Newark/UD Gas Power Plant Informational Meeting Set For 7PM - 9PM September 3rd At The George Wilson Center

 

Jim McKelvey shows the sign he has worn. / GINGER WALL/THE NEWS JOURNAL

I attended Monday night's Newark City Council meeting which started with comments on Mayor Funk's outrageous depiction of Jim McKelvey as a dangerous stalker. 

The McKelveys have been organizing in their community for months to lobby against the special use permit WAWA would need to install gas pumps at the East Main Street location. They are a petite, elderly couple who explained publicly that they'd attended every Council meeting since May to learn about the process, not to intimidate the Mayor. They are anti-gas pumps not anti-WAWA - as robin brown reported Tuesday ~

The News Journal on Saturday quoted Funk – who said he would not be attending City Council meetings through the end if his term – as saying the most stressful part of the Wawa opposition has been a critic, whose name he doesn’t know, wearing a sandwich-board-style “anti-Wawa” sign, follow­ing him around at public events and staring at him during City Council meet­ings. Funk said the stress raised his blood pressure so much, he was afraid he would suffer a second stroke.

The man with the sand­wich board was identified during the public com­ment period at the meet­ing as Jim McKelvey of Winslow Road, near the proposed Wawa site. His wife, Carol McKel­vey of the South Main Street Coalition for Safe­ty, said her husband did wear a sign, but “he did not stalk the mayor.” She said they were not responsible for any ha­rassment and said, “We hope he notified the po­lice. We wish he had noti­fied us.” McKelvey also stressed that members of the coalition oppose the store and its gas pumps strictly as a matter of safety.

Many in the room, including members of Council, next remarked on the right for citizens to speak out and make a difference and participate in city governance. The campaign intended to impact the decision about the gas pumps. It was not about the Mayor. 

Another topic of interest was UD's proposed Data Center power plant. No University representative was present but resident Amy Roe pointed out how claims by the city that the public was informed of the year-long negotiations were proved false. 

And that the City Manager's April 2013 letter to DEDO's subcommittee on infrastructure stated that Newark was pleased to be the public sponsor of the power plant's request for $7.5 million to help install gas lines from Pennsylvania. 

The kicker was discovering that this work was slated to begin in November 2013! 

I would say that this gas plant flap is what's getting under Mayor Funk's skin as much as the gas pumps protest. He stands very much at odds with the Council authority here and has, after all, represented the University as a real estate attorney for the last 30-odd years. Conflict much, Vance?

A September 3rd informational meeting (7-9PM) at the George Wilson Center about the power plant will be conducted for interested residents. Newark bureacracy evidently felt empowered to sneak around because of their belief that Council had no purview over the University-controlled project as their attorney advised. 

None of this is sitting well with Council. Councilman Mark Morehead moved to solicit a second opinion from a "subject matter expert". The outside counsel would research Council's "rights" vis a vis the University and determine whether this plant was indeed an accessory use or what it looked like: a primary business use. The motion was quickly seconded and unanimously carried.
 
Meanwhile, Newark residents need to start speaking up

In the past few days, I have read articles in The News Jour­nal addressing significant is­sues facing the City of Newark. One editorial expressed con­cern about the danger of train oil cars in Newark, articles about Vance Funk’s resignation as mayor included discussion about the proposed Wawa on South Main Street, and lastly the Delaware Voice column by Amy Roe presented informa­tion about the power plant for The Data Centers LLC.

I encourage residents of Newark to become informed and to express their concerns about these important issues impacting the City of Newark. Newark City Council meets at 7 p.m. the second and fourth Mon­days of each month at the Muni­cipal Building, 220 S. Main St., Newark.

Residents are allowed three minutes for public comment. Or contact your elected city coun­cil representative directly.

Council email addresses and phone numbers are listed on the City of Newark’s website, www.cityofnewarkde.us.

Anita Rush

Newark

With a comment rescue ~ 

thank you for speaking up about the issues. We are working on a letter to send out to the Chestnut Hill Rd. area residents regarding the proposed data center. This is NOT something we want in our backyard! There are numerous articles on line regarding the lowering of property values from 4-7% if you live within 2 miles of a power plant.

We had a civic assn. meeting the other night and most people did not even know about the power plant, the ones that did thought that it was just going to be a little generator - NOT what is proposed.

The City of Newark has lost a lot of trust in our community and the City Mgr. lives right in our development! I do not trust them to look out for us - we have to look out for ourselves!

~*~