Why Should Delaware Care?
Government works best when its citizens are knowledgeable and engaged. Delaware’s government has scores of commissions, working groups, agencies and legislative committees. All must hold meetings that are open to the public.
A string of consequential public hearings will occur in Delaware this week that could determine how schools get funded, whether Wilmington bars stay open later, and how a long-standing legal and political drama involving the Bidens may come to an end.
But first to the state government …
A Delaware education commission is scheduled to vote Monday on a reform that calls for more money to be sent to schools with high numbers of low-income students and those whose first language is not English.
The work of the Public Education Funding Commission – which is in charge of recommending to lawmakers how education dollars should be distributed to Delaware – follows years of complaints that Delaware school funding was failing students.
The meeting will be held virtually from 4 to 6 p.m. on Monday. Those who would like to attend should go to the public meeting page here, then click on the Zoom link provided.
Also on Monday, lawmakers will hear an expedited bill aimed at removing a final obstacle to a plan to build massive and controversial wind farm off of the coast of the Delmarva Peninsula Late last month, more than two dozen Democrats lined up behind the bill to retroactively strip Sussex County of its ability to deny a land-use permit for a substation needed by the wind project.
The Senate Environment, Energy and Transportation Committee will meet at 1 p.m. Monday at Legislative Hall in Dover to consider the bill. For information about attending the meeting virtually or in person, click here.
Lawmakers want anyone who wishes to comment publicly during the meeting to sign up in advance here.
Besides the energy committee meeting, regular legislative hearings are not occurring this week, because a select group of lawmakers on the Delaware Joint Finance Committee will continue their budget hearings.
Those budget meetings – referred to as the markup – will provide clarity to what has been months of speculation about which state government programs will expand, and which could be cut back, during a period of rising fiscal uncertainty.
The Joint Finance Committee – which is made up of legislators from the House and Senate – is scheduled to meet from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Legislative Hall in Dover on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
To watch the Tuesday meeting virtually, click here. For the Wednesday meeting, click here, and the Thursday meeting, click here.
Wilmington City Council
On Wednesday, the Wilmington City Council is expected to vote on a high-profile rent stabilization measure that one opponent from Gov. Matt Meyer’s administration said could have “implications across the state.”
The ordinance, introduced in April by Councilwoman Shané Darby, would limit residential rent increases to 3% each year in the city, with certain exemptions.
Darby says the measure is intended to address an ongoing housing crisis in Delaware.
City councilmembers also will hear several other consequential proposals during the Wednesday meeting, including resolutions asking the state legislature to allow them to enact a cigarette tax, and to extend last call at city bars to 2 a.m.
On the agenda also are ordinances to decrease limits on property tax exemptions for the elderly and to dissolve the city’s Land Bank.
Last month, Spotlight Delaware reported on how controversy surrounding the Land Bank has swelled over the past year after it directed nearly $3 million to the renovation of a mansion that sits next to the home of the city’s former mayor, Mike Purzycki.
The meeting of the full Wilmington City Council will occur Thursday at 6:30 p.m. on the first floor of the Louis L. Redding City/County Building in Wilmington.
You can also watch the meeting from home on WITN22, on Youtube, or on Zoom here.
The political drama of 2020
A legal tussle sparked by one of the biggest political dramas of the 2020 presidential election will be in front of the Delaware Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Three weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the New York Post published an article stating that Joe Biden, while vice president, held a meeting with an executive from a Ukrainian energy company that also employed his son, Hunter Biden.
The primary source for the story was a laptop that Wilmington computer repairman, John Paul Mac Isaac, had provided to associates of Rudy Giuliani.
The following year, Hunter Biden indicated in an interview with CBS news that the laptop could be part of an illegal conspiracy against him.
In 2022, Mac Isaac sued Hunter Biden, Congressman Adam Schiff, CNN, and Politico claiming they each defamed him for linking the release of the laptop to Russian actors.
The following year, Hunter Biden filed a countersuit against Mac Isaac, claiming the computer repairman invaded his privacy, including by “improperly” accessing files that “he admits were ‘none of [his] business.’”
The subsequent case featured attempted subpoenas of Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, and even President Joe Biden.
Delaware Supreme Court justices are scheduled to hear arguments in the case at 11:10 a.m. Wednesday. You can watch the arguments live here.
