No election in Dewey Beach this year

A municipal election in Dewey Beach will not be held this year, since no one but the two incumbents and one candidate filed for the three open commissioner seats.

One minute after the Aug. 19 filing deadline, town election officials certified via town charter that incumbent Commissioners Paul Bauer and David Jasinski, and candidate Elisabeth Gibbings, are deemed elected for a full two-year term each. The election had been set for Saturday, Sept. 18.

First elected in 2017, Bauer, a resident commissioner, won another two-year term in 2019; he has served as council secretary for three years and is commissioner liaison to the marketing committee. 

Jasinski, a nonresident commissioner, has previously served partial terms as commissioner. In May 2020, commissioners voted to elect him to fill the remainder of former Mayor TJ Redefer’s commissioner term, and in 2014, council also selected Jasinski to serve as commissioner for the remainder of former Commissioner Ellen Danaher’s term.

The third seat is currently held by Mayor Dale Cooke, who announced in June that he would not run for re-election and he hoped a woman would run for the position. Gibbings, a clinical psychologist who filed as a nonresident, said she took Cooke’s opinion under advisement when she filed to run July 19 as a nonresident candidate.

First elected in 2002, Cooke served as a commissioner until 2008; he was re-elected in 2015, 2017 and 2019. He served a one-year term as mayor in 2016 and was also interim town manager for several months until a new town manager was hired in March 2018.

In an Aug. 23 phone call, Cooke said the Dewey Beach Civic League will still hold its scheduled Meet the Candidates Forum at 4 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 28, on the deck at the Hyatt Place Dewey Beach, where refreshments will be provided.

Pending schedules, Cooke said, commissioners will be sworn in for their two-year terms by the end of September.

On Aug. 23, Bauer said not having a town election this year is a welcome break for property owners, and allows council to get a head start working on goals and objectives for the next year.

“We thank Mayor Cooke for his many years of public service, and we welcome Elisabeth Gibbings to the team,” Bauer said. “We have gained significant support this past year by respectfully working with each other, and I am confident that as we move forward, we will continue the great momentum we have created. It’s amazing what we can get accomplished when people work together.”

Jasinski said in an Aug. 23 email that things are going well in Dewey.  

“It is nice to see that voters recognize that, and I think that the election being uncontested is a reflection of the fact that things are working,” Jasinski said.

Gibbings said Aug. 23 that she is excited to join commissioners in the ongoing effort to keep Dewey Beach the best small beach town around. 

“It was nice that we could sustain the current positivity without the need to hold a potentially contentious election,” Gibbings said. “I want to acknowledge Mayor Dale Cooke’s past leadership in Dewey, providing us a firm foundation for moving forward.”

By email Aug. 19, Jeffrey Smith of the watchdog group Dewey Citizens for Accountability said, “In my opinion, citizen candidates voted in effect to continue the town’s remarkable progress. Economists say time equals money, so this will save the town administration a whole lot of time, and the town will get gender diversity on top of it all. Another great day in 2021 for Dewey Beach!”