The news journal has enother article on the proposed oversight committee.
The committee could be useful, if it is made up of competent people that understand the technical issues and do not have any special agenda's or "friends" in need of special favors.
If done right, it could do what NCC Council and Government has failed to do - - - Provide openess and transparency in the very political dealings with providing sewer services.
I spoke to one council rep. who wasn't enthusiastic about reinstating the Board but I asked for their support for it. All the information about what transpired in the case of Lea Erea Farms/the Coons' sewer department was not accurately reported according to this councilperson and a resident who was at the committee meeting.
ReplyDeleteThis councilperson stated that the money appeared to have been secretly pulled out from a county sewer fund in February - without knowledge of the council. The question on this duly elected official's mind was: "Is the County Executive using the sewer fund as a slush fund?"
Now, if the council isn't informed of expenditures of this gross amount of money for inexcusable and unbelieveable "errors" and mismanagement of the Special Services Department in course of this episode, then why wouldn't there be support for an independent citizen's Board with direct oversight of this scandalously and woefully incompetant department?
There was a 'civilian' in the room (this feels like war!) who said that the county hadn't been told of this expenditure and the whole incident REEKS - rather like a sewer.
My points remain -
1). why did they decide to pump and dump ALL of the EFFLUVIENT from the Lea Erea lagoon as if to take advantage of the 'state of emergency'and
2). why did they truck it to Middletown and not the nearby county pumping station and incur a ridiculous if not nefarious bill nearing a million bucks - how exactly did this exorbitant amount of money end up in Ken Branner's mayoral pocket? And how is Coons going to be able to answer to the people of this county whose sewer fees are continually rising?
Just so everyone knows, the county auditor has been asked to investigate these questions. When it reeks like a sewer, it has got to be unethical sludge at county hall.
Media question extra: why wasn't the email from DNREC to Special Services made available to the public? When we got the excellent reporting about the Minner - Tigani deal, the inclusion of the FOIA's emails in pdf. files really made a difference in transparency to the public. Why is this county deal being masked by confusing interpretation by the Wilmington News Journal staff reporters?