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Citizens, as well as print and electronic media reps, packed the city commissioners’ room in Rehoboth Beach as the Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce held its candidates forum Wednesday, July 16. Citizens were not disappointed as candidates engaged in a spirited question-and-answer session about where the city is now and where it may go in the future.
The forum, moderated by Cape Gazette publisher Dennis Forney, allowed each candidate to make an opening statement and answer questions from the moderator, followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience.
Incumbent Mayor Sam Cooper and mayoral candidate Commissioner Paul Kuhns led off the discussion, followed by commissioner candidates Lorraine Zellers and incumbents Ron Paterson and Dennis Barbour.
Selected mayoral questions, answerers and responses follow:
Question: What is the most significant fiscal challenge facing the city and how would you propose dealing with it?
Cooper: “The most serious fiscal challenge directed toward the city, I think, is the wastewater treatment problem we face. For me, it’s a relatively easy one in the sense that we charge a fee for wastewater, based upon usage. I see no reason why the users, the fee-payer, should not bear the burden on the solutions. I don’t see why we would need a general tax or anything like that.”
Kuhns: “Right now I think the most significant fiscal challenge is a long-term plan. Right now the city budgets on a year-to-year basis. We have an $18 million budget; it’s like a corporation. No $18 million-budgeted corporation does budgeting on a year-to-year basis. We need to have a plan for the city. We need to focus on how we are going to pay for these projects, if we are going to do them and where we will be in 5, 10, 15 years. We can’t go day-to-day. We can’t come to the end of December and start thinking about the next year. We have to think of it from a forward-thinking process.”
Question: What do you see as the most positive element of Rehoboth and how can you leverage that quality to enrich the business community?
Cooper: “I think the most positive element is the small-town character of the city, the quaint neighborhoods we have and that have developed over time. I think that’s one of the unique things I’ve always said about Rehoboth is that the houses were built over a long period of time so you have diversity, as opposed to a tract that has been built in the last five years. How can we leverage that to the commercial? I believe very much that the commercial area of the city should be a reflection of the residential areas. To take on those qualities that are so important in the residential areas and are so attractive to people, and leverage those to the benefit of the commercial.”
Kuhns: “I think the whole community is a beautiful community. I would not have moved here if I didn’t feel that way; I would not have moved my family here if I didn’t feel that way. I think the positive thing is the characteristics of the neighborhoods, both the residential and commercial. I think the property values are so high here because of both the commercial and the residential. The most important thing I see to leverage the downtown businesses is making the experience of the visitor better. You need people to ride into town and see smiles on our faces. You don’t need them to see the police cars sitting on Rehoboth Avenue. We need them to feel like this is a place they can come to, this is a place they can maybe come to and live. We need to give a better experience and that starts at the top.”
Question: How are we going to tackle the wastewater problem? If you had to make a decision today, assuming all things are equal, what would you choose and why?
Kuhns: “If the cost is exactly the same, if the cost to our users is exactly the same, if those numbers come out to be the same, I would have to go to the spray irrigation. Because what I have read from the environmental perspective, this helps the farmers. The water going on the land, most farmers have to pay for water, this would be free water and it would be already fertilized, if you will. It would recharge the aquifers in the area where the farms are. I think if the variables of cost, both to the user and up-front, are the exact same, I would have to go with spray irrigation.”
Cooper: “In all honesty, if I had to make the decision at 2 o’clock this afternoon it would probably be with ocean outfall because we know the most about it; we have the most information and we know it’s doable. The others could be pie in the sky at this point. Paul says ‘They think they can, they think they can.’ Well, we’re going to put them to the test soon and we’re going to see if they can.”
Opening statements
The three commissioner candidates then got their turn, first making an opening statement before choosing one prepared question. Barbour was asked the first question, followed by Paterson and Zellers.
Question: Rehoboth is a unique community, the state’s No. 1 beach resort, and as such, there are special considerations that need to be made. What are the special challenges you see in Rehoboth, being a resort community for a much larger constituency than its residents?
Barbour: “I think one of the most important is zoning. I think what makes it special is the small-town charm, and I think that’s why people want to come to the city. Consistent with that is the business community. There is a business community here that has begun to thrive over the last couple of years that has that same small-town charm. In order to maintain that, though, we have to have rules. We can’t have runaway development. We have to have restrictions on what people can do.”
Question: A bit of controversy in the past year has been the reduction of the size of the planning commission from nine to seven. Is that a good decision ultimately for the city of Rehoboth or not a good decision?
Paterson: “I believe it was an excellent decision. I asked for statistics from the last two years before I became commissioner, checking the length of time to move a petition through. It’s a two-step process. The most ideal situation means a person will have a petition review one month and then a public hearing the next month. I checked the length of time for the first two years with the next two years and found the next two years, it increased greatly, and it was disturbing. So I agreed when the decision came to reduce the size by two. And amazingly enough, since that decision was made last fall, the length of time has dropped back down to where it is similar to what it was before. So I think they are much more efficient, much more user-friendly, with the smaller group.
Question: Another good discussion for the city right now is the convention center. What do we do? Raze, renovate or nothing?
Zellers: “I’ve been talking to a lot of my neighbors about this and most of them, surprisingly, are against doing anything to enlarge or expand the convention center. They feel it doesn’t really fit in with the character of the town; they really don’t feel they want to be a convention-center town, they don’t feel like they want to compete with Ocean City and I agree with them. With that being said, I think the convention center also shouldn’t lose money. I think there are ways to make improvements to it and do some enhancements to it to make it more technologically available. I think that would be a good plan, but we have to find money; it has to be prioritized with everything else that we have going. Particularly the big issues like wastewater, the Boardwalk and the police station. I think that has to be lower on the list.”
The questions
Candidates then took questions from the audience with each having a chance to respond.
Question: Are you in favor of the city erecting a parking garage in the middle of the city and enlarging the convention center? If not, what has changed your mind?
Kuhns: “Yes, we do need to move forward with this and that because it was in our master plan. However, doing exactly what is in the master plan comes before the community, as well as the commissioners. Just recently, we had the Bandstand and Convention Center Committee recommend doing some changes in amenities, putting in some conference rooms and doing some upgrades in the kitchen. I’m all for that because I think it’s very important. But they stated specifically, and I’m all for it, no changes to the footprint. As far as a parking garage is concerned, I don’t see any need for a parking garage until we make sure it’s usable.”
Paterson: “The convention center committee gave a report at our last workshop and I agree with Paul, I don’t think there is the spirit out there right now to put a big convention center out there. As far as the parking, I’m a little bit more familiar with that. Last week sometime we had a meeting of the Parking Advisory Committee, which I chair. That group came to the conclusion that a parking garage, somewhere down the road, might be advisable, certainly not in the immediate future.”
Zellers: “As far as a parking garage, I have some very definite ideas on that. I don’t see how a three-or-four deck parking garage will fit into my vision for the city because I want to maintain the small-town charm. I don’t think bringing 300 or 400 more cars into the city is going to do that. I don’t think it’s a benefit to anyone, residents or business owners alike. Visitors still come, and I don’t think it’s for the parking; I think it’s because of the city that we have.”
Barbour: “I think that frankly, given the economic conditions we are now looking at, and also the fact that transportation in this county is going to change in the future because of the cost of gasoline, to take any action now that revolves around the automobile is foolish. The convention center – I think it’s a bad idea. I don’t think we need a convention center; I think we need a community center, a place where people can go. The fact of the matter is, both commissioners are being disingenuous. In the conversations we’ve had with this commission, they have been very eager and very assertive in plans for a large convention center.”
Cooper: “I’ve been here long enough, probably 12 or 15 years ago, I was defending what we had, trying to prevent it from being torn down. We made modifications to it. It’s where I think it ought to be; I’m not for expanding it.
“As far as the parking garage, I’m not for that, and I think what you have heard here is an obfuscation of the facts. Any fifth-grader, if they sat through the meetings of this city commission, for them to sit here and say ‘Oh, we just wanted to study it’, is wrong.”
Candidates then had a chance to make closing statements. Barbour said this was a critical election and the fundamental issue in this election is transparency and truthfulness in government. He said he has been disturbed at the number of 4-3 votes at commission meetings, and citizen input has been ignored.
Cooper said he has always tried to be honest with the citizens and a number of the commissioners have lost touch with the people.
Kuhns said if citizens want a long-range vision for the city, they should vote for him. He questioned why the current leadership continues to stall important city projects and wanted to find a way to get the city, businesses and residents together to find ways to keep the community vibrant.
Paterson challenged Barbour’s assertions of consistent 4-3 votes. Citing a report that tallied the votes from the last three years, Paterson said of 141 votes, only five times has a decision come down to a 4-3 vote.
“If you want a split just go to the attorney general and file FOIA complaints. Spend tens of thousands of your money and take up my time to send information to the attorney general on something frivolous,” he said. “I’m sorry Dennis, was there a split. Yes. Was it caused by me? I don’t think so.”
Zellers said she wanted to offer a balance to a polarized commission and willingness to compromise on a plan to suit everyone. Then she got off the line of the day. “You guys with these hormones, we all need to work together,” she joked.
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