Mike in the News

States team up to fix Beaver Dam Road
Legislative prodding leads to PennDOT-DelDOT Pact

For Immediate Release: June 14
Contact Patrick Jackson at 744-4046

A longtime highway headache for drivers along the Delaware-Pennsylvania state line is getting fixed thanks to a joint agreement between the Delaware and Pennsylvania Transportation departments.

Under the deal, PennDOT is taking title to Beaver Dam Road and will reconstruct a badly deteriorated section of the road in Pennsylvania while DelDOT has agreed to assume maintenance responsibility for the road.

“This has been a real headache for motorists up here for a long time,” said Sen. Michael Katz, D-Centerville, who has been working on getting the road fixed since he took office last year. “This has been a complicated issue because there were questions about ownership and responsibility for the road, but I’m grateful to the cooperation of our highway departments, my legislative colleagues in Pennsylvania, Rep. Dennis E. Williams here in Delaware and governors Jack Markell and Ed Rendell in helping me get this problem resolved.”

Because of bureaucratic confusion over who was responsible for the road, no serious work had been done to it for years, Katz and Williams said, and it had become a deeply potholed hazard to motorists.

SEE LINK BELOW FOR FULL STORY AND VIDEO ON WDEL
JUNE 25, 2010

http://www.wdel.com/story.php?id=83792776515

A measure that would have ditched the "double state share" health insurance policy for future state workers is defeated in the Senate.

11 Senators chose not to vote on the measure, citing an ongoing discussion of the issue with Governor Markell.

Sponsoring State Senator Michael Katz says he's disappointed.

Katz says if he doesn't see improvements in the benefits' structure, he will bring this bill back in January.

Under the current benefits structure, if two state employees are married, they have zero dollars deducted from their paychecks for health insurance

Developer survives legal snarl
2 a.m. accord keeps Greenville plans on track
By CHAD LIVENGOOD, The News Journal

Posted Wednesday, June 30, 2010

A Pennsylvania-based developer's path to approval for two large commercial properties in New Castle County was nearly derailed last week during a middle-of-the-night hearing in Legislative Hall.

Two lawmakers had proposed stricter requirements before the state could sign off on traffic-impact studies, potentially adding millions to the developer's plans at Greenville Center and Barley Mill Plaza, a prime piece of former DuPont property.

Alerted to the legislative maneuver, the Delaware Department of Transportation forged a compromise about 2 a.m. Friday, when most political observers were sound asleep.

DelDOT convinced lawmakers to agree to language in the agency's funding bill that's less restrictive from their original proposal, but may give a citizens group in New Castle County's chateau country a legal foothold to challenge the projects in court.

"Why should the taxpayers have to subsidize this out-of-state real-estate development trust in putting in its project?" said Richard Beck, a land-use attorney with Citizens for Responsible Growth, a civic group fighting both developments.

Dover Post
Tuesday, January 12, 2009

With 2010 shaping up to be another tough year for Delaware’s budget, one state lawmaker has an idea that he says will keep the budget-drafting process from ending in a chaotic, middle-of-the-night scramble to strike an agreement on the state’s spending package.

Sen. Dr. Michael Katz, D-Centerville, introduced a bill Jan. 12 that would cap the budget at $2.85 billion for fiscal year 2011, a move he said would lend stability to the process from the outset.

Katz said the cap amount represents what the state’s budget should be based on an analysis of economic growth over the last decade. This year, the state budget totals nearly $3.1 billion, an amount Katz argues is overinflated and not reflective of the current economic downturn.

“This recession runs so deep that it feels like the budget is going into the red as soon as it’s approved,” he said. “We need to look at some new ways to bring stability back into the budgeting process.”

Katz also said the state should look for new ways to forecast how much money the state will need in upcoming years. The Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council is the sole authority on financial projections, but Katz said the panel is outliving its usefulness

Hockessin Community News
Monday, October 26, 2009

Now that the Old Lancaster Pike Streetscape project is under way, the Hockessin Planning Partnership has set its sights on upgrading parking along the soon-to-be-improved road. 



Improving downtown parking is part of the Hockessin Village Plan and at one time was slated for construction, before drainage problems derailed the plan, said HPP President Ken Murphy. 



Now HPP is helping to organize a regional drainage study, for the entire footprint of the village, to see if the Cockeysville aquifer beneath it can handle the extra impervious cover of improved parking, Murphy said. 



Five legislators - Sens. Liane Sorenson (R-Hockessin), Patty Blevins (D-Elsmere) and Mike Katz (D-Centreville), as well as Reps. Nick Manolakos (R-Limestone Hills) and Debbie Hudson (R-Fairthorne) - have ponied up $6,700 each to fund the study, adding to an existing $17,000 already earmarked, said Janet Kilpatrick, House of Representatives Republican Caucus aide. 



The New Castle Conservation District will use that money to hire a professional to conduct the study, Kilpatrick said, and present the findings to legislators. 



The study will take at least four months to complete, Murphy estimated.