Roger Roy Goes All Roy Rogers for Red Clay! A lobbyist with too much influence?

By Elizabeth Scheinberg

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130804/NEWS02/308040041/Traffic-root-NCCo-state-fight

Long before the Red Clay community got its first look of the new school - to be located at the confluence of Graves Rd and Newport Gap Pike - the project was already mired in debate between parties who question the direction the district is growing. On one side, Title I advocates cited the new school as a way to draw already privileged suburban students further from the district's poor urban schools which are currently below capacity and could accommodate more students if feeder patterns were redrawn. Clearly the losing side, these advocates have been pitched against those taking up residence in the growing affluent communities in the suburbs who demand more capacity closer to their homes.

While no party has been successful in delaying the new school's construction, recent activity in the hallowed halls of Dover have pushed the future William Cooke Elementary front and center into the public consciousness - not for its furtherance the segregation of poor students from affluent ones, but because ONE VERY POWERFUL DOVER LOBBYIST managed to convince legislators that the project should not be bound by the construction requirements that were in place when the county initially approved the project.

From today's News Journal:

The Delaware Department of Transportation notified Red Clay in November 2012 that 16 intersections would be studied for traffic impact for its proposed William F. Cooke Elementary School in Mill Creek. That study changed in July, shortly after lobbyist Roger Roy successfully persuaded the General Assembly’s bond committee to slip in a change in a larger state funding bill that allowed the district to study only four intersections in its traffic study. Roy, a former legislator, served as head of the bond committee for 22 years that considered state transportation spending.

Red Clay, apparently through no fault of their own - the district denies engaging Roger Roy as their lobbyist and Roy openly admits that he received no payment for his "work" on the district's behalf - has become the latest poster child for the growth and planning problems plaguing the County Executive, County Land Use, and Del DOT.

The superficial problems present:

as in-fighting between various parties driven by the County Exec's campaign promises to reign in growth that has long been driven by the lobbyists of wealthy developers at the expense of the public; and
Red Clay will receive a financial reprieve if the impact studies are reduced by 12 as each impact study will likely generate a list of required improvements to the intersections in question that the district will be required to fund in conjunction with the construction of the new school. Clearly improving four intersections will be less costly than improving as many as sixteen.

However, there is a much deeper question that needs to be addressed: How is it that one man acting as a self-described "concerned citizen" was able use his influence to convince the legislative bond committee to circumvent the will of the entire county to the benefit of one organization?

I would hazard to guess, as I have recently driven several of the roads in the area from which Cooke Elementary will likely draw its students, that the community would have much preferred improvements to as many intersections as possible.

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