Author Archives: cassandra_m

About cassandra_m

"You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." -Shirley Chisholm

Saturday Open Thread [3.30.13]

It is a gorgeous Saturday and I hope that all of you are spending quality time out in this sunshine. In this thread, we don’t care who you had breakfast with.

Adam Gopnik writes a Must Read article on the endless deflections of the people who refuse to consider any form of gun safety laws. This is in response to the breathless dismissal of a recent Journal of the American Medical Association paper demonstrating a pretty clear state by state correlation between strong gun laws and less gun violence and the latest news about the arsenal found in Adam Lanza’s home. There’s alot here, but this:

Finding a correlation, eliminating a correlation, proposing a correlation—these are not inconclusive fitful stabs at truth: they are meaningful acts. And when you put them together with many other similar, even stronger correlations, a cause stares you in the face and asks you to sit down and take it seriously. To believe that gun laws don’t work, you have to believe that each of the many studies showing that gun laws limit gun violence—all of them, every single one, from Canada to Australia and back home—are not just flawed at the margins or somewhat inconclusive but that they are fundamentally, entirely, completely, round-the-block wrong. And that isn’t a plausible claim.

In their endless quest to make sure that Americans are fully employed, Rep. Steve King and Senator Inhofe have introduced a bill in Congress to outlaw the use of any language but English on Federal government paperwork:

One major impact King’s bill could have is to stop the decades-long practice of printing non-English ballots in areas where there’s a significant non-English language group. Indeed, Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 currently requires local jurisdictions with a substantial number of non-English speakers to allow them to vote in other languages.

Sheesh. Two Democrats are also sponsoring this mess. But still, I have to say that the GOP effort to reach out to other minorities is going swimmingly.

Ryan Lizza was in Philly for a writer’s seminar where he was interviewed by Dick Polman from Newsworks. Lizza notes that it is increasingly difficult to do long-form journalism in a world where the short form stuff gets all of the attention:

“The price (politicians) pay now for a ‘gaffe’ is so high – the way Twitter and cable jump on stray comments – it’s just insane. So the campaigns are closed off in ways that weren’t even true in 2008….It’s really hard to cover campaigns now – especially with a magazine like The New Yorker, which wants depth, in-depth interviews….You can go to a politician and say, ‘I’ll give you lots of time, 10 (magazine) pages about your whole life, long quotes – but sometimes it doesn’t matter, because (after publication) a quote can get cherry-picked and spun out on Twitter. It happens all the time. It’s happened to me.”

Polman goes on to discuss how an quote from a Lizza article “leading from behind” became a conservative critique only because they took that bit out of context. Which just demonstrates to me what is missing from so-called objective journalism — context and fact-checking. Politicians and pundits can say the President is leading from behind ONLY because they face journalists who won’t hold them accountable for misuse of the phrase.

So what interests you today?

Adventures in Personal Responsibility — Or Being Mike Protack

I know that some of you are on Facebook and you’ve been a witness to weeks of insulting and trolling behavior from Mike Protack. Personally, I’m not friends with the guy, but some of my friends are, and the exchanges I’ve seen have been utterly unhinged. No matter the topic at hand, what emerges is the completely resentful Mike Protack — blaming Democrats or unions for all of the worlds’ ills; insulting the intelligence, the appearance, the ethnic background, the appearance of the *kids* of his interlocutors; making stuff up; and just generally lacking in the basic social graces that got him banned from this place. Whether he is talking about education or same sex marriage, all he’s been capable of over on Facebook is anger, insults and ignorance. Yesterday, Esteban Parra documented the most recent incident — one where Protack decided to get his inner racist on:

The comments were aimed at a woman with a Spanish last name, but who is not of Hispanic descent.

The odd comments have been noticed by many, including Rob Tornoe, a local cartoonist and columnist, who posted on Delaware Liberal last month:

“Well, since posting his public comments, Protack, who once ran for Governor, has completely transformed into a Facebook troll, sprinkling my page with a string of comments that can be classified as bizarre, hilarious, scary and brilliant.”

Rob is, of course, a gracious man.

But Mr. Parra notes that Protack’s Facebook page is now taken down, after a NJ reporter called him about his latest adventures in hatred and now he isn’t speaking to reporters. Which is weird, right? Protack is if anything a glutton for legitimate attention (he gets so little of it) and now he’s completely clammed up. But before he went dark, Protack told the reporter that he “sparingly” was on Facebook and denied making all of those hateful and derogatory comments. A thing that those of us who witnessed his complete breakdown here on DL certainly aren’t buying. But he’s taken a page straight from the GOP playbook and denied all responsibility for his Facebook comments. So I’m guessing that the router that was central to Pink Postcard Phantom is now posting on Facebook on its own. Which is OK — it is oddly interesting to watch a perennial candidate for office spend election off-years reminding voters EVERY DAMN DAY of why they didn’t vote for him in the first place.

QOTD — Why Is the NJ Still Paying Attention To This Woman?

This question is courtesy of commenter AQC. And the woman in question is Lenore Matusiewicz, the wife of the man who shot their grandchildren’s mother at the NCCo Courthouse. It looks from here that the NJ is basically a venue for pretty much every antic this woman is working on. Today’s antic are claims that the the State of Delaware is withholding her husband’s body from her and withholding the autopsy report. Insert eye rolls here.

You can go over to the NJ article to read the crazy of the day (did you see that video a few weeks ago?) and then come back and tell us why any of this mess qualifies as news.

Guest Post — Statement in Support of Senate Bill 19 by Stewart Dotts

Today the Senate is expected to debate and vote on Senate Bill 19, to abolish Delaware’s death penalty. We have the honor of publishing this Guest Post by Mr. Stewart Dotts — this was his testimony from last Tuesday’s (3/20/2013) committee hearing on the bill. Mr. Dotts also served as a juror in the capital murder trial of James Cooke. After I read this, I was really sorry I couldn’t have been at that hearing. This is powerful testimony. Mr. Dotts has given us permission to reprint his testimony in its entirety. And even though debate and vote is today, there is still time to reach out and let your Senator know that you support REPEALING the death penalty in Delaware and that they should vote YES to repeal. Reach out to them here, from the Repeal Project website. Read Mr. Dotts first:

My name is Stewart Dotts. I am 59 years old and have lived in Newark since 1990 .

I have voted for both republicans and democrats: I am a father, a wrestling coach, and an ultra-marathon runner.

I am also a strong supporter of ending the death penalty in Delaware.

I wasn’t always opposed to the death penalty. I used to believe that our society’s worst criminals deserved the ultimate punishment.

Then one day, I received a summons to appear for jury service. Shortly after reporting to the courthouse, I was one of 15 jurors selected for the capital murder trial of James Cooke. My fellow jurors were a desirable cross section of our society. I am a teacher. There was an accountant, a lawyer, an elementary school teacher, various office workers, union members, men and women, young and old, and black and white. We were just regular folks.
Then the trial started. Opening statements focused us on our task: We were to determine the facts of the case, render a verdict, and ultimately decide whether Mr. Cooke should die for his crime. Of course, as with all other juries, we were instructed to shut off all communications with the rest of world. We all complied.

We sat for hours each day contemplating and analyzing the murder of Lindsey Bonistall. We sat for hours each day contemplating and analyzing the childhood, social development, and ultimate destruction of a child turned murderer. Fine, regular people-your friends and neighbors- set about to do the job that society set before them.

We were the jury. Twelve regular, untrained citizens assumed the burden of determining whether or not James Cooke would die for this crime. That is, your child’s kindergarten teacher, your dentist, the accountant next door, your grandma, your 19 year-old daughter, and other “regular” folks were asked to immerse themselves for weeks in the details of a violent murder, to experience sleepless nights rehashing testimony, and not talk of it, all the while isolated from their normal life. And then when we were completely immersed in this emotional hell, we were required to swiftly decide whether we should kill this man before us. Amidst all this turmoil we, the jury, responded: “We will kill him if you say so.” Thus, we did.

And thus, I became a killer, too. It was legal and it was my duty. But I felt sick. For days I was unable to joke with friends or sleep at night. For weeks I was unable to stop reliving that singular moment when I wrote “death” on a tiny slip of paper. For months I awoke every night from unrelenting and vivid dreams of James Cooke’s execution. I followed and still follow every element of Cooke’s appeal. I will never be the same. And even though I know that I did nothing wrong, I will always carry the stain of one who has killed a fellow human.

As a society we must punish people for their crimes. We must protect our children from violent offenders. Life without the possibility of parole accomplishes these goals without turning innocent folks into accomplices to the premeditated killing of an individual.

I submit that those with no personal experience in this process fail to recognize the inconceivable burden that we place on the innocent participants in capital trials. I submit that the real harm we do to our innocent grandmas, children, neighbors, and public servants outweighs any potential benefit that society might (might!) derive from the vengeful killing of criminals. The calculus of killing a criminal in exchange for the emotional and mental well-being of numerous blameless citizens- of society at large- is flawed.

So let’s end capital punishment. Not for the criminal, but for ourselves.

Yes. Let’s end it for us. Thank you Mr. Dotts for serving your community when called — on the jury and for this.

Be sure to contact your legislator TODAY to ask them to support the repeal the death penalty.

Saturday Open Thread [3.23.2013]

So how are your NCAA brackets doing? I was reminded by President Jed Bartlett via Twitter that there is no Federal Disaster assistance for your brackets. Oh well.

Sir Richard Branson asked President Obama for a splif at a White House Dinner this week. That’s a marijuana cigarette for those of you without the lingo. I’d love to have better detail of the President’s reaction to this joking request. But Branson makes this point at a forum later on:

“We [the Global Commission on Drug Policy] spent 18 months looking at the global war on drugs, and it was absolutely apparent to the commission that the war had failed. It cost countries gigantic amounts of money, it has imprisoned hundreds of thousands of people… people were executed for possession, and some countries, oppressive countries like Iran are using drugs as a way of executing their opponents.”

Word. End the madness.

Speaking of madness — the NRA has been robocalling and postcarding residents of Newton , CT. Completely classless and clueless behavior from these rat bastards:

“I received one of these,” Newtown resident Christopher Wenis wrote on Facebook Thursday afternoon. “I was insulted and offended.” Wenis told The Huffington Post in an interview Friday night that in the 36 hours since he first posted his response, he received two more robocalls from the NRA, one later on Thursday night and one Friday evening.

“I’ve got a 5-year-old son who went to preschool on the Sandy Hook Elementary School campus,” Wenis explained. “And this was a really hard week for me on a lot of levels. These calls were the very last thing I needed.”

And then there’s STILL this:

What interests you today?

QOTD — Are You Getting Strong Support from Your Congressional Delegation?

Jason wrote yesterday about the bad news from Astra Zeneca of major layoffs. The NJ provides a story that has Tom Carper telling people that AZ just might have left Delaware all together — as if to imply that this all could have been worse. Which it could have been. But I was struck by this quote from Senator Carper talking about why AZ may be staying:

“They think this is a good place to do business. Like the workforce. They liked the site,” Carper said. “They have had a congressional delegation that in the past has been hugely supportive of them. They’ve been mindful of a lot of that. I don’t think this was an easy decision.”

So what about you? Do you think that Delaware’s congressional delegation has been strongly supportive of YOU, a Delaware (mostly) non-subsidized taxpayer? Tell us about how Delaware’s congressional delegation is supportive of you, if your answer is YES. And tell us how they could be more supportive of you if your answer is NO.

What Guest Worker Programs Look Like

Last week, there was a surprise strike at multiple McDonald’s restaurants in Central PA — of student guest workers from Asia and Latin America who are here on J-1 visas. First, though, I’m pretty stunned that these restaurants can’t find workers closer to home. It isn’t as though we don’t have millions of people looking for work, but I’d love to know why it is so difficult to hire American fast food workers.

When we hear politicians (and various businessmen) talk about the virtues of a guest worker program — where workers get a temporary visa to come here to take on specific jobs — they are usually talking about farm worker programs. Providing a legal way for seasonal workers to come here, get the work done and then go back to their homes. I’m usually very skeptical of guest worker programs largely on the German experience with guest workers. They recruited workers from various countries to come work, and while they had “guest” status, lots of these workers never went home. It has taken German society and government a very great number of years to find a way to accomodate these guest workers who never went home.

The bigger problem, though, is that guest workers are vulnerable workers, as the McDonald’s kids experienced:

The workers are striking over what they charge are rampant abuses at their stores in Harrisburg and nearby Lemoyne and Camp Hill. According to NGA, the visiting students each paid $3,000 or more for the chance to come and work, and were promised full-time employment; most received only a handful of hours a week, while others worked shifts as long as twenty-five hours straight, without being paid overtime. “Their employer is also their landlord,” said Soni. “They’re earning sub-minimum wages, and then paying it back in rent” to share a room with up to seven co-workers. “Their weekly net pay is actually sometimes brought as low as zero.”

“We are living in [a] basement,” said Rios, “cramped together, with no divisions, in bunkbeds which are meant for children.”

More, from the Huffington Post:

Among the “abuses” alleged by McDonald’s guest workers: (1) They’d been promised full-time jobs, but most were given only a few hours a week. (2) They were nonetheless forced to be on call twenty-four hours a day, and were intimidated and threatened if they complained. (3) The company failed to pay them overtime they were entitled to. (5) According to NGA, their employer is also their landlord, and even though there are as many as half a dozen co-workers sharing a room, their rent (which is automatically taken out of their paycheck) renders them making less than minimum wage. Any complaints, and they’re threatened with being sent back home.

These kids paid $3,000 to come to McDonald’s to work and that money went to a for-profit organization, ostensibly for expenses. Certainly not for oversight.

Guest Workers aren’t going to be any more than second class citizens here, and there won’t be enough oversight from the Government or anyone else to make sure that they are not being taken advantage of or that they leave when their visas are up. The last thing I want to see is my own Government giving our permission slips for workers to be mistreated, because it sure looks like that is what is going on with these kids.

Monday Open Thread [3.11.2013]

Welcome to Monday, people. This is one of those Mondays where the list of stuff to get done when you left on Friday had magically trippled by 8:30AM. And don’t get me started on the hour that Daylight Savings Time stole from me.

President Obama will be announcing as Labor Secretary the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Thomas Perez. The GOP won’t be interested in any pick for Labor Secretary, but Mr. Perez has a special qualification to get under the skin of the GOP:

The nomination, which requires Senate confirmation, could face a backlash from Republicans over Justice Department activities. Notably, Perez has filed civil rights lawsuits against law enforcement officials — including one last year against Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the brash Maricopa County, Ariz., lawman. The suit accuses Arpaio’s department of a “pattern of unconstitutional conduct” against Latinos in the state, which has led the nation in clamping down on illegal immigrants.

ProPublica does some amazing journalistic work — and they’ve put together a map that shows were the SBA is lending money to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy in flood zones. This isn’t exactly smart policy — sending government funds where they will be washed away again. The story:

A WNYC and ProPublica analysis of federal data shows at least 10,500 home and business owners have been approved for $766 million in SBA disaster loans to rebuild in areas that the government now says could flood again in the next big storm. The data, which shows loans approved through mid-February, was obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.

More loans could be going to flood-prone areas. The analysis did not cover Long Island or Connecticut.

The loans require borrowers to get flood insurance, which in turn could encourage some to rebuild properties to be more flood-resistant. However, for many owners there’s no requirement they raise their properties to the heights FEMA recommends.

The result: the federal government is helping people rebuild despite the risk that flooding will again destroy the properties.

The Five Biggest Lies About Entitlement Programs:

Lie No. 3: Social Security and Medicare are $60 trillion in the hole.

As efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare gather steam in the budget wrangling in Washington, you’ll hear these mega-trillions being thrown around more and more. Beware. They’re numbers designed to terrify, not edify.

The assertion comes from something called the “infinite horizon” projection. It’s a calculation of funding gaps projected out to the limitless future and then converted to present value — meaning what the cost would be if we had to pay it all today. For Social Security, the figure was $20.5 trillion, as reported in the program trustees’ latest report. For Medicare, the number comes to about $42.7 trillion.

Even professional actuaries say this calculation is bogus. In 2003, when it was first inserted into Social Security’s annual report, the American Academy of Actuaries warned the trustees that the infinite projection provides “little if any useful information” and is “likely to mislead anyone lacking technical expertise … into believing that the program is in far worse financial condition than is actually indicated.”

Worth reading the whole thing.

What interests you today?

Kinder Morgan Deal is Dead Part III

Let’s call this part The Secret of the Ooze. Sunday’s NJ provides a front page followup to the Kinder Morgan aftermath. If you’ve been following this story, there’s a few questions that are unanswered and the News Journal DOES NOT ask them, either.

Let’s start with Speaker Pete noting that the Port Director wants $156M over 10 years to keep the facilities in some competitive position:

House Speaker Peter Schwartzkopf said it will be a stretch for the state to even come up with the $156 million Port Director Gene Bailey says is needed over the next 10 years just to keep the current facilities up to par.

“I think the state of Delaware just shot themselves in the foot,” Schwartzkopf said Friday.

DSPC wanted an expansion to happen:

The port corporation sought bids for a private partner that could help make an expansion happen. In December, the port corporation entered into exclusive negotiations with Kinder Morgan, of Houston.

KM offers ONLY $40M to keep the facilities up, leaving a $106M deficit for upkeep:

Critics said the $40 million Kinder Morgan promised for upkeep wasn’t nearly enough. Bailey’s list of needs includes $48 million for new warehouses, $25 million to buy two new container cranes and $15 million to replace a floating dock.

(Critics? Critics? You don’t need to be a critic to see that the $156M wanted by the Port over 10 years was greater than the $40M offered by KM implies to pretty much everyone that something that the Port ED wants won’t get done.)

And a DSPC Board Member was “hoping” that KM would provide a plan to build on the Delaware — seriously, a DSPC Board member is reduced to HOPING that their selected contractor would someday have a plan to get to the Board’s long-term ambition, the one they were selling as the reason for this lease action in the first place:

DiPinto said Friday he was disappointed to hear that Kinder Morgan had suspended its efforts. DiPinto said he was holding out hope that Kinder Morgan would outline plans to eventually build on the Delaware.

So are you following me here?

  1. How come no one is asking about the obvious disconnect between the $156M need and the $40M offer by Kinder Morgan?
  2. How come no one is asking how it is that the DSPC choose to negotiate with someone who would not commit to either short or medium term upgrades to the Port OR to building out on the Delaware?
  3. How come no one is asking how this Board could have been this inept? Not just in pursuing a deal that appears to not even get the Port to any medium or long term competitiveness; but also in not having a fallback plan. There are customers at this port with options, there are businesses and workers who are generating plenty of tax revenue here and it wasn’t worth someone’s time to have a backup? What if none of the bids were satisfactory?

Wouldn’t you want answers to these questions? Maybe the rest of the lease payment was a way to funnel those funds back to KM for more building, but that would mean that KM was getting that facility basically for free, which doesn’t make sense for a state that is telling its taxpayers that it can’t afford to invest in an already tax-generating asset. Who knows. What is plain to be, based on all of the information and documents we’ve been able to put our hands on is that KM wasn’t committing to the kind of long term improvements partnership that this Administration was selling to us.

The President of ILA 1694 reminds us that the Port of Paulsboro is under construction over in New Jersey, not far from the Port of Wilmington, meaning that more competition is definitely imminent. It is probably a little further away that planned, since they rejected their bids to build two berths. I don’t know if that Port would be set up to handle the fruit business that Wilmington does. Still, the thing I want to point you to is that this facility was built from scratch –approx. $250M price tag — financed by the State of NJ, Gloucester County Redevelopment Authority and the City of Paulsboro. Not private investment. NJ seems to hope that this facility will be a hub of offshore wind development. They’ve taken quite a risk and made a serious investment in their own future. Unlike the State of Delaware who still can’t quite come to grips with the fact that they have a great asset that needs investment to increase its competitive standing — they aren’t starting from scratch like Paulsboro is.

Late Night Video — To This Day

To This Day is a poem by Shane Koyczan — a man who understands bullying from the perspective of both the bullied kid and as the bullier. This poem explores the deep pain and dislocation of being bullied and being the bullier. And he has a message for those experiencing the same difficulties. This video is approx. 12 minutes long and I was in tears at the end:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa1iS1MqUy4[/youtube]

h/t to Upworthy, who provides a handy viewing guide to this video.

To This Day is forming up into a project to stand up to bullying. Sign up if you want to be a part of this.

Sunday Open Thread [3.10.2013]

It is a gorgeous Sunday, following a gorgeous Saturday. I’m even thinking about working on my yard this afternoon — a thing I try to ignore until the very last minute. In any event, I hope you are enjoying this day!

Sheriff Crazy is back in court in Sussex Co., looking for somebody — anybody, please! — to let him arrest people. Why he needs to arrest people is certainly not clear to me — but the power grab by a tejhadi who would have never qualified for this Government Job otherwise has some symmetry to it. Wonder if anyone is ever going to ask him about his personal jihad to Expand Government?

Great long read of the day — the Boston Globe takes a look at how the gridlock in DC for confirming judges is starving the court system:

The partisan gridlock in Washington — largely fueled by the determination of Republican legislators to block Obama’s agenda by any means — manifests itself in almost everything Washington tries to do these days. It is most visible in the ongoing budget stalement and the drama that nearly took the nation right over the so-called fiscal cliff, but the impact on the federal court system, while less obvious to the public, is no less damaging.

While the Senate’s slowness in approving judges nationwide has been noted, the practical and political impact on the courts of that holdup has received far less attention. The Senate has turned away one nominee after another — with a single Republican senator often able to block appointments without explanation — and the White House has often been powerless in response.

And Ikea is opening its own hotel chain. WIll you have to put your room together from a big flat box using a little allen wrench they provide? Yikes. But this wag from The Guardian provides a handy guide to the facilities of the new hotel:

The TV remote will be found on the top shelf of your MALM bedside table. Do not touch the TV, because some of the UPPLEVA TV wall brackets have had missing bolts replaced with shelf mount screws taken from the MALM bedside table, so they can be a bit wobbly. Also, don’t touch the MALM bedside table.

What interests you today?

Kinder Morgan Deal is Dead Part II

Or we could call it Kinder Morgan Deal is Dead — The Fingerpointing. The NJ has another piece up this AM — Port lease efforts on hold, which has a few more details on this story, but mostly it is additional reaction from some stakeholders. Aaron Nathans gets a key bit wrong — there wasn’t a $200M investment on the table, it was more like $41M. The rest was lease payments to the state. But the more I hear about this, the more I wonder about what we don’t know about this deal. Was this lease payment meant to be funneled back to the Port for the automation upgrades talked about for the warehouses? Who knows. I have attached a copy of the letter so you can see it directly.

It is interesting that they would blame Julius Cephas for all of this. I’m not certain how much negotiating was involved here, but I’m wondering what was being negotiated when it wasn’t clear what KM was even offering overall. Still, Cephas asked a number of questions at a 7 December DSPC meeting that never got addressed by KM or the Board. So what happened to the other ILA Local out there? Were they negotiating too? Demonizing one person in the deal when there were so very many who were against it (and that KM didn’t really talk to) just seems odd and of a piece of this very murky story.

Here is ILA 1694-1 response to this deal going on ice:

Special Thanks to Senator Robert Marshall for Senate Bill #3 and his colleagues.

On March 7, 2012, Kinder Morgan announced ‘suspending’ its interest in the Port of Wilmington. International Longshoreman’s Association, 1694-1 wants to thank everyone in the community for their shared interest in protecting the Port of Wilmington against privatization to Kinder Morgan. Together with the support of the community, environmentalist, churches, bloggers and legislatures, we forged together a diverse coalition of community leaders and concerned citizens to keep the port an economic engine to our local economy. Our fight is not over, we must continue to work with Governor Markell and Alan Levin to develop a strategic plan to continue to make the port viable and sustainable for our future generation and create middle class jobs that help to grow a healthy, strong and local economy. If not for Senate Bill #3, sponsored by Senator Robert Marshall and the state legislatures, this unprecedented achievement would have not been possible.

Julius Cephas, ILA 1694-1 President.
Fighting for working families to live a decent quality of life

In my business we do After Action Reports to assess what we did well, what we did badly and what we need to do to move forward. Here’s what I want to suggest for the Port of Wilmington and the DSPC:

1. Public Teambuilding. This entire business has not sent a good message to Port customers or to Port businesses. Time to remind the world that this Port is important to the future of Delaware. One avenue to this would be to get the Port its Bond Bill request and make sure they have a plan to get its capital funds invested ASAP. Get the Governor and Levin to do a public event with some of the stakeholders to announce/endorse whatever work gets underway.
2. Strategic Planning. Instead of just banging off in a direction, it is crucial to examine what the short-term, medium-term and long-term goals are for this Port and their stakeholders. Come up with a strategy and timeframe to get there and make sure that all of the stakeholders are on board before going off on a wild goose chase.
3. Professionalize the DSPC Board. Think about adding a key stakeholder or two to the Board that aren’t beholden to who is in Dover or (even better) some outside expertise.
4. Address the Structural Weakness. This is something that the ILA guys ought to step up to and proactively address NOW, if they were smart. The port financials show (for FY12) approx $19M in wages/salaries and approx $12M in operating revenues. Previous years aren’t that much better. This is a pretty big red flag and something that can’t continue forever. Increasing operating revenues is certainly an option, and perhaps could be addressed in the Strategic Plan. But make no mistake that this imbalance has to be fixed and it is better to fix it now than wait for a crisis when lots of folks will get hurt.