DelawarePolitics.net

August 19, 2009

Governor Markell and the General Assembly members for the Dover area held an under advertized town hall meeting for the local residents at the Kent County Administrative Offices in Dover.   The 2 hour meeting began with the Governor laying out some of his vision and answering questions from the public.  It ended with the Assemblymen doing the same.  I will split this into two parts following the format of the meeting, one post for the Governor and the other for the Assemblymen.

Governor Markell opened his remarks with a brief recap of his 7 months in office and the condition of the state including the 35,000 unemployed and our hard hit auto and financial services sectors.  He also talked about several of the big and small local businesses that he has visited.  The vision for improving the state that he shared focuses on three keys.  They are:

1. Create more good jobs – to do this he tries to look at employers as customers to see what they want and try to provide that.  He suggested that Delaware use the state’s small size as an advantage to provide maximum responsiveness to the needs of businesses that locate or are considering locating here.  He cited and example with meeting the executives of Farmer’s Insurance when the bought out the local AIG Insurance to ensure that those jobs stay in Delaware and potentially have Farmer’s channel more jobs to the state.  He also mentioned the state’s new LIFT (Limited Investment for Financial Traction) program to help small businesses get loans with subsidized interest.
2. Improve the education system – The first step is already in progress and that is scraping the DSTP and replacing it with a test and system that make sense.  We should let the teachers do their job and teach.  He mentioned moving decision making away from the state and to the schools.  Another topic was changing the system to reward performance.  He also brought up continuing education, to include learning trade skills.
3. Shrinking government spending – The Governor recognized that businesses are attracted to states that spend their tax dollars wisely.  To do this he says there are two questions he asks.
   1. What can we not afford any more?
   2. What can we do more efficiently?

      In addressing those questions one solution he found was to eliminate some positions such as that of Treasurer.  

Gov. Markell ended his remarks with a call for help first, to share ideas for saving money through the website ideas.delaware.gov, and second, to help the state as marketing agents. 

Q & A.

(I did not get the names of most of those who asked questions.  The questions and answers are paraphrased and summarized.  Answers, unless otherwise stated are provided by Governor Markell.  My comments will be in parenthesis.)

1. (Unknown) Who chose the new state assessment? 

1. Finalizing the new state test is still in the works and it is being done by a big committee.

Q. (Russ Murphy) First, gave appreciation for the elected officials holding the meeting. What is the effect of illegal immigration on businesses and jobs in the state?

A.  Illegal immigration is a federal government issue, and the state has no real control.  We can try to improve enforcement though.  (He had no statistics or other information about the actual impact of illegal immigration on business and jobs in the state.)

Q. (Unknown) What is the status of the wind park? 

A. The state made a contract with Blue Water Wind which was sold to the now bankrupt Babcock and Brown.  The economy has stalled the plan, but the state is working on it still and may bring Maryland into the project as a partner in order to get it done. (This was a fairly long answer and led off into other aspects of the green economy such as the City of Dover’s 90 acre solar farm which is in the works which Dover Mayor Cary made some comments about.)

Q. (Unknown) Comment about the elimination of the Treasurers job, then asked about increasing business through ports (including dredging the Delaware and using the Dover Air Park) and a free trade zone.

 A. The Army Corps of Engineer’s request to dredge the Delaware was denied because of procedural issues.  They are welcome to reissue the request using better procedures and the Governor will expedite the review of it, taking into account cost effectiveness, and other impacts.    He supports utilizing the Dover Air Park for trade and assured the questioner that there would be proper inspection mechanisms in place to insure that it would not be used for drug trafficking.

Q. (Bernie, last name unknown) Comment about the state’s administrator heavy school districts, and their cost to taxpayers.

A.  Thanked Bernie for his consistent efforts on the issue as he had brought it up on several occasions.  The state should move more dollars out of administration and into the classes.  Consolidation of districts is an option, but has pros and cons.  He sees some costs being cut by consolidation, but also recognizes a desire for local control. An alternative is to do certain functions across district lines to get better savings such as purchasing textbooks.

Q. (Mrs. Fredrick) She questioned the progress of more effective spending given the closed doors she has encountered in her efforts with Delaware’s aging population.  Specifically with requesting a federal grant which had to be done through the state, but has still not been addressed.  She also had concerns with bus services which Modern Maturity provides at $9 and the state provides at $36. 

A.  Gave appreciation for her work with Modern Maturity.  They add 100 new members a month.  He wanted to find out the time frame for the hold up in getting the grant in order to identify where the problem was.  He also offered members of his administration to help her get the grant pushed through.  

That was the final question and Governor Markell left shortly afterwards.  The remainder of the meeting was given to Senator Bushweller and Reps. Bennett and Scott.  I will summarize that in a separate post later tonight.