The idea would be to bill every service area rate payer in the northern end of the county to pay off the $9.2 million (or whatever it is at this point) loan that bailed out “underwater” service areas.

Apparently, the big picture for Commissioner Fiori and others who may support this idea is there are roughly 18,000 rate payers overall, with 10,000 in the Ocean Pines Service Area.

Fiori wants to bill all 18,000 for the $9.2 million loan.

Doing so can only be described as an outrageous move by the County. Is it even legal, given current county law?

Imagine --  homeowners in Ocean Pines could potentially be footing the bill to subsidize one of the wealthiest HOAs in the county - Glen Riddle, not to mention 6 or more other service areas.

The Ocean Pines Board of Directors needs to get OPA counsel Bruce Bright involved in this. It also needs to authorize Bright to hire an expert in the field of rate structures for water and sewer treatment operations.  In addition to the outrageous Fiori proposal, OPA needs to know if Glen Riddle is paying Ocean Pines Service Area a fair price for treating Glen Riddle sewage and using OP area water over what may be a seven-year period.

Bright should also be tasked to make sure any new areas connected to the Ocean Pines area plant pay a fair and equitable fee to "buy in" to a OP system with a "paid for" capacity of 2 million gallons a day but operating at only about half capacity. A good start would be looking at what River Run property owners will pay and if it is fair to the investment made by existing rate payers.

Most importantly, OPA needs to pressure the Worcester County Commissioners for a clear and concise explanation of how water and sewer service for this area of the county will be handled in the future. Good luck on that because the current majority on the County Commissioers is no friend of OPA.