  We elect our Board to establish and oversee policy -- not procedure -- for those pros to follow and goals for them to aim toward.  I don't think Mr. Gomsak will be able to keep his hands out of the day to day business of OPA.  He stated that he is convinced that our annual association fees should go up $30 per year continuously -- even though there is no professional OPA management plan for the use of those fees in existence to justify his conviction, for example.  He is, no doubt, quite capable of creating such a management plan, but is that what we want a Board member to do? Perhaps we should be interviewing Mr. Gomsak for the job of general manager, should he decide to step out of his comfortable retirement and our current general manager gets gunned down by the ever-watchful Mr. Oostveen?

Ray Unger, though less academically qualified than Gomsak, clearly understands the role and responsibility of the Board based on three years of experience. His primary concern is the health and well being of OPA property owners' investment in Ocean Pines. Witness his recent motion to dump an outrageous 99 year lease offer from Leighton Moore for our bayside property.

We agree that young Mr. Thompson, and I stress the young part, is clearly a solid choice.

OPA property owners need to focus on the role of the Board as they decide for whom to vote.  We don't need any more Board members who want to be the hands-on management of Ocean Pines.  Or, if we really expect unpaid albeit well-meaning and qualified property owners to manage Ocean Pines, we should also vote to reduce, significantly, the paid staff that would simply be duplicating Board management efforts.

Dan Stachurski