BERLIN – Councilman Elroy Brittingham will step down this month after 32 years of representing his community.
Brittingham, who was elected to the Berlin Town Council in 1988, is in the final days of his eighth term as a councilmember. Mayor Gee Williams and the rest of the town’s elected officials honored Brittingham for his service at the close of Monday’s council meeting. Williams, who remembers Brittingham as the go-to guy for men’s clothing at the Style Guide, said that as a councilman Brittingham earned a reputation for friendliness and respect.
“His example has been important with both issues and people in helping Berlin become a place where we honor our past, but we do not live in it,” Williams said. “Elroy’s unselfish service to our town will be a great example for future leaders in our community for decades to come.”
Brittingham, who is now 72, said he never really intended to become a councilman. In 1988, however, Flower Street was in need of improvements that just weren’t being made.
“I realized our voice needed to be heard,” Brittingham said.
Neighborhood residents formed a committee to find someone willing to run for council to better represent the community. It turned out committee members thought Brittingham should be that person.
“They wore me down,” Brittingham said.
Brittingham, who worked for John Howard Burbage at the time, said he ran for council as Burbage was running for another term as mayor. While Brittingham was elected to a council position, Burbage, who’d served since 1962, lost his bid for mayor.
“It would have been interesting serving with my boss,” Brittingham said, joking that they already debated enough during the workday.
Though he’d been coerced into running for the seat, once Brittingham joined the council he realized he wouldn’t be ready to leave until the projects that needed to be done were accomplished. The first thing he learned was that just because the desire was there for an initiative didn’t mean the funding was there.
“That was the big surprise,” Brittingham said, adding that the town sometimes waited a year or more to learn if it’d been successful in securing certain grants. “When you first get on the council you think things can be done right away.”
During his time at the dais, Brittingham helped bring sidewalks to more sections of town, advocated for the creation of Atlantic General Hospital and worked on issues involving the town’s electric utility and its water and sewer infrastructure.
“Sidewalks was one of the things I campaigned for,” he said. “It’s taken years and years. We still need more but finally we’re catching up.”
Hot topics in his early years on the council were street repairs, a perpetual problem in many municipalities, and a drug problem on Bay Street. Brittingham attributes that issue to the fact that most of the town’s affordable housing was put there.
“We were so anxious to get housing we put everything right on Bay Street close together,” he said. “We had everybody lumped together. It brought the drug problem.”
While that issue was addressed with the help of law enforcement, another issue facing the council during Brittingham’s early years as a representative was Hudson Foods. The plant, located at what is now Heron Park, was a major environmental concern.
“We pressured them to at least take care of the smell,” Brittingham said.
In turn, he recalls elected officials receiving threatening letters warning them to leave the plant alone. With that history in mind, Brittingham said he did not regret his support of the town’s 2015 decision to purchase the parcel to ensure there was municipal control over what was once a problem property. He acknowledged, however, that the buildings on the property were in worse shape than some realized and that significant funds would be needed to improve the park.
“I’m not sure the town can afford to finish the park like we planned,” he said.
Other issues the town faced during the first half of Brittingham’s council tenure included the addition of Atlantic General Hospital and that annexation of the schools on Seahawk Road. He was also able to meet President Bill Clinton when he visited Assateague Island in 2000.
“I stayed pretty busy,” said Brittingham, who was a member of the hospital’s board of directors and also became heavily involved in the Maryland Municipal League. During his years as a councilman, Brittingham served under the leadership of mayors Ron Bireley, Rex Hailey, Chinita McAllister, Tom Cardinale and Gee Williams.
Elroy Brittingham, left with then-Mayor Ron Bireley, is pictured at the groundbreaking for AGH in 1993. File Photo
As a councilman, Brittingham said he appreciated the fact that he was encouraged to take advantage of various educational and networking opportunities that benefited the town. He also enjoyed addressing concerns brought to him by residents of his neighborhood.
“I like to tackle problems and see them completed,” he said.
In recent years, Brittingham said the council had been tasked with addressing water and sewer needs—including spray irrigation—improving electric operations, and working to balance growing government costs. He says trying to keep the taxes down is harder than citizens realize.
“Everybody wants all the services but they don’t want the taxes to go up even though the costs of those services goes up,” he said.
Though last year’s tax increase was not popular with residents, Brittingham said that as a whole the town was in much better shape than he’s seen it in the past.
“All of our systems are up to par,” he said. “Things have improved so much by having the right personnel in place. Our town employees are great.”
Brittingham says he’ll miss working with them and his fellow elected officials.
“I used to come to city hall with a chip on my shoulder,” he said. “Things weren’t being done the way I thought they should be. Now it’s switched. It’s nice to have a good working group. Rather than everybody pulling apart, away from each other, in the last few years it’s been so much easier working with council people who wanted to help everybody, not just one section of town.”
