In May 2007, Havre de Grace witnessed one of the most heated mayoral races in recent history with four long-time city council members each vying for the position.
Two years later, Mayor Wayne Dougherty, who narrowly edged Gary Wasielewski for the city’s top spot, will be walking back into mayor’s office after a race that has consisted of simply writing his name on an application slip.
Dougherty is unnopposed in his re-election bid, for reasons not fully understood.
Furthermore, the usually highly-contested city council race has only 4 people running for the 3 seats at the dais, which is especially curious considering City Councilman Joe Kochenderfer announced he would not seek re-election.
Even with an empty seat on the city council up for grabs, only two people bothered to file to occupy it – Brenda Guldenzopf and Mitch Shank – who will face incumbents Randy Craig and Barbara Ferguson in a race for 3 city council seats.
City Councilman Jim Miller has anecdotal evidence the reasons for the low-candidate turnout may be related more to the economy than the performance of the incumbents.
“That’s a good question. This year with an open seat you would have thought there would be a large turn out of people wanting to file. Maybe the economy has something to do with it. Most of the former candidates and those that expressed interest in the past tell me that their jobs are keeping them busy and they don’t have time to do the job and do it right. I was sure at least one person from the Bulle Rock community would have filed. They are very involved with their community and a few were very vocal in the past,” Miller said Thursday.
Miller himself was prepared to thwart Dougherty’s re-election campaign with his own run for mayor, but for his own reasons, also pulled back before filing.
“As far as the Mayor, I guess people must think he is doing a good job. I thought about running against him. I went as far as filling out the application and writing the check. I wanted to wait until the last minute to file in case someone did step up. No one did as you know and after thinking about it long and hard, I decided not to put my self through the hassle. Part of my dicission was based on the fact that no one filed for Council. This will be an interesting year,” Miller said.
An interesting year, perhaps. An interesting election, unlikely.
Congrats!
The Mayors handbook as given out in both Aberdeen and Havre de Grace is quite clear. “If you don’t do anything, you can’t do anything wrong”. Bennett in Aberdeen, and Dougherty in HDG both serve only to be re-elected and local voters always reward politicians that keep a low profile and ruffle as few feathers as possible. Like Dutch for example; can anyone remember any significant accomplishment in his long term of office since his county exec days? Dutch tells folks that his strategy in all about what he calls the end game which is to get re-elected. And Mayor Wilson in Aberdeen before Bennett served 4 terms and ran atleast once without an opponent. Havre de Grace is growing in the right direction in spite of Wayne and because of some folks in and out of local government like Steve Gamatoria and Theresa Walter.
Havre de Grace has the history and the water; Aberdeen has the BRAC. Neither city has the elected officials with the leadership qualities to do any more with the city’s assetts than to be drug along behind them.
nor does the Havre de Grace “mafia” feel that campaign finance laws or legal employment laws or basic ethics apply to them — follow the money trail and the Mayor’s re-elect committee has a few worms under a few rocks…
The residents of HDG s/b ashamed. Why in the world would you guys continue to elect retreads who have a mediocre record at best? How apathetic!
The city still hasn’t reached its potential and has a poor reputation in many parts of the state. Friends say, “isn’t that the town with all the crappy antique/unk stores and lots of Section 8 housing?” Someone really needs to clean up this place and enact zoning and rental property laws. The proportion of renters to homeowners is far too high. HDG Landlords get away with letting properties look like crap and face little if any penalties for doing so. Remember when HDG tried to enact a landlord registration process? Who was one of the biggest oponents, Wayne and his good ole boy crew. Hopefully BRAC will bring new candidates who refuse to tolerate a mediocre city gov’t. Things need to change or the taxpayer base will leave.
Please be advised that the individual posting under the pseudonym “yescharactercounts” is the subject of a pending subpoena to identify your name in a civil case filed in Harford County Circuit Court, Case No.: 12-C-10-2133.