Milford council to open busy meeting with Hindu prayer

Noah Zucker
Posted 2/6/21

MILFORD — For the first time, a City Council meeting will open with a Hindu prayer in the Sanskrit language Monday.

“Hindu statesman Rajan Zed will deliver the invocation from …

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Milford council to open busy meeting with Hindu prayer

Posted

MILFORD — For the first time, a City Council meeting will open with a Hindu prayer in the Sanskrit language Monday.

“Hindu statesman Rajan Zed will deliver the invocation from ancient Sanskrit scriptures remotely before Milford City Council,” a press release from Mr. Zed said. “After Sanskrit delivery, he then will read the English interpretation of the prayers.”

Mr. Zed, who lives in Las Vegas, is the president of the Universal Society of Hinduism and has spoken at numerous government meetings across the American Southwest. He opened Georgetown’s Town Council meeting Jan. 27.

Milford Mayor Archie Campbell said Mr. Zed asked for the opportunity.

“He sent me an email, and I talked it over with the city manager, the vice mayor and a couple of council members and said we would be open to that,” the mayor said.

The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. Monday and will follow a workshop scheduled to begin at 6:30. Both can be accessed on Zoom at zoom.us/j/94161150176.

Aside from Mr. Zed’s invocation, the council will have a lot on its plate at the meeting.

Members will hear monthly reports from various corners of the city government, consider the possibility of lighted handrails on part of the Riverwalk and possibly approve a memorandum of agreement between the city’s Parks & Recreation department and the Delaware Nature Society, a local nonprofit focused on education and preservation.

“I’m really curious about what the Delaware Nature Society is going to do and also the Parks & Recreation handrail repair” along the Riverwalk, behind the library, Mayor Campbell said.

For months, Brad Dennehy, the director of the Parks & Recreation department, has been working on an agreement with DNS to create educational programming along the Mispillion Riverwalk and Milford’s other waterways.

“They’re really good at their educational programs. They’ve got a lot of really smart volunteers,” Mr. Dennehy said at a council retreat meeting Dec. 16. “Their whole thing is trying to get people outside into the natural world.”

At that meeting, he spoke about numerous potential activities DNS could help the department put on along the Mispillion River, including a fishing clinic for 7- to 8-year-olds, canoeing for 9- to 12-year-olds and an adult lecture series.

“They can help us offer a diverse variety of programs for diverse age groups and demographics,” Mr. Dennehy said.

Mayor Campbell also provided an update on the citizens advisory committee that was formed to review the construction of a new station for the Milford Police Department.

“We’re going to try to set up a meeting once a month,” he said. Chief Kenneth Brown is in the process of finding a time that will work for all members of the committee.

On Jan. 26, Milford voters approved a referendum that will allow city government to borrow up to $20 million to fund the construction of the building and to levy a property tax increase to pay the money back.

“The main thing in the beginning right now is what (the facility) is going to look like,” Mayor Campbell said of the group’s current focus. “We had four images. The committee will pick the image they think it should be, and I think most of them are going to pick the one that we all liked anyway.”

The mayor said this favored design is notable for its inclusion of columns.

“It looks very modern with a little bit of old school,” he said.

The mayor also provided some insight into why an in-person City Council retreat meeting initially scheduled for Saturday morning ended up being canceled.

“There are people that didn’t feel safe because of COVID,” Mayor Campbell said. “Some of the council members are taking care of their elderly parents. Some don’t want to be around a lot of people, so we decided to hold off on it.

“I think four people said they (were not) going to make it.”

The meeting was supposed to happen at Etta’s Catering, a restaurant on South Rehoboth Boulevard, and has not been rescheduled yet.

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