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Walmart & Delaware
Land Use
Corporate Responsibility
No to DSTP and Three Tiered Diplomas - 4/22/04
Living Wage Legislation for NCC: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Let's Stop VX From Coming to Delaware 4/5/04
View On the Expansion of NCC Council
Patriot Act
A Breath of Fresh Air for NCC Government 3/4/04
When I first learned of Dupont's plans to 'treat' the VX toxic waste at Chambers Works I called their headquarters to urge them not to proceed with this plan. I guess I was one of the first to call as they didn't seem to know what to do with me. After about 5 phone transfers, I was connected to their PR person. He explained to me how safe the process was for 'treating' the VX waste (basically, as I understand it, a process of diluting it and dumping it in the Delaware River), and concluded by saying, "You know you can trust Dupont not to do anything that would hurt the community".
For years I have known that Dupont (and others) aren't to be trusted but when this line, "You can trust Uncle Dupi", was uttered I understood, really UNDERSTOOD it for the lie it is. I remembered that my wife's father died of Hodgkin's Disease from all the chemicals he handled as a Chemist at Chambers Works. I remembered how the Seaford Nylon plant polluted the Nanticoke River where I grew up as a child until the community forced them to stop dumping their wastes into the river. I told the PR person these things and there was a moment when he and I knew clearly Dupont’s lie.
I think that my parents generation, who grew up during the Great Depression, were willing to sacrifice the environment, willing to accept the lie Dupont and other multinational corporations were dishing out because they were scared for their survival. I don’t blame them. But now our survival depends on restoring and protecting our damaged environment. To accomplish this we must insist that Dupont and others be responsible parts of our community. Responsible to keep jobs here and not outsource them. Responsible to protect the environment we live in. Responsible that contracted service companies pay at a minimum, living wages to their workers.
We must insist that agreements made to generate jobs (like AAA getting land at the waterfront in Wilmington) are kept. We must insist that if a company is to do business in our community that it really care for the people in the community, not create greedy lies in an effort to keep the truth from us.
No to DSTP and Three Tiered Diplomas
I oppose the federal No Child Left Behind initiative and Delaware’s response to it, which includes the Delaware State Testing Program (DSTP) and the three tiered diploma system. Combined, these two Delaware initiatives represent a direct attack on the public school system, the children that system is meant to educate, and unionized teachers.
Supposedly, DSTP will improve the quality of our children’s education. Yet how can it do this when the project obsesses on test scores while discounting other very important and valuable measures of academic success? We need a system of educational evaluation that utilizes multiple measures (e.g., daily performance, creativity on special projects, etc.), not ‘high stakes testing’ policies that force teachers to ‘teach the test’, downplay other educational activities and place undue stress on our children. I think emphasizing a broader set of educational criteria would not only help us to better educate our children, it would also lay the basis for a fairer and more comprehensive way of determining how our schools are performing.
The three tiered diploma system is also wrongheaded. It runs the risk of unfairly categorizing young graduates, who are just entering the adult world, and in the process potentially limiting their options with regards to attending college or the types of jobs they can expect to get.
No Child Left Behind and its offspring, DSTP and three tiered diploma, are serious mistakes that hurt our schools, our children, and our teachers.I urge you to call your state legislators and insist that HB357 and HCR 50 be released from the Senate Executive Committee and sent to the the Education Committee for a vote.
Living Wage Legislation for NCC: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
Requiring New Castle County private contractors to pay its employees a living wage is an idea whose time has come. In 2003, over 1 in every 10 families in Delaware did not have incomes allowing them to maintain basic economic self-sufficiency, many concentrated in NCC.
Living wage legislation is needed because of the failure of minimum wage to keep pace with inflation, the growing gap between the rich and the poor, massive cuts in welfare, the growth of low wage service sector jobs, the weakening of labor unions and rampant non-strings-attached corporate welfare under the guise of economic growth incentive packages.
Today, approximately 120 localities across the country have already passed living wage laws. The idea is a simple one: A living wage law requires private businesses receiving county money to pay their workers a living wage in exchange for substantial financial assistance in the form of grants, loans, or other economic development subsidies.
Our limited pubic dollars should not be subsidizing proverty-wage work. When subsidized employers are allowed to pay their workers less than a living wage, tax payers end up footing a double bill: the initial subsidy and then the food stamps, emergency medical, housing and other social services poverty-wage workers may require to support themselves and their families even minimally. Public dollars should be leveraged for the public good - reserved for those responsible private sector employers who demonstrate an on-going commitment to providing decent, family-supporting, living wage jobs in New Castle County.Let's Stop VX From Coming to Delaware 4/5/04
There are compelling reasons to stop VX nerve gas waste from coming to Delaware’s borders. For example, this very toxic waste material now in Indiana, if moved, will put hundreds of thousands of people along the route at risk from an accident during its transportation. Isn’t it better to treat the waste at its present, secure Army depot site? Also, Dupont’s ability to safely and effectively dispose of the VX toxic waste has not been demonstrated. Their plan calls for the so-called ‘treated’ substance to be dumped into the Delaware River posing unacceptable health risks to our citizens. Isn’t it time we worked to clean up Delaware instead of polluting it with more deadly chemicals? Finally, the VX waste in Indiana represents only a very small part of what remains in our county. By accepting this contract, despite the health and environmental risks involved, Dupont stands to gain billions of dollars in future VX toxic waste contracts for its sagging waste treatment business. Isn’t it time we insist that Delaware’s corporations act responsibly instead of greedily? I urge Delawareans to contact their state representatives immediately and support Senate Concurrent Resolution 32. Let’s insist Dupont act with the welfare of the people in the community, not just it’s bottom line. Let’s stop VX from coming to Delaware.View On the Expansion of NCC Council
Council's expansion is a done deal. The issue now is: What are we, the county's citizens, going to do with that deal. Governor Minner has overridden attempts to veto the expansion and so now the expansion is law and elections for the new seats are about to occur and it's up to us to decide how to fill them.
Before residents of the new council districts make their decisions about who to vote for, it would first be a good idea to take a brief look at the process that eventually led to council's expansion. The council expansion idea arose initially in the early 1990s. County council member Ronald J. Aiello, a Democrat, had just been thrown in jail for taking bribes on rezoning issues and there was a growing public outcry that measures should be taken to battle corruption in county government. Many residents felt that one corrective action would be to expand the council and vote in anti-corruption candidates who would challenge the status quo in county government.
During the decade of the 1990s and into the 21st century's first years, the county's population growth -- it grew by 13.2% during the 1990s -- became another issue that convinced many residents that council should be expanded. The reason was simple: that as the council districts grew larger and the logistics of representing the districts became more difficult, residents were less adequately served. Consequently, people began to ask for a division of the districts into smaller districts in which they could receive better representation.
As popular interest in making such a change grew, the Democratic Party, which currently controls New Castle County Council, started looking for ways to turn the public's interest in reform into an issue that, if handled correctly, would benefit the Democratic Party. With a Democratic governor in office and the party holding the reins of county government, the Democrats devised a plan for adding new council districts that maximized the chances of Democrats winning a sizeable majority of the new seats. In this way the Democratic Party hopes to co-opt public interest in reform by cynically manipulating that interest into a way of increasing the party's power -- one of the two party's that caused the very corruption and lack of representation that motivated the council expansion movement to begin with!
Given this history, it certainly doesn't make much sense to fill up the new council seats with more Democrats and Republicans. Wherever possible, Independents, Greens and other alternative voices must be called upon by the public to reverse the trends of corruption, financial greed, and in-crowd politics that have dominated county government for too long.Call For NCC Council Resolution to Repeal Patriot Act
New Castle County Council should pass a resolution calling for the repeal of the USA Patriot Act. Wilmington City Council, Newark City Council, Arden Town Council and the Delaware State Library Association with some 280 other communities in 39 states including four statewide resolutions, representing approximately 49 million people, have gone on the record opposing the Patriot Act.
The Patriot Act allows for secret lists governing whether you can get on an airplane, secret surveillance of e-mail and the Internet, and new types of warrants allowing the government to search your home, your bank records, your library records and your medical files without your knowing it.
Using parts of the Patriot Act, immigrants nationwide have been jailed indefinitely over visa violations that in the past would have been ignored, and about 13,000 have faced deportation. Others have languished in cells while officials lied to their families about where they were. And thousands have fled the United States, seeking refuge in Canada.
The Patriot Act is a democracy that has gone too far in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks by giving the federal government enormous new powers and scope in the areas of law enforcement and surveillance.
As the Delaware State Library Association resolution says, “... the Delaware Library Association urges Congress to repeal sections of the USA PATRIOT Act and Homeland Security Act which violate fundamental rights and liberties guaranteed in the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights and laws of the state of Delaware.” Well said!
New Castle County Council needs to stand up for the constitutional and civil rights of its citizens by passing a resolution calling for the repeal of this ‘anti’ Patriot Act.
A Breath of Fresh Air for NCC Government 3/4/04
NCC government leaders have made some good moves in the past few years - better libraries and more parks are a couple of things that come to mind. However, NCC leaders have also made some very poor moves. First, they have allowed the worst aspects of cronyism to seize it, leading to an appalling lack of ethical behavior, even illegal behavior. Just look how many of its past and current leaders are either in jail or under investigation for very serious crimes. Then, despite the advantages of the Unified Development Plan, our county development continues to spiral out-of-control with cancerous like suburban sprawl taking over the few remaining open spaces. As a result, every day we face more and more traffic jams, increasing pollution, decreasing quality of life, only to satisfy the few and the greedy. What NCC government needs desperately is “a breath of fresh air”. As the Green Party candidate for NCC Council in the 9th District, when elected I expect to work for clean government, to develop ways to end sprawl and preserve open space, protect our health and the environment in which we live, and open the NCC government offices to its people.