Rehoboth residents voice frustration at special meeting following Attorney General opinion
REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. – Monday in Rehoboth Beach, a special meeting of the City Commissioners was held after Delaware’s Attorney General issued an opinion stating that the Commissioners violated the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in their hiring process of City Manager Taylour Tedder.
Mayor Stan Mills was met with groans and boos when he outlined the very narrow focus of the special meeting. Held at the recommendation of Delaware’s Attorney General, the purpose of the meeting was for the City Commissioners of Rehoboth Beach to comply with previously violated FOIA.
“If they’re not going to hold themselves accountable, we’ll find a way to hold them accountable according to the laws of the state of Delaware,” said Tom Gaynor, a Rehoboth homeowner who led a group of residents in petitioning the Attorney General’s office.
The FOIA violations outlined by the Delaware AG centered on the private discussion of employment contract and compensation package for Tedder. Beyond a lack of transparency, residents also took issue with the qualifications of Tedder himself.
Gaynor was frustrated by the scope of the meeting; the fact that there would be no modifying or nullifying the existing contract, nor discussion of Tedder’s qualifications: “What they tried to do today was fix the procedural defect the attorney general indicted them for, but they don’t have an opportunity to fix the fact that they are conducting an illegal contract by hiring someone who’s ill equipped and underqualified for the job.”
Mayor Mills and other Commissioners did not address the required qualifications laid out in the city’s charter, but they did defend Tedder’s ability to perform his duties at a high level. The mayor maintained that City Commissioners did not know they violated FOIA throughout the hiring process.: “We were disappointed to be found in violation of a couple tenants of FOIA. We wanted to make sure everybody understood that we fully thought we were in compliance all along.”
With the understanding that the new city manager’s contract and compensation package were unchanged by the meeting, residents left the session with litigation on their mind, as Gaynor said, “Unfortunately, the only recourse from here–as the Attorney General identified–is to take the city to chancery court to hold them accountable. And at the end of the day, the law applies to all of us equally, including the Commissioners. They don’t just get to ignore laws they don’t like.”
When WMDT asked Mayor Mills if he would do things differently if could go back to the beginning of the process, he responded, “Absolutely.”
The motion to ratify the vote approving the City Manager’s contract was carried unanimously by all 6 Commissioners and the Mayor.
