Steve Ransdell proved once again that he should not be on the OPA Elections Committee, much less the chair of that most important committee.

Ransdell rose during the OPA Board of Directors meeting of May 24, 2025 to give public comments.

During those public comments, he denigrated association members who have expressed concern about a complete lack of transparency and possible violations of the Maryland HOA Act by Ransdell's committee under his guidance.

Incredibly, Ransdell tried to mock those who expressed concerns about lack of Election Committee meeting minutes on the OPA website and total lack of notice or information about any committee meetings by stating publicly that no meetings were held.

Based on the YouTube video transcript, Ransdell stated:

"The last thing I'd like to address is there's been some public comment about a lack of transparency on behalf of my committee and I'd like to address that forthrightly. There were a couple of meetings earlier in the year where we had some logistics problems with our meeting location and meetings were not held, so to those who say we didn't post transparent minutes and agendas. Not true. Those meetings simply weren't held. You can't post meeting minutes of a meeting that doesn't happen. So with that our only focus is running a free and fair election so that everybody can feel that but, negative misinformation doesn't help our effort."

Do the facts support Ransdell's mocking of concerned association members, and his use of innuendo, perhaps even accusatory innuendo aimed quite improperly at a specific candidate in the upcoming board election? No.

Ransdell claimed publicly there were no Election Committee meeting minutes, apparently prior to April 28, 2025, because there were no meetings. Yet there is a video of a meeting on January 27, 2025 but no meeting minutes on the OPA website. There does not appear to be any motion to send out a request for proposals to election contractors during that meeting. In fact, they just talk vaguely about "getting it out." 

How could Ransdell's public comments about "no meetings" and thus no meeting minutes be true? Ocean Pines Progress publisher Tom Stauss reported in early April that the Elections Committee had received bids from five vendors to handle the 2025 OPA Board of Directors election process and there was no further Election Committee meeting after January 27, 2025 until April 28, 2025.

Does Ransdell think association members are fools? How could the Elections Committee never hold a meeting, as he stated publicly, yet somehow issue a request for bids and subsequently receive bids related to hiring a contractor to run the election process when there is no record of any meeting motion to do so prior to the excellent reporting by Stauss?

If there is any OPA Committee requiring transparency, it is the Elections Committee.

With these latest public comments, not to mention how, at a prior board meeting, to the consternation of other committee members, he provided the board a personal opinion about selection of an elections contractor other than the one actually approved by a vote of the Elections Committee, Ransdell has lost all credibility.

The board should replace Ransdell as chair of what may be OPA's most important committee.

Icing on the cake for why reasonable people might think Ransdell should not be on Elections Committe, much less chairing it?

When current board candidate Peck ran for election a few years ago the following exchange took place on OceanPinesForum.com:

Dave Walter wrote: "Vote NO for Peck and Wheatley. Neither should be on the board."

Steve Ransdell replied: "Definitely! Those two gotta go!"