Tag: Mayor Dennis Williams
An Up Close Look At the City of Wilmington Okie Doke
Channel 28 on cable within Wilmington is a public access channel that is the locus of African American politics (and gossip) on Sundays. This is a segment from a recent Community Crossfire segment where Mayor Dennis Williams discusses the state of the city and the state of the Mayor’s race with Sammy Congo, Sam Guy, and Pastor D. If you can spend the 30 minutes or so to take a look at this, you can see how Wilmington’s African Amerian leadership speaks to its African American (mostly) audience. It’s pretty disappointing all the way around, really. If you read this blog regularly, you know that one thing that I like pointing out is how Republicans are particularly good at getting their victim on as a way to bully people into their POV. Even though they aren’t victims of anything, other than their own mismanagement or their own failure of messaging or leadership. You can see exactly the same thing here. Wilmington’s “leadership” is being victimized by Purzycki (called out by name), or others running for Mayor who — according to Williams — he has helped and who are now somehow displaying serious disloyalty in now running against him. Pastor D calls out Kelley in a particularly despicable fashion — denigrating his involvement and friendships with the families of crime victims, wondering why Kelley doesn’t bring jobs to these communities. You are quite welcome to wonder which of these gentlemen have brought any serious jobs to their communities.
When You Are Running for Mayor for the City of Wilmington and Your Campaign HQ Isn’t In the City
I imagine Dennis Williams’ campaign manager could be a bit rusty as to where the City boundaries are since he, like many of the Mayor’s top people, does not live in the City. Yes folks, the Mayor’s campaign headquarters is located on the wrong side of the road. In the County, possibly escaping City Wage taxes? This is 311 E. Lea Blvd, across from the Goodwill facility. According to Parcel View, this building is in New Castle County, but not in Wilmington. It is in a strip mall that doesn’t seem to have many occupants. Today there was one car in the parking lot, in front of the Campaign building.
What A Crisis in African American Leadership Looks Like
“Our communities have fared better over the past 24 years (under an African American mayor) than under previous administrations, at the expense of those who previously benefited, and there is a strong effort by those others to regain control of City Government,” wrote Fullman.
“So much so that folks have paid candidates to enter the race or are paying black individuals to garner support for white candidates in the African American communities (Norman Oliver for Mike Pryszicki [sic]). Don’t be fooled. Join us Wednesday evening to converse directly with Mayor Williams to get the real story.”
Wilmington Mayor’s Race — Undecided Leads the Pack
The News Journal released the results of their poll last night, which shows the race being much closer than the common wisdom (including mine) would have suggested. Here’s the numbers:
Kevin Kelly 18%
Mike Purzycki 14%
Dennis Williams 13%
Theo Gregory 11%
Eugene Young 9%
Norm Griffiths 8%
Robert Marshall 2%
Maria Cabrera 2%
Undecided 21%
The margin of error on this poll is 5.8 and reached landlines only. This surveyed likely Democratic voters. This polly also asked about registration and primary practices — where we find that this group of likely Democratic voters think that it should be easier to switch parties to vote and that primaries should be open.
The City of Wilmington Just Lost $1.5M in WPD Funding and All Mayor Williams Can Manage is the Usual Okie Doke
At the end of the legislative session last Thursday, the GA took back $1.5 million it was holding at the behest of AG Matt Denn to finance more WPD foot patrols in hot spots in Wilmington. AG Denn helped the City to fund foot patrols last spring and then the JFC met in a special session to allocate more funds this time for both Wilmington and Dover. The additional $1.5M would have paid for 20 weeks of foot patrols and other overtime and would have added in $75K for crime analysis of hot spots by the Delaware State Police. The legislators conditioned Wilmington’s award to the city providing some data on current WPD deployments and it would require that the city meet with the WPPSC consultants again so an assessment could be made of the City’s progress in implementing the recommendations of the commission.
500
On June 26, 2016, a 15 year old young man was shot in the arm in the area of 27th and Moore Sts in Wilmington. He was taken to the hospital and I presume he is recovering. You would be forgiven if you read that and thought that this is the normal flow of criminal activity in Wilmington. This young man was the 500th victim of a shooting in Wilmington since Mayor Dennis Williams took office.
Wilmington Mayoral Debate on Public Safety
Last Thursday evening, there was another debate among the Mayoral candidates for Wilmington (except the current Mayor — who apparently does not think he needs to explain or be accountable for his dismal record in this area). This one was focused on public safety and was sponsored by the News Journal and WHYY and held at the Grand. There have been quite a few debates/ public forums for Mayoral candidates in the last month or so, reflecting the very high interest in this race around town. It is a perfect situation for the kind of retail politics that Delaware is famous for and is a perfect setup for all of the organisations around town who feel that they need to work at supporting the public conversation. What you know from talking to people at these events is that there is a great deal of sensitivity about the crossroads Wilmington seems to be on and a great deal of motivation to try choose someone who will move the City in a much better direction. Public safety is a very large issue — but it is almost always entwined with discussions on education, re-entry, jobs. This is important, I think, because it indicates that many of the most interested voters in Wilmington understand that public safety is a complex issue and that city government has not been a good leader in addressing these issues. While reducing shootings and other criminal behavior is a priority, Wilmingtonians seem ready to hear about long-term prevention strategies as well.
Wilmington Mayoral Debates at Ezion Fair
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.
Lawlessness in the City of Wilmington Starts at the Top
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:
Mayor Williams’ FB Meltdown
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.
Consulting is Not Policing
We’ve been talking for a few weeks now about former Philadelphia Chief of Police Charles Ramsey providing consulting services to the WPD. The NJ provides some detail on his $16,000/month contract — namely, that there is a very ill-defined SOW for Ramsey’s services, and that one of his Deputies from Philly is means to be on the ground here working. Working on what is still the question — which is the question for all of the consultants that the Williams Administration has hired for the WPD.
Watching Mayor Williams Get Played By His Own “Take Credit for These Ideas” Strategy
I’ve been following the news from my Holiday Location and it is looking like Mayor Dennis Williams is being hung by his own “We’re Not Going to Let This Commission Take Credit for These Ideas” strategy in his effort to push back against having to live with the accountability (and potentially some consequences) that would come with a grant being provided by the Joint Finance Committee to help the City pay for foot patrols. You’ll recall that the Williams Administration’s response to the Wilmington Public Safety Strategies Commission report was to claim that they had already implemented most of the recommendations made — with the help of the VRN folks, not the Governor. There is wide skepticism about this claim that they’ve implemented most of those recommendations — especially from me — and the JFC looking to send the Police Foundation back into the WPD to check on progress is an excellent accountability measure. And if I am Mayor Dennis Williams with a re-election hanging in the balance because he is widely seen as utterly ineffective in managing the crime problem (in spite of campaign promises) — it would be Good News all the way around if one of the Commission’s consultants could say that progress is actually being made as promised.
In Which We Find That Bud Freel Was Right
So jump to now, where we discover that the WFD is 6 months into its budget and $300,000 over its overtime budget for the year. What does that mean? It means that the rolling company shutdowns are back as a cost cutting measure AND both Goode and Williams are now quite open to eliminating those vacant positions:
The higher-than-average overtime cost was blamed on five vacancies in the department and coverage for personnel out because of injury or extended sick leave. As a result, Goode said one of the city’s fire companies will regularly be shut down on a rotating basis to offset the costs and he could move to eliminate a handful of vacant positions in the agency. […]
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