Sussex County News

Sussex County engineering department officials unveiled a study this week, recommending that the county enhance sewage capacity along the northern Inland Bays and extend the area slated for central sewage there.

A week from today, Sussex County Administrator Bob Stickels will pack the pictures that decorate his office walls, load paperwork into boxes and grab the two signed baseballs that have sat on the front of his desk in the county’s Georgetown administrative building for years.

Sussex County students will again have a chance to receive scholarship monies by predicting the outcome of federal, state and local elections. County Council voted on Tuesday for the fourth time this decade to approve its Election Year Scholarship Contest.

When asked, only two people raised their hands Thursday night in support. Some 33 people then confirmed their opposition to the plan to subdivide 742 acres into 1,060 lots off of Camp Barnes and Double Bridges roads, near the Assawoman Wildlife Refuge, for a proposed development called The Estuary.

In a letter written by South Bethany residents Richard and Bonnie Kemske and addressed to Sussex County Planning and Zoning Commission, the pair urged the county to deny approval of The Estuary subdivision partly because it will “overload the already crowded roads.”

Sussex County Sheriff Robert Reed recently said it’s not something he is “worried about right now.” And Eric Swanson, a former State Police official and Reed’s Democratic challenger in this year’s election, said that it will be left up to the discretion of County Council.

Sussex County Council voted on Tuesday to spend $82,227 to hire consultants and to pay for an outside company to design the mechanical rebuild of the 30-year-old Tingle Avenue wastewater pump station in Bethany Beach.

Though there is local opposition to the proposed Estuary development off Double Bridges Road near South Bethany, the area is clearly marked for development in Sussex County’s land-use plan, as a portion of the Environmentally Sensitive Developing Area.

More than three years after Sussex County Council denied the rezoning of a monstrous development — then named The Palisades — off Double Bridges Road in the “environmentally sensitive developing area” near the Assawoman Wildlife Refuge, the developers are back with another plan that is meeting little resistance at the state level.

A Sussex County Council decision unanimously rendered Tuesday should allow for quicker response times for the Millville fire company. Council voted 5-0 after a public hearing Tuesday afternoon to grant a conditional use to the company, allowing it to open a substation on Omar Road.

Sussex County Council on July 18 overturned a March 1 Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) decision regarding the Isaacs Glenn project, saying that if plans comply with county code, they must be approved.

Sussex County council voted 4-1 on Tuesday to zone six units on about 1.28 acres of land near Bethany, allowing Bethany Court LLC to exceed the maximum density set for a MR, Medium Density Residential District.

Bethany Republican George Cole cast the only dissenting vote on Tuesday, saying the ruling sets a precedent that would allow applicants to exceed density restrictions.

Eric Swanson, a former Delaware State Police official and criminal justice teacher, filed last week to run against Sheriff Robert Reed in November’s election. Reed has held the spot since 1998 and will seek re-election to his third term in November amid controversy about the duties of the sheriff’s office.

Sussex County Council voted to approve a pair of ordinances Tuesday morning, raising a set of fees and fines in about a half of an hour. The five-man council disagreed on raising the fee for building code violation appeals hearings but voted unanimously to raise the fine for starting construction without appropriate permitting from the county.

Sussex County Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve county Finance Director and 28-year county employee Dave Baker as Bob Stickels’ successor as County Administrator.

Sussex County will hold a public hearing at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday to consider an ordinance that would make it more costly for builders to start construction without building permits from the county.

About a dozen representatives from local non-profit groups paraded in front of County Council and its crowded chambers on Tuesday to ask for their share of miscellaneous county funds in a nearly three-hour-long 2007-fiscal-year budget hearing.

Can government officials approve or deny proposed development plans based on general concerns or must they make such judgments based solely on code compliance? That question is now facing the five-member Sussex County Council.

Sussex County will hold a public hearing at 10:15 a.m. on Tuesday, June 20, to consider the adoption of the $140 million 2007 fiscal-year budget presented to county council in late May.

Those who violate Sussex County code by building without permits may soon pay a larger fine for doing so. Sussex County Council introduced an ordinance at its Tuesday meeting that would make builders pay a fine identical to the building permit cost as the penalty for violating the county code. Currently, builders who build without permits have to pay the county only a $100 fine.

Delaware was “the First State,” incorporated into the new Union on Dec. 7, 1787. But to this day, some Americans probably couldn’t tell where that first state is located.

Increasing sewage fees, a group of retiring department heads and skyrocketing energy prices were the primary focus of the Bob Stickels-led Sussex County budget presentation on Tuesday.

Retiring County Administrator Stickels and other county officials on Tuesday morning presented the county’s proposed $140 million budgetary plan for the 2007 fiscal year to council.

Capt. John Smith and friends sailed their 30-foot “shallop” (single-mast skiff) into Sussex County waters just shy of 400 years ago, all the way up the Nanticoke River to what is now Phillip’s Landing in Seaford.

It wasn’t on the agenda, but Sussex County Council Member George Cole came out strong for enforcement of the county’s sign laws, at the May 9 council meeting (under additional business).

Cole was particularly concerned with what he characterized as violations “too numerous to count,” of the prohibition against flashing signs.

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.