REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. - A new lawsuit has been filed regarding the Rehoboth Beach City Manager Taylour Tedder's contract with the city.
The suit is being brought by plaintiffs Steven Linehan and Thomas Gaynor, two men who were part of the June FOIA petition regarding the same topic. It specifically names Mayor Stan Mills, City Manager Taylour Tedder and city commissioners including Patrick Gossett, Edward Chrzanowski, Francis Markert, Tim Bennett, Toni Sharp and Donald Preston.
The lawsuit seeks to challenge the legality of an employment agreement between the city and its new city manager, Taylour Tedder. The plaintiffs allege that the employment agreement, which includes a $250,000 annual salary and a $750,000 forgivable housing loan, was entered into in violation of Delaware’s Freedom of Information Act and the city’s charter and is the result of an illegal use of municipal funds. According to the suit, the job posting was originally for an expected hiring range between $140,000 and $175,000.
They argue that the hiring process was conducted in secret without proper public disclosure, and that Tedder does not meet the qualifications required by the charter for the City Manager position. According to the lawsuit, Mills and the commissioners met in non-public meetings it says violated FOIA seven times between November 2023 and March 2024 for the purpose of discussing the qualifications of individual candidates.
At the end of June, the city was found to have been in violation of FOIA by the Attorney General's office. Shortly after, Mills and commissioners held a public meeting on July 8 to ratify the terms of Tedder's employment agreement. The lawsuit states that Mills warned people in attendance that the agreement and Tedder's qualifications were not open for debate and threatened to remove anyone who the mayor deemed was out of order.
This saga with Taylour Tedder has been a on going controversy on the coast ever since Tedder was hired in May.