1. Wilmington Mayoral Candidates Disagree on Riverfront Hotel Deal.
The issue, of course, is whether the city should pay a $1 million ransom to the developers. As usual, I’m of two minds on this. I don’t believe that the City should have to do this. After all, if the project is this financial windfall that’s being projected, why shouldn’t the developers pay for it themselves? OTOH, government at every level in Delaware has already prostituted itself time and time again to pave the way for ‘economic development’. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. In other words, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, the developers have already determined that we are whores, they’re only dickering over price. Bill Montgomery and Scott Spencer support the $1 mill guarantee. Dennis Williams, Bob Marshall and Rev. Derrick Johnson say they oppose it. Kevin Kelley is still reviewing it. Anyway, that’s not the reason I included this in my wrapup. After reading the Esteban Parra story, I was struck that there was more civility and substance in this discussion than in the entirety of the Kareening Klown Kar that is the Rethuglican presidential nominating process.
2. Dover City Councilman to Retire.
Fiscal conservative Bill McGlumphy decides to quit rather than to keep fighting. From the News-Journal story:
In recent years, McGlumphy has taken a hard line against raises for city employees and rising city taxes and fees. He was not in favor of the construction of a new city library, and just this week voted against the hiring of two new police officers.”Sometimes we want to eat filet mignon and we have a ramen noodle budget,” he said. “You need voices that are willing to stand up and say, ‘No.’
Dover municipal elections will be held on April 17.
3. Loudmouth Tea Partier to Challenge Joan Deaver for Sussex County Council.
Don Ayotte, ‘contributor’ at Delaware Politics, says he’s running b/c Sussex County is turning into a ‘welfare state’. You can hear him say it for himself here. Oh, and you can read some of his comic stylings in this internecine Rethug warfare thread here. (Don’t read if bad spelling and grammar offend you.) Unfortunately, the thread is not complete b/c he censored comments reflecting badly on one Don Ayotte. Fortunately, he didn’t censor the comments written by one Don Ayotte. Which, um, reflect badly on one Don Ayotte.
4. Departments of Elections Still Suck.
Just not quite as much. New Castle County now has an online form to show 2012 filed candidates for office. There are no names on it yet. I know that the D’s have posted their filing fees, so there should be no impediment for filing for them. I don’t know if the R’s have yet. Neither the state site, nor Kent or Sussex Counties, have a site listing candidates yet. I repeat: the State of Delaware should not permit this ongoing incompetence. In this day and age, it really shouldn’t be difficult to have user-friendly websites, even with political hacks running the respective Departments of Elections. But, for some reason, it is.
OK, a slow week, I admit. Did I miss anything?