Employee Newsletter - June 2023

Cover Photo by Kathy Ruf, Town Clerk

DEAR TEAM,

I am thrilled to address you as the new Mayor of our wonderful town. It is an honor and a privilege to serve alongside each of you who work tirelessly to make Easton such a great place to live, work, and raise a family. Each of you play an important role in shaping our town.

In the coming weeks, I plan on visiting each department to personally meet all of you and gain a deeper understanding of the important work you do. I value your expertise and believe that by working together, we will make a positive impact on our community.

I encourage open communication and collaboration, and I am here to support you in any way I can. I hope you’ll share your ideas and insights, as your expertise is important in addressing the challenges and great opportunities that lie ahead. If you have any questions, concerns, or ideas, please feel free to reach out to me.

I look forward to working alongside each of you and thank you for being an integral part of our town’s success.

Warmest regards,

Megan

Employee Spotlight

ANDREW GRIFFITH | PARKS & RECREATION

Meet Andrew Griffith! Andrew works on the Parks and Recreation Maintenance Crew for the Town of Easton . Andrew has been working here for a little over one month, and has been doing a great job maintaning our parks.

Andrew grew up in Easton, and played football for Easton High where he graduated. He credits Easton’s family friendly environment for helping him to be the man he is today.

In his free time, Andrew likes to remain active by taking walks and runs with his two dogs, Coco and Jax. Andrew is also a coach for the Easton High Warriors football program.

HISTORY IN THE MAKING

Easton swears in Megan Cook as first female Mayor, and new Ward 1 and Ward 3 Council Members

On Monday, May 15, 2023, history was made in Easton, MD as Megan Cook was sworn in as the first female Mayor in Town history. After winning the Municipal election held on May 2, Megan Cook took her oath of office at the May 15 Town Council meeting and received a standing ovation from the tightly packed council chambers.

Following the applause, Cook’s first action as Mayor was to swear in Maureen Curry as Ward 1 Council Member and David Montgomery as Ward 3 Council Member. Former council members Al Silverstein and Ron Engle wished their new replace -

ments the best of luck, and offered assistance as needed in their transitions.

Former Mayor Willey also addressed the new mayor and council speaking highly of Cook saying, “she’s certainly capable of doing a good job, and I look forward to seeing her do that good job and having the support of the council that she’s going to need,” Willey also added, “buckle up, ‘cause it’s getting ready to take off guys.”

Mayor Cook’s prior role as Town Council President was left vacant due to the change, so the council held a vote to

elect an acting president until a new election can be held. Ward 4 Council Member Reverend Davis nominated Ward 2 Council Member Don Abbatiello for the Council President position which was unanimously approved by the new council.

Mayor Cook delivered her first statements to the Council, beginning by expressing her gratitude towards former Mayor Willey and his efforts and accomplishments over the years. Cook said, “your unwavering commitment to public service and tireless efforts have made a lasting impact on this Town. Easton is Easton because of you.”

Mayor Cook continued by addressing the historic moment at hand, “I know people elected me because they see I have the skills, the experience, the insight to lead this great town, but the significance of this moment, of being the first woman elected to Mayor of Easton is not lost on me. Tonight marks a mon -

umental milestone in the journey towards equality and progress.”

Before delving into more traditional town business, Cook added, “I hope to make a meaningful impact for the women who will follow.”

Previously, Mayor Megan Cook was elected the Ward 4 Council Member in 2009, where she served for 11 years before being elected as Council President in 2020. She is very active in several communities around Easton including: co-chairing the community built playground “Project Idlewild,” co-founding CarePacks of Talbot County, serving as Project Manager for Play in Color, Assistant Coaching the Easton High School Tennis teams, and working as Tennis League Director for the Y at Washington. Mayor Cook lives in Easton with her Husband Landy and their three children.

Tonight marks a monumental milestone in the journey towards equality and progress.

I hope to make a meaningful impact for the women who will follow .

— Mayor Megan Cook

OPPOSITE PAGE: Mayor Megan Cook Swears in Ward 3 Council Member David Montgomery and Ward 1 Council Member Maureen Curry. TOP LEFT: Mayor Megan Cook embraces her husband after being sworn in. LEFT: Mayor Megan Cook shakes the hand of Clerk of the Circuit Court Kathi Dulin Duvall after she is sworn in as Mayor of Easton. BOTTOM LEFT: Megan Cook signs the Oath Book after being sworn in as Mayor. ABOVE: The Council applauds the swearing in of Mayor Cook. Below. The newly elected council is seated together for the first time

BEYOND

Public Works employees Justin Jones and Brandon Miles work through the night to protect a neighborhood from flooding

On April 28, Town of Easton Public Works employees Justin Jones and Brandon Miles worked through the night to fix a flooded street in The Woods at Stoney Ridge neighborhood.

They arrived promptly, troubleshooted the problem, and worked tirelessly to get a drain blockage cleared that caused flooding so severe that it not only made the roads unsafe to drive, but also began to threaten property damage.

Nearby homeowner Larry Schuyler said, “Those guys were awesome, they had a positive attitude and worked hard to get things fixed up. It was humbling to see them out there and working to get the situation under control. You just don’t see that anymore, the water was up 16-17” and they worked through it. You could tell they took pride in their work.”

Outstanding work Justin and Brandon!!

Q&A WITH JUSTIN JONES

Q: How did you find out about the flooding?

A: I got called by Mike Dickerson who was notified by the 911 center through our on-call list.

Q: Do you interact personally with any of the homeowners in the area?

A: I did have interaction with two of the residents. One was actually assisting in helping me look for the storm drains and the other was just making sure he didn’t need to leave his residence.

Q: How bad was the flood, was it a threat?

A: The flooding was pretty bad for that area. In my tenure with the Town of Easton we’ve never had an issue like that. It wasn’t an immediate threat to damaging anything, but it was halfway up to most of the residences in that area.

Q: How long were you at the flood site?

A: I was at the flood site from 9:30 pm Friday till 8 am Saturday morning.

Q: What were you able to do to get the flooding fixed?

A: To get the flooding to go away we tried using a firetruck to draft water out of a storm drain and send it to another storm drain system but that was not working like I hoped, so we called Mr. Rooter to respond out with their jet truck and jet the pipe to see if they could get it to clear. After around 4 hours of doing the jetting we finally broke through the blockage and the water drained like it was supposed to.

Q: How does it feel to solve a problem that posed a threat to our community?

A: It was a good feeling when we finally got the flooding to recede because I’ll admit I was getting very frustrated and nervous when the water wouldn’t go down. Big thing is that it’s part of my job and myself and my crew, when it comes to an emergency like this one we give it 110% until we solve the issue.

A FOND FAREWELL

Town of Easton employees say goodbye to Mayor Bob Willey with BBQ, gifts of appreciation

On May 15, prior to the swearing in of Mayor Megan Cook, employees from the Town Office, the Easton Police Department, Public Works, Easton Economic Development Corporation, and Easton Utilities filled the back parking lot behind the Town office to see Mayor Bob Willey off.

Mayor Willey gave some heartfelt words to his employees, and was presented with two gifts: a framed photo of the entire Town staff from the Town Office, and a classic black street sign with his name emblazoned on it from Public Works.

After that it was time to eat! Diemon’s BBQ (run by Town of Easton Technical Inspector Tom Diem) catered the event with delicious pit ham, BBQ chicken, baked beans and coleslaw.

We thank Mayor Bob Willey for all of his service, and most especially for all he has accomplished for us as Mayor over the past 20 years!

Diemon’s BBQ!

TOP ROW: A look at the delicious food catered by Diemon’s BBQ. ABOVE: Mayor Willey poses with his gift from the Town Office, a framed photo of the entire Town of Easton Staff. Kathy Ruf assists him in showing it off. BOTTOM RIGHT: Diemon’s BBQ team, bolstered by the help of Town Manager Don Richardson and the IT department. BOTTOM LEFT: Mayor Willey’s gift from the Public Works team, a classicly styled Town of Easton street sign with his name emblazoned on it.

MAYOR BOB WILLEY BIO

Mayor Robert C. Willey is a life-long resident of Talbot County. He attended schools in Easton and graduated from Easton High School in 1959. In April 1961, started work at Waverly Press and was employed there for 41 years until retiring in March 2002.

Willey married Betsy Lee Thompson from Oxford on September 2, 1961 and raised three children. The immediate family is comprised of the three children, a daughter-in-law, four grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Their oldest son is deceased. Their other son is an Easton High School and Salisbury University graduate and is now self-employed. Their daughter, also an Easton High School and Salisbury University graduate, is employed by the Federal Government in Virginia. The grandchildren now attend or are graduates of Chesapeake College, Salisbury University, James Madison, and West Virginia University.

Mayor Willey is a member of numerous civic activities. He has been a member of the Easton Volunteer Fire Department for 58 years serving as secretary, treasurer, trustee and fire fighter; member of the Easton Elks Lodge for 56 years; past president Easton Kiwanis Club; past member of the Board of Directors of the Safety Council of Maryland and a life-long member of the First Baptist Church of

Easton. He has also coached Little League baseball and football for 14 years. President of the Eastern Shore Association of Municipalities, 2002; and has served on MML Legislative Committee for 13 years. Inducted into MD Municipal League Hall of Fame in 2012.

Mayor Willey served the Town of Easton as a council member for six years before becoming Council President for another six years. He was elected in May 2003 as Mayor.

In connection with duties at Waverly Press, then Cadmus, he completed several courses offered by Virginia Tech, University of Maryland, George Washington University, Chesapeake College and University of Baltimore.

Member of the Board of Directors, Maryland Municipal League 2007-2008 and 2017-2018. Vice-President of Eastern Shore Association of Municipalities 2007-2008, Past President ESAM. Member of Government Advisory Committee for the Chesapeake Bay Commission for 12 years, MML District 2 Vice President 2017, 2018.

Mayor Robert Willey received the Prestigious Paul Harris Fellow Award from the Easton Rotary Club, December 2014.

COURTESY OF KATHY RUF

GREEN THUMB

In advance of Memorial Day, the Easton EDC worked to enrich Easton’s downtown streets by planting flowers in the tree wells along Harrison St, Dover St. Washington St, and Goldsborough St.

As there was lots of ground to cover, they reached out to get some help from the Town of Easton and Easton Utilities! Several members of Town of Easton came out to help over two days (May 10 and May 23).

Thank you to all who came out, and to the Easton EDC for putting this together as our streets look that much nicer now!

POSITIVE PROGRESS

Easton’s plastic bag ordinance prevents circulation of over 1 million bags in first month

Since the passing of the plastic bag ordinance on April 2, single-use plastic bags can no longer be found at the checkout lines of any Easton, Maryland stores. Easton residents have been exclusively using reusable bags (and supplemental paper bags) to bring home their groceries and goods for a little over a month now. To see how big of an impact this has made, the Town of Easton and Easton Economic Development Corporation (Easton EDC) have teamed up to see just how many bags the ordinance has prevented from hitting the streets since its passage.

Easton EDC Director of Strategic Initiatives Deena Kilmon said, “We reached out to the larger local chain stores to get a gauge on how many bags they were going through each month. It was the best way to see where we stand after the ordinance passed.”

After surveying 11 of the largest stores in town (department, hardware, and grocery stores), 7 stores replied with their pre-ban monthly intake of single-use plastic bags. Of the 7 stores that replied, they accounted for 1,006,000 bags that would have circulated around Easton in the last 30 days.

Town of Easton Communications Specialist Greg Mueller remarked, “Make no mistake, this is a low estimate. Some stores we reached out to couldn’t supply us with their numbers, and we only targeted the larger stores.

There’s still a substantial amount that would be coming from medium-sized and smaller stores around Town.” Mueller continued, “Even without all of the data, 1 million bags in 30 days is a pretty staggering number for a Town of our size.”

“We’re just really proud of our Town right now,” Kilmon added. “From our residents to our businesses, everybody has been chipping in to help make this work, and it’s nice to see some numbers backing up that we’re headed in the right direction.”

Businesses have seen a slight uptick in paper bag usage, but reusable bags have been a hot commodity around town. “Almost everywhere we went, they said their reusable bags were flying off of the shelves. Some stores were even restocking daily,” Kilmon stated. She added, “this is really encouraging, because the purpose of the ordinance was to motivate people to be proactive and focus on reusable totes — lessening the environmental impact across the board.”

Easton EDC and Town of Easton plan to give updates on the plastic bag ordinance intermittently throughout the year. Mueller said, “seeing these numbers is a great help, and puts things in perspective, but it will be nice to see how this is positively affecting local watermen, sanitation workers, landfills, and even the average citizen. Time will tell.”

Easton leads the Way Other cities to follow

The plastic bag ordinance was approved by the Town via Ordinance 784, which passed on 9/6/2022 and went into effect 4/2/2023. The Town of Easton’s plastic bag ban prohibits retail establishments from providing single-use plastic bags to customers.

After one month, large scale retail establishments were asked to provide numbers of bags that had been purchased prior to the legislation taking effect. Just a small sample revealed that over one million bags from seven establishments have been kept out of local circulation.

Baltimore has led the way in this type of action, but more cities are to follow. Annapolis has introduced Bill 19-23 and other lawmakers have tried to pass statewide legislation. A bill by then Delegate Brooke Lierman, who is now Comptroller for the State of Maryland, nearly passed in 2020, according to the Sierra Club in this 2020 article. Delaware also passed a complete ban in 2019.

The Easton EDC has been supporting the communication efforts of this ordinance and the impact on our retailers. Several retailers and organizations have stepped up to promote the use of re-usable bags, include the Talbot Waterman’s Association, The Town of Easton, Plastic-Free Easton, Easton Utilities, and The Ivy Cafe.

COURTESY

OF DEENA KILMON, EASTON EDC

Two of the reusable bags sanctioned by Easton EDC and Discover Easton that are given out to help combat the use of paper and plastic bags across town. Photo by Deena Kilmon.

We’re just really proud of our Town right now .

From our residents to our businesses, everybody has been chipping in to help make this work, and it’s nice to see some numbers backing up that we’re headed in the right direction.

— Deena Kilmon, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Easton EDC

WE HAVE A WINNER!

Congratulations to Dawn Hutchison for winning the Employee Newsletter Cover Photo Contest! Dawn won a $25 gift card to The Ivy for her submission that landed on the May cover of the Town of Easton Employee Newsletter.

Thank you for your photos, and well done Dawn!

You could be the next winner by submitting your potential cover photos to gmueller@ eastonmd.gov. If your submission is chosen, you too will win a $25 gift card!

Employee Benefits

Human Resources

Birthdays

JUNE

Ryan Heckler

Josh Merrick

Sam Pearson

Alan Lowrey

Jackie Naylor

Scott Messick

Renthia Thomas

Bill Murdoch

Ronald Hayman

Don Richardson

Tim Tarrant

Nancy Pinkney

Andrew Griffith

Savannah Miles

Detraie Lake

Justin Reibly

Kathy Ruf

Ray Rodgers

Anniversaries

JUNE

Ron Dixon 15 years

Bert Murphy 15 years

Heather Hanson 15 years

Anthony Reyes 15 years

Jon McDougald 15 years

Cody Bland 5 years

Chipotle Chicken Flatbreads

2 flatbreads

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1 clove garlic, diced

4 chicken tenders, cooked and cubed

1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered w/ salt, to taste; pepper, to taste

1/2 cup ranch dressing

1 1/2 teaspoons chipotle seasoning

2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, chopped

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Place parchment paper on baking sheet and add flatbreads. Sprinkle cheese on flatbreads. Top with garlic, chicken and tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Bake 16 minutes until cheese is melted.

In small bowl, mix ranch and chipotle seasoning.

Drizzle ranch dressing on flatbreads and sprinkle with cilantro leaves.

Recipe

SUMMERTIME and the livin’s cheesy

Gatherings in the summer sun are all about easy, convenient recipes combined with the joy warm weather brings. Spend those special occasions with those you love most and make this summer one to remember with this great dish.

When dining outdoors with family, friends and neighbors, there are few things better than a tasty dish the whole family can enjoy like these easy, cheesy,

delicious Chipotle Chicken Flatbreads.

Perfect for al fresco entertaining when served alongside a fresh salad, they’re simple to make and allow guests to personalize with preferred toppings before popping in the oven. As a colorful and fresh dish, it’s an ideal meal for get-togethers on the patio.

For more recipe ideas, visit Culinary.net.