DL Open Thread: Thursday, December 15, 2022
AG’s Office Concludes That Fort DuPont Redevelopment Corporation Broke Law. Tip of the sombrero to one of our fave tipsters:
“The petitions allege that the Fort DuPont Redevelopment and Preservation Corporation (“FDRPC”) violated FOIA by not responding to two FOIA requests seeking records relating to financial audits of the FDRCP. This correspondence serves as a determination pursuant to 29 Del. C. § 10005 regarding whether a violation of FOIA has occurred or is about to occur. For the reasons set forth below, we determine that the FDRPC violated FOIA.”
The above violation is not an isolated incident, but rather appears to be a continuation of a concerning pattern of the FDRPC of ignoring FOIA requests and responding only after the requestor has filed a petition with this office. On May 5, 2022, July 18, 2022, and October 10, 2022, this office closed three separate FOIA petitions where documents or responses were provided to the requestor only after the requestor sought relief by filing a petition. In the October 10, 2022 correspondence, this office strongly cautioned FDRPC to produce timely responses to citizens’ FOIA requests, and encouraged FDRPC’s FOIA coordinator to attend FOIA training.[2] This office has gone as far as to provide information regarding upcoming training provided by the Department of Justice. That guidance appears to have gone ignored, as FDRPC has violated FOIA within just weeks of this Office’s direction. Under these circumstances, it is regrettably apparent that FDRPC is disregarding its FOIA obligations.
BTW, guess who FDRC’s attorney is? First one who came up with Richard Forsten‘s name wins a, well, a sombrero tip.
Question now becomes–what will the AG’s office do? Signs point to nothing, just an invitation to submit another complaint if/when the FDRC violates the law again. Personal to members of the General Assembly–especially to those who are relatively new: This project has been nothing but Delaware corruption from the beginning. Here’s some great background that recounts this rip-off from the beginning. Read it, then turn off the money spigot.
Oh, and to the extent that the State Auditor has any power to oversee how state funds have been used here, use it. (Think I’ll forward this to Erik Raser-Schramm…)
Musk Replaces Trump As QAnon’s Savior? Good luck with that:
And on Tuesday, he tweeted a message with an emoji that many people interpreted as saying “follow the white rabbit,” possibly harking back to “Alice in Wonderland” or “The Matrix.” But many QAnon believers saw the rabbit as a wink to one of their foundational icons, a secret indicator shared in one of QAnon’s earliest online prophesies, known as “drops.”
One QAnon-amplifying account on Telegram with 118,000 followers, known for spreading a bogus claim that Russian fighters were targeting “U.S. biolabs” in Ukraine, said the tweet was only his latest flirtation with QAnon ideology.
“Elon called out Fauci for creating [covid-19], [is] calling out the woke hive mind, is paving the path for 2020 to be nullified and Trump reinstated … and now he’s directly quoting Q,” the account said. “Elon is an Anon,” the account added, using the term QAnon disciples call themselves.
Going out on a limb here. If Musk keeps playing to the Q-balls, Twitter will be in mothballs sooner than even I thought.
How Major Hospital Chain Axed Workers, Swelled Corporate Bonuses, and Failed Patients. You could pretty much insert the name of any hospital chain into a story like this:
Both hospitals are owned by one of the country’s largest health systems, Ascension. It spent years reducing its staffing levels in an effort to improve profitability, even though the chain is a nonprofit organization with nearly $18 billion of cash reserves.
Since the start of the pandemic, nurses have been leaving hospitals in droves. The exodus stems from many factors, with the hospital industry blaming Covid, staff burnout and tight labor markets for acute shortages of staff.
But a New York Times investigation has found that hospitals helped lay the groundwork for the labor crisis long before the arrival of the coronavirus. Looking to bolster their bottom lines, hospitals sought to wring more work out of fewer employees. When the pandemic swamped hospitals with critically ill patients, their lean staffing went from a financial strength to a glaring weakness.
More than half of the roughly 5,000 hospitals in the United States are nonprofits. In exchange for avoiding taxes, the Internal Revenue Service requires them to offer services, such as free health care for low-income patients, that help their communities.
But The Times this year has documented how large chains of nonprofit hospitals have moved away from their charitable missions.
Some have skimped on free care for the poor, illegally saddling tens of thousands of patients with debts. Others have plowed resources into affluent suburbs while siphoning money from poorer areas.
Read the whole thing. Then put pressure on any official, elected or otherwise, you can.
With all the talk of the concerted fraudulent Rethug efforts to overturn the 2020 elections, I think this story, which is equally important, has been grievously underplayed. It’s also a one-stop shop on the history of this movement to essentially bribe Supreme Court justices, and what you can do about it. I guess this puts an end to the fiction that ‘strict constructionism’ is a legitimate judicial theory as opposed to a serving as a mere pretext for activists to force evangelical positions on the public.
Government To Pour Money Into Run-Down Seaford Shopping Center. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t, but you’ll be paying for it:
Today, the 285,000-square-foot Nylon Capital shopping center is less than 15% full. But what was once the center of commerce and cruising in Seaford could spring back to life with the long-awaited investment of city and state officials, as well as private business partners, who aim to transform the site at 1023 Stein Highway (Route 20) a few miles west of Route 13.
The approximately $60 million working budget to buy and redevelop the site includes plans for workforce training, higher education courses, healthcare, shared office space for entrepreneurs, and more shops and restaurants, according to developer Robert Herrera, a partner in the 9th Street Development Company which is buying the shopping center.
Seaford is providing $3.1 million of funding for the project, and the state is ponying up another $2 million. Herrera said he is also going to research if federal funds from the American Recovery Plan Act are available, along with securing investors and loans.
What do you want to talk about?
Ex-President Trump announced yesterday that he is selling Trump trading cards at $99 a pop. Pictures of him as super hero. A perfect Christmas gift to hold and to trade to get entire collection.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/donald-trump-big-announcement-selling-161804314.html
The DE Supreme Court also issued its 69 page opinion explaining why it struck down the mail-in voting and same day registration laws back in October.
https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=341420
Having spent the last decade on the political sidelines because of working in a non-profit group, I am wondering the DE Democrat Party actively campaigns for environmental / climate causes. While this topic is a plank in their state platform, I’ve not seen any action in support of legislation or regulations that will address our climate and pollution problems.
I guess there are a couple of things that explain this. The main thing is that the elected incumbent members of the Democratic Party tend to view corporations as their primary constituency.
A secondary cause is the fact that the Delaware Republican party is so moribund that elected incumbent members of the Democratic Party have very little pressure on them to follow through on anything.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Thanks Jason, outside of registration and voting, do the Party leaders activate our rank and file to take public stands on issues such as the state’s climate action plan? I’m thinking of instances such as as DNREC’s public hearings on vehicle emissions that had few folks, other than Caesar Rodney and the GOP, show up for comments. Would not this important issue be one that the state Party would mobilize membership?
That certain legislative DEMs took action to suppress the Green Amendment vote this year was telling…..
OTOH
In Montana, young activists take fight against climate change to court
“Young people across the country are challenging state energy policy in court. One lawsuit in Montana — where the state Constitution guarantees the right to a clean environment — might have the best chance of success.”
https://www.delawarepublic.org/2022-12-16/in-montana-young-activists-take-fight-against-climate-change-to-court
We will be watching what happens when those excellent environmental bills get reintroduced.
Will a ‘kindler, gentler’ Our PAL Val let the bills out of House Administration? Will Deb Heffernan pay attention to the needs of Delawareans as opposed to the desires of her campaign benefactors?
Just one of many questions I have for January. I’ll be posting them–in January.
JOE MANCHIN: “I don’t know how you get more independent than I am,” Manchin recently told reporters. “I look at all of these things, I’ve always looked at all of these things. But I have no intention of doing anything right now.”
SETH MEYERS: “Well, he sounds like a Democrat to me.”