Report from the SEU Meeting

Filed in Uncategorized by on May 5, 2008

Things are quiet here at work this week, so I had some time to make it out to the SEU meeting at the Buena Vista Conference Center. I have never been to one of these sorts of meetings before, so I was a bit tentative. Luckily, there were some pretty smart and experienced people on hand to challenge the board.

John Kowalko was in attendance as an interested observer, as was John Flaherty. Both of them asked questions, but we all left a little disappointed. It should be noted that Copeland was the last to arrive (sorry about your dog, Charlie) at 10:29 and gave the board quorum. At 10:39, Patty Blevins had to leave, breaking quorum. So there were really only 10 minutes of official business. Half of that time was spent approving a letter written by the board’s attorney to address conflict of interest concerns. The other half was spent approving the minutes from the last meeting.

The balance of the time was spent discussing various issues of the board. The bylaws were of particular interest, since the bylaws and board composition are due to the legislature soon to formalize the board. McDowell was repeatedly asked questions about sources of sample bylaws and conflict of interest statements. I have to say that John Byrne and Charlie Copeland were quite combative with several of the members of the public (including Flaherty), but that the board’s lawyer was very willing to engage the participants.

Byrne got himself in hot water when he referred to the board as a public non-profit. When pressed for what the hell a public non-profit was, McDowell asked that the question be submitted in writing and would be reviewed by counsel. He then threw out a statement that the board gets many conflicting requests, and that they cannot all be acted upon. Someone suggested that all submitted questions and their answers be posted on the website, to which McDowell responded that as a volunteer organization, their time was limited.

One of the people in attendance asked why there were no provisions in the bylaws that would cover removal of sitting board members. She specifically said “the head of the board.” McDowell kept coming back to transparency. The money quote is “I have never been involved in an organization that had as much transparency in my 30 years in the Senate.” Having seen how the Senate operates, I believe it. He also said that he doesn’t want to burden “this new baby” with a lot of rules that bog it down. Gotta love that in an oversight board.

There are two catches here:

  1. The board is currently acting in compliance with FOIA. But their charter does not state that they must. This means that they could decide to not respond to a FOIA request in the future and the requester would then have to litigate to get at the information.
  2. As John Kowalko pointed out, transparency is not synonymous with accountability. So, if we did request a document that showed malfeasance, there may be no recourse, such as removing a board member.

I should also note that the letter from the attorney that I mentioned earlier concentrates on the fact that the board doesn’t have any ability to directly influence the spending of money, except in such a circumstance that a contract administrator cannot be found for a particular program. I will publish the letter as soon as I have a copy of it.

I need to do some more research on this, especially some of the points that Kowalko discussed with me before and after the meeting. It was great to have a DL presence at this meeting, hopefully we can get out there a little bit more in the future.

Tags: , ,

About the Author ()

Comments (30)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

Sites That Link to this Post

  1. Outside The Perimeter: The “kavipsian” Awards « kavips | July 14, 2008
  1. jason330 says:

    Byrne got himself in hot water when he referred to the board as a public non-profit. When pressed for what the hell a public non-profit was, McDowell asked that the question be submitted in writing and would be reviewed by counsel.

    *reader spits Diet Coke onto keyboard*

  2. jason330 says:

    BTW – Awesome citizen journalism.

  3. liberalgeek says:

    Gracias. It was somewhat painful, but hopefully it will let McDowell know that we are watching.

    If I had more cajones, I would have asked the following:

    Since this board is nominally in favor of sustainable energy, is the board ready to write an endorsement of the Bluewater Wind Proposal.

  4. jason330 says:

    It is a great question.

  5. liberalgeek says:

    I think it is a paraphrasing of your question, actually.

  6. anon says:

    Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka:

    “I’m sorry, but all questions must be submitted in writing.”

  7. Pandora says:

    Great job! Thanks for sitting through the meeting.

  8. Tyler Nixon says:

    I can’t believe no one asked what gives the board the legal authority to even function…forget about any ‘business’ they are purportedly conducting, the whole damn thing is an unlawful sham at this point.

    I’d litigate this in a heartbeat. Its operation is such clear cut (il)legal fiction.

  9. cassandra_m says:

    You did a great job, LG. Wish I could have gone myself.

    Can you still write in questions or were they just taking them for this meeting?

  10. liberalgeek says:

    Sorry, Tyler. The answer that I got from two different sources, is that the legislature extended the deadline to the end of June. I meant to put that in the post and forgot.

  11. liberalgeek says:

    I’ll see if I can find the address for where to send questions.

  12. Disbelief says:

    When I see journalism like this, I feel a pang of pity for those who work on various newspapers. They must feel like dinosaurs with good eyesight who are the first to see the comet coming.

    I wonder how long it will be until blogs also replace the national print media or even television media. Its stuff like this post that makes me feel like throwing a brick at a talking head babbling about a horse breaking an ankle in the Kentucky Derby while a few more children are killed in a pointless “war on aggression” or insiders make millions in 24 hours after the government bails out Bear Sterns.

  13. liberalgeek says:

    Thanks, Dis.

  14. jason330 says:

    Shamless self promotion:

    Progressive Democrats for Delaware

    Next Meeting: Wednesday, May 7, 7:00 pm.

    Jason Scott is coming to talk to us about the wind power struggle in the General Assembly. There was an article about this in Sunday’s News Journal but Jason has been doing the real investigative reporting at his blog, http://www.delawareliberal.net, and he’s got the whole story of what is going on. Ya gotta come and hear this. Jason keeps it real.

    We’ve got a couple of new projects to talk about and of course, campaigns and endorsements. Our meetings are always open to any Democratic candidate so we never know who might stop by.

    See ya on Wednesday night where everybody knows your name and liberal isn’t a dirty word.

    I’m going to drink Harris McDowell’s milkshake.

  15. Great work people~!
    My friend Shawn Mullen (a retired Philly Daily News editor) was telling me that the blogs are taking over the medium. But can it really be happening as quickly as people seem to think?
    Until Delaware blogs get on an advertising footing as aggressively as the newspaper’s, we won’t get far fast.
    How about that as an entrepreneurial venture? Delaware Blog Ads Corp.

  16. Pandora says:

    Funny you should mention advertising… Todays A section of the newpaper had 20 pages. 11 of those pages were full paged ads. There were other pages half filled with ads.

    Maybe newpapers are dying because they don’t print any news… but Short’s Marine is having a hell of a sale.

  17. liberalgeek says:

    Well, we will need a source of revenue at some point. I have been looking into options, but have been pretty dissatisfied with the current options. Bootstrapping a local blog network would be a difficult venture and would likely get many of us divorced before it takes off. 🙂

    There will be more to come in the future on this, but for now, we will have to blog on our free-time or when the boss isn’t around. Perhaps if we break into the national blog scene, we would have a shot at financial independence.

  18. Disbelief says:

    Nekkid’ pictures of donviti?

  19. Willow says:

    You can submit your questions to Sean Finnegan, Administrative Assistant for McDowell (or the majority caucus).

    Sean.Finnegan@state.de.us

  20. liberalgeek says:

    Thanks, Willow. I left his card in my car and was going to post it tonight. I appreciate it.

  21. Willow says:

    Correction: That’s Sean.Finnigan@state.de.us

  22. Al Mascitti says:

    LG: Anyone from the News Journal there?

  23. liberalgeek says:

    Hi Al – No, I don’t think so… Flaherty, Kowalko, 2 from Delaware Nature Society, guy from Clean Air Council, a woman from LoWV, two private citizens a crackpot and me. I’m pretty sure the crackpot wasn’t from the News Journal.

  24. Tyler Nixon says:

    Nice work LG, by the way.

    Are you sure about that claim concerning extension of the SEU board authority? Do you recall who said it? Because based on research of all available GA records, it is a damn lie.

    I searched for all legislation containing anything related to “sustainable energy” and found no such legislation extending the authority for the SEU, much less any laws enacted to this effect.

    Chapter 181 in this link is the first piece of legislation passed this year, on January 15. Check for yourself and see if you find any law passed by the GA since the SEU board’s authority expired. http://delcode.delaware.gov/sessionlaws/ga144/index.shtml

    Unless the GA is passing secret legislation without changing the statutory language in the Code itself or publishing it under the journal of Delaware laws passed, I am mystified by this claim.

    It sounds to me like someone is making it up, or it is wishful thinking…something like, “don’t worry, the legislature is getting around to making us legal”. But then, how else would they answer that they are unlawfully meeting?

    Charlie Copeland needs to answer this question, if McDowell won’t. I am surprised he would participate in an unlawfully-operating body like this. I know he has plenty of good lawyers at his disposal. He should check it out before going any further with the SEU.

    If we can’t get clear, unambiguous answers to this, it may be worth filing a complaint to enjoin the SEU board from any more meetings until they have statutory authority.

  25. Was the crackpot the guy who said that he needed to patent his idea that would make energy at a third the cost of wind?
    I heard that McDowell told him to go to the state energy dept. for help.

  26. john kowalko says:

    Tyler,
    Give me a call at home.

  27. liberalgeek says:

    Nancy, yes, that was him. I thought that the referral was a good way to get the guy out of the meeting without a lot of ugliness. For a second I thought the guy was Foraker. No kidding.

  28. Dana Garrett says:

    Great writing LG. The writers at Del Lib are doing a great public service by covering these matters.

  29. Frieda Berryhill says:

    John Kowalko said
    “Tyler,
    Give me a call at home.” Chucks, I would really love to listen in on THAT conversation…..