Only Two File to Run For School Board's Three Open Seats

The deadline to file petitions to run for seats on the Ocean City Board of Education passed at 4 p.m. Tuesday (June 4), and only two candidates stepped up to fill three open seats for three-year terms.

Incumbent Ray Clark will seek his second term, and former board president Pete Madden will look to return to the board. School elections are now part of the fall general election, scheduled for Nov. 5 this year.

The three-year terms of Clark, current board President Brenda Moiso and board member Lloyd Hayes are expiring.

Moiso and Hayes will not seek re-election.

"I thought there was a group of young people who were going to get involved," Hayes said on Tuesday. "I guess they didn't."

Clark, an Ocean City firefighter and father of two daughters in the district, was the top vote-getter among four candidates in the 2010 election.

Madden, a broker manager with Prudential Fox & Roach and father of four, served one term on the board and was president 2010 to 2011. But he was defeated in the November 2012 election that re-elected James Bauer and Tom Oves and brought Jacqueline McAlister to the board.

The third seat will be filled by a write-in candidate for Nov. 5 election, and if there is none, the county superintendent will make an appointment.

Ocean City's Board of Education includes nine members from Ocean City and three from sending districts.