Deirdre Taylor is a resident of Lewes and Newark.
What happened was 9/11, Superstorm Sandy and COVID-19. After these events, mass migration began happening in Delaware, especially to Sussex County. People in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., began coming to Delaware for the beaches, low taxes and low cost of living, and because the Diamond State is a great place to live. We have history, arts, culture, music, tax-free shopping, great restaurants and much more. They forgot to leave their politics in the state they left for Delaware. Delaware was a red-purple state; now, it’s a solid-blue state. The Delaware legislature used to have more of a balance between Republicans and Democrats, and the legislators worked across the aisle. No more!
Education in the state is in the toilet. Kids are graduating who can’t read or do math, not to mention they are not being taught history, civics or how to sign their names on checks. Discipline does not exist in public schools, and every child brings a phone into the classroom. Ridiculous! Where is the University of Delaware with helping to bring schools up to snuff? Nowhere!
Sussex County Council has let the entire county become a housing development, with no thought to overcrowded roads, sewer systems, water supply (Rehoboth Beach rationed water last summer), overcrowded schools and hospitals. Sussex County is gridlock all year-round.
Sussex County brags that it is bike-friendly. Bicyclists take over the towns from May to June. They do not know the rules of the road for bikes, and they pay no attention to their young children, riding with them or not. This is a disaster waiting to happen.
Health care throughout the state is a disaster. You can wait a year to see a doctor, especially a specialist. You have to pay for a concierge doctor to be guaranteed to see a doctor, and that is thousands of dollars that not everyone has. ChristianaCare’s hospital is too large. Its patient rooms and public bathrooms are not clean. Nurses do not respond, so family members take patients to the bathrooms. Families change patient beds, and this is just for starters. Why doesn’t Delaware have a medical school or a program to retain doctors who do their residencies here?
Delaware has no electric power produced in the state. We have to depend on being part of a group that shares electricity with many states. Where was the forethought to get the small nuclear power plants up and running before competing for artificial intelligence installations? Delaware politicians do not look beyond the ends of their noses.
Then, let’s talk about the reassessment nightmare. Matt Meyer held up the announcement of who was going to pay what until after the gubernatorial election. That does not seem to be ethical to me, not to mention the company selected to do the reassessments had been sued by other states for not doing its job. Now, my House of Representatives person said that Tyler Technologies is ingrained in the Delaware computer system. I don’t care that we were given no criteria on how the houses were to be judged. We were not told the businesses were getting a break and that homeowners would bear the brunt of the cost. Throw Tyler Technologies out and get a reputable firm for future reassessments.
Now, all this pushback about not allowing police to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE is upholding the laws that Congress enacted. So, if you have a problem, blame Congress. Replace all who currently serve in Congress because their approval rating is 10%. Plus, who wants people who were allowed into this country without being vetted and who have criminal records in their home country to live in our communities?
Also, anyone in this state who is here illegally must not have a driver’s license. That is a privilege, not a right, and who’s to say they can read the road signs?
Next is the fact that the current Delaware legislature only knows how to spend money. Ever since COVID-19 and the Carney administration, the budget has been blown. There is no reason we had to decouple from the federal government other than poor money management on the part of the Delaware legislature.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
