Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan accused a Worcester County Commissioner this week of trying to hold the resort “hostage” by linking support for a hotel room tax increase to a separate issue over wastewater capacity.
According to Meehan, Commissioner Chip Bertino (District 5, Ocean Pines) suggested a quid pro quo: the commissioners could back Ocean City’s request to raise the county’s hotel room tax from 5% to 6% – but only if the town agreed to double the county’s daily sewage allocation at Ocean City’s wastewater plant from 1 million to 2 million gallons, without restrictions on growth. Growth in West Ocean City has been stifled in recent years due to the lack of available EDUs for residential and commercial development along Route 611.
“Commissioner Bertino really was up front with me about the fact that he believes that the county should get something in return for raising the room tax,” Meehan told Ocean 98’s Rude Awakening morning show on Wednesday. “I don’t believe that should be the case, because raising the room tax not only benefits Ocean City, but it also benefits the rest of the county.”
Added Meehan: “To just blanketly ask us to then allocate an additional million gallons a day to West Ocean City for a plant that was paid for by, you know, the Ocean City ratepayers for development in West Ocean City just isn’t something that would be the right thing for the mayor and council to do.”
At Tuesday’s meeting in Snow Hill, Meehan told the commissioners increasing the room tax would result in Worcester County government receiving about $360,000 in new county revenue.
For Ocean City, it would mean about $5 million in new revenue from thousands of hotel bookings and room rentals. Pocomoke City could stand to get $38,000 and Berlin an estimated $22,000 from the increase.