Why Should Delaware Care?
The Port of Wilmington, a state-owned facility, is one of the last anchors of high-paying, blue-collar jobs in northern Delaware. It also has been the center of controversy for years, particularly with respect to ambitious but controversial plans to expand through construction of a new container terminal in Edgemoor.
A power struggle over control of the Port of Wilmington may be coming to an end after Gov. Matt Meyer on Friday named a new slate of nominees to serve on a board that oversees the embattled facility and directs its $635 million expansion.
The nominations came a week after Delaware’s Supreme Court sided with Meyer in a showdown with lawmakers from his own Democratic Party. The justices ruled that the governor has the authority to withdraw a set of port nominees named by his predecessor – former-Gov. Bethany Hall-Long – and to nominate his own in their place.
Meyer did so on Friday, tapping five individuals to serve on the board of the Diamond State Port Corporation, including Jennifer Cohan, Delaware’s former transportation secretary; Ronald Kimoko Harris, a port labor leader, Eugene Bailey, a former port executive; David Burt, a former DuPont executive; and Robert Jerry Medd, former chair of the Delaware Board of Pilot Commissioners.
Noticeably absent from Meyer’s list of nominees were former Delaware Secretary of State Jeffery Bullock, and William Ashe Jr, a prominent Delaware labor leader in the International Longshoremen’s Association.
Both Bullock and Ashe had held major sway over the Port of Wilmington for more than a decade, influencing major decisions at the facility including its privatization deals and union contracts.
Bullock and Ashe also were among the five nominees that Hall-Long made to the port oversight board during her two-week stint as governor in January. Those picks were made public on the final day of her tenure, and as a result were widely viewed as a repudiation of her successor, Meyer. They came six months after she and Meyer engaged in a bitter and expensive primary election campaign to become the Democrat’s candidate for Delaware governor.
Meyer ultimately won the primary and the subsequent general election. But Hall-Long, as Delaware’s lieutenant governor, still was able to serve a stint as governor last January after former-Gov. John Carney stepped down early to become mayor of Wilmington.
The 6-week fight
Hall-Long’s nominations set up a six-week fight between Meyer and Democratic senators from his own Democratic Party.
On his first day in office, Meyer sent a letter to the Delaware Senate, stating that he had withdrawn the names.
But in response, Senate Democrats led by Senate President Pro Tem David Sokola asserted that Meyer did not have the authority to withdraw the nominees. And so Sokala pressed ahead with the Senate’s consideration of four of Hall-Long’s five nominees.
And those four found themselves amid a volley of verbal attacks.
On the day of a Senate Executive Committee hearing last month, Democratic Senators called Meyer “manipulative,” “anti-collaborative,” and silent on what they said was “one of the most critical infrastructure investments in recent Delaware history” – a reference to the state’s plans to build a container port terminal in Edgemoor.
In response, the governor’s office said that Senate leaders had spent their time “name-calling Governor Meyer and attempting to change the subject instead of addressing the lack of transparency and self-dealing that is currently going on.”
Ultimately both sides agreed to seek out the Supreme Court’s opinion on several questions, including whether Meyer had the authority to withdraw nominations that had already been sent to the Senate for consideration.
With the court siding with Meyer, the acrimony over Hall-Long picks is in the past.
On Friday, Sokola said in a statement that he “looks forward to learning more about Governor Meyer’s appointments and ensuring they share our commitment to working families and community engagement as prospective members of the Diamond State Port Corporation.”
Asked if Delaware’s Democratic senators intend to confirm Meyer’s picks, a spokeswoman for Delaware’s Democratic Senate leadership said “it’s clear Meyer was in no rush to put forward his own appointments, as we requested his names more than six weeks ago.”
“However, the Senate will run the same process we always do to vet appointments and hold their exec committee hearings in the coming weeks to ensure that the Port expansion can move ahead swiftly,” Senate Majority Caucus spokeswoman Sarah Fulton said.
Fulton’s remark about port expansion was a reference to Delaware’s long-delayed plans to massively expand the Port of Wilmington through construction of a $635 million container terminal at the site of a former chemical plant in Edgemoor.
Last fall, a federal judge invalidated a key permit the state needs to construct the new Edgemoor container terminal, leaving in limbo hundreds of millions of dollars that the federal and state governments had committed to the project.
Following his nominations on Friday, Meyer released a statement in which he noted the Port of Wilmington is among the state’s largest assets and a source of “good paying union jobs.” But he also said the port has lacked transparency and accountability in recent years.
Finally, Meyer said his port board nominees have “all committed to prioritizing the efficient use of taxpayer dollars to finally deliver us the port we were promised decades ago.”
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