With less public participation during Fenwick Town Council meetings, some residents are asking for change
FENWICK, Del.- In Fenwick, some community members are looking for answers from the town.
They are saying public participation rules during town council meetings keep changing this year and they want more answers as to why.
“I’m really concerned about what has happened you know in the past year to our town council meeting and limiting public participation,” Richard Benn, a Fenwick resident, said.
The Town Manager said they started to change public participation because of COVID and having to go virtual.
Among the changes, people now have 2 minutes to speak instead of 3.
But the most recent change came on Friday when the council decided not to take public comment at all.
Some have reason to believe that decision was influenced by Spiro Buas, the owner of the Fenwick Shores Hotel, who’s proposed project to build a rooftop pool bar has been a hot topic at council meetings.
“Now, they just want to totally limit public participation and I find that ironic considering Mr. Buas at the last public participation stated that he should eliminate public participation or at least limit it,” Benn said.
We asked the Town Manager about those allegations and they said they decided not to take public comment because they wanted to keep things short.
They also said that in Delawar there’s no requirement that the public be allowed to participate, but not everyone on the council is on board with that thinking.
“I do believe that public participation should be part of the meeting, unless there’s a very good reason to eliminate it, and I just haven’t ran across the reason yet,” Vicki Carmean, a Fenwick Town Council member said.
And even though it may be legal to not allow public comment, members of the public hope the council will reconsider.
“The most important thing is that the public have a voice and I think anybody who lives in any community have a voice,” Benn said,
When we asked Buas about his comment that was made during the council meeting, on October 23, suggesting limited public participation to every couple of meetings, he said his reasoning for the statement was because he feels public participation of city council meetings has become a complaint forum for town citizens and he doesn’t think it’s healthy for the town.
He added that people are complaining without solutions.
Carmean added that there is a number of issues in the town and it’s important to have public comment on those issues to make the best decisions for the community.
