Havre de Grace voters will head to the polls Tuesday, May 7, to elect three council members, while Mayor William T. Martin is running unopposed.
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at St. Patrick’s Church Hall on Pennington Avenue.
Five candidates — the three incumbents and two others — are running for three council seats.
Incumbent David Martin is seeking a third term, Jason Robertson a second and Carolyn Zinner her first elected term — she was appointed in November to replace Monica Worrell, who resigned when she started a new job.
Challenging them are Wynona Hilton-Staney, a nurse at Harford Memorial Hospital, and Kirk Smith, who ran last year and finished sixth.
The five city council candidates are, in alphabetical order:
Wynona Hilton-Stanley
Hilton-Stanley moved to Havre de Grace in 1995 after she married her husband. They have two children in college.
A critical care nurse at Harford Memorial Hospital for more than 20 years, Hilton-Stanley, 59, is a cousin to Sgt. Alfred Hilton, Harford’s only Medal of Honor recipient for whom the Route 22 overpass at Interstate 95 is named.
A vote for her would be a vote for change, she said.
“It’s someone different on the board, more female input,” Hilton-Stanley said. “I will work hard and continue to speak with the people of Havre de Grace, because I think communication is key. And I just love this people and the town.”
Hilton-Stanley has been always been interested in community service, she said, and has been involved in community groups for more than 30 years.
She is an active member of the Havre de Grace Rotary Club and also works with the We Cancerve movement, Omega Psi Phi, Iota Nu chapter and Doctors United for Medical Missions, a group associated with Johns Hopkins University that sponsors doctors on medical missions.
She has been talking to people in town, patients, their families, and she said they don’t seem to know what’s going on in the city.
“That perplexed me. They just don’t know what’s going on,” Hilton-Stanley said.
She started attending council meetings and became friends with former council member Monica Worrell.
“My interest built up and I thought, why not? That’s the next step with all I’ve been doing,” Hilton-Stanley said. “And I really want to see the town progress, but still keep its historical flavor. I can sit around and talk about it or I can help do something about it.”
One of the issues confronting the town is parking and transportation, she said
First Fridays draws a lot of people downtown, but some folks who live outside of downtown don’t attend First Fridays, she said, because there’s nowhere to park.
“I know we’re trying to get trolley system, but I think what we need is depot where people can park, get a ride even if it’s on a school bus, take it downtown, and then have it bring them back,” Hilton-Stanley said.
She suggested using the new high school parking lot once it is built, and possibly charging a small fee, proceeds of which could be used for maintenance of the high school auditorium if it remains once the existing building is no longer used.
Near and dear to her is what will happen when Harford Memorial Hospital closes.
“That’s going to be a lot of people out of work,” she said, even though the nursing staff has been told they’ll all have jobs. “What about the ancillary staff?”
She also wants to know what will happen for the building and the parking garage and what the economic impact will be on businesses that remain, especially those from whom hospital employees order their meals daily.
“That’s a lot of business. I don’t think they will be closing soon, we have some time, but there should be discussions started to put things in place before it happens,” Hilton-Stanley said.
David Martin
Martin, 64, is running for his third term on the council.
“I put my heart into the city. I moved here in 2012, this became my adopted home. I’m no longer from somewhere else, I’m from Havre de Grace,” Martin said. “I am dedicated to fighting battles for more funding to get Havre de Grace recognized.”
He owns a health care company and takes care of the remaining clients he has, but said he’s essentially retired.
He wants to continue the work he’s been doing for nearly four years.
Martin is a member of the Water and Sewer Commissionand said he wants to improve the city’s billing process and fee structure “ so we don’t impact the retired, the fixed income, low income, families that don’t make a lot of money.”
“But how do we prepare to do infrastructure on pipes that are 100-plus years old?” Martin asked.
Martin has been working for the last two years to get legislation passed in the Maryland General Assembly to bring electric trolleys to Havre de Grace. It’s been defeated the last two sessions.
“We can bring in gas and diesel trolleys, but at top of the [Chesapeake] Bay, we’re trying to be more green,” Martin said. “If I get re-elected, I will be back in Annapolis next year fighting for the electric trolley.”
He’d like to continue working on economic development — 28 businesses moved to the city last year and 14 are expected this year, he said; making improvements to the parks, like the bridge added on the Joe K Trail; stormwater management projects and the new police department explorer, cadet and auxiliary programs.
One of the projects Martin has spearheaded is the city’s proposed ethics ordinance, which he anticipates will be adopted by the city council at Monday’s meeting.
“No one in Maryland has one. It’s anti-harassment, sexual discrimination,” said Martin, who wrote the ordinance. “It’s kind of answers the questions of the ‘Me Too’ movement.”
He was also successful in lobbying the House and Senate to agree to restore 95 percent of the highway user fees, which means $158,000 coming back to Havre de Grace in the next fiscal year.
“That’s a nice piece of change to get back from state coffers into city,” Martin said.
Jason Robertson
Robertson, a budget analyst for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, is running for a second term.
“I want to leave the town in a good position. I have a 6-year-old kid — I want to make it so he wants to stay when he comes of age,” Robertson, 33, said.
In his first term, Robertson was instrumental in establishing the first Havre de Grace Youth Commission.
“I want to keep working on progress with that, It’s moving in the right direction,” Robertson said. “I’m looking forward to getting that going, getting it all through and coming to fruition.”
He’s also concerned about the city’s water and sewer fund, and as the council liaison to the commission he wants to find a “sustainable plan” for capital expenditures and a rate structure to service the debt.
“But also we have to remain cognizant of lower income folks and business, so we’re not hitting folks on fixed income,” Robertson, who has experience in the public finance sector, said. “We don’t want to hurt our restaurants and bars downtown. There’s a fine line, but want to make sure our infrastructure is improved.”
Robertson wants to bring more tourist activities to the city to add to the draws in the area, including on the Cecil side of the Susquehanna River.
“I want to work with other municipal partners on the driver and help us draw more tourism,” he said. “We can all be good partners, we’re already neighbors.”
Kirk Smith
Smith, an information network technology engineer for CACI Technologies, bills himself as “the environmental candidate.
“I don’t like the way our water system going,” the 54-year-old said. “One of biggest improvements needed for Havre de Grace is its water quality, and I support enhanced testing, at least once a quarter, to check the city’s water for chemicals that might be coming from who knows where.”
Smith would also like to increase the city’s tree canopy – “Havre de Grace is way behind,” he said.
He has pitched the slogan “40 by 2040”to the city’s Tree Commission and is trying to get a 40 percent tree canopy up from about 16 percent today.
When trees get to 30 feet tall, they begin to provide shade and block sound, a benefit for the city. They can increase property values, he said.
“Specifically for Havre de Grace, we are tourist town,” Smith said. “People like to see the water, they want to walk through the town, see historical sites and no one wants to just see road and sidewalk. They want to see mature trees, to be in shade when walking about.”
It’s a program he’ll continue to push for even if he’s not elected and will work with the city council to get an incentive program or residents who plant native trees on the properties to create a canopy.
Recycling is also an issue in Havre de Grace. Recycling is stronger in communities with homeowners associations (60 to 78 percent of waste is recycled), he said, but in the historic area and other outlying areas, where the rate is about 22 percent, recycling could be better.
“We need to do more with recycling,” he said. “The nation is at 40 percent, and I want to push harder on that from the other side of the dais.”
He wants to recycling cans to people who don’t have them, because studies have shown “if you provide them with a can, they will recycle,” Smith said.
“I am the environmental candidate. I’ve been talking to city for six years. I am active in politics,” Smith said. “If I have something to say, I say it. It’s important to hear from citizens.”
Carolyn Zinner
Zinner was appointed to the council in November to replace Worrell, who resigned when she began a new job. She finished fourth in last year’s election.
So far she’s enjoying it, learning a lot and meeting people she wouldn’t have otherwise met, Zinner, 70, said.
She has a couple things she’d like to do if elected to a full term, including trying to get Havre de Grace designated as a Hidden Heroes City.
Hidden Heroes is part of the Elizabeth Dole Foundation and supports caregivers to veterans.
“We have a lot of veterans and caregivers,” she said. “I feel with population we have, so many veterans, it’s important that regardless of whether the caregiver is paid for doing it or doing as a spouse, if there’s support those caregivers can get, they need that.”
Zinner is also concerned about the future of the hospital site once Harford Memorial closes and what will happen with University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake’s Health 92 acres on Bulle Rock Parkway where a new medical facility was planned to be built before it was moved to Aberdeen.
“It will be important to all citizens in terms of economic development, something to support growth in the city,” Zinner said. “And they’re going to suck 800 jobs out of the city when they move. It would be nice if they begin sharing their plans with us. Right now that hasn’t been happening.”
Havre de Grace has numerous other things going on Zinner would like to be involved with: the new school opening in 2020, youth activities, stormwater remediation efforts and other projects along the waterfront, the small cell wireless aesthetics, a new sign ordinance and development of a foundation for the Historic Preservation Commission.
She wants to draw businesses downtown, but doesn’t want them to be afraid of possible roadblocks because of the historical nature of some of the buildings, she said.
Businesses in the city can work “in tandem” with the Historic Preservation Commission for a positive outcome for all parties, she said, and cited the commission’s work with Abbey Burger to protect the historical value of the building while being able to make improvements.
“We’re just making sure businesses who want to come into city don’t think because it’s a historic district they’re going to be hampered by historic preferences,” Zinner said.
Roadblock