10 * EGAZETT,FrldayJuno 9 -15 I5
Kane is fifth candidate to file for Rehoboth Beach seat
By Trish Vernon
A field of five candidates will
vie for two seats on the Rehoboth
Beach Board of Commissioners
on Aug. 12, as Betty Ann Kane,
53, filed her petition only hours
before the noon Saturday, June 3
deadline. She joins Patty Derrick,
Richard Sargent, Kenny Vincent
and Jim Burdette in the race to
garner enough votes to take over
the posts held by Dick Darley and
Warren MacDonald, who both de-
clined to seek re-election.
"A lot of people have urged me
to run because they know of my
experience and perspective as an
elected official serving on the
council in Washington, D.C. and
the way I have dealt with issues,"
said Kane, who owns a govern-
ment and community relations
company, Betty Ann Kane and
Company in Washington, D.C.
Although a non-resident, she
spends a good portion of her
weekends, year round, at her 56
Maryland Avenue house, which
she does not rent out. "I've been
coming to my Rehoboth Beach
home since 1988, which I've
owned with my mother since
1988, and hope to retire there,"
Kane said.
Kane's company works with
cities and counties, "keeping local
governments on track concerning
such aspects as the legislation that
affects them, sources of funding,
grant applications and programs
and projects in which they can
participate," she explained.
BETTY ANN KANE
"I was urged to run last year as
well, but didn't. This year, I re-
considered because I really be-
lieve we need to strike a balance
between the commercial and resi-
dential communities - and deal
with controversies," said Kane,
who is president of the Maryland
Olive Neighborhood Association
(MONA).
MONA is the group involved in
the controversy over placing park-
ing meters along the second
blocks of both Olive and Mary-
land avenues, which led to the city
instituting a permit system instead
for those two blocks. The matter
ended up in the hands of the court,
when opponents of the plan peti-
tioned to do away with the permit
system. MONA sued tile city, cit-
ing a number of reasons why the
petition process was not properly
carried out. The matter remains in
the courts and the two blocks have
neither permits nor meters at this
time.
"While the litigation is still
pending, we have offered to work
with the city on alternatives. We
were delighted with the permit
plan and the lawsuit is not so
much against the city, which lis-
tened to us, as against those who
wanted to overturn what the city
did. In a way, I think we're actu-
ally defending the city's right to
make its decision based on what
our neighborhood wants," Kane
explained.
She went on to note she is inter-
ested in a lot of other issues in Re-
hoboth Beach. "While I don't
agree with everything in the pro-
posed Long Range Plan, I believe
the city needs such a plan. It's an
important guide and the culmina-
tion of a lot of hard work and
community involvement. It will
give stability and a framework for
future decisions."
Citing Main Street and the pro-
posed Historic Preservation Ordi-
nance, Kane added that there is a
need to "preserve the character of
Rehoboth, while recognizing what
makes it attractive - there's room
for a variety of people who come
here for a variety of reasons."
If elected, Kane, who served on
the D.C. council's finance and
revenue committee, would also
like to play a role in city finances.
"I have a reputation for asking
sharp questions on budgets -
spending, taxation and borrowing.
One thing I've noticed while
studying the Long Range Plan is
that Rehoboth is overly dependent
on parking meters for its revenues
and I believe the resort needs to
diversify, because it's very un-
sound to be dependent on one
source.
"We need to think ahead and
capture revenue from day trippers
and other visitors - looking at the
whole picture in an effort to re-
main stable and affirmative,"
Kane added.
A native of New Jersey, Kane
has lived in Washington, D.C. for
the past 28 years. With an under-
graduate degree from Middlebury
College in Vermont, she received
a master's degree in English from
Yale University and taught Eng-
lish at Catholic University before
heading up public programs for
the Folger Shakespeare Library
and taking on the post of develop-
ment officer at the Museum of
African Art.
Kane served four years on the
District of Columbia Board of Ed-
ucation and was elected three
times to the District's city council,
serving 12 years in all.
There she represented the coun-
cil on the Board of Directors of
the National League of Cities and
was vice president of the National
Association of Regional Councils,
a voluntary association of local
governments. She was president
of the Metropolitan Washington
Council of Governments and cur-
rently serves as vice president of
the Washington Historical Soci-
ety.
"I have a very real interest in
historical aspects of Rehoboth. In
fact, during Rehoboth's centenni-
al ceremony, I was asked to pre-
sent a resolution recognizing the
resort centennial from the District
of Columbia city council - from
the Nation's Capital to the Na-
tion's Summer Capital," Kane
noted.
"While campaigning in Re-
hoboth, I plan to reach out to as
many groups and individuals as I
can and will go house to house to
meet as many people as possible,"
she added.
The deadline for voter registra-
tion in Rehoboth Beach is at 4:30
p.m., today, Friday, June 9.
All those eligible to register
must he at least 18 years of age, a
full-time resident, property owner
or leasebolder of record, and if a
resident non-property owner, hav-
ing lived in the city for six
months.
Absentee ballots may he picked
up in person at City Hall any time
after June 29 and no later than
noon the day before the elections.
The Rehoboth Beach Home-
owners Association will hold a
candidates forum at its general
membership meeting 8 p.m., Sat-
urday, June 17 at All Saints Parish
Hall.
In Rehoboth, Lake Drive residents
seek measures to improve safety
By Trish Vernon
Citing three "serious" accidents
in the vicinity over the past 30
days, Rehoboth Beach's Lake
Drive property owners Francis
Fabrizio and Joel Farr are upset.
In the first incident late last
month, a vehicle hit the light stan-
dard at the corner of King Charles
Avenue and Silver Lake Drive,
while a second accident occurred
at Lake Drive and Silver Lake
Bridge last week. The final straw
came Monday, June 5, when a dri-
ver plowed into their yards, up-
rooting one of Fabrizio's trees and
tearing up Fart's boxwoods.
But these are just the latest ex-
amples of the dangers they per-
ceive on lake Drive. "Last sum-
mer, my children were selling
lemonade in our yard when a
truck went up on the sidewalk. If
the passenger hadn't tugged at the
steeE:- wheel, the kids would he
dead/,,d Farr. "Statistically, it's
an accident :.,aiting to happen."
Farr's concerns are so serious
that he has put his house, which
sits on the corner of Lake Drive
and King Charles, on the market,
as he feels his complaints are
falling on deaf city ears.
He first went to the city's Street
and Light Committee last year,
asking that the street be closed off
to through traffic. Farr cited the
fact that the winding Lake Drive
is a mecca for sightseers. "People
stop in their cars to look at the par-
rots and geese, mothers wheel ba-
by carriages around the lake and
rollerbladers are always going
back and forth," he said.
The Street and Light Committee
would not recommend the closing
of the public street to the Board of
Commissioners, although Farr
said everyone on Lake was recep-
tive to limiting access way. "If
people knew they couldn't go all
the way to Silver Lake, they
would filter down the other
streets, spilling out from a number
of points rather than all coming
out at Lake," Farr explained.
Presently Lake Drive is a one
way street from King Charles to
Bayard Avenue, with parking al-
lowed only on the north side of
the street. On the south side,
which borders the lake itself,
parking is not allowed and the city
has put up a number of signs
warning of the curves.
More recently Fan" and Fabrizio
requested that parking be banned
on the north side of Lake Drive,
which the Street and Light Com-
mittee also tabled. ''he commit-
tee looked at the request, but Dr.
[Robert] Kiingel who lives along
there didn't want parking banned
and there were residents on St.
Lawrence Street who felt it would
fill up their street with parkers
faster, so they decided to recom-
mend the city not ban parking,"
City Manager Greg Ferrese ex-
plained.
"You can argue that parked cars
can be a barrier for cars out of
control, but that doesn't start to
solve the problem," Farr said.
"The left turn at the bridge is a re-
al problem, as often you can't see
the tops of smaller cars heading
into Rehoboth over the bridge.
People pull out into oncoming
traffic and get slammed and others
turn the wrong way onto Lake
from the bridge and Bayard."
Last month, Lake Drive was the
focus of a heated discussion Over
the Jolly Trolley's request to in-
corporate the road into its narrated
tour route as it meanders from Re-
hoboth to Dewey and back. The
Fares wexe there to protest and the
Trlsh Vernon photo
Lake Drive property owners Joel Fan" and Francis Fabrizio
are very concerned about the rash of accidents near their
homes, one which occurred June 5 and tore down a tree in
front of the Fabriz/o home and shrubbery in front of Fan's.
commissioners decided to allow
the Trolley to use St. Lawrence in-
stead. "At that time the commis-
sioners agreed that the street was
too dangerous for that trolley
route, while the Street and Light
Commission has maintained that
it isn't," Farr said.
Farr Continued that for years the
city has "promised to redo the
streets - but they won't spend the
money for real streets with curbs.
It's fine if they don't want to
spend the money - make it a limit-
ed access area for pedestrians and
we'll take care of the area in front
of our homes."
Ferrese countered that it is the
property owner's responsibility to
maintain the curbing in front of
their homes and businesses, and
that the city just paved Lake Drive
last fall. "We took off the black-
top because of the big crown in
the street and blacktopped it
again. If they want a higher curb,
the city will do the work and bill
the property owners," he said, not-
ing that curbs should be six inches
high, but on Lake, the curbing
sometimes meets the blacktop.
Nevertheless, Farr said he in-
tends to meet with Fabrizio this
weekend and "decide what to do
next. It's not a case of wanting
privacy. If they won't close it, the
city needs to spend money to
make it safe."
