City Committed To Neighborhood Improvement - Revised For Your Reading Enjoyment

City committed to neighborhood improvement
By Barrie Parsons Tilghman



I became mayor in 1998, because the citizens of Salisbury dared to believe along with me that we could reclaim our neighborhoods and create a vibrant and sustainable heart of the city. So much for dares. Sadly, in the eight years that I've been in the driver's seat, the reclamation of the neighborhoods has taken a backseat to keeping landlords and money interests first, and the heart of the city is still in need of a quintuple bypass and a nice roundabout. The confidence in our city's future that the citizens desperately wished for and I thought I could capitalize on in 1998 took another giant (well, comparatively giant) stride toward reality on Oct. 25, under the leadership of Tom Stevenson as director of the Neighborhood Services and Code Compliance Department. We celebrated, along with almost 100 (rounding almost 60 upward) residents and officials, the dedication of the department's new home in the Church Street neighborhood. They had way too many hot dogs and hamburgers, but they were expecting 100, not the nearly 60 rounded up to 100 that showed up. During the celebration, I took the podium and, with my usual excitement, credited Mike Dunn and Gary Comegys with singlehandedly creating and moving to fruition the department's move to Church Street. To make sure that everyone heard me, I repeated this twice. I forgot to mention that the Department of Justice and the Weed and Seed program actually paved the way to donating the building to the city. I also forgot to mention that the Weed and Seed program, from 2000 until 2006, was responsible for bringing into the city over $2.3 million, half of which was spent on law enforcement and that without Debbie Campbell's work, the Weed and Seed program wouldn't have existed in Salisbury. I tried my best to take control of those funds back then, so that I and my followers could spend them as we saw fit, neither understanding nor believing that Weed and Seed was supposed to be a grassroots initiative, completely driven by the citizens of Salisbury. The successful programs that Weed and Seed funded, including easily a dozen after-school programs serving hundreds of kids, many neighborhood cleanups, and dozens of youth programs and special events, weren't my doing, but that's the way the common folk on the Weed and Seed board wanted it, curse their eyes.


This facility will also be home to the C-SAFE program coordinator and the Salisbury Police substation. We had a substation right on Church Street, but we couldn't come up with either the police staff or the money to regularly staff it. We don't know if we'll be able to staff this substation on a regular basis either, but at least someone will be in the building during working hours.


The truly exciting (do I overuse that word?) story lies in the events leading to the creation of this department. Under the leadership of Mike Dunn and Gary Comegys, with the commitment and dedication of the City Council, beginning in 2003 there has been an unprecedented amount of legislation passed to strengthen the fabric of our neighborhoods. We're going for denim, but we're currently transitioning via the gauze route, with laws that, when held up to the light... well, you get the idea.


Between 1998 and 2003, we made small strides, but often our progress was a victim of personal agendas, mainly my own and those of SAPOA, the Bank of Delmarva, and my husband's other friends. For three years, I tried unsuccessfully to have a position upgraded to that of a neighborhood advocate, a change with less than $3,000 in budget implication. Not getting what we wanted, I decided to soundproof my office with that money and a few thousand that I quietly diverted from other programs. I really like my new drapes, and I hope that you will, too, if I ever decide to invite you to my chambers.


In November 2003, a new City Council was seated, with Dunn as president, and the collaboration needed to really make a difference began. I do not say there's agreement on all issues; instead, I use the more appropriate term of collaboration. I could use the terms 'heavy handed, exclusionary, FOB-interest pandering,' but I prefer collaboration, because it makes it seem like someone else had a hand in the decision making, and it sounds, well, softer and gentler.


Our partnership has been about consensus building with one another and with the community, reaching common ground and finding the solutions to our challenges through commitment to a common goal, Salisbury's future. For those of you not familiar with the concept of consensus, it means that only my ideas, and those of Mike Dunn and, to a lesser degree, Gary Comegys, will be used and those opinions honored. Where the community falls in the consensus process, I'm not sure, but I'm certain that it's in there somewhere - I guess that if they voted us in, that gave us consensus proxy for them. It certainly doesn't hurt that Lynn Cathcart doesn't have a clue, and that Shanie Shields will roll over for us anytime she hears the words 'affordable housing.' Thankfully, we haven't actually had to have come up with any actual affordable housing. Just the mention of it, even if it's not wholly the truth, allows us to reach consensus and makes Shanie feel like she's both contributing and actually representing her constituents.


Beginning in 2003, the council adopted a new landlord licensing ordinance that was an improvement over the one passed several months earlier because it addressed the real challenge facing the city and was more fair to the landlord community. That challenge is the conversion of owner-occupied homes in single-family districts. Council passed a habitual offender ordinance to give us the tools we need to end the cycle of blight and benign neglect that was destroying our housing stock and our neighborhoods. Already we've enforced it at least a couple of times, even though the validity of it has yet to be truly tested. Of course, if we'd actually enforced the zoning regulations prior to 2003, during my first term, we'd be much farther along and none of this new legislation would have been necessary.


They adopted an ambitious home conversion grant program to encourage the conversion of rental homes into primary residences. They have funded this program four times to convert more than 30 homes since early 2005. When I say more than 30, I mean 31. This comes almost two houses per month since early 2005, using my rounding technique, and, if we continue with these landmark programs, we'll see complete conversion to what the laws have required (since the late '80s) of the roughly 500 non-compliant properties, in about 2047. I find this exciting. Very exciting.


Dunn and Comegys dropped by my office early in the spring of 2005, after an afternoon of touring the city. They asked me a question: What can we do to win the battle for our neighborhoods? They also asked me how they could be assured of staying in office in 2007. In reference to the second question, I replied that I was working on it, dropping their names at every opportunity, but only for the "good" things that have come of our collaboration.


Having just attended a National League of Cities Conference (thanks for sending me - the hotel suite was roomy and comfortable, and the many restaurants I visited were excellent,) I shared my belief that we needed a department to focus on this challenge. as the department that was supposed to be doing it wasn't coming up to par. They directed (asked) me to bring a plan before council, which they adopted as the Neighborhood Services and Code Compliance Department. From the beginning, it was a collaborative experience. I collaborated with Mr. Dunn, and he with me, just as we'd planned before the election.


Councilwoman Lynn Cathcart, with the help of the reference librarian at the Wicomico Public Library, searched the Internet and contributed the prototype for the department. Councilwoman Debbie Campbell suggested use of the Church Street facility, including information on how to do it, and who to talk to, which was subsequently deeded to the city by the IRS, with help from a number of federal agencies which will continue to remain nameless. If I failed to mention Mrs. Campbell's contribution before this, it's only because she's not a team player, and is sometimes mean spirited and not of a consensus frame of mind.


Frequent phone calls and impromptu visits from the council leadership make my job more exciting and productive, although I really wish they'd call before coming over. The formal and informal collaborative spirit and partnership make us more responsive to our citizens. We'll continue our responsiveness as we gavel down any citizen who thinks for a moment that he or she has an idea of merit, or disagrees with us in a public forum, and then put forth those ideas as our own once most of the people have forgotten, all in the spirit of collaboration and partnership. So far, this has been very successful, as the citizens haven't had any ideas to which I would ascribe merit or would claim as my own, as we just don't seem to be working from the same page.


Under the current leadership, the staff and I have had the great joy to do our jobs with a supportive legislative majority. They are supportive, not because we always agree, but because they share our commitment to the community we love and serve. Frankly, even if they're not supportive, I'll continue to move along with my agenda, even if it's ill-advised or even illegal, and they'll follow along eventually, especially if there's something in it for them. Regarding the illegalities, rest assured that the city has on its staff an attorney whose job it is to kowtow to me and find ways to get around those pesky roadblocks to making Salisbury just as I want it. He likes the challenge and the pay, especially, and I like the end product; unless, of course, "concerned citizens" get in the way and actually get a judge to rule in their favor. I have to say again, that three of the thingies in the Old Mall court case were "frivolous." Frivolous!


Salisbury has really had a "New Deal," with historic legislative changes and a recommitment to the power and purpose of public service, with emphasis on the 'power' part, which I've grown to love and wish not to part with. Some will remember FDR's New Deal. I like to think that I'm a lot like him, although the 'benevolent dictator' handle that he earned is absolutely not reflective of my way of doing things. I must go on record as saying that I am neither a dictator nor benevolent.


Thanks for reading. I hope that you'll pay close attention to the Daily Times and my future commentary, as my Crossroads Chronicle idea really didn't pan out the way I'd hoped, although it would have if I hadn't made that $2 million billing error to Medicare, which, in itself, was very, very exciting.


Barrie Parsons Tilghman is mayor of Salisbury.