William G. Faust Jr. is a resident of Dover.
I went to the recent Dover City Council meeting, and its members and the mayor sidestepped issues that the public brought up. If they do answer a question, they only answer part of it.
They went into great lengths that they would do a better job in communicating to the public about clearing their individual sidewalks when it snows. However, they never answered the question put before them about doing a better job in clearing snow from secondary streets. They appeared proud that they waived the fines from the January storm. In my opinion, this is nothing to be proud of. Fining a citizen $100 for a first infraction is excessive, considering all the recent fees and tax increases.
The mayor and council seem very proud of the downtown beautification project. This appears to be putting the cart before the horse. If you do not clean up the prostitution issue, the drug issue, the homeless issue, the crime issue and the loitering issue, no amount of money is going to improve the downtown issue. Examples of the deterioration of downtown have resulted in the following: Bayard Pharmacy closing its doors and the luxury apartments on Loockerman Street being turned into Section 8 housing.
You do not need a Ph.D. to see that the efforts of the mayor and council members are falling short. You can just travel around Dover and see large and small corporations closing. The primary example of this would be the Walgreens on South State Street. It closed its doors due to the homeless population and other individuals. I also have heard from people that they do not use the Dover Public Library because homeless individuals have taken it over. They are afraid to subject their young children to homeless citizens, who are washing themselves in the restrooms or soiling the chairs that their children must use.
How can the mayor and council spend millions of dollars on improving downtown Dover? If you do not address the homeless, drug, criminal and prostitution issues at hand, no improvements are going to last because the basic problems are not addressed and fixed.
The way the mayor and council are going, they are just throwing good money away. When their current efforts fail, they will resort to additional fees, increases in taxes and rises in electrical prices to fix their poor decisions.
Where is the accountability of the mayor and council? How much more do the citizens of Dover have to endure?
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
