Anyone who truly wants to understand the Delaware Way simply must read Cris Barrish’s superb piece on Orlando J. George, Jr. from Sunday’s News-Journal.
Lonnie George is an exceedingly brilliant and accomplished person. That is not the issue. However, like Orson Welles, he is a man of gargantuan appetites, and he has demonstrated his need (and capacity) to have more and the most of everything. Barrish captures George’s gourmandesque predilections as well as how he has navigated the system to create his own inflated fiefdom. It is an accurate and essential road map of the Delaware Way, and it is the single best piece of journalism that the News-Journal has published this year.
Some key highlights:
George’s pay has nearly quadrupled in 13 years, but few lawmakers would comment publicly about a former colleague whose political career was intertwined with his rise at DelTech, at times raising the suspicions of fellow lawmakers.
Of course, dating from his legislative service, first as co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, and subesquently as Speaker of the House, George has always looked out for Del-Tech:
In 1975, his first year in the House, George convened his panel in secret after the budget had been passed. When the doors opened, DelTech had an additional $622,238. Weeks before the school got the cash infusion, George had been promoted to chairman of the math department.
During a debate about the extra money to DelTech and other agencies, Republican Rep. Joseph Ambrosino told George the increases seemed “preferenced to certain people.”In 1978, the panel added an extra $1 million to Gov. Pete du Pont’s budget for DelTech. At the time, George said he was not involved in the decision. That same year, Republican Rep. Jack Billingsley engaged in a war of words with George over the budget, noting that while education spending was being cut, DelTech’s appropriations were rising dramatically — along with George’s salary.
Today, Billingsley said, he stands behind his complaints of 30 years ago, adding: “Lonnie knows how to look after Lonnie.”
That, senors y senoras, is the money quote, literally and figuratively.
Here is how the Delaware Way works:
Between 1980 and 1989, George was promoted four times — becoming assistant to the director of the Stanton and Wilmington campuses, dean of instruction, assistant campus director and campus director.
George next began campaigning for the school president’s job, just as then-Secretary of State Mike Harkins was angling for another plum patronage post — head of the Delaware River and Bay Authority. Harkins got his wish in 1992. George would have to wait.
But, when he got the job, he made sure that he earned a king’s ransom:
Though someone else got the presidency that year, political insiders believed George would eventually prevail. That happened four years later, and George, then 49, resigned from the House mid-term to run DelTech.
In February 1995, George and DelTech’s seven-member board — gubernatorial appointees who do not get paid — ironed out a five-page contract outlining his compensation and duties for a three-year term.
George would get a salary of $125,000 a year, plus a vehicle with all expenses paid, $2,500 toward the premium for a life insurance policy and $5,000 a year for expenses.
George’s starting salary alone made him the state’s highest paid state employee — far more than Delaware’s governor, judges, school district superintendents and medical doctors such as the director of public health.
El Somnambulo would love to quote the entire article verbatim. But you really need to read this in its entirety. You need to see how George has brought political movers and shakers onto the Board and into positions of power at the school. People like the highly-overrated Democratic quote machine James Soles of the University of Delaware, who has been Celia Cohen’s D quote go-to guy for three decades now. His avuncular and enjoyable low-key style notwithstanding, Soles’ singular accomplishment (?) has been to assist in the creation and enabling of the Carper Machine (Carper’s ‘Brain’ and former Soles acolyte Ed Freel is firmly ensconced at the U of D now, courtesy of Soles). He is an inside player masquerading as an observer. And Ruth Ann Minner’s ‘Brain’ (‘bulo knows that’s an oxymoron, but bear with him) Mark Brainard, who bailed out of his disastrous reign as Minner’s COS into a $125K golden parachute at Del-Tech.
As comprehensive as Barrish’s article is, he doesn’t mention how George used legislative henchmen Bob Gilligan and John Van Sant, both of whom had Del-Tech ties, to draw a House district shaped like a barbell expressly for his daughter, Melanie George Marshall, and how George and the Democratic ‘leaders’ didn’t think twice about screwing incumbent Democratic legislators Dave Brady and Rick DiLiberto in order to pave the way for yet another Del-Tech mouthpiece to join the family business in the Delaware General Assembly.
Which brings the Beast Who Slumbers to this closing point (for now) about the Delaware Way. For far too many members of the Delaware General Assembly, party identification is merely a matter of expediency. While Bob Gilligan is technically a Democrat, he has proven that, time and time again, party and principle take back seats to the kinds of political quid pro quos described in Barrish’s article. All at taxpayers’ expense. And he is far from the only one.
Cris Barrish has performed a public service with this article. If you’re really interested in reforming government, you must first know its dirty secrets. Barrish has shone a light on some of the dirtiest. Read the article, and get involved!