One thing Obama could do when he is out of office is go on tour — he’s hilarious: “There’s one area where Donald’s experience could be invaluable, and that’s closing Guantanamo. Because Trump knows a thing or two about running waterfront properties into the ground.” The Shade is fierce with this one.
This is President Obama’s entire speech at the WH Correspondents’ Dinner, approx. 33 minutes and worth every one of them.
I laughed AND I cried! From the Washington Post:
As previewed in this Tweet from earlier this week, WDEL reports that NCCo PD Chief Elmer Setting doesn’t pay rent at the house he lives in on Lisa Dean Mosley’s property.
I could have sworn I read that here at DL awhile ago, but I can’t find it. Still — John Flaherty speaks for me here:
“What he has done wrong is, he has an appearance of impropriety–accepting something of value and not paying for it,” he said. “If you look at the New Castle County Ethics Code, they stress that county public officials need to avoid an appearance of impropriety, and I think having the county police chief living rent-free or having special privileges on somebody’s house in Chateau Country, I think he needs to explain his actions to New Castle County Council–at, probably, a meeting of the public safety committee–to try to regain trust and confidence in his judgement.”
And I don’t get how he is providing security at this place if he already has a more than full-time job. Seriously. At the very least he needs to report this housing as a gift.
Last night was another big Mayoral debate, this one including the newly announced (but not filed) Maria Cabrera and finally showing up Dennis Williams. This debate was sponsored by the Complexities of Color Coalition, the Metropolitan Urban League Young Professionals, Interdenominational Ministers Action Council, Delaware Young Democrats Minority Caucus and Delaware Black and held at Ezion Fair church in Southbridge. This was really well attended and the audience was definitely there to be engaged. The NJ provides a bunch of the highlights of the evening, but I want to focus on some campaign themes emerging and a different cattle call at the end.
The questions were focused on Public Safety, Education, Economic Development — questions pretty high on the list for everyone engaged in this Mayor’s race. What separated the candidates was mostly how well they engaged with the concerns of the people of the room, the quality of solutions proposed (where solutions were proposed) and experience claims. As you can imagine from an almost 2 hour debate, there was a great deal said and Williams came to belligerently defend whatever record he claims to have. In doing that, he took potshots at Theo Gregory and the City Council, which led to the only seriously heated exchanges in the event. When Williams can’t defend his record, he defers to another time, with some implication that another venue, another audience will understand. Williams does get to some of the issues that City Council has — controlling the purse is in their power and they’ve been less than effective at wielding that power. Williams wants you to know that Council block his initiatives — which isn’t exactly true — but they aren’t especially good at pushing their own priorities. See the Wilmington Public Safety Strategies Commission report — they couldn’t get the WPD to revise a budget to implement items in this plan and then there is the theater of “accountability” where the Chief gets grilled on progress, the Chief provides little information and the Council pretends to be tough. At the end of the day, nothing changes, which is pretty ineffective “accountability”.
One thing that I noticed from a number of the of the candidates (Cabrera, Gregory, Griffiths, Kelly) was an insistence in creating a new policing plan and implementing that. This is typical Wilmington behavior — where if you don’t do it, then it doesn’t happen. Only Marshall and Young mentioned the WPSSC report as a place to start — and seriously, this is a city with no money, so why wouldn’t start with something that already provides a solid roadmap to improving the organization? Everyone wants to take credit for a plan, but not for actually getting anything done on that plan.
On Public Safety, everyone made the right noises on Community Policing, with Kelly making the point that these folks need to stay in communities and raising the possibility of recreating the police substations in neighborhoods. It is clear that multiple definitions of Community Policing were in play. Most talked about police accountability for effective changes in their areas. In response to a veiled question about the Jeremy McDole shooting, Williams made the point that due process has to run its course before deciding what has to happen with the officers who shot him. Gregory noted that the city should not be afraid to call in the Feds when there are major issues like this and called on his experience as a Federal prosecutor (!) that will facilitate this. Young talked about better and more frequent training for officers as well as effective community policing as a preventative measure, as well as the deployment of cameras that might get you better data on the incident faster. Griffiths also made this point re: cameras. Kelley also chimed in on better training and making sure that officers are a long-term presence in communities. Most of the rest also talked about due process, with Cabrera talking about accountability and and not allowing mistakes.
For Economic Development, the Mayor rattled off a bunch of stats that probably aren’t true (I know the claim of the 350M in capital investment in the city is not his to claim, for certain — many of the projects he counts were in the pipeline under the Baker Admin). Most of the other candidates used this question to say that the city isn’t doing enough to help small and minority owned business in the City. Gregory claimed credit for the current status of the Minority Business Loan fund (which is largely unused) and suggested that the Strategic Fund (grants not loans) be made available to small and minority owned businesses. Young recounted a recent meeting with minority small business owners in the city, who had no idea about the programs and support offered by the city — recommending a much broader outreach and also recommending a business startup approach that streamlines the process of licencing and inspections in the City. Kelley pointed out that considering how much the City spends, it is remarkable that the City hasn’t used its spending power to get contractors and vendors to subcontract to City small businesses. Purzycki said that economic development has been his job at the Riverfront and that was when the audience let him know that the Riverfront was not a model that interested them.
All of the candidates were also asked about a plan to create a more viable and livable downtown for young people — a city that doesn’t shut down at 5PM. Both Kelley and Gregory talked about the astonishing disconnect between the City’s Cultural Affairs office and its artist community. Gregory also talked about a “regressive parking scheme” downtown and doing a better job of marketing the city. Purzycki talke about adding more amenties to the city that young people would be interested in. Young discussed how budding creative spaces in the city get little support and how hard it was for young entrepreneurs to create businesses in the city.
Education proved to be squishier — mainly because the Mayor doesn’t have much say in the process. Young and others called for the City to have a seat at the table and discussed developing an Education Resource Center to help parents sort through choices and issues. Williams noted that he already has someone in his office working on Education (but no one sees her — and she doesn’t have a seat at the table because no one from the 9th floor joins the active parent groups to get there). Gregory continues to trot out Moyer as an accomplishment — even though on his watch this school was on a death spiral almost from the day it opened. Marshall clearly did not know what WEIC does (even though constituents of his worked hard to convince him to get involved with the education discussion in the city.) Purzycki noted that the city needs a high school, which got him the best applause of the night.
This debate felt like the real start of the campaign as well as it’s first moment for candidates to review their confidence in strategies. This Cattle Call is going to be based on who should think about leaving the race:
Who’s Competitive:
Eugene Young — he has been connecting well with voters in multiple venues — doorsteps, house parties, business events, debates — and the connection shows. It also shows that how well his policy team is helping him focus on changing the status quo as well as on better ideas. He is very strong on the kind of partnerships needed to move forward — and unlike the usual Wilmingtonians, is not going to need to develop his own silo to govern in. He will be reaching out to everyone who could help.
Kevin Kelley — Kevin is also working very hard meeting voters everywhere. Last night, though, he did not connect with this audience as he typically can. He was in way better command of ideas and information but somehow seemed off of his game. Still — while I think Kevin was at the top of voter lists this fall, he is not now.
Who Needs to Rethink Their Strategy:
Mike Purzycki — he walked away as damaged goods from this debate. While he clearly is going to spend alot of money, he is going to need some people outside of the 8th to vote for him. Last night, he was occasionally dismissive of plans and ideas and had a difficult time connecting with the audience. For better or worse, Purzyki was the poster child of the long-simmering resentment in the city of prioritizing the Riverfront and Downtown development over the rest of the City. It is hard to underestimate how deep this resentment is. Rumor has it that Purzycki has the support of Charles Potter — which won’t make his 8th District base especially happy and I doubt that Potter can paper over this Riverfront problem. Especially since Potter (as a City Councilman) is complicit in this problem.
Theo Gregory — basically, I get that he is running because it is “his turn”. And his own approach to this debate showed that. He wanted to lay claim to some city accomplishments as City Council ones (while accomplishing very little on Council). Claiming Moyer as a success is simply incredible. Claims for plans, accountability and being on message don’t substitute for a discussion of HOW when asked, even though he took others to task in the debate for not answering questions.
Who Needs to Drop Out:
Dennis Williams — seriously. No lessons learned at all from the first campaign or 4 years of governing. Belligerence ≠ policy knowledge. While he apologized for overpromising on the crime issue 4 years ago, he proceeded to try to convince people that things in the city are better than we think.
Bob Marshall — seriously, again. His solutions are to talk about how he was able to get money to get stuff done in the city. Which has nothing to do with being Mayor (ask Dennis Williams). His solutions are largely about throwing money at various issues — which can be fine for those things that need money, but there is much abut the administration of the city that won’t get more money and will need someone to make tough choices.
Norm Griffiths — Griffiths is a gentleman and a smart guy, but it is pretty clear that he has been out of the city’s loop for awhile and also clear that he hasn’t done much work to think of solid governing policy. I don’t know why he wants to be Mayor. He spent more time agreeing with people on the stage and little time differentiating himself.
Maria Cabrera — yes, she just got in. But she’s a barrelful of extensive lectures on the problems of the city (yes we know those already) and light on genuine solutions. One of the things that she needs to be accountable for is taking over the L&I committee and still not moving on some of the big issues that need to be dealt with. Maria is a perfectly nice woman, but lecturing people is not a good fig leaf for thin substance.
So I probably missed some discussions — I’ve been working on this post on and off all day. So what did I miss? And What do you think?
Tonite is the debate between Hillary and Bernie in New York. There are a couple of local debate watch parties that I know of listed below. The operative phrase here is “that I know of”. If you are aware of others, please post the details in the comments and one of us will get the information in the main post. So here we go:
Delaware for Bernie Democratic Debate Watch Party
Bobbi Rhian’s Executive Lounge (Wilmington, DE)
302 N Market St
Wilmington, DE 19801
TIME: 8 until 11PM
Facebook Invite
HFA-DE Debate Watch Party
Veritas Wine & Craft Beer
321 Justison St
Wilmington, Delaware 19801
TIME: 9 until 11PM
Facebook Invite
Where are the other watch parties?
Anyone surprised that Gordon is denying any allegations or corruption or mismanagement? Or that he is blaming Grimaldi? Saying that one of the parties who is actually heard on the tape is “misinformed”.
Unfortunately, we have not been able to listen to the full recording(s) provided to
WDEL, but just snippets that purport to tell the full story. These select snippets seem
to suggest that a contract employee had accessed a confidential mailing list and used it
to make a call on behalf of his wife, who was running for office. This is untrue. In reality, on August 13, 2015, a person enrolled in our Section 8 housing program called to protest several violations for which the client had been cited. During this call, the client mentioned that the housing inspector had called the client earlier and asked the client to vote for his wife. This individual did not make a complaint. This alleged request by the housing inspector was said to have happened prior to the November 2014 election, about nine months prior to the August 13, 2015, phone call. This comment was forwarded up the chain of command to Dave Grimaldi, chief administrative officer (CAO) at that time.
Got that? Someone calling with a number of complaints also complained about being asked for a vote for his wife. The individual did not make a complaint. This sounds like they are hanging this out on a formality — that somehow this person did not fill out a form and sign it or something. One wonders if the other complaints this person called with were similarly dismissed as not making a complaint. Even though everyone agrees the person called with a, you know, COMPLAINT. Then (I have to ask), if there was not a COMPLAINT by this person, how was it that this even came to the attention of Tom Gordon and Dave Grimaldi? It came to their attention enough for Gordon to provide an instruction to fire the guy — an instruction that was revised to second changes one it was known he was married to a Senator key to Gordon’s budget needs.
The initial information provided to Dave Grimaldi was that the employee had admitted
to this conduct, later learned to be inaccurate. An internal investigation by the Department of Community Services revealed upon interviewing the employee that he did not download any files or make any phone calls to the client. There was no evidence that any files were downloaded.
Convenient. And of course an investigation that consists of asking the employee if he or she did it looks like a wink and a nod from here. Even if employee activity in a database was tracked, an inspector for these properties wouldn’t have to perform a specialty download — he probably has as much info as he needs from day to day activity over time. Even odder is that Grimaldi didn’t know about the outcome of this investigation.
None of it passes the smell test, really. Which is why I am really hoping the US Attorney jumps in to take a look. Section 8 records are the Feds jurisdiction and they are the only ones who are going to have any credibility in looking at this mess. Because it is for certain that Tom Gordon should not be in the business of investigating himself.
First, go look at WDEL’s story on this. The story as currently released alleges that an employee of the county (and husband of Bethany Hall-Long) took confidential records of low-income housing residents in order to run his own personal phone bank for his wife.
A confidential source implicated Hall-Long’s husband, Dana Long, in allegedly using his position as a Section 8 housing property inspector–a contract position within New Castle County government–to lobby for his wife’s state Senate re-election bid.
A confidential source told WDEL that Long took the county’s protected contact list of low-income housing residents and cold-called them–on his own time–urging residents in his district to vote for his wife when she faced Republican John Marino in her 2014 re-election bid.
Long’s contract position involves investigating whether residents of subsidized housing are in compliance. Some residents apparently felt intimidated by Long’s phone calls, with one even lodging a formal complaint with the county. The source said Long admitted to taking the list, and that Long’s actions could potentially hamper the county’s ability to administer U.S. Housing and Urban Development programs.
And Tom Gordon’s reaction to hearing about this abuse from a county employee:
New Castle County Executive Tom Gordon, who’s also running for re-election, found out about the alleged abuse of power four to eight months after the November 2014 election and didn’t fire Dana Long. In recorded conversations exclusively obtained by WDEL, Gordon is heard admitting Long should be fired, but his wife is “too valuable.”
“I don’t want him fired, that’ll cost us $12 million–(Bethany Hall-Long’s) one of the ones I was counting on,” said Gordon. “We’ve got to find a way around that…here’s the problem, if you’re going to fire someone you do it when it happens, you don’t wait a f—— year.”
When it looks like WDEL was going with this story based on the recording they got, they started with the threats:
“If the alleged recordings are, in fact as you say they are, being a conversation between two county employees and the content is about a county employee…the content would be privileged as a personnel matter,” Timothy Mullaney Sr., New Castle County chief administrative officer threatened through a spokeswoman. “(WDEL) have been put on notice that if you knowingly release privileged protected material you could be liable for the breach of confidentiality of the personnel matter, which could result in legal action.”
I’m not a lawyer or an HR person, but this doesn’t seem to be a personnel matter when all you are doing is covering up for this misbehavior. Still, Mr. Long was in trouble over his wife’s campaign previously, having been caught stealing signs (and how did he keep his county job after that, really?).
Tom Gordon is failing in his duty to the county here. He shouldn’t be covering up this kind of misbehavior with county resources, no matter the cost. Because now people are now confirmed in thinking of his administration as an utterly corrupt one and BHL gets painted with that same brush. And if BHL is OK with her husband cutting these corners on her behalf, she shouldn’t be Lt. Governor, either.
Amazing, but once you think about it, not surprising. According the the NJ:
The union that represents Wilmington’s firefighters on Thursday submitted a letter to the city’s elected officials notifying them they had “no confidence” in its leader, Fire Chief Anthony S. Goode.
“It is with great regret that we report to you that the Wilmington Fire Department is broken and we need the help of our honorable elected leaders to fix it,” said the letter signed by Bruce Schweiger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1590, for Wilmington.
This probably means another Twitter war and certainly doesn’t bode well for a good completion to the current contract negotiations. Goode is one of Williams’ ride or dies so I’d say there is no chance that Williams will ask for a resignation and Goode doesn’t care enough about his department to step down for the sake of that department.
I still want to know what the WFD thinks of their decision to support Williams in 2012. Because that investment backfired on them Big.Time.
The News Journal published a remarkable story yesterday, detailing the escapades of a Wilmington Fire Marshal who was supposedly performing a residency investigation. Some quick background, new hires with the City of Wilmington are expected to establish residency in the city within six months of hire and then are expected to live in the city for 5 years. There’s a Residency Review Board that is supposed to review challenges of non-compliance. But here we find that somehow a WFD Fire Marshal is clumsily investigating WFD employees:
A Wilmington Fire Marshal inspector conducting residency investigations outside the city was questioned by two different police agencies last week, including one in Pennsylvania. In one instance, he pulled a gun on a man who said he photographed the inspector coming out of neighbors’ backyards.
No charges were brought against Thomas L. Ruger Jr., but the incidents raise questions about who is authorized to perform residency inquiries.
It is simply impossible to me that there are no charges against this guy, who was pretty clearly impersonating a police officer — an impersonator who decided to slap the cellphone out of the hands of a citizen doing nothing other than recording a suspicious incident and then pulled a gun on that citizen. This is simply and completely unacceptable. And certainly since it pretty clearly looks like someone was trying to catch out someone newly elected to the Firefighter’s union board — a union that the Fire Chief is publicly fighting with via Twitter (of all places).
Who among us would be able to trespass and impersonate a police officer and walk away without any charges?
I’m starting to think that the lawlessness in Wilmington is in part due to the fact that its leadership can’t bother to model better behavior. Why follow the law when the city’s leadership certainly doesn’t have to? And they get to try to terrorize their own employees with impunity. I would guess that the families subject to this bullshit will sue the city — even though this current administration learns no lessons from lawsuits.
In 2012, the WFD was all in for Williams for Mayor. Wonder what they think about that choice now?
The Complexities of Color Coalition, in partnership with the Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League Young Professionals, Interdenominational Ministers Action Council, Delaware Young Democrats Minority Caucus, and Delaware Black are hosting a debate among Wilmington Mayoral candidates April 18, 2016, 7pm at Ezion Fair Baptist Church in Wilmington. You need a ticket (it’s free) for this one and you can sign up for that at this website. Your ticket comes via email.
A note on the signup — this process does ask you for a Job Title and Company, and it also asks you if you are supporting a candidate or undecided. I have no idea how this data is being used, but you can leave the Job Title and Company blank. If you check the box for being decided FOR a candidate, it will ask you who you are supporting. Again, I have no idea how this data gets used, so I just checked the box as being uncommitted and declined being available to participate in a focus group or undecided voters. You’ll also have a chance to type in any questions you might have for the candidates. I know that some of us are wary about sharing too much data with unknown groups, so just providing that heads-up.
Hope to see you there!
So this is what is happening on Williams’ FB pages today:
Then 20 or so minutes later, we have this:
A meltdown, right? Because WTF else could be going on here? For someone who needs plenty of votes this September, alienating some of them on racial lines seems just plain delusional. And this is not all. If you are on his page regularly, there are posts saying Good Night Wilmington (think Good Night JohnBoy) and for those who are asking serious questions or who criticize him in any way — you are unfriended and blocked. Like he was still in junior high school or something.
Anybody got any ideas?
The Wilmington Black Lives Matter group is hosting a Town Hall on Wednesday, March 23 from 6 – 8 PM. The Town Hall is at 2303 Lancaster Avenue Wilmington, Delaware. Invited politicians include: John Carney, Matt Denn, Penrose Hollins, Stephanie Bolden, Theo Gregory, Kevin Kelley, Eugene Young, Justen Wright, Sherry Dorsey, Bob Williams, Greg Fuller, Maria Cabrera, Steve Washington, Matthew Meyers and others.
Wonkblog shows us one of the consequences of the legalization of marijuana (for both medical and recreational purposes):
Interesting, yes? Legalizing marijuana thins out the importers. And certainly increases some legal entrepreneurial activity here. And it takes some money out of the black market and puts it into tax coffers. I can’t even imagine the savings from getting law enforcement out of the business of policing small users and producers.
Delaware should legalize marijuana, like Colorado and Washington did. Tax it like crazy and be the centerpiece of a Mid-Atlantic market. Get in *early* and start replacing the revenues at risk from casinos that are being out-competed.