Good evening, everyone.

Welcome to this regular meeting of the mayor and city council.

That is Monday, September 21st, 2026 at 6 p.m.

First on this evening's agenda.

I have a prayer and a pledge.

And I'll turn it over to Councilmember Garrick for both.

Okay.

Good evening.

Father God, we are grateful that you've gathered us again tonight, allowed us to uh live and work and serve in Ocean City, Maryland.

Grateful that you've brought us together.

We asked for your presence this evening, and we ask that you guide us in our thoughts, words, and actions.

Help us to uh always consider you and to serve you.

And as we go our separate ways after the meeting, may we uh may you guide us, help us to make the right choices, help us to be mindful of those who are sick and struggling in our community and in ways to be of service to them, always living in Jesus' name.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

For which it stands.

One nation under God individuals with liberty and justice for all.

Next on the agenda, we have the beautification committee beauty spot awards.

Welcome, Donna.

Thank you.

We are very happy to be here tonight.

And so happy that John that we live here in Ocean City, and we are happy to serve the Marin City Council as your beautification committee.

Uh I don't know whether you all know just what we do, and since we have a lot of people here tonight who've won Beauty Spot Awards, I want to tell you some of the other things that this committee does.

Just today, there has been a company out back here working on the pond that is out there.

It's a nice little pond, it has lots of flowers in it and fish, and it needed some restoration.

We had some holes in it.

The stones were, or the what do you call it?

The stones were falling in anyway, so we're getting it redone.

And that's been out there for about 20 years.

So if you're down here sometime, take a little walk around there and look at it.

It's very lovely, very peaceful.

And we've done we do have done a memorial garden up at the convention center for a lady named Donna Abbott who served the city for such a long time.

And we've got planted lots of flowers there too.

And we are responsible for many of the trees that you see up at Northside Park.

We have sold those to people as part of our tremendous program, and they're planted there to make that park so beautiful.

It's also there also in some of the smaller parks.

We've also put benches in those places to make it comfortable for people who want to walk around the park.

And something that we've just done in the last couple of years, and I just got a uh text from Mary Ann that they've bought tulips to put in some of the places here in the town.

We're putting some out front here at City Hall.

We have some at the plantar in the entry park.

And last year we put a whole bunch of tulips and jonquels up at the north entrance to Ocean City, right?

As you come in, you know, coming on down Coastal Highway.

And one of the big things we do is we celebrate Arbor Day for the town of Ocean City.

We are a Tree City USA, which is a very special designation.

You have to meet certain requirements, and over the years we have accomplished that, and we have been a Tree City USA for, I guess, cl probably 35, maybe going on 40 years now, and we continue to do that every year.

You have to keep it up.

And one of the things that we especially like to do is we every year we do a lunch for the park workers up at Northside Park.

We have uh a caterer come in, all the park workers come in, and we invite some of the town dignitaries to join us for that day.

But it's something that they really appreciate.

We do it in January and February when they're taking down the decorations at Northside Park.

So it's usually bitter cold, and they like to come in and have a nice hot soup and some sandwiches and salads.

So that's something that we do.

And then right here in City Hall, the end of November each year for the la, I guess the last 25 years or more, because I know we were here before the millennium at 2000, when this was just an open room and there were the steel girders up at the top there, and we strung little twinkle lights from them.

But we uh decorate City Hall for Christmas, and it's a lovely sight to see.

So if you have to come to City Hall to pay a bill or to see somebody, please be take a look at those.

And I would also like to just mention uh Gary Collier, who is the park superintendent, and Jeff Simpson, who is our liaison with the city, and Tina Quick, who is the administrative assistant up there without them and the crew that goes out every day and keeps our parks in pristine condition, helps take care of all the plants that are in the ground and in the containers, and it's not always an easy task to be hauling water, like in some of the places up on the boardwalk to water the flowers that are there.

We have some at the information cottage, and three times a week.

That gentleman is there with his old-time metal watering cans watering it for us.

So that's just a couple of the things that we do.

So maybe if the mayor would join me, he could help me give out the awards tonight to these folks.