Ocean City Turns to Former Consultant for Dredging Support

OCEAN CITY – This resort’s City Council held its last regularly scheduled meeting of 2016 Dec. 29 at 1 p.m. instead of the usual 7 p.m. because of the New Year’s holiday.
Mayor Jay Gillian expanded on the report he had given earlier at a town hall meeting on dredging plans for the municipality.
Ocean City, per city administration, will again engage a state lobbying firm to help it navigate through complex regulations as it starts the next phase of a $20-million dredging program over three years.
The project is meant to remove debris and grasses that clog the resort’s lagoons and channels along its back bays.
Per earlier information from the city, it proposed hiring Tonio Burgos and Associates of New Jersey LLC, a Trenton-based lobbying firm, for $5,000 month in 2017.
Council approved this contract at the meeting. The company, according to the city, has experience helping other state municipalities with their dredging projects.
It was first hired by the city in 2015 to perform similar work to guide city planners through state and federal environmental regulations that regulate Jersey Shore dredging.
According to Gillian, Tonio Burgos will work with the city to create a strategy to successfully comply with governmental rules and regulations on dredging and to apply for related grant money.
ACT Engineers, Inc., has been hired as the city’s dredging consultant and the two companies will collaborate to obtain needed permits and work on plans to implement the project.
The city’s dredging permit expires June 2017 and, according to city administration, it will be working closely with both Tonio Burgos and ACT to request an extension.
The city touched on another subject that had been in the news shortly before Christmas: the municipality’s planned Ninth Street “gateway” redevelopment that abuts its showpiece causeway that leads onto the island.
Gillian has fielded questions and some criticism about how this critical area of Ninth Street and Bay Avenue will unfold and as the city seeks a balance between keeping areas green and environmentally pleasing against plans for commercial establishments.
An insurance office is being built on Ninth Street, and a real estate firm is hoping to build a new office where a former gas station was located once it receives the necessary permits.