No taxpayer dollars should fund a private institution that flies the Confederate flag with a large Confederate memorial on its grounds. Yet Georgetown Town Council gave $24,750, and Councilman John Rieley supplied an additional $2,000 from his Sussex County Council discretionary fund to help the privately held Marvel Museum, a displayer of the Confederate flag and memorial.
This is a nonpartisan issue.
Republican Mark Schaeffer, councilman representing Lewes, Milton and Rehoboth, got it right (as reported in the Cape Gazette) when he condemned the use of taxpayer monies to fund the Marvel Museum. If you are flying the Confederate flag, you are boasting that you are a racist. Schaeffer wants the taxpayer money that Rieley awarded returned to the county.
Democratic Gov. John Carney condemned the awarding of taxpayer monies to the Confederate flag-flying museum on WRDE.
In neighboring Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, the Republican governor, is presiding over the removal of public displays celebrating the Confederacy in his state.
In Maryland, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan calls the Confederate flag a symbol of racism, separatism and treason.
But in Georgetown, Mayor Bill West was unsuccessful in fighting efforts to give funds to the museum. He and Councilwoman Christina Diaz-Malone warned their colleagues about the reputational costs for using taxpayer money to fund an institution that honors anti-patriotic traitors.
At the council meeting, a strong majority of the standing-room-only crowd and 32 of 37 letters to the council opposed this misuse of taxpayer funds. That did not matter to three councilpersons in favor of giving the money. They seemed impervious to public opinion.
Why did town council 157 years after the Confederacy’s military defeat see fit to fund an institution that honors the despicable Confederate cause, which sought the continuation of the enslavement of 4 million Americans and the legalized beatings, torture, rape and murder of those American citizens?
The monument and flag are a slap in the face to Georgetown’s Hispanic community and Black residents, who represent 42% and 15% of the community, respectively, as well as many white people in the community and the county who opposed this racist abomination.
The vote to fund the museum is also an abdication of Georgetown’s duty to prioritize helping hungry and homeless people.
The only condition for approval was that the museum talks to community leaders to be named later about potentially taking the flag down. But the museum can choose to ignore the community’s wishes if they want.
While other Sussex County jurisdictions such as Milton, Millsboro and Lewes are thriving, growing and attracting new businesses and affluent and open-minded residents, Georgetown Town Council will now be known for propping up America’s racist past instead of as a place to invest in, live in, move to, or shop.
This issue of misuse of taxpayer dollars will not go away.
Hopefully, the politicians who supported this disgraceful use of taxpayer dollars will soon be voted out of office, and the cause of American patriotism and respect for people of all races will ultimately win.
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