OCEAN CITY — The Ocean City Council on Monday voted to publicly censure a colleague over inappropriate comments on a local resident’s social media page.
The issue arose in mid-September when Councilman Mark Paddack allegedly commented on a Facebook story of a recently-married woman while the couple was honeymooning in Italy. In a picture from the honeymoon, the woman’s husband, Bobby Hammond, whose family owns and operates Atlantic Physical Therapy, was apparently seen wearing a baseball-style cap backwards. Paddack, in a Facebook story comment sent to Hammond’s wife, allegedly posted the following message deemed inappropriate and flirting with racism: “Tell the dude to turn his hat back where the white designed the hat to be worn. Where I come from, that is a punk. Immature POS.”
The social media post quickly went viral and the Mayor and Council learned of it. For the record, Paddack has claimed his social media account was hacked, and there is an investigation into that claim. Paddack reached out to the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office to conduct an investigation into whether his social media account was hacked. The Worcester County Bureau of Investigation was looking into the matter, per a statement from the Sheriff’s Office in mid-September.
When the Mayor and Council learned of the alleged offensive post, Council President Matt James during the next meeting asked Paddack to consider taking a leave of absence, a request supported by others on the council. Paddack did not step down and has continued to assert his social media account was hacked. He said he retained an attorney and had reached out to the sheriff’s office to conduct an investigation.
In the weeks since, James has continually asked Paddack for an update into the investigation to no avail. In the meantime, the town’s elected officials have continued to be questioned by the public on the status of the investigation and Paddack’s status on the council. On Monday, Council Secretary Tony DeLuca made a motion to publicly censure Paddack over the alleged social medial comments.
Geez. These people need to grow up. They’re taking this to far. Nothing was said about a race in a bad way. You can’t even joke anymore.
While I generally agree that Paddack should not be using his office to attack a citizen on social media he supposedly represents, I think a better solution is to ban the use of “social media” by ALL elected officials while in office. If the elected President of this Country can be banned from Facebook because some people don’t agree with him, then all elected officials should be.
No, you are ignoring our First Amendment and are getting you butthurt over mere words spoken by others. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
Grow the F up.