MEMOS AT RANDOM www.Delaforum.com 6/22/10

George Lossé, a principal founder of the movement to revitalize Claymont, will relinquish the presidency of the Claymont Community Coalition, the 'umbrella' civic association he has led for 16 years.

Lossé said his personal battle with cancer will restrict the extent of his future involvement even as the apparent early success of the Darley Green redevelopment project indicates that the movement is on its way to achieving its original goals. At a meeting of the association on June 17, Lossé appointed a nominating committee to produce a slate of officer candidates for an election to be held in August. Meanwhile, vice president Babak Gogolab will take the helm which Lossé has held, mostly by acclamation, during a series of two-year terms. County 

Councilman John Cartier paid tribute at the meeting to Lossé for his effective involvement not only in Claymont but throughout the county. 

Lossé returned in 1990 from deployment with the Delaware National Guard during the first Iraq war to find Claymont Terrace without a civic association and the broader community challenged by state government's disposal of what is now Woodshaven-Kruse Park. With Joe Tilley, Dawn Lamb, Frank Kolling, Janet Dalton, Lossé and his wife, Nora, started what would morph into the Claymont Renaissance. Tilley was the coalition's first president. They obtained from then County Executive Tom Gordon a $25,000 grant as seed money and enlisted the support of Councilman Bob Weiner. Amid considerable skepticism, their organization wended its way through several subsequent issues culminating in obtaining a developer for the blighted Brookside apartments complex.