The property owners in Lewes and the City of Rehoboth Beach should be aware of the current situation where Clear Space has pitted our municipal governments against one another. It is known how large corporations pit state governments against one another to secure tax breaks, etc., but has anyone heard of a nonprofit pitting small-town municipal governments against one another for land, municipal funds, etc. Is this a new low in Lower Delaware?
The city charters of Lewes and Rehoboth Beach are very similar, having identical wording in many sections. The municipal governments need to adhere to their charters, which call for municipal funds to be used for municipal purposes.
Clear Space's recent comments at the Rehoboth Beach Oct. 6 special meeting about there not being a new performing arts center in Delaware for 40 years and Sussex County being an arts desert need to be put in the context of history and the size of the cities/towns in our state. Delaware has towns, like Lewes, dating back to the 1600s. In towns/cities across our three counties, we have performing arts theaters dating back to the late 1800s and early 1900s – the Grand Opera House, the Smyrna Opera House, the Capitol Theater (now called the Schwartz Theater), the Milton Theatre. As towns have grown in population over the centuries, performing arts theater groups have established theaters in smaller towns – the Possum Point Players in Georgetown and the Chapel Street Players in Newark.
Most towns in Sussex County are very small towns; RB has a population of about 1,200 year-round residents on 1 square mile of land, while Lewes has three times the population on 4 square miles.
It is low of Clear Space to compare the performing arts theater situation in Chicago, the fifth-largest city in the U.S., or San Francisco to our situation in Sussex County. The issue, though, is not about the number of performing arts theaters. It is wonderful to have performing arts theaters – that is not the issue. The issue is about municipal funds from Lewes and Rehoboth Beach being used to fund them.
Note: Gov. Matt Meyer has just announced the allocated $5 million for funding the arts in the coming year Delaware, and the Delaware Division of the Arts has a robust (and regulated) grant process for the distribution of these funds.
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