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> From: "Monzack Nina N (DOJ)" <Nina.Monzack@state.de.us>
> Date: August 7, 2012 4:29:50 PM CDT
> Subject: DOJ News Summary 8/3/12 -- 8/7/12
>
> News Summary: August 3, 2012 – August 7, 2012
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> Beebe to pay $100 million
> Beebe Medical Center, which once employed pedophile pediatrician Earl B. Bradley, has quietly reached a massive monetary settlement in a class action lawsuit brought by his former patients against the hospital and others accused of failing to report the doctor’s atrocities. Financial details of the agreement are currently confidential, but sources familiar with the negotiations told The News Journal that Beebe, mostly through its insurers, has agreed to pay more than $100 million to settle claims against the Lewes hospital. It could be more than a year, however, before trusts are established and paid to Bradley’s victims, sources said. The deal will allow Beebe to avoid bankruptcy, its lead attorney said. The Medical Society of Delaware and a handful of Delaware doctors are also defendants in the lawsuits, but have not settled with the patients… In the lawsuits, patients accused Beebe of negligence and dereliction of duty. Hospital officials investigated Bradley in 1996 after a nurse reported inappropriate vaginal exams of young girls he treated – specifically the fact that he catheterized many of the girls he examined… Beebe cleared Bradley of any wrongdoing and although he resigned as an employee, allowed him to keep his privileges to treat patients there. Bradley kept those privileges, attending births and treating hospitalized children, until his December 2009 arrest. The lawsuits contend Beebe hospital could have prevented future attacks by Bradley if the staff had reported him to Delaware’s medical disciplinary board, which licenses and disciplines physicians… The mother of one girl who has sued Bradley said she’s grateful the settlement has been reached with Beebe, and hopes that other defendants will soon follow suit. “It will be a big relief when there’s closure to this, at least on this part,” the woman said. “Beebe, from the top down, needed to be held accountable, as does everybody who knew and chose to do nothing.”
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> http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012308040037&nclick_check=1
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> Child abuse initiatives taking hold (editorial)
> Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden remains focused on making sure our children and grandchildren are better protected than they have been in the past. In a meeting last week, Biden referred obliquely to the Bradley case in Lewes and the Sandusky case at Penn State. (Because the Bradley case is still in litigation, he does not discuss it directly.) “We have a moment in time right now to focus the eyes of the nation on a problem endemic in our society,” he said. …there is positive movement in terms of reporting. “There is a significant uptick in the phone calls coming in with reports of abuse.” He said that is resulting from increased attention to the child sex abuse issue and improved training initiatives. “All of that emboldens and empowers others to speak up,” he said… “We're trying to get across the message that one-on-one settings with adults and children are not the best thing,” said Biden, “even when the adult is trusted or in a position of authority. Eyes on is not a bad thing. Abusers too often are people in positions of trust and confidence, often with familial bonds. This is tough, and it's uncomfortable, but it's real. Institutions need to know this too, to protect the child and the entity.” These problems are serious, and it's good to see serious initiatives to address them.
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> http://capegazette.villagesoup.com/column/columnpost/child-abuse-initiatives-taking-hold/877589
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> Camden-area utility still defiant despite closed FOIA loophole
> … As in prior years, citizens will only be able to review the budget after it is finalized and presented to the two affected towns in September or October, said board chairman Mark M. Dyer Sr. A year ago, the CWSWA was sued by the state Attorney General’s Office on behalf of Wyoming town Treasurer Georgette Williams, whose Freedom of Information Act requests for details about the authority’s salaries and employee benefits had repeatedly been denied… The lawsuit has been on the desk of a Kent County Superior Court judge since February, with no estimated date for a decision, according to the Attorney General’s Office. In the meantime, the CWSWA has adhered to its records policies and, in some ways, moved to further restrict public access. A recent News Journal request for copies of basic budgetary and annual audit information, made according to instructions on a form supplied by the authority, was denied as the utility cited the pending lawsuit. Last week, for the first time, a reporter was given the opportunity to inspect old budget overviews and year-end audits in person at the CWSWA office. However, authority officials refused to allow copies of the documents to leave the premises… Dyer, the board chairman, said the CWSWA provides sufficient access for anyone to monitor the utility’s finances. “We are open to the public; our finances are open to the public. We just don’t print out documents,” he said. “I always felt it was best practice to disclose financial statements...We only refused to disclose individual salaries.” Dyer said the board’s “hand has been forced” by the pending lawsuit, and the CWSWA has to be careful not to compromise its legal arguments by acting, in some instances, like a body willing to comply with the open records law. “Until this gets resolved, we have pulled our FOIA request form,” he said. “We’re in a holding pattern.”
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> http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012308060044&nclick_check=1
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> Former Dewey mayor asks Hanson to resign
> … Former Mayor Dell Tush wrote a July 27 letter to Dewey Beach Mayor Diane Hanson asking her to vacate her position. “It is time for you to resign before our town is damaged beyond repair,” Tush said. This is the second request for resignation Hanson has received. A July 13 Attorney General’s Office opinion found Dewey Beach Town Council committed habitual violations of open meetings laws when noticing its closed-door meetings to the public. After the opinion was issued, Town Manager Bob Stickels turned in a letter of resignation after four months on the job, citing personal reasons for his departure. “Bob Stickels resigning is what sparked me to write my letter,” Tush said. She said she has known Stickels since she was mayor, from 2006 to 2009, and he was Sussex County administrator. After receiving his letter, Hanson told the Cape Gazette Stickels had been overwhelmed by Freedom of Information Act requests from property owners asking for documents such as legal bills and voting records. "He felt he just couldn't do his job," Hanson said. Tush said Hanson’s statement is untrue. “That was so ludicrous,” Tush said… Tush filed the January complaint that provoked the attorney general’s recent opinion, in which town council was cited for 28 violations of open meeting laws since January 2011. At its July 27 meeting, council voted to comply with some of the AG’s proposed remedies but not all of them. Council also voted to ask the AG's Office to reword its opinion, taking into account that Dewey commissioners acted in good faith and under the advice of counsel when noticing and conducting all 28 meetings found in violation. Tush said council’s reaction to the opinion is arrogant. “You don’t tell the attorney general to issue a new opinion,” she said. “The man offered them remedies…and they basically thumbed their nose at that.”
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> http://capegazette.villagesoup.com/news/story/former-dewey-mayor-asks-hanson-to-resign/878491
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> Neighborhood fixed on future success
> …West Side Grows Together, a group of residents, community organizations and businesses, has developed a 10-year revitalization plan that includes ideas for economic development, housing improvements and youth programs. The proposals are outlined in a 151-page report and suggestions include initiatives as simple as sprucing up trash bins and as complex as developing a new neighborhood school. All told, the revitalization plan could bear a price tag of $35.5 million over a decade, said Paul Calistro, executive director of the West End Neighborhood House, one of 19 organizations on the steering committee for West Side Grows Together… The area targeted for revitalization stretches from Lancaster Avenue north to Pennsylvania Avenue with Jackson Street as its eastern border. It cuts west through the Little Italy neighborhood and includes the diverse Hilltop neighborhood. About 14,000 people will be affected, Calistro said… Resident feedback also listed crime as the “biggest hindrance” to the west side achieving its full potential. From 2009-10, there were 12 fatal shootings on the west side, according to the plan, which also noted concern about drug dealing on street corners… Though the cost of the plan could exceed $35 million – $18 million of that to start a school – Calistro does not see it as a “pie-in-the-sky” venture. Cornerstone raised close to $59 million over the past decade for housing redevelopment in the city, he said. Maria Matos, executive director of the Latin American Community Center, believes it can be done, too. “You have to buy in,” she said, “and when it is a resident-driven plan, you can’t fail.”
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> http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012308040038&nclick_check=1
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> See also:
> Wilmington mayoral forum explores west side plan
> http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012308070043&nclick_check=1
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> Keep the zeal alive to revitalize the West Side (opinion)
> http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012308070029&nclick_check=1
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> Outreach efforts praised
> Nnamdi Chukwuocha noticed something happening on the basketball court at Helen Chambers Park in Wilmington’s West Center City on Wednesday evening. A city police officer, Cpl. Thomas Oliver, had a basketball in his hand, posting up with five kids. Meanwhile, Cpl. Jamaine Crawford stood just outside the 3-point line. Both were wearing their patrol uniforms. Chukwuocha snapped a photo with his cell phone. With a call for more community policing in the wake of the gun violence that has plagued Wilmington, he couldn’t help documenting such a moment, he said. “Everyone’s talking about change,” said Chukwuocha, a candidate for city council. “I just thought that was a perfect picture.” Wilmington police Chief Michael Szczerba last week issued a directive encouraging officers to interact with the community when they have time during normal patrols, a move that came after several council members floated the suggestion to the chief and other city officials, said John Rago, deputy chief of staff for Mayor James M. Baker. Police are using part of a $100,000 federal grant to pay the overtime needed for the walking patrols, Capt. Marlyn Dietz said. The reception has been overwhelmingly positive, he said, recalling an instance where about eight kids walked around Browntown and Hedgeville with him. “It’s old-school police work,” Dietz said…
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> http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012308040039&nclick_check=1
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> Chukwuocha’s Email: http://blogs.delawareonline.com/dialoguedelaware/2012/08/02/photo-city-police-officers-play-ball/?nclick_check=1
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> Republicans pressure Markell on troubled day-labor program
> … Republican Reps. Greg Lavelle and Deborah Hudson want answers from an internal DOC investigation into the program, which is run out of the Sussex County Work Release Center in Georgetown… Lavelle and Hudson similarly wrote to Attorney General Beau Biden a couple weeks ago, asking state attorneys to investigate the troubled program themselves. They were turned away by State Solicitor Ian McConnel, who wrote last week that the state Justice Department would awaiting findings of DOC’s investigation before deciding whether to look into the matter. Lavelle and other Republicans accused Biden, a Democrat, of playing politics with the issue. “It’s a very simple question,” Lavelle told The News Journal. “Did they or did they not break the law? Figure it out.” McConnel later responded: ”There are serious questions about this program to which the public deserves answers. The Department of Correction suspended the program when these questions were raised, and now a thorough review of the program is warranted. Multiple attorneys from this office are at work reviewing the legal implications of the day labor practice. We look forward to a report from the Department of Correction explaining the day labor program and inmate accounts. We will conduct any further investigation needed to answer all of our questions as we work to ensure that the law is followed.”
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> http://blogs.delawareonline.com/firststatepolitics/2012/08/06/republicans-pressure-markell-on-troubled-day-labor-program/
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> Dietz named Wilmington's first woman police inspector
> …With 32 years on the force, Dietz, 54, steps up from the captain leading criminal investigations to be one of two inspectors – outranked only by Chief Michael J. Szczerba. She will oversee investigative operations, professional standards and human resources. Szczerba said by email that Dietz “has the leadership, management and interpersonal skills” vital to progressive service. He praised her “dedication to community service through her hundreds of volunteer hours mentoring city youth and serving community agencies.” The devoted Special Olympics Delaware volunteer this year presented her uncle Ross his bronze medal in bocce. She spent 25-plus years mentoring city girls in Big Brothers Big Sisters, was on the downtown YMCA board and did the Read Aloud program at the state women’s prison. She serves on nonprofit ARC of Delaware’s board to aid people like her uncle. Her efforts won a city Jefferson Award for public service.
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> http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012308060033&nclick_check=1
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> Pastor charged with molesting girls
> …All of the charges filed Thursday against Odell L. Wright, 57, of the Dover area, are felonies, Delaware State Police Master Cpl. Gary E. Fournier said Saturday. Wright was arraigned on 39 counts of first-degree unlawful sexual intercourse, six counts of unlawful sexual contact and one charge of continual sexual abuse of a child, Fournier said. He was being held in Vaughn Correctional Center near Smyrna on $215,000 secured bail… Police did not say when they became aware of the allegations or how long they investigated before filing charges... All six alleged unlawful sexual contacts occurred in Wright’s church with the older girl, according to the affidavit. She told police she was 10 years old when he began to abuse her in July 1992 and it continued through July 1995, Fournier said. In an interview, she told detectives she “didn’t tell anyone for years about the abuse due to fears that nobody would believe her” because of his position with the church, the documents say. Detectives became aware of another possible victim, and interviewed that person Wednesday. Her account resulted in 40 charges. The second alleged victim told police she was 8 when Wright first assaulted her on Chistmas Eve 1989. His sexual abuse continued through Christmas Eve 1991, according to the court papers. Most of the alleged incidents occurred at a home near Cheswold where Wright was staying as a guest of the girl’s mother, police said. One is alleged to have happened in Wright’s home at the time, on Queen Street in Dover.
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> http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012308050047&nclick_check=1
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> Smyrna votes to expand station
> Town Council voted 4-3 Monday to proceed with the long-debated expansion of the Smyrna police station. Members stopped short of saying how much the town will spend to bring the building up to code and address liability issues, dodging the sticky discussion of a potential tax increase. Instead, the body directed its finance committee to determine how much Smyrna can afford annually in debt payments, hoping to take advantage of a low-interest loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture… As proposed, the renovation and expansion of the town’s 5,000-square-foot police station would cost $4.9 million, requiring a tax hike of 4.5 cents per $100 of assessed value, or $90 a year for a home assessed at $200,000. Smyrna has considered expanding the 24-year-old station for at least a decade. The department’s 29 full-time officers and 14 part-timers have outgrown the current station. The station has not been updated since its construction in 1988.
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> http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20120807/NEWS02/308070045/Smyrna-votes-expand-station?nclick_check=1
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> Housing market drop in NCCo prompts legislation
> In a continuing effort to make housing more affordable in New Castle County, Councilman Penrose Hollins (D- Wilmington) will introduce legislation later this month that will authorize the county to add $1.5 million to its Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The money comes from income generated by the NSP and the federal government. If passed, the legislation would amend the county’s grants budget to include these funds. In the past two years, foreclosures statewide have tripled… The number of homeowners in serious default has increased from 433 to more than 1,900. “When folks go into default, there is a waterfall of activities to get them out,” Vincent said. “[U.S.] Senate Bill 3047 will give home owners a chance to get above water.” Recently, the state of Delaware won several million dollars through a multi-state settlement prosecuted by Attorney Generals across the country against big banks. The Delaware Department of Justice will received $7.5 million of these funds to fight mortgage fraud and prosecute these cases, Heckle said. DMAP will use $4 million for its programs that help people access federal and bank programs and $3.5 million will be used to educate outreach and housing counselors in the 10 approved HUD agencies across the state. Between 3,000 and 4,000 people in Delaware seek housing counseling each year. The remaining $900,000 will fund non-profit and legal services that assist homeowners in default.
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> http://www.communitypub.com/news/x1412423428/Housing-market-drop-in-NCCo-prompts-legislation?zc_p=1
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> Homebuilding may finally be on the mend
> …But a hard look at the numbers quickly explains why builders talk of hope, not happy days are here again. Housing starts so far this year are up to 1,394, but that’s only on par with the first six months of 2010 – a pace to see about 2,600 homes started for the year. That’s a far, far cry from the 7,550 started in the state’s booming peak year of 2004, and nowhere near enough to boost construction-industry employment, with more than 5,000 laborers still waiting for work. Builders say they think the bottom has been reached, with slow growth perhaps on the way. And that’s progress… Any signs of an upturn in new housing construction would be a blessing for Delaware’s economy, where the boom construction years from 2000-06 helped drive growth in banking, retail and skilled trades. Though new homes represent less than 20 percent of the housing market, they have an outsize impact on the economy. Each home built creates three jobs for a year and generates $90,000 in tax revenue, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
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> http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012308050037&nclick_check=1
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> Occupy Delaware folds up plaza tents
> …Members of Occupy Delaware opted to vacate Spencer Plaza on Sunday afternoon — more than a month earlier than expected — under a settlement reached last month with the city. The group had until Sept. 10 to leave, a week before the city starts on a $1.2 million renovation that includes the replacement of trees and the addition of new benches, lighting, pavers and wheelchair accessible ramps… For Occupy Delaware, the dismantling of the camp marks a new beginning, not the end of the local effort for political, social and economic changes in the community, members said. Just how that will happen is still being determined. “We’re a dynamic group,” said Jennifer Wallace, a member of Occupy Delaware. “Long-term planning is not something Occupy does.” The group still plans to continue its creative protests, such as sleeping out in front of banks, performing street theater, chalking sidewalks and feeding the poor and homeless. Targeted demonstrations and education efforts will be easier to plan without having to deal with the daily challenges of maintaining the occupation site, Wallace said.
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> http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012308060043&nclick_check=1
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> Nina Monzack
> Deputy Director of External Affairs
> Delaware Department of Justice
> (302) 577−5034 office
> (302) 354−4323 cell
> nina.monzack@state.de.us
>
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