It was in 2013 that the main Rehoboth Beach city contractor for parks and lakes articulated in the Save Our Lakes Alliance3 newsletter and the Cape Gazette his intention to inhibit the non-native species of geese in and around our lakes in Rehoboth by fostering the growth of a barrier band around the water on city-owned property on both Silver Lake and Lake Gerar.
We're not sure what cultural bias the contractor has against Canada geese, which are of course transnational migratory birds that spend a considerable amount of time here in Rehoboth, but it seems that the nativist prejudice against our visiting friends has yielded some pretty foul results.
Not only has this discriminatory approach to friends from the north greatly reduced the elegant interactions with geese that once graced the waters in town, but it's invited insidious native species that were best left to more limited living space to dominate the dominions this dumb policy created. It's now time to eradicate the error of our ways and get our geese back and ban the barrier bands!
Take a walk around Lake Gerar, and anyone can see with their own eyes what a sorry sight this lake particularly has become. The 10-foot barrier band has increasingly become more than 20 feet in many places, and the intense overgrowth has destroyed the visual attractiveness of a prized pond. What was assumed to be an opportunity for gardens and flowering contributions to the general aesthetic and varied wildlife of the city, has instead turned into the horrific hodgepodge of nasty weeds, including poisonous ones, and other twisted junk plants that are a jumbled jungle of hideous horticultural horror.
This band of noxiousness encircling the public space around our beloved pond where children could once play and where the geese could wander, has become a treacherous haven for abundant snakes, snapping turtle nests, rats, mice and other vermin, sprinkled with ticks and mosquitoes to enhance a summer soup of savagery on our shores. The plight of Lake Gerar is unfortunately but one symptom of a greater issue, the no-bid chronic serial employment of contractors who follow their own fantasies rather than any planning or consultations with the affected residents who pay the bills for these boondoggles.
We need responsible contracting protocols that call for rebids annually on critical infrastructure like our lakes and park management. We need citizen engagement on the preservation and care of our assets, not just some employee’s faddish devotion to silliness that has drastic unintended consequences. It's time to get the snakes out of our basements, and out of our pockets, and get more responsible oversight for our dollars. This is why we’re supporting Suzanne Goode for Rehoboth commissioner. She’s the only full-time resident who’s fully engaged in the issues that matter, and who will work with all of us to get sanity back to this city’s government, and hopefully, the positive result of getting our pond and geese back! Vote Goode for Rehoboth, and let’s restore some beauty to our town together!
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