Wrong thing said to wrong people
Ocean City Today | Mar 08, 2018 | www.oceancitytoday.net
US Wind project development director Paul Rich misread the audience in his most recent comments about the resort’s effort to push the field of power-generating turbines farther out to sea.
At a local forum convened last week to question the local government’s stance, comments from Rich suggested that if oceanic wind farms aren’t permitted, something much worse could happen.
He said if US Wind is forced to abandon its project, that could open the door to offshore oil exploration, a much worse proposition that remains a priority of the Trump administration.
He also implied that US Wind could file suit to recover the millions of dollars it has spent planning and developing its project.
Whether these things are true or not, he might as well have said he was going to come down here and give someone a good thrashing, because the typical Ocean City response to anything even resembling a threat is, for better or worse, “Oh yeah?”
Because the resort consists mostly of independent businesses operated by independent-minded people, many of whom did it all their way, challenges are not well received.
The more likely response would be the opposite, thus ending any chance of a “let’s work this out” conversation between local government and the company.
That’s been local government’s modus operandi over the years, regardless of who was occupying the seats in the City Council chambers at the time.
Sometimes that posture has worked out for the resort and sometimes it has not, but rare would be the case when Ocean City has been scared into a whimpering surrender because someone suggested it wasn’t up for a game of hardball.
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2018/03/09/wrong-thing-said-to-wrong-people/