The 2025 OPA Annual Meeting of the Ocean Pines Association members is over.

First, the board election results to fill three open seats:

• Monica Rakowski - 2085 votes (elected to three-year term)
• Steve Jacobs - 1935 votes (elected to three-year term)
• Stuart Lakernick - 1730 votes (elected to three-year term)
• Amy Peck - 1464 votes

Congratulations to the three winners.

Fire Department Referendum
Yes 1559
No 389

The vote count process in Pittsburgh, streamed live, went smoothly.

Election turnout was disappointing, to say the least.

Less than 3000 lots even voted.

Only around 700 voters used Internet voting. This is costly and board should vote to go to all paper ballots in the future. It certainly points out the uselessness of those Monkey surveys indicating a large percentage of association members want Internet voting. I like paper. Paper can be recounted on a close vote. There is no recount possible of Internet voting, as pointed out by the election contractor. Comparable to when the Pope speaks ex cathedra on matters of Faith and Morals, Internet vote results are infallible! 

About 464 ballots were taken to the drop-box at the Police Department.

As for the Annual Meeting itself, extremely disappointing as well.

Yet again, the meeting was not even attended by the required 100-lot association member attendance to produce a quorum. Only 67 lots were represented at the Annual Meeting, out of 8,500 or so!

A special board meeting should convene this week to formally confirm the election results, and possibly vote on election of OPA, Inc. corporate officers for the coming year at the same time. Odds-on favorite to assume the position of OPA President is board member John Latham. An excellent choice, should that prove correct.

Some interesting OPA board politics in the election results:

Monica Rakowski speaks the least at board meetings and received the highest number of votes among the three winners.

OPA's sitting President and Chairman of the Board of Directors Stuart Lakernick received the least number of votes among the three winners

Steve Jacobs received more votes than Lakernick. Why is this politically significant? Jacobs was a one-man minority on the board for the last three years. He was occasionally derided at board meetings by some of the six-member majority. At one time there was even an attempt to potentially reprimand or throw him off the board on bogus charges of leaking attorney-client privilege information.

Suddenly, during this 2025 election, the other six board members more or less supported Jacobs' re-election. Why? Patently obvious to anyone closely following OPA board politics. Some sitting board members are so totally obsessed with dislike of losing candidate Amy Peck that they suddenly saw Jacobs as the better alternative of those two candidates.

You gotta love this place.

Back to the Annual Meeting, the important highlight was OPA General Manager John Viola's yearly operational report, with assistance from Senior Director of Administration Linda Martin. Martin's increasing role in the OPA's administration is most welcome - a highly competent woman, and a potential future General Manager.

The stunner, however, was Viola's financial report. Another terrific financial success. The primary stunner? In fiscal year 2013 the base assessment was $873. In fiscal 2022, it peaked at $996. In fiscal 2026, only $875. This is an incredible financial success story, given all the major improvements to infrastructure in OPA, as well as reserve contributions.

Viola must be viewed as the financial mastermind but he correctly credits the Board of Directors for staying out of operational issues and allowing him and his team to run OPA as stipulated in the bylaws.

Two positions on the Board of Directors are open next year as the terms of Elaine Brady and John Latham expire.