The city manager position has long outlived its usefulness in Rehoboth Beach. In the simplest terms, a city manager operates as an unelected and unaccountable mayor, wielding massive executive authority without facing the voters. This is an outdated system of governance.
A lack of democracy was barely justifiable in yesteryear when the city had scarcely more than one year-round restaurant, the historic Robin Hood. But we live in a new era, obvious from a ballooning $50 million annual budget. With a population that swells to more than 25,000 in the summer and an annual economic impact of hundreds of millions of dollars, Rehoboth Beach's needs can no longer be met by a skeleton crew of near-volunteers led by an opaque administrative bureaucracy.
To understand the absurdity of this structure, look at the math. Mayor Stan Mills is paid a mere $1,000 annually, and city commissioners receive just $600. Meanwhile, the unelected city manager outearns the entire elected body combined by a factor of nearly 78. Taylour Tedder's excessive compensation package includes a $250,000 base salary, $50,000 in moving expenses and a historic $750,000 forgivable housing loan. With a time-value adjusted compensation of about $370,000, his pay exceeds most state governors and the vice president of the United States.
When elected representatives do not sing in tune with the city manager's administrative bureaucracy, there are consequences. Rather than fostering debate, the apparatus has been weaponized against dissenting voices. Commissioner Suzanne Goode, who is simply voicing the concerns of the residents who elected her, has even faced formal cease-and-desist letters from the very unelected city manager she oversees. This dynamic resembles a Politburo.
Rather than streamlining and allowing healthy dialogue, the city continues to add opaque layers of complexity, recently submitting 15 changes to the city charter to the state for approval. Why stop with the cosmetics of throwing patches on a fundamentally broken system?
Instead of waiting for incremental changes, voters must demand a permanent structural overhaul: an appropriately paid, democratically elected and fully accountable full-time mayor. The winner of the upcoming election must prioritize changing the city charter to eliminate the unelected city manager position entirely, returning executive power directly to the people.
City commissioners must be able to openly voice concerns and serve Rehoboth residents who elected them without fear of reprisal from the unelected city manager. Is democracy such a radical idea for Rehoboth Beach?
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