The Lewes City Council is looking to change it’s charter surrounding fishing and elections.
The beginning of the legislative session marks an influx of charter changes sent in by cities across the First State. Charter changes need to be approved by state lawmakers before they go into effect.
Lewes is looking to make some changes to the charter giving the city more freedom to restrict fishing along the Delaware Bay Shore.
Council member Rob Morgan says the current city code doesn’t restrict fishing up to a certain high water line, but the city wants to be able to for safety.
“If you wanna be able to worry about people who wade out in fishing gear or who come in close to shore to fish and thus endanger bathers then that would be something you’d wanna be able to cover too,” said Morgan.
The city is also making changes to election laws, giving city council the ability to reschedule the annual May election due to a state of emergency from the governor.
The city also wants the option to use the state’s voter registration database for its source of registered voters, rather than keeping its own roll.
Council members have been debating the pros and cons of using the state system for months, but agree it would mean less maintenance work.
Both changes will be sent to the state legislature to be voted on along with a few other city charter changes.
Roman Battaglia is a corps member withReport for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms.
