Anyone seeking a preview of OPA's future if both Stuart Lakernick and Rick Farr are elected to the Board of Directors should read the August 2021 edition of the Ocean Pines Progress -- aka, the Esther Diller Edition.

Many association members are scratching their heads and wondering, "Who the heck is Esther Diller?"

Esther Diller is a former OPA Director who resigned before completing one year on the board.

Why is a local paper giving her such extensive coverage? Diller's husband, Stuart Lakernick is a candidate for the Board of Directors this year. Diller and former OPA employee Colby Phillips started a Facebook group for the purpose of influencing Ocean Pines politics. Phillips says she is no longer involved.

As noted in the Progress, Diller is a convicted felon due to her involvement in some sort of a massive national Medicare scheme involving more than $40 million brought to light after an FBI investigation. Diller admitted her role. The details, in her own words, of her conviction and sentencing, are in the Progress as well as posted to OceanPinesForum.com weeks ago.

Why Diller would choose to get very publicly involved in OPA politics after conviction of a Federal crime and awaiting sentencing is a mystery. Diller is still waiting to see how much of a $4 million restitution she will have to make, according to the Progress.

The latest Esther Diller Edition of the Progress covers the ridiculous attempts by some anonymous individual, via email and regular mail, to make people in Ocean Pines aware of Diller's legal problems over the last year or so. The only logical reason to do so would be to hurt the chances of her husband's election to the Board of Directors.

However, here is where everything goes off the rails. The individual going after Diller used the fake name "OP Truth and Justice." Diller is now claiming via the Progress that her friend, a "forensic expert," has tracked down the anonymous person to someone using 21 Ocean Pines Association computers, and now narrowed those down to three OPA computers. She claims her "forensic expert" tells her the anonymous person's emails all trace back to OPA computers used at one time by a former OPA General Manager.

Diller also charges OPA Director Frank Daly and "some" OPA sitting board members with making online posts representing a pattern of attempts to tarnish her reputation and hurt her husband's election chances.

Diller does not provide the name of the "forensic expert" or any factual information related to her charge of her tormenter operating with OPA computers.

There is more to this craziness. Based solely on Diller's wild and unsubstantiated charges, the Progress quotes OPA Director Doug Parks as saying, "We need to get to the bottom of this attack and address the issue so it does not happen again in the future and to avoid any potential legal risk."

Parks sounds like he believes the anonymous culprit is working with OPA computers.

Diller sent this correspondent the so-called forensic expert information back on July 1.

I did not even deem it worthy of publication and responded to her with, "The email your investigator sent you is essentially meaningless. Absolutely no facts/data are provided." Now she is beating on OPA board members and OPA's attorney for OPA to fund an investigation of her totally unsubstantiated charges.

Should association members elect both of Esther Diller's supported candidates, her husband and Rick Farr, they would likely team up with current directors Doug Parks and Tom Janasek to take over as a board majority. We might also see Diller as the eighth board member, as envisioned by Tom Stauss. He wrote if Lakernick is elected we "get two directors for the price of one." Since Parks supports spending your assessment dollars investigating Diller's wild claims, look for that to happen.

Is it possible this smear campaign against Diller is emanating from OPA computers? Never say never, but Diller must come up with a lot more than meaningless claims from her friend the "forensics expert." Her current public claims about some directors tarnishing her reputation and a smear campaign against her originating from OPA computers based on some unnamed "forensic expert" are outrageous.

Diller also wonders how the OP Truth and Justice character obtained email addresses of some association members. She then makes an equally outrageous inference by saying, "The only place that has everyone’s emails is at our Association."

Both Lakernick and Farr claim to be independent candidates in the Esther Diller Edition, not a team. However, in a previous Progress article, we find this from the first Candidates Forum coverage: "All Richard Farr and Stuart Lakernick were missing was the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) signature tag team hand slap as they passed each other on the way to the podium during the June 9 forum."

As one association member wrote, "OPA could turn this into a daytime soap opera, get it on TV and make some real money."

The latest Esther Diller Edition of the Progress is no more than a very possible preview of coming attractions.