In a closely watched referendum held Tuesday, residents voted 834 to 800 against Ordinance 2025-04, which would have imposed new limitations on rentals in the town’s R-1 and MH zoning districts.

The R-1 zoning classification includes low-density, single-family residential neighborhoods, while MH zones regulate mobile home parks and subdivisions. Together, these areas account for about 3% to 4% of Ocean City’s estimated 10,000 rental properties — affecting roughly 300 to 350 units, according to City Manager Terry McGean.

Terry Miller, president of OCMD Property Rights, a group formed to fight the proposal, celebrated the victory, calling it a win for homeowners and the local economy.

“It was quite a fight,” Miller said. “I do feel good about it. I was hoping it wasn’t going to be quite so close. I thought we would have a bigger margin, but the opposition really pulled out all stops at the end, and I thought they were able to sway some people.”

The ordinance proposed a five-night-minimum stay in those districts starting this year, with a more stringent 31-night minimum taking effect in 2027. Bookings made before March 3, 2025, would have been exempt.

The referendum was triggered by a successful petition effort led by OCMD Property Rights. In May, the group submitted 1,090 verified signatures — exceeding the 990 required to put the measure on the ballot.

Supporters of the ordinance argued the restrictions would protect neighborhood quality of life, citing issues such as noise, trash and overcrowding associated with short-term rentals. Opponents countered that the measure threatened Ocean City’s tourism-driven economy and infringed upon property owners’ rights.

“From the beginning, we all acknowledged there are a few problems, but you don’t steal people’s property rights over a few problems,” Miller said. “You fix the problems or take away the rights of people who are causing the problems.”

In a statement, the city pointed out that more than 9,000 short-term rental licenses remain outside the affected areas, as well as 11,000 hotel rooms and more than 20,000 condos, townhouses and homes that remain unrestricted, “including the entire ocean block.”

Palmer Gillis relocated to Ocean City from Salisbury in 2000 and was an early supporter of the ban on short-term rentals in R-1 zones, which was later expanded by the mayor and City Council to include MH zones.

Gillis previously served on the Salisbury City Council, representing the city on the Salisbury-Wicomico Planning and Zoning Commission. He said his experience in local government gave him a firsthand understanding of how short-term rentals, much like student rentals, can significantly alter the character of residential neighborhoods.

“I think the folks who opposed this — and it might be two years, and it might be 10 years — will actually regret this because I believe what our community will see is an erosion of neighborhoods,” Gillis said. “There has to be a place for year-round residents to live and act as if they’re in a neighborhood.”

Despite the narrow margin, the vote signals strong community interest on both sides of the issue — and leaves Ocean City’s short-term rental market largely unchanged, at least for now.

Rob Bouse, co-owner of a real estate agency in the city, said he was “glad” voters overturned the ordinance  He said it’s right for the homeowner who pays taxes to decide how they want to rent or not rent their property.

“I’m curious to see how the City Council responds and see if they try to draw up another referendum,” Bouse said.

Have a news tip? Contact Todd Karpovich at tkarpovich@baltsun.com or on X as @ToddKarpovich.

The Royalton in the 1960s and 1970s was delightfully out of touch. The rooms were small and the baths could be down the hall. It had a screened front porch full of rocking chairs. The geraniums in its front planter were bright red. You could take your breakfast and dinner in the hotel dining room, where alcohol was never served or mentioned. If you required air conditioning, open a window.

In short, it was a classic seaside hotel.

A constant presence was its owner/manager, Alma Lewis, who was known in an endearing way as “Nubs.” I was not her accountant, but she made more income from a trio of newer apartment houses she owned across the street that had somewhat better accommodations.

Some of the Royalton guests could be as eccentric as the hotel itself. There was a woman we called “Room Nine.” During Hurricane Agnes in 1972, the tropical depression caused Rehoboth streets to flood. Room Nine appeared in an inner tube where cars normally parked. She was a Baltimorean and could be spotted on the Northwood bus.

For many years, my family bunked at the house next door at No. 8 Wilmington Avenue in Rehoboth. Our third-floor windows (we called our space the “attic,” which it was) overlooked the hotel. On many nights, I think we had more guests than the Royalton because that third floor seemed to just be the spot where everyone wanted to be. Our building came with a huge parking lot, steps away from the ocean, making it a desirable destination.

Occasionally, some of my parents’ more proper guests would ask for other places to stay, and if they were old-fashioned in their tastes, we shipped them into the Royalton.

For several years, my younger sisters became the Royal waitresses. The food (homemade rolls and pies) was plain and simple and tasted like July and August. My sisters were all likely too young to get work permits. My mother and Aunt Cora were steps away. Besides, the Royalton was about as racy as rice pudding.

After a while, the fire and safety people caught up with inspections and the all-wood summer hotel flunked their tests. The property was sold to the people who owned the adjoining amusement park. The hotel then did an amazing second act and re-emerged as a first-floor-only business known as the Royal Treat.

The Royal Treat was an ice cream parlor after 1 p.m. In the morning, its servers produced a breakfast very similar to the old Royalton fare, except the food was so heavenly the lines could stretch down Wilmington Avenue. I think the breakfast-ice cream parlor version of the Royalton made more money in a week than the seaside hotel did in a season.

Mrs. Lewis was not around for the success of the Royal Treat. It was operated by several generations of the Formwalt family, who somehow managed to retain her plain, chaste and special quality of the old hotel in their new enterprise.

It had everything going wrong for it: cash only, non-air-conditioned, no parking lot, long lines and vigilant meter maids ready to slap on a parking ticket. Yet it was a smashing success.

The old hotel register and front desk became the ice cream dipping counter. The hotel dining room became the breakfast room. The old rules applied — plain pine floor, open windows, fans when sweltering. The wildest thing on the menu was a toasted English muffin. Captain Crunch did not embellish a meal.

The rocking chairs disappeared from the front porch and were replaced by dining tables and bentwood chairs.

Scott Formwalt ran the griddle in the hotel kitchen. My grandmother made excellent pancakes, but his were in a class of their own. His secret? Simplicity, non-doughy, but that doesn’t begin to describe how scrumptious they were. He also had a masterful way with eggs and only a few places I know can do an omelet as he could.

At night, he supervised a staff of young kids who dished up a zillion Moose Tracks sundaes and real chocolate ice cream sodas, the exact variety that Hutzler’s basement luncheonette served. The ice cream was Hershey’s and the Formwalt family did not charge designer ice cream prices. The Royal Treat was just as mobbed at night as it was for breakfast.

All good things come to an end, and so did the Royalton-Royal Treat in 2022, after 41 years of making many people happy.

Debbie Formwalt, the hostess and a co-owner, oversaw the seating for the breakfast shift. One day, I said to her that I had noticed a captain of Baltimore’s investment banking at another table. She informed me that he was outranked. She seated First Lady Laura Bush the day before.

Have a news tip? Contact Jacques Kelly at jacques.kelly@baltsun.com and 410-332-6570.

Earlier this month, the Ocean City Council passed ordinance 2025-04, which mandates five-night consecutive minimum lengths of stay for this year and next in “R1” districts made up of low-density and single-family residential developments, and “MH districts,” made up of mobile home parks and subdivisions. The ordinance later implements a 31-night minimum stay, which would take effect Jan. 1, 2027. Any bookings made before March 3, 2025, would be exempt.

Terry Miller, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker in Ocean City, is helping lead the charge with colleagues and homeowners to help rescind the ordinance. She believes the 31-day minimum length of stay is effectively a ban on short-term rentals.

Miller and others against the rental restrictions have started a petition to take the ordinance to referendum. She is also leading a rally to spotlight the ordinance on Saturday at Ocean City’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

“In these neighborhoods, we are about promoting family fun,” Miller said. “Who rents in R1 and MH are primarily multi-generational families. These are people who came with their parents and grandparents and now are bringing the next generation.

“What they haven’t looked at is [that] this is just not affecting today, this is affecting who is coming here for generations.”

If signatures from 40% of the 2,476 registered voters from the last municipal election are gathered on the petition, Ocean City officials must either hold a special election or delay the ordinance until the next general election.

Miller said the new rules could be costly to tourism if visitors opt to travel to other vacation spots like Rehoboth Beach, Fenwick Island and the Outer Banks.

“It is a taking of our property rights, it is government overreach, it is amputating at the hip because you have a bunion,” Miller said.

Ocean City Manager Terry McGean said there are about 10,000 rental units in Ocean City, and approximately 300 to 350 of those properties will be affected by the ordinance.

“With the short-term rentals, you had a huge bunch of people coming in and renting a home in these neighborhoods for a long weekend, and it was becoming disruptive and not suitable to the character of these neighborhoods,” McGean said.

“I think the council felt it was necessary to protect those neighborhoods. That’s sort of the place where the year-round residents live, and they are the backbone. They are the people that own the businesses and work here or are the little league coaches.”

Dan Jasinski, a Baltimore native and full-time Ocean City resident for the last nine years, supports the measure.

“It only affects 300 of the short-term rentals in the town,” Jasinski said when the ordinance was passed. “It is a start for much-needed regulations.”

Linda Tucker owns property in Ocean City originally purchased by her mother in 1976 and rents to vacationers. She uses the money to cover the upgrades to the property. She is opposed to the ordinance and is participating in Saturday’s rally.

“I’ve had to do everything to make it nice for people to rent so I can cover the expenses, the taxes and the insurance,” she said. “It’s pretty bad. You’re either forced to sell or turn it into a year-round rental. It’s mostly the influential people who are complaining about [the rentals]. A lot of them own hotels and restaurants and they stand to benefit from it.”

While the current ban targets 300 property owners in the R1 and MH districts, Miller contends it will impact every Ocean City resident and homeowner.

A website called ocmdpropertyrights.org outlines the opposition to the ordinance, saying “It is also a slippery slope from R1 and MH having their rights stripped away to every property owner having the same thing done to them.”

Miller said there are other ways to address the issues with some renters, including fines for guests who violate the noise ordinance, operating hours and cameras for private pools and forfeited security deposits for guests who violate pool hours.

“If people are violating ordinances, then use the tools we have,” Miller said. “The police are here. We have a noise ordinance. We have rules about trash. Enforce the laws that we have.”

Miller is calling for a feasibility study to determine the ordinance’s impact on the local economy and real estate market.  

“Over half of our full-time year-round residents do not live in R1 and MH neighborhoods,” she said. “Why has the mayor and council decided this is where residents should live? Shouldn’t the goal be to make the town great for all residents regardless of where they choose to live?

“Renting your home out short-term does not turn it into a business, it is still being used as a home. Let’s fix problems, not steal rights.”

Have a news tip? Contact Todd Karpovich at tkarpovich@baltsun.com or on X as @ToddKarpovich.

Michael Osei, 48, of Hanover, was charged earlier this year in connection with the heaps of scrap tires left at an industrial site in Westernport. Investigators said that Allegany County officials had leased Osei the site adjacent to the Potomac River after he approached the county’s Office of Economic Development proposing a scrap tire recycling facility, the Attorney General’s office said in a news release.

In the June 2021 discussion, Osei had “claimed that the facility would eventually employ up to 50 people and already had millions of dollars’ worth of contracts to send the recycled tires overseas,” according to the news release. He started operations the next month and collected hundreds of thousands of tires — but “few tires, if any, were ever removed,” prosecutors said in the release.

Inspectors from the Maryland Department of the Environment documented around 10,000 to 15,000 tires on the site in a complaint following the site visit that October. The tires were left in “heaping piles” at the facility, which had no permits, prosecutors said.

Environmental regulators and the Office of the State Fire Marshal ordered Osei to stop his operations, and the Hanover resident ultimately abandoned the site in September 2022, leaving more than 250,000 scrap tires at the facility, prosecutors said.

Allegany County officials have begun cleaning up the tires, according to the release.

Osei is scheduled for sentencing in Allegany Circuit Court on Dec. 17, according to court records.

“We grieve the loss of our UMES students and pray [that] the other students hurt have a full recovery,” UMES President Heidi M. Anderson said in a statement. “This tragedy has taken two promising young people at the very start of their adult lives and deprived our Hawk community, their families and friends of the dynamic futures they were poised to live.”

Delaware State Police troopers responded around 1:35 a.m. Sunday to the scene of the crash on Sussex Highway in Seaford.

A Nissan Rogue SUV with four UMES students was driving south in the left lane when a Honda Pilot SUV driving north crossed into the same lane causing a head-on collision, police said.

The front passenger of the Nissan, a 22-year-old man from Fayetteville, North Carolina, and the rear right passenger, an 18-year-old woman from Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, were declared dead at the scene, police said. The driver of the Nissan, a 22-year-old man from Washington, D.C., and the left rear passenger, an 18-year-old woman from Bethesda, were taken to a hospital with critical injuries, police said.

The driver of the Honda, a 24-year-old man from Georgetown, Delaware, was taken to an area hospital for serious injuries, and impairment is suspected to be a factor in the crash, police said. The Pilot’s passenger, a 40-year-old man also from Georgetown, was taken to an area hospital for critical injuries, police said.

The Delaware State Police Troop 7 Collision Reconstruction Unit continues to investigate the crash.

Have a news tip? Contact Dillon Mullan at dmullan@baltsun.com, 302-842-3818 or @DillonMullan on X.

Eugene Stanford, 49, originally of Trappe, Maryland, was killed while serving time at the facility around 3:30 p.m. on Friday, police said in a news release. The Eastern Correctional Institution is a medium-security facility in Westover on the lower Eastern Shore.

Stanford’s autopsy showed there was foul play, so his death was ruled a homicide by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, according to the release.

An inmate has been identified as a suspect but has not been charged. The suspect will not be identified until charged.

It was a customer who typically booked striped bass fishing trips on her boat, the Kent Island-based Chasin’ Tail, once or twice per year. But when she told the angler about this year’s regulations, which limit customers to one fish per person, he said he’d have to get back to her.

“That’s what everyone says: ‘We’ll get back to you,’” Shields said. “And then you don’t hear back.”

This year in Maryland, the rules around catching the state fish, known by the nickname rockfish, are among the tightest in recent memory, not counting a moratorium in the late 1980s that spurred a resurgence of the depleted species.

Maryland charter boat crews, who make their living guiding anglers to the prized sportfish, say the catch restrictions have dampened enthusiasm and diminished bookings.

But they come amid troubling population data for the species, including five straight years of below-average tallies of baby rockfish in Maryland’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay, the birthplace of the majority of the species’ Atlantic stock. The population is considered overfished.

This year, the one-fish limit applies to all recreational anglers in the bay, whether they fish aboard private boats or on charters, which can cost upward of $125 per person. And every keeper must fit within a narrow size limit from 19 to 24 inches long. Maryland officials also canceled the trophy season, a two-week period that previously opened the spring season, during which anglers targeted the largest striped bass after their arrival in the bay to spawn.

Limits for commercial watermen were slashed 7% in the Chesapeake and the Atlantic Ocean this year. But in Maryland, that quota reduction won’t be enforced until 2025.

In March, two organizations representing charter boat companies and other watermen filed a lawsuit against the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the multistate compact that determines fishing regulations for rockfish and a host of other nearshore species. A federal judge in Baltimore rejected their request for an injunction against the rules; they’ve appealed to a higher court.

Charter captains argue the regulations’ impact on charters is excessive.

“Some people straight up say, ‘Man, I’m not coming for one fish,’” Shields said.

Some captains said they anticipate the season’s bookings could be cut in half, dealing a blow not only to their businesses, but also to the hotels, tackle shops, and bars and restaurants frequented by their customers.

“There was no consideration of the economic impact,” said retired Capt. Robert Newberry, chair of the Delmarva Fisheries Association, which represents local watermen.

Delmarva Fisheries is part of the lawsuit against the Atlantic States commission, alongside the Maryland Charter Boat Association.

“We haven’t lost,” Newberry said. “We haven’t lost until we’re out of gas, and we’ve still got three-quarters of a tank.”

Maryland officials actually fought against the one-fish limit at the Atlantic States commission, said Mike Luisi, associate director of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ Fishing and Boating Services. Luisi proposed that charter boats, unlike regular recreational anglers, be eligible to keep two fish per person. But other states nixed the proposal, and Maryland did not appeal.

“We had an objective and it was challenging, to say the least, when we got back, to explain to people that this is what the rules are going to be,” Luisi said.

For some customers, the pull of a day on the bay is still enough. Marc Combs, a resident of Taylorsville in Carroll County, traveled across the Bay Bridge to Kent Island for his charter trip on the second day of the season, with three friends.

“Right now, you’re just doing it for fun — to get away from work — versus coming down here to try and get fish to put in the refrigerator,” he said, pulling four Ziploc bags of pink, freshly fileted stripers from a cooler in the bed of his truck.

“One 19-inch fish isn’t going to do a lot of feeding too many people,” he said.

The story of this year’s limits goes back to a 2019 stock assessment, which found the rockfish in the Atlantic and the Chesapeake to be overfished, said Emilie Franke, fishery management plan coordinator at the Atlantic States commission. That triggered a target: recovering the species by 2029.

A few years in, rockfish seemed on pace for a 10-year recovery. But in 2022, the commission noticed a worrisome jump in recreational harvest, Franke said: an 88% increase relative to 2021’s data. The high mortality slashed the likelihood of a resurgence by 2029.

The likely cause? The coming-of-age of the rockfish born in 2015 — the last time there was a truly robust birth year for stripers in the Chesapeake.

“When more fish become available to the fishery, oftentimes that can lead to increased effort,” Franke said. “However, the unexpected part here is the magnitude of that increase.”

The number of spawning-age females has been mostly declining since about 2010, when it was 230 million pounds, she said. In 2021, the most recent year with data, it was 143 million pounds, compared with a target of 235 million pounds.

Still, “we’re not in the dark days of striped bass depletion that we were in the 1980s,” said Dave Secor, a professor and fisheries scientist at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons Island.

But new hazards have entered the fray against stripers.

Invasive blue catfish could be “a big smoking gun,” Secor said. The ever-hungry predators have taken hold in Maryland’s bay tributaries, arriving from Virginia, where they were introduced, and they have been known to gobble up large quantities of young striped bass.

“I hope I’m wrong. I hope that we get a strong year class. It’s still very feasible to get a strong year class,” Secor said. “It’s just this constant, serial, year-after-year low recruitment is suggestive of the actions of a dominant predator — blue catfish.”

Warming waters in the Chesapeake also could be playing a role. The spring migration of rockfish is driven by water temperature, and with recent warm winters and less snowmelt, adult stripers are arriving earlier for spawning, when juvenile’s food sources such as zooplankton are less abundant.

The availability of prey for older striped bass, such as Atlantic menhaden, a small baitfish that is harvested for fishmeal and oil production, is another critical factor in the species’ survival. And the pollution of the bay, which creates low-oxygen “dead zones” can threaten the beloved fish.

Meanwhile, some watermen and charter captains are skeptical about the data behind the limits. Maryland’s annual “young-of-the-year” survey, which estimates the amount of recently hatched rockfish in the bay, has happened mostly in the same locations since the survey began in 1954.

With fish behaviors potentially changing, some watermen want the survey to expand to new places, where rockfish may be more plentiful than they once were.

“It’s tough, because we know where the fish are and we’re seeing them there,” said Capt. Brandon Moore of Chasin’ Tail charters.

But maintaining the survey’s locations is key to making sound comparisons from year to year, Luisi said. The state could keep the original list intact and survey extra sites, but doing so would come at a cost of time and resources for the department, he said.

Still, aboard the charters, some things haven’t changed. For customers who catch a silvery striped bass within the limits, the thrill remains.

“I cast the rod and then within two minutes I had the first bite,” said Rodolfo “Rudy” Burgos Salazar, who caught three rockfish during a recent trip, though he was new to fishing.

Kneeling down, Burgos Salazar pulled folded dollar bills from his sock.

“I wanted three fish, so I put three dollars in,” he said with a laugh.

Striped bass

But the narrow size window causes plenty of disappointment, particularly for young children or first-time anglers, said Capt. Tilghman Hemsley. It’s a dramatic decline from last year’s, when anglers could keep fish up to 31 inches.

“You’re throwing the big fish,” Hemsley said. “People have never caught a big fish like that before.”

Not all of the released fish survive. As waters warm, the catch-and-release process becomes even more arduous for the rockfish. Maryland has instituted a two-week summer closure this year, as in past years, opting not to extend it further.

When his charter boat reaches its limit, the crew turns its attention to other species, including baitfish such as spot, Hemsley said. When waters warm, crabbing could fill the time, or fishing for Spanish mackerel and bluefish.

Aboard the Breezin’ Thru, a 75-year-old charter, customers are served a menu of fresh Chesapeake fare to pass the time, including crabcakes, steamed crabs and fried fish.

“The real value is, we’re going to take you away from what you do for a whole day,” Hemsley said. “And you don’t have to travel to Mexico to do it. You can do it right here in Maryland.”

Many leaders of the Underground Railroad, the secret network of those escaping slavery and those who assisted them, remained anonymous. But the figures being honored on the stamp include Catharine Coffin, Frederick Douglass, Thomas Garrett, Laura Haviland, Lewis Hayden, Harriet Jacobs, William Lambert, the Rev. Jermain Loguen, William Still and Harriet Tubman.

“The ingenuity and resilience of the freedom seekers and those who bravely assisted them in the face of adversity are truly inspiring and deserve to be commemorated,” the U.S. Postal Service said in an emailed statement to The Baltimore Sun. “Our stamps are miniature works of art that highlight the American experience, an experience the 10 men and women featured on these stamps worked ceaselessly to improve for many throughout their lives.”

Here are the contributions to the Underground Railroad of some of the people honored:

•  Coffin was a white woman who provided food, clothing and shelter to thousands of slaves who came to her home in Indiana.
• Douglass was born into slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, escaped north in 1838 and helped hundreds of slaves by hiding them in his home in New York.
• Garrett was a white man dedicated to freeing slaves after rescuing a free African American servant of the Garrett family who was kidnapped by slave traders. He would become a stationmaster, hiding fugitive slaves in his home for more than four decades.
• Tubman was born into slavery in early 1822 near Cambridge on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. She repeatedly returned to Maryland to liberate family, friends and neighbors, using the Underground Railroad.

The stamps will feature the faces of the people honored as well as words that embody the essence of the secret network, such as cooperation, trust, danger, faith and courage.

“The Underground Railroad was a collaborative effort involving diverse individuals and communities throughout the country,” the postal service told The Sun in an email. “It demonstrated the power of collective action and solidarity in achieving social change, even when the odds seemed insurmountable.”

Customers may purchase the stamps at usps.com/shopstamps, by calling 844-737-7826, by mail through USA Philatelic or at post offices nationwide.

Each Forever stamp will cost 68 cents, and the multistamp design will be $13.60. Forever stamps, created in 2007, can be used to mail first-class letters no matter the postal rate.

part of the annual commemorative stamp program, meaning”] The postal service will produce one print run of commemorative issuances of the Underground Railroad stamp with the goal of keeping a sales window open for one to two years.

The ceremony will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center in Church Creek. Attendees are asked to register at usps.com/undergroundrailroad.

Ongoing: Maryland Irish Festival

Party like a leprechaun at the 49th annual Maryland Irish Festival at the Maryland State Fairgrounds’ Cow Palace Building, 2200 York Road, Timonium. Enjoy traditional food, drink, dancing and music. Admission is $18 for adults 18 to 64 and $10 for seniors 65 and over on Friday and Sunday. Saturday admission costs $25 for adults and $20 for seniors. Children 17 and under get in free. Date and times are Friday 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.; Saturday noon to 11 p.m. and Sunday noon to 6 p.m. There will be a Catholic Mass on Sunday at 10:30 a.m. irishfestival.com

Friday, Saturday and Sunday

Ongoing: Peabody Heights Bash

Celebrate 11 years of craft brewing at the Peabody Heights Brewery’s 11 Year Anniversary Bash at 401 E. 30th St. Sample variants of the Astrodon, named for the Maryland state dinosaur. Live music and food trucks will be there. Ticket prices range from $6 to $8. Dates and times are: Friday 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday noon to 10 p.m. and Sunday noon to 8 p.m. eventbrite.com

Friday, Saturday and Sunday

Friday: Baltimore City Veterans Day Parade

Honor those who served in this nation’s military at the Baltimore City Veterans Day Parade. The parade marches from the Washington Monument to the War Memorial Plaza. There will be a wreath laying at the Black Soldiers Memorial. The grand marshal this year is Major Gen. Janeen L. Birckhead, the adjutant general of the Maryland National Guard. The event is free. mayor.baltimorecity.gov

Friday noon to 1:30 p.m.

Saturday: Winter on the Waterfront

Celebrate Winter on the Waterfront, a showcase of activities from the Waterfront Partnership, which aims to “transform Baltimore’s promenade into a winter wonderland” from November to January. The transformation begins this weekend with the opening of the Inner Harbor Ice Rink. The first 50 children who attend the ice rink will receive free skating and skate rental along with hot cocoa and treats. Tickets to the ice rink are $12-$15. Also opening is the waterfront Made in Baltimore Holiday Pop-Up, featuring makers from Baltimore offering their wares and products at 301 Light St. waterfrontpartnership.org

Saturday 11 a.m.

Friday 7:30 p.m.

Saturday: Cocktail and Mezcal Popup

Clavel, the Baltimore-based taqueria and mezcaleria, will host a cocktail takeover at Ruse restaurant, 209 N. Talbot St. in St. Michaels. Chef Michael Correll will create a special menu with sea urchin and hamachi tostada, blue crab and scallop tostada, raw Kumiai oysters and more. The event is free. ruserestaurant.com

Saturday 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Events calendar

Discover more events or submit your own.

After 40 years of effort, the bay and its rivers and streams are improving in many places. The resurgence of underwater grass beds at the mouth of the Susquehanna River and oyster reefs in Harris Creek on the Eastern Shore are sparkling examples of success. Long-term, the bay’s annual dead zone is shrinking. Yet these bright spots are complicated by setbacks elsewhere — losses of heat-sensitive eel grass in the southern bay, struggling striped bass populations, the fact that less than a third of the bay’s waters meet water quality standards while the bay partnership misses another deadline to reduce pollution.

As we reckon with these realities, the movement is also facing enormous challenges. Climate change is making restoration harder through rising water temperatures, extreme storms and sea level rise. With nearly 6 million more people living in the watershed today than in 1980, polluted runoff from urban and suburban areas is growing. Agriculture — the largest remaining source of pollution in the watershed — is intensifying in places like the Delmarva Peninsula.

Even so, I am more energized than ever that this is our chance for a modern environmental awakening. My optimism is rooted in recent studies showing the dead zone would be larger and striped bass habitat smaller without the work we’ve done so far. But moving beyond holding the line demands new approaches.

To succeed in the next chapter of bay-saving, we’re going to have to widen conservation’s historically narrow lens. We can’t focus so pointedly on trying to recreate the past that we neglect to build for the future — a future that recognizes that nature and human communities are intertwined.

We can create a watershed that is resilient and full of life. We can create food systems that pollute less while producing nutritious foods and supporting local economies. We can create cities and homes that have green spaces, use energy efficiently and produce as little waste as possible. We can have air that is safe to breathe and water that is safe to drink. We can do this not only in the face of a changing climate, but in ways that reduce climate change and its impacts. We can do this while honoring the heritage of our past. And we can do it for everyone.

But it is a future we have to actively choose when we design our communities and our infrastructure, manage our farms, run our businesses, educate the next generation and shape policy.

This is the task, and the opportunity, facing Gov. Moore, the executive council, the Bay Program partnership, and all of us who care about the bay.

Thankfully, we also have new science to guide us. In May, dozens of scientists who advise the Chesapeake Bay Program released a landmark report — known by its acronym CESR — that is the most comprehensive evaluation to date of what is working and what needs improvement.

The report underscores an urgent need to reinvent and reinvigorate restoration programs, especially the programs addressing pollution washing off agricultural and urban landscapes. Almost all progress to date has come from reducing pollution at wastewater treatment plants. Nearly all future progress must come from tackling complex, landscape-scale pollution.

The report also highlights opportunities to accelerate benefits for human and wildlife communities by focusing on shallow waters and local streams in addition to the bay’s deepest channel — the primary focus of restoration to date. We must also explicitly address climate change while ensuring efforts are inclusive and equitable. And it is critical that these changes strengthen, not undermine, accountability measures.

Standing on the shoulders of the environmental giants who got us here, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a healthy, resilient watershed in the face of a changing climate for everyone. But only if we act now, and only if we act together. As Gov. Moore said, this isn’t just about one state, one agency, or one organization; this is an “all of the above” situation. We need to use the science and the data. But we also need to use our heart — our passion, our energy, our compassion and our courage.

Hilary Harp Falk (Chesapeake@cbf.org) is president and CEO of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.