For the second consecutive year, city officials are looking to take more quarters out of tourists' pockets as a way of adding to Rehoboth Beach's revenue stream and managing downtown parking.

As part of preparing this year's budget, the mayor and city officials are considering doubling the current parking rate from $1 to $2 per hour. Also being considered are rate increases for parking permits and extending the paid-parking season an additional two weeks into the fall.

Visitors to Rehoboth Beach who want to park near the beach will have a new option this summer: credit cards.

The second draft of the 2008-09 city budget also calls for a 19 percent increase in refuse rates and a 50 percent increase for seasonal parking permits.

The city is planning to use a credit card system on all the Reino parking meters on the first two blocks of Rehoboth Avenue. The city also proposes to raise parking meter rates from $1 an hour to $2 an hour. The increase would bring the city around $415,000 in projected revenue, which the commissioners agreed to put into a capital improvement pool that would help fund various projects such as Boardwalk refurbishment, the city municipal complex and wastewater disposal.

Many people are convinced John G. Griffith would be alive today if something as simple as rumble strips were in place along the Route 1 corridor in coastal Sussex.

Griffith, 44, of Timonium, Md., was killed early last July 28, as he worked on his bicycle off the shoulder near the Indian River Inlet bridge. Police said the driver apparently fell asleep, drifted onto the shoulder and hit Griffith, director of Johns Hopkins Fibroid Center for the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics. He died at the scene.

Church groups that served a total of 8,000 meals to hungry international students last summer are getting organized to assist the wave of students expected this summer.

The Lewes-Rehoboth Association of Churches (LRAC) has anchored the International Student Outreach Program since its inception in 2005, providing breakfasts and dinners and helping students find temporary housing. “Churches become the social service agency of choice for young people,” said program director Hugh Leahy, who also serves as senior vice president of Delaware Community Foundation.

American Indians knew it. The U.S. Army knew it. And now thousands of readers of AARP Magazine, the publication for the 50-plus set, know it.

Cape Henlopen State Park has one of the best beaches north of Florida.

"It's a perfect location," said Rob Schroeder, a Lewes-area resident and longtime fan of the park. "With the ocean, with the bay, with the pine barren and the marsh behind it, it's a park that has something for everybody."

Opportunities for a new life and a better future were set into motion for Sussex County in 2007.

Conjoined twins celebrated their first birthday apart and wind farms promised a plan to provide clean energy to Delaware residents.

Beach dunes will be replenished from nature's wear and beach-goers may have an opportunity to breathe in fresh air with a possible smoking ban. Not without some controversy, of course.

Dewey Beach

Dewey Beach Club -- As he's done in previous years, veteran local disc jockey Dave Lemmon will spin oldies. Admission is free, but call for reservations; seatings are at 7 and 9 p.m., with "open" seating at 5 p.m.

Lighthouse Raw Bar -- New Year's Eve Bash (free admission)

Baycenter (at Ruddertowne) -- The umpteenth annual New Year's Eve performance by Love Seed Mama Jump (with guests Burnt Sienna and Kristen & the Noize) at Ruddertowne will go on as usual -- with a few slight changes. The Rusty Rudder has closed for the winter for the first time, but the show will go on next door at the Baycenter (and its downstairs sister business, Crabber's Cove). Tickets are $115; they started at $75 or so back in the summer months, but have gone up about $10 per month since then. As the Beachcomber went to press, Ruddertowne entertainment director Vikki Walls said 621 tickets have been sold. The entire left side of Dickinson Street bayside classified as Ruddertowne was recently purchased by new owners, but they're keeping the "no cover" tradition at the Lighthouse Raw Bar for those who would like a cheaper night out in Dewey.

Irish Eyes, the popular Lewes restaurant and bar that was destroyed by arson in March, officially reopened Friday.

General manager Dana Smith was hoping for "a slower start," but it didn't turn out that way.

"We actually opened [Thursday] very quietly, but it wasn't that quiet. Word got out and we had a full bar at 11 a.m. and a full dining room until 1 o'clock in the morning."

Smith said regular customers, eagerly anticipating the reopening of the Anglers Road eatery that overlooks the Lewes & Rehoboth Canal, began taking seats Friday morning a half hour before service began at 11 a.m.

Kevin Fleming’s portfolio of photographic images spans the world. Whether it’s the simple beauty of birds in nature, a crop duster flying into your face, or the assassination of an Egyptian president, Fleming’s eye and shutter have captured a broad sweep of life on planet Earth.

Now Fleming, who spent a decade roaming the globe and focusing his lens on subjects for National Geographic Magazine, has created two images that blend his photographic and artistic senses with a knowing nod to popular commercial culture.

There is a dividing line cutting Delaware's resort coast almost in half -- the Indian River Inlet.

Keeping those two halves connected is a bridge the Delaware Department of Transportation is working to replace. But shifting soils, cost overruns and close inspections by legislators are complicating and extending the effort.

The Indian River Inlet Bridge is not just used by tourists traveling between beaches, but also for home and business deliveries, emergency and law enforcement agencies and commuter traffic.