So, The Daily Times decided there was sufficient news interest in the dirt being tossed around in the Salisbury mayoral race, and decided to address it all in one fell swoop.
My first reaction was, "Really? This is what you're covering? Admitted gossip and rumor?"
And after a few reads of the article on Gary Comegys and the article on Jim Ireton, I changed my mind. Slightly.
To its credit, The Daily Times did present each man with every known rumor, allegation and possible slander and allowed each to answer. They brought each candidate in and asked the questions to each man's face.
I would have preferred to read their complete answers - it would have made for a great read on the delmarvanow.com site - but, if nothing else, each man got to answer the questions directly. And we get all this nonsense out of the way with three weeks still left to discuss the issues the citizens of Salisbury REALLY care about.
So, here's what we learned about Gary Comegys:
*Gary Comegys lost a child support suit with his ex-wife. He disputed the amount of time he needed to pay an increased amount of child support, and apparently reverted back to the original amount when the child reached 18. She sued, she won. Next question.
*Gary Comegys started a business with his 2nd wife and it failed. He declared bankruptcy. He says now he wished he hadn't declared bankruptcy. [EDIT: To be clear, they had the business declare bankruptcy.] [EDIT AGAIN: After re-reading the passage again, it's not clear if this was a personal banruptcy or a corporate one. I could only find online records of banruptcy in federal courts back to 2004.]
*Gary said he voted for zoning for the old mall under assumptions that later proved not true. I don't know enough about the whole mall mess to even have an opinion on the believability of this assertion.
*Gary didn't finish college. I don't know that Gary has ever said he did. There is some confusion over the use of the term "engineer" that I do think he glossed over.
*Gary says he really can do math. I'd point at Salisbury's city budget deficit and argue differently, but he's right in saying his job requires it. No argument there.
*He says he left the board of the Wicomico Humane Society on his own. I didn't know he was even ever on it.
*He and the firefighter volunteers don't seem to get along on the topic of seceding from city control. Except that the paid firefighters just voted to endorse Jim Ireton. Make of that what you will. He did apparently abstain from the pension vote.
*The Sassafras Meadows mess, is, well, a mess. The way it reads, Gary had no idea his buddy Mike Dunn's family had been involved in the transaction. Right.
*And since the Cottages at Riverhouse campaign event never took place, everything's just hunky-dory. Right.
*And his infamous nap apparently happened while he was home recovering from shoulder surgery. Seems reasonable. And no, no sarcasm is intended there. I've had shoulder surgery, and the recovery is not fun.
And about Jim Ireton:
*He left the city council in 1999 to move away from Salisbury mostly over money, but some personal issues were involved, too. His time on the council doesn't come across as very pleasant. Since he left before the end of the school year, his certificate was "held" for a year by the state. Standard procedure in Wicomico County, by the way.
*His Open Meetings Violation was the results of a procedural mistake that he owned up to.
*He is going to serve his full term as mayor. Period.
*The $25 ticket in Rehoboth was addressed. Really, it's a non-issue.
"I beat myself up now for being stupid and being out on the beach," he said. "Maybe if I thought at one point three years ago I was going to run for mayor of Salisbury, maybe I would have had my watch on."*He's consistently said the city needs better control over the conditions of rental properties and that landlords need to be licenced.
*He supports impact fees, but did vote not to assess them on one project while he was on the city council. He does want an Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance.
*He was against the city's solution for Camden neighborhood flooding, because he says it didn't solve the problem, just create new problems.
*Jim is probably going to go half-time teaching. The quote they used from Jim wasn't the nicest thing he's ever said, but then again, I didn't expect the Times to make him look good, either.
*Jim hasn't asked that the mayor's salary be raised. He has questioned the timing of the mayor's Salary Commission report, which will be released after Barrie Tilghman is gone. How convenient for Barrie.
OK, now that THAT'S out of the way, can we talk about crime, neighborhoods and the river now?
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