After realizing that the cost of the new $22,000,000 Rehoboth city office building divided by the 1,624 registered voters meant that my share came to over $13,700, I decided that I better look a little deeper. Like most of us, I come to Rehoboth to rest and relax. To go to the beach, spend time with friends and to disengage from my day-to-day life. After looking at the new City of Rehoboth Beach FY'18 Budget, I now realize that I need to be a little bit less disengaged.
Did you know for example that the total of the actual 2016 and the proposed and projected governmental fund revenues for 2017 and 2018 is almost $58,000,000? Did you know that over $19,000,000 of that has and will come from loan proceeds, which means that we will have borrowed over $11,800 per registered voter? Did you know that the total government fund expenditures for those three years even after borrowing $19,000,000 will exceed the revenue by $1,523,942? That is almost $1,000 per registered voter of expenses in excess of revenue. This is not the way I run my life.
Why will 2018 total administration expense be $1,809,735 (124%) higher than in 2016? That is an increase of $1,120 per registered voter in two years.
This registered voter has had enough.
Rehoboth and I need a new city administration, not the Cooper-Gay ticket. New officials whose only agenda is making sure that I can recapture my Rehoboth disengagement. One who will be managing the $50,000,000 outfall project, working through the previous administration's city hall fiasco and doing it with our interests in mind.
Clayton Fisher
Rehoboth Beach