Lewes awaiting results of listening sessions

Lewes officials are eagerly awaiting the results of three public listening sessions held in June.

The city is working with the Resiliency Community Partnership to address Lewes’ environmental challenges as a coastal community. The listening sessions were intended to provide the partnership with an understanding of the community’s concerns and its vision for the future.

“Given what we’ve heard initially from the listening sessions, there’s no shortage of issues we could work on, but in order to complete the project we need to narrow the scope and focus on a specific issue so we can advance some policy recommendation,” said Phillip Barnes of the Institute for Public Administration. “We are not intending to do another plan and call it a day. We need to have a well-defined scope and stick to it.”

At a June 22 meeting with mayor and city council, Barnes and other members of the partnership were not willing to provide a sneak peek of the results. Once fully compiled, he said, they would be disseminated.

“It was very much focused on water issues,” said Bob Scarborough, program manager for Delaware Coastal Programs. “A lot of the concerns may not be pertinent to the RCP, but it’s possible they are things Coastal Programs could facilitate workshops on as part of our mission to support the state in resilience efforts.”

In addition to listening sessions, the partnership also collected feedback from an online survey that asked the same questions. He said more than 100 people participated in the survey, with about 60 attending virtual listening sessions.

The information compiled by the partnership will next go to an executive committee appointed by Mayor Ted Becker. Becker and city council are expected to consider candidates at their Monday, July 12 meeting.

The committee, not city council, will determine the scope and scale of work. Additional public information and community education sessions are expected after the committee is formed. Through the partnership, subject-matter experts will be available to help the committee.

The goal is to draft a policy recommendation for consideration by mayor and city council.

It’s likely the committee will work on sea-level rise issues, including the city’s controversial proposed ordinances on source water protection and sea-level rise. If that’s the path the committee takes, City Manager Ann Marie Townshend said the group will have access to the draft ordinances as well as all the public feedback received.

“They may decide to tweak the ordinances that were put forth on sea-level rise and resiliency, or they may say it’s better to start from scratch,” she said.

Discussing possible appointments to the executive committee is the first item on mayor and city council’s agenda for July 12. A link to the meeting can be found on the agenda at lewes.civicweb.net.