Shirley Price shares views on land-use planning
Shirley Price, a candidate for the District 4 seat on the five-member Sussex County Council, wants to change the way the county does business. “Three people run this county, and we have an opportunity this fall to elect two new council members who recognize the need to plan for our future or pay the consequences,” Price told the Eastern Sussex Democratic Club April 3. “We are not prepared for the growth that is headed our way.”
“It’s just amazing that despite the obvious need for a certified land-use planner, Sussex does not have one,” she said. “We have no one to assess the impact of thousands of zoning permits that were approved years ago and are still on the books without updated requirements. We need more of the expertise necessary to plan wisely for the future. The council majority apparently is not interested in making sure they have the best information to make land-use decisions.”
Price pointed out that the county has a land-use plan, but many of the ordinances needed to enforce the plan have not been enacted by the council majority. “Council must sign off on a new land-use plan by 2018, but if the ordinances are not put in place to make it work, it will be another sham. And if Sussex County continues to elect the same people, we’ll have the same results.”
Price spent six years as a Delaware state representative, and she intends to apply her knowledge of state government to the county. “We deserve to have more of our state taxes returned to the county. As a state rep, I was able to correct the imbalance of state funds going to underpopulated, overfunded senior centers in Wilmington and bring them to our overpopulated, underfunded senior centers in Sussex County. The third political party in the county is the fire service. I worked hard in Dover to help them purchase better equipment and obtain the resources they often lack.”
“These are some of the things we need to start looking at. We also need to work more closely with Dover to share information and other resources on a nonpartisan basis,” Price said.
