I received the following email from one Carolyn Neal (my response follows it). It appears she copied primarly golfers, including Heather Cook and Ralph Menton on the Golf Governors.

Joe - As I understand it you are under contract to OPA to videotape OPA meetings and special forums, etc. I very much appreciate your work and providing the community with important information.

However, I do not feel it is ethical for you to have your own opinion site called the Ocean Pines Forum which sounds like an official OPA site but is really your own sounding board. If you did not have the contract with OPA, it wouldn't be quite as bad but it should be called the Joe Reynolds Forum. I am not a member of the Forum since my first encounters with it was seeing all negative rantings. If you really care about this community, you should not express your own opinions on what appears to be an official site.

I am not working for any of the current candidates and have not fully made up my mind but I do know that supporting a candidate who sues Board of Directors, costing the entire community a huge sum, and then running for that Board is unbelievable. And Mr. Venit was previously not reelected by this community for very good reasons.

Thank you for your work for the OPA and please consider changing the name of YOUR forum website.

Carolyn Neal

My Response:

Hi Carolyn. Thanks for your email.

Perhaps I can clear up some misconceptions you apparently have, especially since you say you are not a member of the forum and thus cannot read the messages posted on the forum. Currently there are about 2500 or so registered members and increasing daily. The service is FREE. No one has to participate. People choose to do so. The Ocean Pines Chamber of Commerce selected OceanPinesForum.com as the Outstanding Business of the Year for 2006 and the Worcester County Commissioners also presented me with a special citation for service to the community.

I started OceanPinesForum.com back in 2004. The first video I did was the OPA Annual Meeting in August of 2004. After that I began shooting video of all board meetings and making these available for association members on OceanPinesForum.com. Initially the board of directors even sought legal advice to see if the board could prevent me from making the video. If a board member tells you this is not so, don’t believe them, as I have a copy of the legal opinion and would be happy to show it to anyone interested. Interestingly, the board president was quoted in a local paper as saying no such legal opinion was requested. So much for honesty from that quarter.

At some point, maybe 18 months ago, the board decided to make video of board meetings available on Channel 78, and they asked for bids. I was the low bidder and now provide video of board meetings to OPA for showing on Channel 78. You should note that I have no contract with OPA for anything. I provide the video on a month to month basis and the board can choose to stop purchasing my video at any time it chooses.

As for your comment that you find it unethical for me to have a web site named OceanPinesForum.com, quite frankly, I find that quite incredible. Actually, the OceanPinesForum.com web site offers the opportunity for EVERY association member to express their opinions about news, life and politics in the community of Ocean Pines. While you may not agree with the opinions I express or the opinions of the association members who post opinions on the forum, I will defend their right to do so, regardless of what you think or don’t think. I find it interesting that you saw nothing but “negative rantings” on the forum, yet say you are not a member. One cannot read the messages unless one is a member.

OceanPinesForum.com members include a number of current and past board members; every candidate for the board this year is a member of the forum; numerous members of OPA committees are forum members. I am not suggesting there are never any negative comments, but many messages address legitimate concerns association members have about OPA and the OPA Board of Directors.

OceanPinesForum.com does not even pretend to be an “official site” of OPA, no more than the Ocean Pines Boat Club web site is an official site of OPA, or the Ocean Pines Womens Club, or the Ocean Pines Chamber of Commerce, or the Ocean Pines Camera Club (it began on the forum), etc., etc. For you to suggest that the name of the forum should be changed is preposterous, and, to again be blunt, in my view reveals a bias against OceanPinesForum.com that goes far beyond the otherwise cordial tone of your email.

You say it is unbelievable to support a candidate who sues the Board of Directors. Perhaps you should examine what transpired objectively. Marty Clarke did not sue to stop the Community Center. The suit claimed the board had violated the OPA by-laws in regard to the Community Center and asked for the court to force OPA to hold another referendum. This was after the board arbitrarily rejected a valid petition for referendum submitted by Clarke’s group. As a result of the suit, a judge issued a restraining order and the board decided it had best hold the referendum. Lot owners voted overwhelmingly, in the largest voter response in the history of Ocean Pines, to reject the board-modified version of the Community Center that had been approved by a narrow margin in 2005.

If you wish to be upset with how this all turned out, perhaps your anger should be directed at the board. Had the board held another referendum when it initially found the cost was $6.2 million and not $3.9 million as called for in the referendum, OPA lot owners would not have lost such a large sum.

Finally, I’d encourage you to actually join the forum and participate for a few months at least, and thus observe the wide range of thoughts and opinions expressed by association members on the forum. Agree with them or disagree with them as you choose. I’d also suggest you look over the extensive photo gallery of images uploaded by forum members (the Ocean Pines Camera Club began on the forum.), as well as the extensive video presentations related to non-political activities in Ocean Pines. These include coverage of events at the Veterans Memorial; spiritual messages from an associate pastor at the Community Church, our Focus on the Pines” production with Jack Barnes interviewing interesting people around the Pines, and more. You will even find some golf promotion video that I produced free of charge for OPA. Ralph Menton appeared in one or two. Also, the video on Channel 78 of the three recent candidate forums was provided by me FREE to OPA.

Finally, finally – Consider that if the Board of Directors had never held a meeting in the past three years, hardly anything, probably nothing, would be any different for the vast majority of property owners. Think about it. This is a great place to live, in spite of a Board of Directors and the surrounding political bickering.

I apologize if some portions of my response seem blunt, but that’s the way I see it.

Regards,

Joe Reynolds
OceanPinesForum.com



PS – since you copied a number of others, I am responding to all and will place your email and my response on the forum for all to see.