Rudderless ship needs port in Rehoboth

The middle of August should be a time of summer serenity and calm before resuming life's business in autumn. Not so in our tiny town, which is becoming increasingly known for noisy denizens demanding our city use power to attack pet peeves with fanatical ferocity. Last Friday, the mob shrieked to force an elderly woman to move her licensed, legal trailer from a public street, which shockingly (to them!) violated no law or ordinance, on grounds it's aesthetically offensive and an affront to the dainty sensibilities of the gentry of Rehoboth’s western Henlopen Avenue. Added to the scarlet-trailered target was a former commissioner caught up in the mania of mob indictments whose unforgivable crime against humanity was parking a legal camper in their own private driveway, apparently too near a commissioner still wielding power.  

 

Led by Rehoboth's vice mayor, with a seeming passion, this farce was jammed through as law of Rehoboth after 6 p.m. on a Friday night in the dead of summer. Now, the previously legal conduct is illegal (in an homage to “1984” – legal is illegal and private is public – next, maybe he’ll campaign that up is down and vice versa). The leader of this passionate posse displayed such a ruthless pursuit for passage of this Rosemary's Baby version of legislation that one of his fellow commissioners called him out specifically for reprehensible conduct at the end of the meeting, for actions beneath the dignity, integrity and reputation of the commission. Hell hath no comparable fury than a venal politician caught in their own spotlit snare, so watch the YouTube video for amusement if you’re entertained by cornered animals trying to flee their righteous captors. I was personally amused by the panicked supplications for proper time and place in a plea for grace that was so obviously missing in his prosecution of the mob’s demands earlier in the day's meeting. Truly poetic justice if there is any.

 

The mayor seemed to find some credibility and described the vice mayor's putsch as ill-conceived and not ready for prime time, while the proponent was accused of using tactics another commissioner described as mafia-like. All in all, Friday was a microcosm of what is deeply wrong in Rehoboth right now. Amateurs using the power of the state like it’s a homeowners’ board, rather than the awesome honor that it should be, and one that should be exercised with humility and cautious grace and generosity of spirit, not as a spiked club against the unpopular or a mob's designated pariah. Let’s hope that our two new commissioners can help dispel this toxic brew and assist an otherwise rudderless ship to find its way back to the port it should never have left, one of serene service for Rehoboth's communal good.