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Salisbury Star PO Box 1000 Seaford, DE 19973-1000 STUDENT LEADER- Monroe Parker, now a senior at Mardela, takes the mat during his first season as a wrestler. Parker is a leader in and out of the classroom and is featured in this month’s student profile on page 26.
Energy & Technology This month’s Star highlights businesses that provide energy or are using technology to better serve their customers. Pages 8-11
ELECTION- Salisbury City Council candidates discuss the issues with the Salisbury Star. Page 4 SCHOOL BOARD- The issue of whether school board members should be elected continues to be divisive. Page 5
INDEX Bulletin Board ......................22-23 Business Digest ....................... 13 Business Directory..............36-37 Church and Community........... 21 Dining on Delmarva.............24-25 Gee Dunsten ............................. 31 Education ............................26-30 Entertainment ........................... 20 Final Word ................................. 39 Health....................................34-35 Personnel File ........................... 14 Real Estate ...........................31-33 Salisbury University ................. 29 Sports ...................................16-19 SU Sports Profile ...................... 17 The Great Outdoors ................. 18 Veronica Correa........................ 38
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Vol. 2 No. 7 October 2015
PHASE II- Work began on the county owned Arthur W. Perdue Stadium field last month. A new field, drainage system, lights, and padding will be installed in the offseason with even bigger plans in the offing following the 2016 season. See story on page 16. Photo by Mike McClure
Mitchell looks forward to the next chapter on Salisbury City Council By Tony Russo
Salisbury City Council Vice-President Laura Mitchell, who is running unopposed for the District 5 council seat already has served the city for more than four years. Before that, she was an involved resident but, she said, less involved than she was capable of. For a decade or more before Mitchell and many of the current crop of councilpersons were elected, the city council was a body that was dysfunctional to say the least. Much of their deliberation was conducted, if not flat dead in secret, then certainly in ways that made a number of members of the public feel excluded from the process. Whether this was the intention or just the product of a group of people who didn’t work well together being forced to try and do so, the end result was the same. Mitchell, who always has been a proponent of the aphorism: If you don’t vote, you can’t complain, decided to take that notion one step further. If you have the wherewithal to make a change
and you don’t, still you can’t complain. Before she ran there was much eyerolling when it came to the city counci. Although it hasn’t earned the reputation as the last bastion of rationalism in the west, it certainly looks more like a group of people who can disagree for reasons they believe in, and do so civilly, which has brought a lot of credibility back to the body. While she won’t accept credit for the fact, Mitchell will acknowledge her part in the eventual seachange. “I wanted to stop fighting and start working,” she said. The council to which she was elected, according to her, often was hobbled by concerns over liability and potential complications. So much of the good work the council undertook was sidelined by doubts and what-ifs. From Mitchell’s perspective, there was little the council couldn’t do that it couldn’t undo. It was that attitude, she said that was among the reasons the council started to be able to get more done for the city.
“If you get it right, great! If you don’t, fix it,” she said. Taking that perspective made it a lot less difficult to get things done, but it didn’t improve the decision process. For Mitchell and to this day, sometimes Mitchell balancing what her constituency wants with her own disposition is difficult, especially in important matters. But as time has gone on, she has found a way to find peace with the occasional disconnect between competing duties. At the end of the day, she said, she has to be able to live with herself and to get to sleep at night. Using this attitude, she decided to take the position that she had to own each of her votes. It has helped her among her Continued on page 6