New Castle County Council At War, Part 2
Did you know that during the special election, we actually elected George Smiley as council president? Yeah, I didn’t either.
Apparently taking a page from fellow Democrats in the Wisconsin Legislature, six New Castle County Council members were mysteriously absent from a committee meeting today.
The absences of Councilmen Bill Bell, Penrose Hollins, Joe Reda, Tim Sheldon, George Smiley and Jea Street resulted in the lack of a quorum at the council’s executive committee meeting, so nothing could be voted on, Council President Tom Kovach said.
So, the Democrats in Indiana and Wisconsin denied quorum to fight for the right of public unions to bargain collectively. What are Smiley, Bell, Hollins, Reda, Sheldon and Street fighting for? The right to sneak resuming into meeting minutes for an unnecessary development? The poor, put-upon developers? So noble.
There were two resolutions coming up, one from Lisa Diller and one from Dave Tackett that change the rules so that what Smiley did could not be repeated. Tackett’s resolution would make sure the titles were included (Smiley only listed the packet number) and Diller’s would stop the way council changes it rules, which it did last week to get around Tom Kovach. Delaware Coalition for Open Government (DelCOG) has filed a FOIA complaint about the rules changes, saying it violates the FOIA law since the rule changes (the ones limiting Kovach’s power) were not on the meeting agenda and need a 7 day notice. FWIW, the missing council members all said their simultaneous absences were an accident.
It looks like there are two camps – both accusing the other of abusing their power. The Smiley camp believes that Kovach is exercising a veto that he doesn’t have. The Kovach camp thinks that Smiley et al are abusing the rules to get around objections of other council members.
My favorite part of today’s article, though, has to be Councilman Street’s reaction to proposals for disciplinary actions.
“What’s he gonna do, beat me?” Street said. “He should discipline himself for invoking veto power that only the county executive has.”
I think we’re going to keep hearing more about this as time goes on. It will be interesting to see who wins this power struggle. Where do you come down on this fight?
….after attending the Charlie Sheen school for public affairs….
This is why County Council is the graveyard of political aspirations. It is a miracle that Coons got out, and that miracle is called O’Donnell.
I love the part about the simultaneous absences being described as mere coincidences.
It’s not even that they think we’re that dumb. They really don’t care.
Utterly pathetic.
If ever asked to list the political figures they most wanted to emulate, those folks on council would no doubt name Tom Sharp, Tony DeLuca and Mark Brainard.
This looks like evidence that the County Council could be ALOT smaller. I don’t mind hardball tactics, but it would be useful if these guys did this for something critical.
I heard a great suggestion in October. County council should be changed so that just under half are elected at large, the rest are in districts. This would result in anyone in NCC having 7 people that they cast a vote for on the council.
I am happy that some of the council people that I like are on the right side here. Diller, Powers and Tackett. I am disappointed in Bell taking his stand here, though.
I can’t see a great outcome for any of this. So, anyone have a brilliant idea for making those adults behave?
My only notion is changing them from salary to time-clock, with biometrics. You canNOT pass a class at DelTech with absences, attendance counts. So we get our council-members changed from salary to hourly, make them check in and out, with a biometric scan that requires them to do it, rather than a minion.
I know their actual salary is a minor consideration, next to the graft and fame. But it’s MY money.
btw, the phrase “Tea Party Town Hall” just popped up on this page. Are we haunted?
So the pressure right now is on the county’s law office to give the opinion on whether Smiley’s move was legal and on the Attorney General’s office to force this council to behave. Mascitti was actually pining for the Gordonberry days today saying that at least they kept council in line unlike Paul Clark.
Smiley’s maneuver violated the law in at least 4 areas as described by Christine Whitehead (Attorney and former Planning Board member) in a letter to the editor. The Attorney General should get a complaint on that vote. I will file one by the end of the week if no one else has done so. The AG recently made the City Council of New Castle redo an illegal vote, didn’t they?
The rule change is a bit different since it is internal to council and not lawmaking bur rather housekeeping. I don’t think that it is necessarily subject to FOIA. Diller wants to make a rule to say that fellow council must put their rule changes in writing and give a week’s notice. I am really seeing the fighter in Lisa fighting for me! Thanks to Lisa and Dave too.
Smiley and his group are an embarrassment to New Castle County residents. Smiley “tricks” council into voting on a “controversial” deed restriction and then runs when Kovach is doing what he was elected to do; he sees the underhanded politics these other council members are pulling. I’m surprised at Councilman Bell also. I really thought he was a man we could count on!!
There was a great deal of activity on the county email yesterday setting up next week’s finance committee agenda. Should be a showdown of sorts.
The 1:30pm meeting next week will most probably be pale and calm compared to what has been going on recently due to the amount of people that I hear are going to attend.
The question that I have is:
Why has it taken so long to get the NCC Council meetings up for internet streaming or podcasting for all to see?
Yesterday on Rick Jensen, Rick said he offered 2 years ago to help set up and show Council “FOR FREE” how to podcast NCC Council meetings. The powers that be at Council politely declined Ricks offer and said they would look into it, take care of it, and do it themselves.
So far 2 years later nothing has been done for making the podcasting available.
Why do Council not want NCC Council meetings made public?
What is Council doing and hiding from the people that elected them to their offices?
After reading what Hollins, Sheldon, Smiley, and Street have said publicly about Kovach or to Kovach since Kovach became the elected President of NCC Council, it makes one wonder if they all graduated from “Thugs-R-Us” school.
One can only hope that their constituents will remember all this at election time about how these people “DO NOT” represent them the citizens of NCC, but they have another agenda as to who they represent and why they do so, which happens to be all at their expense.
To make sure that the voters will remember this I hope the News Journal will do a series of daily articles with all their rantings and quotes to remind the voters of NCC so as not to vote them back in!
Because of all of this not only am I embarrassed to be a registered Democrat, but ashamed also!
I think I must clarify something that I wrote, because it will be misconstrued and I apologize if it was taken the wrong way.
It has been brought to my attention that the word pale must be used this way: beyond the pale
Which means: unacceptable outside agreed standards of decency.
So therefore I would like to correct and reword my opening sentence on my above post to read.
The 1:30pm meeting next week will most probably be beyond the pale and calm…..
I got a chance to ask the full council on the record at a council meeting a few years ago to put their meetings on the internet. The next morning I got an unsolicited email from Chris Coons press person, C.R. McCleod saying that he would look into the idea. It soon became apparent that he was told FORGET IT because that’s the last I heard from him. The WNJ took up the issue and got great quotes from Smiley and Clark to the effect that they couldn’t possible air their discussions because their enemies would record them, change them around and put them out of context and then use their own words against them in radio ads at election time.
What an exhaustive and imaginatory excuse! That was also when Jensen started talking about offering to train the NCC staffers for free.
Dave Tackett at the time was the one to put it into an ordinance or resolution which was shot down by the thug majority.