OCEAN CITY — Embattled Ocean City Councilman Mark Paddack was contrite in a letter released Wednesday, discussing an incident earlier this month that has him swirled in a court of social media and colleagues questioning whether he should continue to serve on committees.
Paddack sent a letter to the editor on Wednesday attempting to clarify some of the details of the April 8 incident at a north-end restaurant where he first was involved in a fender-bender in the parking lot and then got into a heated verbal altercation with his teenage son inside the establishment.
The Ocean City Police Department (OCPD) responded and determined Paddack had exchanged the appropriate information with the driver of the struck vehicle before going inside the restaurant and it’s important to note no charges were filed nor were any citations issued. As for the verbal altercation with the child inside the restaurant, OCPD officers took the teenage child to police headquarters for his safety and the Department of Social Services was notified about the domestic dispute, according to an official release about the incident.
The Department of Social Services contacted the child’s mother and she later picked up her son at police headquarters, according to the OCPD release. OCPD officers told Paddack at the restaurant to make arrangements for a sober driver to take him home and he left the establishment a short time later, according to the OCPD release at the time.
When the OCPD release about the incident was issued and the news spread quickly, Paddack was swirled up again in controversy on social media, including Facebook, a medium that has not been entirely friendly to the councilman following a separate exchange last year. During a council work session in the days following the incident, some councilmembers called out Paddack for a perceived continued pattern of behavior unbecoming an elected official. Councilman Peter Buas made a motion requesting Mayor Rick Meehan, who was not present at that work session, to remove Paddack from any boards and commissions on which he serves.