Local News

Amid controversy surrounding the prayer suit facing the Indian River School Board, two local board members will seek re-election on Tuesday.

Members of the Millville and Roxana volunteer fire departments responded April 25 to a noontime fire at a salvage facility on Substation Road near Central Avenue, just outside Ocean View.

Members of the Coastal Point’s production staff brought home the gold recently, taking several awards at the Maryland, Delaware, D.C. Press Association (MDDC) annual advertising contest for 2005. The awards were presented April 27, in Annapolis, and were the first the Coastal Point was eligible for, in its first year of MDDC membership.

Sussex County Council authorized staff to move forward with a Memorandum of Agreement between the state, Kent and New Castle counties, and various cities and school districts, in pursuit of an aggregated bid for electricity, at the May 2 council meeting.

The Indian River School Board’s legal team changed twice this week.

On Tuesday, the board voted unanimously to hire attorney Jason Gosselin from the Philadelphia law firm Drinker, Biddle and Reath to represent the board on the lawsuit filed by its insurer last month.

Bethany Beach planning officials are once again examining how to deal with discrepancies between the standards, covenants and deeds in the Sea Villas community and the town’s standard residential zoning ordinances.

District 3
Randall Hughes

Q: Why are you running for the board and how are you qualified?

Fenwick Island’s main drag will soon sport some colorful accents, if plans from the town’s Beautification and Commercial Liaison committees move forward apace.

Members of the Bethany Beach Town Council approved on April 21 a revised version of the controversial residential height allowance proposed by the town’s Planning Commission and Zoning Ad Hoc Committee (ZAC), with a 5-1 vote.

Volunteers, athletes and concerned citizens will come together this weekend to raise money to support local autism programs and bring public awareness for the nationally-observed Autism Awareness Day, set for April 29.

After 28 years of service to the Indian River School District, Dr. Susan Bunting has been handed its leading role. At a special board meeting on Monday, the school board members voted unanimously to select the current district director of instruction as its new superintendent.

The South Bethany Planning Commission made quick work of two partitioning requests at their April 24 meeting, before plunging into comments from state agencies on the town’s draft comprehensive development plan (CDP).

An Ocean View special town council meeting on Tuesday turned into a “fiasco,” according to town mayor Gary Meredith, after new Councilman Roy Thomas brought a violation of the town’s code to the attention of the council.

If you were to ask me which — of the countless beautifully designed rooms I have experienced over the years — were my favorites, you might be surprised to discover that all of them were out of doors. No traditional walls or ceilings, or lighting. Not a one.

Each year for the past 11, nearly 500 people have converged on the Delmarva Peninsula on the last weekend of April for Delmarva Birding Weekend. In kayaks and canoes, and sometimes on foot, these eco-tourists take in the natural beauty of the peninsula in the event sponsored by Delmarva Low Impact Tourism Experiences (DLITE).

Just in time for the dedication of their new fire station on Sunday, members of the Bethany Beach Volunteer Fire Company got some good news: the Bethany Beach Town Council unanimously voted April 21 to support the company’s application for a variance to allow a scaled-down communications tower at the facility.

Ocean View Board of Adjustment officials on April 20 did everything but tell a couple who owns property in the town that they couldn’t build an already-planned home on the piece of property they bought last year.

Bethany Beach’s most recent work reviewing town ordinances came down to one resounding bottom line: Property owners in the town need to remember that they’re responsible for the upkeep on the swales and drainage ditches that abut their properties.

DiFebo’s Restaurant in Bethany Beach will host its second annual motorcycle run to support education for the children of fallen police officers this weekend, on Sunday, April 30.

Indian River High School grad Kent McCullough, class of 1988, is no longer with us, but through the efforts of his family and friends to save others from McCullough’s fate, his spirit lives on.

McCullough succumbed to melanoma — a deadly and increasingly common form of skin cancer — on Feb. 9, 2006. But his wife, Kim, isn’t taking McCullough’s death sitting down.

Delmarva Power customers in Delaware received two helpings of good news last week regarding the price of electricity. First, Delmarva Power residential customers will no longer have to pay interest on an optional phased-in electricity rate-hike plan. And second, Delmarva Power residential customers now have a choice on where to purchase their electricity.

It seems like someone’s holding a fundraiser every month, at the Georgia House restaurant in Selbyville — and that’s because they are.

The Georgia House (located at Main and Church streets) hosts one fundraiser a month, including, in recent months, events for two sports booster clubs (Indian River soccer, Indian River softball) and Agape, a Christian group.

It’s not a secret. People come to this area to retire. From Pennsylvania, to Baltimore, to Washington, D.C., people flock to the Delaware Coast to live out their lives next to sandy beaches and with a considerably shorter drive to get to those shores.

Because of the extensive migration, the Delaware Coast boasts a larger elderly population than do most places in this country.

Plans to redevelop the landmark Blue Surf Motel on Bethany Beach’s boardwalk, in part, spurred the town to pass a moratorium on commercial construction and consider architectural guidelines for their commercial district.

“Your knee being skewered by an ice pick — that’s how I described the pain before I had surgery. If that is a 10, the level of pain now is zero,” said Charles Abrachinsky.

“For some reason, I knelt on the bed to get in,” said Elinore Dunphy. “I heard a snap and then felt excruciating pain. ‘Bone on bone,’ the doctor called it.”

Members of the Bethany Beach Architectural Guideline Development Committee for the C-1 and C2 Zoning Districts (AGDC) worked to refine their initial concepts of the guidelines at an April 25 meeting with consulting architect Jeff Schoellkopf.

Among the refinements taking shape:

Avian influenza. While media outlets are paying it a great deal of attention of late, the regular, seasonal flu is actually a far more serious problem. Seasonal, or common, flu claims 36,000 lives – every year – in this country alone, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Disease Control (CDC) Web site.

Surely most people have noticed. Gas prices are on the rise again. But – as of now – the rises have been worse than last year’s spike in prices or have at least come earlier than expected.

Expenses and revenues generated through development looming in the town of Millville more than quadrupled the town’s budget in one year. After approving some $65,000 in the 2006 fiscal-year budget last year, town council voted unanimously on April 11 to pass a 2007 fiscal-year budget that balances at $273,375 and will take effect on May 1.

A bit of local culture will come to Bethany Beach Town Hall this week, with the final event in the series of cultural events presented by the town’s Cultural and Historical Affairs Committee (CHAC), set for Wednesday, April 26, at 7 p.m.