The County That Couldn’t Shoot Straight
You’ve all heard the term ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’.
As it turns out, New Castle County Executive Chris Coons’ tone-deafness on the issue of county services vs. the need for tax increases could have been avoided…IF Coons hadn’t embarked on last year’s public relations tour to convince the public and himself that everybody loved county services so much that they’d be willing to pay more taxes to support them.
Unfortunately, Coons’ cheerleading turned out to be so…last year.
Even if one stipulates that county residents love the libraries and the parks, which the Beast Who Slumbers does, and even if one stipulates that they’d be willing in theory to pay higher taxes to maintain these services, which ‘bulo would, the universe of people willing and able to pay 25% higher county taxes during these dire times likely approaches Absolute Zero.
And, unfortunately the caliber of county services does not extend to the supposed day-to-day ‘making the trains run on time’ stuff allegedly performed by the Division of Special Services, i.e. responding to constituent issues in a timely manner. There is a bitter joke about County Special Services, you have to be special to get services from Special Services. If you call your County Councilman’s office, they will sigh and tell you they placed the work order with Special Services. They just won’t be able to tell you when the work will be done.
County Executive Coons’ response to this problem? Give the Division a different name and promote its director (Tracy Surles) to his Chief of Staff. The Peter Principle at work.
County Council’s response? Agonizing over whether to cut their staff’s pay. El Somnambulo has a suggestion to the ‘leaders’ in County Council: Contact their state legislators and demand that legislation be introduced cutting THEIR pay and benefits by the same amount that state employees and state legislators are facing.
Failing that, the State should do the prudent thing. Today’s News-Journal features bleating from self-styled ‘character’, Councilman George Smiley: “I earn my money. I deserve my money, but I also have an obligation to partner with the county employees and everyone else to resolve our budget issues.”
Send that man a ‘waaambulance’! Someone should remind Councilman Smiley (who has the potential to become ‘Sheriff Mike Walsh’ someday) that he got elected after the Delaware General Assembly doubled the number of councilmanic districts in New Castle County. In other words, to a district half the size of previous councilmanic districts. As far as the Beast Who Slumbers can determine, the only demonstrable benefit, if that’s the proper word, to this has been to decrease the workload for the Council members themselves. But were their salaries halved? No. Is there any empirical evidence that county residents have gotten better service? No. Is there any empirical evidence that Council is no longer a bunch of slugs beholden to the developer community? Other than Lisa Diller, no.
So, to really save money in these most dire fiscal times, the State should do the right thing and reduce the number of councilmanic districts back from 12 to 6, with Council President serving as Councilperson-at-Large. If the Delaware General Assembly does this now, the change can be effected following the FY 2010 Census and implemented in time for the FY 2012 elections.
Now, ‘bulo is not an unreasonable man. If someone can demonstrate on this thread as to just why this idea makes no sense, please do so. The Beast Who Slumbers understands the argument that the districts had gotten just too big, but if there is no demonstrable evidence after 6-plus years that the doubling of council districts has done any good, then why should this costly experiment be continued? Better to cut their, and the taxpayers’, losses.
Tags: Delaware
In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . . the Gordon Crazies will arrive.
Wait, wait, I’ve got another one.
I thought members of the County Council were already paid by a consortium of developers. We pay them too?
Zing.
Yes, nemski, just not as much.
Shrinking council would maybe save $1 million a year. Even if the state decided to reduce the size (which they won’t) It would not take place until current terms expire so there are no immediate savings to be had….
Except you’re taking the $1 mill out of the base of the annual budget, not a one-time thing. To quote former Sen. Everett Dirksen (granted it was some 40 years ago): “A million here, a million there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”
Well said El Som.
My disagreement with anon is in the statment “there are no immediate savings to be had”. We have to stop thinking short term and begin looking ahead. Short term thinking is what got us in this mess.
I think there is almost an immediate savings….6 fewer councilmen. Even if there isn’t a financial benefit, it’s looking like a great idea.
I have heard rumblings that Sen KP is thinking about dusting off her bill to reduce council…you know, the one that passed BOTH chambers and was vetoed by her highness.
Smiley’s remarks in the paper were laughable….as if the employees of NCC don’t earn their money?? Come on George, that was condescending at best.
Wasn’t one of the reasons it was expanded to keep a county executive from having too much power so in the future they could not spend like there is no tomorrow? I agree there can be savings, but the ramifications must be considered as well.
7 council members can reign in spending as effectively as 13, if they have the will to do it. They’re the ones who have to pass the budget. It’d cost less to pass a budget with 7 than with 13.
‘Bulo doesn’t remember that as being a rationale for expansion, it was the claim that each councilperson was serving too many constituents.
Agree to disagree. I still think it is a longshot. Other proposals such as consolidating the row offices and getting out of the city building should be considered.
Agree w/both your proposals. One way to get out of the City building, or at least to reduce the office space required, is to reduce the size of Council. That’s where they have their offices.
‘Bulo agrees it’s a longshot. He would prefer to see the council members voluntarily do the right thing and reduce their pay like so many others are being forced to do. Failing that, some tough love is in order.
“7 council members can reign in spending as effectively as 13, if they have the will to do it. …
‘Bulo doesn’t remember that as being a rationale for expansion, it was the claim that each councilperson was serving too many constituents.”
No, it was never the stated rationale, but it was the real one. Gordonberry controlled six of the seven council members through a combination of fear and coercion — and went after the seventh (Abbott) because they couldn’t stand the reality of someone disagreeing with them. The thinking was it would be harder for them to find 13 pawns than 7.
“the universe of people willing and able to pay 25% higher county taxes during these dire times likely approaches Absolute Zero.”
Huh? If that’s the case, why are so few people bitching about it?
If what you say is correct, then how did that bill ever pass a General Assembly that was controlled by two of Gordon’s staunchest allies, Speaker Terry Spence and President Pro Tem Tom Sharp? They would’ve wanted Gordon to have more power, not less.
Plus, if that was the real rationale, as opposed to the stated rationale of the population growth having made the constituencies too large, then braver and more honest councilmen was the answer, not doubling Council’s size in the hopes that somehow that would dilute Gordon’s power.
BTW, a lot of people have bitched about the 25% increase, not sure how you can support your question.
Oh, and one disclaimer. Despite ‘bulo’s criticism of how Coons has handled this crisis, the Beast Who Slumbers voted for him, and would continue to support him over Gordon or one of his henchmen/women.
the right thing and reduce the number of councilmanic districts back from 12 to 6, with Council President serving as Councilperson-at-Large.
‘Bulo…I and some other commenters (I do remember PI being one of them) have said something to this effect for a while now. I was more of the 13 to 7 crowd, preserving the at-large as separate from the council prez, but I could go for your 6 and the Prez is also at-large. After all, he currently is “large,” no? El presidente, el gordo. I hope I got that right, no desire to offend El ‘Bulo.
Anywho, just a snide comment on Smiley, one of the bigger jag-azzes of council. I do recall him referring to the south-of-the-canalers as being too stupid to know what they need, in reference to the NCC Council’s defense of WFH. That wasn’t verbatim, but an accurate synopsis to a reply he sent to a constituent of either Powers or Bell. Oh, what did either of them do in response to that? I don’t know, the CRICKETS WERE TOO DAMNED LOUD!
OK, slight correction as I found the email exchange with Smiley I referenced above. It wasn’t that he thought the south-of-the-canalers were too stupid, it’s that he thought they had no grasp of reality when it comes to WFH…and the manner in which he said it and got into a pissing match with this person.
here is that thread.
BTW, a lot of people have bitched about the 25% increase, not sure how you can support your question.
I see the usual commenters over at the NJ and the usual Internet cranks having on about this, but I don’t hear this anger out and about. People are definitely unhappy about this increase, but they do understand how it came about. Certainly it seems that few of the No Tax crowd came out with their pitchforks over the 12 evenings that Coons presented himself for ritual tax skewering.
Coons’ budget also includes cutting back on some services (like handing over sports events to others, decreased maintenance of parks) and a whopper of a decrease in capital projects. We don’t know yet about the number of jobs to be cut, but it looks like there will be. That said, cutting back on the size of County Council is not a bad idea — and get them to share more staff.
Cass, I agree the commenters on the NJ are ridiculous and uninformed for the most part.
Community News has a nice breakdown of what residents can expect their taxes to go up by on average–you just need to know which district you live in….It does add up to less than $10 a month for most outside of Greenville and Hockessin….
http://www.communitypub.com/news/county/x108141309/Government-This-Week-March-25
How does it look in this time of cutting that council approved an additional staff person for Clark? I’m not sure what I think of cutting council size. That just means each person gets less representation, but I guess you could argue that a lot of them that are currently serving are pretty useless.
That just means each person gets less representation…
I guess you could technically go less than miniscule. That’s what it’s like living in “My day job at DRBA keeps me too busy for daytime council meetings” Bell’s district.
While I seldom disagree with the Slumberer Who Walks, I, like Cass, have not heard a single complaint from anyone who doesn’t frequent the Delablogosphere. Even the radio stations had relatively few gripers.
On the Gordon question, please remember that once the federal indictment came down, you could count the number of pols who stood up for Gordon on Capt. Hook’s prosthesis (he said offhandedly).
I tried to paste the link, but the community news has a good breakdown of what the 25% increase would be on average in each district. Outside of Hockessin and Greenville, it is under $100/year.
Your post is out of moderation, anon.
Geezer…I have caught some complaints, but more focused on Coons’ second overall tax increase since first being elected, after campaigning in ’04 on not going to raise taxes. It had little to do with the 25% number. I’m not a fan, but totally expected it, so it got a sneer from me, but not much else. People on fixed income are who I worry about, though. This sucks for them.
I’m not worried about people on fixed incomes; if they’re retired, they mostly qualify for the rebate for seniors. I’m more worried about the people who suddenly find themselves on no income.
If you’re suddenly living on unemployment or less, your income tax mostly disappears — but your property tax isn’t so accommodating.
Smitty: That complaint always cracks me up. He made it on a couple of mailers — he never promised no tax increases in his speeches, as best I’m aware.
Thanks for posting that Cass! G- your point is right on–seniors can qualify for the discount–but much harder for the families with fixed or declining incomes. It is a guarantee that the school districts will be asking for referendums in the next year or two as well, and who knows what else will go up right?
There is a bitter joke about County Special Services, you have to be special to get services from Special Services. If you call your County Councilman’s office, they will sigh and tell you they placed the work order with Special Services. They just won’t be able to tell you when the work will be done.
For what it’s worth, when I lived in NCCo, I made a complaint about vulgar graffiti at a park to Special Services. Within a couple of days, it was gone. But I sent an e-mail right to the head of SS rather than calling a councilperson. It took me all of a minute.
That complaint always cracks me up. He made it on a couple of mailers — he never promised no tax increases in his speeches, as best I’m aware.
Er….huh? Are you saying he made promises via one venue (his mailers), but didn’t in another (speeches), so it’s all good? Isn’t that called hedging your bets and absolute pandering?
Hey, I honestly have little problem (I do have some, but not noteworthy) with this particular increase, except the concern I have for people who can’t afford them, even after trying to shuffle financial responsibilities. HOWEVER, if this is really how he ran his campaign, then:
-1) I am truly sorry and regretful that I missed this total, slime-ball cowardace of his
-and-
-2) It makes me think even less of the person whom I never really thought much of to begin with. Where the eff is the conviction? That’s a total weasel move to make.
“The County That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”
See, if they tried a 25 percent tax hike in Sussex, there might be actual shootin’.