Memos at Random


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

County residents will help establish the balance between taxes and services, officials say. The process for doing so will start with a series of community meetings beginning Feb. 7.

"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.)

The Feb. 7 community meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Claymont Fire Hall. Subsequent ones will be in each of the other new Council districts.

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."

NEXT STEP: With legislation it proposed to establish a statewide recycling program, or something closely akin to it, headed to the General Assembly, the Recycling Public Advisory Council is beginning a campaign to garner public support for its passage. "We have draft legislation in there; we'd like to see it come out the way it went in," chairman Paul Wilkinson told a meeting on Feb. 2. Governor Ruth Ann Minner included reference to the committee's proposal in her 'state of the state' speech and said her staff expects to have a final version ready when the Assembly returns from its budget break in March.

Committee member Pat Todd offered the meeting a lobbying strategy which focuses on "educating the public and legislators" about the benefits of recycling. "So far almost all the articles that have been in the newspaper and letters-to-the-editor have been negative," she said, adding that it is time for people who support recycling to write letters and otherwise present the 'positive' side. "We haven't gotten the benefits across," she said. In particular, environmental organizations will be solicited. "We're not reinventing the wheel here in Delaware. This is being done all over the country," Todd said. (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

County Council is being asked to shield an upscale community in Christiana Hundred fromwhat some residents perceive to be the evils of 'in-fill' development.

An ordinance which Council could act upon as soon as Feb. 8 would change the zoning classification of Sedgely Farms to require that minimum lot size be 40,000 square feet instead of 15,000. Homeowners with lots large enough to subdivide to accommodate two houses say the change would violate their right to maximum economic benefit from their property. About 80% of the households have petitioned Council and the Planning Board to approve the more restrictive classification. Favoring filling in empty spaces in existing developments with infrastructure in place is both county and state policy.

Pam Scott, a lawyer who specializes in land use issues, told Council's land use committee on Feb. 1 that there never has been an instance in New Castle County of rezoning a developed subdivision. Representing a client who is building on a subdivided lot in Sedgely Farms, she said changing now would set a dangerous precedent. Peter Wilder, president of the civic association, said putting more large houses on smaller lots would destroy the character of the community, which dates back to 1941. Councilman William Tansey is sponsoring the measure as a 'proactive rezoning', a rarely used procedure.

If the rezoning is approved, 36 of the 104 properties in the community would not conform to the new lot size requirement. They would be exempt from having to comply, however.

WORK TO GET UNDERWAY: Delaware Department of Transportation will begin a year-long $5.8 million safety improvements project in Hockessin on Feb. 7. The main element of the work will be a redesign of the connection between Lancaster Pike and Valley Road. A new traffic signal will be installed at that intersection and parallel Old Lancaster Pike converted to one-way southbound. Plans also call for adding sidewalks and crosswalks. A-Del Construction is the contractor. Work will begin with the installation of a new drainage system.

COMPLAINT FILED: Common Cause of Delaware and Green Delaware have filed a joint complaint with the attorney general's office alleging that the special County Council meeting at which auditor Robert Hicks was fired violated the state Freedom of Information Act. The notice of the meeting failed to include a justification for holding a special meeting or properly disclose its purpose, according to the complaint. It said the state Supreme Court in 1984 decided that Council "should not have the power to decide what is good for the public to know." (CLICK HERE to read previous Delaforum article.)

Legislation pending in the General Assembly would make it illegal to park in front of a mailbox and impose a $10-to-$25 fine for doing so. Letter carriers blocked from accessing the boxes from their trucks have long wanted the practice stamped out.

It will be summer before the oil spill in the Delaware River is cleaned up. And then it will be cleaned up only to the extent that federal and state responders deem practical.

A General Assembly committee was told that the main problem now is that some of the 265,000 gallons of tar-like oil spilled when the tanker Athos I struck an uncharted submerged pipe which slashed a six-foot gash in her hull has sunk below the surface. Divers have to go down and look for it and it has to be retrieved by various methods, including use of ordinary crab traps. Representative Joseph Booth and his House natural resources committee were told on Jan. 26 that authorities have to weigh the relative costs of environmental damage and cost of continuing recovery activities.

Representative Gregory Lavelle noted that, as bad as the environmental damage was, an even more serious consequence of such incidents is the economic impact. That ranges, according to natural resources secretary John Hughes, to oil refineries running out of feedstock and Delmarva chicken raisers being unable to obtain heating propane. Michael Linton, president of the Pilots Association for the Bay & River Delaware, said all the companies with refineries in the river valley immediately responded to deal with the crisis. That included placing 128,000 feet of boom to block the oil from spreading farther than it did.

The committee was told that 10,343 tons of oil-soaked debris has been recovered and deposited in an 'appropriate landfill in Pennsylvania.

Here are charts which break down revenue and spending in Governor Ruth Ann Minner's proposed $2,744 million fiscal 2006 budget.

Wilmington government is looking at both sides of the coin in an effort to deal with rainfall. Itproposes parallel plans for times when there is too little and when there is too much.

While state and county officials appear to be moving toward setting up a stormwater utility to coordinate and pay for managing excess stormwater, a measure pending before City Council would establish one, primarily to eliminate the spillover that occurs when the combined sanitary and storm sewer system can't handle increased volume. To offset some of the added cost of that, the other measure would encourage water conservation by charging heavy users higher rates. Both are in response to mandates imposed by state and federal laws and regulations.

By combining financing, most of the owners of 21, 000 residential properties served by the city water and sewer systems would end up paying about the same as now while contributing to the new stormwater management arrangement, according to a press statement. The utility would have a tiered fee structure with larger properties, which have more water running off from them, paying at a higher rate. Sewer fees would be lowered for owners of small properties. The statement quotes Kash Srinivasan as saying that would put the combined fees on a 'fair-share' basis.

COLOR CODED: When the seats for Concord High School's renovated auditorium arrived, it was discovered that someone goofed -- they were 'Brandywine blue'. There was nothing else to do but replace them with seats of a hue "more appropriate to the school," according to Craig Gilbert, the school board's liaison with its renovations oversight committee. Concord's predominant school color is maroon. Not to worry, though. The rejects, he said, will be donated to rival Brandywine High, which did not get new auditorium seats when its building was renovated several years ago.

LEGISLATION SOUGHT: The Ethics Commission has asked County Council to enact several ordinances that would strengthen its hand in dealing with alleged violations. One would specifically empower the commission to investigate former officials and employees for up to three years after they leave office or their job. Another would bar anyone who has committed a serious or repeated violations of the code from being appointed to or hired for a county job for 10 years. Interfering with a commission investigation would be made subject to a criminal charge and penalty.

In a letter to Council president Paul Clark, Dennis Clower, chairman of the commission, proposed a new procedure, including ability to level a $10-a-day civil fine, for dealing with candidates for county offices who fail to file timely financial disclosure statements. If Council agrees to amend present law, the commission would have to publish the name of anyone it finds in serious or repeated violation of the code. Confidentiality about matters pending before the commission could be waived if doing so is "in the public interest" without having to go through the rule-making process as is now required.