David Hill takes over as mayor of Henlopen Acres
The Henlopen Acres commissioners unanimously selected Commissioner David Hill to serve as the town’s mayor Sept. 4.
Hill has been a commissioner since 2005 and has also served as the town treasurer. He takes over for Wanda Davis, who served as mayor for nearly a decade before deciding not to run for reelection this year.
“I thank my fellow commissioners. I look forward to trying to follow in the footsteps of Wanda. She had small feet, but those are big shoes to fill,” Hill said.
As his first act as mayor, Hill nominated Commissioner Winnie Kee as president pro-tem, Commissioner David Lyons as treasurer and Commissioner Paddy Richards as secretary. The nominations were unanimously approved.
Richards and Andrew Brittingham were sworn-in as commissioners, completing, as Hill said, the town’s team for the next year. Hill joked that Brittingham, 23, had considerably lowered the average age of the commission.
“We’re going to try our best to serve the best interests of our community. We welcome critical comments. We would prefer that with those critical comments you provide us with your proposed resolution of the particular problem,” Hill said. “But there’s really no place, I think, in the public debate here for innuendo, speculation. Hyperbole and personal attacks serve absolutely no purpose in the public debate.”
It appears Hill’s team is going to jump right in and address the 800-pound gorilla in the room: the town’s relationship with the Rehoboth Art League, which has been strained in recent years.
Commissioner John Staffier suggested discussing problems between the town and the art league at the commissioners’ Friday, Oct. 12 quarterly meeting.
“That issue has obviously generated a lot of passion, but it seems to me a lot of the facts are not clear,” he said.
Hill said the item would be placed on an agenda in the near future but did not comment further.
After the meeting, Hill said, 'I'm very pleased in the vote of confidence given to me by my fellow commissioners and look forward to addressing the many problems facing our small town."
Ryan Mavity covers Milton and the court system. He is married to Rachel Swick Mavity and has two kids, Alex and Jane. Ryan started with the Cape Gazette all the way back in February 2007, previously covering the City of Rehoboth Beach. A native of Easton, Md. and graduate of Towson University, Ryan enjoys watching the Baltimore Ravens, Washington Capitals and Baltimore Orioles in his spare time.
