William G. Faust Jr. is a resident of Dover.
The city of Dover needs to go back to the drawing board because the way the mayor and council members are running things is not making the living conditions better or safer.
Let’s keep it real. If your favorite sports team keeps losing year after year or if your financial adviser keeps losing you money each quarter, the individuals in charge would make major changes immediately.
Asking for our elected officials, city manager and workers to be held accountable to the residents is not too much to ask. As inhabitants of Dover, we are held accountable to pay our taxes on time and follow ordinances to establish a safe place to live. Fair is fair!
It is time to develop a new playbook and strategy to lead our city into the future. The old plan of adding fees, increasing utility rates or raising taxes may work in the short term, but in the long term, it will fail. Citizens are frustrated, and others are watching what is being printed in the newspaper and shown on the TV news. With all this occurring, do you expect residents to remain here and local businesses to stay or expand in Dover? Do you think the view of the city, as it stands now, is a positive attraction to newcomers or to major corporations or small mom-and-pop stores? I think we would have better luck to become millionaires in the lottery.
Dover needs to evaluate how our revenue is spent and invested. The city needs a major overhaul in how it conducts its daily operations.
If our grandparents could live on a shoestring budget during and after the Great Depression, I think Dover could do the same thing. Some choices are hard to make, but we are better off when they are done. I have voiced my concern at the council meetings and through emails to the city clerk, forwarded to the mayor and council members. The only true dialogue I have received was from Councilman Brian Lewis. To be fair, I did get a response, from Council President Fred Neil, to an email I sent to the mayor and council members. To me, his responses were from a true politician — like “It’s not the city’s business decisions”; “If we did not change rates, we would have been forced to raise taxes”; and, the best remark, that I should run for public office. If President Neil’s memory fails, I am referring to his responses to my email dated June 23 at 4:36 p.m. This is the same message in which I requested to be part of the public record when I spoke at the council meeting. Many smart citizens and I have made suggestions about our revenue situation and have brought multiple concerns to the mayor and council members, but they are turning a blind eye.
The mayor and council members cannot hide or state that they cannot speak to me because I always provide my contact information with every email, and I come to the meetings early and do not rush out at the end.
Our youth, older adults and needy residents need a city that is proactive and cares about all the fears, concerns and hardships that are being faced daily. We deserve the best city government possible.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
