Memos at Random


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

An industrial property which city government wants to annex into north Wilmington will first have to get rid of some unwanted baggage believed to have been left there when the former owner shut down.

The state Department of Natural Resources & Environmental Control said an inspection of the facility at 30th and Broom Sts. on Oct. 28 turned up "approximately 100 drums of various sizes, along with several open containers, which contained [sic] various unknown chemical materials." Harper Thiel, an electroplating firm, operated at the site from 1946 until 2000. Karen Llc., the present owner, which agreed to the environmental inspection, was ordered to secure the material, which is still there, and remove it for proper disposal. The city's planning department reportedly has approved the annexation. About a third of the plant is outside the city as a result of some long-ago jiggling of boundary lines.

Also on the city's want list is the old Miller Road Shopping Center, a few blocks north of plant site. That property, too, was gerrymandered out of the city when it was a brickyard which didn't want to pay city taxes. Wilmington is now offering Shop Rite economic incentives, including a five-year tax holiday, to convert the rundown center into a going proposition anchored by a large supermarket. The offer cannot apply, however, unless the site is brought into the city. County officials, who under state law must approve any annexations, reportedly are amenable to that happening at the plant site and are open to considering the shopping center move.

The executive committee of the Council of Civic Organizations of Brandywine Hundred -- which doesn't like to do such things in public view -- is said to have decided to oppose the annexations.

County law said he and his neighbors can buy into county sanitary sewer service for $6,500 and Wayne Brasure wants County Council to help him get what he considers his due.

Brasure lives in the small neighborhood along State Line Road. It is the only Brandywine Hundred neighborhood on the list of 16 which have formally requested to participate in the county's septic system elimination program. As previously reported, the Department of Special Services quietly suspended the program two years ago because the $6,500 fee to hook into a sewer line, set about 10 years ago, falls far short of what it actually costs. Fees paid as little as 3.6% and no more than 34.9% of the actual cost of the last several projects before the moratorium, the department told Council's special services committee. General manager Joseph Freebery said the fee was "irrelevant to begin with" and merely adjusting it for inflation won't help.

Alternative measures discussed at the committee meeting on Oct. 28 include having county government provide affected householders with long-term, low-interest loans, financed by the sale of county bonds, to pay the total cost of the connections, and subsidizing a closer-to-cost fee, perhaps 75%, while requiring that everyone in the community participate. At present, only half of the residents have to agree to change over, something that Tracy Serles, of the department, said they are reluctant to do unless their septic system is failing or is near failure. Councilman Robert Weiner has suggested that communities be allowed to pay to extend a sewer instead of joining in the county program, which, in some cases, could be cheaper. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

Brasure said he has no objection to changing the rules for future applicants, but said State Line Road is on the wait list and, as far as its application is concerned, "the fee is set."

DISPUTE OVER: The politically charged dispute of a few months between County Council president Christopher Coons and the Gordon administration over the county executive's appointment power apparently has been resolved. Council on Oct. 28 enacted an ordinance establishing a deputy chief position in the police department. To 'prove' that state legislation to restore the executive's power to make political appointments in the county's management structure, Executive Tom Gordon had Council establish a position of director of public safety, not be subject to the civil service-type merit system. Coons sponsored the deputy chief ordinance with the understanding that will be financed by not filling the director position. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

Also at its Oct. 28 session, Council unanimously approved an ordinance which would impose more liberal requirements for redeveloping properties in so-called 'brown fields.' That is an area certified as having or likely to have environmental contamination. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.) Also approved was establishment of six new Council districts, created by splitting the six present districts. That vote was 7-to-2 with Council's two Republican members objecting to designing one of the new districts with an irregular boundary to give Democrats an apparent advantage in elected its member. Instead of simply being able to approve maps, Council was required to enact 18 pages of verbal description of all 13 districts, including the council president's countywide district. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article. CLICK HERE to access Department of Elections maps of the districts.)

HELPING HAND: Delaware Department of Transportation has offered storm-ravished Wilmington & Western Railroad a matching grant of up to $2 million, believed to be the largest ever, to help it get back on track. The grant is conditioned on the volunteer-operated tourist attraction raising $200,000. It has begun a fund-raising drive to do so. Damage from Hurricane Isabel is estimated at about $5 million. It was the second storm during the past few years to take out wooden trestles over the Red Clay Creek along the line through Christiana Hundred. DelDOT will provide the money from its federal transportation-enhancement allotment.

Hockessin is in line to become the first unincorporated community in New Castle County to have a locally generated 'master plan' made a part of the county's basic development and zoning law.

Sherry Freebery, county government's chief administrative officer, told a meeting of the Greater Hockessin Area Development Association that, as soon as the initial draft is put into final form, it will be submitted to County Council to be enacted as a section of the Unified Development Code. It will then "rule what happens here" in terms of future development and redevelopment. The plan seeks to channel local-scale retail, office and some residential development into a core area along Old Lancaster Pike, which would take on the attributes of a 'village main street'. Businesses of a regional nature would be located on Lancaster Pike, the highway. Residential areas as far distant as Red Clay Creek would retain their present character.

Pete Johnston, a land use consultant to the steering committee that produced the plan with county financing, said the idea is to "distinguish Hockessin from the rest of the county [and] give it an identity." The plan will concentrate growth in places where there is existing infrastructure and minimize 'sprawl', he said. County planner Jim Smith said including the plan in the land-use law would permit such things as consolidating parking requirements for individual properties into a common public-parking lot. Also, such things as stormwater management could be handled on an area-wide basis. The committee will now take the plan to a series of public 'workshops' for possible modifications.

Landscaped medians, street-type lighting and extended sidewalks are to be part of a related highway safety improvements to be made to Lancaster Pike, the meeting was told. That project is scheduled for the spring and summer of 2005.

SHUTDOWN NEAR: General Chemical's sulfuric acid plant in Claymont will close on Nov. 11, plant manager David Tusinski told Delaforum. For the next six to eight months, its power plant will continue to supply steam to the company's specialty chemicals facility on the south side of Philadelphia Pike, which will remain open. Meanwhile, the new sulfur-recovery unit at Sunoco's refinery is undergoing a 'final shakedown' prior to going into regular operation. Sun no longer is selling acid gas, a refinery byproduct, to General Chemical. The necessity to burn the gas at times when General Chemical was unable to receive it caused several air-pollution incidents in recent years.

McDONALD'S GOES ALONG: The Claymont Community Coalition has prevailed in its effort to have McDonald's Corp. rebuild its Philadelphia Pike eatery to an "acceptable" design, according to Frank Kolling, vice president of the civic organization. It had opposed McDonald's plan to redevelop the site with a building resembling the chain's original 1950s drive-in motif. Kolling said the company will put the new, slightly larger, building closer to the road, eliminating out-front parking in favor of side and rear parking lots. There will be two drive-up windows accommodating up to eight vehicles at a time. Construction is scheduled to start in October, 2004, with completion by the end of that year.

PARKS ADVOCATED: County Councilman Robert Weiner said he will formally propose that New Castle County government purchase the sites of both the former Channin and Old Mill Lane Elementary Schools and convert them into 'active recreation' parks. That, he told the Fox Point Association on Oct. 21, will retain their present use as youth sports fields. The Brandywine School District has declared the buildings, unused since 1978, to be surplus. A plan by the Delaware Economic Development Office to allow acquisition of the Channin site for use as a commercial office building were abandoned after community opposition drrew support from county and state officials.

New Castle County property owners can expect to see the tax moratorium continue through fiscal year 2008 and probably beyond, but those with sanitary sewer service probably will see that fee go up in a year or two.

The real estate tax rate in unincorporated areas has held at 45½¢ for each $100 of assessed value since fiscal 1996 and the county has $61.5 million squirreled away to keep it there through the remainder of County Executive Tom Gordon's administration and well into his successor's. In a 'read-my-lips' pledge while campaigning for that office in '66, Gordon promised not to raise taxes. "We are probably one of very few governments in the country that has been able to do that," Ron Morris, the county's chief financial officer, said during a presentation on Oct. 14 before County Council's finance committee about the current state of county coffers and, for the first time ever, the outlook for the next five years.

He revealed that the county closed its books on fiscal 2003 on June 30 with a $13.5 million surplus, taking in $137.2 million and spending $123.7 million. Assuming that current service levels are maintained with no major new programs added, there will be a relatively small surplus this year followed by increasing deficits that will have to be covered by the 'tax rate preservation fund'. The back-up fund will still have about $50 million in it come June 30, 2008. The sewer fund, however, is already running a deficit and by fiscal 2006 "discussion [about] adjusting revenue needs to take place," Morris said. Those projection assumes that the proposed extension of sewer service into the southern part of the county is happening.

An audio-visual version of the county's comprehensive financial report has been prepared on compact disc to supplement what Morris described as "a 200 page report that is barely read." The county has received awards for presenting fiscal information to the public in a way that the average person can understand it.