FENWICK ISLAND – Committee appointments in Fenwick Island will continue to be made as they have been for years in spite of a new council member’s request for change.
A motion proposed by Council member Julie Lee that would have given council members the opportunity to appoint residents to town committees failed at the town’s Sept. 25 council meeting.
“There has to be some way we can get new members involved,” Lee said.
“I am sorry to see the council’s vote on excluding citizens from committees,” Vicki Carmean said. “People need to be included. I think that’s a shame.”
Lee, the only new council member elected in this summer’s election, said she wanted to make sure the town’s several committees included a variety of residents. She doesn’t think that’s happening under the current system, in which the mayor appoints a chairperson to each of the committees and that chairperson appoints committee members.
“The mayor is going to choose people he likes,” Lee said in an interview. “His chairman selects the committee.”
Under that scenario she says it’s possible that the committees could all be made up of people who share the same thoughts on various issues. She’s also afraid that new community members who are interested in serving on one of the town’s 10 committees — which range from budget to emergency management — won’t be selected because the committees will be full of the same people who’ve served for years.
“New people may not be selected,” she said.
Fenwick Island Mayor Gene Langan says he doesn’t know where that fear comes from. Langan believes the system works fine as it is.
“It works great,” he said.
According to Langan, the reason many of the committee members serve year after year is because they’re among the only volunteers. He says a total of three new people have volunteered for committees this fall.
“It’s not like we get a lot of volunteers,” Langan said.
If a committee is short of members, committee chairs have the power to go out and recruit new members or ask community members with a desired skillset to serve.
“I don’t think anything needs to be changed,” he said.
Langan added that when new residents expressed interest in servicing committee chairs tried to accommodate them.
“If somebody new comes along, we give them a chance,” he said.