The following letter was sent to the Rehoboth BeachMayor and City Commissioners, with a copy submitted to the Cape Gazette for publication.
I have read several recent articles about the current city administration’s struggles to resuscitate our city’s crucial comprehensive development plan, with reports of missed deadlines, news of a consultant who has quit, and many already disappointed by an overly simplistic survey and missing what gave previous CDPs impact: strong community involvement to make certain that voters, taxpayers, homeowners, business owners and elected officials all had input and believed in common goals.
In contrast to the lack of public outreach by the current CDP process, in 2009 and 2010, nine daylong workshops were attended by 63 members of the public, planning commission members met regularly with Rehoboth citizens and civic organizations, and throughout a five-month public review and comment period, hundreds of individuals attended meetings, public hearings and workshops, and over 140 written comments were received. I was part of that process and remember feeling proud of us all.
One cannot avoid suspicions that some previous city political leaders deliberately wanted a new, watered-down CDP as just one example of their using suppression of public opinion and input and even voting change strategies to better reflect the interests of outsiders intent on quick bucks over long-term community prosperity.
The proof that previous community-based CDPs were not only democracy in action but democracy producing common good is our city’s stature and value. Meanwhile, around us we too often experience poorly planned results of the interests of a privileged few.
Rehoboth Beach can ensure a future that reflects our community values by restoring vigorous community involvement in the CDP process. This produces a set of common goals and standards that are fair and enforceable.
We currently enjoy the valuable results when the process works as it was intended. Let’s support those who bring the CDP back to the community whose interests it was always intended to serve.
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