Call for Questions
We hope to be interviewing candidates for County Council President in the coming days and weeks. With that in mind, I wanted to seek our community’s questions for Bill Dunn and Tim Sheldon and any other candidate who jumps in this race.
How are the county’s finances and how will they keep the budget balanced?
How would he, as County Council President, balance the needs of homeowners and the development community?
Dunn had the guts to take on Clark in ’08 and got 42 percent in a sprint.
Sheldon broke records for incoherence in his ’02 run for State Senate.
Running Sheldon would give NCC GOP new energy and life. It would resurrect the dated image of Democrats as goons and goofs unsuited to run the county. GOP would run sober suburban type and clean up in Brandywine Hundred and Newark.
What efforts will you make to reduce overall government costs by reducing overlaps in services between county and Wilmington government and between county and state government?
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What efforts will you make to reduce overall government costs by reducing overlaps in services between county and Wilmington government and between county and state government?
What changes would you recommend in the UDC?
Off the top of my head for now….
1. How do you distinguish between responsible and irresponsible development in NCC?
2. Do you think that New Castle County Council is too large?
3. What will/can you do to ensure that County Executive Paul Clark’s wife’s clients don’t get special treatment in their development project proposals?
4. Do you think that bringing more transparency to NCCC government is important? If so, what do you plan to do about it?
How can the existing approval process be leveraged to encourage re-use of existing buildings rather than building new, or to upgrade existing facilities and surroundings (i.e., Merchandise Mart on Governor Printz Boulevard).
How open is this open seat?
Serious questions:
When can the Libraries get on board with the e-books?
Will you continue to expand the Delaware Greenways project in NCC area? http://delawaregreenways.org/
Deadly serious questions:
What are your thoughts on getting old people off the road in Northern NCC after dark?
How do you feel about creating public service messages that educate Delaware drivers it’s ok to turn right on red?
and lastly Will you work to ban Sharia Law?
Joanne,
Actually, it looks like the selection process is going to pretty open. At least on our side. The City and County are looking at a special convention where almost 500 delegates from the District Committees will be encouraged to take part in choosing the candidate. We won’t get anything near that, but it is conceivable that we’ll get half to come out and vote for the D candidate.
More details will be available later this week.
“The City and County are looking at a special convention where almost 500 delegates from the District Committees will be encouraged to take part in choosing the candidate. We won’t get anything near that, but it is conceivable that we’ll get half to come out and vote for the D candidate.”
You mean the Dem voters in NCC won’t be able to select one from among the Dem candidates at a voting booth? (The same with the Repub voters?) Members of the District Committees will decide? That arrangement doesn’t seem as democratic as it could be.
Dana, who’s going to pay for a primary election?
1) The county hasn’t had a balanced budget in six years (used capital surplus to paper over operating deficits) what are you going to do to bring expenses inline with revenue?
2) are you a Gordon stooge?
Dana: Candidates for special elections are always picked by the party committees. That’s how the GOP picked Margaret Rose Henry, Dori Connor, Joe Booth, Don Van Sciver [RIP] and Tom Brady, and how the Dems picked Bryon Short and Bruce Ennis. As Auntie Dem points out, hundreds of committee-persons will have a voice in the selection. The idea of a mini-convention sounds like a good one.
Heragain, that’s a good question. One I hadn’t thought of.
John, Manifold, I didn’t know that was standard practice. I do wish, however, that it would be treated like a primary election and that money would be set aside just in case circumstances like this one arise to pay for the election. I believe as a matter of principle that it’s important to be as democratic as possible about such matters.
Dana,
There’s also timing to consider. The law doesn’t allow much time to get this done. It’s something like 45+ days. A primary where the candidates couldn’t get out their message to the public would not serve any purpose. The voters could vote but they wouldn’t have any idea what they were voting for.
In theory at least, the District Committee members should have a little more knowlege about the self-selected candidates. We’ve volunteered along side them, met with them at party functions, heard them speak at party meetings, etc. During all those hours that committee members spend volunteering they actually learn stuff.
The law says that the Party Chairman gets to pick. That would be the two chairs for the City and New Castle County Subdivisions. Our Chairmen are calling this special convention to push the selection process down within the party. They don’t have to. By law, Erik and Mark could just pick a candidate.
So this isn’t the ideal small “d” democratic solution but given the time constraints it is pretty good.
Will you please bone up on the English language before taking the President’s seat at Council?