Memos at Random


	A potpourri of miscellaneous news SCRIBBLED IN A REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK

E-Z PATH PROMISED: Users of the E-Z Pass automated toll-paying system will experience minimal hassle when Delaware completes the change to managing its own arrangement next autumn, according to P.J. Wilkins, toll road operations manager for Delaware Department of Transportation. Contrary to some previously published reports, they will not have to buy new transponders. Final decisions of the procedure they will follow to swap their present New Jersey-oriented devices for new ones have not been worked out, but it probably will be similar to what's happening in New York, where the exchange is being accomplished by way of the U.S. mails.

Delaware is in the process of severing ties with a consortium of Jersey toll authorities, which has managed the Delaware operation since it started. Negotiations are underway on a contract with Trans Core LLP, in Harrisburg, Pa., to take over later this year. Meanwhile, the Jersey group's contractor is continuing to service the Delaware account. "We're getting a divorce, but you might say we're still living together," said Secretary of Transportation Nathan Hayward. The only problem with the interim arrangement so far, Wilkins said, has been inability of state-owned vehicles, which ride free, to pass by the scanners without registering a charge.

LANDMARK UP FOR SALE: Darley Manor Inn, the bed-and-breakfast hostelry housed in the Claymont house in which 19th Century illustrator Felix Darley lived and worked, is about to be offered for sale. Ray and Judith Hester acquired the property about 10 years ago, restored the then nearly derelict house and opened the inn. Both became involved in various civic and community activities, including preservation and operation of the historic Robinson House. Ray Hester, a Du Pont Co. retiree, said the couple's future plans have not yet been determined, but added that the decision to sell the business and the Darley house does not signal any loss of interest in

The Darley house at Philadelphia Pike and Darley Road.

VOTE NOW; DECIDE LATER: Members of New Castle County Council are divided on how to proceed with the extensive sewer-installation project in the southern half of the county, but, faced with a deadline for enacting the budget for the coming fiscal year, probably will vote to approve the money to pay for it while deferring for a couple of weeks a decision on whether to scale back the project. "Can we really afford this?" said Council president Christopher Coons. "Voting for sewers means voting for increased [sewer charge] rates." With a legal requirement for uniformity, those increased rates would apply throughout the county.

Council member Robert Woods said at an executive committee meeting on May 20 that he does not have enough information to make an informed judgment on how to vote on the project if that has to be done as part of approving the budget. To meet the end-of-May deadline, th4 budget vote has to be taken at the May 27 Council session. Robert Weiner suggested that the sewers could be installed in phases, rather than as one massive venture. Sherry Freebery, chief administrative officer, said a delay of up to 30 days in making a final decision would be acceptable, but cautioned against putting it off any longer in view of the fact that many development projects, including a new vocational high school, are dependent upon it.

IT'S ALL RELATIVE: Secretary of Transportation Nathan Hayward said he weighed the historic value of the present Tyler McConnell Bridge against that of the Hagley powderyards and it came out as strictly a no-brainer. That's why he has elected to tear down the two-lane span and put up a new four-lane one even if the state has to pay all of the $13 million to $15 million that it's going to cost. "What's more important -- a 50-year-old bridge, when there are 28 [others] like it in Delaware, or an unique asset?" he said. Delaware Department of Transportation has said the same thing to federal highway officials in an effort to get them to change their minds about not helping to pay for the new bridge, he added.

Either way, he said, the new bridge is going to be a one-of-a-kind in its own right. It will be designed not only to get people across the Brandywine but also to make an architectural statement for the neighborhood below. "We have an opportunity to do something really good for the highway and the valley," Hayward told Delaforum. The idea of putting a second span next to the present one would only perpetuate what happened in the 1950s when the old State Highway Department and the Du Pont Co. "agreed to put up something that would be the cheapest and quickest to build," he said. Even if the state now has to pay the total bill, it can put federal money it would have gotten for the bridge into other projects so there will be no net loss, he said. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

State legislators may have a little more jingle in their jeans, but they have been admonished not to treat the extra spending money as if there will be more where it came from.

As a result of a slowly brightening economy, Delaware Economic & Financial Advisory Council has added $201.8 million to the General Assembly's appropriations limit for the fiscal 2004 budget, which will be voted in June, since the turn of the year. As Delaforum previously reported that it would, the panel on May 19 increased its estimate of state revenue in the current fiscal year by $50.7 million over what it thought a month earlier would come in. But nearly half of that was the result of a single estate-tax payment. Council member Peter Ross, of the University of Delaware, said that such one-time income "is not the kind of [money] you want to use to buy teachers with."

Secretary of Finance David Singleton said the improving revenue picture is encouraging, but it's not enough to back off from the administration's proposals for a combination of increased taxes and budgetary restraint. Governor Ruth Ann Minner said she is still committed to increasing the tax on cigarettes and raising incorporation fees. "This isn't the time for celebration; this is the time to stay the course," Singleton said. "You have to look not only at the dollars but [at] where the dollars are coming from. ... We don't see this [forecast] as an opportunity to take the brakes off." Budget director Jennifer Davis said the best place for the extra money in the new budget would be investing directly it in capital projects such as building schools. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

It was a day like any other day of late -- rainy and very unMaylike -- but to anyone familiar with Delaware's past, it was historic. Sunday, May 18, 2003, was when the last of the state's crumbling blue laws finally bit the dust.

In Arden they still tell of social rebels of the 1920s being busted while playing a friendly game of softball on The Green because they chose to do it on a Sunday. Nearly eight decades later, commerce and perversion profane in profusion well beyond the village limits. Malls are busy selling to Pennsylvanians who don't like sales tax; silken ponies gallop around the oval whilst the gentry inside manipulates electronic versions of one-armed bandits. And now, less than a week after the governor gave her imprimatur, it was possible to buy booze at the top of the week. Except for Delaforum and, of course, The New York Times, the media evidently was on holiday as the circle came full course.

Significance of the day was not totally lost, however. The official financial prognosticators already had decided to more than treble the expected growth rate in revenue from the alcoholic beverage tax, from 2.2% this fiscal year over last to 7.5% in fiscal 2004. On the other hand, they further downgraded the anticipated state take from gambling from minus 7.8% this year to minus 8.6% next year. To be sure, that is believed to be largely a result of outlawing smoking in the parlors. Nevertheless,. the gurus are banking on cigarette tax revenue climbing a whopping 31% this year and another 5.2% next. And that doesn't factor in what the legislature does with the governor's proposed doubling of that levy. (CLICK HERE to read what the Times had to say. CLICK HERE to learn about blue laws. CLICK HERE to read the original blue laws.)

THE WAY IT WAS:

Back in 1920, when this post card was published,
the Wilson Line dock on the Christina at Third & Church Sts.
was a busy place. The steamship line plied the Delaware River,
carrying passengers and freight between Wilmington
and Philadelphia. It also offered warm-wealth excursions.
Today at the same location, no trace remains to testify
to what used to be.

This is another in a series of 'then and now' views of Wilmington. It draws on the extensive collection of local picture post cards accumulated by Terry Craig. Current views of the same scenes are Delaforum digital photos. See previous views in this series.

The Brandywine Board of Education agreed, without any discussion, to begin the process of declaring the old Channin and Old Mill Lane school buildings to be surplus.

In an earlier message to some residents of the community of Channin, superintendent Bruce Harter said that, because of anticipated declining enrollment, the school district sees no likelihood of needing the facilities. The elementary schools were closed after the 1978 federal court desecration order. The buildings have since fallen into disrepair. Harter said that, in their present condition, "renovation would not be cost-effective, even if we needed the propert[ies]." Next step, following the official declaration that they are surplus to district needs, made at the board's meeting on May 14, will be for the district to hold a public hearing

Mindful of a heated controversy a few years ago over a plan to reopen the Channin building to house a day school for children with severe mental and emotional problems, Harter promised "several opportunities for public input" in the process of getting rid of the properties proceeds. State law requires that surplus property be offered to other state agencies and then to units of other governments before being put up for sale to the highest bidder. Delaforum has attempted but has been unable to attend meetings of a property committee the Brandywine district established to make recommendations concerning property not presently in use.

In an unrelated matter, it was disclosed at the board meeting that the district is losing two school principals. Clarence Grasty, of Hanby Middle School, has resigned effective in August and Dennis Runyan, of Mount Pleasant High, will leave at the end of June.

An ordinance which, if enacted, will make the most significant changes in the Unified Development Code since its adoption at the end of 1998 was introduced without comment at County Council's meeting on May 13.

Sponsored by Councilwoman Karen Venezky, amendments to the code would require developers of residential communities larger than 50 acres to permanently set aside an area for natural resource preservation. It would be part of an open-space set-aside at a rate of one acre per 100 housing units. All developments of more than 30 units would have to put dedicate at least half of their total area to open space for community use, mostly recreational. Those areas would be maintained by a community or condominium maintenance association, a government entity or, in the case of the natural resource area, a recognized conservation organization approved by the Department of Land Use.

As previously reported by Delaforum, the ordinance, contained in a 52-page document, was put together during a series of meetings hosted by the Department of Land Use and attended by a representatives of diverse interests. It mandates that all local developers employ conservation design techniques when planning communities and 'green technology' to manage stormwater runoff. Those environmentally sensitive approaches are growing in popularity around the country and are now being used voluntarily by some developers in this area. The proposed ordinance would apply only to new projects. It will be for public comment at one or more Planning Board hearings before final approval by Council, which is considered all but certain.

A significant feature of the measure is a requirement that stormwater drainage ponds, now common in newer communities, no longer be used. Natural absorption through vegetation and undisturbed soil would replace them. (Read previous Delaforum article.)