Georgetown Mayor Bill West has announced his retirement. In our partnership with Spotlight Delaware Delmarva Public Media's Don Rush talks with reporter Maggie Reynolds about his decision and his legacy.
RUSH: Longtime mayor of Georgetown, Bill West will not run for another term. This is Don Rush. West has been the subject of sharp criticism of late with the latest controversy revolving around the town's approach to homelessness. In our partnership with Spotlight Delaware, we talked with reporter Maggie Reynolds about the announcement.
REYNOLDS: I think it was somewhat of a surprise. I mean, Bill West has been in office for quite a long time and I know that the last election in 2024, he wasn't sure if he was going to run again and then he decided to run. And so he was a little bit uncertain in his thought process and what he had said leading up to this decision. So I'd say it's a big thing for the town that there will be a new mayor and [this] was somewhat of a surprise.
RUSH: So he's been at least the object of some sharp criticism. What's been the atmosphere as of late?
REYNOLDS: Yeah, I mean a lot of the criticism really started up in the fall and was most heated during the fall and early winter when this group called Make Georgetown Great Again created a Facebook page and was really growing in traction on Facebook a lot. And then a lot of these same people were coming out to town council meetings to protest the homelessness situation in town. Some of the existing resources for homelessness, when the group started, they said that part of their goal was to get Bill West and some of the members of town council out of office in the May election, and they had this phrase, "May is on the way" as kind of a warning, I guess, to the people that they don't support on council. So on one hand some of the tension at meetings has quieted down a little bit in the past month or two, but that forward momentum, I guess toward the election has continued.
RUSH: So how does West see his tenure as mayor as he begins to depart?
REYNOLDS: I mean, he is really proud of his tenure as mayor. When I talked to him kind of reflecting about it, he said that the town population has grown, the number of housing developments has grown a lot as well as commercial development. He talked about a large area by the Del Tech campus in Georgetown that didn't use to have any of the restaurants or stores that it now has and other similar developments like that. He's also proud of some of the more innovative housing type things I guess, that the town has worked on, like the Pallet village and the tiny homes that are incoming. And he said his goal for the future is that the population of Georgetown surpasses 10,000 because then they'd be more likely to be able to draw some big box stores to come to the town or outside of town limits. He also said that he hopes to stay involved with a couple of the projects that he saw starting when he was mayor, like the building of the new Christiana Hospital in Georgetown. And he wants to stay involved with the police department. So it doesn't sound like he is fully going to step away from involvement in the town government, but kind of help out in his own way after.
RUSH: Well, one of the interesting quotes that you had was that he said of the [mayor position], "you can't just sit in city hall or town hall, you have to be out there, you have to be talking to people." It sounds as if that is sort of his piece of advice, I guess, for whoever comes after him.
REYNOLDS: Yeah, definitely. I think so. I mean, if Bill West does anything, he's definitely out and about and around town a lot. Always at events talking with folks, doing a lot of that kind of networking that I was mentioning that he seems to have done with people at the county and state level. He said that he hasn't treated it as just a position where he shows up to town council every other week, but he is doing more outreach and engaging with the town every day.
RUSH: Spotlight Delaware reporter Maggie Reynolds on the Decision by Georgetown Mayor Bill West to retire. The full interview can be heard on this Friday's Delmarva Today at noon on WSDL and WESM. This is Don Rush for Delmarva Public Media.
