What’s Going on With the Sussex County Council? Come on In for the Scoop-The 10/13/15 Edition

It was a rip-roaring Sussex county council meeting on storm drains, DELDOT and all things Sheriff. The surprise of the day is which council member rose mightily in this Blogger’s esteem

Sheriff Robert Lee addresses the Sussex county council

The first big surprise of today’s Sussex county council meeting on 10/13/15 was a report by Sussex county’s new Sheriff, Robert Lee.

So far as I know this is the first time a Sheriff has given a report to the Sussex county council but it’s a good idea.

Bob Lee gave a nice presentation, informing the council of current efforts to coordinate the Sheriffs of Newcastle, Kent and Sussex, for sharing of common knowledge and mutual working bonds.

Reading between the lines I picked up Lee’s references to Sussex county’s former Sheriff, Jeff Christopher. If I knew nothing about Jeff Christopher it was that the Sussex county council did not like him.

While I, silly citizen, rather liked the guy and fought for his re-election. Alas all is fair in love and war and elections have consequences. Further, I am not so obtuse as to not realize the issues and problems arising when an elected Sheriff clashes with an elected county council.

Whatever the case, Robert T. Lee gave a nice presentation and I look forward to his reports if these are going to be given at future county meetings.

But before the Sheriff’s fine talk there was, of course, the world famous pickle awards. Now I don’t know what this is all about except it’s something given to fine employees.

Chaos as Sussex county employees fight for pickle awards

The rest of the meeting was taken up with conditional land use approvals, a change order resulting in thousands of dollars of savings…hooray!…and Joan Deaver making a very surprising request.

A request I liked, more on this later.

One of the conditional land use changes was for something called Ocean Atlantic Communities.

A new development popping up right behind, coincidentally, my church. Dutch Acres I think it’s called.

It wasn’t all that interesting, as these things often are not. But it’s a good example of how such developments come about. Because there is only one exit onto Route one from where this development is planned. And it’s a little road, called, heh, Tulip Drive.

The presentation from the developer says that traffic is congested on this street only during church service.

Heh. Again.

What the hell does church service have to do with anything? There are mostly big services on the weekends and St. Jude the Apostle hires a cop to direct traffic after every weekend mass.

Actually Tulip drive can probably adequately handle traffic from both the church and this Dutch acres but the concept of warning people that it’s only the church people who cause issues….well it made me smile.

During the discussion of these conditional uses I was very impressed by how my own council representative, one Joan Deaver, a Democrat no less, presented the issues of her constituents. She was logical and studied as she recounted issues cropping up with those she represents and she did it well.

But the biggest surprise of all was a request that Joan made at the end of the council session and I want to tell Joan THAT SHE IS 100% RIGHT!!!!

YOU GO GIRL!!

Here’s why. Joan said that she lives on Plantation Road and she’s mighty pleased with how DELDOT handled a brand spanking new intersection that was recently installed and could the Sussex county council send DELDOT a letter of commendation for the job they did.

While nobody outright laughed at Joan’s suggestion, there were some quiet sniggers. Cause we all hate DELDOT, right?

In fact, just recently, I too gave DELDOT a big thumbs up and right here I would encourage Joan to follow up on her suggestion, see that it gets done.

Because DELDOT had Route 9 fixed up and prettied up and we got some brand spanking new intersections along this route. Not only did DELDOT did a great job witness the completed job, they did terrific with the re-routing of traffic and other headaches when Sussex county gets a road fixed.

I mentioned this fact, giving DELDOT some kudos they deserved.

Because if you’re going to criticize DELDOT, give them some credit for a job well done.

Joan you did great today. And I write this for the same reason you want DELDOT given a letter of merit….so you’ll keep doing it.

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NEXT :Report on recent Sussex GOP meeting, some tidbits both local and national. AND, of course, tomorrow…..the CNN Democratic debate.