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June 27, 2024 Battle on the Beach Photos and Results

Board Nominations

There are four (4) Board seats up for election at the end of summer meeting on August 31, 2024; each seat has a 2-year term. The terms of Holly Fluty Dempsey, Don Deraska, Kerry Hall and Bob Wood terms will be expiring. Don and Holly have announced they do not intend to run for re-election.

Candidates can be nominated 3 different ways: nominated by the Nominating Committee, sending your name in writing to the President, or being nominated from the floor at the August 31 meeting (note that many Community Members cast their ballots before the actual meeting).

If you are interested in running, please click HERE for further details. A candidate forum will be held by Zoom on Monday, August 19th, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Each candidate will have time to explain their interest in being on the Board and answer questions from the community.

Please consider running for election and helping our community.

2024 Happy Hours

The ever-popular Middlesex Happy Hours are continuing this season. Click for pictures from the May 4, 2024 Happy Hour held at the 4 Errett Road home of David Burgess and Kate Mounteer, and the June 15, 2024 Happy Hour at the 26 Short home of Wendy and John Thiede.

Our next Happy Hour will be on Friday, August 16 at the home of Jeff and Mickie Rivest, 29 Dune Rd. (A – L finger food/appetizers, M – Z drinks.)

Geoff Myers Lifesaving Invitational Competition

Please join us on our beach on Thursday, August 1 for one of the last 2024 competitions for the local Beach Patrols. This competition is a relay competition consisting of 6 person teams from each patrol. It is named in honor of the man who organized our beach patrol for close to 2 decades and emphasizes lifesaving skills, such as water rescues.

CONTINUING TO FIGHT DIRTY!

Sign up as a volunteer to patrol the streets for litter.  Expectation is that you’ll walk the street as often as necessary (at least once a week…daily if you’re compulsive & up to it!  Time of day is up to you) for the week you sign up [we are starting the patrol week on Fridays], pick up any litter you see & deposit it in the nearest community trash bin.  East side should cover the assigned street and one block of Dune Road to the south of it.  Volunteers are entitled to a Middlesex Beach cap (while supplies last!).  Contact Don Deraska to claim yours!  Bounty still out for information leading to the identification of the “Coors Lite Person!!!”

Beach Safety Education/Hot Dog Picnics

Several times each summer (every other Sunday), the Middlesex Beach Patrol holds safety seminars for kids on the beach starting at 1PM. They go over beach rules and teach them how to be safe and read the waves. This is followed by games for kids, and hot dogs for everyone. The last one will be on August 4 (weather permitting).

65 Summers of Middlesex

Also being planned is a celebration of the upcoming 65 Summers of Middlesex. Modeled in some fashion after the wildly successful 2009 celebration of 50 Summers of Middlesex and the 2014 celebration of 55 Summers of Middlesex held on our beach, the summer will wrap up with a celebration over Labor Day weekend. Stay tuned for further information on this and potential 65 summers swag.

2024-25 TRASH SCHEDULE

Click HERE for a copy of the 2024-25 Trash and Recycling pickup schedule. This schedule includes Yard Waste pickup every other Wednesday through October. Yard Waste for this pickup must be properly prepared: either put such waste in paper bags or tied with cotton string into bundles no more than 4’ long.

SPRING 2024 LANDSCAPING SURVEY

On March 31, 2024, MBA emailed a Landscaping Survey to the Primary Property Owner for each property. Click HERE for further information.

Updates on Drainage

Internal Drainage update:

MBA contracted with Harry Caswell to blow debris out of all our driveway culverts and other underground piping. They worked from Monday, March 11 thru Friday, March 22, before significant standing water at the west ends of most ditches prevent the last stretches from being done. Those portions were addressed in late April.

External Drainage update:

DNREC has completed the second survey of the ditching and drainage areas along Kent Ave. They are awaiting the data from that survey to determine the best way to drain the most water out into the Assawoman Bay. Paul and Margie joined a round-table group of representatives from South Bethany, Bayside Tennis Club, Sea Colony, and MBA for an informal conversation about drainage, water, and how our communities are impacted.

South Bethany is working on plans to mitigate the flooding that occurs in Cat Hill. (MBA’s ditches along Evergreen, Addy and Bridge, in addition to the ditches adjacent the Tennis Club including one parallel to MBA’s Pine Path, also drain through Cat Hill.) This water is supposed to drain into the Assawoman Canal through the marsh which is owned by Sea Colony. Sea Colony says there was a ditch that provided this drainage and remnants of it can still be seen, but over the years this ditch has filled in with debris and no longer works the way it is supposed to. Sea Colony has tried several times to get permits to clear it out without success.

Bayside Tennis is very aware there is no outlet for their ditch water and the ditch is filled with debris. About 7 years ago, DNREC used prisoners to clear it out, but don’t think they’ll get support for doing that now. They can see where the outlet is supposed to be, but it isn’t there.

Paul and Margie told them about the work MBA has been doing with Tyler Brown at DNREC the past three or four years; and about the ditch project in MBA begun two years ago which continues this year with cleaning the ditches and clearing culverts of debris.

Currently there is a dredging project actively cleaning the Assawoman Canal adjacent Bahamas Beach Cottages and Sea Colony. There is a new kayak launching park being planned by the State Parks in the same area across the canal from Sea Colony’s kayak launching area. Everyone at the table was hopeful that this project would speed along the work to fix the drainage from Kent Ave.

Everyone also agreed that we should continue to meet and share information. There was discussion of including Bahamas Beach Cottages, but it was agreed that their needs are a little different and it is premature to bring them in now. (MBA’s Errett, Bayberry and Short Roads drain into the ditches along the west/north side of Kent Ave towards Bahamas Beach Cottages.)

Dune Grass Planting

Dune Grass PlantingEmployees of Mike Jandzen’s Aquatic Marine filling in bare spots on our dunes with Cape American Dune Grass in early February, 2024.Dune Grass Planting

2023-24 BOARD MEETING SCHEDULE

Over the summer, due to other uses of our regular meeting room, the MBA Board will meet via ZOOM at 9:00 AM on the third Saturday of the month. (In the offseason, MBA Board meetings are usually held in the meeting room of the Bethany West Community Center, 602 Poplar Court, Bethany Beach.)

The community may participate via ZOOM. Click HERE for further information.

For further information regarding MBA meetings or events, please contact the Board of Directors.

MBA Organizational Chart | MBA Terms and Conditions of Website Use

Some outside links of interest