House District 20 Primary Conversations: Alonna Berry & Ruby Keeler Schaeffer

I think I would want voters to know that I care deeply about this community, not just because I currently live here or because it’s where I’ve chosen to raise my family, but I care because I’m from this community for multiple generations. This has always been where my family and our roots have been planted.

And I’ve seen it change over time. I’ve seen it change in lots of different ways towards a better life for myself and my kids. And I want tocontinue to see growth that benefits everyone here in this community.

Yeah. District 20 is, I would argue, the most, purple district in the state. And I think that’s part of what makes this district so great.

And the margin, the less than 1% margin from the special election, is also reflective of historically what we’ve seen to be true in this district. I believe since 2018, the margin has been 1%. It hasn’t changed. And so I think it’s reflective of a couple of things for District 20.

One, that we have a wide variety of opinions on every single topic, and if nothing else, I’ve learned that in my first year as an elected official. Any issue there is, I talk to people, who feel strongly on one side and strongly on another. And so I think that’s why this district really needs and deserves a leader who can listen and understand all the different perspectives and the diverse backgrounds, that come with District 20.

They care about the issues. And every vote here really does matter. It’s reflective of neighbors talking to neighbors about things that they care about, and it’s my job as state representative, and hopefully if reelected, to continue to listen to those conversations and make decisions that are responsive to what I’m hearing from everyday eastern Sussex Countians.

I can speak to what I’ve heard from voters. And what I’ve heard from voters is they care about increasing access to healthcare. They care about supporting families, teachers and first responders. They care about making sure that our veterans have the supports that they need.

And everyone is very interested in how the county and District 20 is growing — and what that means for them. And for many people, I’ve heard challenges on the roads, concerns for safety. I’ve heard lack of accessibility in terms of getting around without a vehicle if you wanted to.

And those have been the issues that I’ve focused on as a state legislator. I think those have been responsive to what I’ve heard from my constituents, over the past year and in this election. I think that this role requires me to work closely with county council and our towns to make sure that how growth is happening and development is moving forward makes sense and is responsive to what we’re hearing.

Sure. So the Housing for Every Delawarean Act is a really important step forward for our state as a whole in terms of ensuring that there is thoughtful planning related to affordable housing access. So what the bill does is allow for towns and municipalities through their strategic planning process to select from a list of strategies to utilize for those towns to be able to thoughtfully ensure that they’re increasing the amount of affordable housing stock in their communities.

I think that that is a critical tool and lever if we want to make sure that, as the community continues to grow, we are also making sure that our teachers and our nurses, and our restaurant workers, can also live and work in this community. And as I said on the House floor, it’s my hope that we’re creating a community that our kids and our kids’ kids can also continue to live and work in the future.

And so for me, that’s what the Housing for Every Delawarean Act is about. I believe some of the speculation that I’ve heard doesn’t quite articulate the intent of the bill accurately. And in fact, I believe misrepresents some of what the bill does on its own.

This notion that particular development and the development process can go through without approval.

What the bill actually does and says is it pertains to by-right housing, which, in the state of Delaware, our county councils are the ones who set ordinances around zoning, and the rules in which any developer would have to follow in order to move a development forward. And the Sussex County Council recently went through a process where they released a new set of rules around housing.

And so what the term by-right means is that if that particular development met every single one of those rules that the county council established as what is appropriate for the development, that that’s then considered by-right, and they would move through the process. The reason why it’s important to have housing stock available more readily is because in addition to the imbalance that we see in Sussex County with housing prices, meaning what’s available on the market right now is outprices your average Delawarean and their salary.

Just in terms of housing stock across the entire state and in the county, we don’t have enough houses. So utilizing the tool by-right is a measure by which to say if county council believes these are right metrics, to have in place in order to check developers, and make sure that they’re following rules, then those particular developments should be able to come onto the market faster because we need them to come on market faster because Delaware is in a housing crisis.

The other thing that I’ve heard is this notion of a debate between the terminology around hearing versus public meeting. And both hearings and public meetings require public comment. So, the example that I will give is all school board meetings are public meetings. They’re not hearings, they’re public meetings.

And all school board meetings have a portion in the agenda where the public can come and give public comment. The difference is that the particular entity who’s running that meeting has a little bit of choice about where that public comment happens, whether it’s at the beginning of the meeting or the middle of the meeting or the end of the meeting, how long that public comment can be.

But both written and spoken public comment are part of the process in a public meeting.

There technically isn’t a repeal process in the Delaware legislative process.

The way one would go about “repealing,” quote-unquote, if that’s the terminology that you would utilize, is by running a new bill. And so that new bill would have to run through the entire legislative process, just as the Housing for Every Delawarean Act did, meaning it would have to be drafted with the intent to change the rules that the Housing for Every Delawarean Act put into place.

It would then have to be read in and approved through whatever chamber it starts on, their legal team to make sure that it is legal. Then would have to run through the public hearing process and the floor vote in both chambers.

What was interesting about the Housing for Every Delawarean Act when it was passed is that it required one of the highest standards of votes in the chamber, meaning it wasn’t a simple majority. It had to receive a two-thirds vote in order to move forward. And it did that in both chambers and was bipartisan. So I do think it would be a huge challenge to try to get through that process again.

I’m a systems thinker so, our education system is just that.

It’s a really big system that has lots of levers within it. And as has been articulated for decades, the biggest and most impactful lever that could be pulled to improve our education system as a whole in Delaware is redesigning our school funding formula. Yeah. It’s work that I’d been a part of previously as an educator, when I worked at the Department of Education, when I was the senior policy advisor for education in the governor’s office.

That formula doesn’t go into place until school year 2027. And I actually think the most critical, even more critical than changing the funding formula piece of legislation that we passed was keeping the committee in place to track and monitor the implementation of that new formula and its effectiveness.

And so I think that was one of the most monumental things we could have done, and I was proud to be able to do it in my first legislative session. And monitoring and tracking that work will be the work over the next ten-plus years to make sure that what we’ve put into place is operating as it should.

So I first just want listeners to know that I am proud of the work that I’ve done in my first legislative session. I’ve been able to deliver on healthcare, work with our towns, support our first responders, draft legislation supporting our veterans and mothers, and schools in our state because it matters.

It’s the work and the bills that I’ve been able to pass are bills that directly impact people’s everyday lives, and that’s why I decided to run in the first place. As many people know, I’m a mom of two young boys, and what drives me every day is making sure that this community will be better for them and all of their peers as they grow in this community.

And so, I said last year that I wasn’t running just to sit in the seat. I’m proud of the work that I’ve done. I personally drafted and passed 10 bills in 45 days that have a direct impact on this community and District 20. I’m ready in this next legislative session to pass even more bills that are responsive to the needs of what I’m hearing from my constituents.

So as far as things that I’ve done or like to do, in the past, I did manage a fitness center. I was an aerobics instructor, and I instructed in the gym. I believe in being very active and keeping yourself physically fit.

Consequently, both my husband and I are active scuba divers. We’ve scuba dived all over the world. And I am very concerned about climate change.

And I enjoy restoring my father-in-law’s farm that was built in 1730. So I do like decorating and restoring things.

Well, they absolutely can trust me.

My grandmother, when I was growing up, was Democrat chairwoman up in Blackbird Hundred, which entails Townsend and Blackbird. I grew up at her knee. I grew up in a Democratic union family.

At 18, I registered as a Democrat. Through my first marriage, I was a Democrat. When I married Mark, when I was almost 50, he asked me if I would change my party to support him so that I could go into meetings.

Just like it is on the Democrat side, you have to be one party or the other. I said, “Sure, I’ll do this. I’ll support you, but I’m not going to support the Republican platform.”

Now, when Mark lost his office in November 2024, that next day I asked him if he would ever run again, and he said, “Absolutely not.” I said, “I’m going back to the Democrat Party. I’m switching my party,” which I did.

And I want to remind, voters of one thing. Everyone loved, and I loved [Former District 20 Rep.] Stell Parker Selby. But in case not everyone knows this, she used to be a Republican.

In fact, she ran against Thurman Adams, the former Democratic Senate Pro Tem from Sussex County, as a Republican. Years later, she changed to Democrat, and people didn’t have a problem supporting her or trusting her.

I think it’s a moot point when it comes to whether you were Democrat or Republican. Chris Coons was a Republican.

Well, first off, when Stell Parker Selby first ran for that seat that was created, a few years ago, I think Steve Smick was the first person that was the representative, and he was a Republican who had won that seat. And then when he decided to change and run for a different seat, Stell Parker Selby stepped in, and she won that seat by 250 votes.

If you split that, it would be a 126 people would have had to have voted for the Republican, and Stell wouldn’t have been in.

Last year, when Alonna Berry won that seat, that was in a special election that was focused solely on her. And she had all the resources at her fingertips.

She won that seat by, I think, a 121 votes against the same candidate that Stell Parker Selby ran against. And if you would split that, and 62 more people had voted for the other way, then you would have had a Republican in there.

So I am recognized simply because of my association with Mark, too, in the general election. I’m recognized by both parties, and I can easily, easily, I think, defeat the Republican candidate that’s running.

I do. I don’t know Gene. Gene, from what I’ve heard, is a very nice gentleman.

And Gene came into this late in the game. I don’t know why he stepped in at the last minute, but I will tell you, I wasn’t a last-minute candidate. I’ve been working at this for a very long time. I’ve knocked on well over 5,000 voter doors. And I’ve had tremendous support from the unions.

I’ve been endorsed by the Delaware Building and Construction Trades Union, the Delaware State AFL-CIO, and AFSCME. So I get support from them even to the point that they go out and they canvas for me. I don’t know that Gene has been working, doing that. I can’t speak to that. But people know that I’ve been out for months working hard in the heat, in the cold.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s rain, I’m out knocking on doors and actually speaking personally to voters about their concerns. And that’s the important thing, is meeting people at their door. There aren’t a lot of candidates that do that. I would say that I’m probably, the only candidate that has worked that hard in the 20th for that representative seat.

My main thing that I’m running on is Senate Bill 23, which has raised a lot of concern. That Senate Bill 23 is tagged “workforce housing.” But it isn’t. It is an unaffordable housing bill, and people have now had the light bulb that has switched on that this is a horrible bill.

And as Jane Gruenebaum said, our county councilwoman, this is an “insidious” bill. It’s only going to increase density, and it has taken away our right to have public hearings and public comment.

You could wake up tomorrow morning, and you had a field of corn or maybe trees across from you, and you could wake up the next morning, and all of a sudden there’s bulldozers out there dozing the trees and starting to prepare to build houses with no notice to you. That is awful. I went to a planning commission meeting the other night for the City of Lewes, and they are in turmoil over this bill. They actually implemented a moratorium until they can figure out how to handle this bill.

It’s the same with Sussex County, where [County Administrator] Todd Lawson said that this was “a Trojan horse.” It was designed for workforce and affordable housing, which by the way, I am all for, but he said it is unlikely to generate one affordable house.

There are no guardrails in that. And furthermore, that bill was drafted by the Homebuilders Association, and actually the president of that Homebuilders Association got up and spoke before the legislature, where Alonna Berry sits, sponsored the bill and voted yes.

So that is the biggest difference. As far as the county committee supporting me, when we went in last summer, there were five of us that went in to vie for that seat. It was already predetermined that Alonna was going to be picked for that. She was their chosen candidate, and that’s fine, but there have been many candidates that have not been supported by their party that have won an election, and I’m going to be that candidate.

So let’s drill down on that. It’s for subdivisions and it’s also for cluster subdivisions.

And the by-right pertains to AR-1 zoning. So AR-1 zoning is farmland.

So, if you have farmland across from you that’s AR-1, a developer goes in and buys it from the farmer, he has a right to go in, do his engineer plan and take it to the county planning office.

The planning office makes sure he ticks off the very basic things in that plan. If he meets those very basic things, he gets his sheet of paper that gives him the right to go over to the permitting office, pull a permit, and start building the next day.

So when Russ is saying that, that’s not quite the same thing.

And what he’s talking about, I’ve heard him say, “Oh, well, your right to comment is, still there.” The right to comment and make public comment is only during the comprehensive land use planning phase. Every 10 years, a citizen has the right to go in and give public comment on that, but only every 10 years.

Alonna Berry did this, and she sponsored SB23. And she should have known what she was sponsoring when she signed her name to that bill.

The other way they can make comment. They’re going to say, “OK, well, you can make written comment.” Well, yeah, like Jane Gruenebaum said, you can make written comment, but it’s not really going go anywhere.

And the main thing about the written comment, it’s only on objective standards, which means that a normal person would have to be able to go in, look at the subdivision plan and say, “Oh, that road’s not quite thick enough. The sidewalks aren’t wide enough. The lift station isn’t, big enough to support, whatever that community would do with regard to sewer.”

Those are the written comments that you can make. The normal person is not going to do that.

It does not hold water. And first off, at the planning commission meeting the other night in Lewes, they were in a turmoil over this trying to figure out which of the 11 items they had to take and abide by, regulations, and they can pick five.

Milton didn’t like this. Both Milton and Lewes mayor and council wrote letters to the legislature telling them that this was not the bill that fit their agenda, so to speak. And furthermore, when this bill came about, as Todd Lawson from the county said, neither one of those legislators went to them and said, “Hey, what do you think about this bill?”

Because after all, that’s what county does: land use and sewer plants. They want to know how is this going to affect us, and do you have any comment? None of the three counties were asked, none of the municipalities that are affected were asked. It was done, and that was it. And furthermore, as Todd Lawson said, this is the first time in county history that a legislator has never come to them and discussed a land use bill with them.

And I would also want to point out that Russ Huxtable was a developer with the Milford Housing Development Corp. This was a gift to homebuilders and developers, make no mistake.

It’s going to change the landscape of Delaware for years to come.

If we can’t repeal the bill, obviously I will have a bill drafted that will strike the language in Senate Bill 23.

I will take and do a new bill that will restore our rights to public hearings and public notice, and to also put guardrails into what is exactly workforce and affordable housing.

What is the price of it? What is workforce and affordable housing? What’s this supposed to look like? There is nothing in there about that.

And the cost to implement this bill was passed on to the municipalities and to the county. Of course, that means the taxpayers footing the bill for the hundreds and hundreds of hours and months that it’s going take to figure out how to implement this nightmare of a bill.

Well, I think that they know that I’m going to get out and work hard for them, that I’m going to be there when they call me. I will answer their concerns.

I’m going to have Republicans that are going to want to vote for me too.

I can look across the aisle and see a friend and work to get something done for the people. Because it’s all about the people. It’s not about the party, it’s about their concerns. And I think when people get in the legislature, they surround themselves with other legislators, and they’re listening to other legislators tell them what they think should be done.

They forget about us. They forget about we’re the ones that should have a voice, and we don’t get asked what our opinion is. And I tend to keep in contact with my voters.