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Newark City is thinking of privatizing their garbage collection.
Here are things to remember:
- As a public service, their prime duty is to their customers. Which is you.
- As a private service, their prime duty is to their investors, not you.
- As a public service, there is public input allowed on raising the rates.
- As a private service there is no public overseer of rate rising.
- As a public service hiring locals, all the money spent on labor, returns to your economy.
- As a private service the money spent on labor goes to where each employee lives.
- As a public service if you complain someone follows up.
- As a private service they can tell you, we just don’t do that…
- As a public service, a contract is valid as long as the city is standing or until it is replaced by City Council
- As a private entity, a contract is null and void as soon as the company is acquired by another investor.
These are the grand points to ponder… Another is this… can a private service perform the operation as well or cheaper than the city. If savings are sufficient, it may pay to switch….
But this concerns all of you… Please go to the Church of the Nazarene on Paper Mill Road for the discussion and public airing of this proposal… Set this date… Monday, September 21, 2015 … at 6 pm…. Don’t be pushed around… And don’t believe everything you hear about privatization… some of you still remember what happened with Delmarva Power….
Not Nancy’s blog; its awesome. But I am talking about the royalty that runs this state regardless of who gets elected, If a candidate of the people gets in, they are quickly shoved out of viability inside the workings of government and the royalty continues to run things as it wishes.
Our locally elected officials for the most part, actually do try to represent us. And they actually do well representing us on all issues that don’t affect those who think they run things… But go against those, and you get shoved into areas you can do no damage….
Money, influence, status are all the regular clients The “Delaware Way” used to be held up as a good thing… I once believed it was a good thing, as probably did Nancy since it was how she named her blog. The idea was that Democrats and Republicans all got along and got things done for the good of the state, and compared to the breakdown we see daily in Washington DC, that alone does seem to be a benefit….
However, that now seems to have changed. By taking a snapshot of today, their image show “The Delaware Way” is now a group that wants to put in a GIGANTIC power plant 200 yards from Newark’s back yards and doesn’t give a damn how many Newark children die in the process. “The Delaware Way” is now a group that wants to get rid of the Coastal Zone Act, so new polluting industries which can’t get a foothold in any other civilized portion of the planet, can come here and pollute like they could in a third world nation… “The Delaware Way” is now a group that couldn’t care less about segregation, about teaching our children to read or right, about helping in-poverty children learn reading and math, as long as they can get rich off of all their charter schools. “The Delaware Way” wants unions busted; zoning laws gone, conservative dogma taught, and no minimum wage increase until infinity. Today’s “Delaware Way” wants to keep our prisons full, as long as the are privatized and someone gets paid for each incarceration. Today’s “Delaware Way” wants to keep the death penalty, and levy new death penalties on regular citizens by doing nothing to curb the buying or selling of contraband illegal guns. They want to actually make selling stolen guns completely legal… They want to benefit Highmark over Christina Care. They want to charge tolls on all our highways. They don’t want taxes on the rich increased, but lowered. They think today’s middle class earns far too much; they want them poorer…
Their names are familiar. On the national scale they are Tom Carper, John Carney, and Chris Coons. On the state scale they are Gov. Markell, Dave Sokola, Brian Short, Dan Short, Pete Schwartzkoph, Valerie Longhurst… Add names below if you wish….
Instead of change, these people grind down the changes of other well meaning people into dust. A simple rule requiring all schools to put their public board meetings on line, was, since it certainly if publicly voted would have passed, shoved into a drawer to never be seen again… Charter school legislation that will bankrupt every single public school in the state, was drawn up in secret though deemed illegal by the Attorney General’s office of the state, was railroaded through both chambers and signed by the orchestrators above, before anyone knew it was happening… Public schools are stripped of funding, and it was never brought up to the public for debate.
What brought all this up was Connie Merlet’s letter.. published in Nancy’s blog… appropriately titled: The Delaware Way. And it is one tiny piece I wish to draw out… a little statement. a few words strung together that says, so, so much….
“I believe changes were well-intended when the Stars program was envisioned, but it has morphed into a system that has enabled already high-quality day cares to enjoy most of the financial benefits… In conversations with our representatives at both levels, I have realized that they really have no understanding of how that money is actually being used. “
There appears to be a government within our government… One thing is promised and passed and then turned over to be executed. At that point those in the Delaware Way take over, enabling those of privilege get more money, and those in need to become shafted… The legislators, those to whom you throw your vote, for the most part mean well; it is when it gets into the actual bureaucracy that the Delaware Way comes into play. They are the “deciders” as one cowboy once called them.
So no matter what gets passed…. it certainly doesn’t come out the way it was intended… We have a government within our government that does not bode well for the Delaware people. Look at New Castle County under Paul Clark where without brakes of any sort, the Delaware Way had its way…. The elite do what the elite want, despite the fact they only have one vote like everyone else.
John Carney has gotten completely loopy lately. So has Chris Coons. Carper has been pro-elite for a long time now. But their statements in public from these three decrying it is better that they try to get along with our equivalent of Hannibal Lecter, don’t bode well for all of us who are to be his future victims. It appears that their statements still supportive of the Delaware Way, are only meant to have on single purpose….keeping the lambs quiet before their slaughter. ….
It is rapidly becoming apparent. None of the alleged support for the power plant is local. It is all out of New York. The websites in favor of the power plant are going dark; the ones against the power plant are putting forth information daily. A private PAC appeared out of nowhere to throw Newark’s election and now has disappeared.. Had it occurred under a hostile administration, the election could have been nullified, because the filing was late the night before the election.
Jack Markell, while proposing to clean up water and charge you for it, has no problem dirtying your air, because Wall Street is paying for it. The main office of the group, (they can’t tell you its really in New York) is listed as a Mail Box etc in West Chester Pennsylvania…
Anyone who has every worked on a Hollywood live location knows exactly what is going on. It’s all fake, and is being created for one shot.
You are supposed to think that jobs will come to Newark if you sign on to this plant. Perhaps very few. The Alabama contractor slated to begin work up here, has most of his people already hired. None of the money will actually land in Newark,. But the carcinogens will. When finished it is like a giant exhaust pipe funneling carcinogenic waste our of the Bakkan Shield, right into your house.
This fake organization, whose website is still as it was in November, featuring Jack’s speech in spot one( he played his part well, didn’t he),. wants to be able take the exhaust from the data center stack and scatter it over your town. For them it is a return on investment…. They live in New York. Why should they care about you?
With the recent NOAA notification that we are now in an El Nino year, it would be very wise to remember the El Nino year of 2002-3 when Delaware had mandatory water restrictions… Imagine how much more severe that becomes with an additional 6 million gallons a day siphoned out of our streams and water table to be funneled straight into the data center… That water of course will have a priority over water headed to your houses.. It has to; the data center can’t shut down, ever.
Don’t worry. Those in New York will still be able to buy their bottled water by using their return on the investment this power plant will net them.
I am going to try and make the case why you need to change you plans and show up in front of the Newark Municipal Building at 220 South Main St. Newark, DE at 5 pm….
There will be a candlelight vigil to demonstrate against the potential installation of the Newark Power Plant.
I should probably start by saying if you live anywhere in Northern Delaware or South New Jersey, this may be the most important event controlling you life for the rest of its time here on earth.
This decision affects every breath of air you will take. This decision will decide how healthy your old age will be. This decision will decide how long your children will live. This decision will decide whether your pets live and die, cancer free…
There are very few things we actually get to weigh in on that have such a profound impact upon our existence…. Politics come and go, and usually don’t kill us. Jobs come and go and usually don’t kill us. In-laws come and go and usually don’t kill us.
But chemicals, many of them radioactive, kill us… There is undeniable proof that they do…. Despite attempts to wash them under our stream of consciousness, while we are distracted by other things, they enter our body’s cells, change the genetic makeup, and those cells then start producing cancerous versions of their new genetic makeup….
The only way to prevent that process is to never start it.
The power plant burns natural gas. That natural gas contains elements from the earth. Most elements are poisonous to life. Arsenic, Radon, Lead, Uranium, will be sucked in every breath you take…
Enough scaring you. Just wanted to tell you why this was important.
Many things in life we have no control over. Our boss tells us to go to Delaware we go to Delaware. We have a child, we accept how it comes out. A chemical plant dumped residue into the ground before we were born, we live around it.
It is rare when we have a chance to change our life. We have one chance and that is tonight.
The City of Newark must change the zoning underneath that power plant for it to be built. They are deciding now. They want to do the right decision. Just like you, if you were in their place, would also want to do the right decision.
If they hear from the Governor, the Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street, the Labor Unions of the Building Trades, the state’s own DNREC, and hear nothing from you, their decision will be obvious. Just like yours would be in that position. Look at all these people you would say, who need this to go forward and look at all the good going forward would do. And look how only a very few people care about stopping it. Obviously if I jump in front of the flying bus, for the sake of a handful of people, i’m getting run over……
But jumping in front of a bus to keep it from wallowing through a gigantic crowd of people is different ballgame. Instead of being the “disruptor” of progress, you have become the “Protector” of “the people.” All of us would like to be known as the protector of the people, and so would those elected to govern Newark.
We just have to give them the reason they need. We have to show up. If we don’t show up tonight…. , the power plant gets built. Toxic chemicals start falling on our lawns, cars and pets,
If we suffer the complete inconvenience to our schedules and do show, and show up in large enough numbers, we will stop the zone change and thereby stop the power plant….
WE need more than 10, 20, 30, or 40…. We need 1000’s … If you don’t show, it won’t happen…. If you do show, it may still happen, but you could say, that when Newark needed its finest to show, you were there…..
And win or lose, that is what is most important about being an activist…. Showing that it matters to you….
You may choose to slough if off with “oh, it’s raining. it’s cold. it’s flu- season”….. but fast forward to 10 years hence, you lying almost dead hooked up to monitors so the staff knows whether they can shuck your corpse out to replace you with another body,….
You could have been home, holding your grandkids, making them dinner, reading them books, if you had only showed up tonight, 5pm on S. Main Street (Old Elkton Road) in Newark to show those fine people on Newark’s City Council, that yes, this is important to you….
It is tonight. Change your plans and go…..
That familiar moment to most of us, when the official amount of power needed simply shocks us all.
Newark will have the largest single boiler in the state, just 200 feet from private homes. The distance of a long field goal attempt….
Nancy’s blog points out that the Newark Data Center’s Listed International Corporate Headquarters are in a little tiny mailbox 6 inches times 4 inches, inside a Mail Boxes Etc. strip mall shop just off Paoli Pike in West Chester PA. Is this whole operation being mapped out by Tinkerbells?
Hmmm. Who else do we know that is very familiar with Mail Boxes Etc…?
i’m sure you’ve already seen this (why would you not have) but it bears a thoughtful look.
Where are your priorities today?
It is a match made in heaven. You simply take unlimited money from developers, mixed with the ability to manpower elections, join them together,…. and you get whatever you want.
But the question I’m about to ask, is whether this what WE want? WE as in WE, the people.. That is the question….
What I’m about to show is not news…. Everyone connected already knows it. Even the News Journal knows it, but this “arrangement” sort of sits out there, completely hidden from most voter’s views…. Idealistic first time candidates are usually caught off guard, when they get sucker punched.
It is known by the euphemism: The Delaware Way…
It is how we explain to outsiders why here in Delaware, labor backs Republicans; even to the point of assisting Mike Castle,… protecting him by running interference among the Democrats to insure that only a weak candidate like Mike Miller, or KHN, or another patsy Democrat ever gets the opportunity to climb into the ring…. I understand that Liz Allen is up for the next round.
It also explains why UDC (Unified Development Code) laws get watered down in New Castle County, by those who won their various primary contests, through importing out of state labor to man the polls on election day.
There is nothing scandalous about this… It is the way things are done… and if it served to benefit the interests of New Castle County citizens, or the state of Delaware, then more power to them….
But the goal of turning our state into another Harlem (as we are slowly starting to realize), is not in our states’ long term interest. Today, one city stretches from Washington to Boston. Wisdom dictates that only if Delaware is unique from its neighbors, such as being the only green diamond showing up on Google maps of the East Coast, will we be able to maintain control over our destiny, to keep residential property values high…..and keep our quality of life…even higher.
Obviously, if Delaware’s quality of life becomes rated as the best place to live on the East Coast, more people will want to move here… more businesses will settle here; more investment will come here…. But to achieve that high mark of quality, we need to understand our state’s need to build housing slowly, leveraging the increased demand for our houses to our advantage, thereby keeping our prices a little higher than housing developments of surrounding states.
But that is not how it works… The Delaware Way, often a way rejoiced by Delawareans promoting congenial bipartisanship, simply means that a handful of people are really pulling the strings of both parties. They pull just enough strings to get things done… That is, the things THEY want done… And THEY want to build, build, build.
The smoking gun of all this interactivity is embedded within our state’s campaign finance reports… A simple cross referencing shows some illuminating patterns… Obviously those who receive developer’s funds, will support developers… Equally obvious, is that those who receive labor’s support …will support labor….In the comparisons illuminated below, we see similarities between Republican candidates who always seem to miraculously have a weak candidate running against them, and Democrats who have tons of unionists lined up at every poll….. Whereas much effort is spent by us and the press hounding our politicians, in truth, they are just supporting those who actually put them there…. The campaign finance reports show us, it’s just a handful of men who are running our politicians ragged.
It is this mysterious connection which provides the first insight into the inexplicable foot dragging done on Bluewater Wind…. It also explains to outsiders exactly why the eminent domain bill was first passed, then vetoed, and finally defeated by those who passed it the first time…… Furthermore, it is this connection that explains to outsiders, the watering down of the UDC codes to allow workforce housing to flood lower New Castle County….
This connection is hard to trace by the unconnected; but here is a smoking gun….
Since many of you are facing this for the first time, let us begin by opening this can of worms… “the Hammer and Nails” Club… Here is how they describe themselves….
It is operated solely for the purpose of influencing the nominations, elections, or appointments of candidates for local, county, and state public offices in the State,.. and to assist and promote incumbent elected officials by raising funds
(Keep in mind the maximum amount allowed in state legislative races is $600.)
Here is their 30 day primary report.
Here is their 8 day primary report.
Here is their 30 day general election report.
Here is their 8 day general election report…
If you have never read these before, here is a brief primer… The first page is the cover;..the second is the financial synopsis. The next group covers the contributors: whereas the fourth group covers the expenditures… If there are loans, they are covered by the fifth group… (One has to say “group” instead of page, because on large statewide campaigns, it takes quite a few pages to fill out a group, since everyone contributing over $100 is listed…)
So if one clicks on the 30 day primary report, one sees that the large amounts were given to:
Terry Spence, Republican
Sean Lynn, Levy Court
Senator Bonni, Republican (incidentally not recorded by him)
Senator Adams, Democrat (report not available)
Rep Joe Booth, Republican
Mr. Pam Scott, Democrat (listed under Home Builders Association, same address)
Chris Coons, Democrat (also not listed by him… but if you want to see how to hide things..)
Senator Tony DeLuca, Democrat
Bill Carson, (also not listed by him)
Rep. Dick Cathcart, Republican
Rep. George Carey, Republican
Rep. Gerald Hocker, Republican (listed under Home Builders Delaware, same address)
Deborah Hudson,
Findley B Jones, (who?)
Rep. Greg Lavelle, Republican
Rep Greg Hastings, Republican
Rep Pam Maier, (no report filed)
Rep. Nick Manolakos. Republican
Rep. Miro, Republican
Outten’s Campaign,
Lynn Rogers, (no report filed)
Sorenson, Republican (not listed on her report)
Again Terry Spence, Republican ($250 over maximum)
Donna Stone, Republican
Pam Thornburg, Republican
Bob Valihura, Republican
Nancy Wagner, Republican
Bob Walls, Republican
Bob Gilligan, Democrat (listed as Home Builder’s Assc. of Delaware)
Ben Ewing, (no report filed)
And on the 8 day report…
Mark Baker… Republican.
Notice both Republican and Democrats are heavily funded.
Here are similarities among the financial reports of those “Labor Endorsed” candidates… Carney, Coons, Clark, Bell, Smiley.
x John Carney: Mario Capano, David’s Floor Coverings, DELPAC, Lawrence DiSabitino, EDS, First Brandywine Investment Group, Local 3384, MAPAC, Bill McCloskey, Toll Bros.,
x Chris Coons: (my neck hurts) Petrucci and Assoc.,John Petrillo, Lawrence DiSabitino, Local 74 PAC, Local 19 PAC, Apex Engineering, Local 42 PAC, (and as noticed above, the Hammer and Nails entry was missing)
x Mr. Pam Scott: Stoltz, Home Buiilder’s Association of Delaware (same address as Hammer and Nails Club), Y,C,S,Taylor LLC, Emory Hill Real Estate, Frank Capano, ABC Merit Shop PAC, Bancroft Construction, AFL-CIO AFSCME, CCS Investors, Artesian Water, Laird Stabler III, Stanley Builders
x Bill Bell Lorraine Ferrara, Lester Reality, DiSabitino, Mario Capano, Francis Julian. Robert Lee Maxwell. Artesian Water
x George Smiley(What’s up with Commerce Bank’s $19,515 and a mysterious $13,000 Certificate of Deposit?) Robert Lee Maxwell, Delaware Building Trades PAC, Lorraine Ferrara, Local 19, Saul Ewing, John McGrellis III, Local 42 PAC, Artesian Water
Ok, now so pick some candidates who would be the political exact opposite of the Clark, Coons, Smiley, and Bell contingent?
x-Gerald Hocker: Artesian Water, ABC Merit Shop PAC, Home Builders Delaware Association (same address as Hammer and Nails Club),
x-George Carey ABC Merit Shop PAC, Artesian Water, Hammer and Nails Club,
x-Charlie Copeland ABC Merit Shop PAC, Artesian Water, Mark Baker, Bancroft Construction, Bancroft Homes, BPGS Construction, Brendon T. Warfel Construction, Christiana Properties, DE Citizens for Economic Development, Delaware Valley Development Company, EDIS, First State Manufacturing Housing Assoc., Francis Julian, Laird Stabler III, Luke Real Estate, Nason Construction, Non Partisan Citizens for Business Expansion, Petrillo, WILMPAC, Y,C,S,Taylor LLC,…
One sees a lot of the same people (organizations) pulling the strings attached to both parties.
It is unlikely that the euphanism, The Delaware Way, will ever mean the same. What we thought were politicians putting self interests aside and working for the Delaware People, are instead, putting the Delaware People aside, and working for these few selfish interests…
But where do these groups collude?
Here is one: The Delaware Workforce Investment Board.. Check out their minutes. (Or for different players, here.) The other is in Legislative Hall.
The way to break the chain of always doing what we always did, and always getting what we always got…. is to apply enough force to snap this chain, despite their money and the amount of support that flows through Delaware’s Way.
The clearest example is to rally sufficient troops (voters) to make their money irrelevant. Essentially by telling the truth about how our government works, we will rectify the balance needed for the people’s will to prevail… Instead of their buying votes in secret, these Delaware Waypersons will have to argue their case like the rest of us, and if their argument is sound, they can still prevail… If their argument is faulty, then we should hold our politicians accountable for choosing the better alternative… But the first step is identifying and campaigning against their toadies.
For example, last season electing Bill Dunn would have stopped the greased slide of money from “out of our pockets“. Voting for Northington, could have shaken up things on the national level… Voting for Gordon, despite his previous record, could have put a slight dent in our county’s slide towards the Harlem Shuffle….Our vote for Markell over Carney, does the same…Likewise, each vote for Scherer or Laura Brown, or Joan Deaver down south….certainly doesn’t hurt….
An example of what is possible, actually has already taken place in the middle of our state. Kent County didn’t receive the funds and manpower provided by PA & NJ union workers. Because of that, citizen voters were able to flip their Levy Court out of control of its developer bought flunkies…
Bottom line is this: If we are truly serious about taking care of Delaware first, it means putting, at least for a while, our local developers and their dedicated union flunkies… last at the feeding trough….
kavips 