Mayor and Council - Regular Meeting

Danielle. Okay. Yes. There we go. Can you do roll call, please? Absolutely. Councilman Drew absent. Mayor Got present. Councilman Johnson here. Councilman Miles absent. Oh, you know what? He's online. I'm sorry. I see him. Councilman Olsen here. Councilman Pope here. And Vice Mayor Dr. Upure present. Thank you.

Thank you. At this time, are there any additions or deletions to the published agenda? I'd like to make a motion that we accept the agenda in its current form. Second. Is there any discussion? All those in favor? I. Those opposed? Motion is carried. Consent agenda. Like a motion to accept the council meeting minutes from February 2nd, 2026. I make a motion to accept a consent agenda from council meeting 2 2026. Second. Is there any discussion? All those in favor? Those opposed? Motion is carried.

Uh presentation and public comments. If there is anyone from the public that would like to speak, you have three minutes. Please state your name once you take the podium. Okay. Seeing none non-aggenda items, I will start. Um, thank you all for coming. First of all, um, if you have not had the time to see the Middletown Smyrna paper, I encourage you to please do so. Uh, there is an article about our Red Sand project that took place at the police department. There's an article about our police chief. And there is an article about one of our police officers who received an award. All really huge kudos to those folks. Um we received a save the date for our calendars from the mayor of Dover for Saturday, May 30th. Um their 250th anniversary is going to take place in Dover and they encourage everyone to look it up and participate if you'd like to. Um, and I think that is actually all that I have. Vice Mayor,

good evening everyone. I've had the honor and privilege to drive around district 2 yesterday and just have a firsthand look of all the streets to see how they looked, if they were fully cleared and made some observations and shared my observations with our assistant town manager also. I would like to share a black history moment honoring Reverend Jesse Jackson. Tonight I would like to recognize and honor the life and legacy of Bourbon Jesse Lewis Jackson senior, a monumental leader in the American civil rights movement whose recent passing which today marks the transition of one of our nation's most influential voices for justice. Reverend Jackson devoted his life to advancing equality, expanding opportunity, and uplifting communities that had long been marginalized. From his early work alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to founding of Operation Push and the Rainbow Coalition, he championed economic empowerment, voting rights, and social justice with unwavering determination. He was a strategist strategist, I'm sorry, an organizer, a bridgeuer, and a global advocate for human rights. His leadership helped open doors in education, employment, and political representation for countless individuals. His message to keep hope alive became a rallying cry for generations seeking fairness and dignity. Reverend Jackson's influence extended far beyond marches and speeches. He inspired young leaders, negotiated in moments of crisis, and used his voice to challenge America to live up to its highest ideals. His legacy is woven into the progress we see today and the ongoing work still before us. As we reflect on his passing, we honor a life lived with courage,

conviction, and purpose. We extend our deepest condolences to his family and all who called who were all shaped by his leadership. May his legacy continue to guide us as we strive for justice, unity, and equality. Okay, that's it. Council Secretary, Councilman Pope,

thank you so much. Um, Sunday, I actually had the privilege of attending a men's talk forum. Um, it was actually facilitated by our own uh Nelson Drew, Councilman Drew did a really nice job and it was uh pretty well attended for his first one. I think they're going to it's the first in this series. Uh so if you get a chance uh gentleman from the community and they advertise it, please do stop by. Uh it was held at Social on Maine. Um, it was a pretty decent panel and uh some really good topics that covered everything from men's health to uh to some other things. So, that was good to know. So, I that's pretty much all that I have at this point.

Councilman Johnson, just like to thank employees for [clears throat] all the hard work you do for town.

Councilman Olsson. Yeah, this is my first time back since the big snowstorm and I'd like to congratulate the uh town crews on a good uh job with the snow. I was impressed with trucking the snow out of the downtown and taking it out to outside town. That was very nice to clear out the downtown. And one other thing as we're cons considering a graffiti ordinance tonight, I think we need to consider uh the people that perpetrate and do the graffiti and paint the graffiti, not just the people that have their uh properties vandalized.

Thank you, Chief. I don't have uh anything crazy for you. Just a reminder that a week from Thursday, our first two recruits graduate the police academy. Believe that's at 5:00 at Dupont Middle School in Wilmington. Town Manager Jace. Uh I'm going to keep this pretty short. Um first is a lot of the council members will start seeing some emails or have probably seen some emails from something called Lexiple. Um I promise you it's not spam. It is actually coming from us. it is our new um on boarding for the new personnel policies that are out there. So, if you can go in and create your account

um and that way you can go in and you can see the policies that are in there. There's about 30 some of them that are in there currently right now.

Um if you go read them screen at the bottom there's an approval button at the bottom um that we just ask that you do that. Um all of you have a copy of this month's financial statements. So give that uh a look. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. We are at the very end of the 24 audit. So we're super excited to see where this takes us. Um this will be the first time since about 21 that we've actually been pretty much caught up. Um so we'll be starting on 25 with the anticipation of having it done around June. Um which will put us right about the time that we should be and we will finally be caught up. So very good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. town solicitor since

Oh, I don't want to forget you. Do you have anything you'd like to add? [laughter] Thanks for being a little tardy, but no, I'm good. Thanks. Okay, thank you. Um, old business, there is none. New business swearing in of election board members. If would the election board members please join me in front of the dise Let's just go right to the middle.

So, the way this is going to work is I have a note that each of you are going to take. I'm going to read it. You'll each fill in your name and then we'll complete it with one spoke reading. I don't know how the best way is to hold the Bible for all of this and read at the same time. So, can we hold it? I You know what? I don't know why we can't. Is that okay? Yep. Works for me. Okay. If you would please. I repeat your name. I do solemnly swear Do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Delaware and and the Constitution of the State of Delaware.

And I will faithfully discharge the duties as a member of the Board of Elections. And I will faithfully discharge duties of the office board for the town of Smyrna for the town of sorry we'll do small snippets by ensuring that elections within the town by ensuring all elections within the town are conducted fairly are conducted fairly impartially impartially and in accordance with the Delaware Code and in accordance [clears throat] with the Delaware Code and the Smyrna Charter and the Smyrna Charter and the ordinances to the best of liability and the address liability.

Okay, if I could get each of you to please sign your forms. Miss Beverly, if anyone need Beverly and thank you, ma'am. And if you would please

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for agreeing to do this. You're very welcome. Thank you. Do you all know when the election is? April 28th.

Okay. Um first reading of Ordinance 001-25. It is an ordinance to amend the chapter 18 building and building regulations article X property maintenance code to establish regulations requiring graffiti remediation by property owners. And the the synopsis of this would be whereas section 42.25 25 of the Smyrna Town Charter authorizes the town council to provide for and preserve the health, peace, safety, cleanliness, ornament, good of the order, and public welfare of the town of Smyrna and its inhibitants, graffiti is destructive to the town and negative imp negatively impacts the property values and aesthetic appearance of the town. Whereas graffiti has been found to be related to other illegal activities such as littering, theft, and property destruction. And in order to preserve and protect the town of SRA, in the opinion of the town council, it is necessary for the public health, safety, and welfare to establish regulations requiring private owners property owners to remediate graffiti on private properties. That is the the brief synopsis, keeping in mind that this goes along with any action that is carried by the property owner legally with the police department. So this is our responsibility. The property owner is responsible for any charges that would go against the person that has caused defamation to their property. Okay. Is that right, Chief?

That is correct. Make sure that I don't cross a line. Uh and I am actually the sponsor of that [clears throat] and that will serve as the first reading and we do not have to vote on that. No, we would vote on the first reading. We Okay. Sorry. In that case, can I have a motion to accept the first reading? I make a motion to accept the first reading of ordinance 0001-25. Second. Oh, sorry. To amend chapter 18 and I'll stop there. Second. Is there any discussion? Yes.

So, is anything being done to try to prevent the graffiti and catch those that do it? Has anybody been caught? So much like if and chief you can update or correct me or chief or town manager you can as well. Just like if somebody were to paint on your home, you as the property owner would then reach out to the police department and an investigation would ensue. But in the meantime, you would be responsible for taking care of your property to ensure that it doesn't remain painted. But what about catching them while they're doing it?

Well, if you [clears throat] I go back to a comment that I I made the other day. We are blessed to have 14,000 people in this town and 34 police officers. If one of the 14,000 people see it, I would hope they would call it in and report it just equally as much as I would expect our police officers to stop them as they are riding around. Um, but let's look at the reality of if somebody is spray painting something and they see a police car, they're going to take off. Um that I think that that's pretty laid out there. But would you like

I would just say that the criminal investigation remains ongoing. We've had three or four leads. We've run them down as far as we can. Um we're not at the point of having probable cause to write an arrest warrant yet. I hope we get there. We're still working on it. So, wouldn't it be an order to have extra patrols on places that tend to be tend to have graffiti like the Eagle uh place over here, the old uh uh industrial thing over here on Glenwood Avenue.

So, that's difficult to patrol because they have fences that block that parking lot and that building sits so far off the street. It would be very difficult for us to get in there and do any kind of patrol beyond riding down Glenwood Avenue. Well, I mean, riding around the place and keeping an eye on it. Yeah, sure. We keep an eye on everything. We do property checks at commercial and residential locations every day and every night. But, as the mayor said, if you're spray painting a building and you see headlights, you're probably going to duck down and we're not going to see you until the finished product is done in the morning.

Yep. And and what's to prevent the the poor property owners to uh clean up all the graffiti or be charged for cleaning it up and then have graffiti there again right after that? There is nothing to prevent that, right?

There's not. And what I can tell you and and and address on this is is as as a property owner in the town of Smyrna, if your neighbor's house was spray painted on and you were in the position that you were trying to sell your house, that would definitely bring down the property value of your home. So, what we're trying to do is preserve the property values of the the homes within the town of Smyrna. We are not here trying to penalize anybody. What we're not trying to do is is have the town look like it's falling apart. So try to help. We're not trying to penalize them, but they are being penalized. Yeah.

Understand that there's there if you look at it, there's also a way to help them because there's a fund that's being created and that fund will help them pay to get the stuff off of their house. So, yes, they're being held accountable, but we're also trying to create a fund that will also help them take that stuff off. And on top of that, if they're a victim of graffiti, right, they're a victim of a crime. If they report that to us, they have rights under the victim's compensation fund. If they're out any money to remediate that graffiti, they could apply for funds from that state fund on top of the fund that the town manager is mentioning. Basically, up front, they got to take the money out of their pocket to do it.

Yes. So this guy up here on Main Street that spent thousands of dollars painting that building this summer so it looked nice. Some idiot goes out there and spray paints it. Now he got to dig in his pocket again. Initially, yes, he would under this ordinance.

You know, the one thing I will say is, you know, if we just logically think about this, right? So we have an ordinance in place, but let's take the ordinance out, right? And so whatever that building is, it gets graffitied. Who's going to fix it? Town's not going to do it, right? The town's not going to be going around repairing graffiti on private property everywhere throughout the town, right? Those that did it that they're not going to do it. So ultimately, it's always going to come back to the property owner being responsible for remediating the graffiti. What this really does is just, you know, set a timeline on so it doesn't drag on forever, I guess. Now, are there any other municipalities that have an ordinance similar to this?

This is modeled pretty closely off of the city of Newarks ordinance. [clears throat] All those in favor of accepting the first reading. I I Those opposed motion is carried.

This point I'd like a motion to move into executive session. I'd like to make a motion that we go into executive session to discuss personnel matters in which the names, competencies, and abilities of individual employees will be discussed. 29 Delaware C section 10004 B9. Second

Wait. I'd like to make a motion that we come out of executive session.

Second. All those in favor? I. Those opposed come out of executive session. Make a motion to adjurnn. I make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All those in favor? I those opposed meeting is adjourned at 7:37.