Town Council - Regular Meeting

because we used to deliver meal home meals.

Call the meeting to order if you all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance followed by the invocation. with liberty and justice for all.

Eternal God, we just want to thank you, God, for your grace, your mercy, and your love. We thank you, God, for allowing us to come here one more time. We don't want to take it for granted, God. We just hear about your grace. So tonight, we just want to say thank you. Give us wisdom and knowledge in your precious name we pray. Amen, amen, amen.

Amen, amen. All right, the next item on the agenda is adoption of the agenda. I think we're going to amend it. Somebody want to make a motion?

Make a motion we amend the agenda.

All right, what do you want to amend on it? oh switch items correct five and six correct okay i'm gonna switch items five and six everyone understand any questions yes seconds all right i got a motion and a second all in favor say aye aye opposed passed thank you all right next item is approval of the july 13th town council minutes any additions Deletions, changes, anything?

So moved.

All right. I got a motion. Do I have a second?

Second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carried. OK. Next one is item number five, which was six, public comment. 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 to three minutes. As a reminder, please go to the podium to comment. Please give your name, address, and your remarks to the chair. Note that we will not be entering into a dialogue at this time. The purpose of this agenda item is for you, the public, to inform us, the council, about your views. So if anyone would like to step to the podium for public comment, you're more than welcome.

Dennis Winsneread, 23365 Park Avenue in Georgetown. I did notice that the foundations have been poured and set for the monuments. I just wish that you'd taken a closer look at the Circle Advisory Committee report and discovered that in 15 years, the one over here, I believe it's Harvey Gregg's, you're gonna have to tear up half of that because the time capsule is buried under the pavement.

Didn't they take into consideration the time capsule? Yeah.

So it, that was clearly in the architect's drawing in this report. It would have been nice to have taken that into consideration before they paved it. That's all I have to say.

I believe they did. Yeah.

It's, well. OK. That's all. Thank you.

Uh-huh. Anyone else like to make a comment?

Clayton Townsend, 20293 Ennis Road. I just want to mention, and Glenn was there, that Gene did a proclamation for Jim Bowden. Jim Bowden has worked his tail off for many, many years for the town of Seaford and Georgetown, preserved history, and they recognized him as making the Jim Bowden Day that will continue on forever on July 24th. But Gene put together a proclamation that was just absolutely beautiful, and a lot of people over in Seaford commended him on it, and I just wanted to make it public that he did a tremendous job and say thank you.

Yes, he did. He did. So thank you, Gene. Thank you. And we did have two letters of correspondence. They were both thank you notes. One was from the family of Ruth Johnson and Michael Betts. And the other one was from the Bradley family. So I just want to enter those into the record. So anyone else have any public comment? No, everyone's happy then. All right, let's move on. Councilman comments. Start with you, Christina.

Thank you. This has been a very busy week. I think that Gene being on vacation caused some folks to call me directly. Sorry, Gene. Mr. Pepper? Richard Pepper, I've become acquainted with Mr. Richard Pepper, and he's a wonderful citizen. He wanted to let me know that he was not happy with the fact that we have acknowledged everyone who contributed land to the purchase of the land that was to be Georgetown. So I went to Gene and I brought the matter, as I do every Friday with him, on things that are of interest in my ward or otherwise Pastor Neal's ward, since I am his translator as well. So interestingly enough, This 16 miles to anywhere talks about the purchase of the land to create what is now Georgetown. And then I went on to ask AI and it had a different opinion or write up. And it said that the land was purchased from three particular individuals. One of them would have been the Pepper family. It just so happens that the cemetery for the Pepper family is right next to the Pallet Village. And so I asked if he was interested in my working on a particular cemetery. endeavor to keep the cemetery clean as a historic place. And yes, Mr. Pepper's family, along with the historic cemetery in Kimmetown, are very important people in our community. The Pepper family contributed one acre to the purchase of the land in Georgetown. As most people tell me, 99 cents without a cent is not a dollar. So 99% of the land without 1% of the land does not a town make. So I asked Gene to, per Mr. Pepper's request, that a sign be posted somewhere on Market Street indicating where the historic cemetery would be and Gene has taken care of that. So Mr. Pepper and I enjoy a nice relationship and so he would be happy to know that and he has approved the sign that Gene has suggested. Folks want to know whether the list of all of the signatures that were submitted against the Cottage Amendment, if that list was public knowledge or should they have submitted a Freedom of Information Act form to get a copy of that list. And so, since I didn't have a meeting with Gene this Friday, that's a to-do for him. Thank you, Jean, again, for the proclamation, as we should always remember the people who made great contributions to this town. So we should be in active pursuit of people who do make a significant contribution to the town. It's not the money, people, it's the time. And our short time that we have left, time is very meaningful to people. So when we can, we should acknowledge people. So thank you, Jean, for doing that as you normally do. Mr. Peterson, I don't want to not acknowledge the fact that you spent a great deal of time and money to research things that we should be informed about, and for that I thank you. I have been remiss to let this council know that the issue with the flag originated with me. When you're the newbie in town, you suddenly get the job that nobody wanted. And so when the flag issue was brought to me and I brought it to council, it created a lot of activity, a lot of comments, some of it not nice, some of it very informative. And so I consider myself educated about the issue. Consequently, Lots of conversation has been had in these premises about the Confederate flag, specifically as it relates to the historical society in Georgetown. And so it is not without saying that Yes, we see your, we receive your information, we acknowledge your information, it is duly included in the information that is public information. So in my book, I consider that we are in Georgetown, a community in learning and in evolving. So it's not without notice that you send us things and that we read them and we acknowledge them. But some of those things are not in our peer review to do anything about, but rather listen and educate people. To that extent, when the issue came up with the grant, I voted first for it and then with a caveat and condition, and the second time I neglected or I purposely did not vote for it or voted against it. So just to let you know that just like you and any other citizen who brings an issue here, we have an obligation to research, to learn, and to educate ourselves. Apparently, this community isn't ready to have that dialogue, because dialogue was had with one of our council members at the time. who brought it up on herself to talk with people about this issue. And I have had many conversations with people about this issue, and it always falls on the people who are most vocal, not the people who have risked their necks to have conversations about the issue. And I'm referring particularly to a conversation that was had by this mayor with a group of people, and those people left the meeting needing more conversation and no more conversation has been had about the issue. So I'm just giving you notice that we're not ignoring you, but everything is not as easy and it's complicated. About your letter with regard to the effect of the homeless people, it is a concern to me that there's waste that going into our waters There's waste that's going into the environment with regard to individuals that are unhoused and are either in county property and consequently we are affected because whatever flows from there flows to us. I don't know what to do about that, but again, I'm being educated and your information has not gone unnoticed. I just want to let you know that. Thank you.

Thank you, Christine.

Tony?

Just happy to be here tonight and just glad to see everybody and just looking forward to a nice meeting and a short meeting.

A short meeting. There you go, a short meeting. All right, thank you. Michael?

Thank you, everybody, for coming out. Christine, good report there. Just want to take a moment to recognize the Public Works Department. These folks go unnoticed sometimes, and the things that they have to clean up and the things that they see around this town takes a lot. So I just want to thank them, and hopefully we can have a positive meeting and positive thoughts and positive outcomes. So thank you.

It's good seeing everyone here tonight. We did send letters out to all the property owners that the homeless is staying on their property, so we'll see... how fast things happen there. The biggest thing is when it was really dry out, I was thinking, you know, if we have a woods fire and 20 or 30 of them get trapped and get killed, does the property owners really want that aggravation on their property? Probably not. So it's time for us to reach out to them, let them know what's going on, and see what we can do to help it along a little bit. Thank you.

Thank you, Peniel. I have some business, what I've been doing. Jean and I and Brian from the planning department met with Delmarva Veteran Builders. I'm very interested in trying to get a grocery store on the east side of town out near Cheer. I think one's needed out there with all the development that's coming, plus people that live on East Market Street. I know I was born and raised in Gravel Hill, and we had to travel either to Milton, Millsboro, or drive from there into town across 113, and with the traffic on 113 anymore. And I think the need is there for a grocery store. I'd like to see gas pumps out there also, but I don't want a convenience store. So we met with them. I went to a chamber mixer at the Restore that was very interesting. I attended my first police department public works call. We have another one on Thursday. I'm learning a lot. I don't know really what I'm learning, but I'm learning a lot. So I think I'm going to put on my hard hat one day and actually go out there and see what I'm looking at, what they're talking about. I think I'd understand it more. But it was interesting. I attended the CDAC meeting Friday at 9 a.m. at Splash. And the home library project did an overview and it was very interesting. They tried to ensure that every newborn has books because the importance of reading to a child and the child learning how to read. And I said it was past the deadline, but I had, I got all her information and I want her to apply next year for the Great Fund to see if they can get funding. Tomorrow we have luncheon, and thank you, Jean. We have another proclamation going out to the Rotary's 100th anniversary. So Clayton and I will be attending that. We'll do another proclamation for them. And I just want to give a thank you to Christina. Christina is going to help me out on Thursday and attend the Distinguished Young Women's. They're coming into town, and they always meet here at Town Hall. And I had another engagement, so I called Christina, and she was more than happy to fill in for me and help out. So thank you, Christina.

You're welcome.

All right. And I think that's all I had. That's all I had. So all right, next item is Great Fund Committee Appointments. Jean?

Members of Council, item 7A on the agenda this evening is Great Fund Committee Appointments. We received six applications. Adam Buchowski, Monica Mandararo, Edward Reynolds, Beau Shockley, Rick Thomas, and Michael Wyatt. Pleasure of the Mayor and Council.

Any questions?

Yes, I have a comment. I want to thank Adam for volunteering again. I nominated him some time ago, and this will be his second, correct? His second term. Thank you for your involvement in this endeavor. It's very important. I beg your pardon? Thank you.

So I am happy to see... And thank you, Rick. You're a newbie.

And Rick was in my ward who also reached out to me and asked that he be considered. So I'm happy to see that you followed through on that. Thank you. And Monica Mandujano is probably our first Hispanic on a commission or a board. I'm happy to see her. She's a former person that has worked with CHEER.

Yes.

and has worked on a lot of projects out there with the folks in CHEAR. So I think she brings a wealth of knowledge to the process. And so I wish you all good luck and hope that you all become friends and have some good outcomes with regard to how we spend our funds.

I have just also a comment about Mike Wyatt. Mike Wyatt, back in the day when he was mayor, Mike and our town manager, David Baird, started the great fund it was their foresight and their dream to because we were getting a lot of i was serving on council then we were getting a lot of requests for money and we really didn't know how to address it or where the money was coming from so they came up with the idea that let's you know portion of building permits to help good organizations they submit letters they're reviewed by a committee so i'm kind of excited that mike wyatt is going to be a part of this now so beanie kind of started it so All right, do I have a motion to approve the slate, the six members?

So moved.

Thank you, Christina. Do I have a second?

Second.

Okay, it was a toss-up between Tony and Penuel. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Okay, motion passed. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. And it's painless, it really is painless. I served once, so. All right, next item is the first reading of the ordinance. Ordinance 202604, the Downtown Development District Incentives, revisions.

Members of council, I have ordinance 202604 amends chapter A250 entitled Downtown Development District Incentives. I'll just read what's being changed under article two eligibility. For specifics on a project, any project to construct, remodel, or reconstruct any building or structures, any portion of any such building structures within the boundaries of the designated downtown development district as approved by the cabinet committee on state planning issues on October 5th, 2016, we're adding as modified by the town's renewal application approved by the cabinet committee on May 11th, 2026, and as modified from time to time. The second modification is to section A250-6, dealing with business license fee waiver. The annual Town of Georgetown business license fee shall be waived for the first five years in operation. Originally we said new businesses only, so it's being modified for new businesses and for businesses locating or relocating to the district for the first time. that allows for a business that's moving from another part of town to expand into another part that's in the downtown development district, they get the benefit of that. The next modification is on section A250-10, dealing with impact fees. Item A, all projects of a commercial nature will be afforded a 20% reduction in water and sewer impact fees, and that we're removing at the time of building permit issuance. Item B, projects of a mixed use, commercial and residential. Nature will be afforded a 35% reduction in water and sewer impact fees, and we're deleting at time of building permit issuance. And we're eliminating item C, which said the fee calculation is based on one initial EDU per unit, with additional EDUs being calculated at the end of the first 12 months in operation. Renumbering item D to item C as a result of the deletion of item C. Modifying section A250-11. All projects shall be eligible to participate in the Town of Georgetown sign, facade, and awning grant program. We're adding the policies for which this may be amended from time to time. And article five, effective date, section A20, A250-13. This ordinance becomes effective. We're deleting November 16, 2016. and adding as of the date of adoption of this ordinance, the provisions of this ordinance shall no longer apply after we're deleting November 15th, 2026, replacing it with three months after the final district designation expires. Projects granted the property tax phase-in incentive during the effective period of this ordinance shall be permitted to run out the remainder of the phase-in cycle notwithstanding the termination or expiration date of the district designation. this is just the first reading no formal actions required this evening all right for people that i mean this is relatively new to me can you kind of give us a recap gene of what this does sure so the areas that were identified in the downtown development district which really is bedford street most of ward 2 going out east market street and it's designed to grow our downtown with either commercial or housing or a combination of both that would be the mixed use So when we originally did this in 2016, our incentives were, and I'll go through them, property tax increase. So it was a 10 year phase in on the property tax increase as a result of improving the property. It did a business license fee waiver for the first five years. Once they were in business, we're just expanding that. It did call for an accelerated development review process. That's specifically on the town side as we cannot control what happens with the State agencies Dell den rec and off state fire marshal it did allow for a building permit fee reduction and that was the based on the value of the improvements and it was a sliding scale from 15% if it was between 300 and 1 million dollars up to 75% if it was a 400 million dollar and one cent greater and It allowed for a reduction in the emergency services in Georgetown Recreation, Education, and Arts Trust Fund for those projects that were less than $999,999. It's a 50% fee waiver. Actually, it's 50% for all of them, anything over 500,000. And then it identified the impact fee for water and sewer reduction. And then the last piece was the ability to participate in the sign facade and awning grant. So it's incentives to encourage development within the downtown development district and it's eligible for the small projects as well as the large projects.

So it's projects that are there now? Or somebody new.

Or somebody new. So if there's an existing business that wants to put a new roof on, they would be eligible for the small, new awning, that's the facade.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Madam Mayor, may I ask that we consider One of the comments that I get from several of the business owners that it's a tiring process to apply for these particular benefits. And so several of, or a couple of the businesses in town have approached me to say that they just didn't bother with it because they didn't know how to proceed to apply for these things. And I think there was at one point, there was some discussion around someone or somebody creating an easier system for people to be able to participate. My recommendation or my ask is that when we receive these reports from Brian with regard to projects, that we designate or at least inform us that they are within the DDD plan. And so that maybe we as council people can approach them to make sure they take advantage of these benefits.

I think that's a good idea. Can we do that, Gene?

I'll request it.

How many businesses are there in the DDD? I don't know off the top of my head. 20, 30?

It's probably more than that. Because we have a lot of in-home businesses. Most of the large projects were Splash Laundromat. Then we've had the Excela Supermarket. They did a piece. We've had several businesses on East Market Street take advantage of some of the smaller improvements.

So can we notify those businesses and let them know?

Yes.

Okay. That be good, Christina? Thank you. All right. Thank you. Okay. All right. No action at this point in time. Next item is departmental reports. Town managers.

Members of council, a couple items this evening. Police and public works facilities. So utility installation continues. So here's a stormwater catch basin, sanitary sewer line, and one of the major water lines going into the building. The Chad Spicer and Harvey Gregg monuments, the foundations were poured, the brickwork was completed last week, and memorial reinstallation is scheduled for mid-August, tentatively for August the 18th. As we get closer to that date, we'll advertise that. We did receive notification from Senator Pettyjohn for the Parsons Lane Trailhead and parking area. He was able to use community transportation funding to help offset the cost for the fencing, electric, landscaping, amenities, and benches. We were awarded $85,000, and for Layton Avenue, again, through community transportation funding, $27,000 for lighting upgrades and sidewalk improvements, especially at the section between the alley and East Market Street, where the people drive across the brick going into the county's parking lot. upcoming events cottage housing ordinance review and evaluation ad hoc committee will meet tomorrow four o'clock p.m here at town hall national night out will be tuesday august the 4th 6 p.m at the richard allen school delaware league and sussex county association of towns continue on their summer break and that's all i have all right i think i mentioned to you at one point in time lynch lane

South Bedford Street. Yeah, because the first one is Westway, right? And then the next one is Lynch Lane. Can we switch out a light there from the light that we have now to an LED so it's brighter? And I can get the poll number for you. Do you have it already? Because I think we've talked about it before. Thank you.

I want to add that JILCO, the Jesus is Lord Church approached me regarding the lighting in the area and they wanted to know whether the county or the town was considering additional lighting. Seems like they are trying to anticipate any issues with regard to people trespassing into their property and so Jean ran for me the current lighting that's available there and so I got back with them with that information on the map where the current lighting is and some recommendations from Jean regarding some of their concerns such as people breaking into their sheds and et cetera, et cetera. So that also had to do with the trail. Where's that at? Where the bicycle, the Lewis to Georgetown Trail.

Okay.

Ingramtown Road. There were some concerns regarding that. I also called the police with regard to a call where the business was calling me. A parked vehicle was there and there seemed to be people coming in and out of this mobile home trailer kind of thing. I forget what you call them. Coachman. And so the police immediately, Joel and lieutenant barlow got out there and they took care of the issue so the business there where the little caesars and whatnot and dollar general is there's a lot of activity because there's no lighting behind those businesses and the behind those businesses is the little league park and so has that has been a concern of mine for a long time with regard to the responsibility for the business to have lighting back there because as I drive there in the evening, there's activity going on with people changing clothes, just sort of a lot of little sketchy things going on back there. So Jean has approached, Jean and the police have approached the owner of the business with regard to lighting and policing of their property, just so you know.

And then I had another one that was brought. I kind of remember, I think when Bill was in as mayor, at one point in time he had said that he was going to put more lighting on Old Park Avenue. Is that correct, Shelly? Yes. Yes.

So we've been working with Delmarva Power for two years. The issue is the pole switch from Delmarva Power to Verizon, and Verizon has not gotten back to them to allow them to put lights extending the rest of the way down to the cul-de-sac.

Okay.

We've been working on it.

Can we get in touch with them or find out where they're at? Yeah, if you would, please. Thank you. Chief, please, you know what you're supposed to do now. I told you earlier. Yes, be quick. Here's the information. Okay, any questions? I'm done. Yes. Okay.

All right, Mayor and Council, this is the Police Department's presentation. It covers May 26th of this year through July 19th of this year. On this slide here, it's just a breakdown of our personnel, and the main thing I want to point out is the blue square rectangle at the bottom left. Our new officer, John Burdell, will be graduating the Delaware State Police Academy August 20th of this year, and with his graduation, that puts us at our full 25 allotment. The color coded up there were some light duty situations. And then the green box, Jamal Powell, who will be getting activated as a part of a military deployment. So when we talk about being fully staffed, People need to understand that there are things, training, sick, vacations, two injuries, one on duty, one not, and then the officer being deployed with his military unit, all contribute to things that reduce that number down again. So we're addressing those. Both of the light duty personnel will be back to full duty by next week, so that's not an issue. Bridell comes out August 20th and Jamal gets deployed I think August 27th. So that's kind of a swap there. But just things we need to consider as we as we schedule things and I tell you that we're fully staffed understand that there's sometimes we're not really fully staffed because of these issues. We have a lot of new people, so I've been having people like, well, I don't know this, and I haven't seen this person, and that kind of. So I wanted to put up our pictures of all the people in our department. This is our administration slide. I think you recognize the top center person. To the left is my deputy chief, Joel Diaz. The center is Lieutenant Barlow, who's in charge of support services, which includes detectives. Linda Zello is our administrative assistant. Platoon A is led by Sergeant Mike Goins, and then John Thomas, Michael Harmon, Olivia Barado, Uriel Romero, Adam McMillian, Jamal Powell, Alec Barr, and Dominic Redshaw. That's Platoon A. You'll notice there's nine people in that platoon, which is a pretty heavy platoon. Platoon B is similarly sized. Sergeant Bart Wilson leads that platoon. Corporal Alex Repass, PFC Max Bruett, PFC Ryland Day, PFC Joshua Gray, PFC Bradley Dryden, Patrolman Sean Armstrong, Patrolman Keyshawn Mansfield, and Patrolman Peyton Rose. Our support services unit is led by Lieutenant Barlow. It's top right. Detective James Bowen, Detective Cody Leppert, Detective Ashley Melis, who's also our SRO officer. The bottom left is Chris Miller. He's our civilian accreditation manager, as well as our evidence tech. Our victim services personnel, Jessica Rivera and Ana Pilo Solis. Also housed in the police department is our code enforcement. And to the left is Yanni Velazquez, and to the right is Robin Berdujo. Getting to the stats and the activity in Georgetown, for the period May 26th of 2026 through July 19th of 2026, we had 1,360 reported incidents, one robbery with no arrest, 79 assaults. And I'll remind everybody, assault is a large category that doesn't necessarily mean someone got injured or hurt. But we had 79 of those. We made 27 arrests out of that 79 and we had 24 where the victim either did not cooperate or refused prosecution. We had nine burglaries with one arrest and apprehended 61 fugitives. Numbers are similar in the previous year. We did have more burglaries and more arrests. But if you'll see the number of people who didn't cooperate with prosecution or with the investigation, we had 22 and this year was 24. Some. They're included in there. The next slide pertains to vehicle crashes in town. For this reporting period, 115 crashes, 47 tickets were issued, which is about 41%. We had 12 personal injury accidents, 103 property damage or non-reportable accidents. zero fatalities, 26 hit and runs, and 27 DUIs. So obviously you can see a huge difference in DUIs, and I would attribute that to our increased numbers on patrol. More patrolling, more activity is caught. More drivers are getting caught drinking and driving. Calls for service. This is basically all calls for service. Anything that was police related where a police officer handled it. We had 1,878. And year to date, as of July 19th, we had 5,541 calls. And then you'll notice there has been an increase from the same period of last year, increase in the... incidents, but a decrease in the year to date. So we're a little behind schedule and that's not a bad thing. Just want to give props to Detective James Bowen. So we recently had Get the Scoop with the Georgetown Police Department next door at Vanderwinds. It was very well attended. There were some sore arms from scooping ice cream, and Keyshawn Mansfield, one of our new officers, assisted with that. A lot of kids, so our... Our coffee with a cop really targets mostly adults because that's who's drinking the coffee and it's usually in a time period where they're getting ready to go to work. So Detective Bowen came up with this idea of having this partnering with Vanderwinds and it was more family friendly. A lot of kids, a lot of families, multiple generations came out and interacted with the police and and enjoyed some ice cream. So that was an amazing event, and they would like to have more before the season's over. And just up in the upper left, that picture there is the foundational footprint of the new police department. And with that, I'll entertain any questions. Well, I think they're still working on interior stuff, the conduit and that kind of thing, but I think that's coming. A little at a time. Yeah, so if it's a domestic violence case and there's evidence of physical injury, they don't get a choice whether they can press charges or not. We press the charges. Now, if they cooperate with that prosecution once we've made that determination, great. But cases can be prosecuted even without the victim's cooperation. So it depends on us, the officers that are investigating the incident and the detectives who follow up, as well as the victim services who often interact with the victims on a regular basis and get them to change their mind and help with prosecution. So it really depends on the type of call. Now, if it's a yelling and shouting match and some pushing and shoving, there's no physical injury evidence, then we provide the victim still with a victim's report, which gives them all the numbers and the contacts for counseling, for services, for assistance in that way. And our victim services people follow up with them as well.

Any questions? I'm wearing my t-shirt. You forgot all about it.

Yes. August 4th. Well, it was mentioned in the town manager. So August 4th at Richard Allen School, that's really a good time to meet your police officers, especially the ones you haven't met in a positive way, obviously. It's usually well attended. And this year, you know, We, between the new playground equipment and more vendors, we're figuring out some ways to handle the parking problems. And so we're still working on that. But please come out and enjoy a couple hours with your police and some of the sponsors and vendors that are out there.

I also have a comment with regard to the domestic violence. In particular, it is an issue among the minority slash Hispanic community with regard to issues of culture, with regard to domestic violence. There was some concern during the time that we were considering the placement of the new police department, that we would be taking away a place where most people would walk. Most of the individuals that would be or could be affected by this issue could walk to the police department. Well, as you know, I spent a lot of time out there working in your gardens. And so I've had experience with several of your police officers, some of whom were not bilingual but are very capable. And I want to put the community at rest with regard to the ability of these officers to deal with these situations. I've offered myself to translate, and they are very capable of doing it on their own. I've been out there when you're closed and people are knocking on the door and I approach them and ask if they need help. The officer comes out and they said, no, they handle it themselves. So I think that the community should know that they're fear that they no longer have a place there that the officers are very capable of handling handling those situations and your uh linda it has been very helpful to me because folks would go to habitat to complain to me and then i have to call linda say she speaks spanish so then i would hand them over to her

So in addition to Linda, both of our victim services are bilingual. Both of our code enforcement officers who have helped us with translation are bilingual, and multiple officers are bilingual. So the ones that aren't have learned to manipulate, whether it's Google Translate, which may not be perfect, but at the time where we need good information, bridge that communication gap we can we can get enough from that to determine our course of action and then we can bring in our assets who are bilingual thank you

work forward.

Well, I think that's been discussed as a possible place to have community meetings and that kind of stuff. It's going to need a lot of work once we get out of there. This has been chopped up, so it'll need to be cleared out. And then there's some other issues that are part of the reason we need a new police department that will have to be taken care of before that can happen. As far as being a satellite site, you know, their vehicles, the officers' patrol vehicles are satellite sites. And they are not going to be sitting at the police department unless they're actively arresting or processing somebody and that kind of stuff. So I don't have a... I won't say no to anything like that. Obviously, there's going to be a period of transition, so we'll probably continue to work out of that place a little bit until the town decides how they want to handle the property.

I wholeheartedly agree with that, that community specifically needs the supportive services. I showed up to a case at court. And a lot of these folks have no clue. I'm not saying all, but a lot of these folks have no clue. I suspect that some of your issues are going to be making that property whole because there's mold coming out the windows and the tree outside. So I'm not being facetious. It's really true. But there's some investment that needs to be made in that building.

Real quick. Do you think we've got enough detectives to handle everything that's going on in this town right now?

Well, I would say not really. We've we've had up to five detectives at one point back there. And so we could always use more. And certainly, you know, I don't want to overburden the town. But as we go through future budgets I hope to be introducing in for more people. Because our detectives are busy. And the thing about the work that they do is it's the worst of the worst when the detectives are handling it. a lot of trauma, and I don't mean for the victims they're dealing with. I'm talking about them, the officer, things that they see, videos that they see, injuries that they see, and the trauma they're hearing. So it's good to have more. We're obviously doing the best we can as we finally get fully staffed, and so I appreciate that. But yes, I think we need to move that forward. what we've been doing in the past is we steal from the detectives to bolster up patrol and then after a while detectives get behind and they need help and then we'll pull from patrol put in detectives and try to help them that kind of stuff so hopefully as we are fully staffed and the patrols or the platoons are large not only can we put more boots on the street, so to speak, but then we also have the opportunity to pull from there without necessarily depleting those platoons, especially in military deployment. I think that's supposed to be like a nine-month thing, and we can't replace that position. So I can hire somebody to work in that position while he's deployed, but when he comes back, he has to get his job back, which I would, of course, do. But then we'd be at 26. So that's kind of the way it is. And as we move forward in budgets, that's what I will be pushing for. But the consideration isn't just the person. You've got uniforms. equipment, cars, that kind of stuff. Because even if we're pulling somebody from patrol that isn't a fully marked car and putting them in detectives, they still need a car. Currently, we don't have enough cars. Deputy Chief Diaz is driving his personal vehicle most of the time. I was just involved in an accident where I got rear-ended, and now my car is in the shop for God knows how long that's going to take. So those are the considerations. It's not just about, oh, we're fully staffed. We have to push for extras so that we have that buffer.

So we have officers that are using personal vehicles while working for the town?

I will say this. The deputy chief is driving his personal vehicle at his choice. But we don't have – we are – currently we have some cars that are in shops getting repaired. And so there are – I think some of the new guys may be driving personal cars back and forth to work, and then they get a car assigned to them while they're at work.

So do you think we need more officers, more than 25?

I would say we do. Okay. I would say we do. And I understand, you know, we just got there. So that's been a big – It's been a big milestone, but it's also a large expense. And so the budget that had some fluff with some vacancies where we could do things to properly equip people or get new cars to swap out ones that are killing us in repairs, that extra money is gone. So, yeah, we would have to push forward, ask for new positions, but not just the salary of the officer. People need to understand that the benefits. So if an officer is getting paid, let's say $77,000 to start, The benefits associated with that push it over 100,000. And then you're talking about cars nowadays. A car is about 50, and then you're putting about 20,000 equipment into it. And that doesn't even include a $7,000 radio and that kind of stuff. So it's not just, oh, we just add $77,000 to the budget. Yeah, I understand. So I don't want people to get sticker shocked. And I feel pretty blessed right now that the council has supported the police department and allowed us to get where we are.

And I appreciate everything you guys do. Anybody puts a badge or holds a gun and goes out here and deals with the general public and the crimes that they deal with deserve everything. I think it's our job to figure out how to make this work if you need more officers because you guys are the ones out there on the front line dealing with this. There comes a cost of being safe in this town.

Well, I just, and I would say that it doesn't all have to be at once, right? So we need to have a five-year plan. And let's say just the five-year plan is to get to 30, right? So that's at least one officer a year. That should be digestible versus trying to, just off the top of my head, five officers would be close to a million dollars in the budget. And we're already large part of the budget.

And at Group 9, we had five vehicles, I guess they were trying to rush through the light. The first one stopped, and we saw the red light in the middle of the intersection. Group 9 and 13. Then we had five vehicles, which extended out into the highway. So they had a five-way block, where you had two officers with a vehicle pulled over. So they saw what was happening, and they they were going to come over and try to fix that. But, you know, we've both, when we go to the military, we don't have to go to town, but we've witnessed a lot of times where, you know, the people run these lights and they're trying to, they just can't wait . . .

Right. And I just want to point out, too, during rush hour, there's so much more movement than typically throughout the day. So officers, it's not... I don't want anybody to feel like officers are parked somewhere not doing anything. They're literally running from call to call, accident to accident. And you're right. The red lights are an issue. And I have people out there that are writing tickets for red lights, writing tickets for stop signs. But it's... Five square miles and probably four officers. Well, sometimes they'll pull across and they'll stop in the center of the intersection.

That's what these were.

I'll take a ticket book. Just give me light. I need light.

I can deputize you, but it won't mean anything. We'll have to get a judge involved.

I'll try.

I wouldn't say 90%. There is a lot of accidents out there, but we have a lot of accidents on every street. We've had vehicle counts before on our streets, the North and South Bedford and East and West Market. We have about 20,000 cars a day that come through Georgetown on those streets. Now, obviously, some of them coming in this way and going out that way, so they're double counted, but the bottom line is 20,000 cars. So unfortunately, and then that's what happened to me, somebody's looking to see if a car's turning or not, and it starts to turn, and they decide they're gonna go. Well, I'm sitting there, because I'm waiting for that person to decide what they're supposed to do, the car that's coming at me. And that's really what it is, a lot of people not paying attention, so we have a lot of front end to rear end collisions in town and that's just not paying attention. So the only thing I will say about that is without a light there, with them moving, I think that reduces the collisions versus the stop and go type of thing. So until they finish the Route 9, 113 overpass or underpass, whatever they're going to call it, and it's a free flow through here, I don't know that there's going to have much of an impact. No, so I will say we were approved for 20 for a long time, and we couldn't get there. We'd hire people, they would quit, or we'd hire people and other things would happen and we'd have to let them go. So when I took over November 21st of 20, or November of 2021, I was like, well, we can't get to this number, so I pushed for 25. And my point of that was, let me push for 25 and maybe I can get 22 and break that cycle. And it worked. We really went hard and heavy on recruitment. We got involved with the states, joined Delaware and online applications and modifying the delaware state police chiefs modifying so that if an office if somebody wanted to be an officer in georgetown millsboro and and seaford they didn't have to go do three different tests three different pt tests and three different they could go through one process one of the agencies would pick that person up and then they would complete that process for that agency So, no, I think, though, but for us, you know, think about the state that we're in. Not state of Delaware, but the state of police work. Police are getting beat up in the news all the time. Sometimes we deserve it, sometimes we don't, but we don't deserve the wide brush. And so when new people are looking at police work and they hear legislators talking about all these new laws where they're going to pretty much put their thumb on top of police, why would somebody want to do that when they can go somewhere else? Now, one of the things we did as a way to combat that, the council was generous enough to give a very nice contract in the last contract negotiations, and where we were Probably on the lower middle, we went to the upper middle and in some cases even on the upper third. So that makes a big difference. And then when you talk about the benefits involved, family coverage and that kind of stuff. So that people were like, okay, I can take care of my family. maybe i do want to do this and then we get them on the street and they interact positively with the community and they feel good about what their decision was and the community feels good about it too so in this particular case i just think it's a matter of you know we have to incrementally do things and that takes like i said a five-year plan i just can't come next year at the budget meetings and say hey i want 30 i want 30 people now because they'll probably say okay you can go bye-bye I take responsibility for that, too, in that that's my job. I need to be aware of the developments, how many people are going to be in there when they get filled up and completed, and that kind of stuff, and then figure out, okay, what do I need? How many more do I need? Well, since we've never reached full capacity, I don't really know what we can do or not. I see benefits of what we have on the street now with nine patrolmen. But again, our detectives minus the lieutenant who's in charge, he's not taking a whole lot of cases because he has to supervise all the cases. So, and then the SRO has her own investigation specific to the school. And so, really, I have two investigators back there who are handling all the follow-ups and the most serious crimes that are occurring. So, yes, definitely we could use more.

Could you add that there's a box at the police station where they actually know you can go out of the whole Washington

And I will say that we already have people that do that every year, but thank you for that. Yes.

I remember the update on the new bypass. They may mention that at a certain point they're going to close everything down and bring down the industry. We have improvements on the footpath. We have a two-foot approval on the side of the road I mentioned this a couple of years ago, but they need to, I'm not on the sidewalks and curfews and all that, but it just seems like people can get away from the road a little better than not. There's probably two dozen people a day walking.

I'll just say on that note, obviously, it's already a problem on that street with people not obeying the speed limit, which is 25. So we'll have to put some people out there to address that. Yeah, so we'll look at a number of different things that we can do. We have our message boards that have radar unit in them, that kind of thing. We always get Office of Highway Safety grant money for enforcement purposes. And some of that is speed, some of it's DUI. So certainly we can throw some extra manpower out that way when that becomes, because it's gonna become an issue.

Okay.

Thank you. And you overran your time. I'll talk to you tomorrow about that.

Get my reprimand tomorrow.

All right, the next item is executive session. I need a motion to enter into executive session. I got a motion. Do I have a second? Second. All right, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? We're moving into executive session. We're going to move into our back room so those that are staying can be comfortable.

Oh, no. We have to get their first meeting set up. They don't have a schedule. Because we need to have a presentation. And they don't.

Okay, we exited executive session at 9.27 p.m. There's no action, so I need a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carried.

Meeting adjourned.

We're gone. Thank you.

What I want to do is get where he is. If I can get that thing right there to work. Because here's the problem. You can hold the microphone like this. Don't hold it like this. Right.