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Walking the Talk on Government Transparency

Posted by Mark Headd under Open Government

I pledge that my administration will be more transparent and accountable than any that have come before.
– Delaware Governor Jack Markell, January 21, 2009

When he assumed office in January 2009, Governor Jack Markell made a strong pledge to make Delaware government more open an accountable.

There are those (myself included) who are still waiting for concrete evidence of the Governor’s commitment to transparency and openness in state government. Some would argue that the Governor has not yet had enough time, nor been presented with the right opportunity to institute really meaningful change that dramatically changes the way state business gets done.

That argument (as lame as it is) goes out the window with reports recently by the Delaware News Journal of a sweetheart real estate lease deal provided to one of the “friends” of the former Governor, Ruth Ann Minner.

The details of the deal provided to the former Governor’s friend and supporter are pretty ridiculous, and were obviously never intended to be scrutinized by outsiders or the public. That’s one of the reasons why the deal was allowed to happen in the first place – far too many people including the former Governor, and the current Transportation Secretary (who was also Transportation Secretary under the former governor) have essentially been allowed to plead ignorance of the deal.

“I did know about it,” [Transportation Secretary] Wicks said. “I was not part of any communications that went a long with it. I was not part of any details or execute it.”

In a story today, the Transportation Secretary – Carol Ann Wicks – stated that her Department will review its processes for leasing land for economic development purposes, but will not open the process of leasing land to outside review.

“What the mechanism is, I don’t know yet,” Wicks said. But she said DelDOT will make sure there are “enough checks and balances in place.”

Other state agencies do it differently. The State’s Economic Development Office (DEDO) employs a system whereby economic development assistance is reviewed by an outside body (the Council on Development Finance) whose meetings are open to the public and whose minutes are open to review.

I’m not suggesting that process used by DEDO is perfect, or that it could not be improved upon (it certainly could), but it is a world apart from the system used by DelDOT, where details of hugely lucrative deals or known to only a few staffers and there is no outside scrutiny or accountability.

I would suggest that this is a litmus test moment for Governor Jack Markell on transparency. It’s time for him to put his actions where his rhetoric has been.

Governor Markell should immediately direct DelDOT to develop a system for leasing public land for private development that is open and accountable. The current system used by DEDO should be emulated with an emphasis on public review of proposed leases with an opportunity for Delaware citizens to access details of proposed leases and raise questions.

A failure to do this will most likely mean more sweetheart deals for political insiders somewhere down the road. Hopefully there is enough political courage in the Governor’s office to prevent this from happening. We’ll see…