City Council Candidate Profile: Peter Guinosso

The municipal election on May 8 will decide the four ward seats on the seven-member City Council. The winners will serve four-year terms.

Ocean City Patch asked each candidate to complete a questionnaire outlining biographical information, their platform and their stands on a handful of issues.

The questionnaire is presented here in the same format it was given to the candidates. There were no further instructions, and none of the responses has been edited (beyond basic proofreading and formatting). Readers can make their own judgments on how the candidates did or didn't answer the questions.

The candidates are as follows:

FIRST WARD (all addresses north of the north side of Fourth Street): , 

SECOND WARD (south side of Fourth Street to north side of 12th Street): ,  

THIRD WARD (south side of 12th Street to north side of 26th Street): , 

FOURTH WARD (all addresses south of the south side of 26th Street and the Ocean Reef community off Tennessee Avenue): Pete Guinosso (see below), ,  

PETER GUINOSSO

BIO INFORMATION:

Name: Peter Guinosso

Age: 71

Address: 4800 block of Central Avenue

Education: Attended St. Joseph’s University, graduated from Spring Garden Institute, National Radio Institute Certification.

No. of years lived in Ocean City: Property owner for 37 years, full-time resident for 12 years

Family: Married to Cathy for 44 years with four sons and five grandchildren

Occupation: Retired from United Parcel Service as District Plant Engineering Manager and as Regional Quality Assessment Manager

Public service:

• UPS National Coordinator — Paralyzed Vets of America Wheel Chair Games
• Veteran of the United States Navy
• Past-President and current Trustee and Board Member — Ocean City Ecumenical Council
• Former Deputy Grand Knight and current Chancellor — Knights of Columbus
• Member — Ocean City Planning Board
• Member of the Ocean City Budget Task Force – 2007
• Member of the Community-Based Economic Advisory Committee – 2003
• “Ocean City Volunteer of the Year” – 2007
• Original Petitioner of the Taxpayers Protection Ordinance
• Current member of the American Legion
• Volunteer for the Ocean City Ecumenical Council Food Cupboard, Easter Sunrise Service and Thanksgiving Service
• Assists with ushering at Our Lady of Good Council Church, St Damien’s Parish
• Worked on Habitat for Humanity housing
• Fairness in Taxes Board Member
• Member of the Ocean City Community Association
• Adopt-A-Beach sponsor for the 48^th Street beach

PLATFORM:

What issues do you see as critical for the next four years?

• Infrastructure in a Year-Round Community: We need to provide for year-round residents just as vigorously as we do for seasonal visitors. More city resources must be directed to repairing and replacing our deteriorating infrastructure, especially our roads and alleys and our drainage system. We must give top priority to finding the most effective ways to alleviate the flooding that damages property and affects our everyday lives. Simply moving water from one street to the next is not a solution. And we need to protect our beaches and our back bay — the very natural resources that drew us to Ocean City. Ongoing and systematic — year-to-year maintenance — is a necessity in every capital budget, especially for the Fourth Ward, which stretches for more than three of the city’s seven miles.
• Efficient and Effective Government: We cannot hand city officials a blank check. Faced with significantly less ratables, we need to explore new models — fresh ideas — that increase the efficiency of all departments and fund our needs before our wants. The burden placed on taxpayers will increase unless our officials control costs. We need and deserve a government that is efficient and cost-effective. Taxes are the people’s money and city government is simply the trustee, bound by law and ethics, to use it in the best interests of all taxpayers.
• Transparency and Ethics: Transparent and ethical government is not a luxury. We need to support a process that fosters strong citizen involvement and strong citizen oversight. We must hold our city leaders and government to high standards of ethics. The vast majority of employees do a good job, but those who cheat taxpayers — through ethical lapses — must be held accountable. City government cannot turn a blind eye to their misdeeds — and they definitely should not reward them.

The above issues are my top three critical concerns, but I also have strong concerns about zoning and the viability of our business community:

• Zoning is Everyone’s Concern: We must support zoning standards that preserve residential neighborhoods. Controlling overdevelopment and protecting our neighborhoods is a priority. Lack of light, air and green space affects the quality of our lives. We need to control height and mass. We need to build more single-family homes, and we need to attract more year-round residents. In a city as small as Ocean City, what happens in one part of the city affects the entire island. Piecemeal zoning is bad zoning. We need to decide where we want to go as a community and work on a plan to get us there. Then we need to be consistent in applying that plan — with no detours for special interests.
• Vibrant Year-Round Business: A strong residential community is a quality-of-life issue for our year-round residents. They feed each other. We need to support businesses that provide everyday goods in our neighborhoods, in our gateway, and in our downtown.

What do you see as the biggest accomplishments and shortcomings of the existing City Council and city administration in the past four years?

The biggest accomplishments for the current council and the current administration are the replacement of the check valves that control our stormwater system and help alleviate tidal flooding, and the reorganization of city departments, but both of those initiatives were started under the previous administration and continued into this administration.

Both the council and the administration also responded to strong public opposition and decided not to disband the Ethics Board. For that, they must be given credit. However, if they fail to appoint a full slate of board members in a timely manner and/or fail to appropriate sufficient funds and resources for the Ethics Board to carry out its responsibilities, then they will have undermined the board and subverted public will. 

The biggest shortcoming of both council and the administration is their lack of openness and concern with conflicts of interest. Transparency and ethics are not a luxury. They are the necessary foundation on which city officials must conduct business.

One additional shortcoming is council’s decision to insert itself into zoning. Making zoning decisions one lot at a time is not only bad zoning, but council’s precipitous action will lead to unintended consequences.  Zoning changes in a community as geographically small as Ocean City have a ripple effect throughout the entire community. They must be considered within that larger context. The Planning Board, by its very nature, must take a broader view of zoning issues and act within the vision of the Master Plan and Municipal Land Use Law.

What do you want voters to know about you and what you’ll bring to the table?

There are three specific things that voters should know about me as a candidate and the kind of councilman I will be: 

First: I am a citizen and not a politician. My positions are, and always will be, based on facts, not favors. I am completely independent, not beholden to any special interest group in our community.  My only allegiance is to the Fourth Ward and to our community as a whole, and my only goal is to enhance the quality of life for ourselves and our neighbors.

Second: Since my retirement and our move to Ocean City as full-time residents, I have committed myself to community service in my adopted hometown. I believe in being pro-active in advocating many ways to improve the quality of life for us all.

That activism takes many different forms. It may be urging Council and the administration to take action to improve our deteriorating infrastructure or to support the Ethics Board. It may be distributing food to the neediest among us at the Food Cupboard. It may be petitioning the city to enact the Taxpayers Protection Ordinance to control city spending. It may be carefully researching the impact of zoning changes on the Planning Board, so we do not face unintended consequences.  It may be as an active board member of the Ecumenical Council.  Whatever form it takes, as a retiree I have the necessary time to represent you and your concerns.

Third: I bring to my candidacy a set of skills honed in both my professional career with United Parcel Service and in my many years as a volunteer and activist in Ocean City. I have negotiated union contracts from both sides of the table. I have coordinated a national event for wheelchair-bound veterans. I have studied our city budgets and looked for ways to effect government efficiencies on our Community-Based Economic Advisory Committee in 2003 and the mayor’s Budget Task Force in 2007. I know how to bring people together, how to work with others to reach consensus and how to set goals and achieve them. 

ISSUES: 

YES-OR-NO QUESTIONS (one-word answers only, please):

I support allowing BYOB restaurants in Ocean City: No

I support 2 percent annual salary increases for police, firefighters and public employees: Yes

I support continued borrowing (bond ordinances) to pave more streets, improve drainage, dredge more channels and improve more parts of the city's infrastructure — even if it means the city and taxpayers will pay more in debt service: Yes

I support the continuation of a local volunteer Ethics Board with broad powers to conduct investigations and pass judgment on city employees: Yes

YES-OR-NO QUESTIONS (explanations … go ahead and provide rationale here, if you wish):

BYOB: This decision rightfully belongs in the hands of Ocean City residents. This city belongs to all of us, and I will support whatever decision our community makes.

Salary increases: This increase can only be justified if the 2% increase applies to the employees’ total compensation — salary, pension and health benefits. In addition, we must institute a two-tier salary scale in which new hires are placed on a reduced salary scale. Then, over time, attrition reduces the number of employees compensated on the higher salary scale.  It is one of the ways to reduce the very large percentage of the city budget allocated to employee compensation at the expense of other needs.

Borrowing for capital improvements:  Large, expensive and much-needed capital improvements to our deteriorating infrastructure will require bond ordinances. But we need to be very mindful of both our total bond debt and the yearly costs to service that debt as a percentage of our city budget.  Faced with significantly less ratables, we must fund only our needs, not our wants. 

Ethics Board: Ethics in government and a fully empowered and adequately funded Ethics Board are an absolute necessity if we want a transparent and ethical government where any, and all, are held accountable for their misdeeds.  The city’s Human Resources director must be part of that board if we are to create a city government where ethical conduct is the expectation and conflicts of interest are openly identified and quickly remedied.