The recent OPA news release about President Perrone's comments at the last OPA board meeting contains the following:

"About a month ago, Perrone said former Environment and Natural Assets Committee member Marty Clarke 'made an allegation on social media (OceanPinesForum.com) that this Board was hiding test results from the community regarding testing that had occurred in the ponds.'”

What Clarke actually wrote did not use the word "hiding."

Here is what Clarke wrote on 10/12/2021:

"What concerns me personally, as well as other members of our committee, is the lack of action and what would appear to be a case of the board sitting on these results. This north gate pond should have been roped off to public and pets and the cause of the human waste immediately investigated. According to my source if this is sewer related the costs to repair could be in the millions."

From my perspective, while the board could be deemed correct in not publicly releasing a report that was said to be in error by Assateague Coastal Trust, Clarke has a valid point in saying the board did absolutely nothing to discover the results of a second follow-up test done in December but not provided to the board until the following August. This was a board failure, even if the liaison received the report in December and did not provide it to the board until August. The board sat on the issue for over seven months, apparently unworried as to the results of the second test.

These accusations by President Perrone about Clarke serve no useful purpose. We could speculate that Clarke made too much of the issue, but Clarke said nothing wrong. In fact, had Clarke not brought the issue to public attention we might still not know the results of the first test and the second test showing the first was incorrect.

Regards,

Joe Reynolds