Why Should Delaware Care?
Last year, Rehoboth Beach officials quietly approved a record-setting salary package for their new city manager, sparking outrage among residents and fueling an ongoing lawsuit against the city. But one commissioner’s criticism has sparked questions around free speech by elected officials and their employee’s rights to a hostility-free workplace.
The small city of Rehoboth Beach portrays itself as an orderly and festive town with clean beaches, steady flip-flop traffic, and roads that make way for bike rides and morning joggers.
But inside City Hall, that good-mannered mood has been soured, as local politics have raised the question of where free speech ends and a hostile workplace begins.
That question escalated in August, when City Manager Taylour Tedder sent a cease-and-desist letter to outspoken City Commissioner Suzanne Goode, claiming she has “no right to defame, accuse, demean or harass me.” He further said that he would not talk to or interact with Goode outside of public meetings.
It marks a rare instance in which a high-ranking public employee refuses to work with an elected official.
The letter follows months of drama within the city government as Goode has made it her mission to call out colleagues over their controversial hiring of Tedder last year. The city attracted Tedder to the small Delaware beach community with an unprecedented compensation package, including a $250,000 annual salary and a $750,000 forgivable home loan.
While Goode says she is earnestly fighting for accountability in her city amid a lack of transparency, several people who have been targeted say her critiques have crossed the line to personal attacks.
‘Disrespectful’ actions
In one February email to a former Rehoboth commissioner, Goode called Tedder an “unmitigated disaster at his inflated salary and totally inappropriate home loan.”
Over the subsequent months, her criticisms grew louder in public meetings and in telephone calls to city officials. By July, then-Commissioner Edward Chrzanowski characterized Goode’s actions during a city commission meeting as “disrespectful, belligerent, and consistently unprofessional.”
He made the comments just before the elected body passed a “civility ordinance” that targeted Goode. While it notes that an elected official cannot be removed from office for a lack of civility, it notes that “concerns about conduct may be addressed through public accountability, peer communication, or referral to appropriate ethics bodies when applicable.”
Later that same day, Goode called Tedder, leaving him 10 voicemail messages, demanding he remove from the city website a video containing Chrzanowski’s comments.
Tedder said Goode’s voicemails were part of the reason he sent the cease-and-desist letter.
He also said it was a response to various comments she has made about him to others – many of which he saw after residents filed open records requests for city emails and voicemails.
In those communications, Goode has referred to Tedder as a “defacto indentured servant for seven years” – a reference to the period of time he must remain in Rehoboth Beach for the city to forgive his home loan.
She has also said that “some would call” Tedder the mayor’s “whore [because] he’ll do whatever is expedient and whatever pleases the mayor.”
In response, Tedder asserted to Spotlight Delaware that Goode creates her own facts. He also said she has messaged him continuously.
“When you have someone calling you repeatedly, leaving voicemails, then calling back because the voicemail was full to leave more, and then it cuts off again and they call back and leave more – it’s not productive,” he said.
Tedder said his cease-and-desist letter was also motivated by comments Goode made toward other city employees, such as the new in-house attorney, called a city solicitor.
In a June email to Tedder, Goode referred to the attorney, Lisa Borin Ogden, as a “former-Biden hack.”
Ogden worked in the White House during a portion of President Barack Obama’s first term, while Joe Biden served as vice president. Coincidentally, Biden also keeps a home in Rehoboth Beach.
A lone critical voice
In an op-ed published in late September in the Cape Gazette, Goode claimed Tedder sent the cease-and-desist “in an effort to avoid questions.”
While many city officials have criticized Goode, at least one resident has commended her for speaking out against the city’s elected commission. That resident, corporate lawyer Tom Gaynor, is also the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed against Rehoboth Beach, claiming the city violated its charter when it hired Tedder.
“I thank God that Suzanne has the guts to stand against this tide on a monthly basis, because not a single other person up there demonstrates that they care about the people of Rehoboth,” Gaynor said.
Goode declined to be interviewed for this story and instead offered a statement to Spotlight Delaware. In it, she notes that the commission meetings reveal that she is the “only commissioner asking for any accountability in spending decisions” and that she has been the “subject of a vicious retaliation campaign by the city manager, as well as by the new in-house counsel.”
“The city manager and the in-house solicitor have made threats against me in order to sideline me and to intimidate me,” she said in the statement.
Asked for details about those threats, Goode pointed to language within Tedder’s cease-and-desist letter that said “if you do not immediately cease and desist your conduct, your failure to do so will serve to aggravate the situation and increase a judgment against you personally.”
Ogden also sent her a cease-and-desist letter similar to Tedder’s, according to city spokesperson Brooke Thaler.
Residents sue over contract
When Rehoboth Beach hired Tedder as city manager last year, residents were shocked by the amount the small city of fewer than 2,000 full-time residents was paying him. Many were also outraged that city commissioners did not make details of his compensation public before his hiring.
The $250,000 annual salary alone was 56% higher than his predecessor’s and even surpasses that of Delaware’s governor.
Amid the outcry, the Delaware Department of Justice also determined that Rehoboth commissioner’s private discussions about Tedder’s contract violated Delaware’s open meeting laws.
Three months later, Gaynor and another Rehoboth Beach resident, Steven Linehan, sued the city, claiming Tedder lacked legally required qualifications for the job, including an engineering degree, four years of city managing experience, or four years of practical engineering work.
In response, Rehoboth Beach attorneys have said in court that the city charter gives officials broad authority to determine qualifications and compensation for Tedder’s position. They also asked the court to dismiss the case, but a judge in March denied the request.
In July, Ogden noted in a city meeting that the plaintiffs offered to settle the case with the city. The settlement offer would have required that “certain elected officials resign from their positions and agree never to seek office again.”
Ogden did not reveal the names of those officials, but Gaynor previously said that Mayor Stan Mills should resign.
City officials have not explicitly said that they turned down the offer, but Mills characterized it in August as “political theater.” That same month, city commissioners passed a proposal saying Tedder has performed his obligations.
Last month, Ogden said the city will file a summary judgment motion asking the judge to rule on the case before it proceeds to trial.
Today, Mills and Commissioner Patrick Gossett are the only remaining city commissioners who were in office when the city hired Tedder. Over the past year and a half, four commissioners opted not to run for re-election. One other, Don Preston, resigned during the middle of his term.
Among those who did not run for re-election was Chrzanowski, who said one of the reasons he left the commission was because of Goode.
Tension on the commission
When running for a seat on the Rehoboth commission last year, Goode made criticism of Tedder’s contract a core part of her campaign. In one Facebook post in June 2024, she called his hiring an example of the “secret deals” she wanted to end.
Goode told Spotlight Delaware in May that one thing that can be done to rectify the issue is if Tedder starts to repay his $750,000 home loan, which becomes forgivable after seven years of service.
Goode has also returned to that criticism several times during public meetings in recent months, asking for updates about the lawsuit and stating, “it is the people’s money that is being spent.”
“Only the commissioners who were involved in a bad decision have been informed of what’s going on,” she said during a July 7 commission meeting.
Goode made the comments while she was engaged in a shouting match with the mayor and Ogden that began after she asked for an update on the case.
Goode was told she could not talk about a topic that wasn’t on the agenda, even threatening to end the meeting if Goode did not stop talking about the suit or wait until the end of the meeting to discuss it.
As of Sept. 24, the city has spent more than $193,000 defending itself against Gaynor’s lawsuit, said Thaler, the city spokesperson.
Goode also told Spotlight Delaware last spring that Tedder’s pay package has escalated the expectations of prospective city employees and existing staff who may believe they are undercompensated.
She made the comments after the city hired Ogden, then its first in-house attorney, at a base salary of $200,000. Her hiring followed the departure of the city’s longtime contracted legal counsel from the firm, Baird Mandalas Brockstedt & Federico.
By comparison, Wilmington’s city solicitor makes just under $160,000, according to officials there. Wilmington’s population is more than 50 times the size of Rehoboth Beach’s.
Future remains unclear
Since sending out the cease-and-desist letter to Goode, Tedder has been personally relieved of responding to calls and direct messages from her.
He said that Goode is still able to directly communicate with him during public meetings and in executive sessions. And if she has a question related to city business, they get forwarded to the mayor, and Tedder will respond to her with a memo.
But it is unclear what future actions will be taken by the city to ease tensions among officials.
The city has refuted Goode’s claims that she is being retaliated against and kept in the dark regarding city business.
“Factually, and realistically, she is the one doing the attacking,” Tedder wrote.
But nonetheless, Goode still believes in her mission as a public official to hold the city accountable for its actions.
“I was elected on a platform which was clear in its goal to bring accountability and oversight to the Board of Commissioners in [Rehoboth Beach],” Goode said. “Achieving those goals has proven elusive, but I have not yet given up hope.”
