I started this forum in 2004 after reading a newspaper article with Venit saying OPA should have some sort of online forum, asking the board to approve $40,000 or so to do so.

I read it, thought to myself ---- I can use my own software to create an Ocean Pines Forum in about 10 seconds, at little or no cost. Well, I did register OceanPinesForum.com at around $40 a year with Network Solutions. 

So, then opened OceanPinesForum.com. Dick, Brady, Elaine Brady's father and former OPA president, was the first association member to post a forum message.

On the other hand, the then OPA Board of Directors majority concluded I was "in the tank" with Venit.

The fact is I had not attened a board meeting for maybe five years, never heard of Venit until happening on that article, and would not have know him if I bumped into him on the street.

Nutcases came out of the woodwork. Stauss wrote that users were saying their computers would be ruined if joining. Three nutcases joined the forum using different versions of Venit's name. A writer for the Ocean Pines Independent (a Gannett paper) created fake emails, sent himself emails from those with all sorts of nasty comments about the forum, and then published those in the paper.

Asked for copies of those emails, the idiot sent them to me. IP addresses proved he was sending them to himself. I printed them out, took to his editor. He was fired an hour later.

I love this place.