Merlet: Carney should be rejected for mayor of Wilmington

I received an email from Gov. John Carney on Wednesday, discussing why he endorses Bethany Hall-Long for governor. This letter is not about Hall-Long but rather about Carney, in his quest to be mayor of Wilmington.

He writes, “When we took office, … we worked together to get the state’s finances under control.”

A. Anyone who believes that doesn’t know anything about how government works because governors don’t work with lieutenant governors on budgets.

B. The state’s finances were not “out of control.”

C. Carney used the same group of financial people that Jack Markell had, people who had ignored the huge deficit in the state retirement package, people who resisted any changes in our finances except one — the budget smoothing that the legislature fortunately resisted but Carney did by executive order anyway, a tactic that hurt agencies that worked for people and services but left corporate giveaways in place.

Carney’s regime hasn’t helped the people in this state and won’t help the people in Wilmington, if he is elected to lead there. He did not make good choices for Delaware, either in his budgetary priorities or in his choice of agency heads.

I ask the people of Wilmington to reject Carney as their future mayor.

I call on the gubernatorial candidates to reject Carney’s choice of administrators, specifically Rick Geisenberger, Cerron Cade and Claire DeMatteis, and bring in new people with fresh ideas for managing the people of Delaware’s money and priorities.

Connie Merlet

Newark

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