I want to first offer a disclaimer, along with an admission; I am a Republican Operative, a political strategist, campaign manager for my sister, Representative Ruth Briggs King, Representative Steve Smyk, Representative Dave Wilson & Senator Brian Pettyjohn, Sheriff Robert Lee & Councilman Rob Arlett.
I count as my friends Pete Schwarzkopf, Joe Conaway & Bob Wheatley.
I was invited to attend the Sussex County Association of Towns, referred to as SCAT. This was the annual Legislator’s dinner. Mayor Bill West, the Mayor of Georgetown and his wife Faye hosted the event, the first lady of the town greeted everyone as they entered the Cheer center. From the time I entered the door, until the end of the meeting, I will state Bill and the staff did and excellent job.
The Governor was the key-note speaker and reviewed his State of the State address and his budget address. Yes, he addressed the gas tax, the infrastructure and the education issues. Nothing new,—the suggestion of a reduction of the senior property tax deduction, from $500.-to $250., and where to make the necessary cuts to fund different projects. He spoke about the upswing in employment in the state and the need for additional employees for the aviation industry. The governor asked for questions and got one on the infrastructure, was it road, rail or additional transportation methods.
Every Senator & Representative was allowed 4 minutes by the Mayor—Yes he had a “Flag” man. Mayor Bill runs a tight ship!
Speaker Schwarzkopf was 1st and made mention that he is the ONLY Democrat elected in Sussex to the legislature. He alluded to the truth, that being, if the tax bill for the reduction of property tax for seniors went to the house floor, it would maybe have two (2) votes. I‘ve known Pete for over 30 years—we went through he the state Police academy together.
He spoke the truth when he referred to his district, that has multi-million dollar homes to low-income housing—the truth, who NEEDS the reduction?
These may not be a popular topics but we need to have the discussion.
Rep Smyk, addressed the issue of addiction & treatment in Sussex County.
Rep Dave Wilson addressed the issues with too many regulations.
Rep Harvey Kenton, who is on the Joint Finance Committee spoke to the Budget & how the work had just started and that he was the ONLY one from Sussex County on the committee.
Rep Ruth Briggs King addressed the Revenue enhancement committee she is on, and stated the search was on for additional streams of income for the state coffers.
Rep Rich Collins commended those town leaders who had the closest government to the people –and encouraged them to keep and eye on the offers from state and Federal governments with strings attached.
Minority leader Danny Short–struck a chord with me when he reminded many of his term as a local mayor and being interviewed by Dan Rather, as Seaford was known as a “Crack” capitol. He made it clear we must step in to help the city of Wilmington—
Most of all today, I read in the paper another homicide in the city—our answer a $200,000 expenditure for a task force to employ consultants.
$200,000k would put a lot of cops on the streets.
With all this in play, what is next. The state is working with no large influx of money. We spend a lot of $$$$$ on education and the return on investment is not good. Our infrastructure is decaying—yes it is—our high speed internet service in many areas does not exist. Regulations are killing growth in the state.
Time to get to work.
Until you can change the vote in Dover to bi-partisan ship this is what you get!
Are our politicians really so dense as to not understand why Little Wilmidelphia has so many murders? Start with 16-year-old illiterate dropout drug-addicted mothers, absentee drug-dealer fathers, and repeat the cycle for generations. This is the tried-and-true recipe for permanent dysfunction, and it is manifest in virtually every city in the United States.
From “Foseti” Selections From the Dark Enlightenment:
“In much of the Western world, in stark contrast [to first world Asian cities], barbarism has been normalized. It is considered simply obvious that cities have ‘bad areas’ that are not merely impoverished, but lethally menacing to outsiders and residents alike. Visitors are warned to stay away, whilst locals do their best to transform their homes into fortresses, avoid venturing onto the streets after dark, and – especially if young and male — turn to criminal gangs for protection, which further degrades the security of everybody else. Predators control public space, parks are death traps, aggressive menace is celebrated as ‘attitude’, property acquisition is for mugs (or muggers), educational aspiration is ridiculed, and non-criminal business activity is despised as a violation of cultural norms. Every significant mechanism of socio-cultural pressure, from interpreted heritage and peer influences to political rhetoric and economic incentives, is aligned to the deepening of complacent depravity and the ruthless extirpation of every impulse to self-improvement. Quite clearly, these are places where civilization has fundamentally collapsed, and a society that includes them has to some substantial extent failed.”
So Danny Short thinks “we” should step up and help Wilmington? Just who the hell are these WE people and what is their obligation to the poorly governed Wilmington?
I must say, very well-written and informative. I am impressed. I know as much reading this as if I’d been there.
You want jobs take Denn’s 36 million plan flush it and build more prisons!
Pat, the obligation is that Wilmington is a part of the state. What is happening in Wilmington is already happening in other cities such as Dover and Seaford, on smaller but growing scales. We must address the cancer that the violence in Wilmington represents or else it will spread throughout the body of the state.
We need jobs to lower bad stats.Good paying jobs. The only thing DE attacts is corporate crooks, loan sharks and retiree tax refugees. DE’s leadership needs to talk to the states corporate partners like DuPont and encourage them to keep jobs here and not outsource for slave labor. Ever Sussex legislator should be pushing for the Georgetown airport upgrade to bring in the high tech jobs that will follow if we don’t wait too long.
We need jobs to lower bad stats.Good paying jobs.
This is true. But how? Perhaps we should look to the state that consistently is at or near the top of the job-creation pyramid- Texas:
The Texas way to economic growth
Aren’t Texas jobs mostly form allowing polluters to spew at will on low wage workers?