Memos at Random


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

GRANTS AWARDED: Seven area civic associations and the Delaware Nature Society are sharing $250,000 in the first distribution of county community planning grants. The program, initiated by County Executive Tom Gordon and administered by the Department of Land Use, is intended to partly support 'hometown' projects related to future development. Money was first appropriated in the fiscal 2003 budget but not distributed as the formal program was being established. The grants now being distributed are financed in the current budget and have been under consideration since last April.

The nature society gets the largest grant -- $50,000 to prepare an application for state scenic highway designation for roads in the Red Clay Creek Valley. Fox Point Association has been allotted $45,000 to prepare an historic-resources inventory and pursue a scenic highway designation for Philadelphia Pike. Greater Hockessin Area Development Association will have $40,000 to continue work on its community plan; Centreville Civic Association $30,000 to develop a business-retention plan and design guidelines for Kennett Pike; and the Claymont Community Coalition $20,000 to support the Claymont Renaissance.

Gordon is expected to ask for a like amount to continue the grants program in his proposed budget for fiscal year 2005, which begins in July.

BONDS SOLD: Investors snapped up Delaware's $133.5 million bond issue at prices ranging between $97.75 and $100.125 in 43 trades on Jan. 8, the first day they went to market. Merrill Lynch was the successful bidder to underwrite the issue at an average interest rate of 3.4%, which state officials said was the best term ever obtained.. The bonds carry triple-A ratings, the best, from all three major Wall Street bond-rating services. Proceeds from the current sale will be used for capital spending for schools, libraries and beach preservation and to refinance some older bonds with higher interest rates.

Downtown Wilmington's perennial back alley would get a cosmetic and functional makeover as part of a new effort to attract development.

Shipley Street stands to benefit from recent improvements to 10th Street at its northern end, the Ships Tavern District revitalization at the south and removal of the last remaining section of the Market Street Mall on its flank, said Heather Dunagan, of Wilmington Area Planning Council, who will manage the project. If successful, she told a small audience at an initial organizing meeting on Dec. 7, the effort can "potentially make the neglected street attractive to new business." That would be a far cry from now on a thoroughfare dominated by empty buildings and "a wide array of how people deal with their trash."

If property owners have neglected the street, they're not alone, according to attenders at the meeting. Meter maids and police who back them up to enforce parking regulations tend to look the other way while trucks unloading cargo block travel lanes and workers from nearby offices spend their days feeding parking meters. What's worse, Dunagan said, "it's not a comfortable environment" and people who venture into the area "don't have a very secure feeling." The council is soliciting ideas about how all that can be turned around. (CLICK HERE to access the project Web site.)

That may not be as difficult as it sounds. It would involve only a relatively simple reconstruction of the juncture where Concord Pike and State Line Road meet. Right now it's only a couple of feet north of the boundary. The alternative, it seems, would be acquiescing to DelDOT's Keystone counterpart which wants to eliminate the ability of drivers on State Line Road turning left into Delaware. Employing a bit of hyperbole at a Planning Board hearing, County Councilman Robert Weiner said that is equivalent to having them "cut off from the rest of the world."

The hearing had to do with approving the development plan for Village of Brandywine, a gated age-restricted community between the state line and Brandywine Town Center. Philip Lavelle, of the Council of Civic Organizations of Brandywine Hundred, testified that developer Joseph Setting is "a case study of how we would like to see developers proceed." The road plan and providing access to utilities were among the things he worked out with neighboring State Line Road residents. The community also will voluntarily will conform to the county's new conservation-design standards.

Resident Helen Brown tendered a literal yes-in-my-back-yard endorsement. She testified that Setting donated 27 trees to provide a buffer and paid for a landscape architect to determine where to plant them along her property line.

NO CAMERA YET: It evidently will be several months before DelDOT installs a camera to enforce compliance with the traffic signal at the Concord Pike-Naamans Road intersection. Spokesman Michael Williams said that it has been decided to install a monitor in Dover and delay the New Castle and Sussex County installations until an unspecified future date. The New Castle one initially was to have been in operation soon after the start of the year. Naamans Road was chosen as its location because that intersection is classified as accident-prone.

AUDITOR FLAP CONTINUES: County Council is considering establishing an audit committee. That is the latest development in continuing discussion about the role of auditor Robert Hicks sparked by an announcement by state Representative Greg Lavelle that he plans to introduce legislation to bolster the independence of the county auditor. "I don't want the state coming in and telling the county what to do. They need to clean up their own house first," Councilman Robert Woods said during a discussion at a meeting of Council's executive committee on Jan. 6. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

It's now five years into the new century and folks are still talking about "the Year Two Thousand and Four." Back in the Year One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine, they wouldn't think of doing that.

MALL NO MORE: Daisy Construction was apparent low bidder on a $2 million contract to remove the last remaining section of the Market Street Mall in downtown Wilmington. Work is scheduled to begin in spring, 2004, and be completed around the end of the year. The contract calls for constructing a street between Seventh and Ninth Streets, providing for parallel parking and installing sidewalks, new lighting and trees. The mall originally was intended to bolster commercial activity at a time when such pedestrian walks were all the rage around the nation. Few, including Wilmington's, proved to be successful.

CALLING CYBERSPACE: The downtown mall may be heading for oblivion, but the ground it occupied will live on -- and, thanks to a new city-sponsored program, be technologically up-to-date. The city is providing free Internet connection for wireless device to users along Market Street between Sixth and 10th with an unobstructed sightline to two antennas and a satellite dish atop the Grand Opera House in the 800 block. Mayor James Baker said establishing a 'hot zone' is meant as a demonstration of Wilmington's friendliness toward businesses and business people.

A city press statement quoted Tyrone Smith, director of the Office of Information Technology, as saying the service is by way of the 802.11x wireless standard that uses a small portion of the transmission band for public radio. Providing the new service cost the city $35,000 to buy hardware and it will pay $708 a month to A.T.X. Telecommunications Services for an Internet access port. Additional zones can be set up with hardware costing between $5,000 and $7,000, the statement said. The system will not interfere with any computer networks in the area, it said.