Sports
Earth
Eggs
Indians end skid with big win
Earth Day offers plenty to do
Local egg hunts kick off season
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APRIL 18, 2025
THE LOCAL VOICE OF YOUR COMMUNITY.
Volume 22, Issue 16
FREE
South Bethany passes property tax hike By Susan Canfora Staff Reporter After considerable discussion — and a failed motion for a smaller property tax increase of $0.040 — the South Bethany Town Council set the Town’s property tax rate at $0.051 per $100 of assessed value and passed the $3.5 million 2026-fiscal-year budget.
“I am pleased with how it all turned out. It’s unfortunate we had to increase taxes this year, but we went 16 years without an increase, so that was a long time,” Mayor Edie Dondero told the Coastal Point after the Friday, April 12, meeting. “We tried to keep the increase as small as possible in order to meet the operating budget and the funding of our
capital items. The biggest challenge for us now is figuring out how we can move forward with our flood mitigation efforts. We have a Resiliency Committee that works on those issues, so the committee will be creating an action plan on essential projects moving forward,” Dondero said. Before the tax rate was set, Councilman Robert Shields moved to set it at
$0.040, and Council Treasurer Randy Bartholomew said revenue targets would be missed by about $50,000, “although we still have one more month of transfer taxes coming in.” During March, he said, those taxes totaled $16,000 “so that trend is down
See TAXES page A3
IRSD board to have contested election in Georgetown Parsons to take Pryor’s spot By Laura Walter Staff Reporter This spring, Georgetown-area residents can choose their two representatives on the Indian River School District’s Board of Education. The district is split into five geographic voting districts, each with two school board representatives, elected on a rotating basis. Four terms will expire in 2025, but only a few seats had enough challengers to require an election. Each seat will carry a four-year term. District 1 includes Georgetown, mostly between Route 9 and IRSD’s northern boundary. There, three candidates are vying for two seats: Dereck Booth, Lisa Hudson Briggs and Kelly Kline. In District 2 (south Georgetown and north Millsboro), incumbent Gerald See IRSD page A6
Special to the Coastal Point • Marian Dowling
There’s always hope for the best day of your life when it starts with a sunrise over the ocean in Bethany Beach.
Fenwick Island officials discuss need for more parking By Kerin Magill Staff Reporter Parking in Fenwick Island — particularly for employees of businesses in the town — was the focus of a presentation by Mayor Natalie Magdeburger at the Friday, April 5, Fenwick Island Town
Council meeting. Magdeburger’s report was part of an ongoing effort to solve summer parking issues — particularly for numerous restaurants during the busy dinner hours. The Town’s Business Concerns Committee had asked the council to
consider selling half-price parking passes to businesses for their employees to use between 4 and 10 p.m. in permitparking areas of town. Following discussion at previous council meetings and Business Concerns Committee meetings, Magdeburger said she had done an informal
survey of town streets in search of spots that could be used by businesses. She said she looked at a number of areas and found about 20 spots that are not marked as permit parking spots. See PARKING page A6