On Tuesday evening June 17, an incident took place at the Lynnhaven Boat Ramp. There were reported shots fired and a large police presence at around 9 PM. A community meeting is being organized by Councilman Schulman when the facts of the incident are clear. As more information becomes available, we will post it immediately.
Please Renew/Join the Civic League-only $25!!
Support the Ocean Park Civic League today! Join for $25. (donations also welcome!)
Please support the work of the civic league with $25 membership if you live in Ocean Park. What’s in it for you?
- Great social events (Fall Fest is around the corner, Spring Fling was awesome- both free to members plus Easter Egg Hunt, Chili Cook Off, Holiday Lighted Bike Ride, Holiday Party, Fireworks and July 4th Parade of course, Movie Night on the Beach.
- The civic league works hard to advocate for the neighborhood, communicating with the city on issues that affect the community. OPCL is an important voice for the community, please support your neighborhood and join here! Only $25 per household for 2025!
🎇Fireworks 🎆History Part 2💥!
From our Fireworks master Jill Doczi comes the second installment of how the Independence Day Fireworks funded by individual contributions came about:
“July 2011: Our first authorized show in 2010, organized by our Ocean Park Civic League president, Rick Mercadante, was a huge hit. In his words, “We started the summer by celebrating our nation’s birth with a fantastic fireworks display that exceeded all expectations. I was proud of the way our neighborhood came together in a grassroots effort to make this happen. What a great country to live in, and even better, what a great neighborhood we live in.
Rick’s accomplishment set the ball in motion for our new, safer tradition, and it did indeed accomplish the goal of curbing the night-long illegal fireworks along our beach. However, at the end of his commitment to our country, he received his final call — to Djibouti. Before he left, Rick asked me to take on his project. If someone didn’t keep it rolling, we wouldn’t have a fireworks celebration of our country’s independence anymore on our beach.
As a child, fireworks seemed magical to me. The anticipation of the explosions followed by the surprise of colorful displays were a once-a-year treat in Roanoke if we were lucky enough to have someone drive us downtown, find parking, squeeze into bleachers with thousands of others and watch our city display over a football field. At the time Rick asked me, I had small children who had only ever known the un-hassled Independence Day tradition of walking down to the beach with family and friends to watch fireworks with reflections on the water and the sound of waves as the backdrop to our “Ooooos” and “Ahhhhhs.” I wanted them to grow up with those memories. I agreed with hesitation. Little did we know, this would be a learning year.”
Help Us Keep Ocean Park Clean, Safe and Welcoming!
The city has noted a significant increase in personal items stored in the beach area, which hinders clear and safe access paths, dunes, and shorelines. Here’s what you need to know:
- Unspoiled Beach & Storing Personal Items – Chairs, hammocks, kayaks, paddleboards, and any other items abandoned or stored on the beach, access paths, or dunes will need to be removed.
- Sailboat Rules – Sailcraft must be appropriately secured and not stationed on the dunes or blocking access points.
- Act Now! – The city can remove and impound any personal items in the dunes or on the beach or accesses. Owners will be responsible for retrieval costs.
These actions help maintain a safe, accessible, and enjoyable beach for everyone.
Sunday? Why are the 🎇Fireworks 🎆 on July 6th?
Putting on the fireworks show over the bay that we enjoy every year is more complicated than many folks realize. This year the date of Sunday, July 6th was chosen carefully with many factors of cost and logistics in mind. Fireworks czar Jill Doczi explains:
Let’s start with the barge:
“ We can’t just use any barge. It has to be a certain-sized, oceangoing barge with a certain kind of edge around it and certain features. There are major, multi-year projects on the HRBT and the CBBT utilizing those types of barges, and the cost to get those to unload all their equipment, suspend their scheduled work and move from their locations for two days would be unthinkable. We (and the oceanfront) almost didn’t have a show about three years ago because there was no barge to be found in along the East Coast. We, the city, the fireworks company, etc. looked hard for months before we found one, which we shared. When there is a shortage of barges, you work with what you have. What we have is a barge being used already on July 4 that we are lucky to be using. We explored the option of doing it on Saturday, but the cost was way too high.“
Contraints on the crew for the fireworks:
“A crew, each of which has to be highly vetted far ahead of time by multiple security agencies, is dedicated to our show. It IS essentially a giant bomb that floats past vital shipyards, Little Creek Amphib Base and over major tunnel-bridges like HRBT and CBBT, so the people involved can’t just be found on the street to work for a day gig. They must have multiple permits at the federal and state level as well as longshoreman insurance.“
“It takes over a day to load in Chesapeake for that first show. Then it takes half a day to get to that shooting location. They shoot on Friday night at the Oceanfront, and it takes them the same amount of time to get back to Chesapeake, where the crew gets to rest because they’ve already been working nonstop with dangerous cargo since early the day before. Then they go back to work to prep and load our show, which will take a day to do.“
“If we wanted to shoot on Saturday night, the crew would have to be relieved by a second crew after being up so long, and our show would absorb the cost of the second crew, their permit fees, their travel, hotel, per diem, lodging, insurance, etc. If you’ve ever worked in maritime, insurance for Jones Act and workers comp is crazy. That second crew would then sail over to us (taking half a day), shoot our show and return in the middle of the night to Chesapeake to disassemble, load their things and go home.“
“BOTTOM LINE: We couldn’t absorb the 💰cost of a second crew, nor could we absorb the cost of a separate barge on our own (if there was one even available), so it became: Give the crew the required and necessary break and shoot on Sunday night or don’t have a show. The neighborhoods chose to have a show.“
“Keep in mind, this is only the logistics of the barge and crew. We also need to have an available tug and staff, the city services must be available on a busy holiday. VB fire marshal must be on site the entire time in Chesapeake while the barge and explosives are there, then on site here in our beach while the barge is here. As you can imagine, the fire marshal’s department is busy July 4, so they’re stretched thin. We also have to have a plan in place with a city special events person, beach police,⚓️ maritime police and Coast Guard to be on site for our show. They are stretched thin on July 4 as well.“
Jill continues: “I’m anticipating the next question.”
Why can’t we just have it on the beach and get rid of about half those issues?
- We aren’t allowed to close off a large area of the public beach for the entire holiday weekend to prepare, load and have a show on the sand. Can you imagine how upset people would be if we had to block off our beach across multiple accesses? But that doesn’t matter anyway because of the next answer.
- After the Ocracoke fireworks explosion in July 2009 that killed and injured multiple people, safety rules tightened up everywhere. You can only load shows that are far enough away from people and structures to keep them from harm. So we can’t trot giant 8-foot-diameter explosives down the beach paths all day with houses 16 feet on either side and people using the already full beach on a holiday. We also couldn’t place explosives with the capability of flying 800 feet sideways within 250 feet of houses and people.
- Side note: This is also why it has to load in at an industrial dock in Chesapeake. Imagine the fire power of an entire truck full of hundreds of shells and what that could do to a block of houses on Jefferson or Sandy Bay, or even the boat ramp. It would never be permitted by the fire marshal.
- There are SOME shows that can shoot from land, but, they must have a safety perimeter that meets the requirements. For instance, a 2-inch shell can fly roughly 200 feet in any direction, including sideways, so if you want to load a show with 2-inch shells or smaller, there have to be no buildings or people within 200 feet of the loading area or the show. That also means the fireworks are lower and harder to see by a wide crowd because they explode at 200 feet. A 3–inch shell needs 300 feet of load in and crowd-viewing perimeter, etc. The little ones that look like they’re exploding right above the barge deck are 2-inch shells. Our show uses up to 8-inch shells, so the whole beach gets a good view. The barge is so far out to get the necessary 800 to 1,000 feet of safety perimeter. That’s why Coast Guard and marine police are required to secure that perimeter. If an 8-inch shell got lose and shot sideways, it couldn’t hit anyone on the beach.
There is no way we could meet safety requirements to load a show in and shoot on our beach unless we’re talking some guys with bottle rockets, which would be a sad, sad show.
It’s a LOT of information. Trust me — I know. 😉 But, hopefully it answered multiple questions for multiple people. Short answer: It boils down to safety and cost. “
THANK YOU JILL AND ALL THE VOLUNTEERS AND ALL THE WONDERFUL PEOPLE WHO CONTRIBUTE TO MAKE IT HAPPEN!
Your donations are GREATLY APPRECIATED!!
LBR Data for Recent Weekends
This data comes from Michael Parkman, Parks and Rec Supervisor.
Friday, June 13 – 91 total launches, car parking did not fill. The overflow was used for 2 vehicles with trailers.
Saturday, June 14– 135 total launches, car parking was full from 10:45 am until around 5:45pm. The overflow was used for 3 vehicles with trailers.
Sunday, June 15– 75 total launches, car parking was full from 1:30pm-3:00pm. The overflow was used for 3 vehicles with trailers.
- At no point during this weekend did we have to close access to the facility.
- Review of video data from Friday until Monday morning showed about 10-15 cars in the parking lot closest to the bridge until around 11pm on Friday night. Saturday night was a bit slower overall after hours. Police real time crime took control of cameras around 2-3am Saturday morning. Appeared to be watching a small group of individuals milling around their cars.
Friday, May 30 – 93 total launches, car parking did not fill.
Saturday, May 31 – 189 total launches, car parking was full from 11 am until around 5:45pm. The overflow was used for about 48 vehicles with trailers.
Sunday, June 1– 59 total launches, car parking did not fill.
- At no point during this weekend did we have to close access to the facility.
- Saturday was a very busy day not only with launches but also lots of beachgoers. Staff did receive a complaint from a couple citizens on the beach about loud “inappropriate” music coming from a specific group on the other side of the bridge from the boat ramp property. Staff investigated but found the group to be very large and did not feel safe approaching them. Staff did advise the citizens that complained to also call police non-emergency if it continued to be an issue.
- Review of video data from Friday until Monday morning showed about 20-25 cars in the parking lot closest to the bridge between 9:30pm and 12am Friday and Saturday nights. All these cars were parked legally and there were very few people milling around the lot during this time. My assumption is that people were on the beach.
Ocean Park Baptist Church Update
Following community discussions last summer about this historic building in Ocean Park, the developer has redesigned their plans for the Ocean Park Baptist Church and surrounding property. The new plan was discussed at the June meeting. The civic league routinely does not get involved with residential variance requests, nor has it been involved in the past since 2014 when the civic league voted to discontinue the practice. The civic league is reticent to take sides between neighbors.
Plan for the Church:
- The Church built in 1949 will stay in its original footprint and is non-conforming.
- The Church building was built too close to the property lines and outside of the current setback requirements.
- 2 variances being requested from the city are for those corners so the building can remain as it is today.
- The Church building’s back corner was built over a lot line and will have to be removed.
- Since this corner will be demolished and rebuilt, a setback variance is being requested from 10 feet to 5 feet so as much of the church building can be saved as possible.
- Lot coverage will be decreased because of the removal of this corner.
- No Parking Variance is being requested for the entire property. The church property contains 4 onsite parking spaces for the church conversion into a duplex.
- No Live Oak Trees will be removed.
Plan for the new duplexes being built:
- The current cinder block Gymnasium sits on two lots and will be demolished for new construction. The asphalt parking lot will be removed. There are no live oaks on these lots.
- Both duplex zoned lots are currently non-conforming in size.
- They are less than 50ft wide, are irregular shaped and are 40% smaller than any other given duplex lot in Ocean Park.
- 2 floor area variances are being requested.
- No set back variances are being requested for these duplex properties.
- Lot coverage will decrease from its current coverage, lot 7 will decrease from 41% to 32%.
- Lot 7 floor area variance is for 193 square feet (209%)
- Lot 8 floor area variance is for 366 square feet (219%)
- Lot 8 is currently 300 square feet smaller in size than Lot 7 which is why the floor area variance is larger.
Letters in regard to the requests for variances can be sent to bza@vbgov.com.
June Civic League Meeting Highlights
Thank you to Ocean Park Rescue Squad for hosting our June meeting! Here are some highlights:
- Officer Schoenbach updated us on the safety and crime in Ocean Park. Over the Memorial Day Holiday 160 parking citations were issued!
- District 9 Councilman Joash Schulman spoke about the various projects: PHP Wetlands restoration, the coming sidewalks as part of the Phase IV Shore Dr. CIP and answered many questions and concerns from the audience.
- The resolution supporting preservation in the Pleasure House Point area was passed by the membership.
- Many updates on the July 6th fireworks and the July 4th neighborhood parade, mural, PHP Cleanup!
Join us 💥tonight Thursday, June 5th at OPVRS🚑 or also on ZOOM! ( NOT at Brock.. see you at the Rescue Squad!🚑)
The June 5th Ocean Park Civic League General Meeting will be held at the Ocean Park Volunteer Rescue Squad on Shore Drive at 7:00 pm. The agenda includes updates from Councilman Joash Schulman and on other ongoing issues and civic league activities.
Zoom link for Thursday’s meeting.
Resolution to Expand the Pleasure House Point Natural Area
Whereas the Pleasure House Point area provides a durable and resilient natural separation between Crab Creek and the developed areas of Ocean Park. Virginia Beach is at risk from more frequent recurring flooding due to the effects of sea level rise. While the City is evaluating flood mitigating infrastructure projects that could actively reduce the risk of flooding in Ocean Park, Ocean Park’s current flood risk can be best maintained by continuing to preserve the Pleasure House Point Natural Area. Pleasure House Point Natural Area is a vital environmental asset and community resource for the city of Virginia Beach. Environmentally, its expansive tidal wetlands contribute to the biodiversity and health of the ecosystem by providing habitat for numerous birds, fish, and other wildlife, including species of conservation concern. These wetlands naturally filter pollutants, improving water quality in the Lynnhaven River and the Chesapeake Bay watersheds. It offers natural flood protection by absorbing stormwater and tidal surges, which is crucial in safeguarding nearby neighborhoods and infrastructure from stormwater flooding and sea level rise, thereby protecting the community. For visitors and residents, Pleasure House Point offers substantial open space and canopy trees, allowing for a variety of recreational opportunities, including nature observation, fishing, and birdwatching. Privately held properties adjacent to Pleasure House Point Natural Area are essential for protecting its ecological value and public benefits.
Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Ocean Park Civic League encourages city, state, and federal agencies to prioritize the voluntary conservation of properties adjacent to Pleasure House Point Natural Area. Supports efforts by conservation groups and philanthropists to acquire land or secure conservation easements through incentives and partnerships. Invites property owners to consider voluntary conservation agreements, such as easements or restoration projects, while fully respecting their development rights. Recommends using tax incentives and grant programs to make conservation attractive and feasible.
Ocean Park Civic League 
