Mayoral Candidates Discuss Lilly Run Flooding

Patch asked the candidates for the May 3 election to share their opinions on more than a dozen topics relating to the city.

In this installment, the candidates for Havre de Grace mayor—incumbent Wayne Dougherty and challenger City Councilman Mitch Shank—discuss solutions for the Lilly Run flooding issue in Havre de Grace:

Wayne Dougherty

Dougherty listed Lilly Run was one of the 12 major items he’d like to solve when he ran for Mayor in 2007. He’s seen progress.

“We’ve come further than we ever have,” he said. “There was some conflict when I presented URS as our engineering firm when we took care of that. But things have moved along.”

Dougherty is proud of the agreement between the city and the Harford County Board of Education to build a holding pond on school property between the high school and middle school

“And it isn’t a holding pond that’s going to be infested with mosquitoes,” he said. “It’s holding pond that’s going to be just that. It will release. It will be a dry pond. Look at the environmental studies our high school students will be able to do with that.”

Dougherty said the city is working closely with the Federal Emergency Management Association, and progress should be apparent within a year.

“We are going through the permit process now,” he said. “Depending on funding with grants and FEMA, with the applications—which we’re getting nothing but positives back—I think with Lilly Run we’re going to see some improvements starting next spring.”

Mitch Shank

Shank calls Lilly Run “one of those big issues.”

But he doesn’t see any end in sight.

“It’s going to flood forever,” he said.

Shank does see some progress—including the city’s purchase of a house on Giles Street, which will enable the city to potentially divert the water from its current path behind Havre de Grace Elementary School and out to the bay behind the homes on Chesapeake Drive.

He said the lots on the corner of Erie and Juniata streets “will never get built” without some relief to the flooding Lilly Run creates.

It doesn’t stop there for Shank—who recalled a time an ambulance had to be diverted through a meandering series of side streets to reach Harford Memorial Hospital.

“Its also a safety issue,” he said. “Think about it. At one point, Juniata Street was flooded. Nothing can get through. Revolution Street was flooded. Lewis Lane was flooded.”

Ultimately, Shank said: “They just don’t have the money.”

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Other issues the candidates for mayor have addressed:

—April 20

—April 21

—April 22