The power of one

Last Updated on Thursday, October 25, 2012 04:23 pm Written by Cindy Nevitt Friday, October 26, 2012 01:00 am

The administration has been taking a beating lately from the residents of Merion Park.

On Oct. 23, six people from Merion Park – specifically, residents of Bartram, Oxford, Victoria and Westminster lanes and Argyle Place – opened the public comment portion of that night’s City Council meeting with one story after another regarding the ongoing, worsening issue of flooding in the neighborhood.  

Three days earlier, on Oct. 20, eight of 25 constituents who attended a 4th Ward meeting dominated the conversation, complaining they were tired of their concerns being ignored by the administration.

A day before that meeting, on Oct. 19, Merion Park took a public flogging in a local television news report when Oxford Lane resident Craig Satinski animatedly described how he once saw a car float down his road, borne along on flood waters.

All of a sudden, Merion Park is on everyone’s radar.

The residents can thank Marty Mozzo for that.

For Mozzo, the attention directed at Merion Park, home of three of the top 12 worst-ranked roads among Ocean City’s 108 miles of streets and alleys, is anything but sudden. A resident of Westminster Lane, Mozzo has been pestering the administration since April 2011 to solicit input from the neighbors in regard to the severity and duration of the flooding in the neighborhood.

Mozzo’s quest to focus a spotlight on the worsening flooding and the continued deterioration of the roads in Merion Park has made him a frequent visitor to council meetings. The day before Satinski appeared on air, Mozzo stood up at the Oct. 18 council workshop meeting on planned capital improvements regarding roads and drainage, and said, in regard to the city’s stonewalling, “The people in the neighborhood are getting mad. We’re not being heard. We’re not being listened to.”

On Sept. 27, he told council his car had needed expensive repairs, which he blamed on the constant presence of brackish water at the end of his driveway and on the deplorable condition of Oxford Lane, which the city ranks as the No. 3 worst road.

“I don’t even drive down Oxford anymore,” Mozzo said. “It’s wrecking my car.”

Steve Cole, an Oxford Lane resident, prefaced his remarks that night with, “I’m here tonight to talk about flooding … again” and concluded with, “”I urge you to do something about the flooding problem we have.”

Their remarks, made during the public comment portion of council’s meeting, provoked a impassioned response from Mayor Jay Gillian.

“We keep talking about flooding,” Gillian said. “Flooding, flooding, flooding. You keep talking about it, then you’re going to make this situation worse than it is.”

Cole answered the mayor at the Oct. 23 meeting, saying he wasn’t powerful enough to make the situation worse. Perhaps he spoke prematurely.

Mozzo, who started his crusade with two men who have since died, was an army of one at first. This past summer, Cole added what he calls “a big mouth” to the movement, and he and Mozzo created the Facebook page “Flooding In Ocean City NJ” as a way to keep neighbors informed.

Last weekend, Ray Snyder of Victoria Lane joined in helping the men distribute flyers to the 300 homes located within Merion Park, a single-family-home residential neighborhood that measures less than one square mile in size.

The administration, which had planned to hold a neighborhood meeting once an outside engineering firm had completed its review of the road and drainage improvements planned for the area, responded to the flyer by announcing it would form a steering committee of Merion Park residents to provide input on the $1.2 million project.

Marty Mozzo says he is only one person. But for Merion Park, he was the right person.

There is strength in numbers, but the power of the right one cannot be disputed.