Opinions
Paul Kuhns for mayor of Rehoboth Beach
Put an end to incompetent government in resort town
Vote Paul Kuhns for Rehoboth Beach mayor.
The City of Rehoboth Beach is a small community in Sussex County, the southernmost county in Delaware. Thousands like me first got to know it as a summer vacation destination. Today, it is home to a small group of 1,624 actual voters, those who own property within the city limits and are eligible to vote. If you are one of the lucky ones who owns property in the city, you need to register to vote by the deadline which is on or before July 13.
As a property owner you are eligible to vote even if you don’t live there full time. By law you can vote in Rehoboth Beach elections even if you normally vote in Maryland, Virginia, D.C., Philadelphia or somewhere else. You can also register and request an absentee ballot if you won’t be in town on Aug. 12. With such a small number of voters you have an even greater responsibility to do your civic duty. You can vote by absentee ballot. An affidavit must be completed. Affidavits may be downloaded from the city’s website or by calling City Hall at 302-227-6181 to request an affidavit be mailed to you
Many don’t realize the Rehoboth Beach zip code, 19971, includes thousands whose homes and businesses include the address Rehoboth Beach but who live outside the approximately one mile boundaries of the actual city and aren’t eligible to vote in the Aug. 12 election for mayor and City Commission. But what happens in the City of Rehoboth impacts their lives and property values so it makes the 1,624 voters even more important.
For the past 30 years, the denizens of the City of Rehoboth have elected the same mayor. A mayor who over the years has made homophobic remarks; who apparently doesn’t really understand, or want to acknowledge, how the business community in the city drives tourism; who often conducts the business of the city in secret; who was born into wealth owning a large compound in the city and has a personal interest in keeping property taxes low and finding ways to tax everyone else to pay the bills.
His latest, and hopefully the last, incompetent decision was to build the new City Hall complex currently going up on Rehoboth Avenue. Because of poor planning and the mayor making many decisions on the project in secret, the unsightly edifice known to many as Cooper’s Palace (Sam Cooper being the name of the current mayor) is millions of dollars over budget and way behind schedule. In a recent letter to the Cape Gazette, a resident of the city said he and his wife “Recently walked down Rehoboth Avenue and passed our new (unfinished) $22,000,000 City Hall.” He added “what impressed me the most was the cost of the $22,000,000 building worked out to over $13,500 for each of the 1,624 registered Rehoboth voters.” Many voters in the city who I have talked to hope this obscenity is the final act for this mayor and that the majority of voters will have reached a point where they will no longer tolerate incompetent leadership.
The voters are lucky because this year there is a great alternative who has tossed his hat into the ring. His name is Paul Kuhns and he currently serves on the Board of Commissioners. Kuhns is a longtime resident of Rehoboth and a businessman in the city. He has a comprehensive understanding of budgets and reality. He has been speaking to voters and explaining, “There are critical financial, environmental and quality of life issues that require a studied long view, with a contemporary vision. It’s time to let the sun shine on all city activities, be totally accountable to the citizens, and be proactive in every area of our government.”
Kuhns added, “As mayor, I want to work with all of the commissioners to discuss ideas and form solutions. I want to be a part of great team rather than try to be the only one on the field. We are a substantial tourist destination as well as a great place to live. We must be able to balance tourism with a high quality of life for our residents. We need to encourage close relationships with our local, county and state peers in order to work on issues that continue to affect us all. Under the current mayor, those relationships do not exist today. I will work to ensure there is complete community outreach because I understand there are many more people in the 19971 zip code that are impacted by what we do in our one square mile city.”
The current mayor clearly sees himself as an entity unto himself. He likes working alone, having secret meetings with city staff and contractors, keeping elected commissioners in the dark. If you take the time to look at the City of Rehoboth website you might not even know that a City Board of Commissioners exists. Paul Kuhns will change that.
On Aug. 12, the 1,624 voters in the City of Rehoboth can make a real difference in their town. Electing Paul Kuhns as mayor will see Rehoboth Beach grow in positive ways over the next decades. So voters can either reelect a mayor who doesn’t believe in, or understand, long-term capital planning and who chooses to run the city on a day-to-day basis; or they can elect Kuhns who has promised that among other things he will focus on process. He said “Our city government lacks formal policies and procedures that should be inherent in any orderly city government. Our policies must be much more proactive. Currently, the city is only reactive after continued complaints. This may have worked in the 80’s when we were a sleepy little town outside of the summer season, but it is not responsible management today.”
Those like myself who have been coming to Rehoboth Beach for decades love that it is still in some ways the town we first fell in love with. At the same time we understand for the city to prosper and grow the person elected mayor must understand the world as it is today and not govern like the current mayor who appears to be living in the past — building a city hall palace without any regard for the people of the town who have to pay for it.
If you have questions for Paul Kuhns he has shared his email and phone number with the people of the City of Rehoboth Beach, which is a clear indication of the kind of hands-on and transparent mayor he will be. He can be reached at [email protected], or at 302-430-8484 and is happy to answer any specific questions you may have. You should also plan to attend the candidate forum at CAMP on Friday, July 28 at 6 p.m., 37 Baltimore Ave. in Rehoboth Beach. You can hear for yourself why Paul Kuhns will make a great mayor for the City of Rehoboth Beach.
For questions or other information regarding elections, registration to vote and absentee ballots contact Donna Moore at 302-227-6181, ext. 108, or email [email protected].
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBT rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.
Cuba
When impunity meets history
Raúl Castro indicted for alleged role in shooting down Brothers to the Rescue aircraft
The scene would have seemed impossible only a few years ago.
The name of Raúl Castro Ruz appearing formally inside a United States federal criminal indictment. Cuba’s former general of the Army, for decades one of the most powerful figures inside the Havana regime, accused in connection with the shootdown of the Brothers to the Rescue aircraft and the deaths of American citizens in 1996. And all of it unfolding in Miami, inside the Freedom Tower, on May 20.
That detail matters.
Because this indictment arrives at one of the most fragile and politically tense moments in recent relations between Washington and Havana. It comes as Cuba faces deep economic collapse, growing political exhaustion, mass migration, blackouts, and increasing public frustration both inside and outside the island. It also arrives on a date carrying enormous symbolic weight for Cuban exiles — the anniversary of the founding of the Cuban Republic in 1902.
But the true significance of this moment goes far beyond symbolism.
What happened in Miami represents something much larger: the collapse of the idea that certain men would never face accountability.
For decades, Raúl Castro embodied the permanence of revolutionary power in Cuba. Defense minister. Military strategist. The man who oversaw the armed forces for generations. One of the central architects of the Cuban political and security apparatus built alongside Fidel Castro. A figure many believed would leave this world untouched by any court, shielded forever by power, time, and history itself.
Today the image is very different.
Today his name appears inside the language of American criminal prosecution.
And that changes the historical dimension of this case completely.
Because this is no longer simply a political accusation voiced by the Cuban exile community. It is now a formal federal criminal indictment publicly announced by the United States government against one of the highest-ranking figures in the history of the Cuban regime.
The setting itself carried enormous meaning.
The Freedom Tower is not just another building in Miami. For generations of Cuban exiles it represents memory, displacement, survival, and the beginning of a new life after fleeing Cuba. Thousands of Cubans passed through those doors after escaping the revolution. Families arrived carrying fear, uncertainty, grief, and hope all at once. Announcing these charges from that location transformed the moment into something far deeper than a legal proceeding.
And the people witnessing it were not only members of the exile community.
Among those present were relatives of the young men killed nearly 30 years ago. Families who spent decades waiting to hear words they feared might never come. Families who carried the weight of loss while believing the men responsible would never be formally accused by any court.
That emotional weight still surrounds this case.
On Feb. 24, 1996, two civilian aircraft operated by Brothers to the Rescue were shot down over the Florida Straits by Cuban military jets. Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales were killed. The flights were connected to humanitarian rescue efforts searching for Cubans attempting to flee the island during the migration crisis of the 1990s.
Those aircraft were not military bombers.
They were not attacking Cuba.
They were civilian planes associated with rescue operations involving Cubans risking their lives at sea.
That reality has always shaped how this tragedy lives inside the memory of the Cuban exile community.
For many, this was never viewed simply as a geopolitical conflict between hostile governments. It was seen as the use of military force against civilians connected to humanitarian missions during one of the darkest chapters in modern Cuban migration history.
But for many Cubans, the indictment reaches far beyond the Brothers to the Rescue case itself.
It touches decades of unresolved pain tied to one of the central figures behind Cuba’s military and political system.
It reaches mothers who buried sons lost in compulsory military service or in distant wars they never chose to fight. Families who spent years believing promises that were never fulfilled. Political prisoners who disappeared into silence. Relatives who watched loved ones die trying to flee the island.
And for many LGBTQ Cubans, the moment carries another layer of historical weight.
Long before official campaigns promoting tolerance and inclusion emerged from within the Cuban government, there were years of persecution, fear, forced silence, and humiliation carried out under the revolutionary system itself.
The UMAP labor camps remain one of the deepest scars in modern Cuban history. Gay men, pastors, religious believers, artists, and others considered incompatible with the revolutionary ideal were sent away under the language of “re-education” and forced labor.
In recent decades, public gestures toward LGBTQ inclusion promoted by figures close to the Cuban leadership attempted to project an image of progress and openness to the international community. But for many survivors, and for many Cuban LGBTQ people, those gestures never erased the trauma or the historical responsibility tied to the same structures of power that once persecuted them.
For many, acknowledgment without accountability still feels painfully incomplete.
That is why this indictment resonates so deeply today.
Because it arrives while Cuba once again faces profound national crisis. The island is losing entire generations through migration. Public frustration continues to grow. Economic collapse shapes daily life. And the revolutionary narrative that once projected permanence and control appears increasingly eroded by reality itself.
Against that backdrop, the image emerging from Miami becomes even more striking.
A man once viewed as untouchable by history now formally accused by the United States government and legally transformed into a fugitive wanted by American justice.
History moves slowly until suddenly it does not.
And for many Cubans, both on the island and throughout the diaspora, what happened today inside the Freedom Tower felt like witnessing something they once believed they would never live long enough to see.
As a Cuban, as an immigrant, and as someone who has lived close to that pain, one thought keeps returning tonight:
Justice takes time.
But when it finally arrives, it arrives with history behind it.
David Trone’s commercials keep telling us what he has done for women. But apparently, he doesn’t trust them to fight for themselves, or he wouldn’t keep spending countless millions to defeat them.
Trone is trying to buy back his seat in Congress, this time running in a primary in Maryland’s 6th District against incumbent Democrat April McClain Delaney. Once again, Maryland voters should say a loud NO to David Trone. He is doing this after spending nearly $60 million trying to buy a United States Senate seat, which he thankfully lost to Angela Alsobrooks, now one of only two Black women in the United States Senate. Clearly, that was a blow to his ego, and now he is trying again to defeat another very competent woman. He has already spent close to $7 million on commercials attacking Delaney, telling us how much money he has spent on what he calls ‘good deeds.’ Delaney is accurately calling him out for working with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and donating through his business, nearly $800,000 to Republicans, including MAGA ones. When he was buying his first seat in Congress, the Washington Post reported, “Wine retailer David Trone… has contributed more than $150,000 to Republicans in states across the country since 2000, according to a nonpartisan site that tracks money in politics. Most went to candidates and officeholders in states where he sought legislation or regulatory changes favorable to his company, Total Wine & More. Among the Republicans who received funds were Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas and North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory.” The same Pat McCrory who signed anti-LGBTQ legislation and Abbott who wants to close all Planned Parenthood sites in Texas.
I urge voters in Maryland’s 6th, to speak out for, and vote for, April McClain Delaney. Join with me, and a host of others, who have endorsed her as of March 31. They include Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D), Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), and every Democrat in the Maryland U.S. House delegation.
McClain Delaney says, “Now, David Trone says I should step aside, so he can have his old office back after he ran for the Senate, lost, and has been sitting on the sidelines. He’s a distraction. This race isn’t about one man’s ego. … And as a member of team Maryland, I forged strong relationships with Governor Moore and the entire federal delegation, as well as with local leaders across the district.” She adds, “On behalf of my district, I stand up to bullies. That’s why I’ll continue to take on Trump’s assault on our government workers, defend our diverse community, protect choice and women’s reproductive rights, and work against inflation-creating tariffs.”
Again, this isn’t the first time Trone spent a fortune trying to get into Congress. It cost him about $25 million, and two tries, to win the first time. Then his ego had him give up the seat he bought to run for the U.S. Senate. Apparently he has unlimited amounts of money to spend and at nearly 72 thinks he needs to get back in by defeating a strong woman nearly 10 years younger, who is doing a great job. He is clearly not needed in Congress.
Trone always made the basis of his campaigns not taking any money from PACs, lobbyists, and big donors. Seems hypocritical considering he thought it was OK to influence others to build his own business. To give Trone credit he always runs on a very liberal platform, which is pro-LGBTQ, pro-women, and pro-equal and human rights for all. But then Democrats like April McClain Delaney, who he is now running against, has the same platform, and is doing a good job for her constituents.
Trone’s commercials are mostly about what he has done for women. But again, he clearly doesn’t trust women to do for themselves. He spent $60 million running against a great woman for U.S. Senate, and now is spending more millions running against another strong woman, trying to reclaim a House seat he gave up. Marylanders, make sure he loses again, by voting for April McClain Delaney for Congress.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.
Opinions
Skipping Memorial Day crowds in Rehoboth Beach
After 30 years, I’ve become allergic to large gatherings
There are a lot of things about getting older that are great. I love retirement, love the cruises I take, time at my favorite coffee shops, both in D.C. and at the Coffee Mill in Rehoboth. Then there are some not so great things. I have had a few health issues, which luckily, I have fully overcome. Some issues you can do something about, others you can’t. One of the things I have come to realize is, I no longer enjoy big crowds, and this is something I can do something about. Just avoid them.
I have spent every holiday weekend since buying my place in Rehoboth, and that is going on 30 years, at the beach. I go for Christmas and New Year’s, Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, President’s Day, Memorial Day, and Labor Day. Add a few extra holidays I may be missing like Veterans’ Day, if it falls on a weekend. This is the first year I won’t be there on Memorial Day, and it is by choice. Instead, will be staying in D.C. Some will ask why, and my simple answer is to avoid the crowds. I keep thinking of the crowds last Memorial Day and decided to see how it goes skipping it this year.
Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled for all the businesses at the beach when they are swamped with people. And glad those people who want to be there are having a great time, and don’t mind when the lines to get into Aqua and Diego’s are around the block. Or when my favorite place for coffee, The Coffee Mill, has a line when I get there at 7 a.m. When you can’t get a reservation at the Pines or even Ava’s. But last year it finally occurred to me why I wasn’t having as much fun as I used to, and realized it was because I have become allergic to crowds. So, for the first time this year, I determined I was going to stay away and see how it feels. I may regret it after a few hours at home in D.C., or when seeing friends’ posts on Instagram and Facebook. But am going to take that chance. One thing I do regret missing is the incredible annual brunch thrown by my friend Robert, and his husband, but am determined to see what it feels like not being at the beach for the kick-off holiday weekend of the summer.
To wean myself away, I did go last weekend. Had a great time seeing friends. Had fun at Aqua each evening for happy hour; went to a great party at CAMP in honor of their new Executive Director Dr. Robin Brennan. I’ve had a chance to chat with her, and believe they made a great choice when hiring her. Then on Friday evening I went to the Washington Blade annual season kick-off party at Diego’s and met the new Steve Elkins Fellow, Thomas Weaverling, and am sure he will do a great job. It was wonderful to see Ashley Biden there accepting the award given posthumously to Beau Biden for all he did for the LGBTQ community. Then on Saturday I stopped in at Freddie’s Beach Bar for the Cloud Nine reunion. That brought back so many good memories. It was coordinated by the inimitable Fay Jacobs. It was back then when I did like crowds, the more the merrier, and remember dancing all evening on the small crowded dance floor. Some people at the reunion reminded me of all the years I hosted an annual Memorial Day party, actually the first 10 years I had my place at the beach. It was catered by the Blue Moon, when my friend Rob was there, and they brought the Champagne, hors d’oeuvres, and even a bartender. I just had to have fun, and I did. The thought of doing that today is a little overwhelming, and I think it is about age.
So, this year I will see how much I miss being at the beach for the holiday weekend. Then after my June trip to France, will decide whether I want to do the same for the Fourth of July. I kind of look forward to seeing what my thoughts on it are, and how it goes.
For those of you at the beach, I hope the place is a zoo, of the best kind, and you all have a fabulous time.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.
PHOTOS: Black Pride Opening Reception
PHOTOS: Black Pride Pageant and Unity Ball
PHOTOS: Helen Hayes Awards
A magical Mercedes
When impunity meets history
Vt. lawmaker equates transgender identity with bestiality
U.S. attorney nominee confirmed despite anti-LGBTQ history, no trial experience
Skipping Memorial Day crowds in Rehoboth Beach
Iran war causes condom shortage in India
