Daniel Menefee - Chestertown Spy

Citizens Weigh in on Best Use for Shipyard

January 30, 2020 by Daniel Menefee

A group of citizens has come together to chart a future for 2 acres of town owned property at the corner of Cannon and Mill Streets, where the town’s maintenance yard and the Sultana’s shipyard are located.

“It’s time to rethink the use of this property,” said Barbara Jorgenson of the MilCan Neighborhood Association at the Jan. 27 council meeting. “In fact, we need to look at our own comprehensive plan which does anticipate the redevelopment of this property.”

“Town Yard and Sultana Boat Yard: During the recent comprehensive rezoning, the zoning of the Town Yard parcel was split to create a C-2 Downtown Commercial area on the downtown half of the parcel, and RB Professional Office on the Mill Street half of the parcel,” says Chestertown’s 2015 comprehensive plan, page 37. “It is anticipated that the Town Yard will be moved within the next five years to a new location more appropriate to its industrial function, such as Talbot Boulevard. This will create the opportunity to build a mixed-use development with residential, office and commercial uses.”

The Sultana Education Foundation has leased the publicly owned property from the town for $1 a year since 1997 to support its educational programs.

“This property could actually be a key to Chestertown turning the corner on its budgetary problem and supporting downtown growth in a way that will support downtown businesses and expand our tax base,” Jorgenson said.

She said it was the residents of Chestertown’s job to determine the best use of publicly owned land.

She asked the council to give “a nod” to a charrette “to determine what should be happening with this property” and to understand any problems with it.

“We hope the town council will cooperate with this,” she said. “This is the last big piece of property within walking distance of downtown that is available.”

SEF made an offer to buy the property in late October but it was not brought to the Town Council until their first meeting of 2020–on the direction of Town Manager Bill Ingersoll, who didn’t think the time remaining in the year was enough to transfer the property to SEF.

Ingersoll said he differed the issue for the new council in January. However, it was learned recently that Ingersoll discussed the sale of the shipyard with SEF in April of 2019 and council members were not made aware until the October offer was made.

In an email to councilmembers on Oct. 30, Ingersol said a condition of the sale would be that the shipyard go to SEF.

” If you wish to proceed, the property would be declared surplus in an ordinance with a condition that the sale be to the present lessee,” Ingersoll wrote.

In her letter submitted into the record Monday, Jorgenson said, “It is for us to inform Town Management and our elected Town Council members what we desire to have happen to our property, not the other way around.”

Sultana President Drew McMullen encouraged the town at the Jan. 6 council meeting to find the best use for the shipyard.

“If there’s a way for the town to go out and make hay with this property, over and above what we can do with it, you should do it,” he said at the Jan. 6 meeting. “We are not saying we have any right to this property whatsoever. We just have a need for it, I’m not sure anyone else does.”

See the full letter below from the MilCan Neighborhood Association below:

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Cerino, Tolliver Challenge ACLU/NAACP on Voting District Concerns

January 29, 2020 by Daniel Menefee

The Chestertown Council voted Monday to form a redistricting committee to redraw its voting districts by the next town election.

The vote comes on the heels a letter from the ACLU of Maryland and the Kent County NAACP that said the town’s voting wards were severely malapportioned and diluted black voting strength.

The last time Chestertown underwent redistricting was 1995.

Cerino said the voting districts have been a non-issue for him.

“Not a single one of my constituents has ever said anything to me about how this was unfair,” he said. “I think half the people in town have no idea which ward they live in, so it just wasn’t on my radar, this was something that was done long ago. I have no idea how often we’re supposed to redo this.”

“This wasn’t an intentional slight by me or the council,” Cerino continued. “I believe the bigger problem we have is not racial injustice of the wards, it’s getting friggin’ people to run for office.”

Cerino pointed out that three current councilmembers, including himself, ran unopposed.

“I don’t think it’s been a big burden on the town in terms of getting the representation that’s appropriate for the community,” he said. “I think we’re making a really big deal out of something that can be easily addressed by the council and rectified before the next election.”

Cerino acknowledged that the ward populations had become “out of whack” since 1995 and recommended that each council member select two people from their wards to staff a committee to study the issue, and also consider bringing in an outside consultant “to play with the lines.” Names for the committee members are due by the Feb. 18 council meeting.

“I don’t think this is an emergency,” he said. “We have almost two years to do this” before the next election to address population and ethnic representation.

Recommended ACLU map for Chestertown

Ward 1 Councilman David Foster said that Maryland was one of the “chief offenders” in the 1960s for violating the “one man, one vote” rule under the Fourteenth Amendment.

He said the town should take a look at the wards after every decennial census. He also said that having the election in odd years reduces voter turnout. He suggested having elections in the same year as Congressional elections, which was a recommendation in the letter from the ACLU.

The ACLU letter came with recommended ward maps that would increase black voter strength in Ward 3 to 43 percent.

“The existing four-ward election system in Chestertown is severely malapportioned, and also unfairly dilutes black voting strength,” said Deborah Jeon, legal director for the ACLU of Maryland, in a letter to Mayor Chris Cerino on Jan. 17.“It is imperative that the problems of Chestertown’s election system be corrected in advance of the next election.”

The ACLU found that most of Chestertown’s black population was split between Wards 3 and 4, causing a dilution of black voting strength.

Ward 3 Councilman Ellsworth Tolliver, the council’s only black member, contended that the ACLU had overreached in its recommendations on race–but he agreed the towns four wards needed to be reapportioned.

“All politics is local, I think in this particular instance the ACLU has overreached in its assumption that there needs to be this black voting block in Chestertown,” he said. “I agree with the opportunity to have parity in the wards in terms of [population]. I’m not on board with this thing about having this voting block that is dedicated to trying to elect an African American per se.”

Current ward map

Cerino said he tried to explain to the ACLU that they were trying “to gerrymander a ward that is already represented by an African American.”

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Cerino and Council Secure Future of Chestertown Police Department

January 29, 2020 by Daniel Menefee

The Chestertown Police Department’s future was secured Monday when the Town Council voted unanimously to keep it intact–and at the current level of 12 officers, which includes acting Chief John Dolgos.

This is down from a previous high of 14.

The decision ends a rollercoaster ride that began last fall when the Town Council considered options to cut the public safety budget, which included shuttering the department altogether–the “nuclear option.”

In his presentation before the vote Monday, Mayor Chris Cerino said the costs to run the department had climbed to $462,000 in the last decade, a 33 percent increase, while revenues had remained relatively flat.

“The model that we’ve been on for the last eleven years hasn’t been sustainable,” Cerino said. “We just can’t keep doing that.”

Other options considered last fall included making a payment every year to the Kent County Sheriff’s Office to staff police in Chestertown, which could potentially save the town upwards of $600,000. The savings would come from cuts in infrastructure costs to maintain a force.

“What that does is potentially gain efficiencies because we wouldn’t need our own police headquarters or any administrative staff, ” he said during Monday’s presentation. “[We would] essentially pay the county for officers that would be assigned full-time to Chestertown.”

The option that was adopted was to simply find efficiencies in the CPD’s budget and Cerino credited Dolgos for working with the town to find cost savings.

“Our acting chief has been very open to that,” He said. “He’s making a really good faith effort.”

“The public sentiment has been very overwhelming that we really like having our own police force,” Cerino said. “As long as people understand it’s one of our biggest line items.”

He said keeping CPD at 12 officers, including Dolgos, is a “cost savings.”

Cerino said while 14 officers were normally on the payroll, the department usually operated with 12 officers, due to staff on leave for various reasons.

“The nice thing about having our own police force is the control we have,” Cerino said. He said CPD is helpful with many town events.

“These guys know our streets and they know our town pretty well,” Cerino said.

Dolgos told the council during his police report that officers on his staff were looking elsewhere for employment because of uncertainty facing the department’s future.

Currently, there are three officers looking to leave, Dolgos said.

Cerino recognized that the uncertainty was harmful to the work culture at CPD.

“The uncertainty is not helping us with retention or morale or anything that makes a workplace a positive place to be,” he said.

Cerino recommended giving Dolgos the authority to keep the number of officers at 12.

“Right now [Dolgos] is in limbo where we’ve kind of undercut cut his ability to do his job well,” Cerino said. “I feel bad about that and I want to try and rectify it.”

Ward 3 Councilman Ellsworth Tolliver said it was important for Chestertown to have its own police force and was hopeful that CPD could return to a staff of 14 when revenues make it affordable. He said he appreciates the quick response he gets from Dolgos when issues arise in his ward.

Ward 1 Councilman David Foster said he applauded Dolgos for “making a good faith effort” to cut costs. Foster added that there is a need for “new ideas” to find efficiencies at CPD.

“At the same time, and this is not disrespectful to our current police force, I think it is important from time-to-time to ask if we have a source of new ideas coming in here,’” he said. “I have no expertise in public safety but I do know that there are people out there who do have that.”

Ward 2 Councilman Tom Herz also praised Dolgos but agreed with the Foster that as a “matter of form” a search should be on for a permanent police chief. Dolgos was made acting police chief after former Chief Adrian Baker left on short notice to lead the Maryland Natural Resources Police in September.

Ward 4 Councilwoman Meghan Efland expressed concern about the overtime costs and if staffing 12 officers would give Dolgos the resources needed to run the department.

She recommended an efficiency study to find savings and improve scheduling to reduce overtime.

“I think that’s our best option at this point,” she said.

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Updated: Town Manager Kept Shipyard Discussions Confidential for Six Months

January 27, 2020 by Daniel Menefee

Documents obtained from a recent Public Information Act request indicate that Chestertown Town Manager Bill Ingersoll kept dialogue with the Sultana Education Foundation — over the possible purchase of the shipyard on Cannon and Mill Streets — confidential from the Town Council for six months.

Sultana President Drew McMullen expressed an interest in the shipyard in an email to Ingersoll on April 24, 2019. The email included a memo McMullen wrote to SEF’s executive committee, expressing a desire to close a deal by the end of 2019.

“…I think the timing is right to tackle this in 2019 before the Lawrence Preserve gets up and running,” McMullen said in his memo to the executive committee.

Ingersoll and McMullen met that day. The Town Council would not learn of SEF’s interest in the shipyard until October and the public would not learn about it until December.

“As an elected council member, I would like to have known about this, especially because any decisions would have affected my ward,” said former Ward 2 Councilwoman Linda Kuiper in a brief interview on Monday. “We weren’t told about this until late October–and then we were told the matter was confidential until the newly elected council was sworn in in January.”

In September, SEF ordered a boundary survey of the property and then made an official offer in late October. Ingersoll then sent an email to council members indicating that the offer was “confidential” and that the future of the shipyard would be decided by the new council in January following the results of the fall election.

Kuiper said she found it problematic that “an appointed official can decide when issues are worthy for the residents’ elected representatives to consider at any given time.”

“Was there an assumption I would be against it?” Kuiper asked. “My issue is that it wasn’t brought to the council or the public for consideration for eight months.”

She said it shouldn’t be the decision of the Town Manager to “schedule the public’s business around elections.”

Kuiper said the council could have used the eight months from April to December 2019 to partner with Sultana on a “shared vision for the property…or to determine some other future for it that would best serve Ward 2 and the Town.”

Ingersoll also told council members in his October email to respond to only him regarding SEF’s offer and not to themselves–to avoid a violation of the Maryland Open Meetings Act. Discussions between a majority of an elected body become public business whether it be in person, by email or phone.

Mayor Chris Cerino, also the vice president of SEF, was mentioned in McMullen’s memo to the executive team where he and two others proposed major changes to the shipyard property.

In a previous story, Ingersoll justified moving the SEF’s offer for the shipyard to the new council in January.

“The matter of a prospective buyer’s interest in part of the shipyard was deferred, by me, to a matter to be addressed by the new Town Council,” Ingersoll said in an email to the Spy on Dec. 27, explaining why SEF’s offer was not brought to the council in the remaining eight weeks of 2019. “This is planned for the earliest possible agenda in the new year, following the swearing-in of the new council members.”

“[Sultana’s] letter of interest in late October was received at the time of the election and I deferred it for one main reason: the sale of any property by the Town cannot start until the property is declared surplus or excess by Ordinance,” Ingersoll wrote. “This process is a two meeting process, with a comment period and rarely can be accomplished in less than 6 weeks.”

Correction: Ingersoll contacted the two newly elected council members three weeks before their swearing-in January to share an email he sent to council members in October, asking them to determine if they would like to start the process to declare the parcel surplus and transfer the property to SEF.

“Please read this over and let me know if you would like to process with this offer,” Ingersoll wrote in his original email to the council in October. “If you wish to proceed, the property would be declared surplus in an ordinance with a condition that the sale be to the present lessee.”

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White Male, 17, Referred to Juvenile Services for Racial Slurs

January 24, 2020 by Daniel Menefee

A juvenile white male, 17, was referred to the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services for shouting racial slurs at people of color on the Washington College campus on the evening of Nov. 22, said Chief John Dolgos of the Chestertown Police Department in a brief phone interview on Jan. 17.

The 17-year-old’s name can not be released because of the legal protections afforded juveniles.

The Nov. 22 incident was similar to one that occurred on Nov. 11 involving the same white Ford pickup truck that marauded around the campus looking for trouble. In the second incident a dark colored SUV caravanned with the white Ford tuck.

Five white males had been identified in the incident and were issued “no trespassing” orders by CPD at the request of Washington College. Two of the individuals were over 18 but no other individuals were charged.

CPD Cpl. Bert Piasecki investigated the Nov. 22 incident and was able to identify the owner of the pickup truck and confront him. No arrests were made at that time. The 17-year-old was not the driver.

Throughout the investigation, CPD had consulted with the Kent County State’s Attorney Office to determine what charges could be brought in the incident, Chief Dolgos said.

The Department of Juvenile Services can charge the 17-year-old or mete out some other remedy, like community service.

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Chestertown’s Voting Districts Violate Constitution, ACLU and NAACP say

January 20, 2020 by Daniel Menefee

The ACLU of Maryland and the NAACP of Kent County have notified the Town of Chestertown to correct its malapportioned voting districts and create a ward with a “substantial plurality” of black voters.

Chestertown last apportioned its districts in 1995–and since then the population of Ward 3 has swelled to twice that of Ward 1.

“Thus giving individual voters of Ward 1 a disproportionate voice in local elections, and Ward 3 voters proportionately less,” Jeon said.

The Supreme Court has interpreted the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to require voting districts be equal in population to the extent possible. Any deviation between the smallest and the largest district in a jurisdiction is “constitutionally suspect” if it exceeds 10 percent.

“Since the current election plan is dated 1995, it appears that the reason for this malapportionment may be that the Town has failed to redistrict periodically to keep pace with its legal and constitutional obligations,” Jeon said. “As a result, Chestertown’s current system violates the constitutional principle of one-person, one-vote.”

The letter from the ACLU follows a story in the Spy on Dec. 11 that reported Ward 3 had twice the number of registered voters than Ward 2.

Figure 1. The current populations of Chestertown’s four wards

The Spy sought confirmation from the ACLU on the actual population of the wards because town officials could not provide the data.

The ACLU confirmed on Jan. 4 that the wards were malapportioned based on current census data for each ward. (See Figure 1)

The population was 70 percent more than average in Ward 3 and 26 percent below average in Ward 1, an overall deviation of 96 percent, “a variation that is constitutionally unacceptable,” Jeon said.

Most recent census data puts Chestertown’s population at 5,281.

The ACLU found that most of Chestertown’s black population was split between Wards 3 and 4, causing a dilution of black voters.

Wards 3 and 4 have the largest black populations, 35 and 25 percent respectively. Jeon said it was possible to redraw the four wards to include a ward with a larger population of voting age blacks–and also achieve proportional representation.

“It is possible to rectify the problems of malapportionment and racial fairness at the same time,” she said.

An ACLU demographer drew a draft map that accomplishes both and brings the population deviation to less than five percent. The map also keeps current incumbents in their districts. (See Figures 2 & 3)

The ACLU also recommended that town elections be held on the same schedule as state or federal elections to increase voter turnout.

When asked for comment, Mayor Chris Cerino said he may comment on the issue at the Jan. 27 council meeting.

Ward 3 Councilman Ellsworth Tolliver said, “I am sure, together with my colleagues, we will make every effort to ensure a fair and equitable playing field for all the voters in Chestertown.”

Fig 2. ACLU proposed redistricting map for Chestertown

Fig 3. Shows greater racial fairness and a population deviation across the wards of less than 5 percent

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Uncle Charlie’s Robbery Suspect Apprehended by CPD

January 16, 2020 by Daniel Menefee

Vontay’e Lamonte Gilbert, 40, was arrested by Chestertown Police at his home in Church Hill on Tuesday for the alleged armed robbery of Uncle Charlie’s Bistro on Saturday, Jan. 4.

He is being held without bail in the Kent County Detention Center.

CPD Chief John Dolgos said multiple felony charges against Gilbert include two counts of armed robbery and three counts of first-degree assault. Misdemeanor charges include reckless endangerment, theft and firearms violations.

Gilbert was charged in a string of armed robberies in late 2013 on the Eastern Shore and Delaware. In a month-long robbery spree between October and November that year, Gilbert and an accomplice hit seven locations that spanned from Easton, Centreville and Chestertown. This did not include robberies in Delaware.

Dover City Police arrested Gilbert on Dec.19, 2013 and in March of 2014 his accomplice was apprehended by U.S. Marshals in Rankin County, Mississippi.

Gilbert was released on Mandatory Supervision in April of 2019 and found work at Uncle Charlie’s Bistro where he worked as a busboy. He later left on his own accord to work for Reeb Mill Corporation.

He allegedly wore the work gloves provided him at Reeb to commit the robbery.

The robbery was caught on the restaurant’s video surveillance. The video showed a black male matching Gilbert’s size and build wearing camouflage pants and a black hooded sweatshirt — holding two female employees at gunpoint. Uncle Charlie’s owner, Charles Ministero, immediately identified Gilbert as the suspect. Gilbert made off with roughly $500 in cash.

The robbery came a day after his girlfriend had quit her waitressing job at Uncle Charlie’s.

In his investigation, Det. Chris Pavon of CPD learned that the two employees had identified Gilbert on social media even before he interviewed them. One of the employees claimed that the glasses worn during the robbery were identical to the glasses Gilbert wore in a Facebook photo.

The Kent County Drug Task Force was also able to identify Gilbert through communications with two certified confidential informants.

Dolgos credited the Maryland State Police and the Queen Anne’s County Sheriff’s Office for assisting in the investigation.

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Lawmakers Putting Brakes on Kirwan Funding, Hershey and Jacobs Say

January 13, 2020 by Daniel Menefee

Del. Jay Jacobs, R-Kent, and Senate Minority Whip Steve Hershey

Annapolis — Lawmakers inaugurated the opening of the 2020 Maryland General Assembly on Jan. 8 expressing sticker shock over the funding mandates in the Kirwan Commission recommendations that promise to transform education at a cost of $32 billion over the next decade.

The formula requires cost-sharing by the counties, and Baltimore City and Prince George’s County would each have to fund over $300 million annually–requiring property tax increases or cuts in public services that the jurisdictions are reluctant to support.

The annual cost is expected to reach about $4 billion a year, of which $1.2 billion is the cost-share to the counties.

And while legislators have promised to help Prince George’s and Baltimore City, no such overture was extended to rural counties of the Eastern Shore.

“The tax base just isn’t there,” said Del. Jay Jacobs, R-Kent.

Tiny Kent County, the smallest in the state, has seen stagnant population growth and declining school enrollment for decades, which three years ago forced the consolidation of five elementary schools to three.

Kent County would need to pay an additional $1 million annually through 2030–and it would have the same impact on Kent that Baltimore City and Prince George’s are facing, Jacobs said.

“For Kent County it’s a very expensive proposition,” Jacobs said. “[Kent] will have the highest cost of the counties in District 36…almost double the other counties I represent.”

Jacobs said the administration of Gov. Larry Hogan has already funded record spending on education, now at over $6 billion annually. He said the “Kirwan recommendations are Thornton on steroids.”

The 36th District consists of Caroline, Cecil, Kent, and Queen Anne’s counties.

The Kirwan formula requires a greater cost share for counties with a higher population of at-risk students.

“There are no two counties alike under Kirwan,” Jacobs said. He said the $9 million Kent will have to pay over the next decade is only matched with $2.5 million in state funding.

“Queen Anne’s County won’t have to pay anything,” Jacobs said.

Kent Commissioner Ron Fithian said the mandate would require property taxes increases of “nearly 40 percent.”

The sticker shock to Baltimore City and Prince George’s has moved the General Assembly to give the plan a haircut, said Senate Minority Whip Steve Hershey.

“The initial funding formulas came out and a lot of counties got hit very hard on the money they would have to raise to meet the Kirwan requirement,” Hershey, R-Queen Anne’s said. “The commissioners have told us that there’s no way they can come up with that kind of money.”

“Baltimore City and Prince George’s both got hit with over $300 million and they’ve said they can’t come up with the money either.”

Hershey said Prince George’s County would need to cut its police force to meet its funding mandate without raising taxes.

“There are some big jurisdictions out there that have said ‘no way, put on the brakes, we can’t afford this,’” he said.

He said it came as a relief that Senate President Bill Ferguson promised not to “raise the sales tax, property tax or income tax in order to fund this.”

“At the end of the day we’re going to get a phased-in Kirwan,” Hershey said. He said there will be a “three-year Kirwan” that will pass to address some of the major issues.

“But it’s not going to be anywhere near the bill that’s been talked about,” he said “It’s going to be a price tag that Maryland believes it can fund on its own.”

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Updated: Sultana’s McMullen Addresses Council on Shipyard Offer

January 8, 2020 by Daniel Menefee

Sultana Education Foundation President Drew McMullen made public Monday the nonprofit’s offer to buy the shipyard it has leased at Cannon and Mill Streets since 1997–but he acknowledged there were hurdles to clear before taking ownership.

McMullen said he was going into the negotiations with his “eyes wide open,” acknowledging that the Town could make other plans for the publicly owned lot.

“If there’s a way for the town to go out and make hay with this property, over and above what we can do with it, you should do it,” he said at Monday’s council meeting. “We are not saying we have any right to this property whatsoever. We just have a need for it, I’m not sure anyone else does.”

“We’re here to say that if you’re interested in selling it, we’re interested in buying, you don’t owe it to us [and] everything is up for negotiation,” he said.

McMullen said the use of the shipyard has changed since the Sultana was launched in 2001 to more of a maintenance facility and to serve as a staging and storage area for their paddle programs. He said 40 to 50 canoes and kayaks are stored there.

“We actually serve as many students in our canoe and kayak programs now as we do on the [Sultana],” he said. “It’s a very helpful place to store and work on that gear.”

He said the location of the shipyard was also ideal for its proximity to the Holt Center on Cross Street, which serves as SEF headquarters and main teaching facility.

“It’s very convenient for us in our self-interest to have it close to what we’re doing,” he said.

McMullen said potential donors would shy away from funding improvements without ownership or a long-term lease.

Another wrinkle in any sale of the property is the existence of contamination from when it served as a facility for the Maryland State Highway Administration.

McMullen said digging down two feet to the water table results in water the “color of the rainbow,” meaning the presence of fuel contamination. He believes that an environmental study would be required if the lot was used for “anything more than making it a parking lot.”

Town Manager Bill Ingersoll said the site came with monitoring wells from oil “mishaps in the past.”

The Town paid $80,000 for Tract No. 1 as part of a 1.71-acre purchase from the Kent County Commissioners in 1997. Tract No. 2 was sold for $3,000. Sultana is on Parcel 3 of Tract 1 and SEF has offered to buy it for $80,000.

Correction: When this story first ran the Spy indicated that the Sultana Shipyard was all of Tract 1. This was incorrect as pointed out by McMullen in an email on Jan. 8. The Spy did not correctly identify the shipyard as Parcel 3 of Tract 1. The Spy regrets the error. McMullen also indicated that Tract 2 is no longer owned by the Town.

“As I understand it from our advisors the $80,000 paid was for Tract 1, which consists of all three parcels owned by the Town. The shipyard is on Parcel 3 of Tract One. Tract 2 is on the other side of Mill Street, a strip 30′ x 109′, which I believe the Town no longer owns. The property has a complicated history which has also been confusing for us to document/decipher,” McMullen wrote.

The Spy will followup on what happened to Tract No. 2

Eight years earlier the County purchased Tract 1 and 2 from the Maryland State Highway Administration.

The chain of custody maintained a deed restriction, a reverter clause that gave the state the right to recover Tract No. 1 for the sum of $80,000–should it “cease to be used for public purposes.”

The Council passed a motion at Monday’s meeting to seek guidance from the state on the reverter clause and whether Sultana’s current occupancy falls within the guidelines of public use. And, if the reverter clause is nullified by agreement, could the town simply reimburse the state $80,000 and proceed with an RFP to sell the lot at current Market value?

McMullen said SEF offered $80,000 because any excess would ultimately go to the state, based on the opinion of SEF’s attorney.

The offer was made in October but Town Manager Bill Ingersoll made the decision to table the offer until after the fall election.

Ingersoll told the Spy last week that the property would have to be declared surplus by the ordinance to enter into a sale with any buyer.

“…the sale of any property by the Town cannot start until the property is declared surplus or excess by Ordinance.” He recommended Monday that the council withhold any vote on an ordinance until the Town received guidance from the state on how to move forward.

While many residents believe that the property is a presumptive “good fit” for Sultana, other residents have asked why the shipyard would be sold at 1997 prices when the Town is facing tight budgets that have threatened cancellation of recycling and shuttering the Chestertown Police Department.

Several audience members called for a transparent process and questioned why the offer had been kept private for two months.

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Town Utilities Manager Shuts Down Fiber Optic Contractor

January 7, 2020 by Daniel Menefee

Chestertown Utilities Manager Bob Sipes told the council Monday that a subcontractor installing fiber-optic lines in Chestertown is now responsible for breaching eight water lines and one sewer line.

The subcontractor, JCC Contracting, has been trenching fiber optic lines for Talkie Communications since last spring.

The most recent breach occurred Dec. 9 at 115 Elm St.

And on Saturday, Dec. 7, JCC broke a water line at Cedar Street and Greenwood Avenue; the repairs cost the town upwards of $28,000.

Sipes said JCC is not supposed to work on weekends because repairs cost more when things break. Sipes brought in a plumber to do some emergency repairs until he could get a full staff in on Sunday, Dec. 8 to complete the work.

Three utility staff worked 12 hours on Saturday, and five staff worked 15 hours on Sunday, Sipes said.

The town is seeking to recoup the costs from JCC.

Ward 3 Councilman Ellsworth Tolliver asked what responsibility Talkie had for the repairs.

“Talkie is responsible for not damaging existing utilities,” Sipes responded. “Every time JCC hits something, they are under contract to Talkie, but it’s the contractor that is responsible for the repairs.” He said Talkie can leverage the relationship with the JCC to make sure the town is compensated.

Talkie CEO Andrew DeMattia told the Spy Tuesday that JCC must reimburse the town for the repairs or risk losing the business relationship.

“Talkie will not use a vendor that does not follow the law, rules and pay for damages they cause,” DeMattia said. “JCC Contractors has agreed to pay for damages for the water break.”

JCC is also responsible to trench the fiber optic lines at a depth of five feet, to make sure the installations are below water and sewer lines, so they don’t interfere with repairs that may arise.

At Foxley Manor, some fiber optic lines have been installed at a depth of three feet, which is a violation of the agreement between Talkie and the town, Sipes said.

Sipes said he shut down JCC until repairs are made and the installations are properly done at Foxley Manor.

“What we are doing now is going back and checking the depths on a lot of the installations they have done,” Sipes said. “Where they come up short, they will have to redo it.”

Update: Sipes said he secured a commitment from JCC on Tuesday to compensate the town for repairs incurred on Dec. 7 and 8 and make the repairs at 115 Elm St. and Foxley Manor.

Ward 2 Councilman Tom Herz asked if the town could require an inspector onsite to protect water and sewer lines in high density areas–and make sure the contractors reach the required depth of five feet.

Sipes said he has already communicated to Talkie and suggested their contractors have an inspector present to make sure the installation follows the current agreement with the town. Talkie responded that they would inspect JCC’s work before payment can be made.

“I’m eager to put an end to the ‘Wild West’ nature of this installation, ” Herz said. “We need it…but we’ve got a situation where these guys are running roughshod over us and we’re not in a position to respond fast enough, and we don’t have penalties enough to drive a conversation that will be meaningful to them.”

Sipes said the current fine structure for contractors is $500 per day.

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