Bob Marshall: An Appreciation

When I went to work for the Delaware State Senate in 1985, all I knew about Bob Marshall was what I had been told–he was the nephew of Wilmington City Democratic Boss Leo Marshall, and that he had benefited from that relationship.  Our paths hadn’t crossed during my first two years in the House and my time as staffer for the Joint Sunset Committee.  I pretty much assumed that he’d be a back-bencher.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  He was one of the best collaborative legislators one could imagine.  He was an empath.  While not a grandstander, once he got his teeth into an issue, he wouldn’t give up.

The first time I remember working an event for him, it was a community meeting in Browntown to consider a Browntown Truck Route.  It was designed to get commercial traffic off the residential streets while ensuring that businesses still got their deliveries.  DELDOT was there with maps featuring the impact on every household.  There was a lot of bickering, bitching and squabbling amongst the neighbors.  I remember saying to Bob that maybe he ought to make sure the meeting didn’t get out of control.  He said, relax, I know these people, this is their way of working things out.  By meeting’s end, everything was worked out and everybody was happy with the plan.  I realized that my first impression of him had been incorrect.

Some Things You May Not Know About Bob Marshall, In No Particular Order:

1. Bob was the first legislator to push for Medical And Family Leave.  We had a really good legislative fellow named Tanny Higgins, and at Bob’s behest, she did great research that informed the bill’s final form.  This was unpaid medical and family leave (it was the ’80’s, after all) and the bill did not pass.  Why?  Because the Chamber was more powerful then, and convinced enough senators that this bill would start the ‘slippery slope’ down the path to paid medical and family leave, a path with which Bob, Harris McDowell, and a few others, were not uncomfortable.  The Feds ended up beating us to the punch.  And, decades later, we finally got paid medical and family leave.

2. Bob, at the request of Jane Pierantozzi and several other animal welfare supporters, created a Spay/Neuter Task Force that led to the use of a statewide Spay/Neuter van.  Quite an accomplishment.  Also indirectly led to my daughter volunteering at Faithful Friends, which directly led to a cat adopting her and coming home with us.  Quite the cat, her meow sounded like a duck quacking.

3.  Bob insisted on having the most racially and ethnically diverse district in the city and in Delaware.  Our Senate attorney, Frank Murphy, ensured that it was so.  Didn’t matter to him that it was not a white-majority district.  In fact, he welcomed it.  He loved to partner with people like Maria Matos at the Latin American Community Center, Keith Lake at Peoples’ Settlement, and Paul Calistro at West End Neighborhood House, among many others.

4.  When progressives were concerned that Bob wouldn’t publicly commit to supporting Sarah McBride’s SB 97 back in 2013, I wasn’t.  No, I wasn’t lobbying him on the bill, but I knew that his silence was that, as a Roman Catholic, he didn’t want to rub the St. Hedwig’s parishioners noses in it.  But he had often told me that, on civil rights, he was a Hubert Humphrey Democrat, meaning equal rights and equal opportunity for all.  I can’t recall a single vote where he went against those principles.  Yes, he voted for SB 97.

5.  Bob blew the whistle on privatizing Port operations in 2013, which was almost a done deal before he raised a stink.  One of the key purposes for privatization was to get rid of the ILA, the Longshoremen’s Union.  We’re seeing it again, Jeff Bullock’s gonna bullock everything up.  Clueless and malevolent.  Wonder who, if anybody, will stand up for the port workers now?

6.  Bob successfully pushed for several minimum wage increases.  However, time after time, that success was weakened by a succession of Democratic governors who were closely tied to the Chamber.  Carper, Markell and Carney.  He never stopped trying, though.  He got everything that was possible to get for working families.

7.  Perhaps the coolest event that he helped coordinate was attracting the Polish tall ship, the Dar Mlodziezy,  as part of an amazing Tall Ships event at the Wilmington Riverfront.  I’m thinking early 90’s.  He arranged for lodging for the captain and the crew, involved the Polish community around St. Hedwig’s in Wilmington.  He then invited my entire family, along with a host of others, to an event on the ship.  My wife, my daughters, and especially my dad, who had served in the Navy, had one of the best times ever.  The ship was by far the cleanest and most ship-shape of all the ships, the captain was gregarious.  Oh, the entertainment for the evening? Dionne Warwick.  My wife’s band teacher played in her backing band.  Bob was very inclusive, treating people as extended family.

8. Bob and Councilman Bud Freel joined forces with community leaders in the Hedgeville/Hilltop area to force absentee landlords to either care for their properties or get the hell out.  We’re not talking photo op stuff, we’re talking block-to-block painstaking effort.

9. Bob and Paul Calistro joined forces on a building rehab program designed to turn renters into homeowners.  Even arranged for financial literacy training for prospective buyers.

10.  Bob led a city initiative for community policing, the idea being forming alliances between police and the neighborhoods they’d be assigned to.  It had some success, but  lack of support from police leadership and some mayors kept the initiative from taking hold.

His Most Notable Accomplishments.

Two come to mind.  I’ve already talked at length over the years about his nursing home reform efforts.  Inspired by citizens who came to Leg Hall with horror stories, which motivated Bob to put together quite a working group.  We heard from hundreds of people up and down the state, each with their own story, many of them on the phone to me.  We read every single nursing home survey dating back several years.  We conducted public hearings in all three counties and in Wilmington.   We conducted several working sessions, one of which coincidentally took place at Buena Vista on 9-11.  We came into contact with so many special people during that time, private citizens like Phyllis Peavy and Pat Englehardt, operators like Jerry Spilecki at the Mary Campbell Center, and public servants including Carper attorney Tom McGonigal, Mary McDonough, Barb Webb, and so many others.  It was a collaboration.  What Bob was best at.  The result?:  The single most progressive package of reform legislation that had been enacted nationally at the time.

Yes, it’s unfortunate that unsympathetic governors, especially Minner and Carney, bought into the corporate propaganda and watered down those efforts.  But the laws are still there, just waiting to be enforced.

His other most notable accomplishment, IMHO, is one that surprisingly hasn’t yet been mentioned in the articles I’ve read.  That is the revitalization of Wilmington’s Riverfront and, in particular, the creation of the Russell W. Peterson Urban Wildlife Refuge.  That was Bob’s baby.  He had fished those waters in his youth, although I don’t believe he ever ate a three-eyed fish.  He created the Task Force and, as was typical, it was his ability as a collaborator that brought everybody together.  Mike Castle, Toby Clark, Russ Peterson, Dr. E. A. Trabant, Mike Purzycki of the Riverfront Development Corporation, environmentalists, birders, some great people from DNREC.  I remember the fireboat trip down (or is it up?) the Christina, starting in Southbridge.  I remember the very first river clean-up, although I think the iconic shirt I got that day has long since disintegrated.  I remember the planned burning of the, um, phragmites(?), stalagmites(?) to help pave the way for the refuge.

Last year, my wife and I took a brief getaway weekend to the Hotel DuPont.  We walked down to the Urban Wildlife Refuge, and then slowly walked through it.  It may be the most peaceful place in Delaware.  A refuge for wildlife and humans alike.  Bob Marshall helped to create this sanctuary, a sanctuary he had envisioned.  When I thought of Bob at his passing,  I thought of this peaceful place.  It is how I will remember him.