Nominations Being Accepted: Scandal of the Year
Thus begins the Delaware Liberal end-of-year tradition. We will accept nominations this year for the same stuff that we did last year (and maybe a few new ones). First up for nominations is “Scandal of the Year” Last years winner was John Atkins (and his election this year as a Dem puts him in the running again).
Keep in mind that these categories are limited to Delaware. Blagwhatabitch is not eligible, nor is any of Sarah Palin’s extended family. For excellent reference of the first half of the year, check out the Kavipsian Awards from July.
Voting on all nominations will commence after Christmas, so tune in to cast your votes.
Lofink’s son and his embezzlement
Delaware Psychiatric Center
Workforce Housing
Thurman Adams’s desk drawer veto
I would have to say Harris McDowell’s ongoing green energy scams.
Link
That is the meta-scandal of which his teaming up with Charlie Copeland and Delmarva Power this year to try and derail the Off shore wind project was a spin off scandal.
I have to go with NCCo’s original Workforce Housing Ordinance and their complicity with the benefits/kickbacks to the developers. Not to mention their attitude on how it’s gonna happen no matter what…no matter the current available housing inventory within the dollar range the council themselves identified as workforce housing.
In the blogging world, and sorry to my friend, I have to go with subpeona-gate.
McDowell/Adams/Copeland attempt at squashing Wind Power
Workforce Housing
This should get at least an honorable mention: Nancy Wagner sneaking her husband a state job via the onorous and last minute Budget epilogue language. Come to think of it, the Budget epilogue language is an annual Delaware shame if not a scandal……..
Dem failure to put up a credible candidate to take out Castle. This is part of the larger ongoing scandal, which is the shadowy non-aggression pact involving Carper, Castle, and Biden.
I almost forgot one – Democratic party money being used to run ads against Jack Markell in the primary.
KWS? Speaks for itself.
Adkins getting shelter from the Dems. (I’m not talking the PDD).
Workforce Housing Charade
Prison “Leaves-of-Absence”
No Disbelief…not this year..that may be what we’re in for!
Workforce Housing.
And then there was that little Pandora takeover from Donviti at the end of July…….
Anon,
RE: Comment #6,
Yes.
the shadowy non-aggression pact
This is the ur-scandal in Delaware, the root from which other scandals spring. This is why Republicans can’t seem to cut spending, and why Democrats can’t seem to regulate business.
I don’t even know if there is an explicit deal or not – it doesn’t matter, because it behaves as though there is one.
The bottom line is that the donors are very happy with the results they have gotten from Castle, Carper, and Biden, and they saw no reason to change. Maybe now that the MBNA era is over there will be an opening for change.
I nominate Kasey Keeler’s bringing Robbie Schoenhoft over from OSU.
G Rex, at least you’re getting Devlin next year.
How about the slap on the wrist for Sherry F?
They had to exhume a ‘senior’ (senile) judge who was an LBJ appointee to give her a ‘stay out of jail’ card. We still are not certain whether the seven-figure largesse from a duPont heiress (who stood to make a lot more on a zoning deal) was a bribe or a gift or a fraudulent loan. There is criminality associated with all of the three.
From a humanitarian standpoint, the ineptitude shown by AG Biden when the records at the DPC were being shredded shows that he really doesn’t care about the truly unfortunate (or the nurses who suffered for whistl-blowing. Daddy Biden seems to be rather niggardly in his charity so perhaps the family really cares only about themselves and establishing a dynasty.
The shadowy non-aggression pact as well as the McDowell SEU business may deserve their own category for multi year scandals that no one seems to bother with.
I’d add to this list the criminal malfeasance of the Board of Directors and Executive Director of the People’s Settlement Association — who have presided over the mortal wounding of one of Delaware’s oldest and venerable community service organizations. There ought to be additional points given for doing this just when this group is needed most; being led by folks who have given alot of lip service to open government but who can’t quite get around to it for this organization; and for being completely AWOL while this agency is being picked apart.
WFH is accompanied by two other land use department foul plays. No less than three of Coons’ land use initiatives are currently being challenged by citizens across the county because County Hall is not run in such a way that the public can get much of a word in that counts for shit in the normal course of business.
In court right now is the challenge by Mill Creek area residents against toxic dust from the Hercules Experimental Station. Threatening to get to Chancery is the WFH group and the Greenville area anti-Stoltz group.
oh God Cassandra. For christs sake. Suck up the venum and die a little for me, honey.
PSA is under fire, that’s absolutely true. Mortally wounded? No. Criminal? No. Assholes who are dying to express the worst? Yes.
Minner cuts $55 million spending, Burris says nothing (unless some masochistic DTR listener can come up with some evidence).
PSA board should be dissolved completely, or quit en masse in protest. No way should one faction be permitted to benefit from stirring up this crap.
The PSA board is at fault for not telling the state to take its money and shove it.
PSA got $329K from the state in 2008… some fraction of that is what is claimed to be undocumented. That amount is less than what Minner spends on M&M’s. It turned out to be more trouble than it was worth.
The documentation in question (and I am extrapolating from the report, since I am not with PSA) is sign-in logs and questionnaires that PSA was supposed to have collected from individuals attending dozens of health-related workshops, conducted (presumably) by casual or part time professionals who had the certifications for that particular workshop, and who were probably doing the job as a favor anyway.
It is not surprising that all the participant logs are not in order.
Wagner had no problem locating and cross-referencing certain data from other agencies (i.e., DPH), but in other cases when it suited him he pretended other items didn’t exist (i.e., PSA budget from state).
And here is Nancy calling names again without addressing any of the real issues. Which, of course, is the behavior of those with nothing else to say (and of those whose rhetorical skills haven’t gotten gotten out of high school yet). No one buys it and no one is fooled by it. And the fact that no one of the PSA leadership has the good grace to be appalled by the straits they are in says it all, I think.
Actually, I just caught one thing in the PSA report that is pretty damning… their CPA firm has not been auditing PSA recently because PSA still owes them $11k since 2006…. that is much worse than the stupid sign-in logs.
Anyhow… the scandal is the auditor’s willingness to be a dupe in bringing down a badly needed social service organization over a trivial amount of money. The blaring headlines of “misuse” did not appear to be proportional to the reality.
Anon, yes, we had been using an audit firm recommended by UWAYDE which cost us 25K per annum and which was typically handled with a payment plan. But with the ceasing of UWAY funding, that door has been shut. We are looking for an audit firm that is more reasonably priced and intend to repay Barbacane ASAP.
The UWAYDE put PSA on notice 6 years ago that they had issues with our financials. I have been on the Board for two years.
The ‘noted individuals’ who placed PSA into Wagner’s sights this year are many of the same people who sat on its Board when UWAY started to complain. Check it out. Through all of those years of UWAYDE review, those members failed to correct the problems. The current situation PSA is in is not necessarily the fault of the Ex. Dir. as so many have indicated.
The current Board did work to remove 500K in liabilities in 2007-08 and felt well postitioned to make the case to request continued UWAYDE funding this year. The liabilities involved an ancient Pension fund and IRS problems stemming from the 1980’s. We inherited a mess and made do the best we could.
I think that Wagner’s having wasted maybe 50K on the 10 weeks his staff was hanging around this agency looking into accusations of theft from people he himself admits frequently ask him to investigate black agencies in the City of Wilmington and now he has to cover his tracks.
On the other hand, for 50K we ran a UHELP program that positively impacted thousands of minority families in the past year just on healthcare education alone with a part-time staffer and in conjunction with partners such as Christiana Care. Much of the paperwork in question was held by those PSA collborated with and was ‘recovered’ once the communication was clarified. Shame on Wagner.
wow, did someone just delete my comment about Cassandra’s Presidency of her Quaker Hill Neighborhood Association? You guys realize that she is published in the City Life magazine in that capacity with phone number and everything.
Can’t she handle the heat of her friends and neighbors having some scrutiny on her shameful exhortation of the rag-tagged east side community center across town?
Well cAss, you deleted my saying that of course the PSA Board is appalled with this situlation.
I love all the conspiracies about workforce housing and kickbacks and how it is the end of society! The only people who care are the nimbys. We have much bigger problems in this state, and it barely ranks in my book.
anon-
It’s an issue when there is much available inventory within the dollar range defined by the county council themselves. It’s an issue when they couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the existing infrastructure and the impact and the non-planning of future infrastructure and so on. This has been going on and on. On the kickbacks, it was right in the ordinance about the FINANCIAL incentives to create high-density, low open-space layouts. Maybe it’s not a big deal to you, because you’re not near it? Nimby yourself???
so the fact that PSa had no paperwork to support anything is all a political stunt by wagner?
it may be bad legislation, but my point is it is far from a scandal.
arthur, it is not the case that there was no paperwork. There was plenty of paperwork. There was so much paperwork, Wagner had people in the agency for 10 weeks looking at it. They just never bothered to give any PSA staff a formal interview in order to understand what some of the procedures are and where some of the deliverables actually were documented. The deliverables were met, unlike Wagner’s determination avers.
RSmitty, you will appreciate the irony that the Coons’ administration gave the WFH ordinance a zero count under fiscal note. HUH?