This should be fun…
Governor Markell will be holding three town halls up and down the state over the next four weeks. Starting off in Kent County tomorrow at the Delaware Tech’s Dover campus at 7 pm. The next one will be down in Sussex County on Thursday, October 3, at the Cape Henlopen High School in Lewes. And finally the Governor comes back up north to New Castle County on Thursday, October 10 for a town hall at Delcastle High School near Newport.
“It’s another tool for me to get out and share with the people of the state what’s going on, hear from them what’s on their minds,” he said. “It’s been a little while and it just felt like a good time to do it again.” [..]
Markell said he’s prepared to defend his administration’s efforts to bring jobs to Delaware by offering incentives and taxpayer funding to employers. Some of those deals, like the funding package offered to electric car-maker Fisker, have failed to meet expectations.
“I’m certainly prepared to talk about all that,” Markell said. “We are always interested in suggestions, and if they have things they’re concerned about we can talk about that as well.”
Methinks the Governor should be prepared to talk about education as well. And I wonder if there will be any questions about this:
[E. Norman V]easey[, the independent special prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Bau Biden in 2011 to investigate campaign finance in Delaware,] has brought three cases against small businessmen who used others as conduits to exceed the legal limits on campaign contributions for Markell. In each case, supporters with no known connections used the same scheme to give more than the legal limit to Markell’s campaign: they reimbursed friends, relatives or employees who were named as giving money to the candidate. […]
[Veasey is now] looking into whether Gov. Jack Markell or anyone on his 2008 campaign helped donors contribute illegally or knew about the schemes.
“We have been looking carefully into the question of whether Markell or any campaign knew about or suggested reimbursement,” said E. Norman Veasey, an independent prosecutor who was tapped by Attorney General Beau Biden in 2011 to lead an investigation into election finance in Delaware.
Kavips makes a good point:
I suspect that the governor will attempt to deflect any queries on the campaign finance issue by asserting that those are matters that should be addressed by members of his campaign team and he is here to talk only about state government issues.
It is pretty remarkable that there is no meeting in Wilmington — where the unemployment is at crisis levels in some parts of the city. No matter where he holds the meeting, I am hoping that someone asks why he is going to throw money at casinos that are simply never going to out-compete venues in MD and PA.
Damn Kilroy says something worthy of being quoted at DL and Kavips get’s the credit! LOL.
Cassandra I agree, the Wilmington unemployment issue and even some education concerns is keeping Markell out of Wilmington.
Despite my rants and cheap shots toward Markell, he is a very personable and decent person. However, his political face is all self-serving and he knows in his heart the problems are bigger than him! He should man-up and add a meeting in Wilmington and let the people vent! Because if he doesn’t Matt Denn may have to work harder for those votes! Markell rolled Carney under the bus re: primary and I do think he is cold-hearted enough to walk away from Denn. But I see no real offensive move on the DE GOP ! Denn will be safe as long as Beau doesn’t want to be governor!
Other outlets reported that Markell raised almost $5 million that year and that Zimmerman and Tigani’s money came in after the primary when he was already crushing his opponent.
Why would Markell or anyone close to him tell somebody like Zimmerman or Tigani that they should break the law to bring in a fraction of the total raised for a race that had already been decided?
Zimmerman’s quote to the judge that he acted alone and his quote to the reporter at the end of the story where he complained that he never received any benefit from the state for any help he gave should have been further up in the story.