After a career in business, managing marinas along the Chesapeake, 15 years ago Joan Deaver made the move many people do and retired to Sussex County. It was an area her parents had enjoyed vacationing in since the 1960s.
Coastal Point • Jesse Pryor
Joan Deaver speaks with a citizen during a recent event.
She soon came to believe that local residents were not given ample opportunities for land use decisions and decided she needed to take action.
“We tried to work with it, and we started Citizens for Better Sussex. But I though the best thing would be to file for office and get elected,” Deaver — now a candidate for Sussex County Council — said this week. Deaver is running as a Democrat against Republican Mark Baker, to represent the district.
Citizens for Better Sussex, of which Deaver is the founder and first president, did get two bills passed in the house that would have added at-large members to the Sussex County Council, rather than having all council members elected by voting district, as it is now, but their efforts were stalled in the Senate.
“I effectively lobbied for fairer representation of Eastern Sussex Countians on the county council,” she said.
“We also started pushing for energy conservation and the possibility of an offshore wind farm,” said Deaver, noting a proposal that is expected to come to fruition in the near future.
As president of CBS, Deaver has also testified on the Inland Bays Pollution Control Strategy, and at numerous hearings regarding the permitting of a new coal ash landfill at the Indian River Power Plant.
“Why would we be assuming this risk?” she asked back in July about a permit for a Phase II coal ash landfill at the plant, now owned by NRG. “A risk to our health, the economy and land values. If I were a lady, I wouldn’t say, ‘Get your ash out of here.’”
Deaver also testified in opposition to the most recent — and not-yet-official — update to the Sussex County Land Use Plan.
“We’d have a million residential lots and 2.9 million more people,” she said. “There would be nothing but houses as far as you can see, and this was done to protect huge landowners. We are feeling it everywhere, and we are sick of it. I am not saying it should be down-zoned, but I’m not willing to pay for it.”
Citizens for a Better Sussex got its grassroots start in 1999 and was organized formally in 2004. They now boast more than 200 members on their rolls. And while Deaver concentrates on becoming the first woman elected to Sussex County Council, Citizens for a Better Sussex is looking for a new president.
Deaver said her three main areas of interest are to a coordinate development with infrastructure; environmental and farmland preservation; and business development and jobs.
“We need better planning,” said Deaver. “An immediate issue is getting houses back off the road. They can’t widen it without taking people’s homes. And matching development with infrastructure — council doesn’t do that. We needs roads, schools. police, fire, sewer, water — it’s very important.
“They should be matched with the houses,” she said. “There’s development already approved in areas where the state has said they’ll never put roads — since 2001, 45 percent of the current council’s approvals have been in Level 4 zones, where the state does not plan to build roads or schools. It’s not coordinated and it’s irresponsible.”
Then, Deaver said, is the question of paying for it. She said having new homes is “really nice, but what do you do? — 41 percent of the budget is for public safety, and they didn’t collect enough. You have to collect money from the developers.”
Also, Deaver said it would be a priority, if she were elected to council, to see to it that they financially contribute to farmland preservation and do a better job environmentally.
As for business development and creating new high-paying jobs, Deaver said she would support the new economic development office in looking for high-paying jobs to come to the area, such as telecommunications businesses. “We can do a lot from Southern Delaware,” she quipped.
She also plans to push hard to a full University of Delaware campus to come to the Georgetown area — something else that she says would being jobs and stability to the county.
So, there’s three main things,” she reiterated of her platform for change at the county level. “With development, you need infrastructure, and you need a plan to pay for it; the protection of our farmland and environment; and bringing business here.”
She said she also feels much more cooperation is needed between the county and the towns.
“It’s a matter of county taking care of the people who lives here. Unless we start planning and get ordinances regarding infrastructure, our district is going to be city — and I don’t want that.”
Deaver lives with her husband, Bill, in Rehoboth Beach. They have two grown children. Deaver is co-founder of the Plantation Road Coalition and the No Build Coalition to protect Midway-area farms, homes and minority communities from unwise transportation decisions.
For more information, visit www.joandeaver.com online.