Worcester County — 2026 General Election
2026-11-03 · 17 races covered
Worcester County
Worcester County is Maryland's southeasternmost county, extending from Pocomoke City and Snow Hill through Berlin, Ocean Pines, West Ocean City, and Ocean City. County government is led by a seven-member Board of County Commissioners, with one commissioner elected from each district.
Elections
Recent meetings
Worcester County Commissioners — August 18, 2026
2026-08-18 · Recap
The Worcester County Commissioners met August 18, 2026 with three of seven members absent. The headline action came before any formal business: commissioners voted to remove agenda item 24, a proposed one-year moratorium on rezoning applications along the MD Rt. 589 corridor, which prompted the meeting's only public comment. Attorney Hugh Cropper, representing Turville Creek Farms and other property owners, urged commissioners to let his clients' pending rezoning application be heard.
The rest of the meeting was largely operational and financial: a 15-item consent agenda covering grants, utility agreements, and equipment purchases; an unmodified FY25 audit opinion from CliftonLarsonAllen; adoption of a new Consolidated Public Works Agreement governing future road and utility development projects; and roughly $1.4 million in approved contracts, leases, and purchases. Commissioners also tabled a proposal to retroactively apply the county's new water-bill adjustment policy, directing staff to narrow it to customers who had already appealed.
Worcester County Commissioners — August 4, 2026
2026-08-04 · Recap
The Worcester County Commissioners spent most of their August 4 open session moving quickly through routine purchasing, equipment and utility items, then landed on two substantive policy fights. The first was Commissioner Bertino's motion to have staff prepare options for a one-time rebate to Homestead Property Tax Credit recipients funded by distributing the roughly $15.2 million Budget Stabilization Fund, which failed on a 3-4 vote after sharp disagreement about who the reserve belongs to and what it should pay for.
The second was a unanimous direction to staff to draft language imposing a moratorium on rezoning applications involving upzoning along MD Rt. 589 between U.S. Rt. 50 and U.S. Rt. 113, prompted by Commissioner Bunting's reflection on the withdrawn Rezoning Case No. 453 and the pressure development is placing on that corridor. The meeting also included commendations for Worcester Technical High School students and an FFA contest winner, a 16-item consent agenda, and a $118,910.88 award for 72 replacement AEDs.
Worcester County Commissioners — July 21, 2026
2026-07-21 · Recap
The Worcester County Commissioners spent most of this meeting on land use. They unanimously adopted Resolution No. 26-18, imposing a twelve-month moratorium on data center and cable landing station applications while staff drafts Zoning Code language for those uses, and they introduced a text amendment bill that would allow larger residential accessory structures on lots without a principal structure.
The scheduled public hearing on Rezoning Case No. 453 — a request to rezone roughly 14.72 acres on Racetrack Road in Berlin from R-2 to R-3 for 88 townhomes — ended without a vote after the applicant's attorney withdrew the request mid-hearing, following opposition from the Ocean Pines Association and skeptical comments from several commissioners about traffic and infrastructure. The commissioners also approved a ten-item consent agenda covering grants, equipment purchases, and a letter opposing a proposed community solar project near Pocomoke City. Commissioner Bertino was absent.
Worcester County Commissioners — July 7, 2026
2026-07-07 · Recap
The Worcester County Commissioners worked through a long July 7 agenda that mixed routine consent items with several significant land-use and spending decisions. The commissioners denied a siting modification for a proposed 4.95-megawatt community solar project on Old Virginia Road in Pocomoke City, finding it inconsistent with the county's Comprehensive Plan, and approved a rezoning in Snow Hill on a 5-2 vote. They also awarded a $373,030 solid waste environmental monitoring contract and approved a series of over-expenditures for software, construction change orders, a landfill position upgrade, and West Ocean City EMS.
The day's two most consequential discussions came at opposite ends of the agenda: a $406,662.90 bill for the county's FY26 share of private pre-kindergarten costs under the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, which commissioners postponed 5-2 pending more information from staff, and an afternoon work session on data centers and cable landing stations that ended with a unanimous vote for a one-year moratorium while zoning regulations are drafted.
Worcester County Commissioners — June 16, 2026
2026-06-16 · Recap
The Worcester County Commissioners spent most of this meeting on a re-opened land-use hearing and on unfinished business from the FY27 budget. After a remand from the Appellate Court of Maryland, the commissioners re-heard Rezoning Case No. 444 for a 0.78-acre parcel at 4432 Market Street in Snow Hill and voted 5-2 to approve the change from A-1 Agricultural to C-2 General Commercial, adopting the Planning Commission's findings of fact as their own.
The board also worked through a series of school-funding and spending items that split the commissioners. The FY27 Board of Education Appropriation Transmittal Schedule initially died for lack of a second, then passed 4-3 later in the meeting after the chief administrative officer explained the state requirements. Commissioners approved FY25 surplus assignments and new project funding on another 4-3 vote, rejected a motion to restore additional OPEB funding for the Board of Education on a 3-2-2 vote, and unanimously approved contracts and carryover funds for the Sheriff's Office and the Ocean Pines wastewater treatment plant.