OCTOBER 2, 2025
FREE
BERLIN • NORTH WORCESTER COUNTY• OCEAN PINES
Town to test water supply lines for lead State grant enables Berlin to take on massive project
PHOTO COURTESY TYLER LAYTON
BRIDGE LIGHTS A Saturday morning light around sunrise is pictured with the navigation lights from the Verrazano Bridge to Assateague Island.
By Tara Fischer Staff Writer (Oct. 2, 2025) To ensure access to quality water and to comply with federal mandates, the Town of Berlin will begin a search-and-replace project to remove any service lines that contain lead. With the assistance of a state grant, the town will begin by examining line on around 350 properties, starting with William Street in January or February 2026. The program is slated to proceed to Broad Street by roughly March 2026, and then Bay Street in April 2026. Testing will be conducted at the properties to determine if the water lines contain lead, and if so, they must be replaced with safer materiSee BERLIN Page 2
Marina Village seeks rental restrictions But first must rally enough voters to create quorum to decide fate of amendment By Tara Fischer Staff Writer (Oct. 2, 2025) Marina Village in Ocean Pines may restrict short-term rentals if it can secure an adequate number of voters to approve a change in its rules. In an open meeting last week, Marina Village Townhome Association’s board of directors discussed an
amendment to its community rules. Marina Village is run by an association as does the Ocean Pines Association. According to David Volrath, a Marina Village Townhome Association board member, the 25-year-old community needed to refresh its guidelines and bylaws, as many of the regulations were outdated, no longer applicable, or, in many cases, no longer accurate to the neighborhood today. To resolve those issues, Volrath said he had created a work group to
review the old documents. Once its work was completed, the the group returned to the board with 50 potential adjustments to the governing documents. Of those, 24 were compiled into an amendment that requires association members’ approval to push through. At the association’s annual meeting last weekend, however, there was not enough community participation for a valid vote to occur, Volrath said. The board is now looking to attract enough voters to establish support or opposition to the proposed changes.
Restricting short-term rentals to a minimum of 14 days was listed as an item on the amendment for approval. Volrath said this recommendation was based on the high volume of violations committed by people staying in a unit for a limited period. “In terms of nuisance violations, that’s why we’re doing this,” the board member said. “There are issues with noise, respect to neighbors, trash compliance, imposing on the marina down the street, and pet management. See MARINA Page 10
SAME GREAT OWNER, SAME AMAZING STAFF Serving the Community for over a Decade
GARDNER PT of Ocean Pines 11204 Racetrack Rd, Suite 101 • Ocean Pines, MD, 21811 410-208-1525
GARDNER PT of West Ocean City 12472 Sea Oaks Ln, Unit 1 • Berlin, MD 21811 410-747-3522