And The Nominee Is…
The Democratic nominee for New Castle County Council President is…Tim Sheldon.
Here is the announcement sent by the Delaware Democratic party:
In a special convention on Monday evening, the Democratic Party chose County Councilman Tim Sheldon as their candidate for the special election for County Council President. The election will be held in late December or early January.
“We have selected an excellent candidate in Tim Sheldon,” said Erik Schramm, New Castle County Democratic Chairman. His years of experience serving our county as County Council member will equip him to serve our county and its residents well.”
Wilmington City Chairman Mark Murowany added, “I am proud of our selection, and also of the process allowing all Democratic committee members to take part. I am confident that Councilman Sheldon will run an excellent campaign and become our next Council President.”
Councilman Tim Sheldon, the Democratic candidate for New Castle County Council President., gave the following statement on his nomination:
“I am honored to be selected by my fellow Democrats to run for this office, and I look forward to having a conversation with all New Castle County residents about how we can improve the quality of life in our county.”
Bill Dunn, who also sought the nomination, congratulated Sheldon on his victory, and thanked the Democratic party for conducting an open, fair, and transparent process to select their nominee.
One thing we can’t say is that the nominee was picked by a small group of people in a smoke-filled room. The William Penn HS gym was packed with people and both candidates answered questions from the audience. There were at least 3 questions about helping people who are behind on mortgages or fines and several questions about public safety. It felt a bit like the nomination was decided before we even voted. Personally I thought both candidates started a little rough with their prepared statements and Sheldon was poor on the first few questions (basically avoiding). Sheldon got better near the end and Bill Dunn was the best I’ve seen him.
I am sure I will be lampooned, but I will be supporting Tom Kovach for council president. I think he is a genuinely good guy and more of a moderate voice. I also think he will be a good watchdog for what is going on in the executive side of the government, and honestly council could use a fresh face. These may be superficial reasons, but it is what I am going on.
As U.I. said, we had a full house on the Monday night before Thanksgiving. It made me so happy to see so many Dems come out and take part in the selection process. Erik Schramm and Mark Murovany should be congratulated for bringing the City and County committee members together. Even Chairman Daniello was smiling and happy.
Why?
Kovach may be a Republican who does not make me want to vomit, but he is still a Republican. Any working person who knows anything about what the two major parties stand for and still votes for a Republican has either been duped or bought off.
Congradts to Tim Sheldon. My sincere hope is that Bill Dunn will get elected to public office in the near future. He works hard for the community, knows the issues, and has the instincts of a public servant.
It is now 11:15 pm. The first comment here was 9:54 pm ,so I assume the post was a few minutes earlier. I checked news, local news , politics and Delaware Dialogue and as of now the News-Journal has not posted about this meeting’s result.
It’s up at WDEL.com.
Thanks, Geezer. I checked out WDEL.com and it was on the home page with an article and a video of an interview with Tim Sheldon.
In the poll on the front page of DL, I almost voted Mike Protack just to troll.
It felt a bit like the nomination was decided before we even voted.
Ain’t that the truth. Nearing the end of the question period I watched some committee members pointing at their watches,”Time to vote for Sheldon!”
What’s the name of the rep that joked about his district being annexed by Wilmington?
Jason, your rubes are showing. County-level politics are hardly a place where the ‘scary’ GOPer ideologies effect anything, even if Kovach was a rabid ideologue which he isn’t. Besides, there are no closer allies than the present DEM county politicians and executive bureaucrats to the NCC GOP stronghold: the Chamber of Commerce.
Not to mention the dirty deals struck with deep-pocketed developers by the DEMs over recent decades that would curl even your little partisan neck hairs. Yes, how is this not corruption – giving billion dollar infrastructure agreements for the City of Bayberry – orchestrated by DelDOT’s Ralph Reeb for Pam Scott-Paul Clarky and Blenheim Home’s Jay Sonecha via Gov. Minner’s Secy. Nathan Hayward http://www.sncca.org/bayberry.html. (The billion dollar figure is WILMAPCO’s newest estimate for the construction of the Bayberry Beltway in real numbers….and doesn’t even include the hundreds of millions for the Southern Sewer Core that was built for Pammy Scott under this 2004 agreement.) How much money did Sonecha give to Minner in 2004 to enable her defeat of Bill Lee……hmmmmm….nothing close to a cool billion but it was in the many tens of thousands.
When my father (R) was appointed to the NCC Levy Court in 1958 by Governor Boggs to serve out the term of a deceased DEM, he was constantly battered by young John Daniello (D) who was itching to replace him as the northern county representative. At the same time dad was deflecting reams of crap from fellow Levy Court member, Harry Roberts (R) to the south. Dad’s experience set a family rule: never vote the party always the person ESPECIALLY in local level politics.
What’s the name of the rep that joked about his district being annexed by Wilmington?
Chuck. Don’t know his last name.
My theory about the vote last night revolves around what happened in the city of Wilmington. Jea Street and the city blacks got behind Sheldon early in the process. I think that jobs were promised for the votes for Sheldon and from today’s paper, it is probably weatherization jobs.
A lot of union labor, including the city’s Local 199, was retrained via stimulus programming at DelTech to perform the audits and other work of weatherization and now, suddenly, DNREC is ready to go forward with the jobs. (By the way, there is also an article today pointing out that DNREC’s huge expansion last year has a fiscal note. The 2 million in additional health costs they asked for from the OMB yesterday is partly attributable to the new hires in their new departments. And people were saying that DNREC’s reorganization was going to save us money! HA!). Hello Lee Ann Walling and Stephanie McClellan and their new underlings over there.
“Dad’s experience set a family rule: never vote the party always the person ESPECIALLY in local level politics.”
…Tim Sheldon is a good man
I know he is, rh. That was a comment in reference to Jason’s blanket statement about Republican scum.
I think Tim Sheldon needs to develop his debate skills to take on a smart lawyer like Tom Kovach. Was I the only one who thought Sheldon was having a tough time until the last few questions? He completely dodged the first question about helping single parents and lost the people in my section in confusion about false alarm.
This going to be a sprint…and primarily a GOTV effort. Tough time of year for a special election. However, Sheldon really put himself out there in the paper this morning. He called the question on the bigger issue. People may criticize…but that couldn’t have been easy to do.
What’s the saying? The best defense is a good offense? Sheldon is trying to disarm the Republicans attack on the D’s in county gov’t. Good strategy and we’ll have to see if it works.