New Rehoboth city manager called strong LGBTQ ally
Taylour Tedder, whose appointment as the new Rehoboth Beach, Del. city manager has come under fire over his salary and benefits package, is described as a strong and committed LGBTQ community ally by the leader of an LGBTQ rights organization in Boulder City, Nev., where Tedder served as city manager for three years before being hired for that same position in Rehoboth.
He is scheduled to begin his new job in Rehoboth on May 15. Brynn DeLorimier, president of Dam Pride, the LGBTQ organization of Boulder City, told the Washington Blade Tedder played a lead role in helping the group successfully lobby the mayor and City Council in what she calls a conservative, Republican-dominated city to approve earlier this year a first-ever proclamation naming June 2024 as Pride Month in Boulder City. “I feel he’s very supportive,” DeLorimier said. “We’re really, really sad to see him go.
I have a feeling we won’t find a city manager as progressive and diplomatic as he is,” she said. “So, Rehoboth Beach is really lucky to have him.” Since it voted unanimously on April 8 to hire Tedder as city manager, the seven-member Rehoboth City Commission, which acts as a city council, has come under criticism from some Rehoboth residents for providing Tedder with a contract that includes an annual salary of $250,000, coverage of $50,000 for his moving expenses, and a $750,000 house loan that will be forgiven in full if he remains in his job for seven years.
Rehoboth’s two gay commissioners, Patrick Gossett, and Edward Chrzanowski, are among the commissioners who have been criticized for voting to hire Tedder on grounds, among other things, that his salary and benefits package are out of line with that given to Rehoboth’s previous city managers, Rehoboth Mayor Stan Mills, who also serves on the commission, called Tedder “fiscally savvy, experienced in the day-day-day operations of a destination community, enthusiastic and energetic, and a fantastic communicator,” according to the Cape Gazette
