Ocean View gets legislators' input on charter

Ocean View officials welcomed state Rep. Gerald Hocker and Sen. George Bunting to a discussion this week on the town’s proposed charter changes. The town has been in the process of compiling proposed changes over the past year and half and, before the updated charter is proposed for passage in the Delaware General Assembly, a public hearing and input from the Senate attorney is still expected.

Much clarification and fine-tuning has gone into the many drafts of Ocean View’s proposed charter changes. Words that could have been taken to mean the town manager would oversee all “agencies and departments thereof” of the administrative branch – which presumably would include the police department and therefore the chief of police – were edited. The issue gave council members a chance to put to rest the question of to whom the police chief should report and if, in fact, the police department is considered an “administrative agency.”

The “nut” of the matter is, according to Town Solicitor Dennis Schrader, “What is an administrative agency?”

“I have been here since 1975, seen three charters and God knows how many police chiefs and town managers,” Schrader said. “You have two extremely competent men, and you’d be fools to let either one of them go. But the town council and the police chief, the town council and the town manager, and the town manager and the police chief triangle forms a conundrum you all have to sort out.”

The council decided to take out the wording “and agencies and departments thereof,” which followed the original wording of “be the head of the administrative branch of the town government,” under the section of “powers and duties of town manager.”

So as not to be redundant, they also decided to delete new wording that stated another one of the duties of the town manager as being to “receive and examine any complaints made against any officer or employees for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”

Contracts already entered into prior to the new charter approval are referred to in another part of the charter and would prevail in those cases, and the personnel manual was referred to in terms of the police chief dealing with personnel issues and or complaints within the police department.

Other changes to the charter include clarifying when the budget has to be presented (no later than March 15 – rather than sometime after March 10 but before March 15) and changing tax assessment periods from every five years to every seven. The council decided it was actually more cost effective to keep the period at five years.

The updated charter also more clearly defines the corporate boundaries of the town, with the goal of clarifying police jurisdiction over roads and waterways adjacent to town limits and rules concerning annexation. One significant change is that there are now avenues for annexation for communities in which more than half of the homeowners are interested in annexing into the town. That differs from the current rules that make 100 percent owner agreement necessary for annexation of tracts of land larger than 5 acres.

“I don’t want to speak for Sen. Bunting,” said Hocker, “but I am not so sure you want to put all that into one piece of legislation.” He later added that it wasn’t anything he had seen before.

Hocker did mention that there might be resistance among legislators to defining more clearly police jurisdiction adjacent to town limits, as a similar measure concerning the South Bethany Police Department and unincorporated areas of Kent Avenue had previously been vetoed in the General Assembly.

Bunting offered that the sooner the town could get the finished changes, the better. Town Manager Conway Gregory said they had hopes of holding a public meeting on March 18 for the public to comment and then have something to present to the legislators by April 1.

The council also discussed possibly soliciting Bunting and Hocker’s help in seeing if, while roads are “torn up” during the planned Route 26 roadway improvement project, if drainage issues in the southern part of the town could also be examined at the same time.

They also discussed tax ditches and enclaves and agreed that perhaps they, as a town council, could ask the Sussex County Association of Towns about possibly presenting the governor with a proposal concerning a “public service district” or “police service district” for areas just outside of towns that do not have their own police services.

Mayor Gordon Wood thanked Bunting and Hocker for attending the meeting, saying it was “unfortunate” that more citizens were not present to see how well the town was represented in the General Assembly. “We appreciate both of you coming,” he said.

Both Bunting and Hocker offered their appreciation for being invited at this point in the process.

“This is the first meeting I’ve had on charter changes,” noted Hocker, adding that he usually just receives them from towns after they are completed.

“Yes, thanks for having the meeting,” echoed Bunting.