The nursing home bill consumed most of the morning. Roughly a dozen residents
spoke during the public hearing, the large majority urging council to pass the
legislation. Speakers described around 17 to 20 staff departures in a matter
of months, a workplace they characterized as toxic, and what several called
harassment of employees by county officials who had been present at the
facility nearly daily. Two speakers proposed specific amendments: giving the
proposed commission a formal role in any decision to terminate the
administrator, and adding the administrator to the commission as a non-voting
member.
The administration pushed back sharply. The assistant director of
administration told council there was no emergency at the nursing home,
described the criticism as character assassination, and argued the current
administrator had uncovered deficiencies that predecessors had concealed. The
county executive followed, saying she supported an advisory board in concept
but objected to two provisions: council's authority to terminate the
administrator on a 5-vote margin, which she said violates the county charter,
and language stating the county "shall operate" the nursing home, which she
warned carried unexamined legal consequences. She said the county attorney had
recommended a veto if the bill passed unchanged.
Council then worked through seven amendments, all adopted unanimously,
including replacing a county health officer seat with a resident family
advocate, making the administrator a non-voting ex officio member, and
pushing a personnel system deadline out to the FY2028 budget. Two further
amendments that would have softened council's removal authority failed 5 to
2. The bill passed as amended 6 to 1.
A recurring thread ran through the debate: nobody could say clearly what the
nursing home legally is. Council members reported that its employees receive
paychecks that are not county paychecks but draw county retirement and health
benefits, that a nonprofit said to operate it appears to have no functioning
board, and that the code section describing the county's role was deleted in
2006. Legal counsel told council that a 2020 lawsuit over a nursing home
contract named only Wicomico County as defendant, that the law department's own
answer admitted the county owns and operates the facility, and that the case was
settled for $400,000 without notice to council.
In the afternoon work session, the new owner of Hebron Woods asked council to
reconsider the county's 15% mobile home park tax, in place since 1978. He
argued it falls on a uniquely vulnerable group — seniors, fixed-income and
working families — and applies to no other form of housing. The planning
director noted that while the tax is levied on park licensees, every other park
in the county absorbs it into lot rent, and that billing it separately amounts
to a de facto lot rent increase beyond the 10% annual cap state law allows new
owners. A resident said the prior rent had already included the tax, so the
separate charge effectively billed it twice.