A Virginia Beach Neighborhood Association Founded in 1944
Category: Uncategorized
Do you make good chili… REALLY good chili? The best cornbread? The BEST cake? Put it to the test! Enter today!We need more entries!! Winners receive a coveted one of a kind Chili Cook Off Winner Apron!
JUST over a WEEK to Chilli Cook off on Thursday, Feb. 5th 6:00 pm at OPVRS! Please Sign up to help out! We need folks to help set up, hand out voting tickets and monitor supplies! You can sign up for a slot here! . It’s a great way to meet your neighbors!
Social Committee Meeting on Monday, Feb. 2nd at 6 pm at OPVRS! We will make final plans and do some crafty stuff…
Civic league dues are for the calendar year so we are in 2026 now so time to RENEW or JOIN! Whenever you paid in 2025, your 2026 dues are due now. Memberships start at the start of the calendar year, not at the time you paid last year. Pay with PayPal or Cheddar Up online.
Support the great work that the civic league does! Only $25 annually for a household! We are trying to keep costs low but they have increased for the civic league too! If you can give more than the minimum $25, it would be greatly appreciated!!
What does your membership pay for? The civic league budget pays for the costs of getting information out – website costs, email blast Mailchimp services, snail mail post office box, IT services. We make contributions to the Ocean Park Volunteer Rescue Squad,Lynnhaven River Now, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Friends of Live Oaks and we give a four year $1500 college scholarship every year. The civic league puts on many great neighborhood social events with food, music and fun for the kids: Chili Cook Off, Easter Egg Hunt, Fourth of July Parade, Holiday Light Parade. Spring Fling and Fall Fest are open only to members. Please help support your neighborhood civic league!!
Help plan our professional fireworks display for the USA’s 250th Anniversary! Due to significant constraints on vendor equipment and staff availability, we have two options for this year’s fireworks display date. The graphic shows the two options and compares them to 2025.
Please share your opinion so we can gauge the community’s preference and determine the best path forward for the 2026 July Fireworks. Please respond by Wednesday, January 28th.
The Options:
July 6 (Lower Cost): We share the barge, equipment and crew used for the July 4 oceanfront show.
2. July 2 (Higher Cost): Requires finding and renting a separate barge, equipment and crew, which are currently scarce due to HRBT/CBBT construction.
Key Reminders:
*Donations are critical: Fundraising was down last year, and 2026 prices are at a premium. We need your support to pull this off!
Safety first: Beach launches are strictly prohibited and illegal. The city will heavily enforce fireworks laws this year.
Keep it local: This is a permitted “private” community event. Promoting it to the general public would trigger requirements for extra security, parking and facilities that we cannot afford.
A few questions have come up in the comments on the fireworks survey. Perhaps others would also be interested in the information. Our Fireworks Chair Jill Doczi, who has been doing this since 2011, responds:
Why can’t the fireworks show be on July 3, 4 or 5? We have been informed by the Fire Marshal that we would not receive a permit for July 3 or 4 due to staffing constraints. A fire marshal must be on site for the duration of loading, set up and the show. To have it on July 5, our show would have to begin loading early on July 4 posing the same city staffing issue.
Why don’t we have people stationed at the beach accesses to collect money from those who attend but don’t live in the neighborhood or from neighbors who forgot but may donate on the spot? We place donation signs at each beach access with a QR code for this purpose. Having people collecting cash would not only be unsafe for the volunteers, would also be impossible to track, and sadly could open us up to theft. We discourage cash donations in general so we can provide accountability.
Why don’t we collect donations from the high rises and Westminster Canterbury?We already do. The organizing communities for the show are Baylake Pines and Ocean Park. We collect from every household in Ocean Park including Pelican Dunes, Chesapeake House, Bay Vista, 3556 on the Bay, Aeries on the Bay, Water Oaks and Three Ships Landing. Additional communities like Chesapeake Beach and Westminster help through donations and we thank them for their support.
Why can’t we collect earlier? Great idea! We can start promoting earlier through all our communication channels. Donations are welcomed at any time through the fireworks page on our website. We don’t distribute envelopes earlier because regardless of when we put them on mailboxes, most donations start coming in June. If we distribute too early, the envelopes get set aside and forgotten or lost.
The Bayfront Advisory Commission Meeting on January 15, offered a number of updates on local bayfront projects: interim sidewalks, dune grass planting and PHP kayak launch.
Public Works presented an updates on the Shore Drive Interim Sidewalk Project for Ocean Park.
Updated Timeline for the project shows a May 2026 start but efforts being made to move it up.
Dune grass planting will happen this spring to replace some of the 2022 Beach Nourishment project planting that has died.
A kayak launch was a part of the original plans for the Pleasure House Point Wetlands Mitigation Project from 2012. The Pleasure House Point Kayak Launch with limited parking construction project was included in the City’s 2012 plan and was slated to begin once funds were allocated. The city will engage the public about next steps for the plans for the kayak launch at Pleasure House Point with the first public meeting perhaps in May. The city is actively seeking public input on whether this project should move forward and how.
At the September 2024 OPCL meeting, Michael Wagner-Diggs, MBA, PRP, served as Parliamentarian to assist with rules of order and interpretation of the existing bylaws. Following his review, he strongly recommended that the OPCL Bylaws undergo a comprehensive revision.
While the immediate priority prompting this update was to clarify the number of votes per member and to define membership categories and eligibility, it is considered best practice to review the entire bylaws document whenever any amendments are proposed.
Because changes to the bylaws require a two-thirds (2/3) majority vote for approval, rather than a simple majority, conducting a full review ensures efficiency, consistency, and alignment with current governance and operational needs.
After review, most of the recommended edits or updates are wording or language changes (about 16) allowing for clearer understanding. Approximately 11 edits or additions would change policy or process. The key below has been created to assist members in easily identifying the edits themselves, the explanation of and type of changes.
We have much to look back on in 2025 and be grateful for! Thank you to our Ocean Park neighbors for all that you contribute to our neighborhood: your wonderful friendliness and willingness to help and come together, your passion to improve our community and your imagination for what more we could do together! Looking forward to 2026 and all that it brings knowing this is a great place to live!
Upcoming events:
Social Committee Meeting on Monday, January 5th at OPVRS at 6 pm (CHILI COOKOFF PLANNING!)
General Membership Meeting on Thursday, January 8th at OPVRS at 7pm.
CHILI COOKOFF! Thursday, February 5th 6-8 pm at OPVRS.
A Year in Review!!
Chili Cookoff Winners!Apron Prize Designer Betty! Piling Day: Summer is coming!PHP Clean Ups!
Ocean Park Civic League 