Camden, Delaware: Idyllic Small Town?

I have lived here since I was 5. My Mother was born and raised here and her parents moved here in the 1920’s. Three generations of our family have called this town home. Three generations graduated from CR high school. And three generations have seen this area change from a rural, affordable, close-knit community to an expensive, highbrowed suburb of Dover.

The Camden town ‘government’ (alias Camden town ‘KGB’) is more concerned with annexing everything in site, driving up property taxes, and demolishing old houses so they can build professional centers rather than treating their town members with respect, responding to real problems, and having a proper concern for the impact their actions will have on the environment and infrastructure of the area.

Case in point, they will send the police out to make sure your yard is to their liking and you aren’t composting (because that might upset the neighbors and lower their property value). Neighbors around here used to talk to neighbors to try and settle matters. But now they take their problems, no matter how frivolous, straight to the town council and police without ever talking to the neighbor they have a problem with (a problem the poor person usually doesn’t even know exists). And the town, instead of encouraging people to talk and work things out, send the police in, no questions asked

But where were the police at 3 in the morning on April 13, 2008? Why wasn’t the group of people disturbing the neighborhood dealt with when the police were called? Several people were awakened by a loud group of people hanging out in the parking lot of the gas station on Old Camden Road. Police were called, as this is not the first time this has happened, but they failed to respond. Lately there have been a number of problems in this area both after school lets out and late at night; Fights in the middle of the road holding up afternoon traffic, shots being fired in the night, and raucous voices shattering the still of the night. People pay dearly to live in this town these days, but is this really the type of place you want to spend $300,000 and more on a house? Where are the taxes going? Are the town council and Camden police keeping our neighborhoods safe or just trying to get as much of your money as they can?

What kind of town promotes this kind of behaviour, discourages conservation, and uses the police force for ridiculous, trivial matters instead of what they should be doing? We should not have to worry that at 3 in the morning someone might decide to shoot off a gun in the street, set of fire crackers, get into a brawl, or just be loud in general to the point of waking people up. And when the police are called, they should come, especially when this is a re-occurring problem. I guess they had more important things to take care of. They were too busy chasing birds out of people’s yards and making sure you aren’t composting.