Miller Road Shopping Center will soon become 'another Merchants Square' if the county rejects Wilmington's bid to annex the 16-acre site, city officials warned.

The city wants to bring the site under its jurisdiction so it can provide some $300,000 worth of incentives to attract a Kenney Brothers Shop Rite to the empty building formerly occupied by a Caldor discount store. Delaware Economic Development Office is also considering sweetening the deal. State law requires that both County Council and the county executive sign off on the proposed annexation, which has already been approved by city government. An unrelated proposed annexation of part of the former Harper Thiel factory nearby is pending before County Council.

Mayor James Baker told the county officials that having a major supermarket as its anchor store would be economically beneficial to the rest of the center as well as the commercial strip across Miller Road, which would remain county territory. The supermarket would draw patrons not only from north Wilmington but adjacent Brandywine Hundred. Although the county would lose about $13,000 a year in real estate tax, it would reap considerable intangible benefits while avoiding having a second derelict shopping center on its hands, the mayor said.

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High school students in the Brandywine district feel strongly that the state's academic assessment test are rigged against them and pose an undue threat to their futures.

"I don't think it's fair for one test to say what kind of diploma you're going to get," Shaharra Howie, a Mount Pleasant High senior and spokeswoman for the districtwide Student Advisory Committee, told the school board on Dec. 15. Although she is an honor student taking some advanced courses, she will end up with a 'standard' diploma because of her performance on the test. "It's proven I can do the work," she said but expressed fear that college admissions officials will not see it that way. Similar views, she said, are widely shared by her peers, some 300 of which signed a protest petition.

The tests themselves are not fair. On the one hand, teachers "focus on test-taking and forget what we ought to be doing in class," she said. Nevertheless, much of the content is beyond even an advanced curriculum. "I couldn't do some of the math and I'm in pre-calc[ulus]. How can someone taking general math do it?" she said. Sophomores are expected to write essays although "I just learned how to make a well-composed essay last year (as a junior) and that was in honors English." Teens don't need that, she added, when "we already have enough pressures on us."

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Although professing no desire to curtail his ability to audit public spending, a majority of County Council instructed auditor Robert Hicks to tell them weekly what he is doing.

"We've given him so much independence that no one has any contact with what [he] is doing," said Councilman William Tansey. Tansey joined with colleagues Patty Powell, Karen Venezky and Robert Woods in approving a Powell-sponsored motion that Hicks report to Venezky, in her capacity as chair of Council's finance committee and, through her, provide the weekly summary of his activities. Councilman Robert Weiner said he feared that the vote "might be interpreted as challenging [Hicks's] independence."
Venezky, however, said the action "doesn't mean his independence is being compromised in any way."

The vote came at Council's personnel committee's meeting on Dec. 15 which, despite chairman Penrose Hollins's efforts, continued the reportedly critical discussion of a week earlier. That, in turn, was sparked by Hicks's having prompted state Representative Greg Lavelle to prepare legislation strengthening the auditor's independent role. If such a law is needed, "I would rather us do it than have someone in the state [government] tell us what to do," Woods said. To that end, Hollins appointed a task group to come up with recommendations for any necessary changes in Hicks's job description.

After the vote, Hicks, who had sat passively during the discussion, asked for the floor to say that, as a government auditor, a significant part of his job is to confidentially investigate every tip about possible wrongdoing. But he acknowledged to Powell that, in the year he has held the position no such tips have come in.

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Wayne Smith, Republican majority leader in the state House of Representatives, denied that a deal has been struck to repeal the law expanding New Castle County Council.

"Our [party] caucus has not even talked about the issue," he told Delaforum. As previously reported, County Executive Tom Gordon predicted that the repeal measure, already passed by the state Senate, would be approved soon after the General Assembly reconvenes in January. Smith acknowledged that "there are people pushing hard to have us consider a bill to negate the planned expansion," but did not indicate his position.  He previously had said there is no interest in reconsidering the controversial law, which takes effect with the 2004 election of six new members, enlarging Council from seven to 13.

Present Council members, at a meting of the executive committee on Dec. 9, had a 'good news, bad news' reaction to the original Delafourm report. William Tansey said repeal "will save the taxpayers a lot of money." Patty Powell, however, lamented that volunteers on a redistricting commission put in considerable work, which may have been in vain. Karen Venezky said prospective candidates to represent the new districts already are raising money and gearing up campaigns. Penrose Hollins suggested that Council, which is on record opposing expansion, just bide its time until legislative intent is clearer. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

Sherry Freebery, the county's chief administrative officer, said the genesis of Gordon's prediction was an understanding of strong pressure for repeal from business interests.

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OBJECTION RAISED: The Council of Civic Organizations of Brandywine Hundred's executive committee opposes allowing Wilmington to annex the third of the Harper Thiel site which lies outside its

 Haynes Park and Harlan neighborhood associations in north Wilmington support the city's economic development plan to clean up serious environmental problems on the site so Brad Penn Holdings llc. can convert the former factory into a residential self-storage facility. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

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ROAD PROJECTS LISTED: Construction of a new Tyler McConnell Bridge is scheduled to begin in the fiscal year which ends on June 30, 2005, according to this year's proposed long-term Transportation Improvement Plan. If the Wilmington Metropolitan Area Planning Council approves the plan, as expected, in February, it will constitute the first official scheduling of the long-discussed project. Principal planner Heather Dunigan previewed New Castle County portions of the plan, which will go out for public comment in January, before County Council's executive committee.

Also in the statewide plan for development in fiscal 2005 are proposed safety-related improvements to Philadelphia Pike in Claymont. The draft plan, which covers the next five fiscal years, indicates that rebuilding of the Delaware Turnpike-Delaware 1 interchange and the related widening of the Interstate highway to 10 lanes is on an accelerated schedule. A new project appearing in the annual plan for the first time is a bridge over the Christina River and a road linking the Riverfront Shops area with South Market Street somewhere in the vicinity of where it meets South Walnut Street.

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