Memos at Random


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

Brandywine School District has hired a new principal, replaced a recently appointed principal, promoted an assistant principal and begun looking for yet another.

In the latest personnel moves involving the top administrators at the school level, Lynn Sharps was named to Lombardy Elementary, succeeding Lois Perry who is retiring. Sharps, whose teaching career includes kindergarten, first, third and fifth grades, comes to Brandywine from Lansdowne, Pa., where she most recently was an elementary school principal. Ron Mendenhall, who was a middle school principal in Salem, N.J., will take over at Hanby Middle. Mark Silverstein, who was appointed to that position, replacing retiring Clarence Grasty, resigned before reporting for work to take a job as superintendent of a district in New Jersey.

Promoted at Bush Early Education Center was Ginny Burns-Ferrara, who served a year as assistant principal. After seven years in the district as a teacher and assistant principal, she succeeds Kristina DuBois, who previously was principal of both Bush and Forwood Elementary. She will remain in the Forwood position in the coming academic year. The district also has begun seeking a replacement for Alfred DiEmedio as principal of Brandywine High. DiEmedio recently announced his intention to retire after a 37-year career in education. Long-time Brandywine High school secretary Dottie Paulin also has retired. CLICK HERE to read earlier Delaforum article.

CONCORD PIKE TIMETABLE: Delaware Department of Transportation expects to start reconstruction of Concord Pike in early November. The two-year job, the second of six phases of the Blue Ball road-building project, will include building an overpass at the Foulk Road intersection and a bridge over what will be a secondary road through the park planned for the east side of the pike and a pedestrian and bicycle 'greenway' path. Installing decorative stonework on those bridges will be a key element because "a lot of people are concerned over what [they] will look like," John Rautzahn, vice president of McCormick, Taylor & Associates, a DelDOT engineering consultant, told a recent meeting of potential bidders on the road contract.

Although the detour roadway west of the pike will be completed in early autumn, it will not be used until after the turn of the year. The contractor must first construct a new Foulk Road access to the pike adjacent to Independence Mall and relocate a portion of Weldin Road to intersect with it. The first thing the public will see after the job begins will be the disappearance of the three large mounds of dirt and rock at the site -- 85,000 cubic yards in all. The state is recommending -- but not requiring -- that the contractor haul the material to Fox Point State Park where it will be used as part of environmental preparatory work for the second section of the park. Rebuilt Concord Pike is scheduled to be available to traffic in June, 2005. CLICK HERE to access the Blue Ball Project Web site.

GOOD MARKS: The state has retained its triple-A bond ratings from all three rating firms prior to the Aug. 6 sale of $120 million worth of 20-year bonds. In a press statement, Governor Ruth Ann Minner said that Delaware is one of only seven states that presently hold the top ratings. “The reaffirmation of the state’s AAA bond rating from these impartial experts validates the strong financial leadership the General Assembly and my administration have shown during these tough economic times," she said. Brokerage houses will bid competitively on the basis of interest rates for the bonds, which then will be resold to the public. Income from them is not taxable for most taxpayers.

No one has been dismissed nor dropped from the list of applicants who qualify for jobs in Catholic schools as the result of the Diocese of Wilmington's new background-screening policy.

Sister Suzanne Donovan, director of human resources, said the local diocese "is way ahead" of most other dioceses in the nation in terms of the thoroughness of the program it established to implement directives laid down by the national bishops' conference in the wake of the scandal involving sexual abuse of children. "We are probably among the top four or five in that regard," she told Delaforum. All teachers, administrators, counselors and volunteers in the 38 parochial and private Catholic schools have been required to undergo criminal background check. Donovan said she and other diocesan officials are "very satisfied" with the program and with the cooperation received from participants.

She said there are two levels of scrutiny. Teachers and others in direct daily contact with the school system's 15,000 students have been fingerprinted and have had records checked. Others have had a 'less invasive' records check going back seven years and covering court and police records in every state in which they have lived and worked during that time. The program, she said, follows recommendations from retired Superior Court judge Vincent Bifferato and a review board set up to advise Bishop Michael Saltarelli on how to deal with the situation. The background checks are part of a recently promulgated extensive set of rules for dealing with children in the diocese. CLICK HERE to access the entire program.

In addition to school personnel, the program applies to everyone in the diocese, which includes Delaware and the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland. every priest, deacon, member of a religious order and seminarian has been screened, Donovan said.

MOVING RIGHT ALONG: The commission drawing the lines for the six new districts that will make up the expanded County Council may already be a third of the way to its goal. Although the tentative plans presented at its second meeting, on July 28, still have to be accepted by incumbent Council members and commission chairman Richard Przywara ruled that they will not be 'released' to the public before that happens, two of the districts were presented by the respective commission members as meeting all criteria. William Tansey's district would be split into two by a line drawn along Limestone Road tipped by a dog leg along Valley Road to Hockessin. Robert Woods's district would be divided along the Christiana River.

Two possibilities were offered for Robert Weiner's Brandywine Hundred district. One uses Interstate 95 as the dividing line for most of the way but includes a corridor north of Naamans Road. The other calls for the new district to lie north of Silverside Road and east of Concord Pike. Penrose Hollins's Wilmington district would be divided either along Market Street or Fourth Street. Less clear is the Newark area district where Karen Venezky's representative would like to cede a few polls to Tansey -- which may not be allowed under the expansion law. And using the logical Chesapeake & Delaware Canal as the divider in Democrat Patty Powell's district would put her home, and therefore her, in a Republican-leaning district.

If it weren't for the welcome signs, most of us would be hard-put to tell when we crossed a state border. For those in Delaware's 19 northernmost households, however, crossing the line could soon prove to be an adventure.

Thanks to an historical quirk which can be credited to our founding fathers, they may have to traverse a good bit of Pennsylvania to access their home state. Back before the Revolution, it was decided that Delaware's northern boundary would be an arc with a radius extending 12 miles from the pinnacle of the courthouse in New Castle. That gave Delaware the only boundary in the nation that isn't a state line. The resultant geometry also means that two residences and the Concord Pike intersection through which folks living on State Line Road and Husbands Drive connect with the outside world are tucked just inside the keystone commonwealth.

Comes now the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. It wants to add a third lane in each direction to Concord Pike and, in the process, shut off a left turn from State Line and nearly adjacent Pyle Roads. A traffic signal there, planners say, would be easily missed by drivers getting up speed at that point. Turning right onto Concord Pike means a mile journey to the Naamans Creek Road to make a U-turn, if intervening crossovers are also closed. Residents, therefore, have asked Delaware Department of Transportation to consider realigning State Line Road so it and a new intersection, are safely inside Delaware. Ralph Reeb, DelDOT's director of planning, didn't promise anything, but said he'll look into the possibility.

The present left turn maneuver, resident Wayne Brasure said, isn't for the faint-hearted. "There are certain things you have to play out to make that intersection," he said.

The Gordon administration has backed off from a plan to permit Miracle League of Delaware to locate a ballfield for physically and mentally handicapped children and youth in Woodley Park, off Lebanon Road near Concord Pike.

Sherry Freebery told Delaforum that the decision to go back to 'Plan A' and limit development of the park to improving its playground area came after County Executive Tom Gordon and she were informed

about how extensive Miracle League sites around the nation tend to become. "We originally thought they were talking about just one field," she said. Gordon, however, is still interested in the county's assisting the local branch of the national organization and will look for a "more suitable" site to accommodate the regional participation that would be expected. One possibility, she said, is River Road Park, which
	A change of signs signifies a change of mind. The one in the left photo went up on July 18 and, according community leaders, alerted them to a change in plans for Woodley Park. After plans were changed back, it was replaced on July 23 by the one in the right photo. County officials say development work will mostly involve the playground visible in the background of both photos.

The decision not to use Woodley Park, she said, was reached at a meeting of community activists and state legislators brokered by the Council of Civic Organizations of Brandywine Hundred on July 22. Council president Daniel Bockover said he wanted to "settle this quietly" after a firestorm of protest arose around 'Plan B'. A flurry of electronic mail messages accused Gordon of having reneged on a previous agreement by the Department of Special Services to keep the park, except for the playground, for 'passive recreation'. State senator Charles Copeland and representatives Gregory Lavelle and Robert Valihura lit into the county leaders for not having involved the community when they were considering a different scenario.

Freebery said that Miracle League will have to comply with the county's development process, particularly as it regards generating traffic, if the organization intends to have anything more extensive than a single ballfield at the site eventually chosen.

NO PARKING: The parking garage under the adjacent Carvel and Redding government buildings in downtown Wilmington has been closed to the general public after 7 p.m. Past practice has been to have it available to attenders of City and County Councils' sessions. President Christopher Coons said the change was a security measure, but added that he wants to make some other arrangement before County Council resumes meeting in September. William Narcowich, past president of the Civic League for New Castle County, complained that having to park on the street would discourage attendance. Visitors to offices in the buildings must pass through metal detectors, but there is no such requirement to access the Council chamber or caucus room.

CHIPPING AWAY: The wing at the rear of the Public Building in downtown Wilmington which used to house the police station is being at least partially demolished as M.B.N.A. Bank begins converting the landmark structure into an office building. The company remains secretive about the future of the

It appears that demolition of one of two wings on the French Street side of the former Public Building is being done relatively surgically.

building, which it acquired last year when state courts moved out. Its public relations office did not return a call from Delaforum seeing information about how it is planned to alter its appearance and city government spokesman John Rago said that only parts of a development plan have been filed. The city, however, issued a demolition permit, permitting work to commence. Extent of the planned demolition could not immediately be determined.


... another Wilmington landmark is getting a new look. Workers in Brandywine Park are putting the finishing touches on a paved walkway -- complete with steps after the fashion of canal locks -- on Monkey Hill. Old timers who remember the challenge of running up the old dirt, later asphalt, path will at least be able to again navigate the hill. The roadway will remain cobblestoned.

This park that occupies the block between Seventh and
Eighth Streets, Broom and Franklin Streets
still serves that neighborhood -- as it did nearly a century ago.
The post card view (above) was around 1908.

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.