Later, many of us attended the Town Hall in Newark. The University of Delaware seemingly colluded with the town administration for the last few years in achieving a zoning code allowance for a power plant on campus. When I asked if the UD had outright declared they were putting a power plant on the Chrysler property when they bought it, the response was the city would have sued.
Paul Baumbach said if UD/TDC is legally following their zoning requirements, they can build their power plant with no Council input. But we now know the zoning at the time of approval was characterized as a 1MW accessory use and we've ended up with a 248MW use where the business plan fails short without the ability to sell a third of the generated power back to the grid.
City Councilman Mark Morehead said "We were outgamed". I say we were betrayed by a corrupt UD-city government behind-the-scenes relationship.
Roe for Mayor of Newark writes ~
Tonight was a town-hall meeting sponsored by Rep. Paul Baumbach and Sen. David Sokola, though City Councilman Mark Morehead was also in attendance. Topics ranged from The Data Centers LLC's power plant to the recent prohibition against midwives. It is good to see legislators and city councilmen begin work on strategies together, though Newark has been pushed into such a corner with the power plant that tensions got high. Our legislators have asked us to trust our environmental protection laws, though they have not required regulators to enforce the law. Instead, Delaware has become the state where an industry can move next to your home and violate its permits, yet women cannot have assistance with a home birth. There is something terribly wrong here.
(Amy Roe images)
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