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The Delaware Attorney General’s Office has determined the Rehoboth Beach Planning Commission did not violate the Freedom of Information Act when it partitioned property at 507 Lee St. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) complaint stems from a denial of a partitioning application for the Lee Street property in January. The next month, the applicant, Lee Street LLC, came back with a request for reconsideration of the decision and a new partitioning plan. City code states an applicant must wait 12 months before submitting a new application. However, at its March 7 meeting, the commission voted to waive the waiting period and proceed with the new plan.
The complaint, filed by Rehoboth resident Mable Granke, alleged that the agenda for the meeting said the commission was going to discuss reconsideration, not a waiver, and that reconsideration and waiver were two different things.
The decision of the Attorney General’s Office said, “The agenda for the March 7 meeting clearly and plainly informed the public that the partition application would be reconsidered. Any member of the public who was concerned about the partitioning of the Lee Street property was on notice that it would be discussed and voted on at the March 7 meeting.”
The decision goes on to say the major topic of discussion was a reconsideration of the application and waiver was simply the procedural means by which the commission made its decision.
City solicitor Glenn Mandalas said, “The planning commission is pleased to see the attorney general’s office was able to weed out the chaff in the complaint to get to the heart of the issue. Once the issue was defined, it was easy to see the planning commission had not violated the Freedom of Information Act, and that the public had been afforded the notice contemplated under the Freedom of Information Act.
Granke said the moral of the decision was “citizens beware.” She said she still did not know how a waiver and reconsideration were not two different things but in the opinion of the attorney general’s office, they were.
This complaint was the second of three recently filed against the city.
The first, filed by Commissioner Dennis Barbour, Granke and Rehoboth resident James Barnett, alleged the city commissioners did not properly notice agenda items changing the membership of the planning commission. He also alleged Commissioner Paul Kuhns held improper email meetings. The attorney general’s office agreed the city had not properly noticed the meetings but the city’s actions were not malicious and the emails did not constitute illegal meetings. A third complaint has been levied against the Rehoboth Boardwalk Committee but no decision has been reached.
Mandalas said, “I continue to be hopeful that we can put the recent string of FOIA complaints behind us, and move on to things more important to the continued prosperity of the city and its residents – especially in view of the fact that in this case, the complainant failed to prove the planning commission did anything wrong.”
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