Bethany council offers coffee and a chance to comment

The menu featured coffee, juice, doughnuts, pastries and plenty of questions and comments for council members on the morning of Nov. 14, when the Bethany Beach Town Council hosted its first-ever Coffee and the Council event, designed to offer an opportunity for citizens to meet and talk with their representatives.

Council members immediately expressed surprise and delight that so many of their constituents had turned up. A full house of more than 60 part-time and full-time residents turned out, lured by the promise of refreshments and the chance to ask questions and make comments to the council outside of the more formal setting of a council meeting.

Mayor Tony McClenny noted that the plan for the event was to open the floor to questions and comments before breaking into more informal socializing between those attending and the council members – all seven of whom turned out for Monday’s event.

But, as it turned out, so many questions and comments were at the ready that the council spent the entire hour responding to questions and comments on topics ranging from flooding, police presence, the proposed Assawoman Canal Trail, a planned town park, cable television, recycling and the work of town staff.

A particular focus was placed on the town’s persistent problems with tidal flooding, which are the subject of a proposed study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that, if funded, will determine whether there is a solution – or at least an improvement – that can be instituted through help from the Corps that will likely extend beyond the town’s corporate limits.

“After all the work we’ve done on it,” McClenny noted, “it could be considered kind of a last-ditch effort.” (No pun intended.)

One attendee suggested that the effort would prove expensive and futile, and would be better directed toward facilitating affected homeowners being able to raise their homes and raising street levels. Cutting back on the town’s gardening budget was suggested as a way to help pay for associated costs – to vocal objection from many of those in attendance.

“Very few people really want to go to that expense and aesthetically ruin what they have to raise their houses,” commented Town Manager Cliff Graviet, arguing that the Corps could well be able to come up with solutions outside town limits but that they would need to get the Corps and DNREC officials behind any such idea. “When you see Pennsylvania Avenue flooded,” he emphasized, “it’s tidal flooding, not rainwater.”

Some residents questioned how much the police department has been patrolling individual neighborhoods, saying they had previously seen patrol cars twice a day but now saw them only rarely. McClenny said patrols were ongoing but that he would mention to BBPD officials that they were not being seen on some streets.

The council received praise for its recent workshop on the Assawoman Canal Trail proposal, which would create a bicycle and pedestrian path on State-owned land along the Assawoman Canal. McClenny said creation of a bicycle path along Fred Hudson Road, leading from Route 1 to the canal trail, was also under consideration, bringing cyclists who want a longer route all the way from Coastal Highway to Jefferson Bridge Road.

He also acknowledged that there had been concerns expressed by adjacent property owners and emphasized that the council’s intention is to listen to all its constituents.

“We try to listen,” he said, noting that the council’s workshops – one of which was scheduled to begin at the conclusion of the coffee event – are open to the public. “We don’t hold a public hearing at 4 p.m. and hold a vote at 5 p.m., unless it’s an emergency. … Your feedback is important, and it’s important that you not just say yes or no, but why yes, why not to do it.” He pointed out that citizens may think of issues that council members haven’t thought of themselves.

Town staff also received praise for their work on Monday, with former council member Wayne Fuller noting their efforts to improve drainage through work on swales in communities including The Canal, where he said flooding has been all but eliminated.

McClenny took the opportunity to openly brag about the Town’s Public Works staff, while Graviet noted that it’s not unusual to see Public Works Supervisor Brett Warner working right alongside his eight full-time employees on projects ranging from drainage improvements to collecting trash.

On that subject, residents noted continuing concerns about the appearance of recycle bins, which can remain curbside for long periods of time, due to the part-time nature of the town’s population.

Councilman Lew Killmer pointed out that exactly that concern had been expressed by representatives of the coastal towns during the State’s discussion of the universal recycling law, with hopes that options for accommodating the coastal communities would be included. “But they wanted a one-size-fits-all solution,” he concluded.

Attendees suggested the town consider requiring a three-sided corral to contain the recycling cans in a more aesthetic fashion, while others said the current solution is more likely to involve neighbor taking care of neighbor and full-time residents bringing the cans back to the homes of their part-time neighbors.

The council also noted the Town’s current proposal to start a trolley service to provide transportation for those who can’t drive or who don’t have other transportation options, bringing them from their homes to grocery stores, pharmacies or even doctors’ appointments a few times a week. The Town is currently asking those interested in such a service to contact the town manager’s office so that their needs can be ascertained before a plan is formalized.

Town park, Mediacom franchise and AT&T tower discussed

Community members were also interested in the status of the planned town park on the former Christian Church/Neff property at the northwest corner of Routes 1 and 26. The town purchased the property with the intention of preserving the open space from likely development and formally voted to keep it for use as a park, but no substantial work has been done in creating an actual park facility on the property.

“It’s in limbo, honestly,” McClenny admitted. “It’s currently being used for storage for our Streetscape work, which we hope is finished by the end of the winter.” (Graviet noted that the lighting portion of the project is expected to be completed this winter.) McClenny pointed out that the one-time classification of part of the land as wetlands had been changed, allowing the Town to gradually raise some of the land to keep it from being too swampy for use, but such work would have to be done gradually, in order to preserve the existing trees.

“The Town got a real bargain,” he added of the purchase.

“The concept does exists,” Vice-Mayor Jack Gordon put in, “but it’s not necessarily a high-priority project.”

Graviet elaborated on that statement, saying, “If the economy was where it was six or seven years ago, we would be actively developing the park. As it is, we’re moving very slowing … given these tough fiscal times.”

With a draft franchise agreement between several local towns and Mediacom cable company having recently been completed, those attending Monday’s coffee event were also keen to know if any new options were on the horizon.

“Where’s our FIOS?” one attendee asked.

“It’s not going to happen,” Killmer replied, reiterating what the Town has been told each time it has asked about the potential for the high-speed fiber-optic Internet and video system offered by Verizon.

“They have no plan and no intention to bring FIOS to this area at this time,” Graviet continued. “It’s not even on the drawing board, because they don’t think they will make money on it.”

Meanwhile, Gordon said, the Town had been working on the Mediacom issue for years and had gone to other cable companies to see if they would bring their services to the town. “Comcast has no interest. It’s too expensive to bring cable down Route 1. RCN said they had no interest.”

McClenny said the council was expecting that the contract proposal for Mediacom was going to have to be “tweaked. We know we will have to stand firm on some items and we will have to give in on others.”

Talking about the need to negotiate a new contract with Mediacom instead of just severing the relationship, Graviet emphasized, “The FCC makes it virtually impossible for a municipality … to sever a relationship with a cable provider once they are in your neighborhood.”

But while the Town can’t easily end its franchise agreement and has instead been forced to negotiate with Mediacom as best it can, several people in the room on Monday said they’d personally switched their television service to DirecTV’s satellite offering and were pleased with the results.

One Mediacom customer said their belief was that the problem with Mediacom isn’t with its service but with the attitude of the company toward subscribers. Responding to a statement that sometimes entire cable systems have been sold to other companies, McClenny admitted, “I would personally like to see that happen.”

Rumors of guns being sold from the storefront at Bethany Cycle & Fitness on Garfield Parkway were the subject of concern from another attendee. Graviet confirmed that the business does have a license to sell guns, but that license – and their business license – limits those sales to catalog sales only.

“They have had a license to do catalog sales only, for about a decade,” he explained. “That license was recently renewed. But their business license says ‘catalog sales only.’ The guns are not on display.”

Finally, a number of attendees expressed interest in the status of the AT&T cell phone tower – a temporary version of which remains in place just south of town limits, more than a year after it was determined to have been improperly approved by Sussex County, and a permanent version of which has been proposed by AT&T to be housed atop the Town’s water standpipe.

McClenny reprised the outcome of last month’s council workshop, at which the council had planned to discuss the proposal but had received only some of the documentation they had requested.

“The council said we would not discuss it, as they had not provided what we asked for,” he emphasized.

Regarding the ongoing appeal of the subsequent denial of the AT&T tower location on the Pep-Up/Arby’s/BP gas station property, McClenny noted that the appeals court had asked for oral arguments to be presented in that appeal on Dec. 9 in Georgetown, and he said some council members planned to attend in support of the Sea Pines Village community, which has opposed the tower being permitted at that location.