Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. We'll be starting in two minutes. If everybody will check your cell phones to make sure they're on silence, please. ready. Sure.

Good evening. It's uh 6:45. Uh we're in October 27th. We're at 39 the circle. At this time, we are got a public hearing. Open it up to public hearing ordinance 20257. Brian,

thank you. Um, just as an introduction, I'm Brian Olsen. I'm the community development director of the town of Georgetown. I'll be presenting uh for the public hearing on ordinance 2025-07, which is regarding um cottage housing developments um in town. It's an amendment both the zoning ordinance as well as the subdivision of land ordinance. Um some of this presentation may look familiar as it was a part of our update um last month. Uh but for the benefit of all, I'll go through it. Um similarly so firstly to talk about housing and how it impacts um the town as well as our uh various regulating ordinances we have um what we call in the town the comprehensive plan which is sort of like our constitution or one of our constitutions I should say um which determines the path forward on uh development and infrastructure in town and particularly we have goals regarding housing and uh which try to guide our interpretation of ordinances as well as how we um plan for development in the future. Um so there's several um relevant uh strategies and goals in the comprehensive plan regarding housing in particular. Um we strive to look for um how to expand the range of housing types um in the town. We look to promote um additional housing which is affordable to the average Georgetown household and resident. We also look to review town ordinances um updating as as needed and occasionally uh to provide opportunities for new market rate housing and workforce housing through redevelopment and infill development. Um as everyone is surely aware there is um you know many issues regarding housing in Sussex County generally. Um and uh and lastly uh we look to consider amending the town code u based on evaluation of the needs to provide greater flexibility for the

provision um of housing and to provide many different types um of housing which are available to many different types um of people in town. Uh what's also guiding our work on housing specifically is the recommendations of the affordable housing production task force which was um created through uh an act of the legislature uh and uh gave uh all the municipalities and counties um in Delaware the um various recommendations on how to uh increase the number of affordable housing units and types um in the state. And objective two of that housing uh task force was um implement local zoning reform. So this is the uh this is the universe that we're working in. Um the municipalities are being uh asked or being asked to look at certain reforms uh which is for instance um establishing minimum densities uh of not less than four units per acre for single family um detached or attached. Um that basically means that in order to expand the types of housing that's available, we need to look at density, how many units are permitted per acre. Um looking at minimum lot sizes because the the larger the minimum lot size, the less housing generally that we can provide. Um and lastly, it's to um otherwise ensure that local governments um can enable development um to occur at these densities um specified. So, we're looking to try to implement uh new ordinances, new recommendations um before the state essentially tells us what those requirements are. Um so, this we believe that this um this report was the first step in trying to to see what municipalities will be required to do in the future. So, we're looking to see how

we can actually um you know, start that process before and to just sort of set the agenda before we are uh before we're told specifically what those requirements are. Um so, when we're talking about cottage housing developments, and we'll go through that in a minute. Um but we look to this concept called the housing continuum, which represents all types of housing that an individual may see um in their lifetime. And it runs from the left side to basically being unsheltered or homeless through the various types of housing that could be available to them all the way to um a conventional uh market rate uh rental or ownership model of a single family um development. So again, many different types of of housing are available. Um going from left to the right, you see emergency shelters and supportive housing. These are types that are specifically dedicated to providing services for residents um to increasingly um intense um levels. Uh but as you move to the right, you start to see few and fewer of those services being provided on a regular basis. Um and so now we're looking at this green uh square that you see here. This is the the place on the spectrum of housing um that this ordinance is seeking to address. um the affordable rental or the affordable ownership type um of of rental. Now, in Cesus County, the um 80% of the average median income of a household is for a twoerson household is around $70,000 a year. Um and so between 30 and 80% of that is generally what the affordable rental and ownership model um is looking at. and then the market rental is typically 100% of that average um income in the county. So that's sort of the that's sort of the the universe that we're working in here. Um I won't focus on this too much, but I

just wanted to iterate that um this process of amending the ordinance started in February when um town council passed a resolution to look at um potentially developing regulations for cottage developments um specifically as it pertained to Little Living, which is an organization um looking to develop this type of housing in Delaware um and in town specifically. Uh but basically the community development department of which I'm the head uh was asked to look at zoning provisions and how to actually enable this type of development because that's not presently permitted in town. So we did some research um as you may be aware there's also um proof of concept homes that were permitted to be developed on East Market Street um to show what um types of housing would be permitted um under that ordinance. Uh and then um in August and September, we presented in front of council uh to uh introduce the ordinance and to also start u the potential adoption um process as well. Uh so these are the general categories of things that we're looking at in the zoning ordinance and subdivision ordinance amendments. Um, we're looking to define what community cottage communities are and how they would be regulated, what zoning district they would be in, the approval process of how they would be approved and um reviewed. Um, design standards associated with these types of housing. Um, the different types of site layouts that would be permitted. Um, and lastly, how parking would also be um regulated. Um so there are some differences between this ordinance that was presented in front of council in September and what is presently um being advertised today. Uh as a part of our adoption process, planning commission, our planning commission is required to review and report on ordinances that are proposed by town council. uh and the town planning commission met uh in

midepptember to make those recommendations about how the cottage ordinance should be um disposed of uh should it be adopted or should it be uh changed in some way. So they did recommend a number of changes to the ordinance which have been uh built into the ordinance that is in front of you uh today. Uh, a few of those things involved uh clarifying the intent of the ordinance because there was some confusion I believe um over the course of the past uh month or so about exactly what types of housing would be permitted and um if you remember the the spectra the housing continuum uh graph that we saw earlier uh we're looking at affordable slash or affordable and workforce housing uh to be developed under this ordinance. So, uh we uh they recommended that we add uh an intent section to clarify exactly what types um of housing would be intended to be created in this uh in this ordinance. And so that's why we added that. We added this this purpose right there to facilitate the creation of attainable workforce housing in the town of Georgetown. Um we also as a part of that added um a prohibition on supportive housing types in this ordinance. that that would not be um permitted um typically within these types of developments. Um and again, that's there's um several different definitions of what supportive housing is in our ordinances, and I can go into that if desired. Um but generally, those types of housing would not be permitted as a part of these um development types. We also wanted to clarify that um we um the types of lots that were created um that they would need to be that that they could not be leased. Um the units themselves could be leased as a part of this development type but not um but the lots themselves could not be leased. Um and we also made sure because um council also expressed this um preference uh we

added uh that um any pathways or sidewalks created would need to be paved. uh they could not be gravel uh and they would ultimately need to be um uh made accessible according to the ADA. Um so just to start with the the the provisions of the ordinance, we added several definitions um which were not currently in the ordinance to clarify what exactly is being um asked of a developer or a or a property owner in town um who would want to develop these types of developments. And so we added a number of these including what a cottage dwelling unit is, u what the cottage housing development is, which is the entire development scheme. Cottage dwelling units are typically smaller um than your average single family uh dwelling. Um they could range between uh I think it's 350 and 850 square feet in nature. And that again is built into the ordinance to allow for a flexibility of um the providing of units and arranging those units in an amendable way. Um we added also definitions for open space. Um so there are requirements for open space which I will discuss um later on. Uh but we of course needed to be uh much more specific than the the current ordinance allowed for um for the ordinance. Uh the zoning district that we're talking about um permitting these uh developments in uh they would only be permitted in the UR1 residential district which is um which is a common residential single family district in town. Um it would not be allowed in any other district and because of the particularities of the ordinance sometimes UR1 uses are allowed in other districts like commercial districts, industrial districts. Um so that would not be permitted uh presently in the ordinance. So it's only allowed in single family districts um of the UR1. We do provide a number of minimum lot

size, yard and area requirements. Um so the base ones in the UR1 would not be uh would not apply as a part of this development. Um however the rest of the zoning code as well as our design development standards um as well as design and construction standards will still apply. Um you know we have many different regulations and standards on you know how buildings and developments need to look um ranging from you know window placement and roof pitch um all the way to what the landscaping needs to look like. So all those things are still required um as a part of this um ordinance. As I mentioned last time also the approval process is going to follow uh what we call the category one planning um approval process which is uh what all commercial developments uh go through. So basically it has to go in front of the planning commission uh when a site plan is proposed um it's reviewed by the town engineers and the town staff. Then it moves to planning commission and so that the planning commission does provide that additional level of site review u which is again a public process um and so you know the public tends to be um interested and involved in those um types of reviews as well. Um that would happen if the entire site was developed as a single lot or a single entity. Um you know uh and then each individual unit was leased. Uh if the development were to be loted um to have individual lots for the units, it would follow our subdivision standards and it would follow the process of a subdivision um like is normal um in town as well. Um levels of design. So the developments uh will have to conform to our development design standards uh which again I mentioned have very particular uh requirements for the look of

buildings, how they're how they're placed, where the landscaping is, what the parking looks like, etc. However, we did also add additional requirements which are required on top of those um those baseline standards and that includes adding um requiring porches um also requiring sidewalks or path or paved pathways throughout the development as well. Um it also ensures that the buffer yards are um that are required between developments and existing buildings or residential areas are um appropriate for that site. Um and again we did add uh very specific open space standards whether it's um common open space for the development or private open space for um individual units. um the layout. So we do have certain standards for um road frontage um where units don't need to have road frontage if they have frontage on um common open space um lots. Uh we also have standards about how the dwelling units can be oriented on the site. It ensures privacy uh between units such as you know requiring alternate side window placements um alternating setbacks um as well as requiring landscaping um or trellising. But however, there's also going to be a um a requirement for separation between buildings um which is very similar to what the fire marshall um may require as a part of their review. Um and that's a separation of 10 ft u which is common as well. Uh so for parking there is um we do add some additional parking standards uh particularly where parking is placed on the site um and also right sizing what that parking requirement would be. Um so for a one-bedroom unit for instance instead of having two parking spaces be the minimum we the minimum is going to be or would be proposed to be one and a

half spaces. Um, and then for a two-bedroom unit and above, um, the minimum of two parking spaces is still required, which is the standard in town. Um, and again, we, uh, we do mention that the, um, the space, uh, where parking is permitted, um, is also stipulated and, um, uh, described in the ordinance as well. Um, and lastly, uh, we do also ensure that accessory uses are permitted, but in reasonable ways. Um so we do allow community buildings um which can be frequently used as shared um storage areas or they can be um basically a community building like you might see in a in a conventional subdivision like a clubhouse um or other recreational amenities you might find. Um, we also permit shared garages or shared storage buildings as I mentioned and then your typical decks, patios, gazeos, and pergolas. Um, and also fences with conditions. Um, so visually, it's probably a little easier to understand when you see it. Um, so there's a couple different options that exist um across the across the country. These be first became popular um in the northwest of the United States and then have spread elsewhere, but these were one of the first ones that were designed um in the late 90s. So this is the third street cottages in Langley, Washington. Um you can see there the orientation is the uh of the units to the open space is one of the key hallmarks of this type of development that allows for um units to be sized a little smaller than they might need to be if you were to create a conventional subdivision. Um it also allows you to not place the parking um so close to a to a unit to again try to maximize flexibility um with the units to eventually make them u more

affordable in nature. So you do see there that um all the porches and the um entries are actually faced upon the the open space which is designed to create this communal um aspect um to that development. And so this is a smaller version up here which is about eight units and then the a larger one on the bottom which is about um eight about 11 uh going on 12 units there. So you can again arrange the units not along a street um 100% of the time but they can be arranged in this sort of cluster fashion. Uh and we we also do require naturally that emergency services um be accessible to to all the various units as well. So that will never change. they will always be accessible in that way um through um other means through an access road or or just through some other types of um other types of um access. So first lastly I should mention that this was a fee simple uh for sale development. Um these each of these houses was sold individually and sold relatively well. Um this example would be the example of a of a single entity managing the entire property. Um, this was actually a veterans um, housing project that was produced in Longmont, Colorado. Um, you can see the houses are actually on average a little smaller than the ones in the previous slide here, but um, you do see them similarly situated around a central open space area. Um, this one has a significant community building. Uh, but you similarly still see the parking sort of set to the side. Um, and again, the units all do have porches and they're oriented either towards each other or to the the center of the um of the development here. But this is again just another example of how uh these developments can look and and again are designed for um smaller footprints,

smaller living situations um which in this particular instance is um again helping um veterans getting the housing that they need [clears throat] as well. Uh so we do have al already similar types of housing um in Georgetown. These are the um examples on East North Street um in Georgetown which look very um similar to those that have been proposed elsewhere and that can be proposed um you know further in the future. So these are the two houses that are presently um on East Market Street. Uh as we may have mentioned previously, the design standards that will be enacted as a part of this text amendment uh would require some additional changes to these units. Um but every unit a any unit developed after that would be compliant or need to be compliant with the ordinance um as well. And so that is um that is essentially the presentation that um I have. Um there are if council permits there are um representatives of the entity that desires to build these in town little living u which can be um if you have questions for them you can

Well thank you Brian. Hold on just a minute. Council any questions of Brian?

I got a couple um I just went through the ordinance myself and tried to um go through it quickly as I could. I highly recommend the sideyards of about seven feet for each one. And the only reason why I say that is is if you're doing five by five, that's 10 feet. The sophets have got to play into that whenever you're building them. So the sophet has to be fire rated. So if you move it to seven, then there's no question it could be a regular set, which you make it 14 ft apart. um you're allowing for different accessories, but for a 10-ft rear yard setback and then that's the property line, not a whole lot of room for any accessories. And we know that there's usually 5 ft on each property as a utility, emergencyment, whatever. Um I think you might want to think about that unit a little bit. Maybe take it to 15. Um it just leaves a little bit more space, but it also allows for a firet truck go between them if they have to.

Sure. Let me just Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. Um on item six, you got uh I just found a clerical um down where it says 1/2 2.5 and I think there's supposed to be the word acres in it. That would be in C, the last the second to last line. Okay. Um, you see what I'm saying?

Yes. Okay. Cool. Um, and we already discussed the 10-ft separation. I think that needs to be expanded a little bit to actually give emergency vehicles and all to go through and also allow for a little bit of accessory use. And that was my comment so far on this. So, thank you very much.

Christine, Tony, anything? No, there's a lot to uh to absorb. Uh my question for you is the uh Thank you. The we have sort of been crawling or at least walking toward as a community some of this type housing. You mentioned this project with the Habitat project would be one of those. I think more than just looking at the units itself, I think that the community should have some idea as regards to the what it really looks like and how it functions on a day-to-day basis sort of a reality check if you will. So, are some of these proposed projects pilots um of some sort or how are we going to get there?

Um, so the one on East Market Street is is [clears throat] the only pilot that I'm aware of of of this particular type of of development. Um but if again if this were approved then they would be um again uh different types of developments of that nature would be permitted um in the UR1 district. Um are you are you asking about if are there other pilots elsewhere?

Uh well there was a the Greenly project while that's a town home project. Uh there was some parts of this that I think was included in the Green Lee project and the the [clears throat] Habitat project and um in Kimmy Town where 12 houses were built in a sort of uh style of smaller footprint.

Yes. So, so the Habitat homes were, you know, are similar in nature, th those are on um individual lots and um so where whereas the the houses would be similarly sized. They're not necessarily oriented the same way as we would permit um in this ordinance, but but the Greenly project uh is also a similar project, however, in a much much larger scale. And I believe those homes um are at least a thousand square feet um in size. uh on average. So So yes, there are bits and pieces of um developments in town that have similar attributes to um to what this is, but this sort of um this sort of puts them all all together.

And my last question, and this is a reiteration of something you said that each of these projects will be going through planning. Yes. And that there would be input from the community as well. Yes, that's right. That's right. Yep. So um yes, every category one um site plan or every development project uh does go through planning commission. Exactly. So there is um site design review that is performed by the planning commission and um and and again yes you're correct. The public would have um the uh feedback would be able to provide feedback on those um those projects.

Thank you. Do they have any of um these other developments in this town or this would be the I mean in this state the tiny homes

um of this of this exact type. Um this this would be the first that we're aware of. Um the the entity uh Little Living has um other projects that they're they're seeking to do. Um I think there's one in Kent County. Um, however, I should also mention that Newcastle County has an ordinance that does permit this exact um, type of development. I don't think any have been um, created or have been developed since they did that, which was a couple years ago at this point, but um, but their ordinance does permit very similar development type to this.

I'm just scared that, you know, we did the pallet shelter. We've seen what it turned into. Seems like Georgetown's the guinea pig of these projects and Georgetown's not heading in the right direction. I've not talked to one citizen in this town that supports the tiny homes. We've got to wake up and figure out what Georgetown needs to better oursel because right now we're not bettering oursel. Thank you, Brian. Is that all? Council, if you've got people you'd like to stand up and talk.

Okay. If if I may also just to clarify something that um uh council Evans mentioned about the setbacks. Um so we do also we do require a 15t setback from all external property lines if if that was your question. Um I was more concerned about when they're um back to back. Oh, I see. Um having a couple reasons because you're going to have drainage issues. So you're gonna have to have yard drains in it to get the water out of the property. Sure. But this way also it's wide enough apart. So if emergency vehicle has to go through in a hurry, it's, you know, it's they've got enough room to maneuver. That was my thought process on that. Go ahead, Clayton. I'm giving you permission.

Okay. Um, at the planning zoning, you mentioned that the houses would basically set four footwall. Is that correct?

Um, of you mean in the in this ordinance? on that partial basically or basically you were saying what propos and I just want to kind of remind you that best furniture it's probably 30 foot off the road and they just had a car go through so you got ice market and make a turn or suddenly you know next thing you know somebody house 4 foot nothing coming off public highway. Yes. But thank you. Yes.

Um I can I can answer that. Go ahead, sir. Um so uh so we have not reviewed a an engineered plan uh for that development. So that that might be a proposal, but I I I have not we have not reviewed anything that has that. the ordinance um does does require setbacks and I would I that may be the proposal um of them but that that is not something that that we reviewed as a part of a development uh application. Thank you Brian. Any of the gentlemen that you have with you want to stand up and uh speak. Sure. Thanks a lot.

So good evening council. Thanks uh for letting me uh say a few words. First of all, I'd like to introduce I'm a board member for Little Living. We have Paul Butchnes back there who is the owner of um Lighthouse

Lighthouse Lighthouse Catering. I'm sorry, I had it all memorized. Lighthouse Catering. We have Dr. Reina Thomas right here who is uh works at the VA uh offices. Uh back here we have uh Dr. Michelle Williams, part of the Forton um Forton Center for Housing. Uh Joe Aquilla right here who's a retired executive. And then we also have uh Jim Robertson who is a friend of the committee as well the organization. So you know uh the board of little little living is a a local 501c3 nonprofit created to provide affordable dignified housing for working families, senior citizens and veterans for Georgetown Little Living. We're not a typical developer. Our board is 100% volunteer. no salaries, no compensation, and no fi financial gain of any kind. We have no paid employees and minimal administrative costs beyond required insurance. That means every dollar we receive from donations, grants, or loans goes directly into the Market Street Village project. Once complete, the community will be self-sufficient with reserve for both routine maintenance as well as long-term repairs managed by a professional property management company. We are investing approximately $4 million to build 23 affordable cottages on a 2acre lot and create a welcoming, walkable community within Georgetown's town limits. Of that total, over 400,000 will go toward reclaiming and remediating the long vacant Fast Martfield site, a property that has been has sat idle for more than 20 years. This will improve the property values of the area. Our design includes a tot lot for children and a picnic area for family

and neighborhood gatherings, landscaping and green space to complement nearby properties and a carport with solar panels that will help generate clean electricity for residents. to protect neighbors privacy and property will feature a six-foot privacy fence surrounding the property excluding the frontage to discourage cutthrough pedestrian traffic. The applicants must demonstrate steady employment at least one year with the current employer and three years of continuous work history, no history of substance abuse, and no rec record of sex offenses or registration requirements. We are looking at outside sources to ensure we serve residents who can thrive long term. Together, we're developing a responsible screening process, emphasizing stability and community. Our goal is to welcome residents who will call this community home for three to five years or longer, contributing to Georgetown's economy and neighborhood strength. In summary, Little Living represents local people investing local dollars to transition a long-term vacant site into safe, affordable homes without burdening taxpayers or town resources. We respectfully request your support to adopt this ordinance that will allow us to complete the Market Street Village and bring this vision to life. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, sir. Any questions? I I do have a question. Um the ordinance envisions either fe simple lots where people would buy their little home and the lot the ground under it or a lease community where an organization owns everything but people lease the homes. It sounds like you're proposing the second. Is that correct? Correct. We will own the property. They will be rented to uh individuals. Okay. That's I think previous conversations that's what uh Georgetown was recommending. Council, any questions? [clears throat] Any other Are we allowed? Any other members? Yes. Any of your members? Any other? Sure. My wife and I visited homes and talk.

I noticed that. Stand up in the mic, Jerry, if you would.

Hi, Jerry Hammond. Um, I live at 507 North Bedford. Um, my wife and I visited the little homes out there and we noticed that the the bathroom was kind of small and I asked the gentleman there about that and I said, "It doesn't look like it's ADA accessible." And he said, "No, it's not." And I said, "So, you're building homes that's not ADA accessible and you just said you're marketing it to senior citizens and veterans. I'm assuming some of those people were ADA." I'm just asking. So, he said that he couldn't build it because you'd have to add some restrictions around. So the size of the of the homes are from 448 square ft up to just over 800 ft. Right.

The challenge with the size is 88. So your answer is they're not ADA. They are not we can put a ramp up there. No, I'm talking about people. Yeah, exactly. So they're not. They're not. Okay. Thank you.

Go ahead. council. Thank you for listening. Um, I'm a local businessman here in Georgetown. I've been out DelTech for 15 years. I've had quite a few employees, lots of students come through, and housing is difficult to make payments. The new apartments that are coming up and springing up all over Georgetown are fantastic, but they're also unaffordable for a good portion of the younger people and people that are on limited income. This is a solution to a problem. The problem is there's not enough housing to keep people that are starting out or going to the end. They have a nice place to live that's affordable. We're trying to solve that problem. We're trying to anticipate what could come up. We're trying to get your input as to what you would like to have and what is needed. But to stop the project, I think would be a disservice to the town of Georgetown. We're willing to work with everyone as well as we can. We want to make sure the people that go in there want to live there have good standards that they're just not showing up at a place that's free or almost free. This isn't free. They're going to have to pay $800 to $1,100 a month. Yes, we are including the electricity. Yes, we're including the internet which again enables them to perhaps save money for a larger place to live or their own home or they can still survive on whatever income that they have that's coming in monthly. But the income is very very important. We're not looking for handout to anybody. We're looking to help people

get up, get going, and get where they need to be. And I would hope that the citizens and the town council would be with us on that and I would really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Yes. I said thank you. Oh, sure. Hi. Thanks for having me. Um, I'm Roina Thomas and I appreciate that. I don't think I can be as eloquent as uh Paul just was. Um, but good evening to the council and to the community. I'm here because I'm

I'm sorry I'm so sore throat. I'm here because I'm a physician at the VA in Georgetown and I have good familiarity with the veteran experience, particularly those who return from service and are working hard for their families and their communities. I'm in strong support of the or um ordinance because I think this would help us develop um a community that would help um the our neighbors in Georgetown who are earning between 33,000 and 66,000 annually um to help find homes that they can afford and live where they work. Um I think this isn't just a zoning decision. I think it's a moral imperative. According to the Delaware State Housing Authority, the housing needs assessment, our state faces a shortage of ne nearly 20,000 affordable rental units for households earning up to 50% of the area median income. The bottom line is that 8% of Delawareians are living in their cars or couch surfing. And these are not people that are just not working. These are people who are our teachers, health care workers. Ask people how much they're making and where they're living um and how far they're traveling. retail staff and public servants who are struggling to find stable, affordable housing. Little Living's proposed development in Georgetown directly addresses this crisis. We're looking for affordable room units that are rented to people who are paying at 1100 $800 to $1,100 per month. Um, and that hits that group of people who are making in that that salary range. These homes are built at cost with no profit margin. We're not here to uh make some money. Um we're here just not to pro provide shelter, but to provide dignity and stability. We have a responsibility to those who support our community, like our teachers and our um uh the health care workers um and our veterans that are coming back um from service. Approving this ordinance

is a step toward ensuring that our workforce can live where they work, contribute to the local economy, and raise their families in safe, stable environments. I feel like this is doing the right thing for our neighbors, for our town, and for our future. Thank you. Thank you. We'll open it up to the public in a little bit. Okay.

Uh my name's uh Michelle, Dr. Michelle Williams. Uh I'm the vice president of Little Living as well as the executive director of the Fuller Center for Housing of Delaware. So somebody asked the question about uh do we have this anywhere else in Delaware? So the city of Wilmington uh back just maybe six months ago proposed their cluster community ordinance and that got passed. We chose Georgetown because we saw it as a need and we had the land here and it was an infill and we saw that we were for people that are working. There's a big distinction and I don't want the homeless situation to crowd out that it's when your son or your daughter doesn't they want to work. They have a college education and they can't find somewhere to live that's less than $1,500 a month plus and then transportation. So when we look across the country, this is the way that people are finding to have affordability in housing and decency. We a lot of us in this room grew up in a starter home where there was four kids, a mom and a dad and two pets with two bedrooms. We all remember that there isn't that housing these days and that's what the little houses will do. So I just wanted to say if anybody needs any data on this, I'm the person. So, uh, no, we we looked at this project from a statistical standpoint and then looked at it from a humanistic standpoint. So, that's why, uh, we're really excited to be here in Georgetown.

So, thank you. Thank you. Anybody else in the board? Go ahead, Brian. Uh I just wanted to convey that um the a little living has provided a um if it's um if it's your will council that they have a 4-minute video that is um that is on the um on the computer that that if if you like that they can um shows that describes the mission of the organization if that's that's permissible. Yes.

Remember this is not approval. this getting just thoughts and ideas from the community as whether you want it or you don't want it. If you don't want to come up to the microphone tonight, do it in writing and drop it off the town hall in an envelope to my name and we'll see that your question gets answered and we'll answer all the questions on the web page so you can look at the web page and see what the answers to the questions are. So, uh, feel free when we open this up to the public. I've got four or five that have signed forms to come up and talk after they get up and talk. If you want to come up and talk, you're more than willing to, but if you don't want to, you can, uh, write it and s bring it to town hall and we'll see that it gets answered. Okay. And also, if I can just jump in, um, the ordinance is about the ability to set up a um, community like this. This is not Little Living's project right now. that would go if if the ordinance passes presumably they would submit their project to planning and there'd be review of the details of that project. So this isn't approving anything for Little Living tonight. Little Living is a 501c3 nonprofit with a mission to create highquality cottage communities that foster inclusivity and provide support for veterans, seniors, and working families earning between $35,000 and $65,000 annually. At Little Living, we believe no senior, veteran, or working family should have to choose between rent and food, medicine, or security. That's why we're building an affordable cottage community right here in Georgetown, Delaware, the county seat for Sussex County. In Georgetown, the average rent, including utilities, for an apartment is between $1,600 to $2,200 a month. At Little Living, our cottages will rent for $950 to $1,200, including utilities. That savings can mean groceries on the table, medicine in the cabinet, and peace of mind. Here are three examples of the type of

individuals and families we are focused on helping. I'm a single mom. I wait tables full-time and pick up shifts whenever I can. Before this, we were living in a motel, just me and my son on a pullout bed, trying to make ends meet. When we found out we qualified for an affordable home, I cried. Not just for the roof over our heads, but for the space, the safety, the chance to just breathe. Now my son is doing better in school. I can cook real meals. I don't wake up everyday wondering if we'll be forced to move again. Affordable housing gave me and my son stability and hope.

My name is Marcus. I served in the army for 12 years, two tours overseas. I made it back, but when I got here, it didn't feel like home anymore. For a while, I was couch surfing, then sleeping in my car. You don't expect that after wearing the uniform, but it happens more than people think. Then, someone told me about a program for veterans. Affordable housing. I didn't believe it at first, but they meant it. They helped me get on my feet. This place, it's not just a house. It's peace. It's safety. It's mine. And from here, I started rebuilding one day at a time. I'm not just surviving anymore. I'm living. And that's because someone cared enough to make housing affordable for veterans like me. We showed up for our country. Now, we just need a chance. A home makes all the difference. Every night, more than 33,000 US veterans are homeless, sleeping in shelters, on sidewalks, or in their cars. Many faced the invisible wounds of war, PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, addiction, or depression. Others simply couldn't find affordable housing after serving. They defended our freedom. But too often they return home to isolation and no home at all. Stable housing is the foundation for healing, for dignity, for a second chance. Hello, my name is John. This is my wife, Jane. When we retired, we thought social security would cover the basics. But with rent going up every year, we found ourselves choosing between paying the landlord or paying for groceries and medicine.

It was stressful. We didn't want to burden our kids, but we also didn't want to end up in a run-down place we couldn't feel safe in. We just needed something stable, something dignified. Moving into this affordable cottage changed everything. Our rent is fair and it includes utilities. For the first time in years, we can plan a budget without worrying about surprise rent hikes. Now we can afford our prescriptions, keep the fridge full, and even save a little each month. We finally feel at peace, like we can enjoy this stage of life instead of just scraping by. This home gave us more than a roof over our heads. It gave us hope for the future for the future.

Little Living is working to make a difference in our community. We are not providing handouts, but we are providing a hand up to those in our community who are vested in improving their lives. Families like Sarah's, veterans like Marcus, and seniors like John and Jane will have hope because of Little Living. But so many more are still waiting for a safe, affordable place to call home. You can help us build it. Visit little.org or scan the QR code to donate today. Together, we can build hope one cottage at a time. Well, we're going to open it up to uh uh questions, public comment questions. And the first person is Linda Dennis. And I understand there was a lady online that had a question. We'll get that question and answer it and put the results up online so she can see. But I think her question was whether they were going to be owned or they're going to be rentals. They're going to be rentals. I'm Linda Dennis. I live in the village of Cinderbury. I've lived in Georgetown for 20 years. And in the 20 years that I've lived here, when I first came into Georgetown, my vision for the town was so hopeful. I uh I'm a planner by experience and profession. So, I had high hopes for this town. Unfortunately, over the last 20 years, the things that I thought were important for the sustainability of a town like ours didn't come to fruition. We've got a lot of things that we're trying to I don't want to say prevent. We have dealt a number of severe blows to our community in terms of livability, people

wanting to live here, property values. Um, and so while you all gave a very convincing presentation, you failed to read the people in the room. We live here. We've had enough. We want I'm not against progress, but this is not the direction that I think the town needs to go in. Frankly, it's just another blow and I'm really against it. There are a number of things that you're in your presentation. 448 to 800 square feet. Really see dogouses that are bigger than that. 23 cottages 10 feet apart. Picture that in your mind. The pictures that were displayed, they're they're not here and they're not what's going to be built here. I can assure you of that. I have a suggestion. If you are really hellbent on passing this ordinance, perhaps you need to think about having the Greenly project, which is across the street, basically the same thing, although the price ranges are a little bit different, but it's a rental property. Working with that developer to set aside a number of units that would take care of this population. That way, we don't have to put up with another development. There's one coming across the street. It's going to be rather large. It's a rental property. And they had some of the same goals as this one. So, it's a little confusing to me. What are we talking about? So, I would like to see negotiations with Shell Brothers and whoever's involved in that project to set aside 23 of their 200 homes for this population. They have all the same amenities.

Everything is the same. and it'll be in a respectable community across the highway and not bordering other homes in the community. That's what I would like to see as the solution. I do not want to see this project go forward. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Linda. Number two is Wanda. Or should I call you Bunny?

I'm Bunny Burton. and I live on North Bedford Street. I don't know why this property was chosen. I ask all of you on the on the council to please go to this property. Stand there. And when Swift starts loading their trucks and stuff, the noise is terrible. You're going to have some very, very unhappy tenants at this property. And I know this for a fact. Also, I'm confused because you were talking about uh in the in the presentation veterans. My understanding was that this these people had to have full-time jobs. So, retired veteran would wouldn't be allowed. I mean, wasn't that one of the stipulations? And that's just wrong. Also, I'd like to know, are the people of Georgetown going to be the first ones that'll be able to get this, or are we going to be bringing other people from other towns in here, which we already have and we don't need anymore? The parking that's going to be in front, it's going to look like a used car lot come going out of the town of Georgetown. Nothing attractive about it. It's going to look horrible and we deserve better. I mean, it's just why are we doing something that's going to look terrible? And it is. It's going to look terrible. It's going to look like a used car lot because you're going to put the the 23 homes, they're all going to have cars and they're going to be parked right on the road. The road, the traffic's there terrible now. And you're going to put more people out on it coming from from what I understand one little road. The fire that you you mentioned, the

fire trucks, it's going to be difficult for them to even get in there if these homes are going to be this tight. Like Linda said, um the homes will be devalued in the area. There's no doubt about that. I mean, think of yourselves and think if you would want to live next to a property that has 23 little homes. I don't think anybody would. And that's I'm not downing people if this is what they can afford. But people from Georgetown should get first choice. They should be the ones allowed, not people from other towns coming here because like I said, we've already got homeless people that we know are from everywhere else. And people from Georgetown that are homeless. We don't even know how many they are, but they're a small percentage, I think. So, please check it out. And like I said, the noise from Swift is unbelievable. and you're going to have some very unhappy tenants and I don't think it will take long for them to be very unhappy. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Bunny. Tyler Scott.

Guys, my name is Tyler Scott. I'm 38 years old. I understand it's tough. It is tough. You're you're not understanding where the the people of this town are right now. This is deja vu all over again. We're being made promises. And like you have heard Jerry, you bring up an excellent point. By the way, these are homes for elderly folks and veterans, but if they have some kind of handicap, it's not going to be they're not going to be able to be in there. I don't understand that. Um guys, we just don't trust you to do it. you're not feeling the frustration and the fear in the community and they just don't simp they simply don't trust you and I don't blame them. This is all self-created. We did this to ourselves. I I don't know. I don't know what the next step is because there is a need. I will give you that there is a need. But it's just unfortunate that right now you're meeting this town in the place that it's at because we're we're not a happy group, not a trustful group. So, um, you know, I don't know what's next, but I wish you guys luck. You know, I appreciate what you're trying to do. Thank you, Tyler. Next is, uh, Eddie Weiss. good evening, council. Um, Georgetown does need

more affordable living. Um, we also need more restaurants, more commercial. Um, we're looking at taking away some commercial property to put residents. I just don't think that many residents on East Market Street is a good idea. I don't think it's a good idea for east market, west market, north beffort, south beffort. There's other areas that could possibly take those. I don't think that's a good idea um for safety issues and property value. Um funny what you said about Purdue. I grew up over on that side of town. Have you guys been there when they're loading or anything? The smell at any day is horrible. I grew up on that side of town. I didn't grow up that close to it,

but it was still horrible. I live on the outskirts, still in town limits, and I'll still get a whiff of it every now and then. It's horrible. They're not going to be happy about it. Um, you also said the taxpayers wouldn't be burdened. Well, if I'm not mistaken, I was told that the state of Delaware was going to fund all the infrastructure. Is that is that correct? I'm not sure about I'm not sure about all the infrastructure. I mean, there's some remediation that they're paying for and it's in an opportunity zone, so there's some funding there. Okay.

So, so the taxpayers are going to be burdened somewhat with that. Um, you also said that the uh the prices were going to be 800 to,100. Right now it's actually 950 to 12. Okay. Cuz I was going to say because in in the presentation it was it was that um it was also in the presentation that um you have 33,000 veterans homeless and everything like that. Um, I know I know we have a lot of homeless veterans and stuff like that in town. A lot of them al are also addicts. They're not going to benefit from that.

So, I mean, there's there's a lot of there's a lot of things, you know, with this. Um, I'm not disagreeing that we need homeless or not not homeless, but affordable housing. I just don't think that this is the area to do it. Um, I also think that for a development like this, it should be it should have its own zoning and not in regular residential because if we if we lump it in with regular residential, anybody with a oneacre property could put 10 to 12 houses on it. Now, I have two acres, almost two acres myself. So, I could tear my home down and put 24 homes on it. I don't think the I don't think our neighbors would like that.

I think your boss just said that's not going [clears throat] to happen. Well, but I'm I'm I'm making a point. Yeah. [snorts] Yeah, I understand. you know, so there's there's other things with this that that still need to be looked at, but I do think it needs to have its own zoning. These are all good questions. We we we've listened to you. We'll be able to take them off the tape, but if you got any further, write them down and get them to us because they need to be answered before we move forward. This this isn't a sight plan tonight. I This is just an ordinance to say, "Yeah, we want to move forward. No, we don't want to move forward." and we're getting people's opinion as to what all this was lumped into Yes, sir. into this. So, that's that's why I think everybody's bringing up that. I got you.

Um, but once again, it's commercial. I think it needs to stay commercial. All right, sir. We need more commercial in town. Mark. Hi, Mark Rogers. Poisonberry. Could I get that last frame up there that you had in your slideshow just before that?

Yep, that's great. So, [clears throat] I'm not going to give you a lot of opinions uh because we can argue that all night. I'm going give you facts from living here my whole life, 21 years on the police department, 37 in the fire department. You look at the two houses up there, you're absolutely right. The one on the left is what they're going to say is the new. It's a single family home. The one on the right is East North Street, single family home. I'm probably one of maybe the chief of police that's been in that home and the other ones more than once. Whether it was a police call or emergency call, that's not a single family home. There's every bit of three or four families in that little house. That's one of the things I'm concerned about with these little houses. I've been there, knocked on the door for a medical emergency on the second floor. They had no clue who I was talking about because they didn't know the family. There's two to at least three families in that house right now. [clears throat] So that's what you're looking at when you when they try to say single family homes. Other things about 25 years ago, the carriage place out on North uh North Pepper Street extended by the school. Same thing. All them houses are kind of built the same way, kind of low income. Ride through there at 10:00 at night. You can't get through there. I've been there on a fire truck and we've had to stop two houses short because of the cars that are parked there. They're single family homes. I've been there and been in them homes and people don't know the names of the people living in the bedrooms. That's they're not single family homes. There's two to three families living there. It break my heart to go in there and see little kids and their mom and dad sharing the living room because the other families are in the bedroom. Northgate, Jaclyn Drive, the town houses, they call them, single family homes. Mr. Barrett can contested this. He was on the fire truck about four years ago. Thanksgiving day, they were cooking their turkey in the little turkey fryer in the living room and caught it on fire.

We had to stop. Well, I remember stretching the hose and extra hose 300 feet from that apartment because we couldn't get there on slow nights when I used to work the police department and I had to get not that we had to get tickets, but I would ride through there at 2 in the morning and I could write all the tickets I wanted for being parked in the far lane and parked by the fire hydrants. They're supposed to be single family homes. They're not single family homes. I would love for these 23 homes to come to Georgetown and put a father, a mother, and a small child in them starting out at 18, 19, 20 years old and it stay like that. I don't think anyone on that council can promise me that in six, nine months they won't be overcrowded. Our population, the police department, the fire department, we're based off the population of this town. So what we're going to tell people is we don't need more police officers because we're only adding 23 s 23 family 23 single family homes. You're probably really adding double that or even triple that number. Again, carriage place. Go through there and count them homes and then times it by three. Count each townhouse over here on each north street. Times it by two or three. talking about parking again. We talked about how we're going to have parking or emergency services open again 10 o'clock tonight, unless things have changed in the last year since I retired. Ride through the car's place or ride through over here at East North Gate and tell me you don't have a problem and that emergency vehicles can get in and out of there with no problem. It's not going to happen. Hope I hope it never happens, but one of these days, unfortunately, we will have a fatality because we couldn't get there quick enough and then we'll start talking about overcrowding. We need to start talking about it now and not bring more things to Georgetown. Mr. Mayor and the council, I thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mark. Now, we're going to open on the microphone to anybody else that would like to step up and speak.

Michael Wyatt, 703 East Market Street. Um, I moved here in 87. In 97 or 96, I served on the charter review committee for the town of Georgetown. I think you folks need to read the charter and read it well. We had I sat in that seat and I sat in that seat there for a total of what 13 years. when you had a crowd of people come to your meeting this size and talk about a certain incident that was going to be voted on and they were talking against it, I think you better take some advice and start listening to the people that put you in there because the people that put you in there will take you all out of there. And that's just every two years. famous person once said, "On any given night, three votes will get you anything." And that's still true. It's a shame, but it's still true. But my advice to you folks is think before you vote on this ordinance. You can look around the room, count the people that are not on the committee that are here to speak in favor of this, the ones that are not going to benefit from this. Count them. Most of these people vote. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike.

Adam Bowski, 200 South Bedford Street. I definitely don't oppose bringing homes to Georgetown. I am opposed to bringing more rental homes to Georgetown. I think we have plenty of rentals around here. Um, I'm not looking for an answer from anyone, but I highly uh suspect that most people in this room own their homes or mortgage their homes and they're not renters. You build the best communities with people who care because they're invested in their communities. Um, I think the aesthetics of small houses looks much better than um, you know, the commie block kind of houses we get at the Oaks and the place behind the Walmart. Um, just my just my personal take. Um, there definitely needs to be some homes that aren't built by Shell Brothers for $450,000 in Sussex County. Um, most people aren't buying them. I mean, there are people from New Jersey and Pennsylvania that are moving and retiring down here. And, um, I think we're going to run into a really big problem cuz these are the houses that are marketed to people. Um, and these are high need people. These aren't people who are electricians and plumbers and nurses and doctors. Um, these are people who need electricians, plumbers, nurses, and doctors. And if these kids around here can't afford to grow up and live where they grew up, they're going to leave. They're going to search better economic opportunities. And this area is going to be left behind with a lot of skilled labors that are needed to support the people that moved here. And that is almost a recipe for disaster. Um, so I think we really do need to uh look for opportunities for houses that are affordable to young families so we can keep them here and they're not moving elsewhere. Um, so we can build a strong future. I'm going to keep it pretty sweet cuz it's already pretty late, but thank you guys very much for your time.

Thank you, Adam. Hi, I'm Eric I'm 512 North Street. Um, talking to the mic, please.

Gotcha. Solution. So, I see this big building that it's built in Georgetown. It's a big city building, right? So, I was just thinking, how about if you do something for the community? How about think about getting some land out in 13. Invest on creating an office building a plaza. Get every lawyer and corporate that owns a house in Georgetown. Move them into offices and you release houses from there. Something that you have control. There's 127 houses in Georgetown being occupied by either lawyers, corporate America, and things like that. That's the first steps. Those are little steps. And then you want to bring these little houses. That's cool. But you keep forgetting that Georgetown and commercial are now colliding. And this is what the people are telling you. We're trying to keep a hometown environment, but keep the commercial out. But you're not understanding that you have to take risk. If you want to take risk, then look at the solution with it that we can control cuz you will know that them 22 houses are not going to nobody in Georgetown. Be serious about that. So just think outside of the brim. 127 houses are being occupied by lawyers. These are houses that can be given to the community. It's just simple. Thank you for letting me share.

Thank you, sir. [clears throat]

Clayton Townsen and this road in Georgetown. Um, if we're out to destroy the town, we're off to a very good start. um with the um influx of homeless and the basically the migrants that moved in and multi- people living in all these houses. Now we want to bring in tonnie homes. Um I know where they want to put them. It's a safety issue. It's basically 4 foot. Um but I worry about people like my quiet bespoke and the Hastings down the road. you know, they got, I don't know, 350, $450,000 homes that's going to be destroyed. Their property value is going to be destroyed by this. Um, you they want this land because basically I think it's basically going to be give to them because it's brown. It's brown earth. Um, now you mentioned um during the last meeting that perhaps the state would come in and rectify that. Would that be because they're going to be nonprofit or is it something that you know that we don't know? Um, but you did you did make mention of that. And then two, Christina, I guess maybe I don't know, four or five years ago, for whatever reason, um my wife was on council and we were talking about town homes, you know, maybe as property and one of the first things you had out of your mouth was a disparaging part about rowousing that you grew up or you many of your years of your life was in the city. And to me, what they proposed and what I heard at planning and zoning is basically row housing. They're not attractive to me. I think they're a glorified mobile home park. I lived in a mobile home park when I went through a um separation many years ago. My mom still lives in a mobile home

park. That's our mobile home that has been added on to and we she they bought that in 1968 and she's 85 years old and washed and waxed that thing not too long ago. So it's still you know it means something to her. It's it's still affordable housing for her. But what I'm getting at is you were basically four or five I'm time flies but it was four or five years ago you had a disparaging mark about Rohaz and this is nothing more than that. And to me, when I look at it, it's glorified mobile home park. Um, when I have worked with people that lowincome, um, some have been Hispanic, some have been of color. They mentioned mobile home parks within the county. They need more mobile home parks. That's affordable housing for them. You can't do it in town. We don't want this in town. I want to protect my property values. Even though I live on the other side of town, I I worry about the Hastings and and all the people that live up and down um East Market Street and it's going to be destroyed by anything like that. Is there areas that we could look at well out or at the edge of town towards the airport perhaps? Maybe out on sand hill something like that you know maybe but not here not in the middle of our town. We're trying to grow this. You know, Bill made disparaging comments, too, that with this highway improvements, we're going to lose a tremendous amount of commercial property. Um, this here is actually commercial property. Um, that is proposed to put these people these houses here. Um, the people that spoke, I don't think any one of them lives in Georgetown. They don't have worry about the property values. They don't have to worry about that. Oh, we can put it in Georgetown because they're open to anything and everything. But we can't do that anymore. We simply can't do it. So I thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Yes. Tell us who you are. I'm uh Joe Aquilla with Little Living. Yes, sir.

And so please don't throw tomatoes. Um you know, I understand your trepidation. There's a couple things that are unfair and I'll tell you what they are. One one that's unfair is that we don't care what happens to your community. Let me tell you something. I cook at St. man's kitchen on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and the food goes up to the homeless in um near uh Pas Rahobath. I work for Rossaries and Scapulars. We send out and have sent out 600,000 kits to servicemen and countries and men and women. So a person who doesn't care what happens to your community, I take offense to that because I don't want your community to be bad. We want your community to be good and we want to build something there. Now, second of all, those are not the same materials in those houses that you get in a mobile home. The h the materials we use in our homes are much much better. Now, I can tell you that the the the junk that you see down on down the street here that we put up, do you know why it's like that? because it's concept homes and each one of us chipped in money to build those homes and we started changing things and you can't have a porch on them because

you don't have a foundation. There's a lot of things that we could do and improve, but it's when you work together to improve it. And I'll tell you another thing. Don't think that we haven't thought of people like six people moving in a house. We've thought of that, too, because we're going to vet those people and we're going to make sure and that's why we own the land. This is not a situation where we haven't thought of some of your objections because we care about you because you're our states people and we want this community to grow and to be a success. Now, you can say to me, "Hey, you want to cure the homeless problem?" And I'm telling you, we're not out here to cure the homeless problem. I feed the homeless. I can't cure their problem, but I can cure the affordability. And that's why we developed this program to cure the affordability problem. And lastly, I don't know about you, but when I was little, I grew up in 900 square ft. And guess what? In that 900 square feet, my mother was so instrumental in saving our family that we lived in a three-story Rome home, town home, whatever you want to call it. It wasn't called a town home. It was called a row home in those days. Guess what? We knocked off the first floor thing and built it so there could

be a separate apartment upstairs. And that separate apartment paid us money. And then my mother got real creative and my sister and I slept in the kitchen which was gutted and there was a a divider put in. And I was on one side, she was on the other. And my cousins from Virginia moved came up to work at Glenn El Martin and she rented them our beds. But guess what? They didn't live there. This is a situation where people need a hand up, not a hand out. And I hope that by working together and listening to your objections and coming together and trying to figure out how we can improve things, we could do do a better job. And that's all I have to say. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, sir. Anybody else at this time? If not, we're going to close uh the public hearing at this time. It'll stay open uh for two weeks for people to write your uh letters of uh your thoughts and ideas and then we'll be on the agenda for the first reading. So,

what do you want to say? Get over to the microphone. It's short and sweet. It sounds good. Everything sounds good, but it's You're still not listening. The point of it is we live here. We have to look at it and we have to be around it. We don't want it. That's how I'm seeing it. I believe me, I we need stuff. Yes. But I don't think anybody wants it where it is now. So, point blank, we live here. We have to be around it. We don't want it. Thank you. There again, it's a public hearing. We're following procedure. It stays open two weeks and then it'll be on the agenda for the first reading. If you got questions and comments, get them in writing. Get them in so we can get them answered. I think you've gi uh little living some uh thoughts and ideas of some things that uh can be changed. Yeah, maybe uh uh the property is an issue. If it is, put it in the writing. We need to know these things. We can't read your minds, but seeing here tonight, everybody went to the microphone is totally against it. And uh you know, we we got to do what's best for the town. when when you got seven people in the homeless shelter in the little in in the the pallet village that are working every day at Purdue but can't find a place to rent because rent is so high. Would they be able to move into there? Probably. We got two people from Georgetown and I mentioned the last name. You would know them like the back of your own hand. Living in vehicles. living in vehicles but working every day driving from Georgetown living in a vehicle to Laurel to go to work and then back to Georgetown to get something to

eat and sleep in his vehicle. It's not right people. It's not right. This is what's going to happen. We're going to keep it open for two weeks so it'll be back on the agenda in two weeks. So public hearing is closed today. So moving on to the regular council meeting. Everybody rise for pledge of allegiance and invocation. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Pastor Neil,

eternal God, we thank you God for your love, your kindness and mercy. We thank you Lord for allowing us to come here one more time. We ask you God to bless us, season our voices, season our words tonight as we discuss tennis. We thank you right now. God, give you all the glory and praise. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. You can be seated. Council, we're at the point of a adoption of the agenda. I'm asking for a motion to remove number seven. Uh Brian informs me that that position is not going to be filled at this time. So I'd entertain a motion to remove item number seven. I make a motion to remove item number seven, board of adjustment appointments. Thank you, Penn. Do I have a second?

Second. Thank you, Eric. All in favor signal by saying I. I oppose. So carried. Council members, hope you've had a chance to look at your October 13th town council minutes. If uh there's no additions or deletions, I'd entertain a motion to accept. So moved. Thank you, Eric. Do a second. Eric, thank you for a second. All in favor? Second by saying I. I. Opposed? So carried. Council member comments. We start with Pastor Neil tonight. Sir, it's grateful to be here tonight and just glad to see everybody. Thank you for coming. Uh Eric. Yes.

I just got a couple things. One, I was going to talk about the misinformation that was put out the last meeting. Um I guess the tiny houses did correct that they're going to have porches if they put them on. The rumors that were going around, it's just misinformation. I got to find the guy that's putting it out. going to have sidewalks as part of the ordinance also. So, whoever heard and find that guy who's talking about that stuff, I'd appreciate it. Um, the other misinformation, somebody else called and talked to me and said that the shepherd's house received a grant and then I was corrected. We don't have a shepherd's house. We have a shepherd's office, which blew me away because I always thought it was a shepherd's house. But the Shepherd's office has not received a state grant. That was confirmed by the state. The third thing I want to put out is a attab boy to the Georgetown Police Department. You made the coastal point and they wanted to this this uh individual from uh who was the organizer of No Kings out on 113. Um wanted to thank you for the professionalism and the safety that you provided them and that you acted yourself very accordingly and they put it in paper just to say that you all did a very good job. So, thank you. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you, Arian. It's good seeing everyone here this evening. Um, back on May 9th of 22, we approved the pallet shelter and we used $500,000 of our ARPA money. Um, and correct me if I'm wrong, the pallet shelters belong to the town of Georgetown. Is that correct, Mr. Mayor? The buildings? Yes. And the property is first state community action. Correct. That is correct.

And since then we've all seen that the pallet shelter is not working for this town. So my thinking is why don't we get involved with someone like Love Inc. I know Councilman Neil took a tour there the other day. What did you think of it, Councilman Neil? It's a nice facility. Yeah. They pretty much got their stuff together, don't they?

Pretty well. Yeah. Yep. You know, if we own the structures and we see that what's happening around there is not working, why don't we make a change? If we own the property, I think we can make the change. I mean, don't take a rocket scientist to figure this out here. Um, I think we need to look into someone like Love, Inc. to take over the property. Maybe it'll turn this town around. We've got to start somewhere, and now's the time. That's all I got. Thank you, sir. Christina, no comment. Thank you. And I've got nothing. Uh, moving forward, number six, uh, town solicitor's comments regarding code of ethics and procedures.

Thank you. Thank you. Um, I want to take a few minutes to respond to some comments that were made at the previous council meeting. Um, I could not be present in person. I was present virtually. Um those comments were regarding uh general ethical obligations for members of council and also the town solicitor's role. Um first uh it was stated there's been a recent um ethics commission hearing and it was stated that the town had to pay two attorneys in connection with that ethics hearing. So I just wanted to state for the record that I was not one of those attorneys and my firm received no fees in connection with that hearing. As to the presence of two attorneys, that is standard practice. [cough] Excuse me. One attorney has to present the case to the board and the other sits with the board and represents them in the same way I sit with council at meetings. And I do want to clarify that the presenting attorney does not represent the complaining party as was stated um at the previous meeting. So no attorney represented Mr. Windsenreed who was the complainant in that case. And if I make any reference to that hearing, that hearing was made public. Secondly, the role of solicitor. It was said that the town solicitor's obligation is to police the ethical conduct of individual council members at meetings. That is also not correct. Attorneys and town solicitors provide counsel and advice to the body as a whole. We do not control the client's actions. We do not control the votes of any particular council members. It's my job when I sit as solicitor for Georgetown or any other town I represent to assist council with understanding the legal issues surrounding matters such as ordinances, zoning, or whatever comes before them. And I certainly will um make comments if there were times when the actions of council as a whole could violate any federal or state laws or could lead to litigation. However, even then I could point out that something might violate a state law. However, I could not control the

votes of any individual council member. As to ethics in particular, these are matters personal to each council person. Obviously, each council person has different external factors, jobs, family, financial interest that affect each of them differently. I am not privy to all of that information as to every town official and it would certainly not be appropriate for me to sit here at any given time and accuse any council person of unethical behavior or wrongdoing from my seat. Town ethics code provides that no town official or employee should participate in any matter in which he or she has a personal or private interest. The code goes on to define personal or private interest as an interest which tends to impair a person's independence of judgment and performance of his or her duties. That is a subjective standard. Clearly, these definitions require a self-examination by the official or employee in question as to whether, as the code says, a personal interest exists. Of course, if an individual council member has a concern about whether a conflict may exist and if I am asked and given details about the situation, I will certainly advise them accordingly. But again, the final decision as to whether to take action or what action to take or what vote to take resides solely with the council person and obviously you elect council people. You do not elect the solicitor. You do not elect the manager or other town staff. So obviously we have to leave these votes to the council people. Um with regard to the ethics hearing that took place, my understanding is also that the citizens challenge was focused not on votes that took place at the meetings and in fact Councilman Barrett appropriately recused himself from the actual votes, but the focus was on conduct which allegedly took place outside of meetings when I was not present. To be clear, I was never asked for advice or opinion on the appropriateness of any of the actions

alleged prior to the time they were taken. And finally, as council has requested, a document is online uh documenting procedures and guidelines for ethics commission p um complaints, how to file them, and what they should consist of, and what the commission will do with them. Thank you. Thank you. Can I ask a question? Yes. Um, so who polices the town council meeting? I don't really understand the word polices. As I said, if you're going to pass an ordinance that violates Delaware state law, I'm going to tell you that. I'll say if that gets if you pass that and it gets challenged, it's going to get shot down.

At the last, of course, I was part of the hearing. So, I learned a lot. Um, I did learn that we spent thousands of dollars to represent the case that Mr. Windsory put out against me and so the town did represent him. Maybe not on paper, but he represented him. Um, but I also asked one of the one of the uh questions they they said, "Have you been to any ethics training? The council needs to go to ethics training." And I said, "Yeah, we did." And I remember that night pretty clear. We left that training. We come in here and I think we voted on the pallet shelter and Councilman Diaz Malone technically it was a ethics violation because they told me it was voted and she didn't care. So who controls what we're doing up here? Now they now and and everything was recorded that night because I wanted to make sure that whole meeting was recorded. But I was told that the mayor and the town solicitor police if if someone is unethical, they are supposed to stop them from Yes, that is what I was told.

Okay. Um I will not sit here and make a personal judgment as to whether somebody is being unethical. It's a personal or private interest. You you read the code of ethics, not you. Everybody reads the code of ethics. You sign off on it every year. You know your personal situations. If in doubt, certainly bring it to me at the table or in private and I'll give you advice. I can't give advice on what I don't know about and I cannot tell you how to tell you, Christina, anyone how to vote. All right. Thank you.

Um I think I'm addressing a personal attack on myself. Uh at the time that this vote came up for the pallet village, it is really now a moot point because it was a unanimous decision at the time. And yes, I voted because at the time there was no interest and still I personally don't have any personal interest in the pallet village. Yes, I have volunteered there. Yes, I have spent some of my own personal money there in the art uh uh program, but I do want to remind us who are forgetful that it was a unanimous vote and now we're running for cover to put some kind of blame for some kind of personal reason. I have received emails and posts on Facebook regarding this matter that is not going unnoticed. And I just want to make sure that you understand that when I sat here and I remember that training very well because it was particularly held for me as I felt it. And I went after this person who presented the meeting and had a conversation with her and she she ex explained to me and gave me the same information that the solicitor here gave me. So, it was my conscience to vote for it because at the time, no one here present, council or not, had any idea of what to do about this issue. But now, it seems appropriate to throw me and everything else that has to do with the pallet village under the bus. I will not take any personal attacks against my person whatsoever regarding this issue. Have it worked? Yes. Good ideas are always looking what do they say that uh great ideas are always looking for an owner or

do not have to lock for an owner. So I'm tired of shrinking on the issue. I'm tired of talking about it. And if anyone wants to take me up personally, I would love to have a conversation on it. But I do want to remind you again the same way I reminded the press people who were looking for an argument and somebody to throw under the bus and take the uh take the issue to the street if you will to remind you again. It was a unanimous decision again. Last last meeting we had town council former town council woman Townson apologize for supporting the uh the pallet village. So you're welcome to walk everything you've done back but you can't say you haven't learned from it. She learned something from it. Whether it was good or bad somebody learned something from it. But it's not it is not right to take somebody's personal business or personal information or personal reputation out of context and I will defend wherever my character and my name. Thank you. Listen, we're getting out of hand.

No, I don't need a backward. Just listen to me, Christine. We're at one another's throats. Are we getting anything done for the town we're when we're at one another's throats? No. Are we accomplishing anything by getting at one another's throats? No. Are we going to continue to be at one another's throats? Probably. Because everybody wants to point fingers about the pallet village. The pallet village. The pallet village. We all agreed. We all agreed to spend the money. And we spent the money to for the houses. We got the houses after that. It was You don't have the houses. The houses belong to the federal government. Those are federal funds.

But it was the ARPA money through the town of George, but they it was government funds and they go back to the government. No, it did say if if they they stay with Georgetown. Exactly. There's documentation. Yeah.

So they stay with Georgetown. So they'll never leave Georgetown. The property is belongs to First State Community Action. So, if the nonprofit decides to collapse tomorrow, all that stuff that's on that property will be turned over to First State Community Action. And what do you think they're going to do? They're going to keep it running, but in a different fashion. Yeah. And somebody posted on Facebook that uh I was on the board. Yeah, I've been on the board to try to get things squared away and done the right way. But when I made suggestions about how things should have been done, they were forgotten and I was overlooked. So at that point in time, I decided to step down from the pallet village and RL Hughes, who was the chief of police here, stepped down from the pallet village. So what's that tell you? We didn't like the way things were being done. So we're not on the board now. So, it's time uh that uh if we got problems, it's time to to bring the the board, the pallet village in and see what we can correct.

Okay. Mr. Mayor, you quietly removed yourself from the board, right? Yes. And you gave these these suggestions and you two now are walking back your support. This was in January. Okay. Okay. I've got every right to uh moving on. And uh the board of adjustments have been moved. So we're at the first reading of ordinance 202511. Brian, you doing these? No. Oh, is Jean on? Are you doing stuff?

Jean's not on. Um these are from the last week's public hearings. Uh two reasonzonings and amendments to the comprehensive plan future land use map. Um the details of the first one was basically they wanted a property line moved and one part turned from multif family into commercial and one part turned from commercial into multif family. Um I apologize I don't remember the details on the other but again it's these are both small portions of another parcel. Um and I there was no no public comment for or against and no correspondence. Questions comments council this is out by the Baptist church. Correct. Is this yours? Yeah, that's

okay. Yeah. Any questions? No. All right. This is the first reading, so we'll just let it go. Uh it'll be up for two more weeks for the second final reading. Okay. On both of these, 202511 and 202512. Moving on. Uh second reading. Wait a minute. Let me not get ahead of myself here. Uh Clayton Townsen, you wanted to comment on the number eight, which is the zoning ordinances. No. Okay. You okay? We're talking to Baptist Church and and so Angie, you too. No. So, disregard these two. Yeah.

Okay.

All right. Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. So now we're at the second reading and adoption of ordinance 202508 which is sleeping in the circle and parklands. What this uh was involved uh we know the state is looking at passing an ordinance or a code where they're going to allow people to sleep in their cars on any street and sleep on in any park and we don't want that. So we we started the this ordinance of 202508 to prevent that from happening. So that's what we're at and we're at the second reading of that at this time. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask the council for uh uh somebody make a recommendation or a

Well, mayor, can we be clear? The only thing that they're changing on that ordinance is the times. Yes. What they're doing is they're going from uh sunset to sunrise instead of the 11:00 to 7. Yes. Y. So, there was the changing of the times on that. Thank you, Eric. I'd make a motion. I'd make a motion to go ahead and Well, um, make a motion to change. Yep. Well, receive it. Okay. Um, as the second we'll second it. All in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed.

[laughter] Where have you been? You you four are against the sleeping in the park. I'm definitely against it. Thank you. No, this um this is just changing the time. Changing the time for the ordinance. Yeah. [laughter] Okay, we're moving forward there. Ordinance 202510, which is great fun. I'm sorry. You need a vote. That's right. So, you have a motion. Motion and second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. I opposed. Roll call. W opposed. W two. I got pondering a little bit more. So W three. I W four. I And I'm an I. Pass. Three to two.

Are you abstaining? Yeah. Abstain. I'm stayaining right now. Ordinance 202510. Great fun. This was uh involving where we uh solicit nonprofits to put in for requests for money from the great fund [snorts] and we were seeing that some of the uh applications were getting in way too late. So we put a date and time on it now that they've got to begin by a certain date or they won't be accepted. Am I true to this? Correct. Okay. And if they fail to attend to present their application, they won't be qualified. Correct. With that, I'd entertain a motion to accept. So moved.

Thank you, pen. I have a second. Thank you, Eric. All in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Roll call. Ward one. I. W two. I. W three. I. W four. I. And I'm an II. 50. Thank you very much. Moving on. Departmental reports. Uh, Eric Russ, public works superintendent.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening. I'm going start my presentation with the uh public works department. They uh set up the stage and cattle gates for many events townwide. They repaired the uh damage to the circle caused by the two auto accidents. Replace andor repaired signs around town. Used two tons of coal patch to fix areas around town. We installed lock boxes on the electrical outlets in the circle. put up 25 no bikes on sidewalk signs and painted stencils on the sidewalks and planted 37 trees along University Drive. Moving on to the water department, AC Schultzy mechanically redeveloped well 2R at King Street Water Plant and installed a spare pump and motor. The two clear wells at King Street Water Plant were cleaned out. Sensophone, which is the cell phone backup for the water towers, was installed. The transducer at King Street Clearwell 2 was replaced. The scatterapack for S1 was replaced and the POS pilot and instrument instrumentation was installed at South Railroad Water Plant. Moving on to the wastewater, the lagoon gets this morning, the large lagoon was at 5 1/2 ft, the small lagoon was at 6 and 3/4. Influent flows January through September of 2025 has been 22.71 million gallons. Affluent flows January through September 214.91 million gallons. Pump one at Deltech went bad. We sent it to Hills Electric for repair. We ordered a new pump because we didn't have a spare. The new pump is installed. We're still waiting on getting the old one back from Hills and that will be the spare pump. So, we will have a spare for there. We replaced pump one at Georgetown Plaza with a spare pump and CES cleaned out the wet well at Georgetown Plaza. Uh that's all I got for my report, but I would like to address a comment or question that was brought up at the last council meeting by Jay Baxter about how

clean our water is that we spray. There's two key indicators that you can look at to tell how clean waste water is. And that one is BOD, which is biochemical oxygen demand. The other is TSS which is total suspended solids. We have a permit limit on our effluent of 50 milligrams per liter for both. The a daily average for 2024 of BOD was 6.55. Now that's with a limit of 50. Our average TSS was 5.97. Our 2023 BOD annual average was 6.21 21 milligrams per liter and our TSS was 4.92 milligs per liter. Now that's leaving our treatment process. Now when it leaves our treatment flush test, it does go to two large storage lagoons. Now those lagoons are subject to tree foliage leaves and all that fall. They're also subject to water foul, the ducks, geese, the feathers and everything. Um and we also have uh duckweed and algae in them. So when it leaves the plant, it does go through another screening system and then it is pumped to Mr. Baxter's farm or it's pumped to our field or it's pumped to P of John's Woods. Some duckweed and algae will get through some of our fine mesh screen because Mr. Baxter and the other nozzles are some of them are a lot smaller than ours, but most of the water when one of those nozzles plugs, it's either duckweed or algae and then the water backs up into the drop tube. So when you take that nozzle off after it sat there a few days in the sun and had no oxygen, of course it goes septic. So I mean when you release that nozzle and let the water it is pretty nasty water, but that is not a representation of the water that we are pumping to him. The water that we are pumping to him is pretty clean by all standards.

Well, thank you for that information, Eric. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions, comments, Eric? Sweeper truck. We are in the process of getting bids right now. Uh we're going to see about what we can do. Uh we had uh a company come in and do the job. They did an okay job, I think, but I don't think they did as good a job as we do in house. So I think that's that is something we are looking into. We're looking into getting bids and all and so and then Jean will approach you guys. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Christine, Tony, anything? Okay. I'll take you up on that. Thank you, Eric. Thank you, Eric. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We're moving to the point of public comment. So now is the time to hear from our public. We welcome your comments which are very important to us. Note that all comments are limited three minutes. As a reminder, please go to the podium to comment. Please give your name, address, and address your remarks to the chair. Note that we will not be entering into dialogue at this time. The purpose of this agenda item is for you, the public, to inform us, the council, about your views. Mic is open at this time. money Burton have a question. Um, and I know you can't answer it right now, but we we all know that they've there've been two accidents in the circle, right? Back to back. How are these people being made accountable?

We're paying We're paying both of them DUI chief. Yes. Both of them have insurance. I believe so. Yeah. Our tax dollars should not have to pay for that. Now that they got insurance, I don't care if they have insurance or not. I don't care if they pay $10 a week. They should be made accountable. It shouldn't be our tax dollars that have to keep taking care of what they're doing. So, I don't know how you go about it. Like I said, I don't care if they pay $10 a week, but it shouldn't come from our tax dollars. That's all I got to say. Thank you,

Linda Dennis, Villages of Cinderbury. I just want to make a brief comment regarding conflict of interest discussion that went on in lie of legal advice on this subject, which is a disappointment to me because honestly I thought that was part of your job, but you've corrected that. Um, I would say this. I think it's only common sense that if you have a relationship with someone or some corporation that is coming before the council for consideration that you just automatically recuse yourself. It's not that difficult. In relationship to what happened with the pallet shelter, if if Mrs. Diaz Malone had recused herself, it would have passed anyway and there would be no question about it.

Thank you. So I would remind you going forward, use your best judgment and understand that anybody can take exception to what you do if there's a perception of a conflict of interest. Thanks.

Thank you, Linda. Adam Bushkowski, 200 South Bedford Street. Um about 27 hours prior to the Ford Mustang hitting the circle and the um planter that's there on the southeast side of the corner, I stood there on that Friday night with my neighbor eating ice cream while our boys were running around the circle playing. And you have no idea the fury that would come down this [music] town if my child was hurt there. It is time to put car stopping poles. Hang on a second. I can't Hang on. Yeah,

it is time to stop car stopping poles in the circle. If we have to put them 20 ft in the ground and they kill the person that's running into them, I would rather that person lose their life than someone sitting in that circle eating ice cream, watching their children play, or just simply stopping from a walk around town. We're putting the innocent people at risk of the decisions of bad actors and it would be a rather easy fix. I know Petty John was down here saying he could arrange for state funds for such a program. You would not even have to go all the way around the circle. There's areas that the traffic comes into the circle. I think if we heavily barricaded that and like I said, put it to a town um referendum. So, when you're worried that, oh, the town's going to get sued because these polls killed someone. Cool. I think we'll all agree on it and we'll all go say, "Yeah, we decided our lives were worth more than yours who are out making bad decisions, running into the circle of town, putting the lives of these people at risk. So, let's uh let's fortify the circle. I do want to say thank you for the uh ban on sleeping in the circle tonight. I've been, you know, championing that for a while now. So, not all naysaying tonight, but um it's definitely a big I mean, on that Saturday, hours before that, there was hundreds of people gathered in the circle. Yes, during those times, we block it with trucks. We do different things like that to prevent cars from getting into the circle. But it's like I said, that that one just hit home to me. It was just slightly over 24 hours that, you know, I was standing in that exact location that that car hit on that planter. And it uh it really made me think Sunday morning when I when I read that and heard what happened there, that how how much different life could

have been if we went for ice cream on Saturday rather than Friday night. Thank you, guys.

Thank you, Adam. Good evening. Mark Burton, uh 601 East Law Street Extended. We've talked about the cottages coming into town possibly. Um I want to talk about it firsthand. They'll be my neighbors. All right. So, I've lived next Purdue for 21 years. I lived in this town my entire life. 46 years. Lived on North Bever Street for 24 and the rest of the time been right there. I can tell you about the noise. I can tell you about the smells. I can tell you about having to take every window out of my house, put triple paint in so I don't have to smell it. I've raised my daughter there. You put those cottages there and I can promise you I have to put a 10-ft tall fence right now because of Sand Hill Fields. I got people walking through my yard every day. All time, all times, days and night. Had to put cameras up in Georgetown because of what we've done. All right. And then you want to put cottages. Now, I've read a little bit of our code and I I've worked in m municipalities in my career. So, I ask you want to put 22 homes on two acres. Nowhere else in any other town is that legal is allowed. But we're going to do this one. We're going to change the rules. Think about what you're starting here because it's a very slippery slope. Because again, I gentleman I apologize, can't remember your name. He says he's got two acres. What's going to stop you from allowing him to put 22 homes on his two acres? Are we going to do that everywhere? My my yard is a little over an acre. I got two empty fields next to me that have nothing to do with the cottages. How many how many of these cottages can I put in there? I just want you to think about it. Look, I'm all for affordable housing. We have we have raised the rent around here in Sussex County to people

can't live here, the people that are born and raised here. But again, we're going to take commercial property, which is very limited in Georgetown, as we know. We've got a big bypass coming in, taking all but 4T of my grandmother's front yard, for instance. Again, been here my entire life. Grown up here. This is my home. This always will be my home. But we're we're losing what Georgetown represents. This is our home. This is our home. And we've got people saying they're going to build these homes for the disabled veterans. They show in the video. They're not ADA approved. They're lying to us. They're building homes. And guess what? A disabled veteran can't work. So, how is he going to pay for it? Again, then we get into the vouchers. Everything they're saying, smoking mirrors. Please peel back the onion, guys. Look at every layer. There's stuff going on here. They're telling us Mr. Hammond spoke. He said, "We walked in. He did more work than I did. He went in the model homes. They're not ADA compatible, but we're going to build them for senior citizens." I'm sorry, senior citizens. Do we need ADA appliances? Do we need ADA bathroom facilities? But we're already going to build them that way. So, guess what? They're they're they're doing a bait and switch. Three minutes.

Thank you guys.

Dennis Windsreed, 23365 Park Avenue, Georgetown, Delaware. Uh Adam, just to let you know, the circle advisory committee has made their recommendations and it is right now going before the town engineer. They are going to do a contiguous pour on the Ballards, reinforce them, make them sturdier, make them solid so you don't have those incidents occurring. They will be stopping cars before they get into the circle. Um, that incident with the one that went all the way in was on Friday night. And actually, unfortunately, if I'm correct, um, that car went up the sidewalk into the circle, it appears. It didn't hit any of the ballards from what I understand. So, we're doing our best to stop what we can, but unfortunately, you can't stop every incident. We came up with the best solution we could to stop as much as possible and hopefully that'll make you feel a little bit better about what's going on. But yes, they are being reinforced and as soon as the uh engineering study is done, I'm sure the money will be appropriated and the work will be done. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you, D. Michael Wyatt, 703 East Market. Um, I didn't come out and say it, but I think I sent the point that I'm opposed to these cottages being built uh for a lot of reasons, but mainly what you're doing to the town of Georgetown. When you either come in Georgetown or leave Georgetown, that's what you're going to see. Is that what we want for our town? I've been here a long time. I want to stay here. I don't, but my wife does. So, you know who's going to win that battle. But,

but just think when you guys do this second reading of this ordinance of these people sitting here, every one of them probably that are left except for one one or two would speak against it. Those one or two probably don't live here. Most all the other ones do live here. It affects the Tabers. It affects a lot of us that live down there and we're not real happy with it. We're not real happy. I'm not real happy with Greenley. That was a development that was set up years ago and then all of a sudden it gets changed to where they can put them 10 feet apart. I feel sorry if a fire breaks out because there's going to be a lot of life lives lost getting in there, getting out. We're going to have to put a light down there. It's going to look like um it's going to look like Route Route 9 going to Lewis. There's going to be lights all the way down. We got one at Cheer Center. We better have another one because there's no way you can get in and out unless you live on that street. You can't imagine the amount of traffic all day long.

It's not that you can pick and choose when you leave. You pick and choose when you have the least amount of traffic when you leave. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Good evening. Uh, I am John Peterson. My permanent address is 304 North Bedford. I support uh the college the cottage uh houses. I support the pallet village uh without malice, grievance, or adversarial intent. I respectfully submit five cautions for the town's consideration. Number five, conduct an annual audit of your insurance portfolio. For instance, insufficient cyber liability coverage may constitute fiduciary negligence. Number four, understand the scope of public records law. The embarrassing email you fired off before thinking about it is now part of the official record forever. One day it may be subject to widespread public disclosure through a Freedom of Information Act request. Number three, apply policies with uniform rigor. Enforcement choreography that favors or punishes a particular individual or class of individuals establishes a roadmap for litigation. Number two, refrain from informal commitments. The legal principle of a stoppple stops you from going back on your word. Be careful with what you say and to whom

you say it. Number five, consider your actions carefully. The homeless are protected by the first, eth, and 14th amendments, which grant free speech, shield against cruel and unusual punishment, and guarantee due process. Under U under 42 US Code 1983, local government officials may be held accountable if they infringe upon the constitutional rights of homeless individuals. See Martin v. Boise, Monroe v. Pape, Monell v. Department of Social Services, and City of Canton versus Harris. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Shelley Wise Park Avenue. Everybody knows what I've been doing the last few months, so I'm not going to go into it, but I'm gonna tell you what I've been doing the last two weeks. Doing my homework, walking the walk, going out and meeting people, the homeless, talking to them, getting their stories. Actually, the other day, I was able to hold hands with a girl who had overdosed a little over a week ago. She wouldn't be here. Someone was there to help her. She wanted to find Jesus. So, I held her hands and prayed with her. She was getting ready to go catch a ride to go to rehab. I felt good that I was there. I like that. Everybody's trying to say that I'm all in there and I'm putting everybody down. I'm not. I'm doing the work. I'm helping. And I'm getting tired of being attacked over that. The other thing I want to say is I don't know who I can trust and talk to anymore because somebody tells me this and somebody tells me that. There's some shady crap going on in this town when it comes to all this stuff. I'm just going to say it. I'm not going to be articulate and I'm not going to talk right because I'm mad. Um, and yes, they have rights, but I also have a right on my own property if they're going to come bug me and get in my face, too.

And people are tired of that. I don't want anybody hurt. So, sometimes when I put a picture out there and I actually say that it's so people won't get hurt. If you're punching on somebody's windshield, somebody's going to get out and get hurt. Come up to me and I'm walking across the parking lot, somebody's going to get hurt. Um, I don't want that. I don't want that. But we cannot come together to fix stuff if we're going to argue over everything either. We have to come together to work. I don't know that's going to happen. Truthfully, I'm wondering if we're going to get our town back because after what I've seen and what I've heard, I don't know who to believe. Who's doing the right thing anymore? Do you guys see it? Because I don't. We want our town back. We want it the right way. But I don't think we should have to give in for everything. Also, people that have lived here all their life should not have to worry about people walking across their yards. I've had my vehicles broken. It's the same thing over and over and over. But I've been going out and learning, why are you here? What do you want? And everybody gets the runaround. And we know what goes on down there. And I'm sitting here thinking, I've I've had conversations about date rape, gang rapes, gang rapes. This is what I hear all the time now. I go home and think about this overdosing. I'm learning how to use Narcan. I keep that with me. This is what our town is now. And it's only going to get worse if we don't step up and do something and patting people on the back or shaking. I'm tired of it. I want it fixed. I'm tired of it. I want the town back. I want to be able to walk. I want people safe. I don't want them hungry. I don't want them cold. We've got to come together. But the arguing's got to stop. We need to work together to fix it. But the problem is there's no trust anywhere. I can't get businesses to

write letters because they're worried about retaliation. I had five businesses that were going to write letters. They didn't. Afraid of stepping on toes. What does that mean? I don't know. No. Everyone's complaining, but no one wants to step up. Why? They're scared. Why? That's my three. Why people think about step up?

Hi, my name is Pat Gordon. Um, I live on 44 Bram Hall Street. I've lived there 48 years. I've lived in Georgetown 80 years. No, nobody knows what Georgetown was used to be like. I am proud to say I used to be proud to say that I was a citizen of Georgetown. And it hurts my heart and I could cry to think where it's come. But I know I'm just praying that it will get better. I was born right out on the football the football field at Georgetown Middle School. I was born there 80 years ago. And Georgetown used to be the best town in Suski County. And it can be that again. And I'm hoping and I'm praying and I I care for all you up there. Um uh I just I just want it to get better. But um where I was born, Ruth Anne and Aubrey, they live they live right almost where I where I was born, that two-story white house, that's where I was born. But I know Georgetown can get better. And another thing about the t I want people to have a nice place to live and everything. And I'm thankful for my home on Bram Hall, but I do wish that these places, they need them. I'm not saying they don't, but if we could put them somewhere else and they could be shown out real pretty, you know, and and do what they want to do for them. But put them out somewhere else and to live where they're going to live. Honest to God, it would be terrible. The smell we've come and I ride around a lot of time and in the summer and different different times, it will make you sick to your stomach between the guts and the everything that comes out. It's the truth, Bill. You don't have to laugh. But yeah, it's terrible. I don't know how the people could live there and for their environment, their environment, it will not be good. But they need to be out and where that traffic is and the little kids running in and out and everything, it's just not going to be good. But I, you know, it'd be okay to put it somewhere else and and I thank you all.

Thank you, babe.

Hi, I'm Lindsay Mirs. Um, I am part owner of a um 54 acres outside town on Seashore Highway and um I'm not opposed to the little pallet house. Um, but how are you going to make sure that they are abiding by the laws? How are you making sure that there's only one single family? um when you have to call and daily drive by your grandmother's lot and you have addicts that are in there and they're grilling and they're doing this and they're trashing your grandmother's property who worked hard hard years for and now come to find out that I and the other owners of this property have to purchase insurance because if something happens to one of these people, you're held liable for it. Um, I've had an addict in my life and very close to me. And you don't know what rock bottom is. And that's the scary part. I can't go to Walmart by myself with my three kids without my husband because it makes you feel uncomfortable. Why am I needing to feel uncomfortable going to Walmart? And it just used to be at the night time. Now it's daytime. Now it's anytime you go through there, you have to be prepared for anything. You're constantly looking around and that's the scary part is when you are at it, you don't know how far is rock bottom. You can and it's their choice. They have to want to change. And if they don't want to change, nothing that this town can do is going to make them change. And when you have three meals and fresh, you know, clothes and all that just down the street, they're not going to have they they're not going to want to change. And like I said, I have had an addict that is very close to me and you don't know what rock bottom is. Our normal rock bottom when you are, you know, right in the head, yeah, I shouldn't do that. But when you're trying to get that next

fixed and that next thing, you don't know what is normal and what is right. So when you, like I said, my grandmother has property out on the highway and you know, they they just trash it. And there's a handful of homeless people here in Georgetown that are probably true homeless and just have fallen on hard times. But the rest of them are give them a bad name. They don't care about your property. They don't care what they do. They don't care. So if you can convince the town here how you would keep them accountable and make it look nice and one family, you know, maybe we could help people. And I'm not opposed to it, but you just you got to you got to do better. We we got to do better because you're making a town very unsafe for my children and like you said a lot of parents here, you're going to be sorry when something happens because this town will be very pissed if something happens to one of these kids.

Thank you, Lindsay.

I'll make it quick, Mayor, because I know you guys want to get out of here. You guys have heard a lot tonight. Uh two [clears throat] just two quick things. One, I guess I'll take some of the blame as the taxpayer. Um I question Mr. Barrett about two lawyers on his hearing. Uh cuz I attended it and I came in and then we had to go out and I stood at the door and I watched and I assumed that one lawyer was representing the ethics committee and one was what I would say was the prosecutor against Mr. Barrett. So I would assume that was two attorneys that was being paid uh with taxpayer money on very on a very little triple complaint. Uh, and that's something I'll probably be uh asking to look more into how this can be how this goes about because the way I seem is every one of you council people out there I feel bad for you because the way it seems to me is I can file a complaint tomorrow

and it's going to the ethics committee and you have two choices. You get about three or $5,000 and pay for a lawyer or you have to defend yourself.

Why did why the town is paying for this guy to basically prosecute you? I watched it and he was he was going at him. So I questioned that as a taxpayer. Second thing is I wanted to say this last two weeks ago when I spoke, but three minutes go by pretty pretty quick. Uh about four or five months ago, I got a violation from the code enforcer because I had a trash bag sitting beside my trash can. My question is my question is and you guys can answer this two weeks from now or at the next meeting. The property owner on Bingham Lane where we've all seen the pictures on Facebook. I've seen it firsthand. I would venture to say there's 1500 trash bags in there. Has the property owner on Brittingham Lane been cited for allowing that to happen? And if he hasn't, why not? I got cited for one trash bag. Are we allowing them to stay on Birmingham lean lane and we're letting this guy go? And if he doesn't want them there, and that's his argument, then are we going in there and arresting people? But again, I was cited for one trash bag and I can guarantee you there's 1,500 to 2500 trash bags of Bren Hanley and I would want to know by two weeks from now has that guy been cited. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark.

Eddie Wise, Old Park Avenue. Um, Mr. Diaz, I I would I would suggest that you look up at people when they're talking. Um, I've sat there and watched you through two to three people looking down at your phone. Are we that boring and we don't you don't care about us? Or it's my turn. You're not You're not allowed to answer. Um, if we're that boring, then why don't you give your seat up?

Listen, I've let this go ever since I've been mayor. Hold on. Hold on. It states in public comment that you're not supposed to take action or take uh uh go after people individually. If you got a comment to make, make it. Don't go after and attack people. Is that what we're going to have to start putting in play? I've let it go for years. Paniel knows I've let it go. I've let it go. It's written right in public comments. You're not supposed to take public uh not supposed to do public attacks. Is that where we come to? I I apologize. I apologize, Mr. Mayor, but after sitting there watching her go through three people up here making public comment and looking at her phone the whole time, um I just think people up here making comments deserve a little bit of respect.

How do you know I'm not taking notes? Please, could we just stop it with the nonsense? Um uh my other thing is you know with the pallet village um why haven't we heard any kind of statement from Mr. Malone or anybody at the pallet village in probably the last couple months? Um I thought we were supposed to be getting regular updates on on how they were doing when it was first brought up. Um, you know, and Mark Mark just said that he got a citation. Um, are we applying that equally throughout the town? Because I don't think we are. I mean, we can ride up and down North Befort Street, South Bever Street all day long on a Friday and see trash can lids open, trash, trash bags sitting beside it. Um, north uh depot, cars parking on the sidewalk, blocking the sidewalk. I know that's against the code. Um, why are these things allowed being allowed to be done? I just think that if we're going to apply things one way, it needs to be done throughout the town. We can't pick and choose who gets a violation and who doesn't. That's all. Thank you.

Hey, Eddie. Can I just say one thing? Just wait a minute. Are we done with public comment? Hold on. It's positive.

Okay. Clayton Towns and Endis Road. Um I want to thank Chief I saw him [snorts] back here a while ago. He followed up on um the complaint I I mentioned the last meeting where um friend of ours that lives just behind us. Um it's a widow, a recent widow, and she had 2:30 3:00 in the morning. She had a crackhead sitting on her front doorstep. Her Ring Alert alerted her. um he followed up with my wife um a couple days later and um hopefully he um tracked him down, but um I do appreciate him um following up on it. Um you know it we got to keep our people safe, you know, and I'm big, dumb, and ugly and I you know I want to take care of my women around here. Um secondly, um this is kind of to you Penuel. um down solicitor earlier said something about um her obligations and stuff. I remember about 3 years ago um from what I'm my understanding is agenda is done by the town manager. It's done sent to the town solicitor for approval if I'm not mistaken. Well, about three years ago um we had an unanimous vote which M. Malone has brought up a couple times. unanimous vote. Well, the next meeting we had couple people said, "Well, I didn't understand. I want to change my vote." Well, all of a sudden, you know, it all threw us under, you know, for a loop. And so, we're spending, oh, I don't know, I'm going just estimate somewhere close to $300,000 a year between town solister funds and town manager funds to protect what was brought up on the agenda. two people that that potentially run this town, you know, have to prove it. Okay,

they're protecting you, you and and and and all four of us. All four five of you. And it wasn't done. and two honorable people who worked their butt off for this town, Sue Barllo and my wife and yourself got thrown under the bus and you know because they wanted to change their votes and it wasn't stopped beforehand the agenda was approved the vote was taken every it was a unanimous vote then all of a sudden became an issue because DEI started to show up in the whole thing so I just want kind of remind you of what happened and you know your question on what her thing is and and and I didn't see that three years ago and um thank you.

You want to go up to the podium?

Well, that's the right way to do it. Hello, Tammy Hardy Kesler, James Street. Um, I just want to bring it to the attention of the public. A lot of times, um, when we address about race here, everybody that's from South or Central America is they're not Mexican. And I would appreciate if we say South American, Central American, uh, Western Caribbean, uh, we just make this assumption that everybody is Mexican and they're not. And that's disrespecting the community. We're everybody's here. This is a diverse community and we need to be politically correct. And also, you know, homeless people now are addressed as unhoused individuals. Okay. The other thing is, um, I've been watching your Facebook post. Um, I've seen the pictures and everything, but we also need to look at the bad actors within our communities that are supporting the prostitution, uh, the drug dealing because it's within our community. They own houses in this community and they're the bad actors sometimes with the unhoused community. We need to do a better job. The other thing is, you know, I put out there, let's have a town watch on three different shifts. People are saying that's a bad idea. Well, if we're going to try to address the issue and try to make things better, the police department is out large enough to deal with that. We have maybe 60 to 100 unhoused individuals. We have like 7,100 people in this community. We should not be so scared of those individuals. I go to Walmart almost every day for some reason. Okay, I've may have been approached two times.

I don't know what may may make you look vulnerable, but I don't have a problem. And we don't have violent unhoused people here. Now, when you go to New Jersey and Philadelphia, you go to Kensington, you got open air drug markets, you know, where people are completely messed up. Believe it or not, our unhelded individuals are nowhere near like that situation. The other thing, you don't want something like, you know, Occupy Philadelphia to come down here. You're making yourself look bad on Facebook. You're helping to bring your property value down. You're helping to misrepresent the community because it has not reached that level that you might not have, you know, been exposed to that. And I understand that. I'm an individual that has worked corrections for close to 30 years. Okay? And I actually go in and audit facilities and I've been auditing [clears throat] the juvenile facilities in Delaware for almost eight years and I've dealt with a lot of the students or residents of those those facilities that are unhoused. Okay? For one reason or another. Um we can manage this issue and that's the problem. We need to manage it. And we can't expect that our local government is supposed to do it. We have to do it as citizens as well. And like I said, I have some ideas to try to make some improvements. I mean, like, you know, we need to think about where we're going to have people that eventually, if they do pass that law, we're going to have to find a place where maybe people are going to have to park that are unhoused. A lot of those individuals that need that cottage housing work right there in Purdue. They work at your Walmart. Some of those people that are your greeters or some of the people that live in Bridgeville. So when you complain about, oh, they need to be for people that live in Georgetown, they can't afford to live in Georgetown, so they live out in Bridgeville or they live out in the outskirts. Okay? So it's not that they

don't want to live in in Georgetown. They just can't afford to. Now they may have to come from those areas, but they work. And you want those dollars to be in stay in Georgetown. All of it. You want the rental. You want the mortgages. You want the people to buy from the restaurants and all that stuff. You don't want it to you make your money here and then leave. Okay. That's all I have to say. Three minutes. Just in time. I'm good at this. Daniel or Angie,

I'll just be real quick. I just have a positive note for everything tonight. So, and I know that there's been a lot of discrepancies and a lot of arguments and you know, I agree. I do not agree with um this affordable housing and everything, but I just wanted to thank the council for my light across the street. I asked Billy for that for a long time ago and I finally got my light across the street and it lights up my bedroom and I'm tickled to death. So, I just wanted to thank you so much. Angie Towns in 2029 and Road. I don't want to attack anyone on council, but if you're going to play the game, you got to follow the rules for everyone. Mr. Wise was up here earlier and he said something against Councilman Diaz. But if I remember a few years ago during the flag episode, Sue and I were called every name under the book from a white supremist to a racist. um part of the KKK, where's your white hoods? And we sat there and couldn't say a word because we weren't supposed to. We couldn't we couldn't reply to somebody standing here. So, they could say whatever they wanted and we couldn't respond. So, we took it because I wasn't going to put myself on their level. So, if you're going to have those rules, it needs to go both ways because it didn't happen back then. So, thank you. Um, good evening. My name is um, Maria Carman Ramos. I live on 211 South War Street. I got two things. Um, first of

all, um, I'm looking probably for financing the Silver Oaks mobile home park right on Route 30 that has been for sale for for a while. So right now I'm trying to gather things together since some investors. You say a mobile home park on Route 30. Yes, that's still that's out of town. You have to deal with the county there, hun. Yes, but um I'm still like you know like you you're saying that you're looking for affordable housing. Okay. All right. And that that'll bring um 25 more homes into Okay.

Yeah. So that's one thing. Then the second thing that I would like to I guess make a comment. I've been in well this is I guess second time being in here since my ESL classes like 10 years ago. Um, I've been living here in Georgetown for 30 years and I have my kids born and raised here and um, uh, from what I see, you know, people approaching, I mean, this is kind of new to me, but it seems that concern is about the safety and, uh, and you know, the the people that yes, we're welcoming and, you know, giving them a hand and bring them up, but at the same time, like the young lady over there was saying that, you know, Now it's like you go to Walmart and yeah you feel sometime away a a fear cuz you know sometimes people approach you some will come nicely but other was like more like on demand on what they want most likely money but um I'm definitely open to help and everything but at the same time like they say you have to guys no more you know I'm barely finished eighth grade but um you know on the situation that they put in our our town. Like she said, you know, before, you know, I feel free just walking over here. Now I don't, you know, I I walk with my dog, Rottweiler, my cousin. So, but um yeah, especially like for our kids and um you know, right now probably you're going to be missing me more. You know, I'm going to be doing more for my community and probably bring my Hispanic community as well in here because you know, we have a lot. But um it's just mis information. So, and you know, like I said, another thing I live in California like for two years, you know, I just went back like recently and

then you know, like I go over there and it's bad. It's devastating. Like you go right in town or Macarthu Park, you know, before in 1992, I walk over there. Now it's like all people, you know, with addictions and all of that, they they try to help, but like they say, now they bring that down and it got to the point that it got out of control. Like the bus stations filling out the trash and I feel like our town somehow we getting in there. I mean like like I said you guys have the power you know but yeah we can help but at the same time we have to see for our safety for our elderlyies and for our children's too. Thank you.

Thank you. Paniel, it's your turn.

Po Barrett Wagman Avenue. Um, I spent two hours of my day last Friday riding with code enforcement and we've got two good employees there. Um, what amazed me, it was a Friday morning, so it's trash day. One lady called in and gave 14 addresses of violations. There's people that ride through this town all the time and it's I couldn't believe how many phone calls they received that day. Um, one guy was coming out of the attic over here in Kimmy Town. She went right around the block, pulled right up there, cracked her window, and just started talking to the guy, and he was a little rough, but she's not scared. Blew me away. Um, but these guys are doing good good for the town. I really believe that. And I mean, riding with them really showed me that, you know, they want this town to be better. The police department, congratulations, Rusty, for another officer sworn in today.

Monday. Monday. Monday. Okay. So, we got another one coming. So, great job. Thank you. Thank you, Penn. [snorts] Can I adjourn? Motion to adjurnn. So moved. Oh, everyone's talking. All in favor signify by saying I. Yes. Have a good evening. Yeah. You know, I was going to say like, wait a minute, I'll put a real one.