Memos at Random


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

If you're waiting by your mailbox for a refund of some of your county property tax, don't bother. It ain't going to happen. At least that's the current thinking in county government.

County Council president Paul Clark told Delaforum the most likely course will be to combine the several reserve accounts which Chancellor William Chandler ruled illegal into one line in a revised budget for this fiscal year. An ordinance to do that is being drafted in conjunction with the county's executive administration. The decision "invited us to take corrective action; that is what we're going to do," said chief administrative officer David Singleton. There is no present plan to call a special or emergency meeting, according to Clark. "The judge understands how our [legislative] process works," he said.

"We will continue to seek to have the illegally accumulated $200-plus million [sic] returned to the taxpayers," Richard Korn said. He is one of two taxpayers who successfully challenged the practice of accumulating money for various purposes -- including politically popular averting tax rate increases -- without the funds having been established by law. While acknowledging that Council has the authority to set up funds in the budget, Korn noted that Chandler questioned the size of the 'rainy day' fund that he found legal. It is 20% of budgeted spending, compared to 5% in the state's similar set-aside. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

Clark said that somehow distributing the reserves to county residents would be "fiscally irresponsible" and endanger the county's very favorable triple-A bond rating.

Chancellor William Chandler ruled that several county budget reserve accounts, including ones intended to maintain the current tax and sewer-service rates, are illegal.

What happens next is unclear since the judge did not spell that out in his 26-page opinion. It appears to indicate that County Council could formally establish the accounts or something like them while re-enacting the general fund and sewer budgets for the current fiscal year. Richard Korn, one of two taxpayers whose views Chandler upheld, told Delaforum that his position is now: "The illegal surplus must be appropriated. It cannot be stockpiled." Andrew Dal Nogare was the other plaintiff in the Court of Chancery suit.

Chandler declined a permanent injunction against the county's going ahead with the sale of $80 million worth of bonds. His opinion indicated, however, that Council's approval of the bonds is invalid and would have to be renewed. The only reserves which Chandler upheld were 20%-of-budget 'rainy day' set-asides. But he noted that they are set considerably higher than the 5% that state government is required to have. While expressing reluctance to infringe on the prerogatives of the executive and legislative branches of government, Chandler declared that "the county must abide by its own rules." (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

The ruling knocks out $81.3 million of the $109.1 million current general fund reserve and $9.5 million of the $80.3 million sewer fund reserve.

REINSTATEMENT ASKED: Robert Hicks wants his job back. The former county auditor, who was summarily fired by County Council, asked acting county attorney Dennis Siebold to investigate the legality of the meeting at which Council took the action and, while doing so, declare that he is entitled to be returned to his position under terms of the county law protecting employees from retribution for reporting wrongdoing. Hicks repeated a claim that his removal was in retaliation for conducting audits and making public their unfavorable results.

Hicks also joined two community organizations in complaining to the state attorney general that the Council meeting violated the Freedom of Information Act. It is alleged that proper advance notice of the special session, which was held on Jan. 25 after Council's regular session, was not given. Nor was the required justification for holding a special meeting stated, Hicks, Common Cause of Delaware and Green Delaware charge. Council's personnel committee, which has begun the process of seeking his successor, has endorsed Hicks's recommendation that his one-man office be expanded. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

STILL ON TRACK: Absence of any reference to it in the state's proposed capital budget does not jeopardize Brandywine School District's plan to begin the third phase of its long-range building renovation program later this year, according to David Blowman, the district's chief financial officer. Nor, he said, does it do anything to change plans to hold a referendum in May seeking approval to sell bonds to finance the district's share of the cost. But there are still "a few wrinkles to work through" in setting the course that will be followed, he said.

If voters approve the local financing, "we'll need an amendment" to the 'bond bill', he said. That, however, would involve a relatively minor $2.7 million in state money to plan the renovation of the P.S. du Pont Intermediate School building during the coming fiscal year. The proposed state capital budget totals $631.1 million. Blowman said the district is still negotiating with the Department of Education seeking the usual 60% state share of financing to replace Brandywood and Lancashire Elementary buildings. But, he said, DelDOE officials have 'agreed in principle' to constructing the new schools. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

A billboard along the I-95 viaduct in south Wilmington declares that Dover Downs is for 'serious' slots players, but doesn't say how to tell whether someone is pulling a handle seriously or otherwise.

County residents will help establish the balance between taxes and services, officials say. The process for doing so has begun with a series of community meetings.

"We have to make a choice about whether to cut services significantly or increase revenues significantly," County Executive Christopher Coons told a meeting of areawide civic association officers. The pressure is not imminent since there is money in reserve accounts -- including one specifically intended to ward off a tax increase as long as possible -- but Coons and County Council president Paul Clark agreed at the meeting that the proposed fiscal 2006 budget Coons presents in March will signal the future course of his administration's fiscal policy.

Chief administrative officer David Singleton said preparation of the budget includes complying with a 'belt-tightening' edict from Coons. "We're looking for places where we can cut [budget requests] in ways that do not affect [current] services to the public but will help us to control costs," he said. Beyond that, Coons said, attenders at the community meetings will "have an opportunity to tell us what they want" -- either orally or in writing. As Delaforum previously reported, the county finance office has projected that, barring major changes in spending, the current tax rate can hold until fiscal 2009. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

WATER-CONTROL COSTS: State and municipal agencies in Delaware are currently spending upward of $23 million on an annual basis on a variety of drainage projects and activities, the gubernatorial taskforce crafting a strategy for dealing with stormwater runoff and related problems was told. That does not include such one-time spending as the up-to-$17 million recently authorized for flooding abatement by New Castle County government. Natural resources secretary John Hughes described the complexity of both spending and management responsibility as "inscrutable to the public."

As the taskforce set up working committees at a meeting on Feb.3, it was told that such basic tools as federal maps delineating flood plains are obsolete as a result of extensive development since they were last updated in the 1970s. William Mueller, a strategic planner for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Philadelphia district, said the corps is authorized to spend $40 million a year on local water resources projects but more than $100 million worth of project requests are backlogged. Consequently, "it takes a good eight to 10 years to get these things built ... and that is only if everything goes right," he said.

SHHH!: No one in the legislative reference office in Dover is quite sure why, but how state senators vote on measures before them is effectively obscured from public view. Unlike the House of Representatives which posts roll calls on the state Web site, the Senate merely lists the totals. Roll calls are public information and anyone in the Senate chamber can hear them. After that, an unofficial version is published one time in the News-Journal newspaper, but apparently in no other publication. "If you want to know, you can call the Senate office and they'll tell you," a clerk in the reference office explained.

CONSEQUENCES UNCERTAIN: The decision to deny British Petroleum permission to construct a pier extending into the Delaware River to serve its proposed liquefied natural gas terminal in New Jersey could jeopardize the section of Delaware's Coastal Zone Act dealing with projects in the river. Dennis Brown, the compliance official in the Department of Natural Resources & Environmental Control, confirmed that federal law and regulation would 'trump' Delaware's. If that happens, he said, it would be tantamount to the federal government taking control of offshore development.

Natural resources secretary John Hughes ruled that the pier would be a bulk product transfer facility, specifically forbidden by the state law, and not, as B.P. maintained, an adjunct to a manufacturing operation, which could qualify for an exemption. The company doesn't plan to make anything at the site across the river from Claymont, but to take the commodity from ships, convert it back to gas and send it to customers through an existing pipeline. Hughes said that he recognizes the value of natural gas as a clean alternate to other fuels but that he was required to base his ruling on the law.

The General Assembly has told Delaware Department of Transportation to be creative in arranging the sale of the historic Weldin House on Penny Hill.

DelDOT real estate official Wayne Rizzo said the unanimously approved resolution allows the department to bypass the usual top-bidder-takes-all auction and cut a deal that will involve restoration and a use which "blends in with the neighborhood." In another departure from the norm, someone from the Friends of the Weldin House will sit on the committee that selects the purchaser. That group was instrumental in preventing the house from being torn down to make way for a Seven-Eleven convenience store and was successful in having DelDOT acquire the property.

Rizzo said there have been about a dozen inquiries indicating an interest in the property "if the price is right." DelDOT paid $700,000, which was deemed fair market value, for it and another building on the site which once housed the popular Penny Hill Donut Shop. Future possibilities, he said, include residential, office or 'light' commercial use. Requests for proposals will be solicited soon with likely completion of a transaction in the summer. Rizzo said DelDOT would like to receive at least 85% of market value, which would be the minimum auction bid, but added, "Money isn't everything."