Bite Me, Asshole

Filed in National by on August 5, 2016

Your County Executive, Tom Gordon. Hopefully for not much longer.

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  1. Al says:
    August 5, 2016 at 8:49 am

    And this is leadership!

  2. mediawatch says:
    August 5, 2016 at 9:16 am

    Welcome back, Al.

    And then there’s this other bit on YouTube:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt_GEb6vK_s

    We’ve got a string of no comments from Gordon on reports of farmland preservation hankypanky, defensiveness when his former finance chief comes clean over budgeting tricks played in his first administration, and the top priority for “The Executive’s” six-figure PR guy is pulling together an unfunny 3-minute comedy skit for a TV station that nobody watches.

    Your county tax dollars at work!(?)

  3. JTF says:
    August 5, 2016 at 9:23 am

    Sorry, but I refuse to care when politicians curse, especially at one another. I didn’t care when Cheney did it. Or when Biden (does) it.

    This isn’t a defense of Gordon, at all, but, I just refuse to clutch my pearls when someone says a bad word.

  4. Dem19703 says:
    August 5, 2016 at 9:29 am

    So, does everyone call him Thomas “P.” Gordon when referencing his comments on a phone call? Also, screw the green screen, the painted the whole damn room green. That’s just a ridiculous waste of money, but sadly entertaining. Just not as it was meant to be.

  5. Truth Teller says:
    August 5, 2016 at 9:35 am

    When was the last time your TAXES werer raised????? Great Parks Great Library’s

  6. Dem19703 says:
    August 5, 2016 at 9:38 am

    “When was the last time your TAXES werer raised????? Great Parks Great Libarys”

    Know your audience. You’re on a progressive site. I think the majority of the folks here wouldn’t mind paying more in taxes to get better services, or create jobs, or fix infrastructure, etc. Just sayin’…

  7. cassandra m says:
    August 5, 2016 at 10:04 am

    So glad you got to this, DD. In addition to this disrespectful outburst, you could also see all of the Gordon disdain for everyone on display. Not as bad as when he was running against Chris Coons, but the demeanor is just bad.

    I was really intrigued when Matt Meyer brought up Gordon’s promise 4 years ago to fix Wilmington’s safety problem and how fast he danced away from that.

    With multiple mentions of fixes to the UDC not delivered, I don’t think Gordon ever addressed that broken promise.

    Finally, the Port. He actually talked about the potential to have 4 ports in this region, bringing in tens of thousands of jobs. I was stunned that no NJ reporter followed up on that. Diamond State Corp is looking at two things — investing in the current port to keep the customers they have and expanding to capitalize on current assets. That expansion is to one site for now and the site that seems to be number one of the list is Edgemoor. It is crazy to overpromise on this port situation.

    I thought that Matt Meyer did an exceptional job in that debate. He was definitely the grownup in the room.

  8. anonymous says:
    August 5, 2016 at 10:35 am

    Any mention of the port is over-promising on the situation. The fact is that there’s no guarantee whatever that pumping any money into Delaware’s ports will dissuade shipping from going further upriver. It might, but it also might not. That’s not a bet I”m willing to make with $500 million, or even the $100 million in public funding that would be retired.

    I do not want government creating any jobs, ever, except for paying for infrastructure. That’s jobs aplenty, and that’s the only way government should ever create jobs — jobs in which the pay builds something that belongs to the government, i.e. the people.

    It also has the benefit of being the only way government can actually create jobs, as opposed to giving businesses goodies for free that will pay off spectacularly for investors and, oh yeah, maybe it will create some jobs, too.

  9. anonymous says:
    August 5, 2016 at 10:43 am

    Truth Teller and Just the Facts were at one time online handles for someone whom we know and don’t necessarily love. Not trying to out anyone, but those tongues have been up Gordon’s ass for a long time now.

  10. the other anonymous says:
    August 5, 2016 at 11:34 am

    @anonymous: You hit the nail on the head. ” I do not want government creating any jobs, ever, except for paying for infrastructure.”

    Our elected officials have tried to fund jobs, with NO clawback clause; Fisker, Sevone and of course the biggest joke, BLOOM ENERGY! Bloom sponsored 12 H1-B visas. What happened to the jobs for Delaware workers?
    WDEL should investigate, who voted yes for Bloom and we could vote them out of office! We should get our money back from Bloom, there has to be some clause, that they are not or have not met their quota! Hopefully, we could elect someone, to get our money BACK & stop this Bloom debacle!!!

  11. anonymous says:
    August 5, 2016 at 12:39 pm

    You don’t need anyone to investigate. That’s public information. You can look it up at the state’s General Assembly web site.

    This is endemic to the system, and you’re upset about Bloom? Stop focusing on that tree and look at the forest.

  12. cassandra m says:
    August 5, 2016 at 12:48 pm

    The Port is infrastructure. State-owned infrastructure.

    And expanding it is a pretty good idea — the current port is busy with a bunch of niche clients (both on and off) that are doing pretty well. One part of the ILA is incredibly well regarded and is part of the reason Dole stayed here. There’s definitely opportunity to build upon what is there, really. But you can’t do that building without expanding the current footprint, which the state has to do.

    But the State of Delaware is not building four Ports on the Delaware in my lifetime.

  13. anonymous says:
    August 5, 2016 at 1:21 pm

    You really don’t want to gamble on the port. The problem for Delaware is that the competition in Pa. and N.J. has much deeper government pockets to dip into. There are plenty of ports on the river, more being planned and lots of deep pockets lined up, especially in New Jersey.

    It is nothing but speculative to enlarge the port. The only private entity that was interested wanted to turn it into a coal depot, which would have visited a lot of environmental problems on the surrounding communities.

    In short, it’s a highly speculative proposition. Delawareans are being played by a bunch of people who stand to do very well IF it succeeds, and won’t be around to take the blame if it doesn’t.

    Much like the “stock exchange” nonsense. If it was such a great idea, private investors would be putting up the money.

    And that’s the case with any speculative venture. They come to government only when private sources have told them to take a hike.

  14. anonymous says:
    August 5, 2016 at 1:25 pm

    Just for the record, the port has never turned a profit. Granted, other infrastructure doesn’t, either, but bills are sent out so it pays for itself.

    The city could not afford its upkeep and so sold it to the state, which supposedly could. Now it turns out that the state can’t afford it, either. Neither can the county, but Gordon needs the union’s votes for re-election, so he has to pretend it does.

  15. the other anonymous says:
    August 5, 2016 at 1:52 pm

    @aonoymous: Really, “Stop focusing on that tree and look at the forest.”

    1. We were all hoodwinked into this thing with lies, What happened to the $1.40 per month.
    2. According to the eia; U.S. Energy Information Administration. Natural gas is a non-renewable energy source.
    3. Natural gas was not considered a renewable energy source until Delaware General Assembly passed Senate Bill 124, signed into law by Gov. Jack Markell July 7.
    *** Now all at once, the non-professionals says it is.
    4. Delmarva Power customers will be on hook for over $620 million over the next 21 years to help subsidize the Bloom Boxes, as part of a deal Delmarva Power reached with the state and Bloom Energy
    *** $620 million for one company??? That money could have been used for infrastructure and JOBS!
    5. “In recent years, however, more news has come to the forefront of about the technology’s carbon emissions and toxic waste (yellow crud builds up on the facilities and has to be disposed of).” Bloom Energy loses steam 5/12/2016 Renewables International.
    **** We’ve had enough toxic waste to cleanup in this State already. And then the companies that are using the Bloom boxes, are going to point the fingers at us, because we subsidized Bloom, to do the clean up!!!

    I don’t see why ALL of this wasted money is going to Bloom $620 million, that could be going to REAL job growth and services to the citizens of Delaware!!

    And yes, I’m up in arms about this because it was lies, elected officials who did not read what this was about and no one has the power to reverse this deal!!!

  16. anonymous says:
    August 5, 2016 at 2:09 pm

    All good points. But remember that deal was cut in the depths the Great Recession, which is why so many people voted for it. I can’t see any such excuse for all the giveaways since then.

  17. cassandra m says:
    August 5, 2016 at 2:24 pm

    Other infrastructure doesn’t directly charge its users for its use, either. Tolls on roads come closest, but that doesn’t exist on all of the state-funded road projects. Diamond State Corporate did turn a profit this year, and the value of its assets are usually greater than its liabilities. Still — its profits can’t pay for itself, which it why it is public infrastructure. Some ports will lease themselves to private operators, but most of the major ports on the East Coast are publically owned.

  18. anonymous2 says:
    August 5, 2016 at 3:26 pm

    I wonder how many of the pro-gordon comments are coming from the government building.

    The Gordon camp’s default damage control position – blame Grimaldi – is a dead giveaway.

  19. Rufus Y. Kneedog says:
    August 5, 2016 at 3:52 pm

    That debate Tuesday was a barn burner. I thought Meyer won pretty handily. The one bad stumble was where he chastised Gordon for saying he was at war with Council and he was offended because he’d been in a war zone or something like that – painfully weak but otherwise he demolished Gordon. It seemed like the front rows were packed with Gordon supporters and they were making comments I couldn’t hear while Meyer was speaking – they were told to stop several times by the moderator although I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
    Blake got his shots in on Gordon too.
    What to say about Nahe – he started off with some reasonable points about not having minorities represented in the trades at NCCo and the need for trades education of at risk youth, then progressively got more aggressive calling NCCo gov’t crooks and liars until at the end he was drawing some type of parallel between NCCo Government and a prostitution ring with Gordon and cronies as the Pimps, the taxpayers as the Johns and County Employees as the “bitches”. He would have had Trump blushing. The guy has a screw loose.
    Gordon might have been directing his comments toward Nahe at the end, hard to tell. He got up and left in the middle of Nahe’s closing statement which was probably an appropriate thing to do at that point.

  20. anonymous says:
    August 5, 2016 at 5:49 pm

    @cassandra: I might not be up to date, but I’ve heard of two private port ventures in New Jersey in the last six months. I imagine those projects, too, will find private funding scarce, for the same reasons Wilmington is a speculative project.

    “Other infrastructure doesn’t directly charge its users for its use, either.”

    That’s funny, I get bills for my water and sewer, which is what I was thinking of. All drivers pay for roads through gas/diesel taxes, though they’re no longer up to date. And so on.

    My point was that the port already exists on government largesse, though of course they made sure to set up a quasi-governmental (read: non-transparent and non-responsible to the public) agency to run it. It’s a wonderful asset as it is — but the notion that we’ve got to spend more money or we’ll lose it all is a scam shipping interests have been running for years now.

    I understand why the dockworkers buy the sales pitch — they need and want it to be true. That doesn’t make it true, though.

  21. anonymous says:
    August 5, 2016 at 5:51 pm

    @Rufus: Remember, if it weren’t for Biden, he might still be in prison.

  22. j. bryan says:
    August 5, 2016 at 6:20 pm

    I agree with you, Rufus. Nahe seemed unhinged. I was pretty bothered when he got a question about open space preservation and the concerns about development taking place on closing golf courses and turned that around into a rant about how the government shouldn’t be involved in any of that stuff. Well, sorry, Mr. Nahe, but the government needs to be involved in stuff like that. We need a state and county government that will take proactive steps against the plague of overdevelopment, and in favor of open space preservation.

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