Middletown re-elects two incumbents to city council -- and one newcomer.
Voters had four options – out of 480 total votes cast, incumbents Bruce Orr and Craig Sherman received 327 and 383 votes. Both served on the town’s Planning and Zoning Board before their first council terms.
Orr says Middletown’s biggest challenge right now is not only growth but managing what they already have.
“Just due to the fact that we have a lot of residential communities that are coming online in the next year or so, so our permit department is going to be stretched fairly thin, so that’s going to be an area that we are going to have to focus on," Orr says.
Sherman adds that in the last few years, the town successfully brought the new Appoquinimink Library and expanded access to Comcast Cable.
David Thomas takes the third seat with 369 votes, replacing Vice Mayor Jim Reynolds.
“Right now I just need a little break," Reynolds says. "I’m trying to get involved a lot with the senior center, I was just elected to the board there.”
Reynolds says he is proud to have led Middletown through so much growth over the last three decades – he was first elected to council in 1990. Thomas says growth remains one of Middletown’s biggest challenges.
“As we have more and more residents, more and more businesses are coming, and I believe it is important that we have the infrastructure as well as the public safety to make sure it is an effective system," Thomas says.
Thomas has lived in Middletown since 2001 – and was a Delaware State Police trooper for 20 years before moving to the U.S. Marshal’s Service for eight years.
Mayor Kenneth Branner will name a new Vice Mayor and department heads at council’s next meeting on March 13.
