Ocean View

Photos from the May 12-13 storm are shown in slideshow format below, with newer photos toward the end. All photos are copyright © Coastal Point, LLC, and may not be used without express permission of the Coastal Point.

The Delaware State Police and Department of Transportation reopened Route 1 between Dewey Beach and Fred Hudson Road/Road 360 north of Bethany Beach and the Indian River Inlet Bridge late Tuesday afternoon, following a detailed inspection of the inlet and surrounding roadways. Remaining closed Tuesday, due to high water, were: Fred Hudson Road in the area of Route 1 and Old Mill Road in Millville, as well as several other roads in the Lewes, Slaughter Beach and Oak Orchard areas.

ResortQuest Delaware has announced its acquisition of Seacoast Realty, making it the state’s largest beach real estate brokerage. The two companies have had a substantial impact in the area’s real estate market in the past, stretching from North Bethany to Fenwick Island, and westward, and now, into Ocean City, Md.

The Ocean View Town Council kicked off its reorganizational meeting and council workshop last Wednesday, April 21, with a swearing-in ceremony for new Mayor Gordon Wood and new Councilman Perry Mitchell. After a contentious period on the council and a contentious election, both men emphasized a desire for improved comportment during town meetings, from both the council and citizens.

The fourth- and fifth-graders of Lord Baltimore were treated to a special presentation on April 17, of “Tar Wars” a nationwide program that started in Colorado, designed to educate America’s youth about the dangers of smoking.

Ocean View swore in its new mayor and councilman on Wednesday night, during the town’s annual council reorganizational meeting. Outgoing Mayor Gary Meredith oversaw the swearing in of incoming Councilman Perry Mitchell, who replaced outgoing Councilman Norman Amendt, and then handed over the gavel to a freshly sworn-in Mayor Gordon Wood.

Dozens of Ocean View residents turned up at the April 17 meeting of the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission, hoping to speak their minds about a proposed retail, office and gas station project planned off Route 26 near the Savannah’s Landing community.

Voters turned out in droves in Ocean View on Saturday, April 12, to conclude a long and hard-fought campaign among six residents for the positions of the town’s mayor and councilperson from District 3. In the end, it was a decisive victory for both mayoral candidate Gordon Wood and would-be councilman Perry Mitchell, who both recorded margins of victory near or above the 100-vote mark.

Screams, shrieks, blaring alarms and banging erupted from the normally quiet halls of the Ocean View public safety building on Wednesday, April 16. When quiet was restored, one suspect had surrendered to police. The other resisted officers and was shot — with a paintball gun, that is.

Voting in the Ocean View town council and mayoral elections for 2008 will be held on Saturday, April 12, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the town hall, located at 32 West Avenue.

As she scores a straight line on a piece of purple “fusing glass,” on which a piece of dichroic glass will be glued, small shards of glass fall on the foam board below. Faye Kempton snaps the glass, finalizing the cut into a near-perfect rectangle.

As a follow-up to last summer’s report of a cancer cluster investigation in the area of the Indian River Power Plant by Delaware Health and Social Services’ Division of Public Health, a comprehensive survey is now being conducted across Sussex County.

Debbie Townsend can hardly contain her excitement in about her new job as director of the CHEER Coastal Leisure Center in Ocean View.

Candidates for mayor and District 3 councilperson in Ocean View had their chance on March 19 to make their cases to potential voters, with the town’s official Candidates’ Night, held before a capacity crowd of partisans and undecided voters at town hall.

The 4th Annual Gardening for the Bays Native Plant Sale will be held Saturday, May 3, at James Farm Ecological Preserve on Cedar Neck Road in Ocean View.

Business partners Pauline Blasena and Judy Brand have a knack for finding things for their stores, from priceless antiques to vintage collectibles. Brand’s Southern Virginia style and Blasena’s New Jersey niche ensure something for everyone at their joint operation, Scarlett’s Treasures and Lavender & Lace, along Route 26 in Millville, just west of Hocker’s Supercenter.

Ocean View Town Council members on Tuesday, March 11, adopted the town’s budget for the 2009 fiscal year on a 3-2 vote. Mayor Gary Meredith and Councilmen Roy Thomas and Richard Nippes voted in favor of what had been cast as a “difficult budget in a difficult budget year.” Councilmen Bill Wichmann and Norman Amendt voted in opposition.

Exciting things are happening at the Coastal Leisure CHEER Center in Ocean View. A new director has been hired, and March is already filled with fun things to do.

Work on two early phases of the construction of the new Indian River Inlet Bridge is revving up, with removal of excess soils from the existing faulty embankments set to begin the first week of April and work begun last week on geotechnical investigations into how the faulty embankments came into being and whether the state has grounds for a claim against their builders.

Ocean View officials plan to keep a close eye on the town’s finances in the next six months, with deep concern expressed during their budget process for the 2009 fiscal year about whether a revenue forecast that includes two large proposed developments is too rosy to be realistic.

On a relatively light evening for the Ocean View Town Council, council members held a first reading of an ordinance change, introduced another and formally introduced the proposed budget documents for their coming fiscal year.

Though the prospect of partial road closures raised deep concerns in area businesspeople when the project was announced last year, it has been business pretty much as usual along Route 26 since the start of the Millville sewer project on Jan. 2. And, for the most part, business owners are happy to see what is happening with the project — even if it is fleetingly inconvenient.

As the word “green” gains in popularity and usage as a synonym for “environmentally friendly,” it might be easy to lose sight of exactly which environment is being referenced. For the Waehlers of Ocean View, “environment” not only meant the environment in which people live on Earth but the environment inside which they live most of the time — as in peoples’ homes.

As spring finally warms and greens the Delmarva Peninsula, bicyclists from all over the mid-Atlantic region will shift into gear and head to Fenwick Island. The Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce’s annual Ocean-To-Bay Bike Tour is a favored season-opening ride, organizers noted.

Dr. Wallace Oman Lecher Jr., 77, of Dagsboro, Del., passed away Friday, Feb. 29, 2008, at Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin, Md. A graduate of Amherst College and Hahnemann Medical College, he served his medical internship at the Hahnemann-Fitzgerald Mercy Hospital in Philadelphia, Pa., and his urology residency from 1957 to 1961.

When plans were first announced for the sewer work along Route 26 in Millville, businesses dotting that area were understandably concerned. There was fear that the road work would not only cause traffic problems in front of their businesses, but that, more importantly, it would prevent customers from getting to their businesses.

It’s the return of comedy at Bear Trap Dunes on Wednesday, March 5, with headlining acts Pat O’Donnell and Jeff Pirrami, “The Fat Rat Bastard,” performing to a limited 120 seats.

Welcome to CoastalPoint.com 2.0! If you’ve visited our Web site in the last few weeks, you’ll already have noticed the appearance of the first phase of months of behind-the-scenes work by our staff on The Point’s Web presence.

Maribeth Fischer started the first Writers at the Beach conference in 2005, to raise money for mitochondrial disease, a disease that has since claimed the life of her two nephews, Sam and Zachary Juhlman.

After deliberation by both the Ocean View Planning and Zoning Commission and representatives from Savannah’s Landing, who gave their input to the commission, a 2-1 vote was cast Feb. 21 to defer action on a proposed shopping center, including a gas station, within town limits.