Concerns shared during Laurel Council meeting lead to tense exchanges

Questions surrounding vacant housing enforcement, financial transparency, and overdue municipal audits dominated discussion during the Laurel Mayor and Council meeting Monday night as resident Sharon Ardisana delivered an extensive presentation challenging town leadership and administrative oversight.

Speaking during the public portion of the meeting, Ardisana said she felt compelled to publicly address issues she believes have gone unresolved for years, despite previous conversations with town officials. “It gives me no pleasure to stand up here and point out these issues in a public meeting,” Ardisana told council members and residents in attendance. “But I feel that I have been left with no other choice.”

Her remarks focused heavily on Laurel’s vacant property ordinance, adopted in 2017, which requires vacant homes to be registered annually and subjects owners to escalating fees and possible legal action if violations continue.

Ardisana said her concerns began after meeting with town officials in August 2025 and receiving a list identifying 51 vacant homes throughout Laurel. She said she became alarmed by what she described as a lack of visible enforcement action, particularly involving long-condemned properties that continue to deteriorate.

One property she referenced was a condemned structure on South Central Avenue that she said had remained in poor condition for five years without demolition or rehabilitation.

According to Ardisana, subsequent Freedom of Information Act requests revealed that only 24 properties were currently listed on the town’s vacant property registry, despite the earlier identification of approximately 50 vacant homes. “Why are they not on the register and subsequently being fined?” she asked. “That’s what the ordinance says we’re supposed to do.”

She argued that consistent enforcement of the ordinance since its adoption could have brought the town hundreds of thousands of dollars in registration fees and fines. She said fees from dozens of properties over several years alone could have produced significant additional revenue for Laurel.

She also questioned why no properties appeared to have been added to the registry during a four-year period following adoption of the ordinance.

“In other words, there appears to have been a four-year gap between when the ordinance was signed and the time that the first home was added to the registry,” she said.

Ardisana connected the vacant housing issue to broader concerns about economic development and community image, arguing that deteriorating properties discourage investment and negatively affect neighborhoods throughout Laurel.

“We know that Laurel has been identified as the worst place to live in Delaware,” she said. “How can we expect economic growth under these circumstances?”

In addition to concerns over code enforcement, Ardisana sharply criticized the town’s financial reporting practices and budget oversight procedures.

She questioned whether the financial reports provided monthly to mayor and council adequately comply with the requirements outlined in Laurel’s town charter. According to her comments, current reports provide only partial revenue information and fail to include detailed expenditures or comprehensive budget data.

Ardisana argued that many municipalities regularly provide year-to-date budget reports, detailed expense reports, check registers, and bank balance statements to elected officials and the public in order to maintain transparency and accountability.

“The office of the town manager has a seven-million-dollar budget with virtually no oversight or accountability,” she said. “Nobody has any idea where the taxpayers’ dollars are going.”

Her presentation also highlighted concerns over delayed municipal audits. Ardisana stated Laurel is currently more than two years behind in completing required annual audits and could soon be three years behind.

She referenced language in the town charter requiring audits to be completed within 90 days after the end of the fiscal year.

“When audits are years behind, the public cannot clearly see the town’s financial condition,” she said. “That’s another serious barrier to accountability.”

The most heated portion of the meeting came during an extended exchange between Ardisana and Councilman Jonathon Kellam, who strongly challenged several of her conclusions and defended the actions of town administration.

Kellam questioned why, if the town truly lacked oversight and accountability as Ardisana suggested, those concerns had not been raised previously through official audit findings or by state or federal agencies.

“For the 10 years that I’ve been on here, how come it has not been addressed by the auditors, by the state, by the federal?” Kellam asked during the discussion.

Ardisana responded that her criticism was not centered on whether the town had technically passed or failed prior audits, but rather on the fact that the audits themselves were not being completed within the timeline mandated by Laurel’s charter.

“My statement had nothing to do whether we pass audits or not,” she replied. “My statement says we are not meeting the mandate to perform these audits within 90 days.”

Kellam continued pressing Ardisana, suggesting she was unfairly portraying Town Manager Jamie Smith as failing to do her job without fully acknowledging the circumstances that contributed to the delays.

“You’re making it look like Jamie is not doing her job and that is not true,” Kellam said. “If you’re going to nitpick, you should do some research.”

Kellam then pointed to the unexpected death of the town’s finance director and the challenges associated with securing a new auditor as major contributing factors.

“Did you realize our finance director died?” Kellam asked. “Did you know that we had to get another auditor?”

Town Manager Jamie Smith followed Kellam’s remarks by explaining the timeline surrounding the town’s auditing issues. According to Smith, Laurel’s longtime auditor stopped performing the town’s audits in late 2022, requiring officials to solicit bids and select a new auditing firm. During that same transition period, the town’s finance manager passed away unexpectedly, creating additional delays while staff attempted to reorganize financial records and provide necessary information to the new auditors.

“We had to get another auditor,” Smith said. “When you have your finance manager unexpectedly die, we just can’t take somebody off the street and get them to do that.”

Smith added that the new auditing firm has since completed one audit presentation and has additional audits in progress as the town works to get caught up.

Ardisana acknowledged the difficulties created by staffing changes and the death of the finance manager but maintained that those circumstances did not eliminate the town’s responsibility to comply with its charter requirements.

“With all due respect, excuses are one thing and it does not change the mandate,” she responded. “You meet the mandate or you don’t.”

She further argued that while unforeseen events can create temporary setbacks, they should not result in the town remaining years behind on required financial reporting.

“I can respect that the finance director died, I do,” Ardisana said. “But does it take three years to recover from that?”

The exchange underscored broader tensions between residents demanding greater accountability and elected officials defending the operational realities faced by local government.

Despite the tense back-and-forth, the discussion eventually prompted action from members of council.

Councilman George Lodato proposed motions requesting further investigation into the concerns surrounding the vacant property ordinance and town financial reporting practices. He also requested that officials explore what potential revenue differences might exist between Laurel’s Alderman Court system and the Justice of the Peace Court system.

“It’s the residents who have the power by utilizing their voice that helps support this community,” Lodata said during the meeting.

Ardisana concluded her remarks by encouraging residents to remain engaged and hold elected officials accountable.

“This has nothing to do with whether they’re nice people,” she said. “The question is: are they performing their duties?”

The presentation and ensuing debate marked one of the more extensive public accountability discussions at Laurel Town Hall in recent months and highlighted growing public concern regarding housing conditions, municipal finances, and transparency within town government.