Why Should Delaware Care?
New Castle County officials could soon be able to subpoena records from the most contentious commercial properties in the county after state lawmakers on Monday passed legislation enabling them to do so. The bill is part of a “quality control” review package meant to empower county officials to scrutinize the results of last year’s property reassessment.
The Delaware House of Representatives passed the second half of a two-bill package Monday that would give New Castle County new authority to subpoena certain business records during its ongoing “quality control” review of its much maligned property reassessment.
But an added amendment to the bill means it must return to the Senate for a final, largely procedural, vote before Gov. Matt Meyer can officially sign the bill into law.
After passing the first half of the package in January amid Republican pushback that the bills were rushed, the House of Representatives unanimously passed an amended version of the second bill, Senate Bill 230.
The bill would give New Castle County officials the ability to subpoena both records and witness testimony from commercial property owners about the income earned from their properties as the county reviews the results from last year’s first-in-40-year property reassessment.
The subpoena power would be available to all three of Delaware’s counties, but was geared specifically toward New Castle, which experienced much of the property reassessment-related blowback from residents and business owners last summer.
New Castle County Executive Marcus Henry recently told Spotlight Delaware last month that his office would use those power to re-examine some commercial properties that were deemed to be undervalued.
Senate Bill 230, sponsored in the House by Rep. Frank Burns (D-Pike Creek), was originally tabled in January over what House Majority Leader Kerri Evelyn Harris (D-Dover) called “due process” concerns for business owners.
But Burns said Monday that an amendment added to the bill sought to assuage those concerns by clarifying some key points: that only commercial properties are subject to subpoena, that records will be kept private and exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, and how objections and exceptions to subpoenas will be handled.
“I think a lot of things were implicit in the language,” Burns said. “But I think people were more comfortable when it was explicitly stated.”
Senate Bill 230 passed unanimously, but not without one House Republican leader taking one final swipe at Senate Democrats for how the sausage was made.
House Minority Whip Jeff Spiegelman (R-Clayton) thanked his Democratic colleagues in the House for holding off on voting on the bill in January in order to “get it right.”
“Thank you for doing the process the right way,” Spiegelman said. “Unlike, perhaps, another chamber in this building.”
The amended bill will be taken up by the Senate when it next convenes at 2 p.m. Wednesday, March 11.