Longtime volunteer honored at Lewes chamber breakfast

The Lewes Chamber of Commerce bestowed one of its highest honors on longtime volunteer Murt Foos at its annual breakfast meeting Jan. 25.

Foos received the second annual Dennis Forney Community Service Award from its namesake at the event. Forney is Cape Gazette publisher emeritus and founded the newspaper with Trish Vernon 30 years ago.

“Thank you on behalf on my dad, who taught me to always pick something and do something,” Foos said.

Foos is a volunteer and vice president of American Legion Post 17 in Lewes. She joined the legion in 2012.

She was instrumental in recruiting and training volunteers from the legion’s auxiliary to be ambassadors during the COVID pandemic. Their role was to educate visitors on the city’s COVID guidelines and practices.

Foos was also a big part of the chamber’s “Love, Lewes” campaign to encourage people to come back to local businesses post-pandemic.

“Every community needs a Murt,” said former Speaker of the House Rep. Pete Schwartzkopf, D-Rehoboth Beach.

He was one of the elected leaders, along with Sen. Russ Huxtable, D-Lewes, and Rep. Stell Parker Selby, D-Milton, who discussed the legislative agenda for the current session in Dover. 

“In 22 years, this is probably the slowest we’ve ever started,” said Schwartzkopf, who stepped down as Speaker at the end of the last session and is retiring from politics at the end of the session

Schwartzkopf did praise lawmakers for passing House Bill 235, which he and Huxtable co-sponsored. It allows restaurants to sell alcohol beginning at 8 a.m., an hour earlier than had been allowed.

Schwartzkopf also talked about a proposed short-term rental tax. 

“I’m going to fight it. I want a certain amount of that money to stay in our area. They want the money from the beach and they want to take it all upstate,” he said.

Huxtable said a package of bills will be introduced in February to address affordable, workforce housing. 

“This is top of mind, part of our community development philosophy,” he said. “If we can provide financing, partner with the county on the zoning aspect, we can make a dent.”

“For years, I’ve tried to recruit teachers,” said Parker Selby. “But they couldn’t afford to stay after a certain time of year. Now, young doctors and nurses can’t afford to come.”

Parker Selby also addressed concerns about overdevelopment. 

“I’m not one to say we can’t have that,” she said. “As children, we had to go to Wilmington to shop or go to Milford to go to McDonald’s. We’ll need more grocery stores, growth like that. We’ll need things for our families.”

The lawmakers’ all said a big key to helping the business community is that they are able to work together

“We crossed that stupid, invisible line between Democrats and Republicans,” Schwartzkopf said. “We didn’t just cross it, we kicked it to the curb.”