Hope They Washed Their Hands After This ‘Handshake Deal’. When Tim Sheldon and Shawn Tucker shake hands, you’re getting fleeced:
New Castle County Councilman Tim Sheldon says he recently brokered a handshake deal to pause a data center development project near Newark.
Sheldon, who represents the Newark area, said the deal followed private negotiations with the developer’s prominent Delaware attorney, Shawn Tucker, who told him the New York-based developer behind the project, Shelbourne, agreed to consider the Newark site for uses other than a data center.
“This is my art of the deal,” Sheldon said.
But the deal is dependent on the county finalizing an approval for an exploratory plan application from the developer, which would grandfather the land into zoning rules that existed prior to this year, Sheldon said.
That means the developer would not have to follow the county’s recently-passed data center regulations if the company ultimately decides to build a data center there. Since the property’s zoning already allows data center projects, the county likely does not have the legal authority to deny that exploratory plan application.
How bleeping stupid does Sheldon think we are? This is nothing more than a scheme to circumvent newly-implemented regulations designed to control data centers. If the County grants the grandfathering, there will be no consideration of alternatives to a data center.
Chris Coons: Will You Answer This Question?: The Supreme Court’s corruption can no longer be denied, even by bland centrists who bask in the artificial glow of bipartisanship. Do you, as a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, support increasing the membership of the Court from 9 to 13 or 15?
To our readers–call Chris, ask him whether he supports expansion of the Court and/or term limits. If he (more likely, his office) declines to answer, says he hasn’t thought about it (that’d be a lie), ask him what the fuck he’s doing in the Senate. Oh, and report back to us on what kind of response you get. Feel free to ask the same question to Lisa Blunt Rochester.
While You Weren’t Looking, ICE Was Arresting. God damn it! Once again, I can’t cut-and-paste. Anyway, 10,000 arrests last week. New goal is 2,000 a day. Doesn’t matter who gets caught in the web.
In Venezuela, The Vultures Arrived Before The Rescue Teams. Even worse, troops were sent in, not to help, but to quell public protest.
What do you want to talk about?
I will indeed ask Chris Coons and Lisa Blunt Rochester whether they support increasing the number of Supreme Court Justices. Both of these Senators have done nothing much to fight this horrible Administration. We need to primary both of them NOW. The only legislation Lisa Blunt Rochester has introduced worth mentioning is her attempt to end Daylight Savings Time. We need some fighters as our Senators, not milque-toast elected officials like Coons and Rochester Blunt.
Vivian Houghton
You are the Ralph Nader of Delaware. You split the progressive vote for AG in 2002, and we got stuck with Jane Brady. Go crawl back in your hole.
Split the Progressives? Are you insane? Carl Schnee was a “Delaware Way” candidate and a rich one at that. He was an establishment candidate and no way near being and acting like a progressive. Delaware politics never had a State wide progressive candidate until I ran for office. You crawl back into your own hole.
Couldn’t have said it better , Ms Houghton!
I have no idea who you are.
But, in 2026 Vivian Houghton continues to volunteer on behalf of some of the best progressive candidates we have. Just what are YOU doing on behalf of the cause?
As a matter of historic record, it should be noted that if all Vivian Houghton’s votes had gone to Carl Schnee, he would have gotten 51.5% of the votes for AG, a far lower percentage than the Democrats who won their races. Biden got 58%. Markell for treasurer got 66%. Brady, like them, had the advantage of incumbency.
The point: If Schnee had performed to the level of Biden or Markell he wouldn’t have needed Houghton’s votes. And if a bout 3,000 of Houghton’s 13,000 voters had voted for Brady instead, she still would have won.
Robert makes a fair point. Vivian’s was a purely vanity candidacy that enabled Brady to torture Delaware for another 15 years – as a third-term AG and (ulp) a judge. Two years after the Nader fiasco, at that. One would think that a lesson had been learned.
Jane Brady became a Judge with the help of establishment Democrats. When I served on the nominating committee of the Delaware Bar Association, I resigned from that Committee after they voted for her nomination. Jane Brady knew she had the judgeship in the bag and even admitted it publicly. During that time, many of the gifts received by Republicans resulted from the largesse of the Democrats. As I described the two Parties during my campaign many times,
they were tweedledee and tweedledum.
As I noted, it takes an optimistic view of who those Green Party voters would have voted for, if they voted at all, in that race. Brady was in office for two more years. Even a Delaware Way guy like you can’t really believe she was given a judgeship because Vivian Houghton took voted from Carl Schnee.
So yeah, he has a point, and just like yours, it’s bulllshit.
And that lesson would have been–know your place and vote for the ‘centrist’?
Some 20-plus years later, we’re learning that Vivian Houghton was ahead of her time.
The whole centrist project is, “We’re not as bad as the Republicans.” Unstated: But it’s often hard to tell the difference.