Memos at Random


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

READY TO ACT: County Council is expect to take up, and most likely enact, a somewhat revised version of the 'hometown overlay' ordinance at its session on Mar. 9. The main change in a substitute for the pending proposed ordinance would specifically include incorporated municipalities that have elected to be covered by the Unified Development Code. Arden, Ardentown and Ardencroft, which fall into that category, have asked to be included. The law would apply mainly to unincorporated communities which existed before the county adopted its first zoning code in 1954.

The ordinance provides for Council to establish the overlays upon request by community groups working with their Council representatives. After that is done, the community produces a plan defining the kinds of development and redevelopment that fit its 'traditional character'. After Council confers the status of law on the plan, a local review board is empowered to determine whether a proposed project is in keeping the the plan. Conventional zoning remains in place, but the proposed ordinance provides that the community plan supercede it in the event of conflict. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

Mount Pleasant High has been designated as a secondary school eligible to award the prestigious International Baccalaureate diploma.

Acceptance by the Switzerland-based organization came on Feb. 17 as the culmination of a three-year evaluation process. Meanwhile, 23 Mount Pleasant sophomores and 45 freshmen are now participating in an academically rigorous curriculum to prepare them for admission into the two-year diploma program next September. When the older group graduates in June, 2006, they will be the first public school students in Delaware to receive what program coordinator Lynn Wright described as "an educational passport to any college in the world." Wilmington Friends School is a year ahead in offering the program.

Wright said the diploma program is an educational venture regarded as "the most challenging in the world." Only a relative handful of teenagers are admitted into the diploma program and, on average, about 80% successfully complete it. In order to teach it, schools and their faculties must maintain exceptionally high academic standards. "It is a tribute to our students and their parents that they had the confidence to stay with it" during the long and by-no-means certain acceptance process, Wright said. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article; CLICK HERE to access the International Baccalaureate Organization's Web site.)

THE OTHER SIDE: While attention has been mostly focused on whether and how Delaware might mandate recycling of some residential waste, there is another significant component to be factored into the equation -- how to get rid of the stuff once it is collected. Pat Canzano, chief operating officer of the Delaware Solid Waste Authority, told the governor's Recycling Public Advisory Council on Feb. 18 that a feasibility study the authority is conducting will evaluate whether the market for recyclables "will keep you in an economically viable situation."

N.V. Vasuki, the authority's chief executive officer, raised a similar point in rejecting the council's proposal that the authority immediately begin the process leading to construction of a materials recovery facility in anticipation of legislated statewide mandatory recycling. The intermediate processing facility at Pigeon Point, he said in a letter to the council, is adequate to meet needs for the near-term future. A major new facility would be "uneconomic" without a "guarantee of a feedstock (recyclable waste) to meet the design capacity or sustainable revenue and markets," he said. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

THORNY TASK: Anyone who ever served on an organization's by-laws committee would have been on familiar ground at a meeting of County Council's personnel committee on Feb. 17. The discussion was rife with 'what ifs', suggested compromise language and even a bit of short-temper shouting. Point of all that was to come up with a revised job description for the county auditor -- guaranteeing independence when delving into how well county money is managed while keeping him a member of the crew while nine-to-fiving. What gave the proceedings a bit of a twist was that Council members are agreed that the incumbent auditor, Robert Hicks, fully measures up to what they believe an auditor should be.

Most contentious issue in the discussion was the extent to which potential audit targets would be positioned to control what and who is audited. To that end, a pending ordinance would establish an audit committee led by professionals outside of county government. Council president Christopher Coons came up with compromise language which said audits will be based on the auditor's "own professional judgment and approved by the audit committee or directed by County Council." Councilman Robert Weiner said independent auditing is essential in the "post-Enron era," but Councilman Robert Woods countered that only an elected government auditor could or should have "complete independence."

When time ran out before all the Council members had a crack at editing the proposed description document, chairman Penrose Hollins agreed to continue the discussion into the next committee meeting while remarking, "It's a good thing there's not [yet] 13 of us."

MINIMAL PENALTY: Paladin Club residents said its developer got by with a veritable slap on the wrist for tearing down most of an old stone wall in violation of county regulations. Jim Jones, president of the Paladin Club Master Association, called the reported $200 fine "a pittance" and Roy Jackson, who initially raised the issue. said it was "ridiculous." Jones expressed concern that the Pettinaro Construction subsidiary will use an order to stabilize the hillside above what's left of the wall as a license to level it, preventing future restoration. Pettinaro officials did not respond to a request for comment. (CLICK HERE to read the previous Delaforum article.)

A process which began a generation ago will move to completion as soon as spring weather arrives and paving material becomes available.

Jonathan Husband, of the county Department of Community Services, said that, following approval by a community steering committee of the final plan on Feb. 12, Woodshaven-Kruse Park will be developed in time for a formal opening in early summer. The 18-acre site off Darley Road west of Philadelphia Pike will be dedicated to 'passive recreation'; that is, activities like walking, jogging or just schmoozing on

pleasant days. It will have a couple of picnic pavilions, grills, a small playground, two areas for exercising dogs, a paved circumferential path and an unpaved meandering trail.

Originally a girls' reformatory, the park site was declared surplus by the state in the 1980s and given over to a lengthy disposal process. In one respect, that process will not end with the opening because the committee conditioned signing off on the plan on a promise to hold back money to pay for additional parking spaces and-or lighting if experience indicates they're needed after the park has been in operation for a year or so. Husband said initial development will cost about $175,000 and that the unspent portion of the $300,000 budgeted for the park will remain available for future improvements.

The effort to block expansion of New Castle County Council is over, state Senator Cathy Cloutier said. She told the Council of Civic Organizations of Brandywine Hundred that there is no likelihood the Senate will even consider overriding Governor Ruth Ann Minner's veto of legislation that would keep the legislative body at seven members.

GOOD CHOICE: If someone were looking for the ideal candidate for official designation as an historic highway, they wouldn't go wrong picking Philadelphia Pike, a steering committee of residents doing just

The common thread is transportation, which spurred development along the road from its beginnings. One of the oldest main roads in the nation, it dates to the 1670s when each family along the route was required to "contribute one able-bodied [man] to work on [its] construction. The road was paved -- with bricks -- for automobile traffic in 1919.

A myriad of public records which many people do not know are public and which relatively few ever bother to seek out will soon be just a mouse click or two away.

The Department of Land Use is nearly finished expanding its niche on the county Web site. When the work is completed -- as soon as end of February -- anyone with a browser will be able to access data ranging from the agenda of the next Planning Board hearing to minute engineering details of development plans and aerial photographs of existing communities which can be zoomed in to nearly spy-satellite perspective. Making that available is the culmination of "$50 million invested in [information] technology over the past seven years," said Sherry Freebery, the county's chief administrative officer.

She and land use general manager Charles Baker unveiled a mockup of the expanded site to officers of areawide civic associations on Feb. 5, explaining that it contains nothing more than so-called 'courthouse records' which can be freely seen on request in various government offices, not only here but everywhere in the nation. Included are such things as property deeds, wills and tax records. Heretofore, that kind of stuff mostly was fodder for folks like lawyers and real estate agents. Detailed property records have been electronically available on the site for some time. (CLICK HERE and scroll to the bottom of the page to access them.)

Still to be decided, Freebery said, is whether to expunge individuals' names from some of the posted records as something of a middle ground between ease-of-access and privacy considerations.


County official Jonathan Husband (center) presents the final plan for development of Woodhaven-Kruse Park to a community steering committee. Committee members pictured are (clockwise from the left): Thomas DiCristofaro, Lisa Imburgia and Frank Kolling. The photo at the right shows how the park site looks now.