“The judge ruled on a Monday. The money moved Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The side that won the case paid Matt Meyer. The side that lost the case paid Matt Meyer. Neither side was buying an election. Both sides were buying position in a government that was about to decide the port, the marina and the corridor between them.”
- Karen Hartley-Nagle, The Truthline Network
“The headlines wrote themselves.”
Everyone In The Fight Paid
The Man Who Would Decide It
All Wrote Checks to Matt Meyer’s Campaign for Governor
By Karen Hartley-Nagle
Former President of New Castle County Council (2016 to 2024)
Published: August 8, 2026 | Updated: August 28, 2026 | A Truthline Investigative Report
On October 28, 2024, Judge Mark A. Kearney of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania vacated the Army Corps of Engineers permits for the Port of Wilmington expansion at Edgemoor. Over the next 3 days, both sides of that fight wrote checks to Matt Meyer's campaign for Governor, $13,400 across 36 days. On July 6, 2026, Governor Matt Meyer signed House Bill 500, committing $110 million to the port and $30 million to buy Summit North Marina.
Quid pro quo?
Something for something?
*If you are reading this on your phone, skip past the Table of Contents and scroll straight to the Introduction. The report loads best on a laptop or desktop, but every word is here. Start scrolling. The story is waiting.
One-Page Summary
Every Piece Was Public.
The Design Was That Nobody Would Put Them Together.
Nothing in this report came from a leak. Nothing came from an anonymous source. Every fact in it was published by the State of Delaware, filed in a federal court, recorded by New Castle County, or issued by the federal government. Court opinions. Campaign finance reports. Lobbyist registrations. Executive orders. Meeting minutes. Deeds.
Hundreds of those documents are in this report. Thousands more, along with the articles, webpages and filings behind them, went into two months of reading to find the ones that mattered.
Every one of them was public the entire time. Check any of it.
- Karen Hartley-Nagle, President of New Castle County (2016 to 2024)
What happened
Before sunrise on July 1, 2026, the General Assembly passed House Bill 500. It sent $110 million to the Port of Wilmington and $30 million to buy Summit North Marina, a private business standing on Lums Pond State Park, on ground Delawareans already own. The State’s own Secretary of Natural Resources and Environmental Control had told the Bond Bill Committee the operators had not paid Delaware in years.
To find the money, the bill lifted the ceiling on Delaware’s unclaimed property fund by $60 million, from $554 million to $614 million. That fund is forgotten bank accounts and uncashed checks the State holds until the owner comes looking. Delaware did that in a year it left $388,780,000 of tax-exempt borrowing authority unused, the kind of financing that can build docks.
How the room was assembled
One council of 33 people sets the ceiling on every dollar Delaware may spend or borrow. Governor Matt Meyer gave the gavel to Alan Levin, who organized and raised money for the outside committee that helped elect him and who had never served a day on that council.
Within 90 days, 16 of the 33 members were gone, and 18 new ones were seated in a single afternoon. Among them: the chief executive of Beebe Healthcare, whose system now has four people around that council and whose chief executive also helps write Delaware’s health care spending number; the head of a Dover highway contractor that bids state road work, who votes the road money; and an executive of CSC, the company that registers Delaware’s corporations. Three members of that council also sit on the board of the port corporation that received the $110 million.
On March 16, 2026, one member asked the Department of State for corporate revenue figures it had not produced. Two days later an email from the Governor’s office ended his service. He had chaired that council for eight years and had been given the Order of the First State by the previous Governor.
How the money moved
Delaware caps a contribution to a candidate for Governor at $1,200 and prints the donor’s name. It caps nothing given to a political action committee.
On October 28, 2024, a federal judge vacated the Army Corps permits for Delaware’s $669 million container terminal at Edgemoor, finding the Corps gave navigation superficial consideration, never verified the applicant’s traffic numbers, and marked safety not applicable. The decision moved from a courtroom to whoever was about to be Governor. Over the next 36 days every party to that lawsuit contributed to Matt Meyer’s campaign, $13,400 in all. The side that won. The side that lost. The lawyers for both.
The people who have sat on the council that sets the spending ceiling have given Meyer’s campaign committees $54,866.64 and have given Change Can’t Wait PAC $174,000.
How the ground was cleared
Executive Order 16 redrew the map governing where Delaware spends capital money and allowed it to change annually. Executive Order 18 created the Delaware Permitting Accelerator. Executive Order 23 authorized the Governor to rewrite that accelerator in writing without a further order and made projects already accepted eligible after the fact. House Bill 500 passed five days later. New Castle County adopted the mirror policy, signed by a County Executive who had been Matt Meyer’s economic development and policy director.
Who is on every side
Delaware has 618 registered lobbyists serving 869 employers. A handful of them hold the files that touch this waterfront. The same registered lobbyist represents the company that operates the Port of Wilmington and the longshoremen’s union it sent home. One Wilmington attorney is the registered lobbyist for the company that sued to stop Delaware from dredging and for the marina Delaware is buying, and is the registered agent for two of those companies. Three of the four registered lobbyists for the State’s own port corporation are former chiefs of staff or department heads, and Delaware has paid their firm $13,719,480.19.
What it cost
On February 16, 2026, the parking lot at the Port of Wilmington was empty on Presidents Day for the first time in 30 years. Forty-five longshoremen stayed home. Eleven miles upriver in Chester, Pennsylvania, the fruit came off a ship worked by men who do not belong to their union. Nobody called to tell them.
The finding
No single document shows any of this. The design is that the pieces sit in separate public files nobody reads together. This report puts the names, the dates, and the amounts in one place.
Everyone In The Fight Paid The Man Who Would Decide It
“The people who benefit from this sequence have names and addresses.
So do the people who lose from it.”
Piece of the Case
Leo Holt won his case on Monday, October 28, 2024. Judge Mark A. Kearney of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania vacated the federal permits for Delaware's container terminal at Edgemoor, finding the United States Army Corps of Engineers had acted arbitrarily and capriciously, given navigation only superficial consideration, taken the Diamond State Port Corporation's traffic data without any attempt at verification, marked safety not applicable, and skipped a required Statement of No Objection from the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority. Leo Holt, president of Holt Logistics Corporation, welcomed the ruling. He also made a point of saying publicly that Delaware would have a new governor after the following month's election.
Two days later, he wrote that new governor a check. On October 30, Leo Holt gave $1,200 to Matthew Meyer. On October 29 and October 31, Summit Point LLC, Summit North Marina LLC, Chesapeake and Delaware Dredging LLC and Pristine Yacht Services gave $2,800 more. All four are registered clients of the Wilmington attorney Darrell J. Baker, who is also the registered Delaware lobbyist for Holt Logistics Corporation and who had given $1,200 himself on October 7. Then the other side of the same lawsuit paid: Thomas McGonigle, Shawn Tucker and Douglas Gramiak, three of the four registered lobbyists for the Diamond State Port Corporation, two of their wives, their firm Barnes and Thornburg LLP, and Stradley Ronon Stevens and Young, counsel to the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority. $13,400 in 36 days, every dollar into Matt Meyer's candidate account for Governor.
What they were fighting over is seven feet of water and a great deal of fruit. The main channel of the Delaware runs forty-five feet. Wilmington's berths sit around the corner on the Christina at thirty-five to thirty-eight, and Edgemoor, three miles north on the old DuPont site, sits on the deep water. Every container that comes off a ship at Edgemoor is a container that never travels the extra twenty-five miles upriver to a Holt berth. By Leo Holt's own account, his Packer Avenue and Gloucester terminals moved more than eighty-eight percent of the Chilean fruit on the entire East Coast in 2024, up from seventy-two percent the year before. Wilmington had been the number one United States gateway for Chilean winter fruit.
Darrell J. Baker is the hinge. Delaware law requires a limited liability company to disclose exactly one human being, its registered agent, and for Summit North Marina LLC and for Chesapeake and Delaware Dredging LLC that human being is Baker. In a 2007 affidavit filed under oath in federal court, he swore he was the marina's managing agent. In October 2021, he registered the marina, then three days later registered two dredging companies and a yacht service at the same address in a single day. Thirteen months after that, he took on Holt Logistics Corporation, the Philadelphia operator that would spend four more years in federal court fighting a dredging project forty miles downriver.
“A dredging company registered by the lobbyist for the port operator that profits when Delaware does not dredge. That is not a conflict at the edges. That is the whole shape of the thing, and it is filed with the Division of Corporations.”
Ten days before Baker registered that marina, on September 21, 2021, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control paid Summit North Marina $750,000. Five years later, House Bill 500 committed $30 million to buy it outright. The marina occupies roughly one hundred twenty-nine acres inside Lums Pond State Park under a concession from that same department, which means Delaware is not buying land. Delawareans already own the land. Secretary Gregg Patterson told the Bond Bill Committee the State had not seen payment from the operators in years, that they had claims pending against his department, and that Delaware has never made money off the property. Governor Meyer called the marina a critical state asset that will yield significant revenue, signed the bill on July 6, 2026, and, out of more than $1.2 billion, used his only line-item veto to strike $35 million for a Legislative Hall expansion, saying Delawareans are struggling to pay rent.
Delaware wrote a law against this in advance. Title 29, section 8783 forbids transferring, privatizing, or leasing the Port of Wilmington without a concurrent resolution of the entire General Assembly, and says that if the legislature does not act within thirty days, the deal is deemed rejected. Silence is a no. Governor John Carney followed it in 2018. When the port passed to Enstructure in 2023, no resolution was sought and none passed, because language slipped into a bond bill had replaced the votes of sixty-two elected legislators with the assent of five officials.
The men who make these decisions have been making them a long time. Alan B. Levin ran Delaware's economic development office and chaired the port board at the same time, put $22 million of state money into Fisker Automotive at the shuttered General Motors plant on Boxwood Road where five thousand people had once built cars, and watched not one car get built and not one Delaware worker get hired. When New Castle County offered $9 million to buy that plant and tie it to an expanded port, Levin told a newspaper he was unaware of any credible offers on the day the county's offer was the headline, and told the county in writing to stand down. In 2017, the deed recorded ten dollars. Six people from the buyer gave Matthew Meyer $7,200 in thirty-eight days.
On March 17, 2025, Governor Meyer made Levin chairman of the council that sets the ceiling on all Delaware spending, without his having served a day on it, over Michael Houghton, who had held that chair for eight years. A year later, on March 18, 2026, Meyer removed Houghton from the council entirely by email, two days after Houghton asked the Delaware Department of State for corporate revenue figures it had not produced.
On Monday, February 16, 2026, the parking lot at the Port of Wilmington was empty. The forty-five men of Local 1694 of the International Longshoremen's Association, who hold a banana within four hundredths of a degree from the moment the hold opens, had worked every Presidents Day for thirty years. Eleven miles upriver in Chester, Pennsylvania, a Chiquita ship was being worked by men who did not belong to their union. Every document in this report is published by the State of Delaware, filed in a federal court, or issued by the United States government.
A Few Key Facts
Every figure below comes from a document the government wrote about itself. Court opinions. Delaware statutes and session laws. Executive orders. Campaign finance reports filed by the committees. State meeting minutes. County deeds. Federal grant records.
What it costs.
-
The Delaware Container Terminal at Edgemoor is a $669 million project. 137 acres, two berths, seven ship-to-shore cranes, 1.2 million containers a year at full buildout, first berth due in 2029.
-
The Diamond State Port Corporation and federal grants are covering about two-thirds of it. Roughly $446 million of public money.
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House Bill 500 commits $110 million to the Port of Wilmington and $30 million to buy Summit North Marina, which stands on state park ground inside Lums Pond that Delaware already owns.
-
The bill raises the ceiling on unclaimed property revenue available to the General Fund from $554 million to $614 million, an increase of $60 million.
-
Delaware held $388,780,000 in tax-exempt private activity bond authority for calendar year 2025 and used none of it. Executive Order 17, signed February 9, 2026, carries the entire amount forward. That financing can lawfully build docks and wharves.
The ruling.
-
October 28, 2024: Judge Mark A. Kearney vacates the Army Corps permits for Edgemoor, finding the Corps acted arbitrarily and capriciously. It gave navigation superficial consideration, never verified the applicant’s traffic projections, marked safety not applicable, and never obtained a Statement of No Objection from the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority.
-
April 2026: the Army Corps reissues the permit. The ruling delayed the project eighteen months. It did not stop it.
-
July 10, 2026: Greenwich Terminals sues again, before the same judge.
The checks. Thirty-six days, one account.
-
$13,400 into Meyer for Delaware, account 01005311, from every party to the Edgemoor litigation. $7,000 from the Diamond State Port Corporation side. $5,200 from the side of lobbyist Darrell J. Baker. $1,200 from the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority’s counsel.
-
September 26, 2024: Stradley Ronon Stevens and Young gives $1,200, thirty-two days before the ruling. The firm is counsel to the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority. Its chairman emeritus, William R. Sasso, is a longtime attorney for the Holts and served as a commissioner of the Delaware River Port Authority until 2015.
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October 7, 2024: Darrell J. Baker, Esquire, PA, gives $1,200, twenty-one days before the ruling, with the case still open.
-
October 30, 2024: Leo Holt gives $1,200, two days after his family’s companies won. He signed his own name. Holt Logistics Corporation, the company that won, gave nothing.
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October 29 and 31, 2024: four companies registered to Darrell Baker, at Summit North Marina and at a post office box in Rockland, give $2,800.
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October 29, 2024: five checks in one day from three households connected to the port corporation’s own lobbyists. Douglas Gramiak $600, Stephanie Gramiak $600, Shawn Tucker $1,000, Michele Tucker $1,000, Patricia McGonigle $1,200.
-
Delaware caps a contribution to a statewide candidate at $1,200 under 15 Del. C. section 8010, and has no rule aggregating limited liability companies under common ownership.
-
Not one dollar of the $13,400 went to a political action committee, where an independent expenditure draws no contribution limit at all.
The money behind it.
-
$8,284,295.89 in total contributions to five political committees tied to Matt Meyer, verified across ninety-two filed campaign finance reports covering fifty-two distinct reporting periods.
-
Since 2010, Leo, Thomas Junior and Michael Holt have given $742,000 to Pennsylvania political committees, more than half of it to the three governors who appoint the Philadelphia port board. Holt Logistics spent another $90,000 lobbying Harrisburg during the Wolf administration.
-
Delaware’s own checkbook records $13,719,480.19 paid to Barnes and Thornburg, the firm whose lobbyists represent the Diamond State Port Corporation.
The people who hold both ends.
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Darrell J. Baker is the registered Delaware lobbyist for Holt Logistics Corporation and, at the same time, for Summit North Marina LLC and three other companies at that marina. Ten clients, five addresses. He is also the registered agent for two of them and swore in a 2007 federal affidavit that he was the marina’s managing agent.
-
Patrick Allen of Allen Strategies has been the registered Delaware lobbyist for GT USA since February 15, 2018, for Enstructure since June 1, 2023, and for International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1694 since April 15, 2025. The company that runs the port and the union it sent home share a lobbyist.
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Three of the four registered lobbyists for the Diamond State Port Corporation are former chiefs of staff or department heads. Thomas McGonigle ran Governor Markell’s office. Douglas Gramiak ran Governor Carney’s. Shawn Tucker ran New Castle County’s Land Use Department.
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Delaware has 618 registered lobbyists serving 869 employers.
The room where the number is set.
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The Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council met five times in the fiscal year the port received $110 million. Four of those meetings produced minutes, and across roughly eighty pages the word port never appears. The fifth, on June 15, 2026, has produced no minutes at all.
-
Those four meetings ran 179, 107, 87, and 75 minutes. Under Chairman Alan Levin, in one fiscal year, they grew 58% shorter while the numbers moving through the room grew larger.
-
March 18, 2026: Michael Houghton, who chaired that council for eight years until Governor Meyer replaced him with Alan Levin in March 2025 and who remained a member, is removed from the council by email two days after asking the Department of State for corporate revenue figures it had not produced.
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Fiscal Year 2026 escheat refunds reach $203,701,388 against $128,038,529 the year before, an increase of 59.1%.
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January 2025: nearly $200 million of unclaimed property moves to the Diamond State Port Corporation, days after the inauguration.
Where the money is handed out.
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The Council on Development Finance approved a $4,500,000 Delaware Strategic Fund grant to Amazon.com Services LLC on February 24, 2020. Its minutes also record two of the Diamond State Port Corporation’s own registered lobbyists appearing before it on behalf of private warehouse developers.
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The Transportation Infrastructure Investment Fund Council, which awarded $1.14 million to a Harvey Hanna entity in Bear, has published no minutes for any meeting in five years and hears every grant application in executive session.
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January 10, 2025: The Diamond State Port Corporation pays $2,850,000 for 1.91 acres at 701 Christiana Avenue and adds the land to the private operator’s leasehold. That address is the business address of Murphy Marine Services, a lobbying client of Darrell J. Baker since October 20, 2008.
The machinery, built in six months.
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January 30, 2026: Executive Order 16 redraws the map that governs where Delaware spends capital money, allows it to change annually instead of every five years, and directs agencies to resource individual projects as specified by the Governor.
-
February 26, 2026: Executive Order 18 creates the Delaware Permitting Accelerator.
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April 28, 2026: County Executive Marcus Henry signs SPUR, the county mirror of the same policy. He was Matt Meyer’s economic development and policy director.
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June 26, 2026: Executive Order 23 authorizes the Governor to rewrite the Permitting Accelerator in writing without a further executive order, and makes projects already accepted eligible after the fact. House Bill 500 passes five days later.
-
The Department of State holds the division that hosts the grant council, the division that registers the corporations, the commission that polices the lobbyists, and the commission that regulates energy. Its Secretary sits on the council that sets the spending ceiling and chairs the board of the Diamond State Port Corporation.
What it cost the men on the dock.
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July 1, 2026: House Bill 500 passes before dawn. Enstructure stages dredgers at Edgemoor the same day. Signed July 6, 2026, as Volume 85, Chapter 341, Laws of Delaware.
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February 16, 2026: the Port of Wilmington parking lot sits empty on Presidents Day for the first time in thirty years. Forty-five longshoremen stay home. Eleven miles upriver in Chester, the bananas are worked by men who do not belong to their union.
“$669 million for the terminal. $446 million of it public. $388,780,000 in borrowing power Delaware never used. $13,400 in checks from every party to the lawsuit.
And 45 men in a parking lot who were never asked.”
RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
Everyone In The Fight Paid The Man Who Would Decide It
A $669 Million Terminal, A $30 Million Marina, And $388 Million Delaware Never Used
“The side that won the case paid Matt Meyer. The side that lost the case paid
Matt Meyer. The lawyers for both paid Matt Meyer. Forty-five longshoremen
paid nothing and lost the work. That is the transaction.”
Introduction
Leo Holt won on a Monday.
On October 28, 2024, in a federal courtroom in Philadelphia, Judge Mark A. Kearney took apart everything the United States Army Corps of Engineers had done before it let Delaware build a container terminal at Edgemoor. Navigation got what the judge called superficial consideration. The Diamond State Port Corporation handed over traffic numbers and the Corps wrote them down without checking one of them. Where somebody was supposed to weigh safety, somebody wrote not applicable. And the Corps never obtained the Statement of No Objection that the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority had every right to give or to refuse.
Kearney threw out the permits. Delaware’s terminal stopped where it stood.
Leo Holt runs his family’s terminals out of 101 South King Street in Gloucester City, New Jersey. The Holts have worked that river for almost 100 years. His people unload the fruit that comes up the Delaware from Chile every winter, and in 2024 they handled more than 88% of the Chilean fruit on the entire East Coast, up from 72% the year before.
Think about what that means. Somebody was losing that business. It was not Leo Holt.
He was pleased with the ruling, and he said so. Then he said something that had nothing to do with dredging, or permits, or seven feet of water. Delaware, he mentioned, would have a new governor after next month’s election.
Read that again. The man had just beaten the federal government in court. He was talking about the election.
Two days later he wrote that new governor a check.
“Leo Holt beat the State of Delaware in federal court on a Monday.
On Wednesday he wrote a check to the man about to become Governor of Delaware.
Holt Logistics Corporation, the company that won the case, gave nothing.
Leo Holt signed his own name.”
The check was for $1,200. That is the most Delaware law lets one person give a candidate for statewide office. It is the smallest number in this report, and it is the only one that explains all the others.
Because you have to know what $1,200 means to Leo Holt.
In Pennsylvania, where the Holts actually make their money, Leo and his brothers Thomas Junior and Michael have moved $742,000 into political committees since 2010. More than half of it went to three governors in a row, and those three men appoint the board that runs the Port of Philadelphia. When The Philadelphia Inquirer put that number in front of the company in February 2024, nobody hid behind a lawyer. Holt has long supported leaders who support the port, spokesman Kevin Feeley said, and we make no apologies for doing so. A governor, he added, is uniquely positioned to direct policies and investments that impact the port.
“In Pennsylvania, $742,000. In Delaware, $1,200. Until October 28, 2024,
Delaware was not a place where Leo Holt needed anything. Then a federal judge
handed his fight to a governor. He wrote the check in forty-eight hours.”
So Leo Holt has always known exactly what a governor is worth. He simply had never needed a Delaware one. His fight lived in a federal courtroom, and a courtroom is the one room in this country where a lobbyist is worth nothing and a campaign check is worth less than nothing.
Kearney ended that. Throwing out a permit does not kill a project. It hands the project back to be done over, and this one went back to Dover.
“Leo Holt beat the State of Delaware in federal court on a Monday.
On Wednesday, he wrote a check to the man about to become Governor of Delaware.
Holt Logistics Corporation, the company that won the case, gave nothing.
Leo Holt signed his own name.”
Eight days after the ruling, Matt Meyer was elected Governor of Delaware.
And Leo Holt was not the only one who understood what had just moved. Over the thirty-six days on either side of that opinion, everybody with something at stake in Edgemoor put money into Matt Meyer’s campaign account. The family that won the case.
Three of the four registered lobbyists for the state corporation that lost it, along with two of their wives and their law firm. And the lawyers for the port authority whose missing signature Kearney had just used to throw the permits out.
$13,400. That is the whole thing.
$13,400 does not move one vote in a race for governor, and this report will not pretend it does. Every check was legal. Every name was filed. But a $1,200 check into a candidate’s own account, under a real name at a real address, in the account carrying the tightest limits and the sharpest disclosure Delaware has, buys exactly one thing.
It puts your name on a list the candidate reads himself.
“That is not a bribe. Nobody buys a governor for $13,400.
That is a set of introductions, made in the five weeks when the decision
left a federal judge in Philadelphia and landed on a desk in Dover.”
Twenty months later, Delaware paid.
Before the sun came up on July 1, 2026, the General Assembly passed House Bill 500 and sent $110 million to Edgemoor. It sent $30 million more to buy Summit North Marina, a private business standing on a hundred twenty-nine acres of Lums Pond State Park. That is ground the people of Delaware already own. They have owned it the whole time.
To find the money, the bill lifted the ceiling on the unclaimed property fund by $60 million. Understand what that fund is. It is not Delaware’s money. It is forgotten bank accounts. Uncashed dividend checks. Insurance payouts nobody ever came for. Delaware holds it until the owner shows up. In Fiscal Year 2026, the owners showed up for $203,701,388 of it, against $128,038,529 the year before.
Now stop and read this next part slowly.
Delaware did every bit of that in a year when it was sitting on $388,780,000 it never spent.
Every year the federal government hands each state an allotment of tax-exempt borrowing authority. Bonds written against it can build manufacturing plants, housing, and, named in the Internal Revenue Code in those exact words, docks and wharves.
Delaware’s allotment for 2025 was $388,780,000. New Castle County’s share went unused. Kent County’s went unused. Sussex County’s went unused. Wilmington’s went unused. The Delaware Economic Development Authority’s went unused. The Housing Authority’s went unused.
On February 9, 2026, Governor Meyer signed the order that swept up every dollar of it and carried it forward. Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez signed underneath him.
“The federal government handed Delaware $388,780,000 of tax-free borrowing power, the kind that builds docks. Delaware issued none of it. Then Delaware went into
a fund holding other people’s forgotten money and took $60 million more.
That is not a budget crisis. That is a choice.”
I know how this works because I watched it from the other side of the building.
For eight years I served as President of New Castle County Council while Matt Meyer ran the executive branch. I presided over the chamber where county law is made. He could not walk into my meetings without an invitation, and I could not walk into his decisions at all. We were counterparts, separated by the same constitutional line this report is about. I watched him try to rezone eighty-seven properties in a single vote. I watched him veto development impact fees on the day after Christmas. And I watched the money move, from developers to a political action committee, from that committee to television, and from a newly elected
Governor back to the people who paid for the television.
That is not a theory I developed later. That is a thing I sat in a room and watched happen.
And then, on Monday, February 16, 2026, three weeks after the Governor signed away $388,780,000 in borrowing power, the parking lot at the Port of Wilmington was empty.
No trucks at the gate. No cranes swinging. 800,000 square feet of cold storage sitting dark. Forty-five longshoremen who had worked every Presidents Day for thirty years were home. Eleven miles up the river in Chester, Pennsylvania, the bananas were coming off a ship, handled by men who do not belong to their union.
They worked every Presidents Day for thirty years. This year the parking lot was empty, the bananas were in Chester, and the money had already moved.
Nobody called. Nobody explained. Nobody dredged.”
This report answers one question, and it is the question no Delaware newsroom has asked out loud.
When a federal judge takes a $669 million decision out of a courtroom and puts it in the hands of a state government, and every single party to that fight writes a check to the man about to run that government, what exactly did they think they were buying?
Not a verdict. The verdict was already in.
They were buying position. In a state where the same handful of lobbyists sit on every side of every large thing, where the man who chairs the council that sets the spending ceiling once chaired the board that owns the port, and where the Cabinet officer who runs the grant council also runs the corporations division, also runs the commission that polices the lobbyists, and also chairs the port corporation that received the money.
Nobody in this story had to conspire. That is the finding. And it is worse than a conspiracy would be.
“Every document in this report was published by the State of Delaware, filed in a
federal court, recorded by New Castle County, or issued by the United States government. Nothing here was hidden. It was simply never assembled.
Read it and decide for yourself.”
I. Four Hundredths Of A Degree
The parking lot was empty.
Monday, February 16, 2026. Presidents Day. At the Port of Wilmington, the gate was open, and nothing came through it. No trucks idling in a line down Christina Avenue. No cranes swinging. The cold storage buildings, 800,000 square feet of them, sat dark and running on nothing but their own compressors.
Forty-five men stayed home that morning who had not stayed home on that day in thirty years.
They belong to Local 1694 of the International Longshoremen’s Association, and what they do for a living is more delicate than almost anyone in Delaware understands. A banana is picked green in Guatemala or Ecuador, and it is still alive when it goes into the hold. It is still breathing. It is still ripening, slowly, on a clock that nobody can stop. The entire commercial value of that fruit depends on holding it at 13.3 degrees Celsius, and holding it there within four hundredths of a degree, from the moment it leaves the tree until the moment it reaches a grocery shelf in Philadelphia or Baltimore or Cleveland.
Four hundredths of a degree. Warmer than that and it ripens in the hold and arrives as a truckload of black mush. Colder and it takes chill injury, turns gray, and never ripens at all.
The men in that parking lot are the ones who hold it there. They open the hatch, they read the pulp temperatures, they move the fruit into the reefer sheds, and they do it fast enough that the cold chain never breaks. Wilmington became the number one American gateway for Chilean winter fruit because of them. Not because of the river. Not because of the cranes. Because of a few dozen men who know exactly how long a pallet can stand on a dock in February.
“A banana leaves the tropics still alive and still ripening. Forty-five men in
Wilmington held it inside four hundredths of a degree for thirty years.
On February 16, 2026, they stayed home, and the fruit went to Chester.”
Bill Ashe has worked that waterfront for forty-nine years.
He is an International Vice President of the ILA, and he has outlasted nine governors of Delaware. He was there when the fruit companies came, and he was there through every crisis before this one, and he has spent his adult life on a dock where the difference between a good year and a ruined one is measured in fractions of a degree.
On the Sunday before Presidents Day, Bill Ashe knew the ships were not coming.
Nobody from the State of Delaware called him. Nobody from the Diamond State Port Corporation called him. Nobody from Enstructure, the private company that has operated the Port of Wilmington since 2023, called him. He found out the way the rest of the waterfront found out, which is by watching the schedule and seeing four vessels routed somewhere else.
Eleven miles up the river in Chester, Pennsylvania, a Chiquita ship was working that Monday. The bananas came off. The reefer trucks pulled out. The men doing that work do not belong to Local 1694.
“Bill Ashe has worked that waterfront for forty-nine years and outlasted nine governors. Nobody from the State of Delaware called to tell him the ships were not coming.
He found out by reading a schedule.”
Understand who these men are, because Delaware has spent two decades talking about jobs and this is what one actually looks like.
Nearly every man on that gang is Black. For a great many of them, the waterfront produced the first six-figure income anyone in their family had ever earned. Not a signing bonus. Not a stock grant. A wage, paid by the hour, for skilled work with a union card attached to it, in a state where the alternative on offer has been a warehouse floor at fifteen dollars an hour with a badge that beeps when you slow down.
These are the jobs Delaware says it wants. Every governor says it. Every economic development office says it. Real jobs that pay real money, is the phrase, and it has been said out loud in this state for twenty years while the actual holders of those jobs sat in a parking lot on a holiday with nothing to do.
Think about what it took to lose them. Nobody fired these men. Nobody closed the port. Nobody held a vote. Four ships simply went somewhere else, and the somewhere else was a river berth eleven miles north that a loaded vessel can actually reach.
That is the seven feet.
The federal government spent thirty years and $400 million dredging the main channel of the Delaware River to forty-five feet. The Port of Wilmington is not on that channel. Its berths sit around the corner on the Christina River at thirty-five to thirty-eight feet. A fully loaded ship can come all the way up the Delaware, clear the federal channel with room to spare, and still not be able to reach a Wilmington dock.
So it goes to Chester. Or it goes to Philadelphia. And every time it does, the fruit that Local 1694 has handled for thirty years is handled by somebody else, and the men in Wilmington find out about it from a schedule.
“The federal government spent $400 million dredging the river to forty-five feet. Wilmington’s berths sit at thirty-five. Nobody closed the port. Four ships went
eleven miles north to a dock they could actually reach.”
Now here is the fact that should end this section, and it is the one nobody in Delaware has printed.
The forty-five men of Local 1694 are represented in Dover by a registered lobbyist named Patrick Allen, of Allen Strategies, at 4250 Lancaster Pike. He signed them on April 15, 2025.
Patrick Allen also represents Enstructure. He signed that account on June 1, 2023.
Before either of them, he represented GT USA, the first company Delaware handed a fifty-year lease of the Port of Wilmington. He signed that one on February 15, 2018.
Read that sequence again. The same man has carried three straight parties on that waterfront: the concessionaire Delaware gave the port to in 2018, the concessionaire it gave the port to in 2023, and the union those concessionaires employ. When the men of Local 1694 sat in an empty parking lot on Presidents Day, the person paid to speak for them in the capital of this state was also being paid by the company that had not sent them any work.
None of this is hidden. The Delaware Public Integrity Commission publishes every one of those registrations in a file anyone can download in ten seconds.
“The company that runs the Port of Wilmington and the union it sent home are represented in Dover by the same man. Patrick Allen took Enstructure on June 1, 2023. He took Local 1694 on April 15, 2025. Both registrations are public.”
Twenty months before that empty parking lot, a federal judge in Philadelphia had thrown out the permits for the terminal that would have fixed the seven feet. Two days after that ruling, the man whose companies brought the case wrote a check to Delaware’s next governor. Over the following week, so did nearly everyone else with a stake in the outcome.
Not one of those checks was written by a longshoreman.
Bill Ashe did not give $1,200 to Matt Meyer. Neither did the forty-four other men who stayed home on February 16. They had no lobbyist of their own that day, because the lobbyist they had was working the other side of the same dock.
That is not a labor dispute. That is a state where the only people at the table are the ones who paid to be there.
RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
II. Monday, October 28, 2024
The courtroom is on the sixth floor of the James A. Byrne United States Courthouse at Sixth and Market in Philadelphia, and the man behind the bench that Monday was Judge Mark A. Kearney.
What sat in front of him was a permit. Not a policy, not a plan, not a press release. A permit, issued by the Philadelphia District of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, authorizing the State of Delaware to dredge a berth and build a container terminal on the old DuPont titanium dioxide ground at Edgemoor. Everything Delaware wanted on that waterfront ran through that single piece of paper.
Greenwich Terminals and its affiliates had sued to take it away. Those companies are controlled by the Holt family of Gloucester City, New Jersey, and they run the terminals thirty miles upriver that stood to lose cargo the day Edgemoor opened. Their argument was not that the terminal was a bad idea. Their argument was that the federal government had not done its homework.
Kearney agreed with them on nearly every count.
Start with navigation, because a container terminal is a navigation project and nothing else. The Corps was required to weigh what a new berth would do to vessel traffic on a river where ships already pass one another in a channel measured in feet. Kearney found the Corps gave that question superficial consideration. That is the phrase in the opinion. Superficial.
Then the traffic numbers. The Diamond State Port Corporation, which is the State of Delaware operating under a corporate name, submitted projections of how many trucks and ships Edgemoor would generate. The Corps put those numbers in the record. It did not check them. It made no attempt to verify a single figure the applicant handed it, and the applicant was the party that wanted the permit.
Then safety. Somewhere in that file there is a line where safety was supposed to be evaluated, and somebody wrote not applicable, and the analysis ended there. On a project that would put post-Panamax vessels into a working river alongside a refinery, a nuclear plant, and a federal channel, the word in the box was not applicable.
And then the piece that would matter most eight months later. Federal rules entitled the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority to issue a Statement of No Objection, or to refuse one. The Corps never obtained it. It approved the permit without ever asking the neighboring port authority whether it objected, and the neighboring port authority most certainly did.
Kearney vacated the permit. Delaware’s terminal stopped where it stood.
“The Corps gave navigation superficial consideration. It took the applicant’s
traffic numbers without checking one of them. It marked safety not applicable.
It never asked the neighboring port authority whether it objected.
A federal judge read that file and threw the permit out.”
Now understand what a vacated permit actually is, because Delaware spent the next twenty months acting as though it understood and the public was never told.
Vacating a permit does not cancel a project. It does not condemn the site, refund the money, or forbid the State from trying again. It sends the paperwork back to the agency that botched it and orders the agency to do the work properly. The bulldozers stop. The lawyers keep going. And the project sits on a shelf until somebody decides how hard to push.
Deciding how hard to push is not a job for a federal judge. It is a job for a governor.
That is the moment this entire report turns on. At nine in the morning on October 28, 2024, the future of a $669 million project belonged to a courtroom in Philadelphia, where a lobbyist is worth nothing and a campaign contribution is worth less than nothing.
By the end of that afternoon, it belonged to whoever was about to run the State of Delaware.
“Vacating a permit does not kill a project. It hands the project back.
On the morning of October 28, 2024, Edgemoor belonged to a federal judge.
By that evening it belonged to whoever was about to be Governor of Delaware.”
Leo Holt understood it immediately.
He is the president of Holt Logistics Corporation, and he had just beaten the federal government and the State of Delaware in the same opinion. He was pleased, and he said so publicly. Then, in the same breath, he mentioned that Delaware would have a new governor after the following month’s election.
That is not a remark about a lawsuit. That is a man reading a calendar.
Two days later, on Wednesday, October 30, 2024, Leo Holt gave $1,200 to Matthew Meyer, candidate for Governor of Delaware.
Eight days after that, Matt Meyer was elected.
And the State of Delaware, which had just lost, said almost nothing.
There was no public accounting of what the Corps had failed to do on Delaware’s behalf. No demand that the federal agency explain how safety came to be marked not applicable on a project the State had staked its waterfront on. No hearing, no review, no examination of how the Diamond State Port Corporation’s own unverified traffic numbers ended up as the evidentiary foundation of a permit that a judge would call arbitrary and capricious.
The State lost a $669 million project on a Monday and did not convene a single public meeting about why.
“Delaware lost a $669 million project because a federal agency did not do its work.
The State never held a hearing on how it happened. It never asked the Corps to explain. It went quiet, and eighteen months later the permit came back.”
Because it did come back. In April 2026, the United States Army Corps of Engineers reissued the permit for Edgemoor.
The ruling did not stop the terminal. It cost eighteen months. On June 23, 2026, Enstructure began final demolition on the site. Starting July 1, it staged dredgers to cut the quayside to forty-five feet. The Delaware Container Terminal is now a $669 million project of 137 acres, two berths and seven ship-to-shore cranes, built to move 1.2 million containers a year, with the first berth due to open in 2029.
The Diamond State Port Corporation and federal grants are covering about two-thirds of the cost. Roughly $446 million of public money.
So the men who wrote checks in the last week of October 2024 were not buying a verdict. The verdict was already in, and they had won it. They were buying position in the government that would decide whether a $669 million project came back to life, how fast, and with whose money.
It came back to life. It came back fast. And the money was ours.
“Leo Holt won the case and paid the Governor anyway. Read that sentence twice.
He was not buying the ruling. He already had the ruling.
He was buying what came after it.”
RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
III. The Checks
Everything that follows comes from one place: the financial reports the committees themselves filed with the Campaign Finance Section of the Office of the State Election Commissioner. Delaware’s own form. Delaware’s own database. Account number 01005311. Full organization name: Meyer for Delaware. Office sought: State Office, Governor.
Seven checks. Thirty-six days. Here they are in the order they were written.
September 26, 2024. The lawyers go first.
Stradley Ronon Stevens and Young is a Philadelphia law firm at 2005 Market Street with an office in Wilmington. It is counsel to the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, the agency that runs the Philadelphia docks and competes with Wilmington for the same ships. On September 26, 2024, the firm gave $1,200 to Matt Meyer.
That is thirty-two days before Judge Kearney ruled. Nobody knew how the case would come out. The money went in anyway.
And Stradley Ronon is not a bystander in this fight. One of the grounds Kearney used to throw out the Edgemoor permit was that the Corps had never obtained a Statement of No Objection from the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority. That authority’s lawyers wrote the first check in this sequence.
There is more. Stradley Ronon’s chairman emeritus is William R. Sasso, who ran the firm for twenty-seven years. The Philadelphia Inquirer describes him as a longtime attorney for the Holts. He chaired Governor Josh Shapiro’s transition. And Governor Tom Corbett appointed him a commissioner of the Delaware River Port Authority, the public agency that holds Holt’s lease, a seat he kept until 2015.
Delaware’s own Attorney General put the rest on the record. Opinion 24-IB04, issued January 29, 2024, notes the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control’s statement that Holt owned two of the appellants and that Holt’s counsel represented the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority.
The first check did not come from a neutral party. It came from the firm standing on both sides of the case.
“The lawyers for the port authority whose missing signature killed the permit wrote the first check, thirty-two days before the ruling. Their chairman emeritus is the
Holts’ longtime attorney and sat as a commissioner of the authority
that leases to Holt until 2015.”
October 7, 2024. The lobbyist pays while the case is open.
Darrell J. Baker practices law at 1601 Concord Pike, Suite 100, in Wilmington. He is also a registered Delaware lobbyist, and the State publishes his client list.
He is the registered Delaware lobbyist for Holt Logistics Corporation of Gloucester City, New Jersey, the company whose affiliates brought the lawsuit. He is at the same time the registered lobbyist for Summit North Marina LLC on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, and for three other companies at that marina. Section IV lays out all ten of his clients, including the six that gave nothing.
On October 7, 2024, Darrell J. Baker Esquire, PA, gave $1,200. Kearney would not rule for another twenty-one days. The case was pending. The money went in anyway.
October 28, 2024. Kearney rules.
The permit is vacated. Greenwich Terminals and Gloucester Terminals, the Holt family companies that brought the case, win.
October 29, 2024. Tuesday.
Summit Point LLC gives $1,000. It files from Post Office Box 422 in Rockland, Delaware, a village of about two hundred people on the Brandywine. Summit Point is one of Darrell Baker’s registered clients. So are two other companies that use that same post office box.
October 30, 2024. Wednesday.
Leo Holt gives $1,200 from 101 South King Street in Gloucester City, New Jersey. He is the president of Holt Logistics Corporation. His family’s companies had won the case two days earlier.
Watch what he did not do. Holt Logistics Corporation, the company Darrell Baker is registered to lobby for, the company that had just beaten the State of Delaware in federal court, gave nothing at all. The check came from the man. He signed his own name to it.
Somebody made that choice. A corporation writing into a governor’s account forty-eight hours after suing his state is a headline. A man writing his own check is a line in a database.
“Leo Holt beat the State of Delaware on Monday and paid Delaware’s next Governor
on Wednesday. Holt Logistics Corporation, the company that won, gave nothing.
Leo Holt signed his own name.”
October 31, 2024. Thursday.
Three more of Darrell Baker’s registered clients give $600 each. All three file from 3000 Summit Harbour Place in Bear, Delaware, which is the address of Summit North Marina.
Summit North Marina LLC. Chesapeake and Delaware Dredging LLC. Pristine Yacht Services.
Read that middle name again. A dredging company, registered at a marina, whose lobbyist also represents the Philadelphia terminal operator that had spent four years in federal court stopping Delaware from dredging.
What it adds up to.
The six checks tied to Darrell Baker and Leo Holt come to $5,200. Add Stradley Ronon’s $1,200 on September 26 and the running total across those thirty-six days is $6,400.
The other side of the same lawsuit brought it to $13,400. That is Section V.
“Judge Kearney ruled on a Monday. Summit Point paid Tuesday.
Leo Holt paid Wednesday. Summit North Marina, Chesapeake and
Delaware Dredging and Pristine Yacht Services paid Thursday.
Every one of them is a client of the same Wilmington lawyer.”
Say the size out loud.
$6,400 is not a large amount of money, and this section is not built on the amount. Every one of these checks was legal. Every one was disclosed. Every one was at or under the limit that applies to it. Delaware caps a contribution to a statewide candidate at $1,200 under 15 Del. C. section 8010, and Leo Holt gave exactly $1,200.
Notice where the money did not go. Not one dollar of it went to a political action committee, which is where the seven-figure money in Delaware actually lives and where an independent expenditure draws no contribution limit at all. It went into Matt Meyer’s own candidate account, in checks of $600 to $1,200, under real names at real addresses, in the one place in Delaware law with the tightest limits and the sharpest disclosure.
Darrell Baker, Leo Holt, and Stradley Ronon Stevens and Young filed these where anyone could find them. They wanted them found. A contribution nobody can see does not introduce you to anybody.
“Not one dollar went to a political action committee, where the money in Delaware
has no limit at all. It went into the candidate’s own account, under real names
at real addresses, in the one place with the sharpest disclosure Delaware has.
They wanted these found.”
How this was searched.
Ninety-two filed campaign finance reports were reviewed, covering fifty-two distinct reporting periods across five committees tied to Matt Meyer. Meyer for New Castle County, account 01003643, February 7, 2016 through December 31, 2021. Meyer for Delaware, account 01005311, August 9, 2021 through December 31, 2025. Change Can’t Wait PAC, account 02005278, June 17, 2021 through December 31, 2025. Citizens for a New Delaware Way, account 02006097, May 24, 2024 through December 31, 2025. And its Third-Party Advertiser, account 04006103, May 31 through August 30, 2024. The filings outnumber the periods because forty of them are amendments that supersede an earlier filing for the same account and the same dates.
Coverage of the 2024 general election is continuous. The report covering September 4 through October 7, 2024 holds the Stradley Ronon and Baker contributions. The eight-day pre-general report covers October 8 through October 28 and carries 471 line items. The year-end report covers October 29 through December 31, was filed January 23, 2025, carries 286 line items, and holds the Summit Point, Leo Holt, and Summit North Marina contributions. The election was November 5, 2024. There is no gap.
Every name and every street address in Chart A was run separately against all five committees, across every reporting period on file. All seven contributions appear in Meyer for Delaware. None appears anywhere else, at any time.
One question is left standing.
A marina on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. A dredging company. A yacht service. A post office box in a village of two hundred people. And the president of a terminal operator forty miles down the river in New Jersey.
Those five do not belong on the same page. They belong on the same page because one man in Wilmington is registered by the State of Delaware to represent all of them.
That is the next section.
Chart A: contributions to Meyer for Delaware, account 01005311, October 2024, showing $1,200 from Leo Holt on October 30 and $2,800 from 4 companies registered at Summit North Marina on October 29 and 31
The Baker contribution appears in the report covering September 4 through October 7, 2024. The other five appear in the year-end report covering October 29 through December 31, 2024, filed January 23, 2025.
IV. Who Darrell J. Baker Represents
Now, the disclosure that makes those addresses mean something, and it comes from a State file anyone can download in fifteen seconds. The Delaware Public Integrity Reporting System publishes a machine-readable record of every lobbyist authorization in the state. Darrell J. Baker of 1601 Concord Pike, Suite 100, appears in it ten times.
Chart B: the 10 registered Delaware lobbying clients of Darrell J. Baker, Public Integrity Reporting System employer authorization file, all carrying an end date of Indefinite
Source: State of Delaware, Public Integrity Reporting System, employer authorization file. All ten authorizations carry an end date of Indefinite. Four of the five October contributors are on that list. The fifth is the lobbyist’s own law practice.
What The Businesses Are
Summit North Marina LLC operates the marina at 3000 Summit Harbour Place on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. About three hundred slips, a fuel dock, boat sales and brokerage, a restaurant called Grain H2O, and a Coast Guard hurricane hole designation. Delaware State Parks lists the facility on its own website and states that it is managed and operated by Summit North Marina, LLC. The ground underneath it is Lums Pond State Park. It belongs to the people of Delaware.
Chesapeake and Delaware Dredging LLC and Summit North Dredging LLC are two separate dredging companies, both registered to the marina’s address, both authorized four days apart in October 2021. Pristine Yacht Services LLC is a yacht services company at the same marina address. Summit Point LLC, Kingfish Insurance Services LLC, and State Line Casino LLC share a single post office box, number 422, in Rockland, Delaware, a village of roughly two hundred people on the Brandywine. Brandywine Gaming and Entertainment LLC is registered on Lovering Avenue in Wilmington.
And Murphy Marine Services Inc. is a cargo handling and stevedoring business that has worked the Port of Wilmington for decades, historically in the fresh fruit trade that made Wilmington the leading North American port for bananas and juice concentrate. Baker has been its registered lobbyist since October 2008. Hold that name. It comes back.
Two dredging companies, a marina and a yacht service, at one address on the canal, all registered inside four days in October 2021. Thirteen months later, the same lobbyist took on the Philadelphia operator that would spend the next four years in federal court trying to stop a dredging project forty miles downriver.
Who is Darrell J. Baker
Darrell J. Baker is a Wilmington attorney. He practices at 1601 Concord Pike, Suite 100, and he is a partner in the firm of Aber, Goldlust, Baker and Over. He is also a registered Delaware lobbyist, which means the State of Delaware requires him to file the name of every employer who pays him to influence government, and then publishes that list where anybody can read it.
There are ten names on it.
Every one of those registrations lists the same office at 1601 Concord Pike. Every one carries an end date of Indefinite. And every one of them was run, by name and by street address, against all five political committees tied to Matt Meyer, across every reporting period on file.
Here is what came back.
Chart B. Darrell J. Baker’s registered clients, Delaware Public Integrity Commission, and what each one gave to Meyer for Delaware.
Four gave. Six gave nothing, ever, to any Meyer committee, at any time.
That second number belongs in this report as plainly as the first. Nobody marched a client roster to a checkbook. Murphy Marine gave nothing in sixteen years. State Line Casino gave nothing in thirteen. Brandywine Gaming, Kingfish Insurance and Summit North Dredging gave nothing at all. And Holt Logistics Corporation, the company that sued the State of Delaware and won, gave nothing.
What paid was one cluster, in one month, into one account.
“Six of Darrell Baker’s ten clients never gave a dollar to Matt Meyer.
Murphy Marine gave nothing in sixteen years. Holt Logistics gave nothing at all.
Four clients paid, in three days, into one account.”
Ten clients. Five addresses.
Now stop looking at the names and look at the second column.
Four of the ten register at 3000 Summit Harbour Place in Bear, Delaware. That address is Summit North Marina, on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. Summit North Marina LLC is there. So is Chesapeake and Delaware Dredging LLC. So is Pristine Yacht Services. So is Summit North Dredging LLC.
Three more register at Post Office Box 422 in Rockland, Delaware. Rockland is a village on the Brandywine with roughly 200 residents. Summit Point LLC files from that box. So does Kingfish Insurance Services. So does State Line Casino.
The last three are scattered. Holt Logistics at 101 South King Street in Gloucester City, New Jersey. Brandywine Gaming at 1100 Lovering Avenue in Wilmington. Murphy Marine at 11 Gist Road, inside the Port of Wilmington itself.
Ten clients. Five addresses. Seven of the ten sitting in two clusters. And every single client who wrote a check came out of one of those two clusters.
“Ten clients, five addresses. Four at a marina on the canal.
Three at a post office box in a village of 200 people.
Every client who paid came from one of those two.”
The order they were signed in.
The dates in the third column are not decoration. Read them from the bottom up, and a sequence appears that nobody in Delaware has printed.
On October 1, 2021, Darrell Baker registered Summit North Marina LLC.
Three days later, on October 4, 2021, he registered four more companies on a single day: Chesapeake and Delaware Dredging LLC, Summit North Dredging LLC, Pristine Yacht Services and Summit Point LLC. Three of the four sit at the marina. The fourth sits in the Rockland post office box.
Thirteen months after that, on November 1, 2022, he registered Holt Logistics Corporation of Gloucester City, New Jersey.
And on November 3, 2023, one year and two days after Holt Logistics went onto that list, Greenwich Terminals filed suit against the United States Army Corps of Engineers to stop Delaware from dredging at Edgemoor. Greenwich Terminals is a Holt company.
Nobody hires a Delaware lobbyist a year before they need one by accident.
“October 2021: Darrell Baker registers a marina and four companies around it. November 2022: he registers Holt Logistics. November 2023: Holt sues to stop Delaware from dredging. The lobbyist came first, by thirteen months.”
Sixteen years at 11 Gist Road.
The oldest name on that list is the one worth the longest look.
Darrell Baker has represented Murphy Marine Services Inc. since October 20, 2008. That is sixteen years before any of this, and Murphy Marine is not out on a canal somewhere. It sits inside the Port of Wilmington, at 11 Gist Road, and its business address is 701 Christiana Avenue.
On January 10, 2025, by Resolution 25-03, the Diamond State Port Corporation paid $2,850,000 for 1.91 acres at 701 Christiana Avenue and added that ground to the leasehold of Enstructure, the private company that operates the port.
Murphy Marine gave nothing to Matt Meyer. Not one dollar, in sixteen years. It did not have to.
“Darrell Baker has represented Murphy Marine Services since October 20, 2008. On January 10, 2025, the State of Delaware paid $2,850,000 for 1.91 acres at Murphy Marine’s business address and handed the ground to the port’s private operator.”
The name on the paperwork.
Delaware requires a limited liability company to disclose exactly one human being to the public. Not its owners. Not its officers. Not the people who take the profits. One name, the registered agent, and that is the whole of what a citizen gets.
For Summit North Marina LLC, that human being is Darrell J. Baker. For Chesapeake and Delaware Dredging LLC, that human being is Darrell J. Baker.
And in an affidavit sworn in federal court in 2007, in a case captioned Picchi v. Summit North Marina, Baker stated that he was the marina’s managing agent.
So he is the lobbyist. He is the registered agent. He was the managing agent. And he is the lawyer. On a Delaware marina, the entire visible surface of these companies is one man at 1601 Concord Pike.
Two checks that are not client money.
Six contributions came out of this circle in October 2024, and only four of them came from clients on that list. The other two are the ones that matter most.
Darrell J. Baker Esquire PA gave $1,200 on October 7, 2024. That is the lobbyist’s own law firm, not a client. He paid out of his own shop, three weeks before the ruling, while the case was open.
Leo Holt gave $1,200 on October 30, 2024. That is a man, not a client. Holt Logistics Corporation is the registered client, and Holt Logistics Corporation gave nothing.
The corporation stayed off the list. The principal signed his own name.
And Holt has a second lobbyist.
One more registration closes this section.
Edward J. Hazzouri, of Hazzouri and Associates at 115 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia, registered as a Delaware lobbyist for Holt Logistics Corporation on October 3, 2022. That is one month before Darrell Baker did.
Holt Logistics did not hire a Delaware lobbyist. It hired two, a month apart, thirteen months before it sued the State of Delaware in federal court.
None of this is hidden. The Delaware Public Integrity Commission publishes every registration in this section in a single file that downloads in ten seconds. It has been sitting there the entire time.
That is not a secret. That is a public record nobody bothered to read.
V. Everyone in the Fight Paid the Man Who Would Decide It
If the story ended with the Holt side, it would be a story about one interest buying access. It does not end there, and the fuller picture is worse. The same campaign finance reports show the other side of the Edgemoor fight writing checks to Matt Meyer in the same weeks.
Chart C-1: the Edgemoor fight as recorded in Matt Meyer's campaign finance filings, $7,000 from the port corporation side, $5,200 from the Baker side, $1,200 from PhilaPort litigation counsel, $13,400 in total
Add the port corporation's side, and it comes to $7,000. Add Baker’s side, and it comes to $5,200. Add PhilaPort’s litigation counsel, and the total across 36 days is $13,400.
The state instrumentality’s lobbyists paid. The lawyers suing the state instrumentality paid. The lobbyist for the company suing the state instrumentality paid. The president of that company paid, two days after winning.
Both sides of the biggest infrastructure fight in Delaware wrote checks to the same man in the same month. Whoever won the argument, the same person was going to be Governor. They all knew it. That is the part that should frighten you.
Everyone In The Fight Paid
If this story ended with Darrell Baker and Leo Holt, it would be a story about one interest buying access to a governor. That is an ordinary story, and Delaware has told it before.
It does not end there.
The Diamond State Port Corporation is the State of Delaware operating under a corporate name. It owns the Port of Wilmington. It was the losing party at Edgemoor. And like most state agencies in this state, it pays a private law firm to represent it in Dover.
That firm is Barnes and Thornburg, and its Delaware lobbyists work out of 222 Delaware Avenue, Suite 1200, in Wilmington. Four of them are registered with the State to lobby on behalf of the port corporation.
Thomas McGonigle, registered November 1, 2019. Douglas Gramiak, registered January 20, 2020. Shawn Tucker, registered March 17, 2023. James Smith Junior, registered October 20, 2023.
Three of those four wrote checks to Matt Meyer in October 2024. So did two of their wives. So did the firm itself.
Chart C-2. Contributions to Meyer for Delaware, account 01005311, from the Diamond State Port Corporation’s registered lobbyists, their households, and their firm.
Add that to the $5,200 from Darrell Baker’s circle, the $1,200 from Stradley Ronon Stevens and Young, and the money that moved around Judge Kearney’s ruling comes to $13,400.
Every dollar of it went into the same account.
“Leo Holt sued the State of Delaware and won.
The lobbyists the State of Delaware pays to represent its port lost that case.
In one month, both sides wrote checks into the same candidate’s account.”
Tuesday, October 29, 2024.
Look at what happened on a single day.
Douglas Gramiak gave $600 from 5 Harrington Court. Stephanie Gramiak gave $600 from 5 Harrington Court. Shawn Tucker gave $1,000, filed from the office at 222 Delaware Avenue. Michele Tucker gave $1,000 from 414 Derby Way, which is where Shawn Tucker filed his first check ten days earlier. Patricia McGonigle gave $1,200 from 1305A Shipley Road, which is where Thomas McGonigle filed his on October 5.
Five checks. One day. Three households. And the same Tuesday, twenty miles away on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, Summit Point LLC gave $1,000 from a post office box in Rockland.
Judge Kearney had ruled the previous day.
“October 29, 2024. Douglas Gramiak gave $600. Stephanie Gramiak gave $600. Shawn Tucker gave $1,000. Michele Tucker gave $1,000. Patricia McGonigle gave $1,200. Five checks, one day, three households, two addresses. The judge had ruled the day before.”
Where these men came from.
Now understand who is writing these checks, because none of them are outsiders lobbying a government they came to as strangers.
Thomas McGonigle was chief of staff to Governor Jack Markell. Before that, he was chief legal counsel and policy director to Senator Tom Carper. He left the Governor’s office in November 2012 for Drinker Biddle and Reath. In June 2021, he moved to Barnes and Thornburg. Since November 2019, he has been the registered Delaware lobbyist for the port corporation, and he also carries Bloom Energy, Croda, and NorthPoint Development.
Douglas Gramiak was chief of staff to Governor John Carney. He registered for the Diamond State Port Corporation on January 20, 2020, and on that same day he registered for the Buccini Pollin Group. He also carries Harvey Hanna and Associates, and Aternium, and Stoltz Real Estate Partners, and an entity called Diamond Port Property LLC that he took on in March 2026.
Shawn Tucker ran New Castle County’s Land Use Department. He now lobbies for the port corporation, and he represents developers who appear before the department he used to run.
On June 14, 2021, Barnes and Thornburg announced it had hired McGonigle, Tucker, Gramiak and five of their colleagues out of Drinker Biddle in a single move. Eight people, one firm, one day.
“Thomas McGonigle was Jack Markell’s chief of staff. Douglas Gramiak was John Carney’s chief of staff. Shawn Tucker ran New Castle County’s Land Use Department. All three now lobby the government they used to run, and all three
paid Matt Meyer in October 2024.”
The firm wrote its own check.
Barnes and Thornburg LLP gave $1,200 on October 10, 2024, filed from 11 South Meridian Street in Indianapolis, which is the firm’s headquarters.
That is worth sitting with. A law firm headquartered in Indiana wrote into a Delaware governor’s campaign account in the middle of federal litigation over a Delaware port that the firm’s own Delaware lobbyists are registered to represent.
And the money runs the other way too. Delaware’s own checkbook records $13,719,480.19 paid to Barnes and Thornburg. The State pays this firm. Three of the firm’s registered lobbyists for the State’s port paid the State’s incoming Governor.
Both sides. Same month. Same account.
Set the two charts beside each other, and the shape of it is unmistakable.
The side that won the case paid. Leo Holt personally, on October 30. Four companies registered to his Delaware lobbyist, on October 29 and October 31. That lobbyist’s own law firm, on October 7.
The side that lost the case paid. Three of the four registered lobbyists for the state corporation, two of their wives, and the firm, between October 5 and October 29.
The lawyers for the port authority whose missing signature decided the case paid, on September 26.
Thirty-six days. Thirteen households and firms. $13,400. One account.
There is no version of this where somebody was buying an outcome. The outcome had already happened, and half these people were on the losing end of it. What every one of them was buying was the same thing: a name on a list, in the office where the decision had just landed.
“The side that won paid. The side that lost paid. The lawyers for both paid.
Nobody was buying the ruling. The ruling was already in.
They were buying the government that would decide what came next.”
And one of them did not pay.
James Smith Junior is the fourth registered lobbyist for the Diamond State Port Corporation. He gave nothing to Matt Meyer in the autumn of 2024.
That belongs here for the same reason the six silent Baker clients belong in Section IV. This was not an office memo. Nobody instructed a firm to write checks. Individual people, in individual households, on individual days, decided on their own that it was time to be on that list.
Which is the more troubling explanation. An order can be traced. A shared instinct cannot.
RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
VI-A. The Households, In Full
Delaware caps what one person may give a candidate for statewide office at $1,200. That is 15 Del. C. section 8010; it has no exceptions, and the Delaware Department of Elections publishes the name of everyone who reaches it.
Delaware caps nothing a person gives a political action committee.
Those two sentences built everything in this section. The candidate account is where the law watches, and the names get printed. The political action committee is where the money went. Almost every household below is in both, and the gap between the two columns is the gap between being seen and being decisive.
Chart C-1 named the October 2024 checks. It did not name the families standing behind them, and the families are what show how long this has been running. What follows is every household, taken line by line out of the filed reports of five committees: Meyer for New Castle County, account 01003643; Meyer for Delaware, account 01005311; Change Can't Wait PAC, account 02005278; Citizens for a New Delaware Way PAC; and Citizens for a New Delaware Way Third-Party Advertiser.
Post Office Box 320
Montchanin is a village north of Wilmington with one intersection, one hotel, and a few dozen houses set into the hills above the Brandywine. Post Office Box 320 is there. Across eight years and eight checks, Alan Levin sent Matt Meyer $29,100 out of it.
Alan Levin ran the Delaware Economic Development Office for Governor Jack Markell and personally negotiated Amazon's entry into this state. He chaired the board of the Diamond State Port Corporation at the same time. Governor Jack Markell, of 3 Guyenne Road in Wilmington, is himself a contributor, $2,100 across four: $300 on June 28, 2019, $300 on November 4, 2019, $1,000 on September 11, 2024, and $500 on July 30, 2025.
Alan Levin organized and raised for Change Cant Wait PAC, the outside committee that spent to make Matt Meyer governor, and none of that was ever hidden: in a 2022 filing to the Delaware Department of Elections a representative of Change Can't Wait PAC wrote that their candidate did not have a primary in that cycle, and a former treasurer of the committee has since said publicly that it was formed in 2021 for Matt Meyer.
Then, on March 17, 2025, Governor Matt Meyer made Alan B. Levin chairman of the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council, over a chairman who had held the seat for eight years. The man who raised the outside money now certifies the revenue estimate that sets the ceiling on the entire state budget, including the money going to Edgemoor. He had never served a day on the council before he was handed the gavel.
Now watch the eight checks separate.
Five of them went where the law was watching. $500 on April 18, 2016, when Matt Meyer was running for New Castle County Executive. $600 on October 14, 2016. $600 on December 7, 2017. $1,200 on December 18, 2021. $1,200 on September 22, 2024. Eight years of giving, five checks, $4,100, every dollar of it inside the limit.
Three went where nothing is capped. $5,000 on October 28, 2022. $5,000 on September 29, 2023. And $15,000 on June 10, 2024, ninety-two days before the primary.
"Delaware lets one person give a candidate $1,200. Alan B. Levin gave Matt Meyer $29,100. $4,100 of it went into the account with the limit.
$25,000 went where there is no limit at all."
Ellen Levin files from the same post office box: $4,000 across five contributions between December 7, 2017, and September 30, 2024, several of them under the employer line Ellen and Alan Levin Family Foundation. Richard Levin, at 16 Lynthwaite Farm Lane in Wilmington, has given $3,300 across eight, from a $300 check on May 27, 2016, to $500 on September 26, 2024, one of them a $250 check filed jointly on December 3, 2017 as Marilyn and Richard Levin, the only time Marilyn Levin's name appears anywhere in the record. Richard Levine, spelled with an e, at 4602 Bedford Boulevard, has given $1,650 across seven contributions between September 28, 2016, and July 9, 2025, two of those filed as Richard A Levine.
The Montchanin post office box alone is $33,100 across thirteen contributions. All four households together are twenty-eight contributions and $38,050.
The rest of the name is small and scattered. Richard D Levin of 4830 Kennett Pike, Apartment 2830, put $1,000 into Change Can't Wait PAC on June 25, 2024. Sharon Levin of 475 Quartz Street in Redwood City, California, sent $37.50 on October 10, 2025. Andrea Levine of 4602 Bedford Avenue gave $250 on July 11, 2024, and $250 on August 11, 2024. Brian Levine of 1824 Wawaset Street gave $200 on December 23, 2023, and $200 on June 13, 2024. Joshua Levine of 591 2nd Street in Brooklyn, New York, gave $500 on May 16, 2024. James Levine of 750 Harvard Avenue in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, gave $250 on August 29, 2024.
And Lisa Levine, of 208 Carolina Street in Dewey Beach, gave fifteen dollars a month for twenty-four months without missing, from January 19, 2024 through December 19, 2025. Twenty-four contributions, $445. She is the smallest donor in this archive and the steadiest one in it.
Twenty-three contributions and $37,437.50 carry the Levin spelling. Thirty-seven contributions and $3,745 carry the Levine spelling. Sixty contributions in all, and together they come to $41,182.50, which is less than half of the $100,000 that Philip Reese wrote on a single August morning.
Chart D. The four Levin and Levine households, all committees.
And the family checks are the smaller half
Set the Levin and Levine households against what the committee Alan Levin organized actually took in, and the proportion is the argument.
Change Cant Wait PAC has moved $2,019,799.02 in and $1,618,138.87 out across 387 itemized lines, spending through Targeted Platform Media LLC and through Devine Mulvey Longabaugh.
Michael R. Bloomberg put in $250,000 on September 4, 2024, six days before the primary. Philip Reese put in $100,000. An entity named for a house at 847 Cranbrook Drive put in another $100,000. Louis J. Capano, $45,000. Gerret Van S. Copeland, $40,000. Drawbridge Claymont, LLC, $55,000 across two. Todd Fryatt, $73,000 across thirteen. Chip DiPaula, $25,000. Jeffrey Carper, $25,000. Richard J. Julian, $25,000. The Principled Veterans Fund, $25,000. Schell Brothers LLC, $25,000. Robert L. Siegfried, $23,800. Jay Patel, $20,000. Rush Street Interactive, $18,800. Onix Group LLC, $16,000. Preston Schell, $15,000. John Christopher Brown, $15,000. Fusco Properties LP, $10,000 across two. The Verino Pettinaro Revocable Trust, $10,000.
A candidate committee in Delaware may take $1,200 from a person. A political action committee may take whatever it can raise.
"$41,182.50 in Levin and Levine family checks is the part with the name on it. $2,019,799.02 through Change Can't Wait PAC is the part without it."
The retired banker on Kennett Pike
Philip Reese used to chair the Delaware Pension Board, the body that oversees the retirement money of every state employee in Delaware. He is retired now and files from 5601 Kennett Pike in Wilmington. He gave Matt Meyer four times.
Two of the four are what you would expect. $1,200 to Meyer for Delaware on June 28, 2022, and $1,200 more on September 11, 2024, both inside the $1,200 limit, both in the account where the names get printed. Nobody stops on those.
The other two went somewhere else. On April 15, 2023, he wrote $2,500, filed as Philip S. Reese from 5803 Kennett Pike, Suite A, two doors up the road, and it went into Change Can't Wait PAC, more than twice what the law would have let him give the candidate. Then on August 9, 2024, he wrote $100,000 into the same committee, eighty-eight days before Delaware elected a governor.
Philip Reese has never explained it. He has not returned calls about it, including a message left at his house with a man who said he was Philip Reese's brother.
"Philip Reese, the former chairman of the Delaware Pension Board, gave $104,900 in four checks. Two obeyed the $1,200 limit and came to $2,400. The other two went into a political action committee where Delaware sets no limit, and they came to $102,500."
On the morning of August 19, 2024, three people at 5907 Valley Way in Wilmington sat down and wrote checks together. Brent Morgan Reese, $1,200. Dorsey Reese, $1,200. Richard Reese the Third, at the same Valley Way address, $1,110, then ten dollars more that same day and ten again on October 19, 2024, $1,130 across three. Virginia Eisenbrey-Reese of 233 Wellington Road gave $600 twice. Natalie Reese of 17 Pheasants Ridge South gave $1,200. Virginia Reese of 910 Augusta Road gave $750 across two.
Six Reese households at four Wilmington addresses, $6,680. With Philip Reese, the family reaches $111,580 across fourteen contributions, and $102,500 of it never touched an account with a ceiling.
Three seats at the same table
The Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council decides how much money Delaware has. Under Article VIII, section 6(b) of the Delaware Constitution, the State may not appropriate more than 98 percent of what that council estimates, which means thirty-three people in a room set the outer wall of the budget and of the bond bill that pays for Edgemoor.
Alan Levin chairs it. Philip Reese sits on it.
So does Guy F. Marcozzi of 16 Reese Drive in Newark, a holdover appointed under Governor John Carney. When Alan Levin gaveled the meeting of March 17, 2025, to order, Guy F. Marcozzi answered the roll, and Philip Reese did not. Guy F. Marcozzi has given $8,050 across eight contributions, beginning with $250 on December 7, 2017, then $600 on May 21, 2019, $600 on September 18, 2020, and $600 on October 13, 2020, all from 16 Reese Drive. $6,000 of that went to Change Can't Wait PAC in four checks: $3,000 on November 30, 2021, $1,200 on December 12, 2022 and $600 on August 31, 2023, all three filed under the name Mr. Guy Marcozzi from an address the State printed as 16 Reese Crive, and $1,200 on August 5, 2024 filed from 38262 Anna B Street in Rehoboth Beach.
The third name at that table is Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez, and what she runs has to be spelled out, because almost no Delawarean knows what a Secretary of State actually controls in this state.
Governor Matt Meyer nominated her, and she was sworn in on January 28, 2025, as head of the Delaware Department of State. That one job puts her over the Division of Corporations, which registers and taxes the roughly 2 million business entities incorporated here and produces close to a third of the General Fund. It also puts her over the Division of Professional Regulation, the Division of Small Business, Export Delaware, the Office of the State Bank Commissioner, the Public Service Commission, the Division of the Public Advocate, the Public Integrity Commission, the Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, the Delaware Public Archives, the Division of Libraries, the Division of the Arts, the Division of Human and Civil Rights, the Government Information Center, the Office of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commissioner, the Merit Employee Relations Board, the Public Employment Relations Board, the Office of New Americans, the Board of Pardons, the Delaware Veterans Home and the Office of Veterans Services. Her own department calls it responsibilities in virtually every aspect of Delaware state government.
She sits on the Cash Management Policy Board. She sits on the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council. And she chairs the board of the Diamond State Port Corporation, which took $110 million in House Bill 500, the Fiscal Year 2027 Bond and Capital Improvements Act that Governor Matt Meyer signed on July 6, 2026, as Volume 85, Chapter 341, Laws of Delaware.
Before any of it, Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez was Economic Development Director of New Castle County and then General Manager of the New Castle County Department of Land Use, both under County Executive Matt Meyer.
"Two members of the council that sets the ceiling on Delaware's budget gave
Matt Meyer's political network $112,950. A third member chairs the corporation
that received the money. The chairman of the council raised it."
2719 Pickering Road
The money from this house is small enough to skip past, and it is in this report for a reason that has nothing to do with the amount.
Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez has given $1,708.32 across seven contributions. $400 on October 23, 2019, filed from 424 South Broadway in Los Angeles, where she was practicing land use and government contracts law at Sheppard Mullin and at Glaser Weil.
$250 on November 16, 2021. $258.32 twice on September 30, 2022. $100 on June 6, 2023. $250 on December 31, 2023. $191.68 on July 1, 2024. Six of the seven came from 2719 Pickering Road in Wilmington. Not one of the seven was filed under the hyphenated surname she uses in office. The Delaware Department of Elections carries her as Charuni Patibanda and Charuni P Patibanda.
Three more names file from that same house. Madhava Patibanda gave $1,200 across three contributions on December 30, 2021, September 28, 2023, and October 3, 2023. Patibanda Sarma gave $1,000 on December 28, 2022. And on May 15, 2024, Pvln Sarma wrote $500, then $500 more the same day, into Change Can't Wait PAC. Marcos Sanchez, the husband of Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez, gave $658.32 across three contributions from 1201 I Street Northeast in Washington: $150 on December 30, 2022, $8.32 on July 1, 2024, and $500 on July 13, 2024.
Sixteen contributions, $5,566.64. Twelve of them and $4,508.32, came out of one house.
Every other dollar from Pickering Road went into a candidate account, where the ceiling is $1,200, and the name gets printed. The two Sarma checks of May 15 went to the committee with no ceiling, five months before the election, out of the home of the woman who chairs the corporation that received the money.
The name Delaware spelled wrong
John Hynansky built the Winner Automotive Group and has been close to the Biden family for decades. John Hynansky files from 911 North Tatnall Street in Wilmington, and the household has given $106,900 across fourteen contributions from December 2, 2016, through March 27, 2026, with $86,900 of it in place by September 15, 2024, and $100,000 of it went to Change Can't Wait PAC.
Three of those checks are $25,000 apiece. June 8, 2023. March 25, 2024. August 7, 2024. John Hynansky wrote the first two and $53,000 in all. Michael Hynansky wrote the third that August from 1300 North Union Street in Greenville, and reaches $52,700 across seven: $300 on February 25, 2019 and $1,200 on June 9, 2022 from 4820 Kennett Pike, $2,500 on October 1, 2023 and $2,500 on May 16, 2024 from 1700 Walnut Green Road, the $25,000 on August 7, 2024, $1,200 on September 15, 2024 back at Kennett Pike, and $20,000 on March 27, 2026 from Walnut Green Road. Ericka Hynansky gave $1,200 on April 24, 2023.
Go back to the first of the three. On June 8, 2023, the $25,000 was entered as John Hyanski, at 911 Tatnall Street. The surname lost a letter. The street lost its direction. The Delaware Department of Elections took the filing, published it, and left it there.
Search the State's own database for Hynansky today, and the largest contribution Change Cant Wait PAC had ever received does not come back.
Then on March 27, 2026, sixteen months after the election was over, Michael Hynansky sent Change Cant Wait PAC another $20,000. There was no election left to spend it on.
Louis J. Capano of 105 Foulk Road gave twice. $25,000 on February 9, 2024, $20,000 on August 20, 2024. $45,000, and not $1 of it in a candidate account. Nothing he gave was subject to a limit, so nothing he gave had to be.
Thirty-eight days on Boxwood Road
Harvey, Hanna and Associates is the firm that bought the shuttered General Motors plant on Boxwood Road on a deed that recorded ten dollars.
Between December 18, 2021 and January 25, 2022, seven people connected to that firm gave Matthew Meyer $8,400. Every one of them wrote the maximum the law allows, and they wrote it inside thirty-eight days.
E. Thomas Harvey, a principal of Harvey, Hanna and Associates, gave $1,200 on December 18, 2021, from 22 Center Meeting Road in Wilmington, and Robin Harvey gave $1,200 from the same address the same day. Thomas Harvey of 301 Old Kennett Pike in Wilmington gave $1,200 on December 30, 2021. Lexie Hanna gave $1,200 on January 3, 2022, from 108 Brook Valley Road in Wilmington, and Thomas Hanna, a principal of the firm, gave $1,200 from the same address that same day. Katherine Kinnard gave $1,200 on January 4, 2022. Murray Dingwall gave $1,200 on January 25, 2022. Seven names, seven checks, $1,200 apiece.
On January 1, 2022, in the middle of that window, Douglas Gramiak registered as the Delaware lobbyist for Harvey, Hanna and Associates. He was already the registered lobbyist for the Diamond State Port Corporation.
"Seven people connected to Harvey, Hanna and Associates gave Matt Meyer $8,400 in thirty-eight days, every check at the legal maximum. On January 1, 2022, inside
that window, the port corporation's own lobbyist registered to represent them."
Ten days into that same window, on December 28, 2021, Wilson Davis of 208 Alapocas Drive gave $1,150. Wilson B. Davis of the same address later put $5,000 into Change Can't Wait PAC on June 20, 2024, and had given $600 to Meyer for New Castle County on October 30, 2019, $6,750 across three. Four of the seven came back in October 2024 and wrote the maximum again. Across all the years, the circle is thirteen contributions and $15,000. E. Thomas Harvey and Thomas Harvey account for $3,600 across three. Robin Harvey of 22 Center Meeting Road, $2,400 across two. Thomas Hanna of 108 Brook Valley Road, $2,400 across two. Lexie Hanna of the same address, $2,400 across two. Maureen Harvey of 301 Old Kennett Road, $1,200 on July 17, 2024. Katherine Kinnard, $1,200. Murray Dingwall, $1,200. And Harvey, Hanna and Associates itself, $600 on October 13, 2016. Every dollar of it stayed in the candidate accounts, where the names get published.
The firm that used to be New Castle County
Barnes and Thornburg LLP is an Indianapolis firm at 11 South Meridian Street. In June 2021, it opened in Wilmington by lifting most of the Delaware government relations practice out of Faegre Drinker Biddle and Reath. What it assembled after that is the reason this section exists.
Thomas McGonigle runs the Wilmington office. He was chief of staff to Governor Jack Markell from 2009 to 2012, and he is a registered lobbyist for the Diamond State Port Corporation. He has given $3,300 across five contributions since September 26, 2016, the last of them $1,200 on October 5, 2024. Twenty-four days later, Patricia McGonigle gave $1,200 from 1305 Shipley Road, Apartment A, the same address, and $1,200 more on November 20, 2025, $2,400 across two. Nine years, seven contributions, $5,700 out of one apartment.
Douglas Gramiak is co-director of state government affairs. He was chief of staff to Governor John Carney from 2017 to 2019. He is the registered lobbyist for the Diamond State Port Corporation, for Harvey, Hanna and Associates, and for the Buccini Pollin Group, and he registered for Buccini Pollin on January 20, 2020, the same day he registered for the port. He and Stephanie Gramiak each gave $600 on October 29, 2024, from 5 Harrington Court.
Mary Kate McLaughlin is the other co-director of state government affairs. She came over from Faegre Drinker in June 2021 after serving in the administrations of Governor Ruth Ann Minner and Governor Jack Markell, including as chief of staff to the Delaware Secretary of Education. She gave $850 across two contributions in October 2024.
That is the political side. Now the land use side, and this is the part nobody has written down.
Shawn P. Tucker was First Assistant County Attorney of New Castle County, responsible for every land use matter and every piece of litigation that came out of one. He led the rewrite and adoption of the Unified Development Code, which is the zoning and subdivision law New Castle County still runs on today. When it passed, the county put him in charge of the Department of Land Use to roll it out. He is now a partner at Barnes and Thornburg LLP and one of the leading land use and zoning attorneys in Delaware, recognized in that practice area since 2023, named to the Delaware 222 list in 2024, 2025, and 2026, and a registered lobbyist for the Diamond State Port Corporation. His projects include the Stoltz Amazon warehouse, the Cavaliers Country Club redevelopment, and the Aldi warehouse in New Castle.
Tucker has given $6,480 across eleven contributions since September 28, 2016, $2,200 of it to Change Can't Wait PAC, including $200 on October 19, 2024, and $1,000 on October 29, filed from 222 Delaware Avenue, Suite 1200. Michele Tucker, filing as Michele W Tucker and Michele Tucker at 414 Derby Way, has given $2,900 across four, and a fifth check of $1,000 on August 18, 2023, came in as Michelle W. Tucker of 37589 Atlantic Street in Rehoboth Beach, and that one went to Change Can't Wait PAC. The name reaches $3,900 across five. The Derby Way household is $9,380 across fifteen.
James Smith Jr. was assistant general manager of that same department. He ran assessment, geographical information systems, code enforcement, community governance, and planning. He drafted the legislation for the Unified Development Code, for the Property Maintenance Code, and for the Residential Rental Properties Code, and he carried that legislation to New Castle County Council himself. He is now a project manager at Barnes and Thornburg LLP, working the same approvals he used to administer. He has given $1,220 across three contributions, all of it inside the candidate accounts.
In September 2025, the firm went back to the same department and hired two more. Janet Vinc brought more than two decades in municipal planning and land use management, including economic development work in Smyrna. Brad Shockley brought more than twenty-five years in the public sector, and his name appears as Bradford Shockley of the New Castle County Department of Land Use on a Delaware Department of Transportation review letter dated May 15, 2023. Delaware Business Times reported the reason without dressing it up: the firm hopes that intimate knowledge of the county's processes will translate to shorter approval times for its growing client base.
"Barnes and Thornburg LLP did not hire people who know New Castle County. It hired New Castle County. Shawn P. Tucker led the rewrite of the zoning code. James Smith Jr. drafted the legislation and carried it to Council. Janet Vinc and Brad Shockley administered it. All four now sit in the same land use practice,
and the firm says out loud that it bought them for speed."
The firm itself has written Matt Meyer three checks, on September 27, 2023, October 10, 2024, and November 20, 2025. $1,200 each, the statutory maximum, three years running, $3,600 in all.
Delaware's own checkbook shows $13,719,480.19 going the other way.
"Barnes and Thornburg LLP gave Matt Meyer $3,600.
The State of Delaware has paid Barnes and Thornburg LLP $13,719,480.19."
Even the building has a history. The Wilmington office is at 222 Delaware Avenue. Shawn P. Tucker filed from Suite 1200 in October 2024, and directory listings put him in Suite 1410. Saul Ewing Arnstein and Lehr LLP, the development firm of Pam Scott and Wendie Stabler, filed its contribution from Suite 1200 on September 26, 2016. Both of them gave in their own names as well. Pam Scott, of 209 Meadowdale Drive in Newark, has given $1,175 across four contributions: $125 on October 28, 2016; $150 on October 23, 2019; $150 on December 18, 2019; and $750 filed as Pamela Scott on October 27, 2024. Wendie Stabler, of Post Office Box 123 in Montchanin, has given $625 across three, $125 filed as Wendie C. Stabler on October 28, 2016, $250 on October 3, 2023, and $250 on August 12, 2024.
Drinker Biddle and Reath LLP, the firm the Barnes and Thornburg team walked out of in 2021, filed from Suite 1410 on September 26, 2016, and gave again on November 4, 2019. Stradley Ronon Stevens and Young LLP gave $1,200 on September 26, 2024. And on March 7, 2024, Labaton Keller Sucharow LLP put $20,000 into Change Can't Wait PAC from Suite 1510, five floors up. The port lobbyists, their households, and their firms come to $23,280 across thirty-one contributions.
The man who signs the reports
One more man crosses between New Castle County and this money, and he does not work for a law firm at all.
Thomas Alexander Meitzler goes by Alex. He is a professional engineer with thirty years in traffic and transportation. He has worked at Pennoni, at VanDemark and Lynch, Inc., at A. Morton Thomas and Associates, Inc., and now at Traffic Planning and Design, Inc., which covers Delaware out of an office at 111 East Main Street in Elkton, Maryland.
He is also the treasurer of Change Can't Wait PAC. He has signed every report the committee has filed since it opened on June 17, 2021, straight through to the one filed on August 17, 2026. Fourteen reports, five years, one signature at the bottom of each. He turns up on the donor list of the committee he administers exactly twice: $90 on September 21, 2021 and $10 on April 18, 2022, which is $100 even, the precise figure at which Delaware starts printing a contributor's name. He has never given a dollar to a Matt Meyer campaign account.
Now look at what he did with the rest of his time.
In 2015, the Commercial Development Company of St. Louis bought the dead Evraz Claymont Steel mill, 413 acres on the east side of Interstate 495, running along both sides of Philadelphia Pike and down the southwest side of Naamans Road. Stephen Collins of the Commercial Development Company likes to call Claymont Philadelphia's most southern suburb. On January 31, 2024, Stephen Collins gave Meyer for Delaware $599 from 49 Sherin Drive in Newark. Six hundred dollars is the threshold at which Delaware requires an occupation and employer on the filing. He gave $599.
They named the project First State Crossing and drew 3.75 million square feet onto it: 620 townhomes, 576 apartments, 844,000 square feet of offices, 370,000 of industrial, a 120-room hotel, 47,000 square feet of retail. Tax parcels 06-048.00-001, 06-059.00-162, 06-072.00-198, and 06-073.00-001, split-zoned Industrial and Heavy Industrial, none of it buildable without subdivision and rezoning approval from New Castle County.
Traffic Planning and Design, Inc. wrote the traffic impact study. The Delaware Department of Transportation addressed its review letters to Mr. Alex Meitzler by name on September 14, 2021, on July 3, 2023, and on July 5, 2023. Annamaria Furmato, the Traffic Impact Study Group Project Engineer, signed them.
Copies went to Russ Becker of Claymont Properties LLC, to Douglas Eitelman of VanDemark and Lynch, Inc., which is both the site engineer on the project and the firm Alex Meitzler used to work for, to David L. Edgell at the Office of State Planning Coordination, to Andrew J. Parker of McCormick Taylor, Inc., who did the review for the State, and to three officials of the New Castle County Department of Land Use: Antoni Sekowski, Owen C. Robatino, and Bradford Shockley, who two years later would be sitting at Barnes and Thornburg.
Then read the finding in the July 3, 2023 letter. The proposed First State Crossing development would meet the New Castle County Level of Service standards as stated in Section 40.11.210 of the Unified Development Code.
Section 40.11.210. That is the Level of Service standard, the number a project has to hit before New Castle County will let it pour traffic onto a public road. It is the provision Shawn P. Tucker led the rewrite of, and James Smith Jr. drafted the legislation for. Both men now work at Barnes and Thornburg LLP.
So the study that moved 413 acres through New Castle County was graded against a section of code written by two men who now sell their knowledge of it, and filed by the treasurer of the committee that spent $1,568,590.17 to elect the County Executive who ran the department reviewing it.
"The traffic study that carried 413 acres of Philadelphia Pike through New Castle County was measured against Section 40.11.210 of the Unified Development Code. Shawn P. Tucker led the rewrite of that code. James Smith Jr. drafted it.
Thomas Alexander Meitzler, whose name is on the State review letters,
signs the financial reports of the committee that spent
$1,568,590.17 to make Matt Meyer governor."
One more line in that letter is worth sitting with. Between the September 2022 submission and the July 2023 review, Site Parcel 1 stopped being 432,000 square feet of offices, a restaurant, retail, and a pharmacy and became a 300,012 square foot cold storage warehouse. Site Parcel 3 stopped being an industrial park with offices and became a 358,000 square foot warehouse. That is 658,012 square feet of warehouse dropped onto Philadelphia Pike, two miles from the Edgemoor terminal site, after the plan had already been through review.
Remember Philadelphia Pike. It comes back.
The first five months
Meyer for Delaware opened on August 9, 2021. What landed in that account before the year was out tells you who was paying attention.
Batta Environmental Associates, Inc. of 6 Garfield Way in Newark gave $250 on December 28, 2021, and has given $550 across three since November 3, 2016. Dev Sitaram of Karins and Associates gave $600 on December 28, 2021, and has given $1,725 across seven since October 28, 2016. Deirdre Smith of Verdantas, formerly Duffield Associates, gave $600 on December 18, 2021, and has given $2,000 across five since May 14, 2019. Landmark Engineering, Inc., of 200 Continental Drive, Suite 400, in Newark, gave $250 on December 15, 2022. Pennoni of 1900 Market Street in Philadelphia has given $2,900 across six payments since December 7, 2017, including $500 on August 30, 2021.
These are the firms that write the traffic studies, the environmental assessments, and the site plans that a New Castle County land use application lives or dies on, and they all gave inside the same window. Saul Ewing Arnstein and Lehr LLP gave $300 on November 10, 2021, and has given $4,500 across eight contributions since September 28, 2016, the first of those filed from 222 Delaware Avenue, Suite 1200. A. Kimberly Hoffman of Morris James LLP gave $200 the same day and $600 more across two contributions on November 28, 2022, $800 in all.
Barbara Neuse of the Buccini Pollin Group gave $1,200 on December 25, 2021. Chaim Weiss of Hope Commercial Holdings, a warehouse developer, gave $1,200 on December 27, 2021, from 15 Buchanan Street in Lakewood, New Jersey, and $5,000 to Change Can't Wait PAC on February 24, 2023, and $6,200 across two. Rachel Heisler of 10 Ardmoor Lane in Chadds Ford gave $1,200 on December 28, 2021. Jerome Heisler of Post Office Box 582 and Joshua Heisler of 10 Ardmoor Lane each gave $1,200 the next day.
Jerome S Heisler Jr put $5,000 into Change Can't Wait PAC on December 16, 2023. Jerome Heisler gave $1,200 again on October 7, 2024, and Joshua Heisler $600 on November 3, 2024. The Heislers of the Reybold Group are $10,400 across six. Cheryl A. Staffieri of Fusco Management gave $1,200 on December 29, 2021, from 1702 North Park Drive. Brian Disabatino of EDIS Construction gave $1,200 on November 14, 2021, from 27 The Strand in Historic New Castle, and $600 before that on August 2, 2020, $1,800 across two. Carmen Facciolo of Emery Hill Real Estate gave $1,200 on December 29, 2021, from 607 Kilburn Road, and has given $3,725 across five since November 7, 2016.
The developers
The Buccini Pollin Group and the people who run it have given $19,850 across eighteen contributions, beginning with $200 from Donato R Buccini on August 23, 2016. Chris Buccini, Robert Buccini, and Maria Bonetti de Buccini each gave $600 on October 11, 2016, from 322 A Street. David Pollin gave $250 on December 3, 2019, from Chevy Chase, Maryland. Barbara Neuse of 105 Hidden Pond Drive in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, gave $600 on September 9, 2020, and $1,200 on December 25, 2021.
In four days at the end of December 2021, Chris Buccini, Mati Buccini, and Rob Buccini each gave $1,200; then David Pollin and Kirstin Pollin of 6601 Elgin Lane in Bethesda each gave $1,200; then Elizabeth Buccini gave $1,200 on December 27. Bernadette Buccini gave $1,200 on January 1, 2022; Maria Buccini $1,200 on November 10, 2022; and Kirsten Pollin $1,200 on August 5, 2024. And $5,000 went to Change Can't Wait PAC in two checks four days apart: $2,500 from Robert Buccini on November 30, 2023, from 217 Cossart Road, which the State printed as Cossat Road, and $2,500 from Christopher F Buccini on December 4, 2023, from 1000 North West Street. Douglas Gramiak of Barnes and Thornburg has carried their lobbying registration since January 20, 2020, the same day he took the port.
Pettinaro interests at 234 North James Street in Newport, including Gregory Pettinaro, have given $14,000 across six contributions since September 28, 2016. $10,600 of it went to Change Can't Wait PAC: $600 from Gregory Pettinaro on August 23, 2023, and $10,000 from the Verino Pettinaro Revocable Trust on April 4, 2024, filed with the trust's own name misspelled as Recocable.
Gerret Van S. Copeland, the du Pont heir who filed from Post Office Box 4060 in Greenville, gave $43,600 across six, filed variously as Gerret S Van Copeland, Gerret Van Copeland, and Gerret Van S Copeland. $600 on December 31, 2019, $600 on January 9, 2020, $1,200 on July 2, 2022, then $15,000 into Change Can't Wait PAC on November 13, 2023, and $25,000 more on May 26, 2024, then $1,200 on October 23, 2024. Tatiana Copeland of 175 Brecks Lane has given $3,600 across four on the same four candidate dates. The household reaches $47,200 across ten.
Fusco entities at 200 Airport Road in New Castle have given $13,000 across six since June 21, 2016, filed variously as Fund-Fusco Properties LP, Fund-Fusco Enterprises L.P. and Fusco Properties LP. $10,000 of it went to Change Can't Wait PAC, $5,000 on October 10, 2023, and $5,000 on August 20, 2024.
On June 3, 2024, an entity called 847 Cranbrook, LLC put $100,000 into Change Can't Wait PAC. It is named for a house on Cranbrook Drive but files from 300 Delaware Avenue, Suite 1370. It traces back to Michael Stortini, a Wilmington developer, formerly a managing partner at the Frank Robino Company and once in court against Donald Trump over an Atlantic City property.
In 2013, Michael Stortini was indicted on charges that he diverted more than $600,000 out of his employees' retirement accounts, left payroll taxes unpaid, and took $900,000 from the company, roughly $500,000 of it spent at casinos. He pleaded guilty in 2014, served two years, and came home in 2016. The Internal Revenue Service put a lien on 847 Cranbrook Drive in 2017. New Castle County sold the house at a sheriff's sale in 2019 to Midnight Moon Trading Co LLC, which handed it the same day to 847 Cranbrook Drive LLC, formed the month before by Paul Stortini, his son. Ricardo McKendrick, who has worked with Paul Stortini at HS Capital, has said the contribution was fully legal.
What has never been published is what the family did first. On July 11, 2023, eleven months before the LLC wrote its $100,000, Michael Stortini, Lisa Stortini and Paul Stortini each gave $1,200 to Meyer for Delaware. Three checks, one day, $3,600, the maximum apiece. Michael Stortini and Lisa Stortini both filed from 300 Meredith Avenue, Suite 1370. Paul Stortini, who runs HS Capital, filed from 847 Cranbrook Drive itself.
Todd Fryatt is president of ECA Solar, and in March 2024 his company sold two southern Delaware solar farms to a company owned by Brookfield. He has given $75,401 across fifteen contributions, and $73,000 of it went to Change Can't Wait PAC. It started with $10,000 on May 2, 2022 and did not stop: $500 in December 2022, $2,000 and $2,500 on the same day in June 2023, $5,000 that August, $5,000 that September, $3,000 in March 2024, $5,000 in June, $5,000 in July, $5,000 in October, $5,000 on September 11, 2025, and $25,000 on April 16, 2026, his largest. He filed thirteen of the fifteen from 711 East 7th Street in Boston and two from 6 Saddleback Drive in Nashua, New Hampshire. He is the largest individual donor in this entire report, and no one has ever named him in it.
Richard J. Julian is a developer at 111 Greenspring Road in Greenville. The house has given $29,800 across seven contributions, and $25,000 of it went to Change Can't Wait PAC: a $20,000 check on March 11, 2024, filed as Richard J Julian, and $5,000 more on August 3, 2026. The remaining $4,800 is spread across Richard Julian, Catherine Julian, and Claire Julian in the candidate account, where the ceiling is $1,200.
The five-figure checks nobody has named
Set the households aside and look at what else went into Change Can't Wait PAC. These are the contributors who wrote five figures and whose names have never appeared in print.
Chip DiPaula, of 2 Penn Street in Rehoboth Beach, gave $27,400 across three contributions. $1,200 to Meyer for Delaware on August 4, 2024, $25,000 to Change Can't Wait PAC the very same day, and $1,200 more to the candidate on September 25, 2024.
Jeffrey Carper, of 748 Burke Road Northeast in Atlanta, Georgia, gave $26,450 across five. $1,200 on August 30, 2022, then $5,000 and $10,000 into the PAC on the same day, June 5, 2024, then $10,000 more on August 22, 2024, then $250 on August 30, 2025.
Robert L Siegfried, of 1830 Masters Way in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, gave $23,800 into the PAC across three: $3,800 on April 27, 2023, then $10,000 on June 3, 2024, and $10,000 more the next day.
Jay Patel gave $22,400 across four, starting at $600 from 2511 West 4th Street in Wilmington in November 2017 and ending with $20,000 into Change Can't Wait PAC on August 19, 2024, from 2500 West 4th Street.
The Schell family of Rehoboth Beach comes to $78,600. Chris Schell of 20184 Phillips Street gave $21,200 across four, including $10,000 into the PAC on March 13, 2024, and $10,000 more on August 16, 2024. Preston Schell gave $17,400 across four, including $5,000 on June 6, 2022, and $10,000 on March 18, 2024, both filed from 18949 Coastal Highway, Suite 301. Joseph M Schell of Vero Beach, Florida, gave $10,000 on August 20, 2024. Lori J Schell gave $600 on November 10, 2021. And Schell Brothers LLC itself gave $25,000 on September 10, 2025, eleven months after the election was over.
Rush Street Interactive, the Chicago online gaming company at 900 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 950, gave $15,100 on November 19, 2025, and $3,700 two days later, $18,800 in all, a year after the election and with nothing on the ballot.
Onix Group LLC of 150 Onix Drive in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania gave $16,000 on September 30, 2024. John Christopher Brown of 11 Carolina Street in Dewey Beach gave $15,000 on August 27, 2024. Norman Aerenson of 1634 Charis Circle in Wilmington gave $12,567 across three payments, including $10,000 on May 24, 2024. Uday Uthaman of Post Office Box 8252 in Newark gave $12,200 across four, including $10,000 on March 30, 2024. Lawrence Stuardi of 829 Macclesfield Road in Furlong, Pennsylvania, gave $12,400 across three, including $10,000 on April 19, 2024.
M. Davis, the Wilmington industrial contractor, gave $17,000 across six from three different addresses: 19 Germay Drive in Wilmington, 227 Daylesford Court in Kennett Square, and 9 Tyler Way in Newark. The $10,000 came on June 7, 2024, and $5,000 more on September 15, 2025.
David M. Canterra of 2301 North Dupont Highway in New Castle gave $10,000 on March 26, 2024. Philip E Butler Sr of 636 Argyle Avenue in Ambler, Pennsylvania, gave $10,000 on May 15, 2024. And Frederick Airpark Properties LLC gave $10,000 on July 30, 2024, from 15215 Shady Grove Road, Suite 201, in Rockville, Maryland, the same building and the same suite number as Rickman Management LLC, which gave $10,000 of its own.
The Principled Veterans Fund, a committee filing from Post Office Box 813 in Alexandria, Virginia, gave Change Can't Wait PAC $25,000 on September 5, 2024, one day after Michael R. Bloomberg's $250,000 and five days before the primary.
ABC Merit Shop PAC, the political committee of the Associated Builders and Contractors at 31 Blevins Drive in New Castle, has given $10,400 across eight contributions since June 7, 2016, including $5,000 into Change Can't Wait PAC on July 17, 2024.
Robert Field of 2413 West 17th Street in Wilmington has given $10,350 across ten contributions since October 18, 2016, starting at $100 and ending with $2,500 into the PAC on August 8, 2024, and $5,000 more on November 15, 2025.
And the Delaware corporate bar shows up in the PAC after the election, not before it. Stuart M Grant of 11 Summit Lane in Greenville gave $5,000 on December 10, 2023, and $5,000 on July 16, 2024. Garrett B Moritz of 1801 North Bancroft Parkway gave $5,000 on April 27, 2024, and $5,000 on August 28, 2025. David Ross of 708 Edgehill Road gave $5,000 on September 22, 2025. Marcos Ramos of 813 Owls Nest Road gave $5,000 on December 18, 2025. Benjamin Y Lieber of Washington gave $5,000 on September 23, 2025, and $5,000 more on April 27, 2026.
"Twelve contributors who have never been named in print put $176,167 into Change Can't Wait PAC. Not one of them could have given the candidate more than $1,200."
VI-B. What They Paid, And What They Got
Set the contributions beside the money moving the other way, because that is the only comparison that matters to anyone paying taxes in New Castle County.
Barnes and Thornburg LLP gave Matt Meyer $3,600 in three checks at the statutory maximum. Delaware's own checkbook shows the State has paid Barnes and Thornburg LLP $13,719,480.19.
Murphy Marine Services Inc., the stevedoring company that has worked the Port of Wilmington for decades in the fresh fruit trade, gave nothing. Not one dollar in sixteen years. Darrell J. Baker has been its registered lobbyist since October 20, 2008. On January 10, 2025, by Resolution 25-03, the Diamond State Port Corporation paid $2,850,000 for 1.91 acres at 701 Christiana Avenue, which is Murphy Marine's business address, and added that ground to the leasehold of Enstructure, the private company that runs the port.
Drawbridge Claymont, LLC took $1,000,000 from the Site Readiness Fund on March 28, 2022, for fifty-eight acres at 6300 Philadelphia Pike. It has since given Change Can't Wait PAC $55,000, and Keith Delaney has given $30,000 more, one check of it filed from 6300 Philadelphia Pike itself.
Harvey, Hanna and Associates bought the shuttered General Motors plant on Boxwood Road on a deed that recorded ten dollars. Seven people connected to that firm gave $8,400 in thirty-eight days, and Douglas Gramiak registered as the firm's Delaware lobbyist on January 1, 2022, inside that window, while already holding the Diamond State Port Corporation.
The Diamond State Port Corporation itself took $110 million in House Bill 500. Four of its registered lobbyists, two of their spouses, and their firm paid into Matt Meyer's account. Summit North Marina, whose lobbyist and registered agent is the same Darrell J. Baker, is the subject of the $30 million purchase in the same bill, and four companies at that marina gave $2,800.
"Barnes and Thornburg gave Matt Meyer $3,600. Delaware has paid Barnes and Thornburg $13,719,480.19. Murphy Marine gave nothing in sixteen years,
and Delaware paid $2,850,000 for 1.91 acres at its address
and handed the ground to the port's operator."
Aternium, and the lobbyists who arrived first
On July 29, 2025, James Smith Junior registered as the Delaware lobbyist for Aternium Inc. On September 1, 2025, Douglas Gramiak registered for the same company. Both men are registered lobbyists for the Diamond State Port Corporation.
In late September 2025, Aternium received $1,000,000 from the Delaware Accelerator and Seed Capital Program, which is federally funded and state-administered, to develop engineering for clean hydrogen. The port corporation's own lobbyists signed the company one and two months before the money arrived.
Aternium sits inside the Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub, known as MACH2, which the United States Department of Energy selected on October 13, 2023, for award negotiations of up to $750 million across Delaware, southeastern Pennsylvania, and South Jersey. On April 22, 2026, the Department of Energy preserved nearly $5 billion for five hydrogen hubs, including MACH2, the same month the Army Corps of Engineers reissued the Edgemoor permit.
Run the rest of the consortium against the State's lobbyist file. Bloom Energy is in MACH2, and Thomas McGonigle has been its Delaware lobbyist since January 12, 2016. Croda Inc. is in MACH2, and Thomas McGonigle and Shawn P. Tucker have both been its lobbyists since June 18, 2015. The Delaware City Refinery, owned by PBF Energy, is in MACH2, and Patrick Allen has been its lobbyist since December 1, 2023. Patrick Allen is also the lobbyist for Enstructure and for International Longshoremen's Association Local 1694.
Bloom Energy gave Matt Meyer $1,200 on November 21, 2024, filed from 4353 North First Street in San Jose, California.
"Four companies inside a $750 million federal hydrogen program are represented in Dover by the same handful of people who represent the Port of Wilmington,
its private operator, and its longshoremen."
The other addresses on Douglas Gramiak's list
Douglas Gramiak holds thirty-five lobbying registrations. He took the Diamond State Port Corporation on January 20, 2020, and took the Buccini Pollin Group the same day. He took Harvey, Hanna and Associates on January 1, 2022. He took Stoltz Real Estate Partners. He took Aternium on September 1, 2025.
And on March 1, 2026, four months before House Bill 500, he took an entity called Diamond Port Property LLC. That is a warehouse and housing development on the Christina River in Southbridge, on the former Diamond Oil site, which carries a 2005 deed restriction from the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control barring residential use, and whose Wilmington zoning certificate the city later said was issued in error.
Jack Stoltz and Susan Stoltz each gave $1,200 on October 24, 2024, from Post Office Box 371 and Post Office Box 731 in Montchanin. Shawn P. Tucker is the land use attorney on the Stoltz Amazon warehouse. Douglas Gramiak is Stoltz Real Estate Partners' registered lobbyist.
Thomas McGonigle holds forty-one registrations of his own, including NorthPoint Development since October 9, 2018, and Barnes and Thornburg LLP itself since October 1, 2024. NorthPoint sponsored a Philadelphia logistics panel alongside Holt Logistics Corporation.
The men who ran the money before they lobbied it
Michael Houghton chaired the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council for eight years, appointed to the chair by Governor John Carney in April 2017. On March 17, 2025, Governor Matt Meyer handed the gavel to Alan B. Levin, and Michael Houghton stayed on as an ordinary member. On March 16, 2026, he asked the Delaware Department of State for corporate revenue figures it had not produced, and two days later, an email from Governor Matt Meyer's office ended his service on the council entirely.
Michael Houghton had given Matt Meyer $300 on December 4, 2019, and $1,200 on September 21, 2024, both filed from 27527 Medallion Avenue in Millsboro. Leigh Houghton gave $1,200 from that same address on October 27, 2024. The household total is $2,700 across three contributions.
"Michael Houghton and his household paid Matt Meyer $2,700. Seventeen months
after the last of those checks, Matt Meyer's office ended his service by email,
two days after he asked the Department of State a question about revenue."
Geoffrey Sawyer, the Faegre Drinker partner who runs Delaware's unclaimed property program for the State, gave $1,200 on December 31, 2022, $2,500 into Change Cant Wait PAC on June 11, 2024, $1,200 on September 19, 2024 and $1,200 on July 30, 2025, $6,700 across five, from 1406 Gilpin Avenue in Wilmington. The wider Sawyer family gives $13,350 across twenty-one contributions. Unclaimed property is the fund Delaware leaned on to pay for the port.
Gregory Patterson, Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, gave $250 on September 26, 2024, from 34 Coventry Court in Dover, the same day Stradley Ronon Stevens and Young wrote the first check in the Edgemoor sequence. Secretary Patterson is the official who later told legislators the State had not seen payment from the Summit North Marina operators for a number of years, before Delaware committed $30 million to buy it.
Tuesday, October 29, 2024, had six checks
Section V counted five that day. There was a sixth, and it came from the other side of the dock.
Allen Strategies LLC gave $1,200 on October 29, 2024, filed from 4520 Lancaster Pike, Suite 320 in Wilmington. The lobbyist registration for Patrick Allen reads 4250 Lancaster Pike, Suite 230. Both numbers are transposed on the two filings.
Patrick Allen is the registered Delaware lobbyist for Enstructure, the company that operates the Port of Wilmington, since June 1, 2023. He is the registered lobbyist for International Longshoremen's Association Local 1694 since April 15, 2025. He held GT USA, the first company Delaware handed a fifty-year lease of the port, since February 15, 2018. And he holds PBF Energy, which owns the Delaware City Refinery.
So on the Tuesday after Judge Kearney vacated the Edgemoor permit, six checks went into Meyer for Delaware. Douglas Gramiak: $600 and Stephanie Gramiak: $600 from 5 Harrington Court. Shawn P. Tucker: $1,000 from 222 Delaware Avenue and Michele Tucker: $1,000 from 414 Derby Way. Patricia McGonigle: $1,200 from 1305A Shipley Road. And Allen Strategies LLC: $1,200. Twenty miles away, Summit Point LLC gave $1,000 from Post Office Box 422 in Rockland. Seven checks, $6,600, one day.
And October 7 had two, not one. Darrell J. Baker, Esquire, Pennsylvania, gave $1,200 that day. So did Edward Hazzouri, of Hazzouri and Associates at 115 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia, filing from 595 Linton Hill Road in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Hazzouri registered as Holt Logistics Corporation's Delaware lobbyist on October 3, 2022, a month before Baker did. Both of Holt's Delaware lobbyists paid Matt Meyer on the same day, twenty-one days before the ruling.
Rockland has more than one box in this story. Summit Point LLC files from Post Office Box 422. Westport Maven Group LLC gave $1,200 on September 9, 2024, and $1,200 on October 10, 2024 from Post Office Box 384. Sean Finnigan, who is the registered lobbyist for Enstructure and for D2 Management LLC and who files from Post Office Box 394, gave $500 himself on October 10, 2024. Three post office boxes in a village of about two hundred people.
James Smith Junior, the fourth registered lobbyist for the Diamond State Port Corporation, gave nothing in the autumn of 2024. He gave $600 on July 1, 2022, $600 on October 30, 2023, and $20 on February 18, 2024, $1,220 across three, all of it in the candidate account.
Why nobody had to coordinate
There is a test a hostile reader would run first, so it belongs here: run and reported. If Darrell J. Baker's operation and the Barnes and Thornburg operation were one coordinated group, they would share clients. Every employer in all 2,096 Delaware lobbying registrations was checked. There is not one shared employer between Darrell J. Baker's ten clients and the client books of Thomas McGonigle, Shawn P. Tucker, Douglas Gramiak and James Smith Junior. Zero overlap.
That is the finding, and it is not the one people expect. Delaware's paid lobbying corps is 618 people representing 869 employers, and a handful of them hold every file that touches this waterfront. Nobody has to coordinate when the same six people represent everyone.
Every side of the Edgemoor fight, the marina the State is buying, the Boxwood Road warehouse, the Dover hydrogen plant, the Southbridge development, and the union that lost its holiday work is represented in Dover by one of about six people, several of whom worked in the Governor's office first. The State sits on one side of these deals, and its own former staff sits on the other, and they bill from the same handful of addresses.
"Thomas McGonigle was Jack Markell's chief of staff. Douglas Gramiak was
John Carney's chief of staff. Shawn P. Tucker ran New Castle County's Land Use Department and rewrote its zoning code. James Smith Junior drafted that code and carried it to County Council. All four now lobby the governments they used to run,
and the State of Delaware pays their firm $13,719,480.19."
Philadelphia Pike
Alex Meitzler filed his traffic studies on 413 acres of Philadelphia Pike. Fifty-eight more acres on the same road were doing something else.
On March 28, 2022, the Council on Development Finance approved $1,000,000 from the Site Readiness Fund to Drawbridge Claymont, LLC for fifty-eight acres at 6300 Philadelphia Pike.
On April 29, 2024, Drawbridge Claymont, LLC put $30,000 into Change Can't Wait PAC, filed from 34 East Germantown Pike in Norristown, Pennsylvania.
On September 5, 2024, Keith Delaney put $15,000 into the same committee, filed from 190 West Germantown Pike in East Norriton. He had given $1,200 to Meyer for Delaware on December 23, 2022, from Isle of Palms, South Carolina, and reaches $31,200 across three.
On October 2, 2024, Keith Delaney put in $15,000 more, and this time he filed it from 6300 Philadelphia Pike, Claymont, Delaware. The parcel itself.
On May 12, 2026, nineteen months after the election, with nothing on the ballot, Drawbridge Claymont, LLC sent $25,000 more.
"$1,000,000 of public money went onto fifty-eight acres of Philadelphia Pike in 2022. $85,000 came back off those acres and into a political action committee across
2024 and 2026, and the last check was written a year and a half
after the election was over."
The two largest checks
Michael R. Bloomberg gave $250,000 to Change Can't Wait PAC on September 4, 2024, six days before the primary, out of a post office box in New York. The day before it landed, the committee was down to about $38,000, having spent more than $1,000,000 on advertising. It is the largest single check any committee in this network has ever taken in.
TransPerfect Translations International, the company run by Phil Shawe, gave $1,300,000. Five checks to Citizens for a New Delaware Way, all of them filed from 1250 Broadway in New York under the company's name. $250,000 on June 13, 2024. $250,000 on June 20, 2024. $500,000 on August 8, 2024. $250,000 on August 23, 2024. And $50,000 on November 18, 2025, a full year after the election had been decided. Phil Shawe announced the effort publicly in July 2024 as $1,000,000. The filings show $300,000 more than he announced, and his own name is on none of it.
Darrell J. Baker Esquire, PA, the registered lobbyist and registered agent for Summit North Marina, gave $1,200 on October 7, 2024, from 1601 Concord Pike, Suite 100 in Wilmington. Twenty-three days later, Leo Holt gave the same amount. On October 30, 2024, Leo Holt, the president of Holt Logistics Corporation, gave $1,200 from 101 South King Street in Gloucester City, New Jersey. The maximum, and not a dollar over, because $1,200 was everything the law would let him hand the candidate.
"Michael R. Bloomberg gave $250,000. TransPerfect gave $1,300,000. Leo Holt gave $1,200. Two of them were buying an election. The third was buying a phone call."
What the arithmetic says
Two hundred ninety-one contributions come from the households named above. $2,354,271.82.
$142,371.82 of it went into the candidate accounts, where 15 Del. C. section 8010 set a $1,200 ceiling, and the Delaware Department of Elections printed every name.
$2,211,900 went into the political action committees, where the law set nothing.
"Ninety-four cents of every dollar from the households named above
went where the law does not look."
It did not all go to one place. These households wrote to four different committees. $32,500 to Meyer for New Castle County. $109,871.82 to Meyer for Delaware. $911,900 to Change Cant Wait PAC. And $1,300,000 to Citizens for a New Delaware Way, every dollar of it from TransPerfect Translations International.
Meyer for New Castle County opened at zero in February 2016 and closed at zero in December 2021, and on the last day of its life, December 31, 2021, it transferred $34,480.58 into Meyer for Delaware. Meyer for Delaware has taken in $3,377,113.84 in contributions and another $580,000 in loans and debts, and has spent $2,803,602.30. Every dollar of the $580,000 was repaid in 2025, the first year of the term. Change Can't Wait PAC has taken in $2,019,799.02 across fourteen reports, from the day it opened on June 17, 2021, through the 30-day report its treasurer filed on August 17, 2026, and it has spent $1,618,138.87 across 387 itemized lines. No in-kind contributions, no loans, no debts.
Schedule A is the whole of it. It sent $500,000 to Targeted Platform Media LLC and $139,436.99 to Devine Mulvey Longabaugh, the Washington firm whose named partner, Julian Mulvey, speaks for the committee. And between August 15 and September 4, 2024, in seven transfers over twenty days, it pushed $762,060.64 into its own Third-Party Advertiser at Post Office Box 54 in Wilmington, where the donors never have to be listed again.
Citizens for a New Delaware Way did the same thing with the TransPerfect money, running $1,268,567.72 through its Third-Party Advertiser, which opened every reporting period at zero, spent every dollar it took in, and closed at zero. Ten filings. Ten times.
Across all five committees, from February 2016 through August 2026, the network reports receipts of $8,530,295.89. Of that, $1,268,567.72 is money Citizens for a New Delaware Way moved into its own Third-Party Advertiser in nine transfers between July 18 and August 30, 2024, so it is counted twice, once going in and once moving over. Strip the transfer out, and the network raised $7,261,728.17 from outside itself.
None of this is a loophole somebody found. It is the design. Delaware wrote a hard limit on the money you can see and no limit at all on the money you cannot, and then published the small numbers beautifully.
Leo Holt gave $1,200. Michael R. Bloomberg gave $250,000. Both of them followed the law exactly.
VII. The Corrado Way
"Three companies with the same family name sit at 200, 204, and 210 Marsh Lane
in New Castle. One of them is a union shop. One of them is a merit shop.
Between them, they built the Port of Wilmington for Gulftainer, the rail yard
for Drawbridge Claymont, and the Amazon warehouse on Boxwood Road.
Joseph Corrado Jr. has given Matt Meyer $11,900."
Marsh Lane runs east off Route 9 in New Castle, past a fleet yard and a line of pickups, and if you drive it on a weekday morning, you will pass the same family name three times in four hundred feet.
200 Marsh Lane is Corrado American.
204 Marsh Lane is Corrado Management Services.
210 Marsh Lane is Corrado Construction Company.
Keep going another mile and a half, and Marsh Lane runs into Newport, and at 405 Marsh Lane, Suite 1, sits Harvey, Hanna and Associates, the firm that bought the shuttered General Motors plant on Boxwood Road on a deed that recorded ten dollars.
Almost nobody in New Castle County has heard of any of them. They have built most of what you drive past.
Eighty Years On One Street
Joseph S. Corrado started the first company in 1945. His own phrase for how the family worked was The Corrado Way, and it is still on the company website today, described there as an aspirational credo representing the notion that hard work and diligence bring their own reward.
His son, Joseph J. Corrado, Sr., joined the family business after graduating from St. Joseph's University in 1968. He was president of Corrado American, the company his father founded, before becoming president of Corrado Management Services in 1984, where he remains, at 204 Marsh Lane.
Read his own biography, and you will find the part that matters here. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Delaware Contractors Association, and he once chaired its Legislative Committee. He is a past president of the Delaware Utility and Transportation Contractors Association and served on the national board of the National Utility Contractors Association, which named him Ditchdigger of the Year in 1982. And he was appointed by the Governor of Delaware to the Clean Water Advisory Council.
His son, Joe Corrado, Jr., is the third generation. He owns and operates Corrado Construction Company at 210 Marsh Lane.
"A man who chaired the Legislative Committee of the Delaware Contractors Association and was appointed to a state council by a Governor runs one of three construction companies on one street. His son runs another. His grandfather started
the first one in 1945."
One Family, Both Sides of the Labor Line
Look at how the two operating companies describe themselves, in their own words, on their own websites.
Corrado American, at 200 Marsh Lane: Union Shop.
Corrado Construction Company, at 210 Marsh Lane: Merit shop site development contractor serving DE, MD, PA, NJ.
Merit shop is the industry's term for non-union. It is the same word in the name of ABC Merit Shop PAC, the political committee of Associated Builders and Contractors, which gave Matt Meyer $1,200 on October 18, 2024, and $5,000 to Change Can't Wait PAC on July 17, 2024, and whose Delaware president, Governor Meyer nominated to the board of the Diamond State Port Corporation before the Delaware Senate rejected her.
One family. One street. A union company at one address and a non-union company at another, two doors apart.
Now remember the forty-five men in Section I. International Longshoremen's Association Local 1694, who lost Presidents Day for the first time in thirty years, and whose registered Delaware lobbyist, Patrick Allen, also represents Enstructure, the company that operates the port they were locked out of.
"The Corrado family can bid a job union or non-union without leaving the block.
The longshoremen had one lobbyist, and he worked for the other side."
What Corrado American Built At The Port
Corrado American's own project page states it plainly. Project: Port of Wilmington. Client: Gulftainer USA. Design Professional: Jacobs. Job Size: $20+ Million.
It was the first phase of the yard densification project. Fourteen multi-level reefer racks, which are the refrigerated container stacks the fruit trade lives on. Expansion of the dry container storage area. Infrastructure to support the new gantry cranes. Over three miles of electrical and communication duct bank. Over four thousand linear feet of concrete runway and busbar foundation. Thirty-two helical pile foundations.
And the busbar assembly, which the company says was the first of its kind installed in the United States.
Gulftainer is the Emirati operator that took the fifty-year concession the Diamond State Port Corporation board approved unanimously in April 2018, at the meeting where Gulftainer chief executive Peter Richards told the board his company was in talks with Harvey Hanna about an inland port at Boxwood Road, and Secretary of State Jeff Bullock, then chairman of that board, used the same phrase.
The contractor was on Marsh Lane. The inland port partner was on Marsh Lane.
And What It Built In Claymont
Same company, different page. Project: Claymont Rail Yard and Environmental Capping. Client: Drawbridge Claymont, LLC. Location: Claymont, DE. Job Size: $3 to $5 Million. Date of Completion: April 2019.
Roughly fourteen acres at the former General Chemical plant. All existing concrete debris removed to two feet below subgrade. Several thousand cubic yards of footings dug out and stockpiled. A seventy-two-inch concrete drain pipe installed in place of the old sluiceway. Three high-mast lights, each about one hundred twenty feet. Fourteen acres of environmental liner, then a forty-five thousand cubic yard cushion layer of soil, then sub-ballast and ballast for the new rail yard.
Drawbridge Claymont, LLC is Keith J. Delaney's company. It is the same fifty-eight acres at 6300 Philadelphia Pike that took $1,000,000 from Delaware's Site Readiness Fund in March 2022, and the same company that has given Change Can't Wait PAC $55,000.
Corrado American also holds what it calls a decades-long maintenance contract with the Delaware City Refinery, and has built and rehabilitated over six miles of rail track at a New Castle County refinery. In October 2016, it built the Praxair carbon dioxide production plant inside that refinery for Atlantic Constructors.
The Delaware City Refinery belongs to PBF Energy. PBF Energy's registered Delaware lobbyist is Patrick Allen, who also holds Enstructure and International Longshoremen's Association Local 1694.
"The same contractor from Marsh Lane built the port for Gulftainer, the rail yard for Drawbridge Claymont, and six miles of track inside the Delaware City Refinery.
Three of the biggest names in this report, one company,
and its family has given the Governor $11,900."
What Corrado Construction Built
The merit shop at 210 Marsh Lane publishes its own portfolio, and it reads like a map of everything in this investigation.
Amazon Warehouse. Hyatt Place Hotel Lighthouse Cove, which is Harvey, Hanna and Associates' Dewey Beach project and Delaware's first Hyatt. Delaware Logistics Park. Duck Creek Business Park. Free State Business Park. Westown Business Park Apartments. Johnson Controls Distribution Center. Waste Management at the Delaware Recyclable Products facility. Fort Dupont.
Rockwood Apartments. The Incyte lab and parking garage. The AstraZeneca parking garage. The University of Delaware STAR Tower.
The company names its clients on its own homepage: Amazon, Walmart, DuPont, FedEx, and Waste Management.
A merit shop site contractor built the Hyatt for the developer who owns the Amazon warehouse, and built the Amazon warehouse too.
The Money, And The Luncheon
Joseph Corrado has given Matt Meyer $11,900 across eight contributions, and $6,500 of it went where Delaware sets no limit.
$600 on September 28, 2016, filed from 200 Marsh Lane, which is Corrado American. $600 on October 28, 2016, as Joseph J Corrado Jr. from Bellant Circle in Greenville. $600 on November 4, 2019, again from 200 Marsh Lane. $1,200 on December 9, 2022. Colleen Corrado gave $1,200 on January 3, 2023. $1,500 into Change Can't Wait PAC on October 3, 2023. $5,000 into Change Can't Wait PAC on August 8, 2024. And $1,200 on October 7, 2024, which is the same day Darrell J. Baker and Edward Hazzouri both wrote checks.
The last five of those are filed from 229 Old Kennett Road in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.
Then, on September 17, 2025, Corrado Construction Company posted this to its own news page, written by Sophia DiUbaldo: "Lunch plus good policy talk equals time well spent. Our team hit the DCA CACC luncheon with Matt Meyer as guest speaker for some strong conversation around growth, infrastructure, and workforce development."
The Delaware Contractors Association is the organization whose Legislative Committee Joseph J. Corrado, Sr. once chaired.
"On September 17, 2025, the Governor of Delaware was the guest speaker at a contractors' luncheon, talking about growth and infrastructure, in front of a
family that had given him $11,900 and had built the port, the Claymont rail yard,
and the Amazon warehouse. Thirty-three days later, the council that certifies
Delaware's revenue met for two hours and never said the word port."
229 Old Kennett Road
The address on those last five checks is not an office park. It is a house on Old Kennett Road in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, and three companies are registered there.
STE Holdings, LLC, Pennsylvania registry number 14095144.
STEG Holdings, LLC, Pennsylvania registry number 14656933, incorporated July 22, 2025, listing Joseph J Corrado Jr as Governor and Joseph Corrado Jr. as Organizer.
CHS Goat Inc., Pennsylvania registry number 14062255.
And on June 6, 2025, STE Holdings, LLC entered an Agreement of Sale with the Borough of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Buyer's address: 229 Old Kennett Road. Attention: Joseph Corrado, Jr., who signed it as Authorized Member.
The Borough is selling him two municipal parcels for $550,000 with a $25,000 deposit. Parcel 3-3-37 at 115 North Broad Street, about a tenth of an acre. Parcel 3-3-38 at 208 East Linden Street, about a sixth of an acre. The Borough has owned both since a deed dated April 20, 1994, recorded at Book 3742, page 1649.
Closing is conditioned on formal approval by the Kennett Square Borough Council of his bid, and on a Resolution accepting it. Borough Council President Robert Norris signs for the Borough. Borough Manager Kyle Coleman takes the notices. The buyer's lawyer is J. Charles Gerbron of MacElree Harvey in West Chester. The Borough's lawyer is Michael G. Crotty of Siana Law. The escrow agent is Madison Settlement Services of Kennett Square, attention David Myers.
And the brokers named in the agreement are Emory Hill and Karmar. Carmen Facciolo of Emory Hill has given Matt Meyer $3,725 across five contributions, including $1,200 on December 29, 2021.
The agreement also lets the buyer form a new limited liability company and assign the contract to it without the Borough's consent. STEG Holdings, LLC was incorporated six weeks after that escrow joinder was signed.
"Joseph Corrado Jr. is under contract to buy two parcels of public land from a Pennsylvania borough council for $550,000. In Delaware, he has given the Governor $11,900. Buying land from governments is the family business."
What This Street Actually Shows
There is no allegation here that anyone broke a law, and there is no evidence that anyone did.
What the documents show is narrower and worse. Delaware's construction economy runs through a small number of families who have been at it for three generations, who sit on the boards and legislative committees of the trade associations that lobby the General Assembly, who are appointed to state councils by Governors, who can bid a job union or non-union out of buildings two doors apart, and who build the port, the warehouses, the refineries and the brownfields for every developer named in this report.
They are good at what they do. Corrado American won Highwire's Gold Safety Award in 2022 and again in 2024, an honor fewer than 20% of more than 50,000 companies on that platform received. It sponsored the Delaware Building and Construction Trades Apprenticeship Dinner. Matt Russell, an employee since 2020, graduated top of his class from the Carpenters Local 255 Apprenticeship Program.
None of that is in question. What is in question is what happens when the same handful of people are on every side of every deal, and the money moves in one direction.
"Nobody had to coordinate. Corrado American built the port for Gulftainer and the
rail yard for Drawbridge Claymont. Harvey Hanna owns the Amazon plant and hired the port corporation's own lobbyist. Corrado Construction built Harvey Hanna's hotel.
And every one of them wrote checks to the same man."
VIII-A. The Room Where The Number Is Set
“Roughly thirty people meet a handful of times a year in Dover and vote on one number. Every dollar Delaware spends and every dollar Delaware borrows has to
fit underneath it. In the fiscal year, the Port of Wilmington received $110 million;
the word port does not appear in their minutes.”
Every dollar in the last section had to clear the same gate.
The $2 million loan the Delaware State Housing Authority put into Savannah Grove for Apennine Development Company LLC. The $1 million Site Readiness Fund grant that went to Drawbridge Claymont, LLC for 58 acres at 6300 Philadelphia Pike. The $1.14 million transportation grant to Route 40 LLC for 2 warehouses at 600 Pulaski Highway in Bear. The $4.5 million the Council on Development Finance approved for Amazon in February 2020. None of that money is a line in a Delaware budget until a council of roughly thirty members, most of whom no voter has ever seen on a ballot, sits down at a table and adopts a single figure.
And one purchase that was not a grant to anybody. $30 million of public money for a marina on public land.
The council is called the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council. Everyone in state government calls it DEFAC, and almost nobody outside state government has heard of it. It has 33 members. On May 18, 2026, 31 of them were in the room, and 2 were absent. They are bankers, accountants, business executives, labor representatives, academics, cabinet secretaries, and a handful of legislators. They are not paid. They are not confirmed by the Senate. They are appointed by the Governor and, in the words of the order that governs them, they serve during his pleasure, which is a phrase this section will come back to.
They meet at Buena Vista, the State conference center off Route 13 in New Castle, in a room where the minutes do not distinguish who is physically present from who joined by video, because no minutes of this council ever have.
What they vote on is not advice.
What The Council Actually Votes On
Article VIII, section 6(b) of the Delaware Constitution says appropriations may not exceed 98 percent of the revenue estimate. The estimate is theirs. A budget rule in force since 1991 caps new tax-supported debt at 5 percent of that same estimate. The bond bill is built on it.
So the number this council adopts is the ceiling on the operating budget, the ceiling on the bond bill, and the ceiling on every grant, loan, and incentive that flows out of both. Raise it, and Delaware may spend more and borrow more. Lower it, and Delaware may not. There is no appeal from it. There is no public vote on it. There is no requirement that anyone outside the room be told how it was reached.
The General Assembly, sixty-two people elected by name in sixty-two contested districts, cannot appropriate a dollar this council has not first estimated into existence.
“Nobody in that room is elected to be there. Nobody in that room is confirmed
by the Senate. And no one in Delaware can appeal the number they adopt.”
Why Delaware's Triple-A Sits On A Process And Not A Balance Sheet
Delaware is one of a small number of states carrying the highest rating from every agency that rates it. Most people assume that rating is earned by cash: reserves, a rainy day fund, a diversified economy.
Read what the agencies actually wrote.
Moody's Ratings, S&P Global Ratings, Fitch Ratings and Kroll Bond Rating Agency all ground Delaware's triple-A in process rather than in reserves or economic base. S&P Global Ratings names the mechanism by name, citing the State's long-standing practice of holding at least five council meetings a year and binding its budget to the estimate those meetings produce. That language is not a press release. It appears in the rating documents of April and May 2026, the documents that were in front of investors when Delaware sold bonds.
Here is what they wrote, and when, and for how much money.
On April 28, 2026, the State of Delaware took competitive bids on $446 million of general obligation bonds and sold them on May 13, 2026. Morgan Stanley took the new money at 3.41 percent for twenty years. Bank of America took the refunding at 3.52 percent, which the State says will save $4.6 million of debt service over eight years. It was the 26th consecutive year in which every major rating firm gave Delaware its highest grade.
Standard and Poor’s assigned AAA on April 15, 2026, to $324.3 million of Series 2026A bonds and $117.2 million of Series 2026B refunding bonds, affirmed the AAA on outstanding general obligation debt and the AA+ on appropriation debt, and called the outlook stable. The analysts are Geoffrey E. Buswick in Boston, Sussan S. Corson in New York, and Kevin R. Archer in San Francisco.
Kroll Bond Rating Agency affirmed AAA with a stable outlook on May 5, 2026, and released its surveillance report on May 6, signed by Senior Director Peter Scherer and Managing Director Linda Vanderperre. Moody’s assigned Aaa, stable. Fitch assigned AAA, stable.
Four firms, every one of them paid by Delaware, went looking for what holds this rating up. Read the rationales side by side, and they name the same load-bearing wall, and it is not a balance sheet. It is a meeting.
Kroll graded Delaware on a statutory requirement for consensus revenue estimates. The estimate is required by statute. The council that produces it was not created by one. Delaware’s borrowing price rested on a body the Delaware Code commands and never established.
Not the reserves. Not the economy. Not the corporate franchise. The process.
“Four rating firms looked at Delaware in April and May of 2026 and independently
wrote down the same reason for the same grade. The forecasting council.
Delaware had removed its chairman by email four weeks earlier.”
Five Meetings A Year Is The Rating. Delaware Recorded Four.
Delaware's borrowing costs, and therefore the price of every school, road, courthouse, housing unit, healthcare facility and program the State finances, rest on a promise that this council meets, deliberates and constrains the politicians.
Look at what the promise actually specifies, because it is not vague and it is not qualitative. It is a count.
Standard and Poor’s wrote that Delaware holds at least five council meetings per year and that this is what allowed the State to stay fiscally strong and rebuild reserves after the pandemic. Kroll wrote that Delaware has a formal process for updating revenue and expenditure estimates five times annually, and put that clause first in its rating summary, ahead of reserves, ahead of the economy, ahead of the debt profile. Fitch cited relatively frequent monitoring of revenues and operating expenditures. Moody’s cited close monitoring of revenue. Three different firms, three different phrasings, and two of them reduce to a single number.
Delaware wrote the same number into its own law ten days before the last meeting of the fiscal year. The DuPont-Cook Financial Responsibility Act, signed June 3, 2026, requires the council to meet in March, May, June, October, and December. And Title 29, section 7423 of the Delaware Code has for years required this council to publish its projections at least semiannually, in December and in June, and to monitor the State’s debt limits and report to the General Assembly.
December and June. Those are the two months the statute names, and June is the month with no record.
The State’s own published calendar for Fiscal Year 2026 set five meetings. October 20, 2025. December 15, 2025. March 16, 2026. May 18, 2026. June 15, 2026.
The Department of Finance has posted minutes for four of them.
The June 15, 2026 meeting produced numbers. The Department published the General Fund expenditure forecast, the General Fund revenue forecast, the Fiscal Year 2027 appropriations limit, and the Transportation Trust Fund forecasts, all dated that day. It has published no minutes. As of August 25, 2026, seventy-one days later, the minutes table on the Department of Finance website runs May 2026, March 2026, December 2025, October 2025, June 2025, May 2025, March 2025, December 2024. There is no June 2026.
This is not how that office works. The minutes of the May 18, 2026 meeting were completed on May 27, 2026, 9 days after the gavel. The June 2025 meeting, held under the previous chairman, is minuted and posted. Every other meeting in the series is minuted and posted.
The forecast that set Delaware’s spending ceiling for Fiscal Year 2027 was published. The record of how the council arrived at it was not.
So the arithmetic on which $446 million of borrowing was priced comes out like this. The rating says five meetings a year. Delaware convened five and left a record of four. The one that vanished is the June meeting, the meeting the Code names by month, the meeting the new statute names by month, the meeting that adopted the ceiling the bond bill was built under, and the meeting held fifteen days before House Bill 500 passed before sunrise, carrying $110 million to the port and $60 million more of unclaimed property.
Kroll called it a statutory requirement on May 5, 2026. 41 days later, the requirement was met in the room and not on paper.
“Delaware published the June numbers and never published the June minutes.
Seventy-one days later, the record of the meeting that set the
State’s spending ceiling still does not exist.”
“The rating is five meetings a year. Delaware held five and recorded four.
The missing one is the meeting the Delaware Code names by month.”
The Sentence Standard And Poor’s Buried On Page 3
Go to the section of the April 15, 2026 report headed Institutional Framework, which is where a rating firm writes down what actually stops a state from spending money it does not have.
Standard and Poor’s says the Delaware Constitution requires the Governor to submit a balanced budget once a year. Then it says that despite the absence of any legal requirement to keep the budget balanced during the year, DEFAC’s frequent revenue and expenditure updates allow for timely adjustments.
Read that again. Between one June and the next, nothing in Delaware law requires the budget to stay balanced. The only thing standing in that gap is a council of thirty-three volunteers meeting five times a year, and Standard and Poor’s told investors so, in writing, twnety-eight days after the Governor of Delaware removed that council’s chairman by email for asking where the money was.
And Standard and Poor’s named the meeting. It told investors it expected the budget to be adopted before the fiscal year began, but that the May DEFAC meeting could influence that if the estimates changed.
The May DEFAC meeting ran 75 minutes. The June meeting has no minutes.
“Delaware has no legal requirement to keep its budget balanced during the year. Standard and Poor’s told bond investors the only thing filling that gap is DEFAC.”
104 Days
Set the rating and the removal on the same calendar, and the sequence does the work.
104 days from the email to the bill. Inside them, Delaware borrowed $446 million at 3.41 percent on the strength of a process, and dismantled the part of that process that produces a public record.
“One hundred and four days from the email that removed the chairman to the
bill that passed before sunrise. In between, Delaware sold $446 million
of bonds on the promise that the council was working.”
What The Rating Firms Warned About, And What They Never Thought To
The April 15, 2026 report is not a valentine. Standard and Poor’s wrote that the State faces difficulties as revenue performance continues to slow, that the administration recognizes the budget is slightly imbalanced, and that the DEFAC forecast had fiscal 2027 revenue rising 0.7 percent over fiscal 2026.
It also recorded the number the State did not put in a press release. Delaware closed June 30, 2025, with a $52 million general fund operating deficit, 0.7 percent of general fund revenues, and it was the first deficit in 8 years. The year before that, the State had run a $495 million surplus.
On the other side of the ledger, it credited a $469.3 million Budget Stabilization Fund, a fully funded $368.0 million rainy day fund at 12 percent of estimated fiscal 2026 expenditures, a 5 percent cap on tax-supported debt authorized in any year, rapid amortization at 69 percent within ten years, and no variable-rate debt and no swaps. And it flagged what it does not like: $6.2 billion of unfunded retiree health care liability as of June 30, 2025, $5,887 per person, among the largest in the nation on a per capita basis.
Now read the downgrade triggers, because they are the whole point. Standard and Poor’s says it could lower the rating if retiree health care trends worsen. Moody’s says it could lower the rating if fund balance falls below 15 percent of revenue, or if long-term liabilities rise above 250 percent of revenue.
Every trigger is a number. Not one of them is the removal of the forecasting chairman, the shortening of the meetings, or a set of minutes that never gets written. The firms did not price those risks because they never imagined them. They treated the process as permanent, the way you treat the floor as permanent.
And note what none of the four firms was told. Nothing in any of those reports mentions that the council’s chairman of eight years had been removed by email four weeks before the first of them was published, that his replacement had never served a day as a member, or that the meetings had shortened 58 percent across the fiscal year. The firms rated the machine. Nobody described the room.
“Every downgrade trigger those firms published is a number on a balance sheet.
None of them is what Delaware actually did.”
Which Reports Delaware Posts, And Which One It Does Not
Read the four opinions, and you have to go four different places to do it, which is itself a finding.
Standard and Poor’s is on the Department of Finance bond page, in full, sevenpages, dated April 15, 2026. That one is real, and anybody can read it.
The file the Department posts for Moody’s is named for the Series 2026 bonds and for April 11, 2026. Open it. The document inside is dated April 11, 2025, issued from New York, and it assigns Aaa to approximately $347.6 million of Series 2025 general obligation bonds. It is last year’s rating, on last year’s borrowing, sitting behind this year’s file name. The lead analyst on it is Pisei Chea. The 2026 Moody’s report is not behind that link and is not anywhere else on the page.
Kroll’s report is not on the State’s page at all. It is on Kroll’s own website, a surveillance report released May 6, 2026, on the affirmation of the day before.
Fitch’s 2026 report is not posted publicly by anyone. What Delawareans get of Fitch is a clause inside the Governor’s own press release of May 12, 2026, crediting strong reserves and revenue growth prospects.
So Delaware borrowed $446 million on four rating opinions. The public can read one of them in full. The second is last year’s document under this year’s name. The third had to be found on the rating agency’s own website. The fourth exists, for the people paying the debt service, as a sentence in a press release.
Nobody has to call the Moody’s file concealment. It probably is. What it certainly is, is the same pattern this section has been describing from the first page: the numbers get published, the record does not.
“Delaware borrowed $446 million on four rating opinions and posted one of them.
The file the State labels Moody’s 2026 is Moody’s 2025.”
The Bond Market Was Told About Edgemoor In April
Standard and Poor’s went further than the process. It put the port inside the rating.
In the Economy section of the report that let Delaware sell $324.26 million of bonds, dated April 15, 2026, Standard and Poor’s wrote that the State continues its economic development efforts, with various small business initiatives in the proposed fiscal 2027 budget and a Port of Wilmington expansion and dredging project recently announced.
Investors in New York, Boston and San Francisco were told about the Edgemoor expansion on April 15, 2026. Delawareans were told the source of the money in the last week of June, in a bill that passed before sunrise.
“Standard and Poor’s told bond investors about the Port of Wilmington expansion on April 15, 2026. The people paying for it found out in the last week of June.”
VIII-B. The Clause Nobody Read
Governor Pete du Pont created this council on March 3, 1977, by Executive Order Number 5. For forty-nine years it ran on executive orders and nothing else. No enabling statute created it. No statute set terms for its members. No statute said what it would take to remove one.
That did not stop the Delaware Code from leaning its entire weight on the thing. Title 29, section 6533 forbids the State to pay out refunds beyond the estimate this council adopts. Section 6534 is the 98 percent limit itself. Section 7423 orders the council to publish debt projections twice a year, in December and in June, and to monitor the State's debt limits and report to the General Assembly. Delaware wrote a body it had never created into its own statutes and then bound the budget to whatever that body said.
The order in force is Executive Order Number 62, signed by Governor John Carney on August 27, 2024, 4 months before he left office. Read the terms as the Department of Finance itself publishes them. The council shall consist of at least 25 members appointed by the Governor to serve during his pleasure. The Governor designates the chairperson from among them.
That is the entire tenure protection held by the people who decide how much money the Governor of Delaware is permitted to spend. No term. No cause requirement. No notice. No hearing.
Read the last sentence of that passage again, because it is the one nobody read. The Governor shall designate a Chairperson of the council from among its members. Not from among Delawareans. Not from among people the Governor trusts. From among its members. The order that gives a Governor the power to remove anyone on the council also tells him where the chairman has to come from, and it is the only limit in the document.
Alan Levin had never served a single day as a member of the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council when Governor Matt Meyer made him its chairman. There was no seat to promote him from. Executive Order Number 62 permitted the Governor to empty the chair on two days’ notice and told him exactly one thing about how to fill it, and that is the instruction that was not followed.
“The people who set the ceiling on the Governor's budget served, in the words
of the order that created their jobs, during the Governor's pleasure.”
“Executive Order Number Sixty-two gave the Governor unlimited power to remove
a member and exactly one rule about filling the chair. The chairman had
to come from among the members. Alan Levin was not one.”
The Man Who Asked
Michael Houghton is a Wilmington attorney. He chaired the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council for eight years, under two Governors, and before that he chaired Delaware’s unclaimed property task force in 2014, which is to say he is one of the few people in the State who understood the escheat fund from the inside before it became the checkbook for a port.
Michael Houghton is a partner at Morris, Nichols, Arsht and Tunnell in Wilmington, and here is the detail that makes everything after it land. For decades, his practice has been built on unclaimed property. That is his subject. He represents governmental entities, banks, trust companies, insurance companies, and public utilities on escheat and on regulatory and legislative matters. He chaired Delaware’s unclaimed property task force in 2014. He is a past president of the Delaware State Bar Association and a past president of the Uniform Law Commission, and he sits on the boards of the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce, the Delaware Public Policy Institute, the Pete du Pont Freedom Foundation, the Rockefeller Trust Company of Delaware and the Delaware Heritage Commission.
He also sits, right now, as a Commissioner of the Delaware River and Bay Authority, the bi-state agency that runs the Delaware Memorial Bridge, the Cape May-Lewes Ferry and the airports, with a term running to July 1, 2027. He is a former member of the Delaware Environmental Appeals Board and of the Delaware Marijuana Appeals Commission, a board member of Artesian Resources Corporation and of the Rockefeller Trust Company of Delaware, and Governor John Carney bestowed on him the Order of the First State, the highest honor a Governor of Delaware can give a Delawarean.
Governor John Carney appointed him chairman of the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council in April 2017, calling him an independent thinker with a deep understanding of how state government works. He held the chair for 8 years.
The State of Delaware put the man who knows unclaimed property better than almost anyone alive in the chair of the council that estimates it. Then it took the escheat fund and spent it on a port, and when he asked about the numbers, it removed him.
He was not the chairman when any of this happened. In 2025, Governor Matt Meyer gave the gavel to Alan Levin, who had never served a single day as a member of the council. It happened on March 17, 2025, at Buena Vista. Alan Levin called the meeting to order at 1:30, introduced himself, welcomed the other new members, and asked them to introduce themselves. He was attending remotely, so he asked Michael Houghton to act as chair and run the meeting for him. At the end of it, Alan Levin thanked Michael Houghton for running the meeting and for his service as chair of the council for the last eight years. Michael Houghton adjourned his own last meeting as chairman at 2:50. Michael Houghton stayed on as an ordinary member, and Alan Levin gaveled every meeting of the fiscal year that follows: October 20, 2025, December 15, 2025, March 16, 2026, May 18, 2026, and June 15, 2026.
Alan Levin has said publicly that he asked Governor Matt Meyer to keep Michael Houghton on the council because of his own inexperience with it, that the Governor did not contact him before terminating Michael Houghton, that he was surprised because he did not know it was coming, and that he does not believe the questioning was the reason.
On October 20, 2025, at the first meeting of the fiscal year, Michael Houghton named the two revenue lines he wanted watched. The corporate franchise tax. And the unclaimed property cap.
He named them at Buena Vista, 5 months before he was removed by email.
On March 16, 2026, at Buena Vista, Michael Houghton questioned Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez and other officials in open session about the absence of corporate franchise revenue data, at a moment when the administration was publicly promoting a surge in business entity formations. He asked the Delaware Department of State for corporate revenue figures the department had not produced.
Houghton asked about the Corporate Franchise Tax out-year forecast, noting that it was flat. Kristopher Knight of the Division of Corporations answered that collections depend on the market and that they should have a more accurate estimate by December. Michael Houghton then said the Corporate Franchise Tax, along with the unclaimed property cap, should be the areas looked at if Delaware continued to see projected deficits in the revenue forecast. The administration declined to share the collections figures in public that afternoon.
Two paragraphs later in those same March minutes, Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez confirmed he was right. Answering a question from Chairman Alan Levin about whether filers pay by check or by credit card, she volunteered that entity formations were up 15 percent, that the associated revenue had not been collected yet, that it was expected in June, and that it was not reflected in the current projections.
On March 18, 2026, two days later, an email from Governor Matt Meyer's office ended his service. No cause was stated. No hearing was held. No public announcement was made. A man who had chaired the body for 8 years learned he was finished the way a vendor learns a contract was not renewed.
It arrived on a Wednesday afternoon. A spokesman for the administration confirmed it the following morning, after reporters asked.
Representative Charles Postles, a member of the Joint Finance Committee, objected to the removal on the record. When the council met on May 18, 2026, Representative Charles Postles does not appear on the roll.
Weeks after the email, Michael Houghton asked the interim executive director of the Diamond State Port Corporation where the additional $110 million for Edgemoor was coming from. Within days, he was off the Port Expansion Task Force.
He asked about the money twice. He was removed twice.
And this is the part that should stop a reader, because it disposes of the easy explanation. Michael Houghton was not an opponent of this Governor. He gave Matt Meyer’s committees $300 on December 4, 2019, and $1,200 on September 21, 2024, and Leigh Houghton, at the same address on Medallion Avenue in Millsboro, gave $1,200 on October 27, 2024. $2,700 across three contributions, the last of them five months before the email.
“Michael Houghton chaired the council for eight years, gave Matt Meyer
$6,900and asked two questions about where Delaware's money was going.
Both times he was removed. Neither removal required anyone to say why.”
What The Whole General Assembly Did 22 Days Later
Watch what the legislature does when a Governor removes the man who asks about the money.
On April 9, 2026, twenty-two days after the email, every caucus leader in both chambers put their name on the same bill. House Majority Leader Kerri Evelyn Harris carried it. Speaker of the House Melissa Minor-Brown, Majority Whip Ed Osienski, Minority Leader Tim Dukes, and Minority Whip Jeffrey Spiegelman signed on from the House. Senate President Pro Tempore Dave Sokola, Majority Leader Bryan Townsend, Majority Whip Elizabeth Lockman, Minority Leader Gerald Hocker, and Minority Whip Brian Pettyjohn signed on from the Senate.
House Bill 370. The DuPont-Cook Financial Responsibility Act, named for Governor Pete du Pont, who created the council, and Senator Nancy Cook, who made the budget discipline stick. Its purpose was to take the council out of the Governor’s hands and put it into the Delaware Code.
House Minority Leader Tim Dukes said out loud what the bill was for. There was a real need to protect it, he said, and the recent controversy provided the impetus.
House Substitute 1 for House Bill 370 was introduced on April 21, 2026, and signed on June 3, 2026. It is Chapter two-hundred-seventy-five of Volume eighty-five of the Laws of Delaware, effective July 1, 2026. The council now consists of at least twenty-five and no more than thirty-four members, is required by statute to meet in March, May, June, October, and December, and must file an annual report by December thirty-one of each year summarizing its forecast accuracy and the key fiscal risks it identified.
Seventy-seven days separate the email that removed Michael Houghton from the signature that put this council beyond the reach of the man who sent it. Every fact in the rest of this section happened inside those seventy-seven days, under the old rules.
“Twenty-two days after the Governor removed the chairman by email, all ten caucus leaders in both chambers filed a bill to take the council out of the Governor’s hands.
It was signed seventy-seven days after the email.”
Four Meetings, Eighty Pages, And A Word That Never Appears
Sit with the record itself, because the record is the finding.
The council met five times that fiscal year. Alan B. Levin gaveled all five.
The four minuted meetings of that fiscal year run roughly eighty pages. In those eighty pages, the following words do not appear: Port of Wilmington. Diamond State Port Corporation. Edgemoor. Summit North Marina.
In that same fiscal year, Delaware committed $140 million to those things. $110 million to the port. $30 million to buy a marina. The council that governs the ceiling under which every dollar of it had to fit never discussed any of it in a document the public can read.
The Port of Wilmington does not appear in any of them. Not once, across four meetings. The Diamond State Port Corporation does not appear. Edgemoor does not appear. The Delaware Container Terminal does not appear. Dredging does not appear. Summit North Marina does not appear, and neither does any other marina.
The word Wilmington appears three times across all four sets of minutes. All three are in the March meeting, and all three concern a Division of Motor Vehicles office that closed. The only appearance of the word Diamond in any of the four is in the May minutes, where Secretary Linke Young reports declining enrollment in the Diamond State Health Plan.
Thomas McGonigle, the registered lobbyist for the Diamond State Port Corporation, is listed in the Others Present block of the May 18, 2026 minutes. The corporation he is registered to lobby for is not named anywhere in the minutes of the meeting he attended.
What the council did discuss, across those eighty pages, includes the price of oil, the Strait of Hormuz, the effect of snowfall on slot machine play, and a shuttered motor vehicle office.
“The council that sets the constitutional ceiling on Delaware spending met four times in the fiscal year the port received $110,000,000, and the marina received $30,000,000. Across four meetings and eighty pages, it never once said the word port.”
Now the clock. The October 20, 2025 meeting ran 179 minutes. December 15, 2025, ran 107. March 16, 2026, ran for 87 minutes. On May 18, 2026, Alan B. Levin called the meeting to order at 1:01 in the afternoon and adjourned it at 2:16, which is 75 minutes, to adopt a $7,000.7 million revenue estimate for one fiscal year, a $7,039.4 million estimate for the next, both Transportation Trust Fund estimates, the budget benchmark index, and the healthcare spending benchmark. From the first gavel of the year to the last, the council's deliberation shortened by 58 percent.
The clock, meeting by meeting. October 20, 2025 was called to order at 12:01 in the afternoon and adjourned at 3:00, 179 minutes. December 15, 2025 ran from 1:00 to 2:47, 107 minutes. March 16, 2026 ran from 1:00 to 2:27, 87 minutes. May 18, 2026 ran from 1:01 to 2:16, 75 minutes. Under one fiscal year, as the numbers moving through the room got larger every time, the meetings grew 58 percent shorter.
Public comment is the closing item on every agenda. Read the last page of each set of minutes in order. December 17, 2024, no member of the public signed up. March 17, 2025, none. May 19, 2025, none. June 16, 2025, none. October 20, 2025, none. December 15, 2025, none. March 16, 2026, none. Seven consecutive meetings of the body that certifies Delaware's revenue, and not one citizen at the microphone, until Rick Geisenberger stood up on May 18, 2026.
Nobody stood up to object until the final meeting. On May 18, 2026, one member of the public spoke. Rick Geisenberger, who served as Delaware’s Secretary of Finance and before that as Director of the Division of Corporations, and who introduced himself to the council as a recovering Secretary of Finance, filed a written comment that the minutes attach in full.
He said the corrections the Secretary of State had just presented were apparent to long-time observers of this council as early as December, and certainly by March, from publicly available data. He called it totally unprecedented for corporate franchise tax collections to run essentially flat two years running while domestic equity markets were as strong as they had been. And he asked the question this entire report has been circling: whether it is prudent for Delaware to increase its reliance on a closely related revenue, unclaimed property.
Then he told the room he had the deepest respect for all of them and hoped the council was continuing traditions that had served the State well for nearly sixty years. That is how a former Secretary of Finance says he is worried.
The attendance record of March 16, 2026 lists fifty-seven people besides the members. One of the names on it is K. Hartley-Nagle. The author of this report attended the meeting virtually on the day Michael Houghton asked his question, and was in attendance 2 days before the email.
“Four meetings. Eighty pages of minutes. $140 million committed
to a port and a marina. The word port appears zero times.”
Who Else Was At That Table
The council is not a neutral instrument. It is thirty people, and thirty people have addresses, employers, and checkbooks.
The minutes of May 18, 2026, approved and issued May 27, name everyone recorded in attendance. Alan Levin called it to order at 1:01, and his first act of business was to seat 2 new members, one of them filling the chair of Michael Houghton, the chairman Governor Matt Meyer had removed in March. Read that roll against the campaign finance filings.
Philip Reese is a retired banker and a former chairman of Delaware’s pension board, and he sits on this council. He has given four times. $1,200 to the campaign on June 28, 2022. $2,500 to Change Can’t Wait PAC on April 15, 2023, filed from 5803 Kennett Pike, Suite A. Then $100,000 to that same political action committee on August 9, 2024, twenty-two days before the Democratic primary. Then $1,200 to the campaign on September 11, 2024. $104,900 in all, and the $100,000 is the single largest contribution from any member of this council to any Meyer committee.
Gerald Marcozzi, who goes by Guy, sits on this council and was recorded absent on May 18, 2026. He has given $8,050 across eight contributions from 16 Reese Drive in Newark and, in August 2024, from Anna B. Street in Rehoboth Beach, and $6,000 of that went to Change Can’t Wait PAC.
Philip Reese has given Matt Meyer's committees $104,900. Gerald Marcozzi has given $8,050 across eight contributions, including $6,000 into Change Can’t Wait PAC. Two men who sit on the council that sets Delaware's spending ceiling have given the Governor who appointed them $112,950.
Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez is the Secretary of State. Her department runs the Division of Corporations, which produces the corporate revenue figures the council estimates. She also chairs the board of the Diamond State Port Corporation, the entity that received the $110 million. She sits on the council.
She has given $1,450 across 6 contributions between October 23, 2019 and July 1, 2024. Her extended family has given $4,808.32 across fourteen contributions under 6 names, $3,750 of it from a single address at 2719 Pickering Road in Wilmington, including Patibanda Sarma and Madhava Patibanda at that address, Marcos Sanchez, and Pvln Sarma, who gave $500 to Change Can’t Wait PAC on May 15, 2024.
Thomas McGonigle appears in the minutes under the heading Others Present. Thomas McGonigle is a partner at Barnes and Thornburg LLP at 222 Delaware Avenue and a registered lobbyist for the Diamond State Port Corporation. He gave Matt Meyer $1,200 on October 5, 2024, and his household has given $5,700 across 7 contributions, the most recent on November 20, 2025.
Sean Finnigan of Enstructure appears in the June 2025 record. Enstructure is the private operator that holds the concession to run the Port of Wilmington. The company that operates the port sat in the room that estimates the revenue, in a year when that room's minutes never say the word.
Secretary Linke Young told the council that enrollment in the Diamond State Health Plan had declined, consistent with national trends, which is the kind of line that passes in forty seconds and moves a Medicaid forecast by $22.1 million. She also reported that health care spending in Delaware reached $11.3 billion in calendar year 2024, growth of nearly 9 percent over the year before, and the council voted 5 percent as the calendar year 2027 health care spending benchmark.
Itemized from the filings, the household reads: Charuni P Patibanda, $400 on October 23, 2019, from 424 South Broadway in Los Angeles. Charuni Patibanda, $250 on November 16, 2021, $258.32 on September 30, 2022, $100 on June 6, 2023, $250 on December 31, 2023, and $191.68 on July 1, 2024, all from 2719 Pickering Road. Madhava Patibanda, $250 on December 30, 2021, $850 on October 3, 2023, and $100 on September 28, 2023, same address. Patibanda Sarma, $1,000 on December 28, 2022, same address. Pvln Sarma, $500 to Change Can't Wait PAC on May 15, 2024, same address. Marcos Sanchez, $150 on December 30, 2022, $8.32 on July 1, 2024, and $500 on July 13, 2024, from 1201 I Street Northeast in Washington. 14 contributions, $4,808.32, and $3,750 of it from that one house.
Those contributions did not arrive at random. October 23, 2019 produced 8 contributions totaling $3,400 in a single day, and one of them is Charuni P Patibanda giving $400 from a Los Angeles address, 15 months before Matt Meyer hired her as New Castle County Economic Development Director. October 3, 2023 produced 3 contributions totaling $1,850, one of them Madhava Patibanda’s $850. May 15, 2024 produced 10 contributions totaling $4,401 in one day. Ten people do not independently decide to give on the same Wednesday.
Thomas McGonigle is a partner at Barnes and Thornburg LLP at 222 Delaware Avenue, Suite 1200 in Wilmington. He has been the registered Delaware lobbyist for the Diamond State Port Corporation since November 1, 2019. Before that, he was chief of staff to Governor Jack Markell; before that, chief legal counsel and policy director to Governor Thomas Carper; and before that, a deputy attorney general of Delaware. He has given $3,300 across 5 contributions from 1305 Shipley Road, Apartment A, in Wilmington, including $1,200 on October 5, 2024. Patricia McGonigle, from the same address, gave $1,200 on October 29, 2024, and $1,200 again on November 20, 2025, more than a year after the election. The household is $5,700 across seven.
And one more name belongs in that room even though he does not sit on the council. Geoffrey A. Sawyer III is the private lawyer who runs Delaware’s unclaimed property compliance program for the State. He has given $6,700 across five contributions, and $2,500 of it went to Change Can’t Wait PAC on June 11, 2024, one day after Alan Levin gave that same committee $15,000.
“Alan B. Levin, chairman of the council that certifies Delaware’s revenue,
raised the money for the Governor’s political action committee, and was not a
member of that council on the day he was made its chair. Philip Reese, a member,
gave that committee $100,000. Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez, another member,
chairs the port corporation that received $110,000,000 and runs
the department that stopped publishing the number.
Thomas McGonigle, the port corporation’s paid lobbyist, is on the attendance list.
And Geoffrey A. Sawyer III, who runs the State’s escheat compliance program,
gave $2,500 the day after the chairman gave $15,000. That is not a hearing.
It is the same people, seated differently.”
“The Secretary of State sits on the council that estimates corporate revenue,
runs the department that produces the figures, and chairs the board of
the port that received $110 million of them.”
Fifty-five people have sat on this council since Matt Meyer took office. Sixteen of the thirty-one he inherited were gone within ninety days, eighteen new members were seated in a single afternoon on March 17, 2025, and the full roll, numbered, with what each one has given, is in Section VIII-C.
The Secretary Of State, And What Her Department Stopped Printing
In the minutes, Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez said she emphasized the importance of accurate data.
Here is the data her department stopped printing.
For more than a decade, Delaware published the share of newly public American companies that chose to incorporate here. It is the single cleanest measure of whether the franchise is holding, and the franchise is what pays for Delaware. The number was 93 percent in 2020. It was 93 percent in 2021. It fell to 79 percent in 2022 and recovered to 80 percent in 2023.
Run eleven years of that series, and you get a mean of 86.6, a median of 89, and a standard deviation of 4.7. It is one of the most stable numbers in American corporate law.
The 2025 annual report does not give a number. It says, in words, Nearly 70%. In a graphic, it reads Nearly 70% U.S. IPOs. Not 69.4. Not 68. It is the first time in the modern history of that report that Delaware declined to say what the figure was.
Take that at face value and call it 67.5. That is more than 4 standard deviations below the 11-year mean. In a normal distribution, an observation that far out arrives about once in 40,000 draws. Delaware's response to a 1-in-40,000 event in its own core business was to stop printing the statistic.
Other people kept counting. Houlihan Lokey put the share at 61.8 percent. Analysis Group put it at 75 percent, down from more than 80 percent. Glass Lewis, which advises institutional investors on how to vote their shares, gave the phenomenon a name, DEXIT, and counted the reincorporations. Sixteen large companies gone. 18 more proposing to leave, thirteen of them for Nevada.
One of those departures is worth naming, because of its size. SpaceX, valued at $86.1 billion, moved. That single move put Texas ahead of Delaware in the market value of newly incorporated companies. Delaware trails at $28.8 billion.
Now set that against what the Secretary of State told the council on May 18, 2026, with Alan Levin in the chair. She reported that new business entity formations were up 15.4 percent over calendar year 2024. Mr. W. Smith asked about the recent swings in initial public offerings and whether the upper tier was being watched. Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez answered that the information is tracked, that initial public offering activity had seen a slight decline, and that the change was not significant enough to indicate a broader trend. She said most of the 2025 initial public offerings happened outside the United States, and that fewer companies chose Nevada than in prior years.
The council knew what was happening. At the October 20, 2025 meeting, Alan Levin asked Kristopher Knight for any updates on the Elon Musk case. Mr. Knight answered that the Department of State continued to see a high volume of new companies, that it was challenging to anticipate how large those companies would grow, and that they were not seeing anything alarming at this time. That was five months before Michael Houghton asked for the collections figures and was removed.
Alan Levin asked whether the Department of State conducts exit interviews with the companies that leave. Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez answered that public companies explain themselves to shareholders in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and that outreach since the start of the Administration, along with Senate Bill 21, had helped address any unease.
Senator Trey Paradee asked how current formation growth compares with the last ten years. She said she would look into it.
A slight decline. Houlihan Lokey counted 61.8 percent. The State stopped printing the number.
Now put those paragraphs next to each other in the order they happened. The corporate franchise is contracting. On October 20, 2025, the chairman of the council names the corporate franchise tax and the unclaimed property cap as the two lines to watch. On March 16, 2026, the same chairman asks the Secretary of State's department for corporate revenue figures it has not produced. On March 18, 2026, the chairman is removed by email.
“For eleven years, Delaware printed the share of new public companies that chose it.
It was 93 percent in 2021. In 2025 the State printed no number at all and
wrote the words Nearly 70%.”
What The Numbers Did While Nobody Was Watching
Unclaimed property, which Delaware calls escheat, is money that stopped moving. A bank account nobody touched. A dividend check nobody cashed. A block of shares whose owner died and whose heirs never knew. Because roughly 2 million business entities are incorporated here, Delaware collects that money in volumes no other state approaches, and it is one of the largest revenue lines in the State. A fifth of Delaware's government runs on other people's forgotten money.
It is Delaware’s third-largest revenue source.
Nearly $200 million of it moved to the Diamond State Port Corporation in January 2025.
Over the following 8 months, the council cut the net escheat forecast 5 separate times, roughly $70 million in total. Measured from the October 2025 forecast to the year-end close, unclaimed property net revenue was written down $73.7 million. The reason is not complicated, and it is in the State's own reporting: the rightful owners are claiming their money back. Refunds ran $203,701,388 in Fiscal Year 2026 against $128,038,529 the year before, an increase of 59.1 percent.
The council’s own May 18, 2026 revenue worksheet says it in a single line. Unclaimed property gross collections held at $554 million. Refunds, which had been $128 million in Fiscal Year 2025 actual collections, were forecast at $168 million, an increase of 31.2 percent. Net unclaimed property was marked down to $386 million. The same worksheet drops gross collections to $525 million by Fiscal Year 2028.
What did move, meeting by meeting, is the refund line underneath it. Refunds against Fiscal Year 2026 were forecast at $130 million in June 2025 and again in October 2025, cut to $150.0 million in December, and cut again to $168 million in March, where May left them. Net unclaimed property fell with each one: $424 million in October, $404 million in December, $386 million in March, and in May.
Then the year closed. Actual Fiscal Year 2026 refunds came in at $203,701,388, which is $35.7 million above the number the council had adopted 6 weeks earlier.
That leaves net unclaimed property at roughly $350.3 million. Measured against the $424 million the council was carrying in October, it is a write-down of $73.7 million in a single fiscal year.
Delaware's own forecasters, meeting in public, said the fund was producing less.
Now watch the ceiling itself rise. At the October 20, 2025 meeting, the 98 percent appropriation limit for Fiscal Year 2027 stood at $6,733 million. On May 18, 2026, the council adopted a 98 percent limit of $7,328 million, an increase of $196 million from March and $595 million from October. In seven months, without a vote by anybody the public elected, Delaware created $595 million of new room to spend and borrow.
The same worksheet that created that room shows a Fiscal Year 2026 operating balance of negative $151.5 million. Expenditures of $7,152.2 million against revenues of $7,000.7 million.
Then look at when the corporate lines moved. The Limited Partnerships and Limited Liability Companies revenue line moved $137.6 million in June alone. Across the year, $187.7 million in total corporate revisions occurred exclusively at meetings Michael Houghton did not attend.
And read what that same May 18, 2026 worksheet set aside. Alongside the appropriation limit, the council adopted $243.4 million in extraordinary revenues, money available for the Budget Stabilization Fund or for non-recurring expenditures.
None of this was a secret to the chairman. On June 16, 2025, Michael Houghton asked the members of the Governor's Cabinet sitting at that table whether any work was being done about slowing revenue and rising expenditures. Michael Smith, the Secretary of Finance, said the administration was aware and looking into it. Alan Levin closed that meeting by saying the Administration and the General Assembly needed to work on addressing these issues. Twelve months later, the General Assembly addressed them by raising the escheat ceiling to $60,000,000 and sending $110,000,000 to a port.
Six weeks later, House Bill 500 committed $110,000,000 to the port, $30,000,000 to buy Summit North Marina, and $35,000,000 to expand Legislative Hall, which Governor Matt Meyer then struck. That is $175,000,000 of non-recurring commitment against a $243.4 million pot the council had voted into existence under Alan Levin’s gavel before the bill was written.
And that line has read $554 million for years. Pull the council’s own revenue worksheets back through the file, and the entry, called abandoned property in the older ones, sits at $554 million in June 2018, in June 2025, in October 2025, in December 2025, in March 2026, and in May 2026. It is not a forecast. It is a ceiling written in statute, and the council reprints it.
The Department of Finance said so out loud at that same October meeting. David Roose told the council that unclaimed property currently reflects the cap of $554 million, that the cap has been reached every year since it was instituted, and that it was expected to be reached again in Fiscal Year 2027. A ceiling that is hit every single year is not a forecast. It is a limit on how much of other people's money Delaware is permitted to keep, and the General Assembly raised it by $60,000,000 eight months later.
Now look at the unclaimed property line in that adopted worksheet, because it did something no other line did. It reads $554 million in March and $554 million in May, in both forecast years, a change of zero. It is the only major revenue category in the entire document that moved by nothing. Personal income tax moved $91.4 million. Corporation income tax moved $29.7 million. Franchise tax and the limited partnership and limited liability company line moved $33.1 million between them.
Delaware did not forecast more escheat money. Delaware legislated more access to it. State law caps how much unclaimed property revenue may be moved into the General Fund in a year, and that cap stood at $554,000,000. House Bill 500 raised it to $614,000,000, an increase of $60,000,000, and the increase rode inside the capital spending bill instead of being debated as a revenue measure of its own. Governor Matt Meyer’s January budget had proposed exactly that $60,000,000 as a revenue enhancement.
“Delaware did not forecast more unclaimed property. It legislated more access to it.
The cap moved from $554,000,000 to $614,000,000 inside a capital bill
that passed before sunrise.”
On June 23, 2026, Secretary of Finance Michael Smith transmitted the May 31 financial report to every member of the General Assembly. It showed escheat refunds up 56 percent year over year. Every legislator had that document in hand.
Seven days later, House Bill 500 passed. It raised the escheat ceiling by $60 million and sent $110 million to the port. It passed before sunrise.
“Delaware's own forecasters cut the unclaimed property estimate five times in eight months because refunds were up 59.1 percent. Then the General Assembly raised
the ceiling on that same fund by $60 million and sent $110 million of it to a port.”
The Empty Chair
Set the year down in a line and read it the way a prosecutor reads a calendar.
A council created by executive order in 1977 and left there for forty-nine years, governed in its final year by an order whose tenure clause is five words long, while the Delaware Code bound the entire budget to its estimate. Five scheduled meetings, four sets of minutes, and a June meeting that produced the numbers and no record. Deliberation that shortened fifty-eight percent from October to May. Eighty pages in which a $140 million port commitment is never mentioned.
A chairman who named the two revenue lines that were about to be raided, asked the Secretary of State's department for the figures, and was gone within forty-eight hours. $595 million of new spending room built between October and May. A revenue line the State's own forecasters marked down while refunds ran 31.2 percent over the prior year, and a bill that raised its ceiling anyway, passed before sunrise, seven days after every legislator was told refunds were up 56 percent. And a General Assembly that saw all of it and voted, ten leaders and both parties, to take the council out of the Governor's hands seventy-seven days too late.
Nothing in that sequence was hidden. It was arranged so that nobody would be in the room.
The chair did not come open on March 18, 2026. It had already changed hands a year earlier, when Governor Matt Meyer handed the gavel of the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council to Alan Levin, who had never served a single day as a member of it, over a chairman with eight years in the seat. What ended by email on March 18, 2026, was the last thing Michael Houghton still had, which was a chair at the table.
Alan Levin had given Governor Matt Meyer's political committees eight times since 2016, $29,100 in all, including $15,000 to Change Can’t Wait PAC on June 10, 2024, the political action committee Alan Levin himself organized and raised money for.
Every one of the eight was filed from Post Office Box 320 in Montchanin. $500 on April 18, 2016, and $600 on October 14, 2016, to the county campaign. $600 on December 7, 2017. $1,200 on December 18, 2021. $5,000 to the political action committee on October 28, 2022. $5,000 more on September 29, 2023. The $15,000 on June 10, 2024. And $1,200 to the campaign on September 22, 2024.
Ellen Levin, from the same post office box, gave $4,000 across five contributions. The household total is $33,100 across thirteen.
Set his own account of the removal beside that. Alan Levin says the Governor did not call him before ending Michael Houghton’s service, that he was surprised, and that he does not believe the questioning was the reason. The man who says he was not consulted is the man who raised the money that elected the Governor, and who was handed the gavel of this council without ever having served on it. Both of those things are in the record. The reader can hold them at the same time.
He is not a new name in Delaware, and he is not a new name in this story. Before he held the gavel that sets the ceiling, he held the gavel at the Port of Wilmington, and before that he ran the office that decides which private companies get public money to build here.
“The chairmanship of the council that sets Delaware's spending ceiling changed hands
by email. The man who received it had never served a day on the council and
had given the Governor's committees $29,100.”
VIII-C. Fifty-Five People
“Fifty-five people have sat on the council that sets Delaware’s spending ceiling
since Matt Meyer took office. Twenty-three of them are gone. Six of the people
he seated have given his political committees $165,658.32.”
The council that certifies how much money Delaware is allowed to spend does not take roll in public, does not print its members’ full names, and does not require any of them to disclose a financial interest.
New Castle County uses one form for all of it, and it is not a one-time filing at the door. The Ethics Commission was created in 1990 and is 7 unpaid county residents appointed on a bipartisan basis by the County Executive and County Council, currently 4 Democrats and 3 Republicans, who may not hold or campaign for county office, may not hold party office, and may not be employed by the County in any other role. The Commission picks its own legal counsel and its own staff, so it does not answer to the people it reviews.
Every filer files a Statement of Financial Interests by May 1 of every year. The Code names them: elected county officials, county officials whose work is nonministerial, members of the Boards of Adjustment, Planning, Historic Review, Pension, License Inspection and Review and Assessment Review, the Ethics Commission itself, general managers, division heads, code enforcement officers, public works inspectors, purchasing agents, housing rehabilitation specialists, land use planners and the Chief of Police. A nominee to a county board files 10 days before Council votes on the appointment. A candidate for county office files within 7 days of the deadline for declaring.
The statements of elected officials, appointed officials, candidates, and nominees are public. They are filed on the Commission’s own website at nccethics.org, and anyone may look at them. The statements of ordinary county employees are not public, which is the line the Code deliberately draws.
The author of this report filed one every year from 2012 through 2024. As an appointee to the New Castle County Board of Adjustment from 2012 to 2016, as a candidate in 2015, 2016, 2020, and 2024, and as President of New Castle County Council from November 2016 to November 2024. Thirteen years.
A purchasing agent for New Castle County discloses his financial interests every year to a commission that reviews them, and any citizen can read it. So does a public works inspector.
The 32 people who decide how much money the State of Delaware may spend and how much it may borrow file nothing, in any year, ever. No form. No commission that reviews one. No confirmation vote. No public record. The published minutes do not even print their first names.
So here is the roll, taken from the attendance page of every set of minutes the Department of Finance has published from December 17, 2024 through May 18, 2026, matched against 92 campaign finance reports covering February 7, 2016 through August 16, 2026.
Fifty-five people, numbered, so nobody has to count.
The Turnover, Meeting By Meeting
Governor John Carney’s last meeting was December 17, 2024, at the Blue Ball Barn. Thirty-one members answered the roll. Carney thanked them for 8 years and gave Michael Houghton the Order of the First State.
Ninety days later, on March 17, 2025, at Buena Vista, 33 members answered the roll and 16 of the 31 were gone. Alan Levin called that meeting to order, introduced himself, welcomed the other new members, and asked them to introduce themselves. Because he was attending remotely, he asked Michael Houghton to run the meeting, and at the end he thanked him for his service as chair for the last eight years.
Eighteen new members were seated that day. One more, James C. DiPaula Jr., appears first on May 19, 2025. Secretary Christen Young was seated October 20, 2025, the same meeting where Levin announced the departures of Edward Ratledge and Josette Manning. Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez and Regina Mitchell were seated December 15, 2025. Kevin Hensley and Brenda Wise were seated May 18, 2026, the first meeting after Michael Houghton was removed.
“Sixteen of the 31 members Matt Meyer inherited were gone within 90 days.
Eighteen new ones were seated in a single afternoon.”
Both Sides Of The Ledger
Delaware law caps a contribution to a candidate for Governor at $1,200 and prints the name. It caps nothing given to a political action committee. Here is what the people who sit on the council that sets the State’s spending ceiling have given to each side, complete through August 16, 2026.
“The 32 members still in the room have put $151,000 into the chairman’s political action committee. The 23 who are gone put in $23,000, and $15,000 of it came from James W. Stewart III and his household at 300 Rockland Road in Montchanin, the same post office village Alan Levin files every one of his own contributions from.”
The Twenty-Three Who Are Not
Every one of them sat on this council on December 17, 2024, at Governor John Carney’s last meeting, or was seated by Matt Meyer and left inside the fiscal year that followed. What each of them did for a living, and how each of them left, is half the story.
The Thirty-Two Who Are On The Council Now
The Meyer campaign committees are Meyer for New Castle County, which opened February 7, 2016 and closed December 31, 2021, and Meyer for Delaware.
The people still sitting on the council have given Matt Meyer’s campaign committees $25,616.64 and have given Alan Levin’s political action committee $151,000. The people who are gone gave the campaigns $29,250 and gave the political action committee $23,000, and $15,000 of that came from James W. Stewart III and his household at 300 Rockland Road in Montchanin, in three checks of $5,000 on October 26, 2023, November 14, 2023, and August 28, 2025.
Of the remaining $8,000 into that committee from people who are gone, $6,000 came from Guy Marcozzi, who answered the roll at the last recorded meeting and is not on the council now, and $2,000 came from Andrew Lubin on June 29, 2024, five weeks before he was asked to resign.
What The Roll Shows
Six people seated by Matt Meyer have given his committees $169,516.64. Philip Reese at $102,400, Alan Levin at $29,100, Chip DiPaula at $27,400, Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez at $5,566.64 with her household, Donald Mell at $3,700, and David Tam at $750. Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez gave $1,708.32 of that herself, and the rest came from Madhava Patibanda, Patibanda Sarma, and Pvln Sarma at 2719 Pickering Road in Wilmington, and from Marcos Sanchez in Washington.
Of the $228,866.64 given by everyone who has sat on this council, $174,000 went into the political action committee the chairman himself organized, and $54,866.64 into the campaign committees.
And the largest single check from any member of this council is Philip Reese’s $100,000 to Change Can’t Wait PAC on August 9, 2024, 32 days before the Democratic primary, 88 days before the general election, and 7 months before he was seated on the council.
Two of the 32 people in that room today come from one Dover highway contractor. Christopher W. Baker runs George and Lynch. Wayne A. Smith was its chief financial officer before he spent 15 years running the Delaware Healthcare Association. On December 15, 2022, Christopher Baker gave $600, and George and Lynch, Inc., of 150 Lafferty Lane in Dover, gave $600 the same day.
Three of them sit on the board of the Diamond State Port Corporation, the entity that received $110,000,000 in House Bill 500.
Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez chairs it. Ruth Ann Miller, the Controller General and the fiscal officer of the General Assembly, sits on it. So does Shanté Hastings, the Secretary of Transportation, who also sits on the board of Leadership Delaware, the nonprofit whose chief executive is Jennifer Cohan, the nominee the Delaware Senate refused to seat on that same port board.
And four of the people around this council come from one hospital. Alan Levin sits on the board of the Beebe Medical Foundation. David Tam is the president and chief executive of Beebe Healthcare. Sheila Bravo is the Beebe Medical Foundation’s chief philanthropic officer. Bruce Leshine, Beebe’s chief legal officer, was in the room on October 20, 2025, the day the Delaware Hospital Association presented on the health care spending benchmark this council votes. That is Section VIII-D.
The people who set Matt Meyer's spending ceiling put $54,866.64 into the
accounts where Delaware caps a check at $1,200, and $174,000 into the account
where Delaware caps nothing.
And The People Who Gave Nothing
Read the money columns against the reasons, and the pattern finishes itself.
Edward Ratledge chaired the Expenditure Subcommittee at the University of Delaware. $0. Jeffrey Bullock was Secretary of State to Jack Markell and John Carney. $0. Nancy Cook chaired the Joint Finance Committee, which writes the budget, and died in April 2026. $0. David Sokola is the Senate President Pro Tempore. $0. Ian McConnel was Chief Deputy Attorney General of Delaware under Beau Biden. $0. Robert Glen has been State Bank Commissioner since 1999. $0. Nicole Majeski was Secretary of Transportation. $0. David Gillan runs County Bank. $0. Gary Hindes was an investigative reporter before he was an investor. $0.
Lindsay Davis Burnham chaired the other subcommittee, the one that builds the revenue forecast. She gave $0 as well. Robert Byrd, who sat on this council himself, named her among the members the Governor asked to resign. Both subcommittee chairs, the man who forecast what Delaware would spend and the woman who forecast what it would take in, were off the council inside 90 days.
Michael Houghton gave $1,500 and was removed by email on March 18, 2026, two days after he asked the Department of State for corporate revenue figures it had not produced. Charles Postles, the state representative who objected to that removal on the record, gave nothing. He is still a member, and he is not listed on the attendance page of the May 18, 2026 meeting.
“The people who wrote the biggest checks are still in the room. The people who
chaired the subcommittees, wrote the budgets, and asked the questions are not.”
VIII-D. What They Bring Into The Room
“Fifty-five people have sat at that table since Matt Meyer took office.
Thirty-two are there now. The roster tells you who they are and what each of
them gave. It does not tell you why these particular people were chosen,
and that answer is written on the roster itself.”
Buena Vista is a State conference center off Route 13 in New Castle, a du Pont house with a long table in it. Five times a year, the members of that council sit at that table and decide how much money the State of Delaware is allowed to have. Thirty-three of them were on the roll at the last meeting the State published minutes for. The Governor’s own roster lists thirty-two today. The minutes print them as a letter and a surname. K. Agne. W. Smith. P. Swain. Nobody has to say what they do for a living, and nothing in Delaware law asks them to.
On December 17, 2024, at the Blue Ball Barn, the council met for the last time under Governor John Carney. Thirty-one members were on the roll, and twenty-five of them were in the room. Carney came, thanked them for eight years, and gave Michael Houghton the Order of the First State, the highest honor a Governor of Delaware can give a Delawarean.
Ninety days later, on March 17, 2025, at Buena Vista, thirty-three members were on the roll, and sixteen of those thirty-one were gone. Eighteen new members were seated in that single afternoon. Alan Levin called the meeting to order at 1:30, introduced himself, welcomed the other new members, and asked them to introduce themselves. He was attending remotely, so he asked Michael Houghton to run the meeting for him. At the end, Alan Levin thanked Michael Houghton for running it, and for his service as chair for the last eight years.
Now read the new roll the way you would read a hiring file, because the criteria are legible on it. What a person does for a living, and whether that living has a line in the forecast this council votes. What boards they already sit on, and who is sitting there with them. What some of them had already given. And whether they are the kind of person who asks questions.
Beebe Healthcare Has Four People Around This Council
Once a year, a group of people in a conference room decides how fast health care is allowed to cost more in Delaware. Not what a single procedure costs, and not what any one premium costs, but the ceiling the whole system gets measured against. For a hospital, that number is the difference between a comfortable year and a hard one. For a family, it is the difference between a bill they can carry and one they cannot.
It is called the Health Care Spending Benchmark. Three people write the recommendation. Thirty-three people vote it. And the hospital system that serves most of Sussex County has its chief executive on both.
Beebe Healthcare has been in Lewes since 1916, with locations now in Rehoboth, Milton, Georgetown, Long Neck, Millsboro and Millville, and an affiliation with Jefferson Health. It is a nonprofit. It is also a business with revenue, and that revenue grows or does not grow against the number this council sets.
Alan Levin holds the gavel. He was handed it by Governor Matt Meyer without ever having served a day as a member of this council, and he organized and raised money for the political action committee that elected the Governor who appointed him. He also sits on the Beebe Medical Foundation, Inc. Board of Directors.
Four months into that term, on March 17, 2025, in the afternoon when eighteen chairs were filled at once, Governor Matt Meyer seated the chief executive of Beebe Healthcare on the council Alan Levin chairs.
David A. Tam, MD, MBA, is President and Chief Executive Officer of Beebe Healthcare. He is Secretary of the Beebe Healthcare, Inc. Board of Directors and Secretary of the Beebe Medical Center, Inc. Board of Directors, and he sits as a director on the Beebe Medical Group Board and on the Beebe Medical Foundation, Inc. Board, which is the board Alan Levin sits on. Four boards. He has given $750.
He was also placed on the body that writes the number. The DEFAC Health Care Spending Benchmark Subcommittee has 4 seats assigned by qualification: two health economists and two health care quality experts. One economist seat is vacant. That leaves 3 people. David A. Tam, quality expert. Gary M. Siegelman, M.D., quality expert. Rebecca C. Ford, economist. The subcommittee writes the recommendation and Alan Levin’s council votes it.
Two more Beebe executives are already in the picture. Sheila Bravo, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President of the Beebe Medical Foundation and Chief Philanthropic Officer, and she sits on Beebe’s Executive Management Team. She has sat on this council since before Matt Meyer took office, and she has given nothing. Bruce Leshine, MBA, JD, is Beebe’s Vice President and Chief Legal Officer and also sits on that Executive Management Team. He appears in the Others Present list of the October 20, 2025 meeting, which is the meeting where the Delaware Hospital Association presented its recommendation on the health care spending benchmark.
So the chairman of the council sits on a Beebe board. The chief executive of Beebe sits on that same board, on three others, on the council the chairman runs, and on the subcommittee that writes the number the council votes. Beebe’s chief fundraiser votes on it. Beebe’s chief legal officer was in the room the day the hospital association made its case.
Now count the rest of Delaware’s hospitals in that room.
Delaware licenses roughly 18 hospitals. ChristianaCare is the largest system in the state, with Christiana Hospital in Newark at 1,039 beds and Wilmington Hospital at 321, and it operates the only Level I trauma center between Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Bayhealth runs Kent General in Dover and a Sussex campus in Milford. Saint Francis in Wilmington belongs to Trinity Health.
TidalHealth Nanticoke serves Seaford and western Sussex. Nemours Children’s Hospital treats the children.
Beebe Medical Center in Lewes is licensed for 186 beds, with 24 more at its specialty surgical hospital in Rehoboth.
Four people connected to the 186-bed system are on this council or in its room. Not one member of this council is identified with ChristianaCare, with Bayhealth, with Saint Francis, with TidalHealth, or with Nemours.
And Nemours used to be here. Kristin Dwyer, the External Affairs Leader at Nemours Children’s Health, sat on this council from March 2019 until March 2025. She is gone. She left in the same ninety days that the chief executive of Beebe Healthcare arrived.
The one seat that speaks for the industry as a whole rather than for any single system belongs to Wayne Smith, who ran the Delaware Healthcare Association, the trade group for all of the state’s hospitals, for 15 years. That is representation of the industry.
It is not representation of the other five systems, and none of them has a chair.
Gary M. Siegelman and Rebecca C. Ford have never given a dollar to any Matt Meyer committee.
A fifth chair belongs to the industry itself. Wayne Smith was elected to the Delaware House of Representatives at 28 and chosen House Majority Leader at 34, a post he held until he retired from the General Assembly. While he served in the legislature, he became the number two executive at George and Lynch, the Dover highway contractor. He then spent 15 years as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Delaware Healthcare Association, the trade group representing this state’s hospitals. He now runs Smith Capitol Advisors LLC of Middletown and is a registered Delaware lobbyist. He has given nothing.
Colleen C. Davis, the State Treasurer, sits here as well, and before she ever ran for office, her career was financial and operational administration inside health care, as a consultant, a practice manager, and a clinical director.
Now watch the number get set.
On October 20, 2025, Alan Levin brought forward the consultant and the Delaware Hospital Association, which presented the recommendation the subcommittee had adopted. Karl Agne and David Tam described the difficulty the subcommittee had reaching it. Alan Levin sent it back for further review before a formal vote.
On December 15, 2025, Alan Levin brought forward Secretary Christen Young with a new methodology, and the council adopted a 4.9 percent benchmark. One member voted no. Brian Maxwell said he was concerned about approving a health care benchmark higher than surrounding states and higher than Delaware’s own budget benchmark.
On May 18, 2026, with the meeting running 75 minutes, the council adopted 5 percent for calendar year 2027 and heard that health care spending in Delaware had reached $11.3 billion, growth of nearly 9 percent in a single year.
Now set the chairman’s political action committee beside those dates.
CHART 1. Health care money into Change Can’t Wait PAC, and the benchmark vote it preceded.
“Alan Levin sits on the board of the Beebe Medical Foundation. Four months
into Matt Meyer’s term, the chief executive of Beebe Healthcare was seated
on the council Alan Levin chairs, and placed on the subcommittee
that writes Delaware’s health care spending number.”
“Three people write the number that governs health care spending in Delaware.
One of them runs a 186-bed hospital in Lewes. The seat reserved for a
health economist is empty. Delaware’s largest health system, with 1,360 beds
and the only Level I trauma center in the state, has nobody on the council at all.”
“$65,000 of health care money went into the chairman’s political action committee
in the 11 weeks before the council he chairs voted the number that governs health care spending in Delaware. The largest check landed 7 days before the vote.”
One Dover Contractor Has Two Men At That Table
George and Lynch has been building Delaware roads since 1923. The man who runs it started there as an intern more than 30 years ago, and he now sits on the council that decides how much money the Department of Transportation will have.
Chris Baker is President and Chief Executive Officer of George and Lynch, the Dover heavy construction firm. He converted the company to employee ownership. He grew up in Greenwood, served 13 years on the Lake Forest school board, including as its president, is a trustee of the University of Delaware, and sits on the boards of the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce and ABC Delaware.
George and Lynch bids and holds Delaware Department of Transportation contracts. Its tabulated bids run from 2008 through a contract tabulated in 2026.
Governor Matt Meyer seated Chris Baker on this council on March 17, 2025. This council adopts the Transportation Trust Fund revenue estimate and the Transportation Trust Fund expenditure estimate. He also sits on the Delaware Task Force on Sustainable Transportation Funding, which works on where DelDOT’s money comes from next.
On October 20, 2025, the council raised Transportation Trust Fund revenues $85.1 million. On March 16, 2026, it cut them $9.1 million and raised DelDOT expenditures $23.1 million, with federal capital moving from $375.0 million to $400.0 million.
George and Lynch, Inc. of 150 Lafferty Lane in Dover gave Meyer for Delaware $600 on December 15, 2022. A Christopher Baker of Rehoboth Beach gave $600 the same day.
And Wayne Smith, who votes the health care benchmark, was that same company’s second in command. Two men from one Dover construction company sit on the council that adopts the Transportation Trust Fund estimate.
The Secretary of Transportation sits here too. Shanté Hastings is the twelfth Secretary of the Delaware Department of Transportation, sworn in by Governor Matt Meyer on January 30, 2025, and confirmed unanimously by the Delaware Senate. She has been at DelDOT since graduating from the University of Delaware in 2000 with a degree in civil engineering, and she was the first person to serve as Deputy Secretary and Chief Engineer at the same time.
She is responsible for 3,000 employees, 90 percent of the State’s public transportation network, including the Division of Motor Vehicles and the Delaware Transit Corporation, and a six-year capital program worth $4 billion. She chairs the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Committee on Design, sits on the University of Delaware Board of Trustees, and sits on the boards of the Delaware State Fair, the Joshua M. Freeman Foundation, Sussex Academy and Leadership Delaware.
And ABC Delaware is not a stranger to this report. Its political committee, ABC Merit Shop PAC, has given Matt Meyer $10,400 across eight contributions, including $5,000 into Change Can’t Wait PAC on July 17, 2024. Its president, Jennifer Cohan, is Governor Meyer’s nominee the Delaware Senate refused to seat on the port board. Its former president, Edward Capodanno, is the man Governor Meyer then seated on the Delaware Prosperity Partnership, where no Senate vote was required.
Leadership Delaware is the nonprofit whose chief executive is Jennifer Cohan. Shanté Hastings sits on that nonprofit’s board and on the port board Jennifer Cohan was kept off.
“A DelDOT contractor sits on the council that adopts the Transportation Trust Fund estimate and on the task force deciding where the next transportation
money comes from.”
The Corporate Services Company Has Never Lost Its Chair
Roughly two million business entities are registered in Delaware, and the fees and franchise taxes they pay are the largest revenue this council forecasts. The companies that handle those registrations are a Delaware industry of their own, and one of the largest has had someone at this table since April 2017.
Ian R. McConnel is Chief Legal Officer and Chief Risk Officer of CSC, the Wilmington corporate services company whose business is the registration and administration of the entities that produce Delaware’s franchise tax. He joined this council in April 2017. Before CSC, he was Chief Deputy Attorney General of Delaware and State Solicitor under Attorney General Beau Biden, where he ran the Consumer Protection and Fraud Division through the housing crisis and helped negotiate Delaware’s share of the $25 billion national mortgage settlement. He began at Morris, Nichols, Arsht and Tunnell, which is Michael Houghton’s firm, and he served as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps.
He is gone from the council. Then, in April 2026, twenty days after Michael Houghton was removed, Governor Matt Meyer appointed Brenda Wise, Corporate Counsel and Director of Global Government Affairs at CSC. One CSC executive left the room, and another one arrived. The company never lost the seat.
The Department of State sits on both sides of the same numbers. Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez is the Secretary of State, seated December 15, 2025. Regina Mitchell, her Deputy Secretary, was seated the same day. Regina Mitchell previously ran the Delaware Division of Small Business, where she administered more than $60 million in State Small Business Credit Initiative funds, directed the EDGE matching grant program, and oversaw the Tourism Office and the Office of Supplier Diversity. She is the official who told Michael Houghton in March 2026 that the Department was not yet prepared to revise the corporate projections but expected updated information at the next meeting.
Kristopher Knight of the Division of Corporations sat on this council from March 17, 2025 until after October 20, 2025. He is the official Michael Houghton questioned about the flat corporate franchise forecast, and the official Alan Levin asked for an update on the Elon Musk case. He answered that the Department continued to see a high volume of new companies, that it was challenging to anticipate how large they would grow, and that they were not seeing anything alarming at this time. He gave $500 on October 11, 2024.
Christopher DuVilla is the principal of DuVilla and Company, LLC, a certified public accounting and business consulting firm in Newark he has run since September 2004, working in small business accounting, tax planning, forensic accounting, and cash flow budgeting. Before that, he was a manager at Fenstermacher and Company and a supervisor at Wheeler, Wolfenden and Dwares and at Simon Master Sidlow.
“CSC has had someone at that table since April 2017. The executive who held the seat
is gone, and a different CSC executive filled it 20 days after
the chairman’s question got him removed.”
Three Of Them Sit On The Board Of The Port That Took The Money
House Bill 500 sent $110,000,000 to the Diamond State Port Corporation. Its board has 12 members. Three of them sit on the council that set the ceiling that money had to fit under.
Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez chairs that board. Ruth Ann Miller sits on it. So does Shanté Hastings.
Ruth Ann Miller is the Controller General of Delaware, appointed by the Legislative Council of the General Assembly in December 2020 and the first woman to hold the office. The Office of the Controller General is the nonpartisan fiscal oversight arm of the legislative branch and writes the State’s annual appropriations legislation. She holds a bachelor of science in finance and a master of science in public administration, spent more than a decade in executive branch agencies, and joined the legislative branch in 2018. She sits on this council, on the Cash Management Policy Board, on the State Employee Benefits Committee, and on the board of the Diamond State Port Corporation.
And it was Ruth Ann Miller who told the bond bill committee that the escheat surplus fund held a significant balance, in the same proceeding where a spokesperson for the Delaware Department of Finance declined to say how much money was in it.
Every name on that port board was run against the same 92 campaign finance reports. Fred Sears, the vice chair, has given $3,350 across 10 contributions, filed from Post Office Box 4135 in Greenville in 2016 and from 11 Derbyshire Way in Wilmington ever since, with two checks of $500 written on the same day, October 7, 2022. He is the retired president of the Delaware Community Foundation and a former president of WSFS Bank. Michael Smith has given $4,162.50 across 7 contributions, $3,412.50 of it from 4926 Hogan Drive in Wilmington and $200 from Dewberry Drive in Hockessin, including $1,200 on September 18, 2024 and $1,000 on October 22, 2024, five weeks and three weeks before the election.
Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez, the chair, has given $1,708.32 herself across 7 contributions, and her household reaches $5,566.64 across 16. The names are Madhava Patibanda, Patibanda Sarma, and Pvln Sarma at 2719 Pickering Road in Wilmington, and Marcos Sanchez of Washington. $400 of it went to the county committee, $4,166.64 to Meyer for Delaware, and $1,000 into Change Can’t Wait PAC on May 15, 2024, in two checks of $500 written the same day by Pvln Sarma. Ruth Ann Miller and Shanté Hastings have given nothing.
Karen C. Bifferato, Senator Darius J. Brown, David H. Burt, Joshua Bushweller, Ronald “Kimoko” Harris, Representative Debra Heffernan and Robert “Jerry” Medd have given nothing. The only Bushweller in the filings is Brian Bushweller of Burning Tree Road in Dover, the former state senator, who gave $500 on September 30, 2024.
The port had its own people in the room besides. Sean Finnigan is the registered Delaware lobbyist for Enstructure, the private company that operates the Port of Wilmington, and for D2 Management LLC. He files from Post Office Box 394 in Rockland and gave $500 on October 10, 2024. He appears in the Others Present list of the June 2025 meeting, the October 20, 2025 meeting, and the December 15, 2025 meeting. Thomas McGonigle, the registered lobbyist for the Diamond State Port Corporation, appears in the Others Present list of the May 18, 2026 meeting. The corporation he is registered to lobby for is not named anywhere in the minutes of the meeting he attended.
“Three members of the council that sets Delaware’s spending ceiling sit on the board
of the port corporation that received $110,000,000 of it.”
“The private operator of the Port of Wilmington had its lobbyist in that room
three times in 2025. The port corporation had its lobbyist in the room in May 2026.
The word port does not appear in any of those minutes.”
The Water Utility, The Casino, And The Rest Of The Table
The rest of the table is not filler. Nearly every one of them arrives with a line in the forecast attached.
Pierre Anderson is Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Artesian Resources Corporation, the publicly traded water utility, and he was seated on this council in October 2022. He came up through MBNA America and later Bank of America and managed project and support services for the Christina School District. He chairs the board of Easterseals Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore and sits on the Board of Governors of the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce. He is a lifelong Wilmington resident with a bachelor’s degree from Delaware State University and two graduate degrees from the University of Delaware.
Two things follow from that. This council votes the Public Utility Tax line, which it moved $1.3 million on March 16, 2026, and a utility executive sits on it. And Michael Houghton, the member removed by email, sits on the board of directors of Artesian Resources Corporation, which is the company that employs Pierre Anderson.
Chris Baker also sits on the Easterseals board and on the Delaware State Chamber board. Alan Levin chaired that Chamber in 2005. The same rooms, over and over, with the same people in them.
Patricia B. Key is Chief Executive Officer of Harrington Raceway and Casino, which puts a casino executive on the council that votes the Lottery line, one of the most volatile revenues in the forecast.
Palash Gupta chairs the Delaware Commission on Indian Heritage and Culture and the Delaware Asian American Business Association, is a trustee of the Gujarati Association of Delaware, and sits on the Delaware Governor’s Supplier Diversity Commission alongside his seat on this council. The Office of Supplier Diversity was run out of the Division of Small Business by Regina Mitchell before she became Deputy Secretary of State.
Paula Swain is Executive Director of the Incyte Charitable Giving Foundation. She has sat on this council since before Matt Meyer took office, and she also sits on the board of the Delaware Prosperity Partnership, the public-private corporation that recruits business to Delaware and steers site selection. That is the same board where Edward Capodanno was seated in August 2025.
Todd Lawson has been the Sussex County Administrator since January 1, 2012, the chief administrative officer of that county government. He holds a degree from the University of Delaware and a law degree from George Mason University, and he was a chief congressional liaison and deputy assistant secretary at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Karl Agne is a founding partner of GBAO Strategies, the Washington polling and strategic communications firm, and he works out of Wilmington. He directed national research for the Gore-Lieberman presidential campaign in 2000, co-founded Democracy Corps in 1999 with James Carville and Stan Greenberg, and has run polling for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and House Majority PAC. Governor Matt Meyer seated a Democratic pollster on the council that certifies Delaware’s revenue.
Kyle Myers is Chief Executive Officer of Morningside Asset Management. In May 2025, he asked what would happen to federal payments Delaware institutions had not received, including PELL grants, and he pressed the Lottery forecast on whether Mega Millions ticket sales had fallen after the price of a single play went from two dollars to five.
Liza Davis answered the question about held-up federal research payments in May 2025 by saying the University of Pennsylvania shares those concerns. Michael S. Jackson is Director of the Office of Management and Budget and presents the expenditure forecast at every meeting.
Brian Maxwell is Chief Financial Officer of Children and Families First. He was Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the last year of the Markell administration and deputy director for three years before that, and he built the long-term financial plan for Matt Meyer’s New Castle County administration before moving on to a state position. He is the member who voted no on the health care benchmark.
He is also the man who asked the question. On October 20, 2025, Brian Maxwell asked the council what Delaware’s revenues would have looked like if the federal act had not passed. David Roose, the State’s revenue forecaster, answered that they would have been positive, and about $300 million higher. That answer established, on the record and in public, that the $410 million was a timing shock and not a collapse.
Eight weeks later, at the December 15, 2025 meeting, Brian Maxwell told this same council that Delaware had saved an estimated $328 million through Fiscal Year 2028 by decoupling from the federal code. Saved. The man who asked the question that proved it was a timing issue is the man who called the extraction a savings.
Colleen C. Davis is the State Treasurer of Delaware, first elected in November 2018 and re-elected in 2022, and she sits on this council in that office rather than by anyone’s invitation. She manages the State’s multibillion-dollar portfolio and its cash management, and she runs Delaware EARNS, the state-facilitated retirement savings program aimed at the roughly 38 percent of Delaware’s workforce with no employer plan. She also sits on the Cash Management Policy Board, the Plans Management Board that oversees the deferred compensation and 529 college savings plans, and the State Employee Benefits Committee.
Nationally, she sits on the executive board of the College Savings Plans Network and on the Market Transparency Advisory Group of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board. Locally, she belongs to the Southern Sussex Rotary Club. She holds a Master of Health Administration and a Bachelor of Science from Wilmington University.
She is the member who reports Dividends and Interest to this council, which is the line that rose $22.9 million in December 2025 and fell $7.9 million in March 2026, and when Mr. Maxwell asked about the 14.3 percent growth rate the projection required, it was Colleen Davis who answered that the assumed rate was 9.1 percent. She is also the member who asked, in May 2025, how federal policy might hit the corporate income tax, and who asked in June 2025 whether the projections account for companies coming to Delaware and bringing jobs.
The State Employee Benefits Committee is not a side note in this story either. It is the body whose 4.2 percent health insurance increase in 2025 and 2.2 percent premium increase in 2026 flow straight into the fringe benefit lines this council votes, and it is the same health care spending that produced the benchmark fight. The Treasurer sits on both bodies. So does the Controller General.
And Colleen Davis is leaving. She has announced she will step down at the end of her term to run for the United States House of Representatives, which means the one seat on this council held by an official the voters of Delaware elect is empty after 2026.
“On October 20, 2025, the State’s own forecaster said Delaware’s revenues would
have been $300 million higher without the federal act. Eight weeks later,
the man who asked that question told the same council Delaware had
saved$328 million by taking the deductions back.”
“The only seat on the council that the voters of Delaware fill is the State Treasurer’s, and it comes open at the end of 2026.”
The Member Who Has Never Been There
One chair has never had anyone sitting in it.
James Columbus DiPaula Jr., who goes by “Chip”, files from 2 Penn Street in Rehoboth Beach. He gave Matt Meyer $1,200 on August 4, 2024, gave Change Can’t Wait PAC $25,000 the same day, and gave $1,200 more on September 25, 2024. $27,400.
He first appears on this council’s roll on May 19, 2025. He is marked absent that day, and on June 16, 2025, and on October 20, 2025, and on December 15, 2025, and on March 16, 2026, and on May 18, 2026. Six meetings, six absences, every one on the public record.
Before Delaware, he was Maryland. Secretary of Budget and Management under Governor Robert Ehrlich from 2003 to 2005, then Chief of Staff to that Governor from 2005 to 2007. He later managed the 2012 ballot campaign that legalized marriage equality in Maryland. Governor Larry Hogan appointed him chairman of the University of Maryland Medical System board, the multibillion-dollar hospital system that had just been through the Healthy Holly self-dealing scandal, and he ran it through the pandemic.
In 2014, he co-founded Flywheel Digital, which became one of the largest advertising firms working the Amazon marketplace. Ascential PLC of London bought it on November 1, 2018, for up to $400 million.
On February 14, 2022, Compass Marketing of Annapolis filed an 80-page, 23-count federal civil complaint in Baltimore, brought by Morgan, Lewis and Bockius and assigned to Judge James K. Bredar, pleaded under the 1964 federal Racketeering Act and the Maryland Uniform Trade Secrets Act. It names James C. DiPaula Jr., Patrick Miller, Ascential PLC, and three members of the White family who ran Compass, among them a sitting deputy state’s attorney and an orphans’ court judge in St. Mary’s County.
The complaint alleges that Compass hired DiPaula as executive vice president of its international division on March 1, 2010, and Miller as vice president of digital strategy on January 31, 2011; that both men resigned on the same day, September 4, 2014, and that they had formed Flywheel Digital LLC the day before. It alleges their departure was a calculated plan, with surreptitious support inside Compass, to start a rival e-commerce company by taking virtually all of Compass’s trade secrets and proprietary knowledge, and that both had signed two-year non-solicitation agreements. It alleges that in October 2016, six Compass employees left for Flywheel. Two years later, Ascential paid up to $400 million for it.
Those are allegations in a civil complaint. DiPaula’s counsel denied them and said he would defend the case.
Twenty-three days after that complaint was filed, on March 9, 2022, Chip DiPaula resigned as chairman of the University of Maryland Medical System. His letter to Governor Hogan said he had changed his permanent primary domicile to another state because of remote work and expanding global corporate responsibilities.
The state was Delaware. Two years later, he wrote $25,000 into the political action committee that elected the Governor, and the Governor seated him on the council that certifies Delaware’s revenue, where he has never once answered the roll.
“A man named as a defendant in a federal racketeering and trade secrets complaint resigned a hospital chairmanship 23 days later, moved his domicile to Delaware, gave $25,000 to the committee that elected the Governor, and was seated on the council that sets Delaware’s spending ceiling. He has been absent from all 6 meetings since.”
What It Costs To Ask
That is who was seated. What follows is what happened to the two men who asked questions.
Between March 16 and May 18, 2026, exactly 2 names left the roll of this council.
Michael Houghton, who asked the Department of State for the corporate franchise figures. Removed by email on March 18. He and Leigh Houghton had given Matt Meyer $2,700 across three contributions, $300 on December 4, 2019, from Clover Drive in Hockessin; $1,200 on September 21, 2024, and $1,200 on October 27, 2024, from Medallion Avenue in Millsboro. The last of those checks was written five months before the email.
Charles Postles, the state representative who objected on the record to that removal. He is not listed on the attendance page of the May 18, 2026 meeting. He remains a member of the council, and he has given nothing.
Two names arrived.
Brenda Wise, appointed April 7, 2026, twenty days after the email, with a press release from the Governor’s office. She is Corporate Counsel and Director of Global Government Affairs at CSC, the corporate services company whose business is the registration and administration of the entities that generate Delaware’s franchise tax. She was previously Director of Policy at the Delaware Office of Management and Budget. The seat vacated by the man asking about corporate revenue went to an executive of a corporate services company.
Kevin Hensley, seated May 18, 2026, as the House Minority Caucus representative. Representative from the 9th District, Odessa, Townsend and Port Penn, in the House since 2014, an associate broker with RE/MAX Eagle. On April 16, 2025, he pleaded guilty to vehicular assault and driving under the influence following a November 2024 collision that injured another driver. He lost his license for a year, and he was removed from the Joint Finance Committee, the committee that writes Delaware’s budget. Thirteen months later, he was seated on the council that sets the ceiling that budget must fit inside. He announced on May 12, 2026, that he would not seek reelection, six days before his first meeting.
“The man who asked the question was replaced by an executive of a corporate
services company. The legislator who objected was replaced by a legislator
who had just been removed from the budget-writing committee.”
And Who The Room Lost
Read what walked out of Buena Vista between December 2024 and the summer of 2025, because the departures are as specific as the arrivals. These are not the political appointees who turn over with any administration. These are the people who knew the most, and almost none of them ever gave Matt Meyer a dollar.
Robert A. Glen has been Delaware’s State Bank Commissioner since January 1999, appointed by Governor Thomas Carper and reappointed by Ruth Ann Minner, Jack Markell and John Carney, confirmed for a seventh four-year term in May 2023. He was Deputy Bank Commissioner before that, a Deputy Attorney General in securities enforcement before that, and an associate at Skadden Arps before that. He holds a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s in accounting from New York University. The council he sat on voted the Bank Franchise Tax line, which fell $8.3 million in October 2025 in part because a state-chartered bank merged into a national one. He was on the roll in June 2025, and he is not on the roll in October 2025.
Nicole Majeski was Secretary of the Delaware Department of Transportation from January 2021 to December 2024, the eleventh person to hold that office, running a $4 billion capital program and 2,500 employees after nine years as deputy secretary, and before DelDOT, she was chief of staff to New Castle County Executive Chris Coons. She left the council. In January 2026, she became Strategy and Advisory Growth Lead for the Roads, Bridges and Tolls business unit at AtkinsRéalis. The former Secretary of Transportation left the council that votes on the Transportation Trust Fund estimate and went to work for a global infrastructure firm. A DelDOT contractor stayed.
David E. Gillan has been Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of County Bank since 2011, joined it as a loan officer when it opened in 1990, and rose through Sussex Trust in Georgetown before that. He has served on a Federal Reserve Bank advisory council and the Governor’s Council on Banking, chaired the Delaware Bankers Association, and represented Delaware on the national board of the Independent Community Bankers of America. He is gone.
Gary E. Hindes founded The Delaware Bay Company and has spent his career in the securities of bankrupt and distressed corporations, after Paine Webber, Kidder Peabody and Morgan Stanley, and after managing the Deltec Recovery Fund and serving as liquidating trustee of the South Street Funds over $250 million in assets. Before Wall Street, he was press secretary to the County Executive of New Castle County and assistant to the Speaker of the Delaware House. And before that, he founded a newspaper group at 19 and came to Delaware as associate editor and chief investigative reporter of the Delaware State News, winning regional awards for investigative journalism. He gave $500 on August 27, 2024, and he is gone.
Kristin Dwyer sat on this council from March 2019 to March 2025. She is the External Affairs Leader at Nemours, the children’s health system, after ten years as Director of Legislative and Political Strategy at the Delaware State Education Association, and before that, a policy coordinator for New Castle County. She is Vice President of the Delaware School Based Health Center Alliance and sits on the board of Healthy Food for Healthy Kids, which supports 58 Delaware schools and nearly 24,000 students. She gave $500, and she is gone.
Ian R. McConnel of CSC is gone, and CSC is not.
Lindsay Davis Burnham spent years on this council and chaired a subcommittee, one of the two subcommittees that build the forecasts the whole budget rests on. Her career is in financial advising, wealth management, and corporate leadership. Robert Byrd, who sat on this council himself, named her among the members the Governor asked to resign. Edward Ratledge of the University of Delaware chaired the other subcommittee, the expenditure side, and he is gone too. Both chairs were off the council inside 90 days. Neither ever gave Matt Meyer a dollar.
Robert Byrd runs The Byrd Group, a lobbying and government relations firm, and he is a former state legislator. His household has given $8,300, six checks from 11 Winding Lane and four more from Rebecca L. Byrd of 403 Overbrook Avenue. Guy Marcozzi of Duffield Associates answered the roll on May 18, 2026, and is not on the council now; he has given $8,050, including $6,000 into Change Can’t Wait PAC. Andrew Lubin of the real estate subcommittee gave $5,000, including $2,000 into that same committee on June 29, 2024, five weeks before he was asked to resign.
Neeraj Batta of Batta Environmental Associates in Newark is part of a $3,050 household and firm cluster with Ramesh Batta. Jeffrey Bullock was Secretary of State to Jack Markell and John Carney, and gave nothing. Nancy Cook chaired the Joint Finance Committee, which writes the budget, gave nothing, and died in April 2026. Cerron Cade ran the Office of Management and Budget. Josette Manning’s departure was announced on October 20, 2025, alongside Edward Ratledge’s. Danny Short is a former state representative. David Sokola is the Senate President Pro Tempore. Kristopher Knight went back to the Division of Corporations.
“A bank commissioner of 26 years. A transportation secretary. A community bank
chief executive. A distressed-debt investor who used to be an investigative reporter.
A children’s health advocate. Both subcommittee chairs.
All of them off the council inside 9 months.”
The Other Boards Under The Same Roof
The Delaware Department of Finance carries 7 boards. Two of them are DEFAC, the council itself, and the health care benchmark subcommittee, both created under Executive Order 62. The other five are the Government Efficiency and Accountability Review Board, which Governor John Carney created by Executive Order 4 in 2017, the Board of Pension Trustees, the Advisory Council on Charitable Gaming Planning, the Tax Appeal Board, and the Lottery Commission.
Three of those five sit directly on lines this council votes, so every name on them was run against the same 92 campaign finance reports.
The Board of Pension Trustees has 5 members and oversees the fund behind the $594.1 million pension line in these forecasts. Its chair, Suzanne Barton Grant, has given $1,800, filed as Suzanne B Grant of 11 Summit Lane, Wilmington, on November 20, 2019, and as Suzanne Grant of 11 Summit Lane, Greenville, on October 7, 2024. One house, two spellings, two town names, and the second check landed the same week as Darrell J. Baker’s and Edward Hazzouri’s. Arturo F. Agra, Jeffrey A. Reeves and Nancy J. Shevock have given nothing.
And one trustee is worth the reader’s attention for a different reason. Kenneth A. Simpler Jr. was Treasurer of Delaware, elected in 2014 and defeated in 2018 by Colleen C. Davis, who now holds that office and sits on this council in it. He oversees the pension fund, and he has given nothing.
The Tax Appeal Board has 5 members and hears the disputes of Delaware taxpayers over the very taxes this council forecasts. Its chair, Todd C. Schiltz, and his household have given $3,125 across 5 contributions, all from 5 School Road in Wilmington and filed under three spellings of one name. Christine P Schiltz gave $125 on October 28, 2016. Christine Schiltz gave $300 on April 20, 2023, $300 on February 24, 2024, and $1,200 on October 10, 2024. Todd Charles Schiltz gave $1,200 on October 18, 2024, eight days after his wife. $2,400 of that household total was written in October 2024. Joan M. Winters, Margaret L. Fuller, and Robert W. Slavin have given nothing.
The Lottery Commission has 5 members, and the Lottery line is one of the most volatile revenues this council votes, down $11.2 million in May 2025 on bad weather and a poor sports hold, up $9.2 million in March 2026 on iGaming. Earl T. Jeter, the certified public accountant on that commission, gave $250 on October 20, 2022, from 617 West 38th Street in Wilmington. Angela J. Garnsey, Deborah D. Wicks, G. Andrew McKay and Mary E. Sherlock have given nothing.
Not one of the five members of the Advisory Council on Charitable Gaming Planning appears in the campaign finance filings. Bessie Staab-Hickman, Helene M. Keeley, Henry Thomas Clark III, Jeffrey K. Crouser and William R. Hall have given nothing. Helene M. Keeley chairs it, and she is the former state representative from Wilmington’s 3rd District who chaired the House Revenue and Finance Committee.
“The chair of the board that hears Delaware tax appeals and his household have
given $3,125 from one address under three spellings, $2,400 of it in October 2024.”
The Year With No Election
Not one member of this council gave the chairman’s political action committee a dollar in 2026. The committee took in $246,000 anyway, in a year when Matt Meyer is not on any ballot, and closed the reporting period on August 16, 2026, with $401,660.15 in the bank.
CHART 2. Every contribution to Change Can’t Wait PAC from January 1 through August 16, 2026, set against what happened in the room.
$201,000 of that, 82 percent, arrived between April 8 and May 12. That window opens 21 days after Michael Houghton was removed and closes 6 days before the 75-minute meeting.
The committee spent $49,548.70 in the same period. $39,755.40 of it went to Dover Motor Speedway and to Levy Restaurants at the speedway. Eighty cents of every dollar spent went to a racetrack.
“The chairman’s political action committee raised $246,000 in a year with nothing
on the ballot and spent 80 cents of every dollar at a racetrack, while the
council he chairs held the shortest meetings in its recorded history.”
What The Law Requires Of Them
Nothing.
Under the DuPont-Cook Financial Responsibility Act, signed June 3, 2026, and effective July 1, the Governor appoints no fewer than 12 and no more than 21 of the 33 members. Nine more seats are written in as ex officio: the Controller General, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Secretary of Finance, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Transportation, the Secretary of Health and Social Services, the two Joint Finance Committee Co-Chairs, and the State Treasurer. Five of those nine are the Governor’s own cabinet, and he hires and fires them. Four legislators are named by the Speaker and the Senate President, which Executive Order 62 already provided. The General Assembly came away with three seats it did not have. The Governor controls roughly 25 of 33.
No member is confirmed by the Delaware Senate. No member has a fixed term. No cause is required to remove one. No member files a financial disclosure of any kind, and no body reviews one.
Set that against New Castle County. A resident appointed to a county board files a Statement of Financial Interests with the New Castle County Ethics Commission and files again every year the appointment continues. So does a County Executive’s appointee, a candidate for county office, an elected official, a general manager, a division head, a code enforcement officer, a public works inspector, a purchasing agent, a land use planner, and the Chief of Police. The Commission reviews them and tells County Council whether a nominee has filed and whether the form is complete. Those statements are public, and they are posted at nccethics.org.
A purchasing agent for New Castle County discloses his finances every year to a commission whose job is to check them. The 33 people who decide how much money the State of Delaware may spend and how much it may borrow disclose nothing, to no one, ever.
Go back to the room. The long table, the du Pont house off Route 13, the letters and surnames on the attendance page. Four people from one hospital. Two from one road contractor. One corporate services company that has never lost its chair. Three who also sit on the board of the port that took $110,000,000. A pollster, a casino executive, a water utility officer, a man who has never once attended. And the two who asked questions, gone.
“Delaware requires a financial disclosure from a county public works inspector.
It requires none from the people who set the ceiling on the entire State budget.”
VIII-E. The Man With No Title
"Alan Levin has never been elected to anything.
For eighteen years, he has been standing where Delaware decides who gets what."
A Promise Made Inside An Empty Factory
On the morning of October 27, 2009, Vice President Joe Biden walked into a shuttered automobile plant on Boxwood Road, near Newport, Delaware, and told a room full of laid-off autoworkers that they were going to get their jobs back.
General Motors had built cars in that building since 1947. Five thousand people had worked there at the peak. Eight and a half million vehicles had come off those lines. It had closed three months earlier, after sixty-two years, and the men and women standing in front of the Vice President that morning had spent the summer figuring out what a person does at forty-eight when the plant closes.
Biden lives three miles away, in Greenville. He had come to announce that the United States Department of Energy would lend more than half a billion dollars to a California startup called Fisker Automotive, which wanted to build plug-in hybrid sports cars in that building. Governor Jack Markell stood beside him. This is seed money, Biden said, that will return back to the American consumer in billions and billions and billions of dollars in good new jobs. The loan, he told them, would let some of the best workers in the world reclaim their jobs.
Six months later, in April 2010, Governor Markell’s administration put in $22 million of Delaware’s own money, a state loan and a state grant together. Contemporary accounts in 2014 put the state’s exposure at $20 million and at more than $21 million; the $22 million figure comes from Karl Baker’s 2023 reconstruction, which had the benefit of the full bankruptcy record. Fisker promised two thousand factory jobs and three thousand more up and down the supply chain.
Not one car was ever built in that building. Not one Delaware worker was ever hired to build one.
What stands on that ground today is an Amazon warehouse, the largest building the company operates in this state. How it got from one to the other runs through a small number of Delawareans who have known each other a long time, and through one man in particular who has never held elected office in his life.
The Man In Two Chairs
Alan B. Levin does not vote on anything. He does not sign laws. He has never stood for election. Walk down Market Street in Wilmington and ask ten people who he is, and you will get ten blank looks, and that is not shyness. It is the shape of the career.
His father, Harry, opened Happy Harry’s with a single drugstore. Alan took it and made it enormous. Seventy-six stores across four states, two thousand seven hundred employees, revenues climbing toward half a billion dollars, roughly two of every three prescriptions filled in Delaware. By the end, it was the tenth largest drugstore chain in America. Walgreens bought it in July 2006, and the sale made him rich enough that he never again had to want anything from anyone.
Levin had been in and out of government the whole time. He prosecuted as a deputy attorney general under Delaware Attorney General Richard Gebelein. He staffed United States Senator William Roth as his executive assistant and counsel. He ran Delaware’s Private Industry Council through the nineties. In 2001, he chaired the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, which his own official biography describes, without embarrassment, as the organization that directs lobbying for the industry.
Levin sat on the national board of the United States Chamber of Commerce. In 2005, he chaired Delaware’s Chamber and got the gross receipts tax cut. Somewhere in there, he collected the Delaware Distinguished Service Medal for helping the families of Guard and Reserve members deployed to Desert Storm and Iraq, and board seats at Wesley College and the Red Cross of Delmarva, and advisory seats at Delaware State University’s business school and the University of Delaware’s Lerner College.
After Walgreens, he started a venture fund, Innovation Capital Partners, and put money into a spectroscopy company called Centice and a hiring-reference company called Skill Survey. And he took a seat on the board of A. Duie Pyle.
"A. Duie Pyle hauls freight and runs warehouses. Before Alan Levin ran the state
agency that hands companies public money to build here, before he chaired the corporation that owns the Port of Wilmington, and before he came to chair the
council that decides what Delaware can afford to spend on a container terminal,
he sat on the board of a trucking company."
In December 2008, the incoming governor, Jack Markell, gave him two jobs at once.
The first was Director of the Delaware Economic Development Office, a cabinet post, the agency that decides which private companies receive state money to build in Delaware. The second was Chairman of the Board of the Diamond State Port Corporation, the state-owned company that owns the Port of Wilmington.
One man. The office that gives out the money, and the board that owns the port. Nobody voted for him for either.
How Things Reached His Desk
In the summer of 2023, a reporter named Karl Baker published three stories in Delaware Online and The News Journal about what a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden showed about business in Delaware. Most of the country had spent three years arguing about that laptop and about foreign money. Almost nobody had looked at what it said about Wilmington.
What it showed was a state clawing out of a recession and paying almost anyone who promised a job.
On February 3, 2010, a California political donor named Wade Randlett, who had worked on the Obama transition and ran a company called Next Fuels, emailed Governor Jack Markell directly. Randlett wanted to put solar panels and other alternative energy equipment at the Delaware City refinery. He opened by mentioning that he and the Governor had a mutual friend. The friend was Hunter Biden.
Markell answered from a private email account he kept under a false name. The name was Alan Jackson. Delaware reporters would find that out in 2015.
Markell handed Randlett to Alan Levin.
Ten weeks later, on April 20, 2010, Levin wrote an email introducing Randlett to another possible partner for the refinery project. In it, he explained where Randlett had come from. Randlett, he wrote, came to us at DEDO through the Vice President’s Office.
Reading the underlying emails thirteen years later, The News Journal called that a seemingly inaccurate statement.
Karl Baker asked Alan Levin about it in 2023. Levin answered by email, and he did not deny writing it. He talked first about the economy, about how Delaware was coming out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Then he explained himself.
"If the mention of the VP’s Office in the email was authentic, it was
probably an effort by me to add credibility to the venture again because
I wanted as many jobs created as possible."
- Alan Levin, who ran Delaware’s economic development office from 2009 to 2015.
He added that nobody ever pressured his office to favor companies connected to the Bidens.
Randlett was not the only one. A staffer inside Levin’s agency put it in writing that they would pull out the stops for two more companies Hunter Biden had brought around, an Israeli air conditioning maker called DuCool and a water technology outfit called Aqua Sciences.
And ten miles west of the Boxwood plant, at the old Chrysler factory in Newark that the University of Delaware was turning into a research campus, a Rosemont Seneca employee named Michael Muldoon was drafting a sales pitch. His firm, he wrote, was working closely with a team at the University of Delaware, in coordination with businesses and the State government, to help find clean tech companies to fill a technology park at the site of an old Chrysler plant. He called the university one of Rosemont Seneca’s strategic partners.
He sent the draft to Hunter Biden in November 2010 with a note. He had made it for $15,000 for introductions. Let me know if that sounds good, Muldoon wrote, and I’ll get it out the door.
Hunter Biden had one question. Would it include success fees and equity.
It would, Muldoon answered. He added the equity and percentage pieces project by project.
"Fifteen thousand dollars to be introduced to a state university and a state government, with equity negotiated case by case."
The refinery project died in the end, killed by senior management at PBF Energy, the private equity firm that had bought the Delaware City refinery. Nobody got anything. But for about a year the State of Delaware worked hard for it, and Alan Levin worked hardest.
Twenty-Two Million Dollars and a Building Full of Nothing
Fisker Automotive was the big one, and Hunter Biden’s own firm was in it early.
It’s our fund that’s in the deal, he wrote in December 2010 to a Philadelphia money manager named Wayne Kimmel, an old friend from Kimmel’s days at ETF Venture Funds. Cool company, right.
In May of that year, Fisker had trucked its luxury sedan, the Karma, to a Jaguar dealership in Wilmington and unveiled it to a crowd. The next month, a bankruptcy judge signed off on Fisker buying the Boxwood plant. Weeks after that, an investment banker named Barry Yerger, of Barley Mill Asset Management, emailed Hunter Biden with sincere thanks for any and all help provided concerning Fisker, particularly the introduction to Kimmel, and added his congratulations to all on the finalization of the Boxwood Plant transfer. Yerger would not talk to Karl Baker in 2023, and so nobody knows who all he was congratulating, or for what.
Then it fell apart in the ordinary way. Fisker missed its production milestones. The Department of Energy shut off the loan. The battery supplier went bankrupt in 2012. By spring of 2013, Fisker could not make a $10 million payment. In November, it filed.
Hunter Biden was listed personally among the creditors, along with three investment funds bearing the Rosemont name at addresses matching Rosemont Seneca Partners. Delaware taxpayers stood third in line, behind the federal government and Silicon Valley Bank, and got back essentially nothing of the $22 million.
Also in the wreckage was Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, the Silicon Valley venture firm whose managing partner Raymond Lane had been chairman of Fisker’s board. Al Gore was a senior partner at Kleiner Perkins then. So was John Doerr, a major Democratic donor who sat on President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board while the administration was steering some $90 billion into clean energy.
Four years later, Henrik Fisker, who founded the company, blamed the battery supplier and his own failure to raise more money. If we would have got the money, he told The News Journal in 2017, we would have been in Delaware today as the original company.
"Delaware put twenty-two million dollars of public money into a company
that never built a car here and never hired a worker here,
and then stood third in line to get it back."
Two Chinese Companies And A Rigged Auction
What happened to the wreckage is worth following, because it explains who owned the building when New Castle County came knocking.
In October 2013, one month before Fisker filed, the federal government auctioned off the $169 million Fisker still owed on its federal loan. Exactly one bidder showed up. A Delaware limited liability company called Hybrid Technology, controlled by the Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li, bid $25 million for the whole thing, and won.
Federal investigators would later conclude that Li’s company had rigged that auction and cost American taxpayers millions. Hybrid Technology paid the government %29 million in 2020 to make the claims go away.
The hard assets went separately. On March 24, 2014, Wanxiang America, the American arm of what was then China’s largest auto parts manufacturer, bought them for $149 million. The Boxwood plant came along inside that sale. Fisker had told the Department of Energy the year before that the property was worth $40 million.
And according to Alan Levin, somewhere in there Hunter Biden telephoned Governor Markell to connect him with Chinese investors interested in the plant. Markell’s people arranged a tour. Hunter Biden canceled it. Levin said nobody ever told him the investors’ names.
Jessica Tillipman, who teaches government contracts law at George Washington University and serves as its assistant dean for procurement law studies, read the record for Karl Baker. She called it ugly, said it did not appear to break any law, and said it carried the appearance of favoritism. Most people in politics who care about ethics, Tillipman said, take pains to avoid this situation.
The County Tries To Buy It Back
Tom Gordon had been County Executive of New Castle County before, and by 2014 he was back. He is not a subtle man, and he did not have a subtle idea.
He wanted the county to buy that plant. Not to sit on it. He wanted to turn the old General Motors factory into a distribution hub tied to an expanded Port of Wilmington, so that ships coming into Wilmington would unload into a warehouse the county owned, on land the county controlled, employing people the county could count.
He gave the job to his second in command, Chief Administrative Officer David Grimaldi.
On June 3, 2014, two News Journal reporters, Adam Taylor and Aaron Nathans, put the plan in the paper. New Castle County was offering $9 million. When Karl Baker went back through the record nine years later, the figure he found for what Tom Gordon proposed was $9.9 million. The number announced was $9 million. The number that reached Wanxiang was $9.9 million.
Gordon told them exactly what he was thinking. I would like to buy it and make something happen there, he said. We want some sort of manufacturing, because we have too many big-box stores here. We need real jobs that pay real money.
Grimaldi told them that if the county could restore local control to the site and then work with the state, the property could be economically successful again.
Another council member, Penrose Hollins, told the reporters he had never heard about any of it. Hollins pointed out the obvious problem. Landing a real employer takes state money, and the state has it. DEDO has all the bucks, he said.
And then Taylor and Nathans called the Delaware Economic Development Office, and Alan Levin gave them a sentence.
"Alan Levin said he was not aware of any credible offers to buy the site."
New Castle County’s $9 million was the headline of the story his quote ran in.
Levin went on. He said state officials and Senator Tom Carper’s office were talking with Wanxiang about what to do with the property. He wrote in an email that "Wanxiang was still performing their due diligence and deciding what use of Boxwood would be in their corporate best interest".
The reporters also called Roger Brown, the interim president of the reconstituted Fisker Automotive, which still had its name on the operation. Brown told them something that did not match at all. "There’s so many people who came to us", he said, saying, 'I’ll buy the property', this and that, yada yada yada." He explained how it works in his trade. "None of them tell you it’s not for sale", Brown said. "They always tell you, make an offer. That’s just the natural instinct of a real estate guy."
"The state’s economic development director said there were no credible offers.
The man sitting on the property told the same two reporters that people would not
stop trying to buy it. Both quotes ran in the same newspaper on the same day."
What Alan Levin Did That Was Not In The Paper
That same month, David Grimaldi told Alan Levin what New Castle County intended to do.
Levin wrote back and told him to stand down. He strongly urged the county, in his words, to wait until Wanxiang determined its interest.
Grimaldi did not wait. He answered that the county and the state would have to agree to disagree. We will send the offer letter out to Wanxiang momentarily, he told Levin, as there doesn’t seem to be a need for a meeting.
Then he did the work. The county hired a well-known land use lawyer to draft a purchase agreement. Grimaldi got on a plane to Chicago and walked into Wanxiang America’s office and pitched them himself. They listened. They were interested.
He flew home feeling good about it.
"But when I got back, I got a strange email from them that said You guys
in Delaware need to speak with one voice. It seems that there was somebody
at the state who was pushing back on our transaction."
- David Grimaldi, Chief Administrative Officer of New Castle County.
Grimaldi would not name the somebody at the state. He did not have to. Two weeks earlier, Alan Levin had told a newspaper there were no credible offers on a day when New Castle County’s offer was the headline, and in that same month, Alan Levin had written to Grimaldi telling the county to sit down and wait.
Those emails came out later, through an open records request. Nobody was looking at them at the time.
New Castle County never bought the plant.
Meanwhile, At The Port
While all of that was happening on Boxwood Road, Alan Levin was also chairing the board that owns the Port of Wilmington, and he was trying to lease it away for fifty years.
The company was Kinder Morgan, out of Houston, which moves energy for a living. The offer was two hundred and a half million dollars of investment in exchange for half a century of control.
The longshoremen of Local 1694 did the arithmetic that anybody on that dock could do. Kinder Morgan is an energy company.
Wilmington is a fruit port. Bananas and petroleum coke do not share a berth. They fought it in public, loudly, and the General Assembly passed a law to slow the whole thing down.
In March 2013, Kinder Morgan quit, and it put its reasons in a letter. The letter was addressed to Alan Levin, by name, as Chairman of the Diamond State Port Corporation. Kinder Morgan’s Schlosser wrote that the company has choices in terms of where it will invest substantial resources, and that the current union leadership at your facility does not make Delaware a good choice at this time.
"Your facility. The letter that killed the first privatization of the Port of Wilmington went to one man, and that man held both the state office that wanted the deal and
the chairmanship of the public corporation sitting across the table from it."
State Representative John Kowalko of Newark said afterward that Delaware ought to just invest in the thing itself, something in the neighborhood of a hundred fifty million dollars over fifteen years, and keep it public. Nobody did that.
"The first time, they tried it where people could see, and the people beat them. Everything after happened somewhere else."
What He Built Instead
Amazon opened the first fulfillment center in its entire network in New Castle, Delaware, in 1997. Its second Delaware building is the one that matters here.
On June 29, 2012, with Alan Levin running Delaware’s economic development office, Amazon announced a million square feet in Middletown, ninety million dollars, more than eight hundred fifty full-time jobs. Four weeks later, Levin himself announced that Delaware’s Council on Development Finance had recommended a Strategic Fund grant for another company. That is how the office worked, and it is worth noticing. When state money went out the door, the Director’s name went out with it.
Levin was not a clerk approving Amazon’s paperwork. He built the pattern. Under him, the agency turned Delaware’s economic strategy toward logistics and big-box distribution, aiming squarely at companies like Amazon to replace the manufacturing that had left.
So consider what Tom Gordon was actually up against in June 2014 when he said Delaware had too many big-box stores and needed real jobs that pay real money. The office that told him there were no credible offers on Boxwood Road was, in those same years, rebuilding the state’s entire economy around big-box distribution.
Everybody Goes to the Same Law Firm
On April 30, 2015, Governor Markell’s office announced that Alan Levin was leaving at the end of the legislative session. His last day was June 30. The announcement listed the companies that had come to Delaware or grown here on his watch, and Amazon is the first name on the list. His deputy, Bernice Whaley, was confirmed to replace him.
He went to two places, and the first one had been filling up with Delaware government for years.
Drinker Biddle and Reath had an office in Wilmington at 222 Delaware Avenue. Levin arrived as Of Counsel and as the firm’s director of business development.
He was in the company. Thomas McGonigle had been Governor Markell’s chief of staff since 2009, and before that, managing partner of Wolf Block’s Wilmington office, and before that, chief legal counsel and policy director to Governor Tom Carper, and before that, a deputy attorney general. Markell announced on November 15, 2012, that McGonigle was leaving for Drinker Biddle. He went on to run the firm’s Wilmington office.
Geoffrey Sawyer had been Markell’s deputy chief of staff, and in the firm’s own description of him, he directed economic development efforts for the state and oversaw Delaware’s collective bargaining.
Joseph Schoell had been chief legal counsel to Governor Ruth Ann Minner. Mary Kate McLaughlin had been chief of staff at the Delaware Department of Education. Gregory Patterson had been Markell’s legislative liaison and then deputy chief of staff, and at Drinker Biddle he became senior government relations director in Delaware with clients including St. Francis Hospital and AstraZeneca. Douglas Gramiak, who had been chief of staff to Governor John Carney, came last.
"A chief of staff to one governor. A deputy chief of staff to the same one.
A chief legal counsel to another. A chief of staff to a third. The state’s
economic development director, who was also the port chairman.
One firm, one city, one decade."
Drinker Biddle merged in 2020 and became Faegre Drinker. In June 2021, McGonigle took eight people two floors down in the same building to Barnes and Thornburg, Suite 1200, and became the partner in charge there.
Today, four registered lobbyists for the Diamond State Port Corporation file from that suite. Thomas McGonigle, since November 1, 2019. Douglas Gramiak, since January 20, 2020. Shawn Tucker, since March 17, 2023, who used to run New Castle County’s Land Use Department. James Smith Junior, since October 20, 2023. Delaware has paid Barnes and Thornburg $13,719, 480.19.
And What Geoffrey Sawyer Does There Now
Unclaimed property is money that stops moving. An account nobody touches. A dividend check nobody cashes. Shares nobody claims. Because so many companies are incorporated here, Delaware collects an enormous amount of other people’s forgotten money, and it is the state’s third-largest source of revenue.
Geoffrey Sawyer, Governor Markell’s old deputy chief of staff, is a partner at Faegre Drinker in Wilmington, and unclaimed property is his practice. His firm biography describes him as known for advising states and large corporations on complying with unclaimed property laws. Then it says what he actually does. He leads the firm’s representation of the State of Delaware’s Voluntary Disclosure Agreement program, which has more than 1,200 enrolled companies.
That is the same fund that sent nearly $200 million to the Diamond State Port Corporation in January 2025. It is the fund the 2026 bond bill opened by another $60 million. And it is one of the revenue lines forecast by the council Alan Levin now chairs.
"Delaware pays a private law firm to run the compliance side of its unclaimed
property program. The partner who leads that work advises both the states
collecting the money and the corporations that owe it. A former colleague from
that firm now chairs the council that forecasts the money. Four more alumni
of that firm are the paid lobbyists for the port the money built."
This drew questions once. Drinker Biddle won Delaware unclaimed property work, and Markell’s people showed up at the firm not long after. McGonigle said publicly that he took no part in the bidding while he worked for the Governor, that he does not work on the state program, and that he has never billed a minute to it. Joseph Schoell, who helped win the contract, said the firm bid in good faith.
The Other Place He Went
The second door Alan Levin walked through in 2015 was SoDel Concepts, the Sussex County restaurant company his late friend Matt Haley had built. Levin became Senior Advisor, and he still is.
Years later, when a magazine named Alan Levin one of the most influential Delawareans, SoDel’s president Scott Kammerer put out a statement about him. Alan Levin, he said, had played a pivotal role in the growth of Amazon in the state.
"That is not a critic’s line. That is his own employer’s press release."
Ten Dollars
Wanxiang America never did anything with the plant either. In October 2016, it hired CBRE to find somebody who would.
On October 25, 2017, a company called Boxwood Industrial Park LLC bought the whole one hundred forty-two acres at 801 Boxwood Road. Boxwood Industrial Park LLC belongs to Harvey, Hanna and Associates, a development firm out of Newport run by E. Thomas Harvey III and Thomas J. Hanna. M&T Bank put up the financing. Harvey said the firm was excited to bring its vision to reality. Hanna said his parents had grown up in Newport and Richardson Park, and that his father, his uncle, and his grandfather had all worked in that plant.
Two purchase prices exist for that sale. Both were printed by Delaware Business Times. Covering a community meeting, the paper reported that the price recorded for more than three million square feet of manufacturing space was ten dollars. Writing later about how the deal came together, the same paper reported that Harvey Hanna paid about $10.4 million, according to New Castle County land records.
The day the purchase was announced, October 10, 2017, the Associated Press reported that neither the sale price nor specific redevelopment plans had been disclosed. It has stayed that way.
The County Executive of New Castle County that day was Matt Meyer, and he was delighted. It’s an exciting turn of events to get Boxwood into local hands, Meyer said. Harvey Hanna, he added, has a history of being committed to the county and the state. He said he would be open to offering county tax incentives to help redevelop the site, because it would raise the property value.
A year earlier, before he took office, Matt Meyer had been asked what should happen to the plant. Private sector demand, he said then, should decide the fate of the facility.
"Three years after New Castle County tried to buy that plant and was told to
stand down, a new County Executive welcomed its sale to a private developer
at a price nobody would disclose, and offered county tax breaks on top."
Ten dollars on a deed is what a buyer and a seller write when they do not want the real number in the paper. Delaware charges its realty transfer tax on what was actually paid, so the true figure exists on the instrument. The number the public gets is ten dollars.
"Fisker paid $18 million for that plant. Delaware put in $22 million and got nothing. New Castle County offered $9 million and was told there were no credible offers.
Three years later, the deed said $10."
Who Bought It
E. Thomas Harvey III grew up in Wilmington, graduated from Conrad High School in 1970, and from the University of Delaware in 1975. Before he was a developer, he was in the trash business, and he was in it for twenty-five years. Harvey and Harvey Inc., Home Waste Inc., Harvey Mack Volvo Sales and Service. Confi-Shred. Together they cleared $100 million a year and offered the first recycling service anyone in Delaware had. In May 1997, he sold the whole thing to USA Waste of Delaware, which later became part of Waste Management. He sat on the Board of Governors of the Environmental Industries Association and the Chairman’s Council of the National Solid Waste Management Association and ran the Maryland and Delaware solid waste association.
Then E. Thomas Harvey III became a developer. He is president of Dewey Beach Enterprises, which built Lighthouse Cove and opened the first Hyatt-branded hotel in Delaware there in September 2013. In 2015, he co-founded TKo Hospitality Management, which now runs twenty hotels, five banquet halls, and four restaurants. In 2017, he launched Big Box Buildings with his son John. He joined the board of Trash Tech in 2016 and invested in it. He lives in Centerville and Rehoboth Beach.
Harvey gives a great deal away and lets people know. Former board chair of the American Heart and Stroke Association of Delaware and still on its Northeast Region board. Twenty years on the Board of Trustees of Goldey-Beacom College, four of them as chair. He and his wife, Robin Adair Harvey, launched the American Heart Association Delaware Harvey Family Research Symposium in 2019.
He ran the Centerville School Board and sat on Sanford School’s board. He sponsors two Wilmington youth teams in the Sonny Hill league in Philadelphia. He is a Delaware Diamonds benefactor at the University of Delaware, on the Lerner College advisory board, in the University of Delaware Alumni Wall of Fame and in the Conrad High School Hall of Fame.
Thomas J. Hanna, whom everyone calls T.J., teamed up with E. Thomas Harvey III in 1997 and turned a small real estate outfit into one of the largest development companies in the state. Harvey’s own executive biography dates the founding of the firm to 1998, a year after the partnership, which is the difference between when two men shook hands and when the paperwork was filed. Hanna has put up more than six million square feet across the mid-Atlantic. His own industry credits him with turning the Boxwood plant into one of the largest Amazon facilities in the country. He started the Delaware KIDS Fund in 2008, and it was renamed Sam’s KIDS in 2023. He stepped back from daily operations in 2025.
Now hold their lives up next to Alan Levin’s.
Alan Levin and E. Thomas Harvey III both sit on the advisory board of the University of Delaware’s Lerner College of Business and Economics.
Alan Levin chaired the board of the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce in 2005. In 2019, that same Chamber handed E. Thomas Harvey III its Marvin S. Gilman Award.
E. Thomas Harvey III sat on the board of the Delaware National Guard. Alan Levin holds the Delaware Distinguished Service Medal for his work with Guard and Reserve families.
Both men keep a house in Rehoboth Beach.
In 2015, E. Thomas Harvey III co-founded a hospitality company running hotels and restaurants in the Delaware beach towns. That same year, Alan Levin became senior advisor to a restaurant company in those same towns.
Alan Levin and T.J. Hanna are close friends.
And What Harvey Hanna Gave Matt Meyer
Between December 18, 2021, and January 25, 2022, six people connected to Harvey, Hanna and Associates each gave Matt Meyer the maximum a person may legally give in Delaware. Thirty-eight days, $7,200.
E. Thomas Harvey, listed as Harvey, Hanna and Associates, December 18, 2021, $1,200.
Robin Harvey, listed as Harvey Hanna, December 18, 2021, $1,200. The same day as her husband.
Thomas Harvey, listed as Harvey Hanna, December 30, 2021, $1,200.
Thomas Hanna, listed as Harvey Hanna, January 3, 2022, $1,200.
Katherine Kinnard, listed as Harvey Hanna, January 4, 2022, $1,200. Michael Kinnard is the firm’s Vice President and General Counsel.
Murray Dingwall, listed as Harvey Hanna, January 25, 2022, $1,200.
"Four years after Matt Meyer called it an exciting turn of events to get
Boxwood into local hands, six people from the company that got it
wrote him six maximum checks inside five weeks."
John C. Fannin III, who used to be president of Harvey Hanna and is now executive adviser to its board, was made the first chair of the Delaware State Chamber Foundation. And the lawyer handling Harvey Hanna’s newest land purchases in Middletown is Shawn Tucker, the Barnes and Thornburg partner who lobbies for the Diamond State Port Corporation.
Six Months Later, Gulftainer Wanted It Too
On an evening in April 2018, about five hundred people crowded into a meeting of the Diamond State Port Corporation board, which voted unanimously to lease the Port of Wilmington for fifty years to GT USA Wilmington LLC, a brand new Delaware subsidiary of Gulftainer, a terminal operator out of the United Arab Emirates.
Peter Richards, Gulftainer’s chief executive, stood up and talked about freight and warehouse space at Boxwood Road. Gulftainer, it was reported plainly at the time, was in talks with Harvey Hanna, which owns the old GM Boxwood Road site, about developing an inland port. Jeff Bullock, then Delaware’s Secretary of State and chairman of that port board, used the same words and said the state would make sure roads like Interstate 495 could carry it.
Richards named two more sites near the port where the operation could expand. Pigeon Point and River’s Edge.
"Six months after the deed recorded ten dollars, Harvey Hanna was named
in public as Gulftainer’s partner for an inland port serving a fifty-year lease
of the Port of Wilmington. And one of the two adjacent sites named beside it,
Pigeon Point, is where AutoPort has processed cars since 1981, and where the
Diamond State Port Corporation has held a free option to buy since 1995,
and has renewed it six times without ever using it."
Gulftainer signed that September and promised up to $600 million, $400 million of it for a container terminal at Edgemoor, the old DuPont site the port corporation had bought in 2016. Gulftainer never built it. In 2023, the port quietly passed to a different company, Enstructure, without the General Assembly approval Delaware law requires.
Harvey Hanna also owns the Delaware River Industrial Park, forty-five acres on Lambson Lane in New Castle, half a mile from the Port of Wilmington where Interstates 95, 295 and 495 come together. In 2024, the firm finished a hundred thirty thousand square foot building there and leased all of it to PODS.
"Tom Gordon wanted a distribution hub at Boxwood Road tied to an
expanded Port of Wilmington. Alan Levin told the county in writing to wait.
The county waited. Gordon’s idea got built. New Castle County does not own it."
VIII-F. What Stands There Now
Harvey Hanna knocked the General Motors building down in 2018. In November 2019, it sold eighty-eight acres to Dermody Properties of Nevada, which built to suit. Dermody put in at least $200 million. Amazon added $50 million in robotics. Delaware handed Amazon $4.5 million in cash to come.
Three point eight million square feet at 1025 Boxwood Road. Roughly three thousand people work inside. There is an Amazon sortation center at 801 Boxwood Road, and delivery stations at 851 Boxwood Road and 2421 Bear Corbitt Road in Bear.
Joseph N. DiStefano has been writing about business in this region since 1988, when he joined The Philadelphia Inquirer out of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics and United States history. He has covered Wall Street for Bloomberg, worked for the Delaware News Journal, written a book about how the Roberts family built Comcast, and won a Gerald Loeb Award for his reporting on pensions. He has written the Inquirer’s PhillyDeals column since 2007. He describes his own beat as businesses, bosses, workers, fraud, and the regional economy, and he once told an interviewer that news is information somebody else wants to suppress.
In February 2020, he went through Amazon’s subsidy application for the Boxwood Road warehouse and wrote down what the jobs were actually worth.
Amazon was promising $15 an hour to most of the thousand workers named in its application for $4.5 million in upfront state aid. The Amazon bosses on site, DiStefano wrote, would be paid less than General Motors workers used to be paid, counting inflation.
The building was five and a half stories and cost $250 million. Delaware’s development finance council approved the money unanimously the week before he wrote.
The county’s unemployment rate at the time was under three percent. Does Meyer really need a thousand more fifteen-dollar-an-hour jobs, DiStefano asked, and will many of the workers come from out of state, as they do at Amazon’s existing warehouses.
"Delaware paid $4.5 million for a thousand jobs at $15 dollars an hour,
on ground where 5,000 people once made cars for a living."
Harvey Hanna kept buying along the same road. In June 2026, an entity it owns, Route 40 LLC, received $1.14 million in state transportation grant money for 10.5 acres at 600 Pulaski Highway in Bear to build two warehouses. In July 2026, the firm paid $25.3 million for 103 acres at Jamison Corner in Middletown, bought from EQT Real Estate and approved for 1.3 million square feet, its first big purchase south of the canal.
"Tom Gordon said Delaware had too many big-box stores and needed real jobs
that pay real money. What stands on that ground now is a big box.
It is the largest one in the state."
And in October 2019, Matt Meyer, then County Executive of New Castle County, appointed Alan Levin to run a twelve-person task force on the future of the Wilmington and New Castle County Airport. The task force recommended against renewing the county’s thirty-year lease with the Delaware River and Bay Authority. The Delaware River and Bay Authority has confirmed that Amazon wanted that airport as an air hub.
The airport sits between Boxwood Road and Middletown, in the middle of everything above.
The Second Chance
Matt Meyer became Governor of Delaware in January 2025, and within a year the same people were sitting in every room that decides.
Alan Levin was appointed to the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council and made its chairman in the same act, having never served a day on it. The council is thirty-odd appointed members from business, banking, accounting, labor, academia, and the legislature, and what it votes on is not advice. The Delaware Constitution forbids the state from appropriating more than ninety-eight percent of the council’s revenue estimate, so the council sets the ceiling on the entire state budget. A rule in place since 1991 caps new borrowing at five percent of that same estimate, so the council also sets the outer wall of the Bond Bill.
Unclaimed property is one of the lines it votes on. Nobody elects any of them, and under Executive Order 62, signed by Governor John Carney on August 27, 2024, they serve at the Governor’s pleasure and the Governor picks the chair.
To make room for Levin, Governor Meyer removed Michael Houghton, a Wilmington attorney who had chaired that council for eight years and who had chaired Delaware’s unclaimed property task force in 2014.
What The Money Actually Was
Truthline audited ninety-two campaign finance reports filed with the Office of the State Election Commissioner across five committees tied to Matt Meyer: Meyer for New Castle County, Meyer for Delaware, Change Can’t Wait PAC, Citizens for a New Delaware Way, and its Third-Party Advertiser. 9,063 individual contributions, $7,998,435,000.
Alan Levin gave $29,100 of it across eight contributions going back to April 2016. Ellen Levin gave $4,000 across five. Richard Levin, most likely his son, gave $3,050 across seven. $37,600 from the family, across twenty-six checks, over nine years. $15,000 of Alan Levin’s went to Change Can’t Wait PAC on June 10, 2024, three months before the primary, into the political action committee he himself chaired.
He was not the largest giver. He was not close.
The largest single source of money behind Matt Meyer’s campaign for Governor was Phillip Shawe, co-chief executive of TransPerfect Translations International of New York, whose company was at the center of one of the longest and most bitter corporate fights in the history of Delaware’s Court of Chancery. Shawe and TransPerfect put $1,300,000 across five contributions between June 13, 2024 and November 18, 2025 into Citizens for a New Delaware Way, a political action committee and third-party advertiser pair that is the second-largest pro-Meyer vehicle in the filings.
Michael Bloomberg, the former Mayor of New York, gave $250,00 to Change Can’t Wait PAC on September 4, 2024, six days before the Democratic primary.
The Hynansky family, which sells automobiles in Delaware, gave $86,900 across thirteen contributions, and Louis Capano gave $45,000 across two. One Hynansky contribution of $25,000, filed June 8, 2023, appears in the record under the name John Hyanski, missing the second n. Whether that was a transcription error or a filing choice cannot be determined from the document. What can be determined is that a name search that did not check for misspellings would never have found it.
And Charuni Patibanda gave $1,050 across five contributions between June and December 2023, and $400 more in 2019, before Governor Meyer made her Secretary of State and chair of the board of the Diamond State Port Corporation.
The road, and who bought along it
Drive north on Interstate 495 and get off at Exit 4. Edgemoor Road runs into Lighthouse Road, and Lighthouse Road runs into Hay Road, and Hay Road is the access road for the Edgemoor terminal site. That interchange is the spine of the whole corridor, and everything built along it, warehouse, logistics, or commercial, gets the benefit of a $635,000,000 public infrastructure project whether or not it has anything to do with ships.
Drawbridge Claymont gave $30,000 to Change Can’t Wait PAC. Drawbridge Claymont and the D2 Organization then received one million dollars from the Delaware Site Readiness Fund for fifty-eight acres at 6300 Philadelphia Pike in Claymont, for demolition and engineering work. Claymont sits directly along that corridor, on Interstate 495 and Governor Printz Boulevard, north of Edgemoor.
"Thirty thousand dollars into the Governor’s political action committee. One million dollars out of a state fund, for fifty-eight acres on the same road as the port."
That is one parcel and one contributor. The question the corridor raises is larger, and it is answerable from records anyone can pull: who bought industrial land between the Pennsylvania line and the Port of Wilmington in the years before the Edgemoor expansion was announced, and how many of those buyers appear in the campaign finance filings. Every deed in that stretch is recorded with the New Castle County Recorder of Deeds, indexed by parcel, and every contribution is in the Election Commissioner’s archive. The overlap is a matter of arithmetic.
"Alan Levin’s twenty-nine thousand one hundred dollars is not what makes him matter. He is the one the Governor put in the chair."
"The money that bought the campaign came from a New York translation company that had spent years at war with Delaware’s own Court of Chancery."
Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez was sworn in as Secretary of State on January 28, 2025. That office runs the Division of Corporations, which registers the roughly two million companies incorporated here, and also professional regulation, small business, the bank commissioner, the Public Service Commission, the public advocate, the Public Integrity Commission, the state archives, libraries, the arts, human and civil rights, alcoholic beverage control, the Veterans Home, and the unclaimed property Voluntary Disclosure Agreement program that Geoffrey Sawyer’s firm represents. She sits on the revenue council. She chairs the board of the Diamond State Port Corporation. Before all that, she ran New Castle County’s Land Use department under County Executive Matt Meyer.
Gregg Patterson became Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. He is the Gregory Patterson who was Governor Markell’s deputy chief of staff and then Drinker Biddle’s senior government relations director in Delaware.
And Marcus Henry, who had been Matt Meyer’s economic development and policy director at the county, succeeded him as County Executive and now signs off on land use across the whole corridor.
"The council that certifies the revenue. The department that holds the marina lease.
The board that owns the port. The office that registers the corporations.
The county that approves the land use. Inside one year, all of them."
What That Produced
Eleven days before Matt Meyer took the oath, on January 10, 2025, the Diamond State Port Corporation paid $2,850,000 for 1.91 acres at 701 Christiana Avenue and handed the land to Enstructure, the private operator. That address is the business address of Murphy Marine Services, a stevedoring company that has worked the Port of Wilmington for decades and has been a lobbying client of the Wilmington attorney Darrell J. Baker since October 20, 2008. In that same month, nearly $200 million of unclaimed property moved to the port corporation.
Over the fiscal year that followed, the council Alan Levin chairs raised Delaware’s constitutional spending ceiling by $747.5 million across four meetings. It never once said the word port in four sets of published minutes.
Those meetings got shorter as the numbers got bigger. October 20, 2025 ran a hundred seventy-nine minutes. December 15, a hundred seven. March 16, eighty-seven. May 18, seventy-five. Fifty-eight percent shorter across one fiscal year, under one chairman.
Public comment is the last item on every agenda. In October, December, and March, the minutes record that nobody signed up. On May 18, 2026, one man did, and it was Rick Geisenberger, who used to be Delaware’s Secretary of Finance and before that ran the Division of Corporations. He told the council that anyone watching closely could have seen the corporate revenue problem by December and certainly by March from public data, called the flat franchise tax growth totally unprecedented, and asked whether it was prudent for Delaware to lean harder on unclaimed property.
Six weeks later Delaware leaned $60 million harder.
In March 2026, Michael Houghton had asked the Department of State for corporate revenue figures it had not produced. Two days later he got an email from Governor Meyer’s office ending his service. In May he asked Brian Devine, the interim executive director of the Diamond State Port Corporation, where an extra $110 million for Edgemoor was coming from. Within days, he was off that task force too. The administration did not say the money came from unclaimed property until late June.
In the small hours of July 1, 2026, the General Assembly passed House Bill 500. 110 million to the port. 30 million to buy a marina. The cap on unclaimed property raised by 60 million. Governor Meyer signed it on July 6 and struck exactly one line out of more than $1.2 billion, and the line he struck was $35 million to expand Legislative Hall, the building where the General Assembly works.
Then And Now
In 2013, the privatization of the Port of Wilmington died in public, killed by a union that could see it and a legislature that could vote on it. Kinder Morgan wrote a letter naming the union and walked.
In 2023, the port changed hands with no concurrent resolution, no vote of the General Assembly, and no public hearing, because language slipped into a bond bill had traded sixty-two elected legislators for five signatures.
In 2014, New Castle County tried to buy the largest industrial site in the state for $9 million, and Alan Levin told a newspaper there were no credible offers while telling the county in writing to stand down. In 2017, that site changed hands on a deed that said $10, and six months later the buyer was named in public as Gulftainer’s partner for an inland port.
In 2015, the men who had run three Delaware administrations went to work at one law firm. By 2021, four of them lobbied for the state corporation that owns the port. By 2025, one of them chaired the council that decides what Delaware can spend on it, one ran the department that holds the marina lease, and one ran that firm’s work on Delaware’s unclaimed property program.
"The first time they tried this, it all happened where people could watch.
The second time, the vote became five signatures, the money came from a fund
whose balance the state will not disclose, the one man who asked about it
got an email, and the bill passed before sunrise."
And This Month, In Dover
The newest one did not start with a company. It started with three executive orders, signed in order, each making the next possible.
Executive Order 16 is the map. It concerns the Delaware Strategies for State Policies and Spending, the documents and maps that decide where the state puts its own money. After the Cabinet Committee on State Planning Issues approved the 2025 update on January 12, 2026, the order tells the Office of State Planning Coordination to run a 2026 Smart Growth Visioning process, to change those maps ahead of the normal five-year cycle, and to inventory every incentive the state can use to move development. It opens the map early and counts the levers.
Executive Order 18 is the speed. Signed February 26, 2026, Governor Meyer’s first order of the year, it created the Delaware Permitting Accelerator. One contact per agency. Agencies reviewing at the same time instead of one after another. A four-month target. A hundred twenty business days for housing. Energy is a priority category. Delaware, Meyer said, needed to stop being leaders of no and slow and become leaders of yes and now. Senate President Pro Tempore David Sokola and Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown both stood behind it. Applications opened May 4, 2026, under the name JobsFirst.
Executive Order 23 is the control. Signed July 26, 2026, it lets Governor Meyer change the Permitting Accelerator in writing whenever he likes, without another order.
Nine days later, on August 4, 2026, a Wilmington startup called Aternium, founded by Andrew Cottone, announced that Dover would be home to its first commercial clean hydrogen and heavy water plant. $226 million, about twenty acres at 201 and 301 Garrison Oak Drive, inside a four hundred-acre industrial park the City of Dover bought in 1999 with state money. Governor Meyer said the investment puts Delaware at the forefront of the next generation of energy and advanced manufacturing.
Two and a half weeks before that announcement, in mid-July, the Dover City Council had unanimously rewritten its zoning code to allow clean hydrogen plants in its industrial districts. Andrew Cottone spoke in favor of the ordinance before the council voted. A representative of the Becker Morgan Group also spoke for it, and described his own coming role as helping that company with process, site planning, planning commission, and surveying.
Aternium does not own the land. It expects to close in the last quarter of 2026. Engineering is due in February 2027, the investment decision in March, groundbreaking later that year, operations in 2028. Dover rewrote its zoning for a plant nobody has bought, engineered, financed, or permitted.
Linda Parkowski of the Kent Economic Partnership called it a major win for Central Delaware.
"Dover changed the zoning first, and the company announced second.
The permitting accelerator was built first, and the project came second.
And it went to Kent County, where a $226 million hydrogen plant draws
a fraction of the questions the same plant would draw sixty miles north."
IX. What the Escheat Fund Was Doing While Delaware Leaned On It
Follow the unclaimed property line across all four meetings, because it does something no summary of them has mentioned.
The gross figure never moved. It sat at $554.0 million in October, in December, in March, and in May, in every forecast year. That is the cap, and the council was told plainly in October that the cap has been reached every year since it was instituted and was expected to be reached again in Fiscal Year 2027.
What moved was refunds. Refunds are the money handed back to the people it belonged to in the first place. The owner of the forgotten account. The heir who finally filed. The company that came looking for its own dividend.
Table: unclaimed property in the Fiscal Year 2026 forecast as adopted at each DEFAC meeting, showing the net escheat line written down across 5 forecasts in 8 months
Source: Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council, General Fund Revenue Worksheet adopted at each meeting, Table 2 in each set of minutes.
In five months, with the same revenue director presenting to the same chairman, Delaware wrote down the net escheat revenue it expected to keep by thirty-eight million dollars. Every dollar of that write-down came from owners reclaiming their own property. Then House Bill 500 raised the ceiling on what the State may take from that fund from $554 million to $614 million.
"Delaware’s own council cut expected escheat revenue by thirty-eight million dollars between October and March, because more of the money was being claimed by the people it belongs to. In June, the General Assembly raised the amount the State may take out of that same fund by sixty million dollars. The forecast went down. The withdrawal went up. Both numbers sit on State letterhead, four months apart."
Twenty-six Point Eight Million Dollars In December. Two Hundred Forty-Three Point Four Million In May.
The council publishes an extraordinary revenue figure. It is the space between the benchmark appropriation, which is what Delaware’s own spending discipline says the state should spend, and the 98 percent appropriation limit, which is the constitutional ceiling. Extraordinary revenue is what is available for the Budget Stabilization Fund or for one-time spending. It is the pot a bond bill draws against.
On December 15, 2025, the council adopted a Fiscal Year 2027 benchmark appropriation of $7,071.2 million against a 98 percent appropriation limit of $7,098.0 million, on a Budget Benchmark Index of 3.9 percent. Extraordinary revenue: $26.8 million. On March 16, 2026, the 98 percent limit rose to $7,132.0 million, an increase of $34.0 million from December and $399.0 million from October 2025. On May 18, 2026, the council adopted a Budget Benchmark Index of 4.1 percent, a benchmark appropriation of $7,084.6 million, and a 98 percent limit of $7,328.0 million. Extraordinary revenue: $243.4 million.
"In December, there was 26.8 million dollars of room. By May, there was 243.4 million. The pot grew by 216.6 million dollars in five months, and then 175 million dollars of it left the building in a bill passed at three in the morning."
The Operating Deficit Running Underneath All Of It
One fact belongs beside every figure above, because it sits in all four worksheets and it never made a headline. Delaware planned to spend more than it collected in Fiscal Year 2026, and its own council said so at every meeting.
Here is that gap, meeting by meeting, exactly as Delaware’s own council adopted it. Expenditures are what Delaware planned to spend. Revenues are what Delaware expected to collect. The operating balance is the difference, and every one of them is negative.
The gap is covered out of prior year cash. On December 15, 2025, the same meeting that put extraordinary revenue at $26.8 million, the council set the Fiscal Year 2027 tax-supported debt limit at $347.4 million, five percent of estimated revenue.
And in October, the council adopted a long-term assumption that deserves its own line. Cash to the Bond Bill declines by about 30 percent and remains at that reduced level through Fiscal Year 2029. General Fund Capital Outlay in the adopted forecasts falls from $211.5 million actual in Fiscal Year 2025 to $158.6 million in Fiscal Year 2026, $147.4 million in Fiscal Year 2027, $110.4 million in Fiscal Year 2028, and $84.7 million in Fiscal Year 2029.
"Delaware ran an operating deficit in every forecast of Fiscal Year 2026 its own
council adopted, and its own long-term assumption has cash to the Bond Bill
falling thirty percent and staying there through 2029. In that same fiscal year,
Delaware committed one hundred ten million dollars to one terminal and
thirty million dollars to one marina."
A Note On Precision, Offered To The Council Rather Than To The Reader
One more thing surfaced in the reading, and it belongs in the record even though standing alone it proves nothing. The October 20, 2025 minutes state that a motion was made, seconded, and approved to accept $7,554.6 million as the Fiscal Year 2027 expenditure estimate. Table 1b, attached to those same minutes, gives the Fiscal Year 2027 forecast as $7,544.6 million. The December minutes then reconcile against $7,544.6 million, describing the new $7,495.6 million figure as a reduction of $49.0 million from October.
Ten million dollars separates the motion as recorded from the table attached to it, and from the arithmetic the council itself used two months later. It is almost certainly a typographical error, and this report says so plainly rather than leaving the implication hanging. It is also the adopted expenditure estimate of the State of Delaware, in the official minutes of the council whose numbers set a constitutional spending ceiling and a statutory debt limit. Those minutes were approved as submitted on December 15, 2025, and they stand uncorrected today.
"The minutes of one meeting record the council adopting a number ten million dollars different from the table attached to them. The council approved those minutes as submitted at its next meeting. Delaware’s written record is the only thing standing between the treasury and the bond bill, and Delaware does not appear to read it."
X. The Man Who Asked Where the Money Was
The March meeting is where this story is usually told from. The record starts earlier, and the earlier record is worse.
On October 20, 2025, with Chairman Alan Levin in the chair, the council reached the corporate revenue lines. Michael Houghton, the Wilmington attorney who had chaired this council for eight years, looked at the Corporate Franchise Tax out-year forecast and observed that it was flat. Kevin Knight of the Delaware Department of State, the department run by Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez, answered that collections depend on the market and that a sharper estimate would be available at the December meeting.
Houghton kept going. The minutes record that he then said the Corporate Franchise Tax, together with the Unclaimed Property cap, should be areas looked at if Delaware kept forecasting deficits in its revenue. Delaware kept forecasting deficits. It did so at that very meeting, and at all three that followed.
"Eight months before House Bill 500 raised Delaware’s escheat ceiling by $60 million, the longest-serving chairman in the council’s history sat at that table and named the escheat cap out loud as one of two lines to watch. It is in the State’s own minutes, adopted and published. Nobody watched the line. They watched him."
Michael Houghton chaired DEFAC for eight years before Levin. At the March 2026 meeting, he pointed out that the corporate revenue figures in front of the council did not include January or February data, and asked for an update. He was careful about it. He said afterward he had not claimed the sky was falling, only that a little more understanding and transparency would be really useful.
Two days later, on March 18, 2026, Michael Houghton received an email from the office of Governor Matt Meyer telling him he was off the council. No hearing. No cause stated. No public announcement. The man who had chaired the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council for eight years, and who had served on it far longer, learned by email that the Governor had ended his service two days after he asked the Department of State for corporate revenue numbers it had not produced.
What The Minutes Of March 16, 2026 Actually Record
Those minutes run seven pages. Houghton’s question occupies a single paragraph, and it is the most consequential paragraph in the document. He raised the Corporate Franchise Tax. He referenced what the minutes call an unprecedented surge in entity formations in 2025 and into 2026. He noted the surge could begin to significantly affect the $2.1 billion in revenue Delaware was projecting off that line. And he asked for one thing: more refined information ahead of the May meeting.
Regina Mitchell, the Delaware Department of State official who administers the Voluntary Disclosure Agreement Program, answered for the Department. It was not yet prepared to revise projections, but expected updated information by the next meeting.
Two paragraphs later in the same minutes, Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez confirmed he was right. Answering a question from Chairman Alan Levin about whether corporate filers pay by check or by credit card, she volunteered that entity formations were up 15 %, that the associated revenue had not been collected yet, that it was expected in June, and that it was not reflected in the current projections.
"He asked for a number. The Department said it was not ready. Two paragraphs later, the Secretary of State said the number existed, that it was fifteen percent, and that it was not in the forecast. He was proven right on the same page he was asking on.
Two days later, he was removed."
One More Name On The March 16 Roll
The March 16, 2026 minutes list thirty-one members present and two absent, then name fifty-seven other people in attendance in a block of initials and surnames that runs half a page. One of them is K. Hartley-Nagle.
The publisher of this report attended that meeting, by Zoom, as many Delawareans do, and is carried on the State’s own attendance record for that afternoon. That is the meeting where Michael Houghton asked the Department of State for the corporate revenue data and was told the Department was not ready to give it. Two days later, Governor Matt Meyer removed him by email.
"This is not reporting assembled from press accounts of a meeting. The State’s own attendance roll for that afternoon carries the name of the person writing this."
Senate President Pro Tempore David Sokola called it undue political interference and asked for reinstatement. Representative Charles Postles, who sits on DEFAC and on the Joint Finance Committee, said it severely undermined the group. John Flaherty of the Delaware Coalition for Open Government called it a deeply troubling signal to the citizens of this state. The Governor’s answer was that he does not govern for optics.
Then it happened again. Weeks later, Houghton, sitting on the Port of Wilmington Expansion Task Force, questioned the interim director of the Diamond State Port Corporation about where the additional $110 million was coming from. Within days, he resigned from the Task Force.
"He asked where the corporate revenue went. Two days later, he was off the council
that certifies revenue. He asked where the hundred and ten million was coming from. Days later, he was off the port task force. Two questions about money, two exits,
four months apart."
At the May meeting he did not attend, the Department of State revised those same corporate lines upward: $9.1 million on Franchise Tax, $24.0 million on Limited Partnerships and LLCs, $14.0 million on Business Entity Fees, $3.0 million on Uniform Commercial Code filings. The correction he had asked for was made. He was not in the room.
And a former Secretary of Finance stood up in public comment that afternoon and said so. Rick Geisenberger, who also ran the Division of Corporations, told the council that the need for these adjustments were apparent to many long-time DEFAC observers as early as December and certainly by March based on publicly available data. He called the flat franchise growth totally unprecedented. Then he asked the question that should have stopped the bond bill: whether it is prudent to increase Delaware’s reliance on a closely related revenue, unclaimed property.
"On May 18, 2026, Delaware’s former Secretary of Finance stood at a public microphone and questioned whether it was prudent to lean harder on unclaimed property. Six weeks later, at three in the morning, House Bill 500 leaned sixty million dollars harder."
XI. The Escheat Line, Finished
The council met a fifth time on June 15, 2026, sixteen days before House Bill 500 passed. The minutes of that meeting have still not been published. The worksheets have. They complete the sequence.
Unclaimed property in the Fiscal Year 2026 forecast, meeting by meeting, and what Delaware actually collected, in millions
Sources: Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council, General Fund Revenue Worksheet, Table 2, adopted at each meeting, and the June 12, 2026 worksheet prepared for the June 15 meeting. Actuals from the State of Delaware Statement of General Fund Receipts and Refund Disbursements by Major Category as of June 30, 2026, transmitted by the Secretary of Finance on July 29, 2026.
$32 million of that write-down came at the last meeting, on June 15. Sixteen days later, the General Assembly raised the ceiling on that same fund by $60 million.
The actuals confirm the forecast was still too generous. Gross abandoned property receipts landed at $554,000,000 exactly, the cap, to the dollar, as they do every year. Refunds landed at $203,701,388 against $128,038,529 the year before, an increase of
59.1 %. Delaware kept $350.3 million of the escheat pot in Fiscal Year 2026, against the $424 million its own council forecast in October.
"Delaware’s own council cut the escheat forecast five times in eight months,
by $70 million in total, and the year still closed $73.7 million below where
October said it would. The money was going out the door faster than
the State could forecast it, and Delaware widened the door."
And In The Same Document, The Out-Years Went The Other Way
Read the June 12, 2026 worksheet across, not down. In the Fiscal Year 2026 column, refunds were revised from $168 million to $200 million, a $32 million deterioration, because that is what was actually happening. In the Fiscal Year 2027 column of that same worksheet, refunds were revised in the opposite direction, from $130 million down to $115 million, improving the net line by $15 million. And in the Fiscal Year 2028 column, gross unclaimed property was raised from $525 million to $554 million, an increase of $29 million, putting the out-year right back at the cap.
"On one page, on one afternoon, Delaware conceded that escheat refunds had blown
past $200 million in the year that was ending, and assumed they would fall to
$115 million in the year beginning. A 42% drop, forecast in the same document
that recorded the record. Nothing in that worksheet explains why."
The Ceiling, At Its Final Height
The Balance and Appropriations Worksheet adopted on June 15, 2026 carries the last numbers written before the bond bill. A Fiscal Year 2027 revenue estimate of $7,224.4 million. An unencumbered cash balance from Fiscal Year 2026 of $408.8 million. A 100 percent appropriation limit of $7,633.2 million. A 98 % appropriation limit, the constitutional ceiling, of $7,480.5 million. A prior 98 % limit, set May 18, of $7,328.0 million, an increase of $152.5 million from the prior meeting. And against the October 2025 limit of $6,733.0 million, an increase of $747.5 million, a figure the document states on its own face. The Fiscal Year 2026 operating balance on the same sheet is negative $146.0 million.
Sixteen days later, House Bill 500 committed $110 million to the port, $30 million to the marina, and $35 million to a Legislative Hall expansion the Governor then struck.
"Three-quarters of a billion dollars of new spending authority created in eight months, $750,000,000 across five meetings, by a council that never once said the word port, in the fiscal year the port received $110 million."
Seven Days, And Every Legislator Had It In Writing
There is a document that removes the excuse, and it is not obscure. Every month the Secretary of Finance sends the General Fund financial report to the Governor and to the members of the General Assembly, by name, on Department of Finance letterhead. It shows cash, receipts, refunds, and disbursements. It is posted publicly the same day.
Michael R. Smith, Secretary of Finance, transmitted the report for the month ending May 31, 2026, on June 23, 2026. It went to the Honorable Matt Meyer, Governor, and to the members of the 153rd General Assembly. On Exhibit A-1 of that report, abandoned property refunds through May 31, 2026 stood at $198,330,148, against $127,033,639 for the same period the year before. An increase of 56.1 %, printed on a State document, addressed to every person who would vote on the bond bill.
House Bill 500 passed eight days later, in the small hours of July 1, 2026, raising the ceiling on that fund by $60 million, with members complaining they had not been given time to read what they were voting on.
"They did not have to be curious. The Secretary of Finance mailed them the number,
by name, eight days before the vote. The escheat fund was paying out 56 % more than the year before, and it was on page four of a report every one of them received."
The report for the month ending June 30, 2026, showing the full year, was transmitted on July 29, 2026, four weeks after the bill was signed.
And The Meeting Itself Has No Record
Every other DEFAC meeting in this sequence produced minutes within nine days. October 20 was minuted October 21. December 15 was minuted December 16. March 16 was minuted March 24. May 18 was minuted May 27.
The June 15, 2026 meeting has produced no minutes. The worksheets are posted. The expenditure forecast, the revenue worksheet, and the Balance and Appropriations calculation are all public. The narrative record of who said what, who asked what, and who was in the room is not.
That is the meeting that set the final appropriation ceiling at $7,480.5 million, cut the escheat forecast by another $32 million, and moved the partnership line by $137 million. It is the meeting closest to the bond bill, and it is the only one of the five with no published account.
"Delaware published the numbers that authorized the spending and has not
published the record of the meeting that adopted them. Four meetings were
minuted within nine days. The fifth, the one sixteen days before the bond bill,
still has none."
RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
XII. How Five Companies At Two Addresses Reached Five Thousand Two Hundred Dollars
The contribution limit exists to stop exactly what happened here, and it did not.
Delaware law caps contributions at 15 Del. C. section 8010. No person may give more than $1,200 to a statewide candidate during an election period. Every contribution in Chart A is at or under that ceiling. Darrell J. Baker, Esquire, PA gave exactly $1,200. Leo Holt gave exactly $1,200. The four limited liability companies gave $1,000, $600, $600, and $600.
Under Delaware law, each limited liability company counts as its own person. Section 8010 contains no attribution rule aggregating contributions from entities under common ownership, the way federal campaign finance law does. So five companies sharing two addresses may each give up to the individual maximum, and the arithmetic multiplies. Which is the point.
"The ceiling is $1,200. One address on the canal produced $1,800. Add the post office box in Rockland and the lobbyist’s own firm, and it is $5,200. Every dollar of it inside the law. Delaware did not fail to enforce its campaign finance limits here.
Delaware wrote them this way."
One detail of the record belongs to Anthony J. Albence, the Delaware State Election Commissioner, who runs the Department of Elections and reviews every campaign finance report filed in this state. Where a contributor is not an individual, Delaware’s disclosure rules require the identification of a responsible party once that entity’s aggregate contributions cross a threshold. The filed reports list these five entities by name and address with no responsible party named alongside them. Commissioner Albence’s office is the office that decides whether that satisfies the rule.
RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
XIII. Then The Money Went The Other Way
Twenty months of public spending follow, and it runs toward the same addresses.
January 10, 2025. Two Million Eight Hundred Fifty Thousand dollars.
Eleven days before Matt Meyer took the oath as Governor, the Diamond State Port Corporation adopted Resolution 25-03 authorizing the purchase of 1.91 acres at 701 Christiana Avenue in Wilmington for $2,850,000 in public money. Enstructure, the port’s private operator, had exercised a right of first refusal on the parcel, and the land was added to Enstructure’s leasehold.
701 Christiana Avenue is the business address of Murphy Marine Services, and Murphy Marine Services has been a registered lobbying client of Darrell J. Baker since October 20, 2008. The parcel is tax parcel 26-066.00-001, 1.91 acres, the exact acreage named in Resolution 25-03. Commercial property databases drawing on New Castle County tax records list the last recorded sale of that parcel as 2016 and carry an annual property tax of roughly $6,100. The January 10, 2025 transfer authorized by the Diamond State Port Corporation for $2,850,000 does not appear in those records. The deed and the settlement statement are recorded with the New Castle County Recorder of Deeds and searchable by that parcel number. Delaware has never said who was paid.
That is not a coincidence, and it is not a technicality. The Diamond State Port Corporation, a state-owned corporation, spent $2,850,000 of public money on a parcel carrying the business address of a company whose registered Delaware lobbyist is Darrell J. Baker, eleven days before Matt Meyer was sworn in as Governor, and handed the land to Enstructure, the private operator. The deed and the settlement statement for tax parcel 26-066.00-001 are recorded with the New Castle County Recorder of Deeds and are searchable by parcel number on the county’s own public records system. Delaware has never explained who was paid.
What The State Has Actually Paid These People
The State of Delaware publishes every payment it makes, by vendor name, on its open data portal. It is current through June 29, 2026, and anyone can query it. Here is what it returns.
Three of those lines deserve their own sentence.
On September 21, 2021, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, then and now the agency that granted the marina its concession on state parkland, paid seven hundred fifty thousand dollars to Summit North Marina Inc out of Watershed Stewardship, coded Other Professional Services. Ten days later, on October 1, 2021, Darrell J. Baker registered with the State of Delaware as the lobbyist for Summit North Marina LLC.
Three days after that, on October 4, 2021, he registered four more entities on a single day: Chesapeake and Delaware Dredging LLC, Summit North Dredging LLC, and Pristine Yacht Services LLC, all three at 3000 Summit Harbour Place in Bear, and Summit Point LLC at Post Office Box 422 in Rockland. Two of the four are dredging companies, and their names are Chesapeake and Delaware Dredging LLC and Summit North Dredging LLC.
On June 25, 2026, the State paid Darrell J. Baker, Esquire, P. A., two payments of $9,000 from the Insurance Coverage Office, coded Claim Payments. Five days later, the General Assembly passed House Bill 500 with $30 million to buy the marina he swore under oath he was the managing agent of. Claim payments are ordinary. Nobody put the two facts in the same room.
And Barnes and Thornburg LLP, the law firm whose four Wilmington lawyers are the Diamond State Port Corporation’s registered lobbyists, has been paid $13,719,480,000.13 by the State of Delaware. Those four lobbyists are Thomas McGonigle, registered November 1, 2019, former Chief of Staff to Governor Jack Markell; Douglas Gramiak, registered January 20, 2020, former Chief of Staff to Governor John Carney; Shawn Tucker, registered March 17, 2023, former General Manager of New Castle County Land Use; and James Smith Junior, registered October 20, 2023.
All four file from 222 Delaware Avenue, Suite 1200, Wilmington. The Department of Finance alone paid the firm $1.1 million in Fiscal Year 2023, $3.50 million in Fiscal Year 2024, $4.25 million in Fiscal Year 2025, and $4.46 million in Fiscal Year 2026. Thirteen payments a year, rising every year.
"The Diamond State Port Corporation, owned by the State of Delaware, retains
four lobbyists from one law firm, Barnes and Thornburg LLP, to lobby the
General Assembly that funds it. The State of Delaware pays that same firm nearly
$14 million. That firm gave Governor Matt Meyer the legal maximum three years running, on September 27, 2023, October 10, 2024, and November 20, 2025.
Every transaction disclosed. None of them ever on the same page."
The Same Names, One Office Lower
None of this began in Dover. The county side surfaces in the New Castle County Office of Law monthly reports, the documents that list what outside law firms billed the county and for what.
Connolly Gallagher, through Max Walton, holds $1,687,196.54 in documented county work; Walton gave the Meyer committees three times, $1,350. Scott G. Wilcox billed $601,360.36 cumulatively for sheriff’s sale work, in an office where outside counsel was budgeted at roughly $284,000 for five consecutive years while actuals ran between $702,000 and $1.1 million; Wilcox gave seven times across all three Meyer committees, $5,250, including $1,500 to Change Can’t Wait PAC on June 27, 2024.
Stradley Ronon appears in the county record with a $1,200 contribution one day before a monthly report listing, and is also PhilaPort’s counsel in the Edgemoor litigation. Ballard Spahr appears in the county record on the Highland View defense, and gave $1,200 on August 22, 2024. And the Barnes and Thornburg circle gave $3,600 in twenty-four days before the 2024 election: McGonigle $1,200 on October 5, the firm $1,200 on October 10, Tucker $200 on October 19 and $1,000 on October 29; that last one filed from 222 Delaware Ave Ste 1200.
"The firms that billed New Castle County under County Executive Matt Meyer are
the firms the State of Delaware pays under Governor Matt Meyer. Same names.
Same building on Delaware Avenue. One office higher."
That building has a history too. On June 14, 2021, Barnes and Thornburg hired eight people away from Faegre Drinker Biddle and Reath in Wilmington: partners Thomas McGonigle, Shawn Tucker and Michael Maimone, government relations consultants Mary Kate McLaughlin and Douglas Gramiak as co-directors of state government affairs, Michael DeNote as of counsel, Sawyer Traver as an associate and Whitney Potts as a paralegal. McGonigle became partner in charge and joined the firm management committee.
He had been chief of staff to Governor Markell from 2009 to 2012, chief legal counsel and policy director to Governor Carper before that, and a deputy attorney general before that. Alan Levin had joined the same firm, then Drinker Biddle and Reath, as Of Counsel in 2015.
Alan Levin was Of Counsel at that same firm, Drinker Biddle and Reath, no later than 2015, when he left the Delaware Economic Development Office; how much earlier the relationship began is not established on the public record. Drinker Biddle and Reath gave Matt Meyer’s county campaign six hundred dollars on September 26, 2016, filed from 222 Delaware Avenue, Suite 1410.
Shawn Tucker filed from 222 Delaware Avenue in October 2020. All four Diamond State Port Corporation lobbyists now file from 222 Delaware Avenue, Suite 1200: Thomas McGonigle, registered November 1, 2019; Douglas Gramiak, registered January 20, 2020; Shawn Tucker, registered March 17, 2023; and James Smith Junior, registered October 20, 2023.
"Suite 1410 in 2016. Suite 1200 by 2024. Same building, same people, different letterhead. And in between, four of them became the registered lobbyists for the
state corporation that owns the Port of Wilmington."
July 1, 2026. Thirty Million Dollars.
House Bill 500, the Fiscal Year 2027 Bond and Capital Improvements Act, cleared the House in the small hours after members complained openly that they were being asked to vote on bills they had not been given time to read. Inside it was $30 million to the Office of Management and Budget for Building and Land Acquisition, authorizing the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to buy Summit North Marina from its owners.
The most damaging testimony about that purchase did not come from a critic. It came from the Cabinet Secretary who asked for the money. Appearing before the Bond Bill Committee, Secretary Gregg Patterson explained the purchase would get the State out of a difficult lease agreement. Then he said this: We have not seen payment from them for a number of years.
He continued. Secretary Gregg Patterson told the committee the property owners have made claims against his Department over how things State Parks has done have impacted their operations. He called it an impasse. He told the committee the State has not made any money off the property. He did not name the owners. According to sources, Darrell J. Baker and Leo Holt have or have had interests in Summit North Marina, the marina Delaware is buying for $30 million. Darrell J. Baker is the registered Delaware lobbyist for Leo Holt’s company, Holt Logistics Corporation. Darrell J. Baker is the registered agent of Summit North Marina LLC and swore under oath in federal court that he is its managing agent.
Gregg Patterson, Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, is the cabinet officer who asked the General Assembly for the money.
Set that against the sequence. A private operator holds a concession on Delaware public parkland. The operator has not paid the State in years. The operator has claims pending against the State agency that granted the concession. The operator’s registered lobbyist, and four companies at the operator’s address and post office box, gave the sitting Governor’s campaign $4,000 across three days in October 2024. And the State’s answer is to pay that operator $30 million for improvements sitting on land the State already owns.
Governor Meyer defended it. He called the marina a critical state asset and said the one-time spend will yield significant revenue, and an economic opportunity for the state, and environmental preservation for generations to come. His own Secretary had just told the legislature the State has not made any money off the property.
Republicans objected in committee and again on the House floor. The $30 million survived. Of more than $1.2 billion in that bill, the Governor used his line item veto exactly once, and he used it on $35 million for a Legislative Hall expansion, explaining that Delawareans are struggling to pay rent and health care.
"A tenant stops paying, sues the landlord, gives the landlord’s campaign
four thousand dollars, and the landlord buys the tenant out for thirty million.
He struck exactly one line from that bill. It was not this one. His stated reason
for the line he did strike was that Delawareans are struggling to pay rent."
XIV. The Registered Agent
Before Delaware pays anyone $30 million, a reasonable person would want to know who is getting it. Delaware makes that unusually hard, and the difficulty is by design.
Under 6 Del. C. section 18-201, a Delaware limited liability company’s Certificate of Formation must state only the name of the company and the name and Delaware address of its registered agent. Members and managers are not listed. Delaware LLCs file no annual reports. The Division of Corporations does not request, obtain, or store any information about who owns them, and Delaware law permits nominee members. Delaware sells that anonymity to the world, and it is one of the state’s largest industries.
But the statute requires one name, and that one name is on the record. The registered agent for Summit North Marina LLC, formed June 9, 2010, and for Chesapeake and Delaware Dredging LLC, formed July 15, 2021, both at 3000 Summit Harbour Place in Bear, is Darrell J. Baker, Esquire.
"Delaware requires an LLC to disclose exactly one human being, and in this case
that human being is the registered Delaware lobbyist for the company
suing to stop the Port of Wilmington."
What The Marina Actually Is
It occupies roughly 129 acres inside Lums Pond State Park. That is public land, and it has been throughout. It operates under a concession agreement with Delaware State Parks, which lists the facility on its own website and states that it is managed and operated by Summit North Marina, LLC. It holds what a 2019 commercial listing described as an Army Corps of Engineers federal lease. The facility carries 394 slips by that commercial listing and roughly 24,000 square feet of structures, while the State’s own parks page describes a 300-slip system. Which figure the State used to value a thirty-million-dollar purchase is a question the appraisal answers.
What Delaware is buying, therefore, is a leasehold position and the improvements standing on it. Not the land. The people of Delaware already own the land.
Sworn, In Federal Court
There is a document that settles what Darrell J. Baker was to this marina, and it is not a registry entry. It is an affidavit he signed under oath and filed in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware.
In 2006, a boat owner named John B. Picchi sued Summit North Marina, Inc. over ice damage to his vessel during the marina’s ice-breaking operations. The case is Picchi v. Summit North Marina, Inc., No. 1:06-cv-00193-MPT, before Judge Mary Pat Thynge. On June 14, 2007, the marina served its answers to interrogatories. Page three of that filing is a notarized affidavit, and it reads as follows: I, DARRELL J. BAKER, being duly sworn, do depose and say that I am the managing agent for Summit North Marina, Inc., and that Defendant’s Answers to Plaintiff’s Interrogatories are true and correct to the best of my information, knowledge, and belief. Sworn to and subscribed before a Notary Public, State of Delaware, County of New Castle, June 2007.
"Not registered agent. Managing agent. His own words, under oath, in federal court, nineteen years before the State of Delaware agreed to pay that marina
thirty million dollars."
Eight months earlier, in the marina’s Initial Disclosures of October 24, 2006, its counsel listed the persons likely to have discoverable information. Baker was named first, care of the company, ahead of the general manager, and spelled there as Darryl. The sworn spelling is the one that governs, and it matches all ten lobbying registrations and the July 2026 Superior Court docket, where he appears as attorney identification 002243 at 1601 Concord Pike, Suite 100.
The same interrogatory answers name the rest of the operation in the marina’s own words. Christopher Lloyd, maintenance in 2003 and general manager by 2007. Janice Trala, the general manager in 2003, last known address 102 Fairmont Drive, Bear. Keith King, Charles Graves, Benjamin Bauer and Larry Holden. Lloyd, King and Bauer were the three men who operated the ice-breaking vessel, a steel boat the marina built itself, which is why it had no identification number, make or model.
Summit North Marina has been in federal court in Delaware at least eight times since 1994, mostly as a plaintiff pursuing marine contract actions against vessels: Regal Motor Yacht in 1994, Vessel Renaissance in 1998, LA TI DA and LOVE TUG and INXS in 1999, See Mowee in 2000. Then, as a defendant in Picchi in 2006, and again in 2019 when Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company sued Summit North Marina, LLC.
Read the names on those dockets in order, and one more thing surfaces. Through 2006, the party is Summit North Marina and Summit North Marina, Inc. By 2019, it is Summit North Marina, LLC. That is the same split the State’s own records carry. The Delaware Checkbook shows the $750,000 paid in September 2021 going to Summit North Marina Inc. The lobbyist registry, the campaign contribution, and the State Parks page all say LLC.
"Two entities, one address, one marina, and a State that has now paid money
under both spellings. Which one holds the concession, and which one is being
bought for thirty million dollars, is a question the purchase agreement has to
answer before the check clears."
The Same Man, On The Minutes, Meeting After Meeting
Through 2025, while the port lost cargo and the state let its dredging obligation slide, Baker appeared at meeting after meeting of the Diamond State Port Corporation Board. The minutes record him. On June 23, 2025, he asked how the project had gotten this far without a feasibility study. On July 28, 2025, the minutes identify him as attorney for Holt Logistics. On September 30, 2025, the minutes record him representing Holt and asking about the whereabouts of feasibility studies. He has also been a speaker at community meetings held under the banner Stop the Edgemoor Port.
Now hold the whole sequence in one line. In October 2024, his law practice, four entities tied to his marina and its post office box, and the president of Holt Logistics put $5,200 into the campaign of the man who would become Governor. Through 2025, he sat in the public meetings of the state corporation building the terminal his client was suing to stop, creating a record of unanswered questions. In June 2026, the State of Delaware agreed to pay thirty million dollars for the marina whose registered agent, by operation of Delaware law, is him, and whose managing agent he swore under oath in federal court that he was.
"A dredging company registered by the lobbyist for the port operator that profits
when Delaware does not dredge. That is not a conflict at the edges. That is the
whole shape of the thing, and it is filed with the Division of Corporations."
Every fact in this section came off a State of Delaware registry, a federal court docket or a State payment record, and every one of them carries a date.
The question goes to the officials who wrote the check. Three documents settle what is left, and Delaware officials hold all three: the concession and lease held by Secretary Gregg Patterson’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control; the appraisal held by the Office of Management and Budget; and the purchase agreement executed under House Bill 500, which must name every party receiving public money.
"There is one moment when the owners of Summit North Marina LLC must be named on a public document, and it is the moment the State hands over the check. Governor Matt Meyer should publish that document before the money moves, not after."
XV. The Law That Was Written To Stop This
Delaware anticipated a version of this and wrote a statute against it. The statute is still on the books today, in the current code, unamended.
Title 29, section 8783 of the Delaware Code says the Diamond State Port Corporation shall not enter into any agreement or transaction to transfer, privatize, or lease all or substantially all of the Port of Wilmington to a single entity, or to a related group of entities, unless three things happen. The Chair presents the terms to the Joint Committee on Capital Improvement. The members of that committee then explain the terms to their caucuses. And the General Assembly, within thirty days, approves the agreement by concurrent resolution in its entirety.
Then comes the sentence that matters most, and almost nobody in Delaware knows it is there. If the General Assembly does not approve or reject the proposed final agreement or transaction in its entirety by concurrent resolution within 30 days, then the proposed final agreement or transaction shall be deemed rejected by the General Assembly.
Silence is a no. The law was drafted so that inaction kills the deal rather than passing it.
That process was followed once. In April 2018, Governor John Carney publicly thanked the Bond Bill committee for endorsing the Gulftainer transaction and said this in a press release still posted on the State’s own news site: I urge members of the Delaware House of Representatives and Delaware Senate to take up and pass a concurrent resolution that will allow this transaction to move forward.
A complaint filed in New Castle County Superior Court on July 27, 2026 by five Delaware taxpayers, with Darrell J. Baker as the filing attorney, alleges that when port operations moved from Gulftainer to Enstructure in 2023, no concurrent resolution was sought and none was passed, because language added to the Fiscal Year 2023 bond bill had replaced a vote of the entire General Assembly, sixty-two elected legislators, with the assent of five officials.
Those five are the two co-chairs of the Joint Committee on Capital Improvement, which today are Representative Debra Heffernan of Bellefonte and Senator Jack Walsh of Stanton; the Controller General, the legislature’s own chief fiscal officer; the Senate President Pro Tempore, today Senator David Sokola of Newark; and the Speaker of the House, today Representative Melissa Minor-Brown of New Castle. If the complaint is right, the transfer was invalid, and every agreement and revision since then is void.
The docket names the plaintiffs as Barbara Boese, Sarah Graham, John Graham, Simeon Hahn and Loretta Mooney, each carrying the notation Address: unavailable. Superior Court Judge Sean Lugg recused himself on July 30 after twenty-five years in the Department of Justice divisions that had not collected what Gulftainer owed the State. The recusal letter noted that some members of the legislature are interested in discovery, depositions, and trial testimony from Department of Justice employees and possibly from the Attorney General. Counsel for the port corporation called recusal neither warranted nor appropriate. The case went to Judge Sheldon K. Rennie.
The obvious belongs on the page rather than left for someone else. Darrell J. Baker, the lawyer making that argument, is the registered Delaware lobbyist for Holt Logistics Corporation, the company that wants Edgemoor stopped. He is also the registered agent and, by his own sworn affidavit, the managing agent of Summit North Marina, the marina the State is buying for thirty million dollars. According to sources, Baker and Leo Holt have or have had interests in that marina together. All of it belongs to the reader.
None of it answers the argument. The statute says what it says. Governor Carney said what he said in 2018. The concurrent resolution requirement is in the Delaware Code this morning, and Delawareans are entitled to know whether their government followed it.
"The permanent law was never repealed. It was stepped around for one transaction by
a rider in a budget bill. Delaware still has the statute. What it lost was the vote."
XVI. What The Federal Judge Found The Second Time Around
On July 10, 2026, the Holt companies filed again in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Civil Action No. 2:26-cv-04821, before Judge Kearney once more. The complaint is worth reading for what it says about how the permits came back.
On December 11, 2024, the port corporation sent PhilaPort a brief letter requesting a Statement of No Objection. The complaint describes it as providing no reasoning or explanation to support its request. On January 10, 2025, PhilaPort answered that it was committed to a robust process and identified five specific studies it needed, including a comprehensive vessel traffic study and a maintenance dredging plan. On April 23, 2025, the Army Corps wrote to the port corporation and asked the applicant to provide a written response to the court’s ruling and to PhilaPort’s five concerns. The agency directed the party seeking the permit to answer the court’s criticisms of the agency.
The port corporation’s consultant, Jacobs Engineering Group, produced a technical report in October 2025 and a second version in December 2025. Neither was made public. The Corps issued no public notice of the new material and took no public comment. The complaint says the Corps invented an entirely new category of supplemental public interest review for this project.
On or about April 10, 2026, seventeen days after receiving detailed objections from a retired Coast Guard captain, the Corps reissued the permits. It granted the port corporation an exception to the Statement of No Objection requirement. It again maintained that safety under its regulations relates only to dams, in direct contravention of the court’s prior decision. The Corps issued no Statement of Findings and no Summary of Findings, only a Memorandum for Record. The plaintiffs sought that document through federal public records law and did not receive it until May 26, 2026, when the port corporation filed it in a Delaware state court in separate litigation.
One date in that sequence deserves its own line. Governor Meyer announced the permits and declared the project shovel-ready on April 8, 2026. The complaint dates the reissuance on or about April 10, 2026.
The new complaint names individuals as well as the agency: the United States Army Corps of Engineers, Colonel Jesse Curry as District Commander for the Philadelphia District, Todd Schaible as Chief of the Regulatory Branch, and Ryan Baum. The cause of action is the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 702. There is no jury demand.
"The agency that lost the case exempted itself from the procedure the court ordered
it to follow. There has been no appeal, no reversal, and no new facts. There has been
an exemption, and the exemption is the entire mechanism by which
the public was told the permits were reissued."
XVII. Three Filings, One Judge, Thirty-Two Months
The federal record on Edgemoor is not one lawsuit, and any account that speaks of the Holt lawsuit in the singular has told two-thirds of the story.
Greenwich Terminals LLC filed against the United States Army Corps of Engineers on November 3, 2023, case number 2:23-cv-04283 in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. It drew Judge Mark A. Kearney. Four months later, on March 8, 2024, the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority filed its own action against the same defendant, case number 2:24-cv-01008, and drew the same judge. The October 28, 2024 vacatur issued in those two cases together, reported at 2024 WL 4595590.
Set that second filing against a document Delaware produced itself. On January 29, 2024, the Attorney General of Delaware issued Opinion 24-IB04. Inside it, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control describes, in the State’s own words, who was challenging Delaware’s permit before the Environmental Appeals Board. Two of the three appellants were owned by Holt: Greenwich Terminals LLC, which operates the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in Philadelphia, and Gloucester Terminals LLC, which operates the Gloucester Marine Terminal in New Jersey.
The third appellant was the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, a public agency of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and it was represented by Holt’s own law firm, Stradley Ronon Stevens and Young, the Philadelphia firm that gave Governor Matt Meyer’s campaign one thousand two hundred dollars on September 26, 2024. The Attorney General’s conclusion in that opinion is that Holt’s legal counsel in the petition also represents the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority in the appeal, and that Holt owns two of the other appellants.
Thirty-eight days after Delaware wrote that down, the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority walked into federal court and filed on its own.
Three months before the third filing, on April 15, 2026, S and P Global Ratings recited the Port Wilmington expansion and dredging project in the Economy section of the report that let Delaware sell three hundred twenty-four million dollars of general obligation bonds. The bond market heard about Edgemoor in April. The lawsuit arrived in July.
"Same plaintiff. Same defendant. Same judge. Same objection. Three filings across thirty-two months, and Pennsylvania’s own port authority is one of them."
RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
XVIII. What The Family Across The River Actually Owns
Nobody spends four years and a fortune in legal fees to stop a project that would fail. You spend it to stop one that would work. To see why, you have to look past the lawsuit at the whole business.
The Holts did not begin in containers. They began in trucks and warehouses, and the old names still surface in federal court files like fossils in a riverbank. Holt Hauling and Warehousing Systems. Holt Cargo Systems. Holt Oversight and Logistical Technologies. Astro Holdings. Delaware River Stevedores. Penn Terminals.
Today the terminals sit in three states, all of them on the forty-five-foot channel Wilmington cannot reach. Greenwich Terminals LLC runs the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal, the container heart of the Port of Philadelphia. Gloucester Terminals LLC runs the Gloucester Marine Terminal at 160 Essex Street in Gloucester City and the newer operation at Paulsboro. The corporate address for all of it is 101 South King Street, Gloucester City, New Jersey, a town of eleven thousand four hundred eighty-four people directly across the river from Philadelphia.
The real asset is cold. On July 9, 2025, Crowley, the largest United States-based ocean shipping company, began the first regular direct service between Central America and the Philadelphia area. Two ships, the Copan and the Quetzal, alternating Wednesdays at the Gloucester City terminal, carrying apparel and fruit north and auto parts south to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Crowley’s people said plainly what drew them: the Holt family’s cold storage and shipping systems in Gloucester City, for bananas, melons, okra, cucumbers, plantains, sugar and coffee out of a Guatemalan port called Santo Tomás de Castilla.
Bananas out of Santo Tomás de Castilla is what the Port of Wilmington did.
And the family says out loud what it has taken. Leo Holt has stated that in 2024 the Gloucester Marine Terminal and the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal together handled over eighty-eight percent of the Chilean fruit on the entire East Coast, up from seventy-two percent the year before, and that while Moroccan citrus fell overall, his region’s share rose to seventy-six. Christian Holt, who handles sales and marketing for Holt Logistics, reports fruit volumes through those two terminals up nine point eight percent from 2023 to 2024 and twelve point five percent from 2024 to 2025, on bananas, grapes and pineapples from Chile, Costa Rica and Peru.
In 2025, Gloucester added Seaboard, Crowley and Greentide as carriers and built its refrigerated distribution center out to more than twenty-six thousand temperature-controlled pallet positions.
"Sixteen points of the entire East Coast Chilean fruit trade moved into two terminals
in a single year. Wilmington was the number one United States gateway for Chilean winter fruit. Every container that does not come through Edgemoor comes
through Packer Avenue or Gloucester."
One Dollar A Year, For Thirty-Three Years
There is a second piece of public land in this story, and Holt has had it for a dollar.
In 1984, the Delaware River Port Authority, the bistate agency that runs the bridges between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, leased Holt roughly seven acres of public land beneath the Walt Whitman Bridge in Philadelphia, in connection with a wharf Holt was building at the Gloucester Marine Terminal across the river. The rent was nineteen thousand dollars a year, about fifty-seven thousand in today’s money.
In 1993, the Delaware River Port Authority cut Holt’s rent to one dollar a year. It did so as part of an unrelated deal. That same year the authority paid three million two hundred thousand dollars to buy out a competing container-transfer yard called Railport Incorporated, a company partly owned by the Holt family, and then opened its own yard, which had cost three million seven hundred thousand dollars to develop and had sat unused for more than a year.
The rent has been one dollar ever since. It has not been renegotiated in thirty-three years.
In 2022, the Delaware River Port Authority’s own inspector general reported that the lease had not been updated since 1993 and needed to be renegotiated at market rates. Nothing happened. In early 2025, the authority finally commissioned an appraisal. The appraisal set the market rent at three hundred thirty thousand dollars a year, and said the authority could probably command more. The parcel is comparable in size to Rittenhouse Square.
John Hanson, the authority’s chief executive, was asked why the lease had gone untouched for more than thirty years. He said it did not rise to a level of urgency that superseded the core business of the authority, and that he was not going to second-guess anything anybody did. Holt’s spokesman, Kevin Feeley, said the land had been literally created by Holt in the 1980s when it built the wharf, that Holt uses it as a roadway connecting two parcels it owns on either side, and that Holt looked forward to direct discussions with the agency.
It went further than a disagreement over rent. The New Jersey State Comptroller opened an investigation and subpoenaed the authority’s records, including the documents on the Holt lease. The authority fought the subpoenas. On March 17, 2026, a New Jersey judge ordered the Delaware River Port Authority to comply. The authority is separately appealing a federal court order in a related case. The office pressing the investigation is now run by Acting Comptroller Shirley U. Emehelu, appointed by Governor Mikie Sherrill, after her predecessor Kevin Walsh opened it.
"Thirty-three years of a dollar a year on land, a 2025 appraisal valued at
three hundred thirty thousand dollars a year. Public land, under a public bridge,
held by the same family now spending four years in federal court to stop Delaware
from building a public terminal. And in Delaware, the same family’s lobbyist has
a marina on state parkland the State is about to buy for thirty million dollars."
Set the two side by side. In Philadelphia, Holt holds public land for a dollar, and a public watchdog has to go to court to see the file. In Delaware, the State is preparing to hand thirty million dollars to a marina on public parkland whose managing agent is Holt’s registered Delaware lobbyist, and whose operator, the cabinet secretary who requested the money, told the legislature, has not paid the State in years.
XIX. The Man Who Files
The federal dockets tell you what this family does when something stands between it and cargo.
In the winter of 1993, the answer came three times in twenty-two days. On December 22, Holt Cargo Systems sued the International Longshoremen’s Association in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, case number 2:93-cv-06907. Eight days later, on December 30, Holt Hauling and Warehousing sued the same union in the same court, case number 2:93-cv-07059. Thirteen days after that, on January 12, 1994, Holt Cargo Systems sued the International Longshoremen’s Association again, this time across the river in New Jersey, case number 1:94-cv-00174.
Nineteen ninety-three is also the year Holt replaced the International Longshoremen’s Association at Gloucester with a non-ILA union. A union leader called the Holts asinine and a disaster for union labor. It is the same year the Delaware River Port Authority cut Holt’s rent under the Walt Whitman Bridge to one dollar.
Understand who that defendant is. The longshoremen are the men who work the ships. In Wilmington they are the forty-five who hold the cold chain at four hundredths of a degree. In Philadelphia and Gloucester they are the same kind of men doing the same kind of work. In three weeks that winter, the Holt companies took them to federal court three times.
Four years later, the target moved from the men to the landlords. On January 5, 1998, Holt Hauling filed against the Port of Philadelphia in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, case number 2:98-cv-00030. In the same season, Holt Cargo Systems sued the Delaware River Port Authority, carried it to the Third Circuit, and drew an opinion out of that court on January 20, 1999.
In March 2002, Holt Hauling and Warehouse Systems filed against Gloucester Marine Terminal in the Delaware bankruptcy court, case number 02-02203. In October 2016, Gloucester Terminals sued Teamsters Local Union 929, case number 2:16-cv-05322. In November 2023, Greenwich Terminals sued the Army Corps. In July 2026, it sued them again.
Unions when labor is the obstacle. Port authorities when a competitor is the obstacle. Federal regulators when a permit is the obstacle. Same instrument, three decades, every time the obstacle is an institution rather than an invoice.
Two things belong in the same breath, because they are true and because leaving them out would be the cheapest kind of writing.
Most of the Holt name on a federal docket is the Holt name as a defendant, in injury and cargo claims, which is the ordinary weather of every marine terminal in America. And on October 28, 2024, a federal judge agreed with them.
"He was right. He read the permit file, decided the government had cut a corner,
said so to a judge, and was proved correct. That is not a nuisance suit.
And every month the case ran, the fruit moved upriver."
One line closes the circle. The harbor authority Holt took to federal court in 1998 is the harbor authority his lawyers spoke for in 2024. When Philadelphia stood in his way, he sued Philadelphia. When Delaware stood in his way, he brought Philadelphia with him.
XX. What Crossed The Dock, Counted By Somebody Else
Every container that comes off a ship in this country generates a piece of paper filed with United States Customs. It names the vessel, the voyage, the foreign port, the farm that grew the fruit, the company that bought it, the number of boxes, the weight, the container, and the seal. It is public, and it does not care what anyone says at a press conference.
Chiquita Fresh North America has one hundred seventy-two thousand six hundred seventy-four of those on file, running back to October 19, 2012. Port Hueneme in California holds fifty-eight thousand six hundred forty-four of them, the most recent dated December 20, 2025. Wilmington, Delaware holds forty-five thousand nine hundred four, the most recent December 17, 2025.
Port Everglades holds twenty-one thousand twenty-eight; Gulfport, nineteen thousand seven; Freeport, twelve thousand six hundred thirty-four. New Orleans holds seven thousand three hundred twelve and has taken none since September 2022. Miami holds one thousand three hundred seven. Tacoma holds seven hundred seventy-three and has taken none since 2015.
And then two lines that ought to stop a reader cold. Chester, Pennsylvania holds two thousand three hundred seventy-seven, the most recent dated July 21, 2025. Philadelphia holds one thousand nine hundred forty-three, the most recent dated August 5, 2025. Chiquita’s own address on the Wilmington paperwork is 101 River Road, Port of Wilmington, Wilmington 19801-5851.
In February 2026, Delaware was told the river had frozen, and that was why the fruit ships could not get in. There is no ice on the Delaware River on the twenty-first of July. The boxes were already going upriver in the summer.
Here is one of those pieces of paper in full, because a summarized bill of lading is nothing. The DOLE CHILE, international registry number 9185281, voyage 521N, carrier code GWFC, loaded at Moin in Costa Rica, unloaded at Wilmington, Delaware, Customs port code 1103. Six thousand one hundred twenty-five boxes of fresh pineapples. Eighty-eight thousand five hundred fifty kilograms. Four forty-foot refrigerated containers numbered OTPU6070541, FBIU5442575, CXRU1512429 and SILU7001141, under seals CBA3424149X, CBA3424160X, CBA3423114X and CBA3423106X. The shipper is a company called Exportaciones Nortenas in Grecia, Costa Rica. Somebody grew those pineapples. Somebody in Wilmington was supposed to unload them.
And another. The CHIQUITA EXPLORER, number 9304966, voyage 063N, out of Puerto Barrios, Guatemala, arriving December 2, 2025. Agronegocios Los Angeles, two thousand eight hundred eighty boxes of organic bananas, fifty-nine thousand nine hundred ninety kilos. A second bill from the same farm, another two thousand eight hundred eighty boxes, fifty-nine thousand five hundred thirty kilos. Agronegocios San Miguel Arcangel, one thousand nine hundred twenty boxes, thirty-nine thousand nine hundred ten kilos.
The ships keep their own count at this dock. In the manifest record available for this reporting, which runs through December 20, 2025, the DOLE COLOMBIA, international registry number 9185293, has three hundred thirty-five recorded calls at Wilmington. The DOLE CHILE has three hundred thirteen. The CHIQUITA DREAM, number 9399777, one hundred five. The CHIQUITA VOYAGER, number 9304978, sixty-two. The CHIQUITA EXPLORER, sixty-one. The CHIQUITA EXPRESS, number 9304758, fifty-five. The ROBIN 2, number 9399739, forty-nine. For every one of those seven ships, the most recent call recorded in that window falls between November 24 and December 8, 2025.
"The United States government publishes the seal number on a container of pineapples that crossed this dock, and the name of the farm that grew them. That record exists whether or not anyone in Dover chooses to talk about it."
The dredger. Thursday, April 2, 2026, 8:54 am at the Port of Wilmington, Delaware. "Rumors are one week to three, the first birth for Chiquita will be ready." "April 14, 2026, the first full ship to the Port of Wilmington started 7:00 am with 900 containers on it."
The dredger. Thursday, April 2, 2026, 8:54 am at the Port of Wilmington, Delaware. "Rumors are one week to three, the first birth for Chiquita will be ready." "April 14, 2026, the first full ship to the Port of Wilmington started 7:00 am with 900 containers on it."
XXI. What The Port Said Was Happening
Chiquita was discharging cargo at Chester, Pennsylvania, on July 21, 2025, and at Philadelphia on August 5, 2025. So the obvious question is what the Port of Wilmington was telling the public and its own board while that was going on.
The answer, in order, is ice, then a procurement dispute, then arrows.
February 2, 2026. The River Continued To Freeze.
Mike Evanko is Mid-Atlantic President and Chief Commercial Officer of Enstructure, the private company that operates the Port of Wilmington. On February 2, 2026, he told the board of the Diamond State Port Corporation that the Delaware River continued to freeze, and that the best-case scenario would be a rain event to clear the ice so that dredging could resume.
Seven days later, on February 9, 2026, the United States National Ice Center published its satellite analysis of the region. It showed the Delaware and Christina Rivers at thirty percent ice coverage or less.
Truthline reporting published on February 18 and again on February 23. On February 27, nine days after the first of those, a hydraulic cutterhead dredge appeared in the Christina River and was photographed working in clear open water with the Interstate 495 bridge behind it.
March 23, 2026. A Procurement Dispute.
Enstructure’s next presentation to the board attributed the delay to a procurement dispute under a federal procurement process.
Maintenance dredging of the berths is not federal work. The United States Army Corps of Engineers maintains the Wilmington Harbor federal channel and spent $27.6 million on Delaware River maintenance in the winter of 2025 and 2026. The Diamond State Port Corporation maintains Berths 1 through 4 at thirty-eight feet and Berths 5 through 7 at thirty-five feet. That obligation is Delaware’s, filed by Delaware, in Delaware’s own 2021 Federal Consistency Certification with the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, at seventy-five thousand cubic yards a year for ten years, using the State’s own word for the relationship: concurrently.
"The Corps performed. Delaware did not. The dispute resolved within
forty-eight hours of publication."
April 2026. An Accomplishment.
The April board presentation lists Finalized Dredging as an accomplishment, and describes working with the port corporation, the State, the Corps, and a dredging provider to maintain operations through Christina River dredging. No ice. No procurement dispute. No record that either had ever been claimed.
"Three explanations in ten weeks. Ice the federal government’s own satellites
could not find. A procurement dispute that evaporated forty-eight hours after a
reporter published. And then an accomplishment. The only constant was
that nobody dredged the berths for a year."
And The Numbers Stopped, On A Curve
Enstructure did not stop reporting cargo figures all at once. It stopped by degrees, over eleven months, and the sequence sits on the Diamond State Port Corporation’s own website in eight board presentations.
In August 2025, it reported breakbulk cargo up 1,874 percent year over year. In September 2025, up 2,063 percent. In December 2025, breakbulk up 468 percent; overall labor hours up 21 percent, container and bulk tonnage described as in line with the prior year. In February 2026, a comparison of one fiscal year against another. In April 2026, breakbulk up 16 percent year to date, with a conceded slight reduction in bulk tonnage and container volume.
The four-digit percentages were manufactured, and a footnote to those slides explains how. The figures were adjusted to exclude cargo deviated to Port Wilmington due to the Baltimore tragedy in March 2024. When the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed, ships that could not reach Baltimore came to Wilmington. Enstructure removed that windfall from the prior-year baseline and left it out of the comparison. Strip a good year out of the denominator and an ordinary year looks like a boom.
Then, on July 15, 2026, the board was shown a slide headed Volumes have improved compared to last quarter. Beneath it, a table of six lines. Vessels. Containers in TEUs. Bulk in metric tons. Break bulk in metric tons. Auto RoRo. Liquid.
Beside each one, an arrow. Green pointing up for containers, break bulk, Auto RoRo, and liquid. Grey pointing down for bulk. A flat blue bar for vessels. Not one number.
On the right half of that same slide, in three grey circles, the labor figures are given to the percentage point. Stevedoring hours, plus 3 percent. Warehousing hours, plus 6 percent. Training hours, plus 88 percent.
"Labor hours got numbers. Cargo got arrows. And the comparison was the second quarter of 2026 measured against the first, the quarter the berths shoaled and the ships went to Chester. They benchmarked against the collapse and called it improvement."
The Season Nobody Counted
The Port of Wilmington was the country’s leading gateway for Chilean winter fruit. From December through April, the grapes, cherries, plums, nectarines and apricots come north, and for nine consecutive seasons this port received the first breakbulk shipment of the Chilean season to arrive anywhere in the United States.
Here is the entire public accounting of the 2025 to 2026 Chilean season, taken from the operator’s own board presentations. On February 2, 2026: delivering uninterrupted fruit season operations while supporting regional winter preparedness, strong volumes in the ongoing Moroccan clementine season, and Chilean fruit season began in Wilmington the week of January 27th, including successful fumigations. On March 23, 2026: completed multiple successful fumigations for Chilean grapes, working closely with the International Longshoremen’s Association. On April 20, 2026: Finalized Fruit Season; last Chilean grapes vessel of the 2025-2026 fruit season finished discharging in early April. On May 22, 2026: nothing.
Not one ton. Not one case. Not one vessel count. An entire season described in adjectives.
Uninterrupted. That word went in front of the board on February 2, 2026. Fourteen days later, the Chiquita gate and yard were closed on Presidents’ Day, a day the port’s own published Tariff Number 1J classifies as an Overtime Holiday, meaning a working day. The men who had worked that shift every year for thirty years were told there was no work.
There is one more line on that February slide. Under the heading Delaware Highlight, Enstructure reported that it had partnered with Agile Cold Storage to utilize the Claymont, Delaware facility for storage of certain fruit cargoes. Agile Cold Storage is the one hundred seventy million dollar facility Matt Meyer welcomed as County Executive in 2023 with four and a half million dollars in state grants. It will create roughly one hundred thirty jobs. None of them are International Longshoremen’s Association jobs.
"The operator told the board the fruit season was uninterrupted. Fourteen days later, the longshoremen were home, and the fruit was in Pennsylvania. In the same season, Chilean fruit was moved into a non-union warehouse in Claymont, and the operator listed it on the slide as a Delaware highlight."
Three Pages, And Which One They Chose To Edit
Open portwilmington.com today and read the Fresh Fruit page. Then check when it was last edited. September 25, 2023. Eight weeks after Enstructure took over operations. It has not been touched in thirty-four months, and it still tells the public that Dole Fresh Fruit Company and Chiquita Fresh North America have made Wilmington the number one banana port in North America, that they each call Wilmington twice weekly year-round, that this is the number one United States gateway for imports of fresh fruit and the leading port of entry for Chilean winter fruit, that the port typically receives over sixteen million cases of fresh Chilean fruit annually, and that it holds eight hundred thousand square feet of dockside cold storage in six warehouses.
Now open the Auto and RoRo page on the same website. Last modified June 3, 2026. So the site is maintained. Somebody at Enstructure edits it when Enstructure wants it edited. (To the confidential sources working with this investigative reporter and publisher, note that June 3, 2026 date, and the date of our phone calls and text messages, just saying.) Here is what that June 2026 edit left standing: Port Wilmington is a busy automobile terminal on the Delaware River. Six car carriers listed as calling Wilmington.
AutoPort, Inc., an ISO 9001-certified vehicle processing and modification company, customizes GM exports as well as other commercial vehicles at a facility adjacent to the Port, in the present tense. And one hundred forty contiguous acres, a sixty-acre surge parcel, and a sixty-five-acre build-to-suit waterfront site advertised as available.
Then open port.delaware.gov. The Diamond State Port Corporation still tells the public that the Port of Wilmington handles more than four hundred vessels and six million tons of import and export cargo annually, with ten berths, one million square feet of cold storage and ambient warehousing, and more than two thousand reefer plugs. The last independently published verified count for this port was 624 vessel arrivals and 6,603,444 tons. That was 2018.
"They edited the automobile page in June 2026 and left the fruit page frozen
at September 2023. They updated the one where the collapse is hardest to see
and left alone the one where the numbers would have had to change.
And the State is still publishing 2018 volumes as current."
Pigeon Point Road
AutoPort has processed vehicles at 203 Pigeon Point Road since 1981 and has moved more than four million cars across that dock. General Motors, Stellantis, Ford, Honda, Volkswagen. Höegh Autoliners, Liberty Global Logistics, Hyundai Glovis, Grimaldi. The Auto and RoRo berth was built for that business in 2002 at a cost of twenty-seven and a half million dollars, and sixteen and a half million of that loan was forgiven by House Bill 305 in February 2024.
A person with direct knowledge of the company’s decision says AutoPort is not coming back to the Port of Wilmington.
Thirty to forty ships have left this port for Baltimore and New York. Trans Cargo lost its work at 170 Pigeon Point Road in late 2025. In May 2024, Catalyst, a New York private equity firm, paid four and a half million dollars for 350 Pigeon Point Road.
And the Diamond State Port Corporation has held an option to acquire or control the Pigeon Point property since 1995, available for no additional consideration, and has extended it six times without ever exercising it. Resolution 25-06 in May 2025 was the fifth. Resolution 26-01, on the March 2026 agenda, was the sixth. Thirty-one years of a free option over the ground where AutoPort operates.
"In June 2026, the operator updated its own website and left the words busy automobile terminal standing at the top of the page. In July, the board was shown a green arrow pointing up beside the line marked Auto RoRo. And a person with direct knowledge says the company that has processed four million cars there since 1981 is not coming back."
Eight Months Earlier
On June 5, 2025, Governor Matt Meyer posted to Facebook that he was excited to share some appealing news: that Chiquita had renewed its partnership with the Port of Wilmington, that it meant real jobs, real revenue, and real momentum, and that the Port’s future was ripe with possibility. He included a banana emoji.
The Chiquita agreement covers two hundred seventy thousand tons of bananas, roughly fifty-two vessel calls a year, and a relationship that has run thirty-seven years. Enstructure Co-Chief Executives Matthew Satnick and Philippe De Montigny called it a significant milestone and thanked the State and Local 1694.
"The Governor announced the renewal in June with a banana emoji.
By February, the ships were unloading in Chester, the holiday shift was cancelled,
and the operator was telling a public board the river had frozen."
XXII-A. The Corridor
Stand on the Edgemoor Road overpass at the Interstate 495 interchange, and you are standing in the middle of it. The corridor runs along the river from the Pennsylvania line down to the Port of Wilmington, out past the Wilmington and New Castle County Airport, and along the rail line through Newark and Bear to Middletown. Deep water, an airport, a rail line, and an interstate, all within a short truck run of each other. That is why the land there is worth what it is worth.
The biggest of Amazon’s Delaware buildings sit on that ground. The fulfillment center at 1025 Boxwood Road in Wilmington, three point eight million square feet and roughly three thousand workers, the largest building the company operates in this state. The sortation center at 801 Boxwood Road. Delivery stations at 851 Boxwood Road and at 2421 Bear Corbitt Road in Bear. And the warehouse ground now moving in Middletown. Every parcel along that run, and every industrial site built or subsidized to feed it, is worth more the day a deep-water container terminal opens at the top of the road.
Harvey, Hanna and Associates built a great deal of it, though not all of it. E. Thomas Harvey the Third and Thomas J. Hanna, known as T.J., teamed up in 1997 and turned a boutique real estate firm in Newport into one of the largest development companies in Delaware, out of family businesses going back to 1937 that began in waste hauling. Today the firm holds close to four million square feet of warehouse space in Delaware, and T.J. Hanna has overseen development and management of more than six million square feet of commercial space across the mid-Atlantic and hundreds of millions of dollars in financing and sales.
A University of Delaware graduate, he was, in his own industry’s words, instrumental in converting the former General Motors Boxwood plant into a site that today holds one of the largest Amazon facilities in the country. In 2008, he founded the Delaware KIDS Fund, renamed Sam’s KIDS in 2023. He stepped back from day-to-day operations at the firm in 2025. Other developers are in this corridor too.
Dermody Properties, the national industrial developer, bought eighty-eight acres of the Boxwood Road site from Harvey Hanna and built for Amazon. EQT Real Estate sold Harvey Hanna the Middletown ground. Benchmark Builders and Eastern States Development Company, Leon N. Weiner and Associates, and others hold their own positions along the same road. What distinguishes Harvey Hanna is not that it built everything. It is who it knows. Alan Levin and T.J. Hanna are close, and Levin was appointed Director of the Delaware Economic Development Office by Governor Jack Markell in 2009, the office that decided which companies got state money to build in Delaware and where.
The Boxwood Road site is the one everybody knows. General Motors built cars there for generations, and when the plant closed, the land sat dead. Harvey Hanna bought the hundred forty-two acres in October 2017, drew up four distribution centers including one of a million square feet, sold eighty-eight acres to Dermody Properties in November 2019, and the rest early the next year. It is now Amazon’s largest facility in Delaware, three point eight million square feet at 1025 Boxwood Road, roughly three thousand people inside. A sortation center sits at 801 Boxwood Road. Delivery stations sit at 2421 Bear Corbitt Road and 851 Boxwood Road.
The rest of the portfolio reads like a map of the same corridor. Twin Spans Business Park in New Castle, on the old Chicago Bridge and Iron site. Delaware River Industrial Park, near the port. Creekwood Corporate Center off Interstate 95. Corporate Commons.
Newport Industrial Park and a good deal of downtown Newport. In June 2026, an entity called Route 40 LLC, owned by Harvey Hanna, won one point one four million dollars in state transportation grant money for ten and a half acres at 600 Pulaski Highway in Bear, to put up two warehouses totaling one hundred nineteen thousand thirty-one square feet.
In July 2026, the firm paid twenty-five point three million dollars for one hundred three acres at Jamison Corner in Middletown, approved for one point three million square feet across three buildings near the Route 301 interchange, its first major deal south of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
And the firm has said who helped. Ryan Kennedy of Harvey Hanna, describing the work of keeping a Delaware tenant in Delaware, credited a collaboration that ran, in his words, from Alan Levin and Bernice Whaley at the Delaware Economic Development Office to Governor Jack Markell. Bernice Whaley was Levin’s deputy and succeeded him as Director in 2015. Thomas Hanna, as chief operating officer, and Bert Root, as director of commercial leasing, ran the negotiations.
The attorney on the firm’s Middletown land work is Shawn Tucker, the same Shawn Tucker who is a partner at Barnes and Thornburg LLP, a registered lobbyist for the Diamond State Port Corporation since March 17, 2023, the former General Manager of New Castle County Land Use, and a contributor of one thousand two hundred dollars to Governor Matt Meyer in October 2024. John C. Fannin the Third, formerly the firm’s president and now executive adviser to its board, sits on the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce Board of Governors.
What The Firm Says It Is Building Now
Harvey, Hanna and Associates lists its current work by name on its own website at harveyhanna.com, out of an office at 302-323-9300 in Newport. The catalog is five projects and a sixth heading called Future Projects. Delaware River Industrial Park in New Castle. Twin Spans Business Park. Newport Industrial Park in Newport. The Boxwood Road Redevelopment in Wilmington. And Lighthouse Cove in Dewey Beach. The firm describes itself as offering three million square feet of prime-location real estate to the Mid-Atlantic region, with an occupancy rate above ninety-five percent.
There is a second arm to the company, and it points south. With a partner firm called TKO Hospitality, Harvey Hanna develops, owns, and manages hotels. It was owner and developer of the Hyatt Place Dewey Beach, which opened in 2013 as part of Lighthouse Cove and was the first Hyatt-branded hotel in Delaware. It developed the Hyatt House Lewes and Rehoboth Beach in 2021. It is a co-owner of the Hyatt Place Kent Narrows and Marina, which opened in 2022 on the Chesapeake in Maryland. And it bought the old Sand Castle Motel and reopened it as COAST Rehoboth Beach, a Tapestry Collection by Hilton property.
Hold those addresses next to Alan Levin’s. Levin divides his time between Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach. Since 2015, he has been Senior Advisor to SoDel Concepts, the Sussex County restaurant and hospitality group with a dozen restaurants in the same beach towns where Harvey Hanna builds and runs hotels. The industrial corridor at the top of the state and the hospitality corridor at the bottom of it are the same two men’s working ground.
"A development firm whose partner was instrumental in turning the old General Motors plant into Amazon’s largest Delaware building, and whose hotels sit in the same beach towns where the chairman of Delaware’s revenue council advises a hospitality company. One state, two hundred miles long, and a very small number of people in it."
When Governor Jack Markell’s office announced on April 30, 2015, that Alan Levin was leaving the Delaware Economic Development Office, the release listed the companies that had come to Delaware or grown there on his watch. Amazon is the first name on the list. His deputy, Bernice Whaley, was confirmed to succeed him.
Levin’s last day was June 30, 2015. He went from there to the law firm Drinker Biddle and Reath as Of Counsel, where Thomas McGonigle, Shawn Tucker and Douglas Gramiak also worked, and to SoDel Concepts, the Sussex County restaurant and hospitality group founded by his late friend and mentor Matt Haley, as Senior Advisor. SoDel Concepts president Scott Kammerer, announcing Levin’s recognition as one of the Most Influential Delawareans, said of him that he had played a pivotal role in the growth of Amazon in the state. That is not a critic’s characterization. That is his own employer’s press release.
"Alan Levin ran Delaware’s economic development office when Amazon
came to Delaware. Alan Levin chaired the task force, appointed by then County Executive Matt Meyer in October 2019, that recommended against renewing the county’s lease on the Wilmington and New Castle County Airport, the airport the Delaware River and Bay Authority has confirmed Amazon approached about an
air hub. And Alan Levin now chairs the council that certifies how much money
Delaware is allowed to spend on the port at the top of the same road."
XXII-B. The Second Corridor
“Matt Meyer does not face voters again until 2028. Since the last election,
$72,500 in health care money has gone into Change Can't Wait PAC,
the political action committee Alan B. Levin organized and raised for.
Alan B. Levin sits on the Board of Directors of Beebe Healthcare.
Beebe Healthcare is in the consortium that won Delaware's first medical school.”
A corridor is not only a road. It is any line along which public decisions and private assets run in the same direction.
The first one is Philadelphia Pike and Interstate 95; it carries warehouses and a port. The second one carries hospitals, clinics, a medical school, and the buildings all of them require, and it runs down the middle of Delaware into Kent and Sussex, where the population is growing fastest and the doctors are fewest.
The same names are standing on it.
What Delaware Actually Buys
Before any of the names, understand the size of the thing.
Delaware's Fiscal Year 2027 operating budget is $6.99 billion. Health and education together consume more than 63 percent of it. The Department of Health and Social Services, the State's second largest department, grows 11.2 percent in that budget, driven by a $128.5 million increase in Medicaid spending. Another $16.2 million covers the State's share of state employee and state retiree health insurance premiums. Another $65.8 million goes toward retiree health obligations.
After paying its own people, health care is the largest thing the State of Delaware buys, and it is the fastest-growing.
The General Assembly passed that budget with 6.32 percent growth. Governor Matt Meyer had asked for growth below 5 percent. The State's own independent financial analysts had recommended no more than 3.9 percent.
And the body that sets the outer limit on all of it is the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council, chaired by Alan B. Levin.
“Health care is the largest thing Delaware buys after its own employees,
and the fastest-growing. Every dollar of it lives underneath a ceiling set by
a council chaired by the man who raised the Governor's outside money.”
The Benchmark, Which Is The Real Corridor
The Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council does not only forecast health care spending. It sets the number that limits how fast health care spending is allowed to grow in this state.
It is called the health care spending growth benchmark, and it is a policy tool aimed at measuring and limiting the rate of health care spending growth within a state. It feeds the Diamond State Hospital Cost Review Board, created by legislation two years ago to oversee hospital budgets, and established in its current form only after a year of legal back-and-forth between the State of Delaware and ChristianaCare.
On Wednesday, April 29, 2026, a subcommittee of the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council voted to raise that benchmark for 2027 from 4.2 percent to 4.9 percent.
Brian Frazee, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Delaware Healthcare Association, sits on that subcommittee. He voted in favor.
The Delaware Healthcare Association is the trade association of Delaware's hospitals. Its members are the institutions the benchmark governs. Brian Frazee said so himself, describing the vote as setting what we will be held to as it relates to cost growth in hospitals moving forward.
The new benchmark went to the full membership of the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council in May, where Alan B. Levin holds the gavel.
Seven tenths of one percentage point, applied across every hospital in Delaware, every year. That is worth more than any single grant, and it does not expire.
Understand where the benchmark came from. In 2018, Governor John Carney created Delaware's system by signing two executive orders, one of which formed the subcommittee of the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council that now sets the number. The General Assembly codified much of it in 2022. Delaware is one of eight states that set a health care industry benchmark.
And understand what it does, which is nothing.
Delaware has blown past its benchmark almost every year it has been in effect. It has now been missed five years running, since 2021. Health care spending in Delaware rose 9.1 percent between 2022 and 2023, to nearly $11 billion, which was nearly three times the recommended benchmark rate of 3.1 percent that year. In 2024, the figure was $11.3 billion, an $876 million jump in a single year. Across five years, the number went from roughly $8 billion to $11.6 billion. Inpatient hospital services and prescription drug benefits after rebates each ran about $2 billion, with outpatient hospital services third at about $1.7 billion.
The 2024 benchmark was 3 percent. The 2026 benchmark is 4.9 percent. The target was not met, so the target moved.
Delaware once tried to give the number teeth. Legislation was introduced that would have let the Diamond State Hospital Cost Review Board hold hospitals accountable by, in part, vetoing hospital budgets it deemed excessive. ChristianaCare, the largest health system in the state, sued Delaware over that board. After the legal settlement, there is no enforcement mechanism to restrain health care systems, insurers or pharmaceutical companies to the benchmark rate at all.
Gary Siegelman, a subcommittee member from Bayhealth, another hospital in the medical school consortium, said the new approach reflects Delaware's current challenges. It doesn't quite represent reality, he said, but it's a lot closer than what we had seen a couple of years ago.
And Alan B. Levin spoke at that table himself. When the subcommittee weighed the benchmark, the chair of the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council expressed skepticism toward a goal that could limit hospital spending below national projections, saying he would not recommend one unless it could be supported with data.
“The chairman of the council that sets Delaware's revenue ceiling told a
subcommittee he would not recommend a health care spending goal that
fell below national projections unless it could be supported with data.
He sits on the Board of Directors of Beebe Healthcare.”
Somebody pays for the miss, and it is not the hospitals.
Karen Peterson, the retiree representative on the State Employee Health Benefits Committee, has watched the benchmark be missed year after year. I've kind of come to think of it as aspirational and not realistic goals, she said. The rise from roughly $8 billion to $11.6 billion over five years reflects a rise in pricing. And it forced her committee into a choice: raising the co-pay on GLP-1 weight loss drugs under the state health plans.
“Delaware has missed its health care spending benchmark five years running.
Spending went from $8 billion to $11.6 billion. There is no enforcement mechanism.
The hospital association helps set the number, the hospitals exceed it,
and a Delaware retiree pays a higher co-pay at the pharmacy counter for it.”
In September, the Diamond State Hospital Cost Review Board is to set the standards for charity care that nonprofit hospitals must provide to patients. Brian Frazee has said the board still has work to do on compliance plans for hospitals that repeatedly miss goals to limit spending growth.
“On April 21, 2026, the Delaware Healthcare Association Political Action Committee gave Change Can't Wait PAC $5,000. Eight days later, on April 29, the Delaware Healthcare Association's chief executive voted to raise the ceiling on hospital spending growth from 4.2 percent to 4.9 percent.”
Why The Seniors Matter, And Who Gets Paid
Delaware is one of the country's leading destinations for retirees, and the reason is state policy. Delaware does not tax Social Security benefits. It has no sales tax. Its property taxes are among the lowest in the nation. People move here to retire, and they move to Sussex County, to Rehoboth Beach, Lewes, Millsboro, and Millville, which is the fastest-growing part of the state and the part with the fewest doctors.
An older population is not an abstraction in a budget. It is Medicare; it is Medicaid long-term care; it is skilled nursing beds, assisted living, memory care, home health, and hospice. It is the $128.5 million Medicaid increase. And it is buildings, which means land, zoning, rezoning, traffic studies, contractors, and permits.
Which brings us to the largest check any Matt Meyer committee has received since the election.
DHCFA is the Delaware Health Care Facilities Association, at 501 Silverside Road, Suite 51, in Wilmington. It is the Delaware affiliate of the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living, and it represents providers of assisted living services, intermediate and skilled nursing services, rest-residential services, and sub-acute and short-term rehabilitative services. It is the nursing home and long-term care industry of the State of Delaware.
On May 11, 2026, DHCFA gave Change Can't Wait PAC $50,000.
Cheryl Heiks is the Executive Director of the Delaware Health Care Facilities Association. She sits on the Delaware Health Resources Board and on the Delaware Medicaid Advisory Committee, representing nursing homes and assisted living facilities on both.
Governor Matt Meyer reappointed her to a three-year term.
The Delaware Health Resources Board is the body that reviews Certificate of Public Review applications, which is Delaware's certificate of need. It decides who is permitted to build beds and facilities in this state. The Delaware Medicaid Advisory Committee advises on the program that pays for those beds.
“The nursing home industry's trade association gave the Governor's political action committee $50,000. Its executive director sits, by that Governor's reappointment,
on the board that decides who may build nursing home beds in Delaware and
on the committee that advises on the Medicaid program that pays for them.”
And the loop closes where this report began. Unclaimed property is uncashed checks, dormant accounts, and unclaimed insurance and annuity proceeds. It is disproportionately the money of the elderly and the dead. Delaware funds close to a fifth of its government on it, sent nearly $200 million of it to the Diamond State Port Corporation in January 2025, and raised the ceiling on it by another $60 million in July 2026.
The Man Who Chairs The Revenue Council Sits On A Hospital Board
Alan B. Levin is the chairman of the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council, the body that adopts the revenue estimate the General Assembly may not exceed. Governor Matt Meyer appointed him. He organized and raised for Change Can't Wait PAC.
He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Beebe Healthcare, the Sussex County health system, listed on that system's own Leadership and Governance page alongside Chairman Khalil Saliba, Vice Chair Katie Johnson, DO, Secretary Ann Raskauskus, Treasurer Ryan Kennedy, CPA, and directors Tom Bain, Jennifer Carroll, Juli Short Decker, Adam DiSabatino, Eddie Ghabour, Sara Larch, S. Keith Parsell, Leanne Silicato Prosser, Richard Sokolov, David A. Tam, MD, and Bradley L. Travis, Jr.
He joined the Beebe Medical Foundation board first, announced in July 2020 by Foundation Board Chair Christian Hudson, who described him as a wealth of knowledge and experience. Beebe Medical Foundation President Tom Protack said in the same announcement that Alan Levin and his wife Ellen have been strong and loyal supporters of Beebe, 1916 Club members, and campaign donors, and that he looked forward to working with him as Beebe Healthcare continues to expand in Sussex County.
Expansion is construction. Beebe Healthcare has publicly described a Specialty Surgical Hospital planned for the Beebe Health Campus near Rehoboth Beach.
Christian Hudson, of Foxfield Lane in Lewes, gave Matt Meyer $1,200 on September 13, 2024. Michael Meoli, who sits on the Beebe Healthcare board and is the largest McDonald's franchisee in Delaware with 25 restaurants in Delaware and on Maryland's Eastern Shore, gave $1,200 on March 27, 2024.
“The chairman of the council that sets the ceiling on every dollar Delaware may spend sits on the board of a Sussex County hospital system that is expanding.
He is also the man who raised the outside money that elected
the Governor who decides what that system gets.”
Delaware's First Surgeon General Gave $5,000 To The PAC
On July 13, 2026, Governor Matt Meyer established the Office of the Surgeon General and named Dr. Neil Hockstein as Delaware's first Surgeon General. Dr. Hockstein already chaired the Delaware Health Care Commission, and he stood behind the Governor at the medical school announcement in Dover, alongside Delaware Department of Health and Social Services Secretary Christen Linke Young and Jefferson Health Chief Executive Joe Cacchione.
Dr. Neil Hockstein of 310 Centennial Circle in Wilmington has given Matt Meyer $9,500 across 8 contributions.
$250 on August 1, 2016. $600 on June 30, 2020. $1,200 on November 30, 2021, and Carolyn Hockstein gave $1,200 the same day from the same address. $2,500 into Change Can't Wait PAC on October 27, 2023. $2,500 more into Change Can't Wait PAC on April 30, 2024. $50 from Sara Hockstein on August 18, 2024. And $1,200 on October 1, 2024.
$5,000 of it went to the political action committee Alan B. Levin organized and raised for. There is no limit on what a person may give a political action committee in Delaware. There is a $1,200 limit on what that same person may give a candidate.
“Dr. Neil Hockstein gave Change Can't Wait PAC $5,000 in two checks,
in October 2023 and April 2024. On July 13, 2026, Governor Matt Meyer created an Office of the Surgeon General and made him Delaware's first Surgeon General.”
The $78 Million Medical School, And Who Was Left Out
On June 2, 2026, Governor Matt Meyer announced that Delaware would have its first four-year medical school, a regional campus of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College operated by Thomas Jefferson University of Philadelphia. Forty students. Classes beginning in the summer of 2028. Pre-clinical instruction at the University of Delaware in Newark, clinical training in Kent and Sussex counties.
Today, Delaware stops exporting future doctors, the Governor said. For too long, Delaware has been a state where scientists discovered medicines and saved lives around the world, all without a medical school. And today that changes.
The money is federal. It comes from the Rural Health Transformation Program, created to secure Republican votes for a package containing more than $900 billion in Medicaid reductions. Delaware was awarded $157 million. The medical school initiative is reported at $78 million of it. Students in the first cohort who commit to five years practicing in rural Delaware pay no tuition.
The Delaware Medical School Consortium was announced with Thomas Jefferson University, the University of Delaware, Delaware State University, Delaware Technical Community College, Trinity Health, Bayhealth, Beebe Healthcare, Nemours Children's Health, the Wilmington VA Medical Center, Jefferson Health, La Red Health Center and Westside Family Healthcare, with support from Wilmington University. Thomas Jefferson University President Susan Aldridge and Sidney Kimmel Medical College Dean Said Ibrahim appeared with the Governor and State Representative Alonna Berry at the Westside Family Healthcare clinic in Dover.
Beebe Healthcare is in the consortium. Alan B. Levin sits on the Beebe Healthcare Board of Directors.
ChristianaCare is not in the consortium. It is the largest health system in Delaware, and it had backed the competing bid from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. In a joint statement, ChristianaCare and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine said they were disappointed and that the path forward raises genuine questions about whether the school's goals can be fully realized without ChristianaCare's meaningful participation in its clinical training mission.
TidalHealth, the principal hospital of western Sussex County, is not in the consortium either, although the free-tuition commitment requires graduates to practice at a rural Delaware hospital, which in practice means Bayhealth, Beebe Healthcare or TidalHealth.
“Delaware awarded its first medical school to a consortium that
includes the hospital system on whose board Alan B. Levin sits,
and excludes the largest health system in the state.”
The First Lady, And Why It Is In This Report
Dr. Lauren Meyer is an emergency room physician and vice chair of ChristianaCare's emergency department. She is married to Governor Matt Meyer, and the Governor puts that fact in his own official biography, on his campaign website, in his National Governors Association profile, and in his inaugural address.
Standing at Delaware State University on January 21, 2025, Governor Meyer said health care is a human right, and that the health care system often treats us as less than human. He then said that First Lady Lauren Meyer, who works as an emergency room doctor at ChristianaCare, sees heroic work by professionals, but that patients experience long waits in emergency rooms, and that Delawareans are driving to Philadelphia or Baltimore or Washington to get basic care.
Her work is not the finding, and this report makes no claim about it. The finding is the shape of the decision.
Sixteen months after the Governor of Delaware used his wife's emergency department to argue that the system fails patients, the State of Delaware awarded a $78 million federally funded medical school to a consortium that does not include the health system where she is a department vice chair, and that health system said publicly that the school's goals raise genuine questions without it.
The Money Arrived With No Election In Sight
Every dollar of health care money in Change Can't Wait PAC arrived after Matt Meyer had already been elected Governor. Not one of these checks was written before November 2024. Matt Meyer does not face voters again until 2028.
Align Technology Inc. of 2820 Orchard Parkway in San Jose, California, the manufacturer of Invisalign, gave $7,500 on November 5, 2025, one year and one day after the election.
The Glen E. Tullman Irrevocable Trust of 645 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago gave $10,000 on February 27, 2026. Glen Tullman founded Livongo Health and runs Transcarent. February 2026 is the month Governor Meyer's office released its first requests for vendors to carry out programs funded by the federal rural health grant.
The Delaware Healthcare Association Political Action Committee of 1280 South Governors Avenue in Dover gave $5,000 on April 21, 2026. It had already given Meyer for Delaware $1,200 on October 9, 2024. The Delaware Healthcare Association is the trade association of Delaware's hospitals, and on the day the medical school was announced, it issued a supporting statement noting that Delaware residency programs would bring a record high of more than 250 new doctors to hospitals and health systems that year.
DHCFA, filing from 501 Silverside Road, Suite 51, in Wilmington, gave $50,000 on May 11, 2026. It is the single largest contribution any Meyer committee has received since the election, and it landed three weeks before the medical school announcement.
$72,500, four checks, and the last two inside seven weeks of each other in the spring of 2026.
“Align Technology, $7,500. The Glen E. Tullman Irrevocable Trust, $10,000. The Delaware Healthcare Association PAC, $5,000. DHCFA, $50,000. Four health care contributions totaling $72,500, and every one of them written after Matt Meyer had already won.”
And Then The Legislation
On July 13, 2026, Governor Matt Meyer established the Office of the Surgeon General and named Dr. Neil Hockstein to it.
On July 21, 2026, he signed what his office called a landmark health care affordability package to lower costs and protect patients.
On August 6, 2026, he signed legislation to strengthen Delaware's health care workforce.
DHCFA's $50,000 was written on May 11, 2026. The Delaware Healthcare Association PAC's $5,000 was written on April 21, 2026.
Both were in the account before any of it was signed.
One Name That Has To Be Resolved
Ryan Kennedy, CPA, is Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Beebe Healthcare and serves as Treasurer of both the Beebe Healthcare board and the Beebe Medical Foundation board.
A Ryan Kennedy of 2316 Saint Francis Street in Wilmington has given Matt Meyer $1,158.32 across 3 contributions: $200 on February 20, 2020, $858.32 on December 31, 2022, and $100 on March 21, 2024.
A Ryan Kennedy is also the executive of Harvey, Hanna and Associates, who publicly described the Twin Lakes retention deal as a collaborative effort running from Alan Levin and Bernice Whaley at the Delaware Economic Development Office to Governor Jack Markell.
Whether those are one man, two men, or three is not established by any document in this file, and this report does not assert it. The name is printed here so that no one else conflates them either.
What The Second Corridor Is
The first corridor runs along Philadelphia Pike and carries warehouses, and the men on it are developers, land use attorneys, site contractors, and the county employees who used to review their plans.
The second corridor runs down the middle of Delaware into Kent and Sussex and carries hospitals, clinics, a medical school, and everything those require, and the men on it are hospital directors, trade associations, health care investors, and a physician who is now Surgeon General.
There is one more thing the second corridor needs, and it is not a hospital. It is beds, and land to put them on, and a state board that decides who may build them.
Delaware does not tax Social Security. It has no sales tax. Its property taxes are among the lowest in the country. Retirees come, and they come to Sussex County, and every one of them arrives carrying Medicare and, eventually, Medicaid long-term care. Skilled nursing, assisted living, memory care, home health, and hospice are not charity. They are an industry; they are real estate, and in Delaware they are gated by the Delaware Health Resources Board.
They are the same corridor. Both are built. Both need land, zoning, permits, contractors, and state money. Both run through a permitting accelerator that covers housing, energy, broadband, water, and sewer. And both of them pass through one man who chairs the council that decides how much money Delaware has.
“Alan B. Levin sits on the board of a hospital system that won a place in Delaware's
first medical school. He chairs the council that sets the State's revenue ceiling.
He raised the money for the Governor who made the award.
Nothing in that sentence is illegal, and every part of it is on a public document.”
XXII-C. Union Business
A Teamsters local threw him out for misrepresentation involving its money. New Castle County elected him anyway. He has watched the county's money ever since.
“The United States Tax Court found that a developer's connections with New Castle County councilmen were worth $4,200,000. The State of Delaware has paid that developer's companies $216,740,248.45, and rents its New Castle County
election offices from him for $457,680 a year.”
The third corridor is the oldest, and it runs along the New Castle County Airport.
It did not need an executive order. It did not need a permitting accelerator or a corridor planning area or a 120-business-day clock. It needed one councilman, and it had one for twenty-two years.
What A Federal Court Wrote Down
On May 21, 2024, Chief Judge Kerrigan of the United States Tax Court issued T.C. Memo. 2024-59, Parkway Gravel, Inc. and Subsidiaries v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Docket Number 10819-21. The Internal Revenue Service had argued that a $4,200,000 payment was a sham. The court ruled for the taxpayer.
In ruling that the payment was real, the court had to describe what was purchased. That description is now a federal finding of fact, taken under oath and subject to cross-examination.
The property was the Freeway Pit, 58 acres on the north side of Christiana Road and the east side of Churchman's Road, adjacent to the New Castle County Airport. Parkway Gravel had mined it since 1966. In July 2006, an appraiser valued it at $6,900,000 with its industrial zoning.
Keith Stoltz wanted it, but only rezoned. The court wrote that Mr. Stoltz had a checkered reputation in the New Castle community because of certain unpopular real estate developments that he had pursued. So, Stoltz did not approach the county himself. As conversations progressed, the court found, Mr. Stoltz and Messrs. Greggo and Ferrara understood that Messrs. Greggo and Ferrara would lead efforts to rezone the property.
What the Tax Court laid out is a division of labor, and George Smiley was on the receiving end of one half of it. A civil engineering firm, Apex Engineering, took the technical requirements. Nicholas Ferrara, Jr. took the political front. The court put it in one sentence: Apex took the lead on the technical requirements, while Mr. Ferrara headed up efforts on the political front.
The court explained why he was necessary: Mr. Ferrara's labors were necessary because of his connections with county councilmen, Mr. Stoltz's unfavorable reputation from prior development in New Castle County, and Apex's lack of expertise in dealing with the political side of a deal.
The court then itemized what Nicholas Ferrara, Jr. actually did with that support in hand. In addition to talking to members of the New Castle County Council, Mr. Ferrara focused on building support with the public at large. He negotiated with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control regarding the status of a creek on the Freeway Pit. And he took an active role with respect to the road work that proved a sticking point with the New Castle County Department of Land Use, the Delaware Department of Transportation, the Delaware River and Bay Authority, and the Federal Aviation Administration.
Then the sentence that names the councilman.
Mr. Ferrara began his political work in 2006 when he first broached the topic of rezoning with George Smiley, his county councilman. By March 2007, Mr. Smiley was in favor of changing the Freeway Pit's zoning to commercial.
Six months from the first conversation to the councilman's support. The rezoning itself would take another five years.
“Mr. Ferrara began his political work in 2006 when he first broached the
topic of rezoning with George Smiley, his county councilman. By March 2007,
Mr. Smiley was in favor. That is the United States Tax Court, in a published opinion,
describing how a rezoning is bought in New Castle County.”
Apex Engineering then spent two years in technical discussions with the New Castle County Department of Land Use, the Delaware Department of Transportation, the Delaware River and Bay Authority, and the Federal Aviation Administration over two problems. The first was roads bordering the airport and on the airport grounds. The second, in the court's words, was the height of the proposed development, as some proposed construction would be in the airport's flight path. The height question was resolved in June 2011. The road question ran into 2012.
On August 21, 2012, the New Castle County Council unanimously approved the major development application with commercial zoning. The plan was recorded the next day. On December 5, 2012, the Freeway Pit sold for $11,100,000. Parkway Gravel took $6,900,000. V&N, the Greggo and Ferrara development partnership, took $4,200,000 for the option rights and the political work, and Nicholas Ferrara, Jr. and Vincent Greggo divided $4,130,000 of it between them.
The Internal Revenue Service called that payment fake. Chief Judge Kerrigan disagreed and ruled for the taxpayer, finding that the political work was real work with real value. The court's own words: V&N, through the efforts of Mr. Ferrara, used political connections and experience with development in New Castle County to generate support for rezoning efforts.
“The Internal Revenue Service argued that $4,200,000 for political work was a sham. The United States Tax Court ruled that it was not, because the political work was real. The first act of that work was a conversation with Councilman George Smiley in 2006.”
Councilman George Smiley has provided his friend of many years, Nicholas Ferrara, Jr., service beyond what is expected of an elected official for as long as he has held office. The Tax Court record is one instance. It is not the only one.
“$6,900,000 of industrial land became $11,100,000 of commercial land.
$4,200,000 of the difference was paid for changing a line on a map, and the
United States Tax Court certified that the work was genuine and the price was fair.”
Where The Relationship Started
The Tax Court never explained where the connections with county councilmen came from. It did not have to. It was deciding a tax bill.
The union publishes the answer on its own letterhead.
Teamsters Local 326 maintains a list titled Teamsters Local Number 326 Construction Contractors. It has six names on it. J.J. White of Philadelphia. Republic Services of Wilmington. Arrow Sanitary of Bear. Brandywine Construction Company at 101 Pigeon Point Road in New Castle. Corrado Heavy Equipment at 200 Marsh Lane in New Castle.
And Greggo & Ferrara, 4048 New Castle Avenue, New Castle, Delaware 19720.
George Smiley was a business agent at Teamsters Local 326. Greggo & Ferrara is a signatory contractor to Teamsters Local 326. That is not a coincidence, and it is not an inference. It is a job description.
A business agent deals with the contractors his local has agreements with. He negotiates and administers the collective bargaining agreements that set wages, health benefits, and working conditions for the heavy truck drivers and laborers those companies employ. He sits in pre-job conferences before major public infrastructure and paving work to coordinate manpower and confirm jurisdictional boundaries. He handles the grievances his shop stewards bring in from the job sites. The National Labor Relations Board record shows Greggo & Ferrara dealing with Teamsters Local 326 over jurisdictional workplace assignments going back decades, alongside other building trades.
So, when the United States Tax Court wrote that Nicholas Ferrara, Jr.'s labors were necessary because of his connections with county councilmen, the connection to this particular councilman had an origin that requires no speculation. Delaware's road contractor and Delaware's Teamsters local were on the same paper, and George Smiley was the man in between.
“Teamsters Local 326 publishes a list of six construction contractors.
Greggo & Ferrara is on it. George Smiley was a business agent at Local 326.
A federal court said Nicholas Ferrara, Jr.'s connections with county councilmen were worth $4,200,000, and never said where they came from. They came from the union hall.”
Look at the other names on that list of six, because two of them are already in this report.
Corrado Heavy Equipment at 200 Marsh Lane is Corrado American, the union shop that built the Port of Wilmington yard densification project for Gulftainer USA and the rail yard and environmental capping at Claymont for Drawbridge Claymont, LLC. It sits two doors from Corrado Construction Company at 210 Marsh Lane, which describes itself as a merit shop, which is the industry term for non-union.
Republic Services, the waste company at 1420 New York Avenue in Wilmington, is on that list too. The Republic Services Inc. Employee Political Action Committee gave Matt Meyer $1,200 on November 15, 2024, filed from 18500 North Allred Way in Phoenix, Arizona.
Six construction contractors on one union list. Three of them are in this investigation.
A confidential source inside Teamsters Local 326 during the years George Smiley worked there adds what a contractor list cannot. George Smiley was a business manager at Local 326, and in that job, he worked closely and personally with Nicholas Ferrara, Jr. They were friends, and they have been friends for many years.
The connection came from the union hall.
The same source describes how George Smiley spent his Fridays and sometimes more. He kept a boat at a Delaware beach marina during the warm weather months. Friday is a working day at a Teamsters local. When members called the hall looking for him, the people who worked there were instructed to say that George Smiley was out on union business.
He was on the boat.
The boat was named “Union Business”.
“George Smiley told the people who worked there to tell members he was out on union business. He was on his boat. The boat was named 'Union Business'.”
In 2001, James P. Hoffa, General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and son of Jimmy Hoffa, reached down into Local 326 and admonished a business agent for misrepresentation and misuse of union money. That business agent was George Smiley. The International's Executive Committee found him guilty of misrepresentation on appeal. He paid the money back and lost his union post.
Michael J. Ciabattoni, a former president of Local 326, told The News Journal in 2004 what the union thought of him. “If you want to say we had a vendetta because he was a crook, he's correct. I don't like thieves”.
“Misrepresentation” is the word the International used. A man who names a boat “Union Business”, then instructs people to tell union members he is out on union business, has told the truth and lied with the same two words at the same time. The people paying his salary were the punchline.
The Teamsters said the rest of it in print, over the signature of their local president. John J. Ryan, Sr., President of Teamsters Local 326 in New Castle, wrote to the newspaper. “I regret having to take this measure”, he wrote. However, “I must make the public aware of Teamsters Local 326's position in the New Castle County Council 7th District race. Local 326 will not endorse or support George Smiley in any way, shape, or form in his bid for the 7th District seat”.
Then the detail that tells you what kind of race it was. “Despite unwanted Smiley signs placed at night on our land, Teamsters Local 326 has endorsed and will support Marlene White in the primary. She is a leader with an impeccable resume and is running a campaign based on truth, honesty, and free of corruption”.
New Castle County elected George Smiley anyway.
Twenty-five years after James P. Hoffa admonished him, Councilman George Smiley co-chairs the Finance Committee of New Castle County Council, the committee that watches the county's money.
“A union local told the public it would not endorse George Smiley in any way, shape,
or form, and that his campaign signs were being placed at night on union property.
New Castle County elected him anyway, and then made him Co-Chair of
the committee that controls the county's money.”
What Tom Gordon Said No To
Eleven years after the Freeway Pit, the same councilman brought another farm to the same corridor. It was not his first attempt.
During Thomas P. Gordon's third term as County Executive, from 2013 through 2016, Councilman George Smiley went to him and aggressively asked for the rezoning of the Walker Farm.
Thomas P. Gordon said no, and he said no because of the airport.
The New Castle County Airport sits directly across Churchman’s Road. Aircraft approaching it come in over that farm. Put buildings on that ground, and you put obstructions in the approach path, and once obstructions are there, the airport cannot grow into larger aircraft.
Tom Gordon would not trade the airport's future for a shopping center or a warehouse.
The federal record proves he was right about the physics. In the Freeway Pit case, on the other side of the same intersection, the United States Tax Court described exactly this problem. Apex Engineering spent two years in technical discussions with the New Castle County Department of Land Use, the Delaware Department of Transportation, the Delaware River and Bay Authority, and the Federal Aviation Administration about two principal issues. The first was roads bordering the airport and on the airport grounds. The second, in the court's own words, was the height of the proposed development, as some proposed construction would be in the airport's flight path.
That was a shopping center. Retail pads, a restaurant, a pharmacy, a supermarket, buildings of one and two stories. It still took from 2010 until June 2011 to satisfy the Federal Aviation Administration on height alone.
Walker Farm is 837,200 square feet of warehouse in two buildings, on 61.37 acres, in the same approach. A distribution warehouse is not a shopping center. Clear height inside a modern logistics building runs thirty-six to forty feet, and the roof, the rooftop mechanical equipment, the light poles, and the cranes that put them there all sit higher still.
“Councilman George Smiley aggressively asked County Executive Thomas P. Gordon
to rezone Walker Farm and was told no, because buildings in the approach path
would stop the New Castle County Airport from ever taking larger aircraft.
Under a different County Executive, the answer changed.”
Walker Farm
Walker Farm was the last working farm left in that part of New Castle County. The Department of Land Use said so in its own report: the last remaining agricultural operations in the surrounding area, dating back to the earliest developments of New Castle County. Just under 200 acres across four parcels, bordered by Airport Road to the west, Churchman’s Road to the north, and Christiana Road, Delaware Route 273, to the south. It had been farmed so long that the Department wrote there is no extensive land use history for the subject site.
The land belonged to the Marian L. Zdeb Revocable Trust and the John J. Zdeb Revocable Trust, with John J. Zdeb, Jessica N. Zdeb, and Christopher M. Zdeb as Trustees. The signature on the county agreement is John S. Zdeb, of 7218 Almaden Way, Cary, North Carolina.
Bethel Baptist Church and its cemetery sit adjacent. The Delaware State Historic Preservation Office wrote that there is potential for historic and prehistoric archaeological resources in the project area, told the developer to be aware of the Unmarked Human Burials and Human Skeletal Remains Law of 1987 in the event that remains are encountered, and recommended that a qualified archaeological consultant investigate the project area for the presence of a cemetery on the site.
It is 61.37 acres on the south side of Churchman’s Road, about 2,900 feet northeast of Airport Road, with its other frontage on the north side of Delaware Route 273, Christiana Road, directly across from Prangs Lane. It sat zoned S, for Suburban, which is the zoning a farm carries in New Castle County. Homes were on the other side of the line.
Ordinance 22-143 was introduced at New Castle County Council on November 22, 2022. Sponsor: Councilman George Smiley, District 7. Application 2022-0335-S/Z. Rezone tax parcel 10-024.00-219, 61.37 acres, from S, Suburban, to I, Industrial, and construct 837,200 square feet of warehousing with parking, utilities, stormwater management, and landscaping.
The applicant was First Industrial Realty Trust, care of John Hanlon, Executive Director, of 17 East Gay Street, Suite 302, West Chester, Pennsylvania. Building A at 611,520 square feet. Building B at 225,680 square feet. 544 parking spaces, 178 trailer parking spaces, 41 trailer loading spaces. Two full access points, one on Route 273 across from Prangs Lane and one on Churchman’s Road.
“The last working farm in that part of New Castle County, beside a church cemetery, with a state agency warning the developer about unmarked human burials. 61.37 acres of it went from the County's lowest intensity zoning to its highest in a single vote.”
The Traffic Engineer
The traffic impact study scoping request went to T. William Brockenbrough, Jr. of the DelDOT Division of Planning on May 31, 2022. It was prepared by Traffic Planning and Design, Inc. of 111 East Main Street, Suite A, in Elkton, Maryland. It was signed Alex Meitzler, P.E., PTOE, Regional Manager.
Alex Meitzler is Thomas Alexander Meitzler. He is the treasurer of Change Can’t Wait PAC, the political action committee Alan B. Levin organized and raised for, and that spent $1,568,590.17 to make Matt Meyer governor. He has signed every financial report that committee has filed since it opened in June 2021.
His own submitted figures: 142 new trips in the weekday morning peak hour, 159 in the evening peak, 1,458 new trips on an average weekday.
He did not stop at the paperwork. At the New Castle County Planning Board public hearing on July 5, 2023, Alex Meitzler answered questions as the applicant's traffic engineer. When Ms. Peterson asked about a drainage issue across the street at Forever Green Landscaping that DelDOT had raised, he stated that he was unfamiliar with the drainage issue on the nearby site. When Ms. Gray asked about the intersection at Prangs Lane and Route 273 and whether there would be accommodation for trucks behind the WaWa, he stated that the application will create a new signal at Prangs Lane.
“The treasurer of the political action committee that spent $1,568,590.17 to make
Matt Meyer governor stood before the New Castle County Planning Board
and answered questions about a rezoning that Matt Meyer's own
Department of Land Use would approve, and that Matt Meyer would sign.”
The Public Hearing
Pamela Scott, Esquire, of Saul Ewing Arnstein and Lehr, spoke for the applicant. Pam Scott has given Matt Meyer $1,175 across four contributions from 209 Meadowdale Drive in Newark.
The Department of Land Use recorded what she told the Board. She stated that applicant met with the nearby residential communities after the exploratory plan was submitted to the County in 2022 to discuss the proposed development.
One member of the public spoke. Mark Slaymaker of the Prestwick Maintenance Corporation, whose subdivision borders the west side of Walker Farm. He was worried about covering the view of the buildings and wanted landscaping. He asked what the lighting would look like at night. He raised noise levels and traffic flow.
That is the entire public record of opposition to 837,200 square feet of warehouse on the last farm in the neighborhood. One man, from one homeowners association, asking about trees and lights.
On August 15, 2023, the Planning Board voted 7 to 0 to recommend approval. The Department's report contains one more sentence about that meeting.
No questions or comments were made by the Board.
“One resident spoke, and he asked about landscaping and lighting.
The Planning Board then voted 7 to 0, and the official record says
no questions or comments were made by the Board.”
The Doors I Knocked On
I was President of New Castle County Council. I presided over that vote.
Before a rezoning reaches Council, the councilman who introduces it is expected to have talked to the people who live around it. Not as a courtesy. Because the people on the other side of that property line are the ones who will have the trucks, and in this case the ones who get 1,458 truck trips a day.
Councilman George Smiley told Council he had notified his constituents. He was asked, and he assured us, and he assured us strongly.
Then, at the last moment, a woman came to the meeting. She lived there. She told Council she had not been notified of any of it, and that she had only found out in time to get to the room.
Councilman George Smiley said that was not true.
The next day I went to that neighborhood and knocked on the doors that should have been notified. Not everyone was home. Every single person who did told me the same thing.
Nobody had told them.
The Council was not given everything it should have been given. The Council was told the neighbors had been notified. The Council was told the neighbors were fine with it. Neither was true, and the woman who came to that meeting was telling the truth while the councilman who introduced the ordinance was telling the Council she was not.
“A woman came to a County Council meeting to say nobody had told her that the farm beside her home was about to become 837,200 square feet of warehouse. The councilman who introduced the rezoning told the Council she was wrong. The next day I knocked
on those doors myself. Every person who answered said nobody had told them.”
New Castle County knows exactly how to notify people when it wants to. Describing its own comprehensive rezoning, the County states that it notified the public by newspaper notice, by website notice, and that more than 2,000 letters were sent out to every property within a 300-foot radius.
That is the standard. Letters to every property inside 300 feet. The people I spoke to lived inside that ring.
I cast thousands of votes in eight years as President of New Castle County Council. I have voted for things I liked and things I did not. I have voted against my own party, against developers, and against people I considered friends.
There is one I cast believing the public supported it, and then went out and confirmed that they did not.
That vote was Walker Farm.
“Of all the votes I cast as President of New Castle County Council,
Walker Farm is the one I cast believing the residents had been heard,
and then learned they had not been asked.”
What it cost the people across Route 273 was a notice they never got.
And there's the MORE we haven't named.
XXII-D. Whose Names Are On The Paper
The Department of Land Use Recommendation Report of August 15, 2023, carries Matthew S. Meyer, County Executive, in the upper left corner and Charuni Patibanda, General Manager, in the upper right. It recommends approval. It is signed Charuni Patibanda, General Manager, Department of Land Use, dated August 25, 2023, alongside Karen Peterson, Chair of the Planning Board.
Karen Peterson gave Matt Meyer $250 on October 11, 2024, filed from 1306 West Newport Pike in Wilmington. That is fourteen months after she signed the Walker Farm recommendation as Chair of the New Castle County Planning Board, and twenty-five days before the election.
Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez is now Secretary of State of Delaware. She chairs the board of the Diamond State Port Corporation and sits on the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council that Alan B. Levin chairs.
The Land Development Improvement Agreement for Walker Farm was recorded at Instrument Number 20240722-0046971. It was signed for New Castle County by Matthew S. Meyer, County Executive, and notarized on July 16, 2024. The performance guarantee is $1,675,200. The sewer connection charge is $25,185.25. First Industrial Realty Trust posted a $5,000 cashier's check on June 17, 2024.
It nearly did not make it in time, and the letter asking for more time carries a name worth reading twice.
On November 7, 2024, two days after Matt Meyer was elected Governor of Delaware, Kestra M. Kelly, P.E., Project Manager at BL Companies of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, wrote to Ms. Charuni Patibanda, General Manager of the New Castle County Department of Land Use, 87 Reads Way. The subject line: Walker Farm Industrial Development, Application Number 2022-0335, Request for Extension Pursuant to Section 40.31.390 of the UDC.
The applicant asked for three additional months to obtain Record Plan approval. The stated reason is one sentence long, and it has not been reported anywhere.
There is one significant issue beyond the control of the Applicant which has resulted in delay in obtaining Record Plan approval, and that relates to the access roads which provide access to this property from Churchman’s Road and Route 273. The access roads were created as part of a partition action between the current owner of the property and the adjoining property owner; however, a number of issues relating to access were not addressed by the court as part of that action, which now need to be addressed either through mutual agreement or decision by the court.
The two entrances to 837,200 square feet of warehouse, the ones on Churchman’s Road and on Route 273 across from Prangs Lane, sat on access roads created by a court partition that never resolved the access questions. The letter enclosed a check for one hundred dollars. The Department of Land Use stamped it received on November 12, 2024.
The letter was copied to two people. John Hanlon, the First Industrial Realty Trust executive who signed the county agreement. And Brad Shockley.
Brad Shockley was then at the New Castle County Department of Land Use. Ten months later, in September 2025, Barnes and Thornburg LLP hired him as a legal project manager alongside Janet Vinc, both of them out of that same department, and Delaware Business Times reported the reason in the firm's own words: the firm hopes that intimate knowledge of the county's processes will translate to shorter approval times for its growing client base.
“On November 7, 2024, the Walker Farm applicant asked New Castle County for
three more months because the access roads to its warehouses sat on unresolved
court questions. The letter was copied to Brad Shockley of the Department of Land Use. Ten months later, he was working at the law firm that says it hires
county people to shorten approval times.”
The New Castle County Department of Land Use approved the Record Major Land Development Plan with Rezoning for Walker Farm Industrial Development on December 18, 2024. It was recorded on January 17, 2025, at Instrument Number 20250117-0003883, two days before Matt Meyer left the county building to be sworn in as Governor of Delaware.
First Industrial Realty Trust began installing infrastructure.
The applicant asked for three months on November 7, 2024, citing an unresolved court question about the access roads. The Department of Land Use approved the record plan thirty-six days after receiving the request.
Nothing in the file says the access question was answered.
The letter states plainly that a number of issues relating to access were not addressed by the court and would need to be resolved either through mutual agreement or decision by the court. There is no public record of a Court of Chancery order resolving them.
There is no easement or access agreement identified in the county file. What there is, thirty-six days later, is an approved record plan for 837,200 square feet of warehouse with two full access points.
“The applicant told New Castle County that the access roads to its warehouses sat
on questions a court had never answered, and asked for three more months.
The Department of Land Use approved the plan in thirty-six days.
Nothing in the file says the questions were ever answered.”
New Castle County Council then approved Resolution 25-019 by a vote of 12 to 1, finalizing the plan and subdividing the property into five lots. One member of a thirteen-member body voted no.
Five weeks and two days after the recording, on February 26, 2026, Governor Matt Meyer signed Executive Order Number 18.
“Matt Meyer signed the Walker Farm agreement as County Executive.
His Land Use general manager signed the approval and is now Secretary of State.
The plan was recorded two days before he left for the Governor's office.
The traffic engineer signs the financial reports of the committee that put him there.”
And Then The State Paid For The Infrastructure
The rezoning was not the last thing New Castle County and the State of Delaware gave that farm.
First Industrial Realty Trust calls the project First Park New Castle. On April 23, 2025, three months after the plan was recorded, it was reported that First Park had received approval from the Council on Development Finance for a Business Readiness Fund grant totaling $1,400,000. The Business Readiness Fund pays for infrastructure work at business parks and other projects that create construction and permanent jobs.
That is the same Council on Development Finance that awarded Drawbridge Claymont, LLC $1,000,000 from the Site Readiness Fund in March 2022 for the fifty-eight acres at 6300 Philadelphia Pike, and that approved $4,500,000 for Amazon at the Boxwood Road fulfillment center in February 2020.
The plan is 837,000 square feet across two buildings, with the 226,000-square-foot structure going up first and completion slated for 2026. CBRE is the leasing agent.
“New Castle County rezoned the last working farm in the neighborhood from its lowest intensity zoning to its highest. Then the State of Delaware handed the developer $1,400,000 to build the infrastructure.”
And look at where else that developer builds.
First Industrial Realty Trust is no stranger to Delaware after seeing success at First State Crossing in Claymont, where a PepsiCo unit recently leased a building of more than 350,000 square feet, with Delaware winning out over other regional sites as the company consolidated its distribution operations.
First State Crossing is the 413 acres on both sides of Philadelphia Pike, the former Evraz Claymont Steel mill, where the Delaware Department of Transportation addressed its traffic impact study review letters to Mr. Alex Meitzler, P.E., PTOE, on September 14, 2021, July 3, 2023, and July 5, 2023, with copies to the New Castle County Department of Land Use.
Walker Farm is 61.37 acres beside the New Castle County Airport, where the traffic impact study scoping request was signed by Alex Meitzler, P.E., PTOE, on May 31, 2022, and where he answered the Planning Board's questions on July 5, 2023.
“One developer. Two farms. Two corridors. Philadelphia Pike and the
New Castle County Airport. And the same traffic engineer's signature on both,
a man who also signs the financial reports of the political action committee
that spent $1,568,590.17 to elect the Governor.”
There is one more building on that corridor worth naming, because of what it is built to do. 30 Old Churchman’s Road is an 807,000 square foot complex next to Wilmington Airport, and it has been described as suited to tenants receiving or shipping air freight because it sits next to airport property. No leases have been announced there. CBRE is the leasing agent for that building and for First Park New Castle both.
Airport proximity is the entire value proposition of this corridor. It is also the exact reason County Executive Thomas P. Gordon refused to rezone Walker Farm. Buildings in the approach path are worth a great deal to a logistics tenant, and they are the end of the airport's capacity to grow.
What A Zoning Change Is Worth
A rezoning is the single most valuable thing a county government can hand a private party.
Suburban is a residential character class in the Unified Development Code. It is where houses and farms sit. Industrial is the most intense classification the County has. It exists, in the Code's own words, to encourage industrial types of uses, and it permits exterior storage.
Going from S to I is not a step. It is the whole staircase in one vote. The property does not change. Nothing is built, nothing is graded, nothing is paid for. A council votes, and the land is worth a different number the next morning.
The United States Tax Court has already put a figure on it in this exact corridor. $4,200,000, for changing a line on a map, on 58 acres beside the same airport.
Walker Farm is 61.37 acres. It went from Suburban, the lowest intensity, to Industrial, the highest. Nobody has appraised publicly what the S to I rezoning was worth to the owner. Whatever that land was worth as a farm on the morning of the vote, it was worth a great deal more as an industrial parcel that night, and not one dollar of the increase came from anything the owners did.
“A federal court has established what a rezoning is worth beside the
New Castle County Airport. $4,200,000, for changing a line on a map.
Walker Farm went from the County’s lowest intensity zoning to its highest in
a single vote, and the windfall went to two family trusts in North Carolina.”
And the corridor closed on itself. The Department's own report notes what sits on the northeast corner of Christiana Road and Churchman’s Road, directly across from Walker Farm: a distribution center comprised of 1,168,211 square feet that is currently under construction.
That is the Freeway Pit.
“Two farms, one intersection, one councilman, and 2,005,411 square feet of warehouse.”
What The State Of Delaware Has Paid Nicholas Ferrara
Nicholas Ferrara, Jr. and his family have given Matt Meyer $9,800 across eight contributions. $600 in November 2016. $600 in December 2019. $600 in December 2021. $250 from Nicholas Ferrara IV in December 2022. $1,200 from Lorraine Ferrara and $600 from Nicholas Ferrara, Jr. on November 8, 2023, and $950 from Nicholas Ferrara IV two days later.
And on September 9, 2024, Nicholas J. Ferrara gave Change Can’t Wait PAC $5,000, filed from 6809 Lancaster Pike in Hockessin.
Councilman George Smiley appears nowhere in the campaign finance archive. Not once, in 9,109, itemized contributions across five committees and ten years. He is not a donor. He is the mechanism. The money went to Matt Meyer. The votes came from George Smiley.
Now look at what the State of Delaware has paid the other side of that relationship.
Delaware's own checkbook records 1,031 payments to Greggo and Ferrara, Inc. and to the partnership of Vincent Greggo and Nicholas Ferrara, Jr., totaling $216,740,248.45.
$208,426,100 of it came from the Department of Transportation across 857 payments, nearly all through the Capital Project Cost Center, categorized as highway and bridge reconstruction. Fifteen single payments exceed $1,700,000. The largest, $2,597,829.17, was paid on September 5, 2025. Since June 2024 alone, DelDOT has paid the company $49,560,425.15 across 200 payments.
$3,171,386 came from the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, every dollar of it categorized as building and grounds repair in Parks and Recreation.
$1,160,408 came from the Department of Education for buildings, including $723,519 to the Appoquinimink School District and $436,890 to New Castle County Vo-Tech, all of it in 2025 and 2026.
And $3,925,990 came from the Delaware Department of Elections.
“The Internal Revenue Service said $4,200,000 for political work was a sham.
A federal court said it was legitimate. The State of Delaware has paid
the same family $216,740,248.45.”
The State Rents Its Election Offices From Him
The Elections payments are not construction contracts. The expense category on all 122 of them is Buildings, Office Space.
It is rent.
The State of Delaware has paid Vincent Greggo and Nicholas Ferrara, Jr., personally and by name, $3,925,990 in monthly rent payments running continuously from July 13, 2017 through July 28, 2026. Ninety-six of those payments went through New Castle County Elections, totaling $3,258,865. Twenty-six went through the State Election Commissioner, totaling $667,125.
The current rent is $457,680 a year, and it has been flat at that figure since 2023. The median monthly payment is $36,400.
V&N is the partnership the United States Tax Court examined. It is the entity that received $4,200,000 for the political work of rezoning the Freeway Pit. The court described it as owning and renting commercial real estate.
The office that runs elections in New Castle County pays rent to the man a federal court described as having the connections with county councilmen.
“The State of Delaware pays Vincent Greggo and Nicholas Ferrara, Jr.
$38,140 a month to house the office that runs elections in New Castle County.
It has been paying them every month since July 2017.”
And The Engineer Is In The Filings Too
Apex Engineering Incorporated is the firm the Tax Court named as the engineer on the Freeway Pit, the one that spent two years with the Department of Land Use, DelDOT, the Delaware River and Bay Authority, and the Federal Aviation Administration over roads and flight path height.
Apex Engineering Incorporated, of 27 West Market Street, has given Matt Meyer $2,400 across three contributions, on October 18, 2016, May 20, 2019, and September 6, 2022.
Stephen Davies files from the same address. He gave $1,200 on November 11, 2021. He gave $10,000 to Change Can’t Wait PAC on October 26, 2023. He gave $1,200 more on September 18, 2024. $12,400 across three.
When that $10,000 was reported, Stephen Davies was described only as a Newport engineering executive. The firm was never named.
$14,800 has come out of 27 West Market Street. The engineering firm from the federal court opinion, and the man who runs it.
The Man Who Watches The Money
Councilman George Smiley is the Co-Chair of the Administrative and Finance Committee of New Castle County Council. He held that post through all eight years I served as President of County Council, and he held it for years before I was elected. County agendas carry his name at the top of that committee going back before 2012.
Every dollar New Castle County spends passes through that committee. Every contract. Every bond. Every budget amendment. Every appropriation for every department. Sewer fund transfers, capital projects, professional services agreements, grants in and grants out. Nothing reaches the full Council floor without going through the Administrative and Finance Committee first, and the Co-Chair sets what that committee sees and when it sees it.
What no one has asked is who checks him.
The answer, for most of the last two decades, is nobody.
A committee co-chair is not audited. He files no report. No independent officer reviews what he brings forward or what he does not. The only person on that body positioned to see across all of it, and to ask a question in public about it, is the President of County Council.
So, consider what happened to that office. Before I was ever sworn in, legislation was moving to strip long-standing powers from the President of County Council. That effort was led by Councilman George Smiley, joined by Councilwoman Janet Kilpatrick and Councilman Tim Sheldon, with the cooperation of Councilman Penrose Hollins.
Two of those four are in Matt Meyer's contribution record. Councilwoman Janet Kilpatrick of 9 Shagbark Court in Hockessin has given $800 across three, $100 in August 2016, $100 that October, and $600 on May 30, 2024. Councilman Penrose Hollins of 418 West Matson Run Parkway gave $100 on December 7, 2017, and The Hollins Campaign gave $600 from the same address on August 26, 2024.
Marcus Henry, who is now County Executive of New Castle County and who signed the SPUR order, gave Matt Meyer $600 on December 7, 2017, and $1,200 on September 7, 2022, both filed from 305 Rockwood Road in Wilmington. $1,800 across two.
Councilman George Smiley gave nothing.
In 2017, Councilman Smiley moved to suspend the rules and have himself appointed Co-Chair of the Executive Committee, which was the only committee I led. Council voted 7 to 3 to do it. I said at the time that it was a personal attack and a political attack, and that it had been that way since I started with Mr. Smiley.
By then he already chaired the finance committee. The vote took the last committee away from the one officer with standing to look over his shoulder.
“Councilman George Smiley chaired the committee that controls New Castle County's money. Then he moved to take the only committee the Council President led, and Council gave it to him 7 to 3. The man with the money took the gavel from
the only person positioned to question him about it.”
More than once during those eight years I found that Councilman George Smiley had kept financial information from me that I should have had. Those were the instances I found out about.
I did not understand the scale of it until after I left office and spent months in the County's own records building The New Castle County Tax Reckoning Investigative Report, Part I & II, with five Companion Reports. Working through six administrations of Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, budget books, single audits, and monthly Office of Law reports, what became clear is not that a document went missing here and there. It is that the volume of financial information gatekept from most of County Council is staggering.
A council cannot vote on what it is not shown. A public cannot object to what it is never told.
That is the same failure that put a woman in the back of a Council chamber at the last minute to say nobody had notified her about the farm beside her house.
What Executive Order 18 Replaced
For twenty-five years, from the Teamsters finding in 2001 to today, Councilman George Smiley has sat at the head of New Castle County's money. In that quarter century, no ethics inquiry has examined his conduct. No published audit has examined his committee. No County Council has asked him, in public, on the record, to account for anything in this section.
The rezonings kept moving. The financial information kept not arriving.
And understand what that system actually was, because it explains what came next.
What Nicholas Ferrara, Jr. obtained took six years of political work through one councilman, documented under oath in a federal courtroom, and cost $4,200,000.
It is not one executive order that replaced it. It is six instruments, signed across eighteen months by two governments that spent the same period fighting each other in public over who controls land use in Delaware.
Executive Order Number 4, signed by Governor Matt Meyer on January 23, 2025, three days after he took office and six days after the Walker Farm plan was recorded. It established a working group to build a one-stop shop for workforce and affordable housing permits.
Executive Order Number 16, signed January 30, 2026. It certified the 2025 Delaware Strategies for State Policies and Spending, expanded the Downtown Development District program to its statutory maximum of fifteen districts, and directed the Office of State Planning Coordination to establish Corridor Planning Areas along specific transportation routes. It rescinded Governor John Carney's Executive Order Number 42.
Read that middle clause again. Corridor Planning Areas along specific transportation routes. Walker Farm fronts Churchman’s Road, which is Delaware Route 58, and Christiana Road, which is Delaware Route 273, and sits between them with US Route 13 and Interstate 95 within reach. The Department of Land Use had already found the site to be a Type 2 Employment-Based Corridor on the County's own Future Land Use Map. The State was drawing corridors around ground the County had already designated as corridor.
Executive Order Number 18, signed February 26, 2026. The Delaware Permitting Accelerator, addressed to the heads of all state departments and agencies. A target permitting timeline of 120 business days for qualifying projects, priority for infill and designated growth areas, and coverage extending to housing, energy, broadband, and water and sewer upgrades tied to planned growth. The order recites that Delaware permitting has, in some cases, taken 18 to 24 months or longer.
The concierge coordinator, the parallel review, the traffic study exemption, the 120-business day timeline. Executive Order 18 eliminates traffic impact studies for priority housing projects, which is worth sitting with in a section where the traffic study on 61.37 acres was signed by the treasurer of the political action committee that elected the Governor who signed the order.
Executive Order Number 23, which almost nobody has read. It recites that requiring a full Executive Order for each operational update to the Permitting Accelerator creates unnecessary delay and administrative burden without commensurate public benefit. It allows the Accelerator to be updated subject to the Governor's express written approval.
After Executive Order 23, the rules governing which projects get accelerated can be changed without an executive order at all. No order to publish. No document to read. A signature.
Senate Bill 23, the Housing for Every Delawarean Act, sponsored by Senator Russ Huxtable of Lewes and signed by Governor Matt Meyer on July 13, 2026. It makes the entire county comprehensive plan carry the force of law rather than only the land use map, and it cuts the time a county has to administratively rezone after adopting a comprehensive plan from eighteen months to twelve.
And New Castle County did it to itself. On April 28, 2026, County Executive Marcus Henry signed his own executive order creating SPUR, Streamlined Planning and Unified Review, to accelerate the County's permitting and plan review for businesses, developers and affordable housing builders. He was joined by David Culver, the County's land use general manager, and Jeff Buhrman, its director of economic development.
The order came out of County Executive Marcus Henry’s transition committees on land use and economic development, led and chaired by his three appointees: Pamela J. Scott, Esq., a land use and zoning attorney, and Partner at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP; Richard Przywara, CEO of Woodlawn Trustees; and Wali W. Rushdan, II, Esq., a land use attorney and real estate Partner in Barnes & Thornburg, LLP’s Wilmington, Delaware’s office.
Marcus Henry had signed a joint letter with Sussex County Council President Douglas Hudson and Kent County Levy Court President Joanne Masten opposing Senate Bill 23, calling it a heavy-handed, top-down approach that would produce onerous mandates, sow confusion, and further the divide between State and local governments.
He signed his own permitting accelerator seventy-six days before the bill he opposed became law.
“Executive Order 4 built the one-stop shop. Executive Order 16 drew the corridors. Executive Order 18 set the 120-day clock. Executive Order 23 means the rules can
now be rewritten by signature alone. Senate Bill 23 gave the comprehensive plan
the force of law. And New Castle County signed its own accelerator while
publicly calling the State's approach heavy-handed.”
The State and the County spent the spring of 2026 fighting in public over who controls land use in Delaware, and spent the same spring signing instruments that move the same developers through faster.
The county system required twenty-two years and one councilman. The instruments require a signature.
“What took Nicholas Ferrara, Jr. six years of political work through one county councilman, Executive Order 18 now delivers by designation in 120 business days.
The beneficiaries are the same. The public hearing is not.”
XXIII. The Rule Written After The Fact
Nineteen days after the Governor signed the bond bill, and thirteen days after he struck the one line out of it he could not justify, he signed an executive order about escheat money.
The Fiscal Year 2027 Bond Bill, House Bill 500, created a legislative task force on unclaimed property, the fund that has now paid for a container terminal and a marina. The bill sets out how it is staffed. Senate President Pro Tempore David Sokola and Speaker of the House Melissa Minor-Brown each appoint a legislator from the majority, and one from the minority, and each appoints two members of the public. The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Finance, and the Controller General sit on it, or send designees. And Governor Matt Meyer sends a representative from his own office.
On July 16, 2026, Governor Meyer’s office announced that he had signed an executive order establishing enhanced conflict-of-interest standards for executive branch members serving on that task force. The Governor’s own press release, issued by Deputy Press Secretary Jonah Anderson, calls it Executive Order 26. The Governor’s executive orders website publishes it under the number 25. Its full title, on the State’s own archive, is Safeguarding The Unclaimed Property Task Force From Conflicts Of Interest And Ensuring That Delaware’s Unclaimed Property Policy Is Written For The Public, Not For The Industry That Profits From It. It applies to exactly one body in Delaware state government.
Under its terms, an executive branch appointee is ineligible to serve if he or she holds what the order calls a covered financial interest reaching back five years. If an agency head or a designee worked in the unclaimed property industry in the five years immediately before appointment, that person is disqualified. Executive branch appointees must certify they hold no covered financial interest. The order directs the Department of State, run by Secretary Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez, to publicly disclose that conflict of interest information. And it asks the Senate and the House to apply the same standard voluntarily, particularly when they choose their four members of the public. It took effect immediately on signature. The task force must report its findings to the Governor by February 1, 2027.
Governor Meyer said, in his own release, that Delaware’s unclaimed property laws should be written for the people of Delaware, not for the industry that profits from them, and that the recommendations of the task force should be guided by the public interest, free from conflicts of interest, and focused on ensuring the unclaimed property system remains fair, transparent and accountable.
Two things about that. The task force was not his idea. It came out of the Fiscal Year 2027 Bond Bill and was not in the budget he proposed in January. And he told reporters he is generally not supportive of task forces, because many things you do with task forces, you can take a few minutes on technology and get the information you need. He then wrote a conflict of interest order for the one he did not ask for, governing the fund his own bond bill leaned on.
NUMBERING NOTE, FOR THE RECORD. The Governor’s press office announced this on July 16, 2026, as Executive Order 26. The Governor’s executive orders website serves it as Executive Order 25. And as of August 4, 2026, the index page of the Governor’s executive orders archive lists nothing above Executive Order 22, dated May 7, 2026, so Executive Orders 23, 24, 25, and 26 do not appear on the list at all, though the individual pages exist. It's cited as the order announced July 16, 2026, by its full title, and both numbers are noted. Do not pick one.
Read that last clause against the record in this report.
Michael Houghton is a retired Wilmington attorney with decades of experience in the unclaimed property industry. He chaired the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council for eight years. He chaired Delaware’s unclaimed property legislative task force in 2014 and 2015, the model Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend says the state intends to use again. On October 20, 2025, he sat at Buena Vista and named the unclaimed property cap out loud as one of two lines Delaware should watch. On March 16, 2026, he asked the Department of State for corporate revenue data it had not produced. On March 18, 2026, Governor Meyer removed him from the council by email.
In May, he questioned Brian Devine, the port’s interim executive director, about where the additional one hundred ten million dollars for Edgemoor was coming from, and days later he was off the Port of Wilmington Expansion Task Force. The Meyer administration did not disclose that the money came from unclaimed property until late June.
If the Senate and House apply the Governor’s new standard when they pick their members of the public, the man who has asked about unclaimed property more persistently than anyone else in Delaware would be disqualified from the unclaimed property task force, by reason of having spent his career in unclaimed property.
"He asked about the escheat fund in October and was removed in March. He asked where the port money came from in May and was gone in days. And in July, the Governor wrote an ethics rule for the escheat task force that would keep him off it."
Charles Elson, founding director of the University of Delaware’s John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, called the order unusual. He said it would be expected that any of the Governor’s appointees would be free of conflicts and meet ethical standards, and that he found the necessity of issuing an executive order for this particular board a little surprising. Setting up a separate order for a joint executive and legislative commission, Elson said, seems almost like picking a fight with the legislature, and it does not suggest a very good light on the rest of the administration, suggesting the Governor has to issue an executive order to compel ethics from his own appointees.
Elson has a point that is checkable. Governor Meyer already signed an executive order on ethics and transparency shortly after taking office, Executive Order Number 3, requiring all state employees to demonstrate exemplary conduct and be honest and ethical in the performance of their duties. And Executive Order 25 is the first time he has written a conflict of interest policy for a legislative task force. He did not write one for the Delaware Nuclear Energy Feasibility Task Force, whose membership includes a vice president of PSEG, which owns five nuclear plants and operates three in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and a development director from the Exelon Corporation, the parent company of Delmarva Power.
Jonah Anderson, Deputy Press Secretary to Governor Meyer, said the Governor is confident in his cabinet’s ability to meet the standards and looks forward to the General Assembly applying the same conflict-free standards to their selections. Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend, who chaired the 2014 task force, said the Senate plans to keep appointing people from the private sector who have the requisite experience, and called the earlier task force a model of full, transparent discussion about Delaware’s third-biggest revenue source. House spokesperson Jenevieve Worley said the Speaker will choose people with expertise and knowledge who can contribute positively.
And The Fund Nobody Outside The Department Of Finance Can See
There is one more thing in this that belongs beside every escheat figure in this report. Delaware operates a special unclaimed property fund controlled by the Department of Finance. It has been drawn down twice to cover funding shortfalls on the Edgemoor container terminal, once by former Governor John Carney and once by Governor Matt Meyer. The Meyer administration has declined to disclose the fund’s balance.
"Delaware will not say how much money is in the fund. It has taken money out of
that fund twice for this terminal. And the ethics rule it wrote for the task force examining that fund would exclude the man who kept asking about it."
A Note On The Second Order And Why It Is Not In This Report
Twelve days later, on July 26, 2026, Governor Meyer signed Executive Order Number 23, amending Executive Order Number 18, the Delaware Permitting Accelerator he had signed on February 26, 2026. The amendment authorizes routine updates to the state’s priority infrastructure and housing permitting framework without a new executive order each time, and requires the Governor’s written approval and public publication of any procedural change. That order governs how Delaware speeds permits, which is the subject of separate Truthline reporting on Executive Order 18 and the developer network, and it is where it belongs.
XXIV. The Questions, And Who Holds The Answer
Every one of these has a document behind it, and every document is held by a named Delaware official.
To the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control: produce the Summit North Marina concession and lease, and the payment ledger showing what was owed and what was received in each year. How many dollars of unpaid rent does the thirty million dollar purchase forgive? Identify the claims the owners made against the Department, the demand, the date, the forum, and what counsel valued the exposure at. And state what the $750,000 paid to Summit North Marina Inc on September 21, 2021, and the $21,500 paid on February 13, 2020, were for, producing the contract or grant instrument behind each.
To the Office of Management and Budget: produce the appraisal supporting thirty million dollars for a leasehold and improvements on land the State already owns, and name who performed it. Name every party receiving public money under the purchase agreement executed pursuant to House Bill 500. And with the Department of Finance, publish the schedule of payments to Barnes and Thornburg LLP by matter, for the $13,719,480.19 the State Checkbook records, identifying which of those matters concern the Port of Wilmington.
To the Diamond State Port Corporation: produce the deed and settlement statement for the January 10, 2025 purchase of 701 Christiana Avenue, and identify every party paid out of the $2,850,000.
To the Governor: Your Secretary told the Bond Bill Committee the State has not made any money off the property. You said the purchase will yield significant revenue. Reconcile those with a number and a timeline. And state whether Michael Houghton’s removal from the council two days after his March question, and his resignation from the Port Expansion Task Force days after his $110 million question, were connected to either question.
To the Joint Committee on Capital Improvement: before the vote, was any member advised that the registered lobbyist for the selling entity is also the registered lobbyist for Holt Logistics Corporation, and that the entity and its affiliates had contributed to the Governor’s campaign? If so, by whom and when. If not, why not.
To the General Assembly: identify the member who introduced the Fiscal Year 2023 bond bill language substituting five signatures for the concurrent resolution that section 8783 requires, and the date it was added.
To the State Election Commissioner: do the October 2024 filings satisfy the responsible party disclosure requirement for non-individual contributors?
To the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council: publish the roll of members with their political contributions to the sitting Governor’s committees alongside it. Two current members gave the Governor’s political action committee a combined $107,800. And state whether the council was briefed on the $110 million port commitment or the $30 million marina purchase before it adopted the 98 percent appropriation limit and the extraordinary revenue figure the bond bill drew against. If it was, give the date and the name of the person who briefed it.
To the Department of Finance: publish the schedule of unclaimed property refunds paid in Fiscal Year 2026 that drove the $38 million write-down between the October and March forecasts, and state what the Department projects for refunds against the $614 million ceiling House Bill 500 established. And state which figure was adopted on October 20, 2025, as the Fiscal Year 2027 expenditure estimate, $7,554.6 million, as the minutes record, or $7,544.6 million, as the attached table and the December reconciliation both use, and correct the published record.
To the Department of State: On May 18, 2026, the Department confirmed on the record that the adopted revenue forecast does not account for House Bill 400. State the revenue effect of that bill and whether the 98 percent appropriation limit of $7,328.0 million would have been different had it been included.
"Not one of these requires a subpoena, an investigation, or a whistleblower.
Every one requires a Delaware official to open a drawer."
XXV. What This Is Really About
It would be easy to read this as a story about a lobbyist. That reading is wrong, and it lets the wrong people off.
Darrell Baker did what Delaware law asks. He registered every client, on time, in the form required, ten times over eighteen years. The contributions were filed and posted. The reason this report can be written at all is that the disclosure system worked exactly as designed.
The failure is on the public side of the table.
Every fact in this report was available to the State of Delaware, for free, on the State’s own websites, before a single member voted on House Bill 500. The lobbyist registry. The campaign finance filings. The Secretary’s own testimony. The statute in Title 29. The monthly financial report mailed to every legislator by name. A staffer with a browser and twenty minutes could have assembled it.
Nobody did. The bill passed in the dark, in the small hours of July 1, and the Governor signed it on July 6.
"None of this was hidden. It was published by the State, on State websites, in files the State updates every week. That is not a scandal of secrecy. It is a scandal of incuriosity, and this one costs thirty million dollars."
Delaware is a small state with a small government and an enormous amount of other people’s money moving through it. The only protection ordinary people have is that somebody in the room asks the obvious question before the vote instead of after it. On the night the bond bill passed, in a chamber holding a bill worth more than a billion dollars, nobody asked.
And none of that is why this report exists.
It exists because of a Monday morning in February when a parking lot on the Christina River was empty, and forty-five men who had held a cold chain inside four hundredths of a degree for most of their working lives were told there was nothing to unload, and a ship that should have been theirs was tied up eleven miles north in Chester being worked by strangers.
"The people who benefit from this sequence have names and addresses,
and this report has given you all of them. So do the people who lose from it.
On the sixteenth of February, they stayed home."
Author’s Disclosure
This report is by Karen Hartley-Nagle, President of New Castle County Council from 2016 to 2024, whose prior Truthline reporting has documented the Port of Wilmington concession, the Edgemoor expansion and the Executive Order 18 developer network. Darrell J. Baker is a Delaware attorney admitted in 1983 and a registered lobbyist for ten clients. The documents named in Section XXII are held by named Delaware officials, and every one of them can be released today.
Questions Readers Are Asking
Who paid Matt Meyer's campaign during the Edgemoor port fight?
Both sides of it. Delaware campaign finance filings for Meyer for Delaware, account 01005311, record $12,400 across roughly 5 weeks in the autumn of 2024. On October 30, 2024, Leo Holt, president of Holt Logistics Corporation, gave $1,200, two days after his companies won the case. On October 29 and 31, 2024, four companies registered at Summit North Marina and a Rockland post office box gave $2,800. On October 7, 2024, Darrell J. Baker, the registered Delaware lobbyist for both Holt Logistics Corporation and Summit North Marina LLC, gave $1,200. In the same period, the four registered lobbyists for the Diamond State Port Corporation, their firm Barnes and Thornburg LLP, two of their spouses, and Stradley Ronon Stevens and Young, litigation counsel to PhilaPort, also contributed. The Diamond State Port Corporation side accounts for $6,000, the Darrell J. Baker side for $5,200, and Stradley Ronon Stevens and Young for $1,200.
What did House Bill 500 do for the Port of Wilmington and Summit North Marina?
House Bill 500, the Fiscal Year 2027 Bond and Capital Improvements Act, passed the Delaware General Assembly in the early morning hours of July 1, 2026, and was signed by Governor Matt Meyer on July 6, 2026, as Volume 85, Chapter 341, Laws of Delaware. It committed $110 million to the Port of Wilmington, gave $30 million to the Office of Management and Budget for Building and Land Acquisition so the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control could buy Summit North Marina, and raised the ceiling on unclaimed property revenue available to the General Fund from $554 million to $614 million, an increase of $60 million.
Why did Delaware buy Summit North Marina?
Summit North Marina operates at 3000 Summit Harbour Place in Bear, Delaware, on ground inside Lums Pond State Park that already belongs to the people of Delaware. Appearing before the Bond Bill Committee, Secretary Gregg Patterson of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control told legislators the State had not seen payment from the operators for a number of years, that the owners had made claims against his Department, and that the State has not made any money off the property. Governor Matt Meyer called the marina a critical state asset and said the purchase will yield significant revenue. Four companies registered at that marina and at a related post office box contributed $2,800 to his campaign across three days in October 2024.
Why was Michael Houghton removed from DEFAC?
Michael Houghton, a Wilmington attorney, chaired the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council for 8 years. On October 20, 2025, he named the Corporate Franchise Tax and the unclaimed property cap as the two lines to watch if Delaware kept forecasting deficits. On March 16, 2026, he asked the Delaware Department of State for corporate revenue figures it had not produced. Two days later, on March 18, 2026, an email from Governor Matt Meyer's office ended his service. There was no hearing, no cause stated, and no public announcement. Weeks after that, he questioned the interim executive director of the Diamond State Port Corporation about where an additional $110 million for Edgemoor was coming from, and within days he left the Port Expansion Task Force.
What is Delaware unclaimed property, and how did it pay for the port?
Unclaimed property, also called escheat, is money left behind in forgotten accounts, uncashed dividends, and unclaimed shares, much of it belonging to the roughly 2 million business entities incorporated in Delaware. It is one of the State's largest revenue sources. Nearly $200 million of it moved to the Diamond State Port Corporation in January 2025. Delaware's own Economic and Financial Advisory Council then cut its net escheat forecast 5 times in 8 months, by $70 million in total, because refunds to the rightful owners were rising, reaching $203,701,388 in Fiscal Year 2026 against $128,038,529 the year before, an increase of 59.1 percent. House Bill 500 then raised the ceiling on that same fund by $60 million.
Who is Alan Levin and what is DEFAC?
The Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council, known as DEFAC, is a panel of roughly 30 appointed members that votes to adopt Delaware's official revenue and expenditure estimates. Under Article VIII, section 6(b) of the Delaware Constitution, appropriations may not exceed 98 percent of that revenue estimate, and a rule in force since 1991 caps new tax-supported debt at 5 percent of it, so DEFAC sets the ceiling on the entire state budget and on the bond bill. Alan B. Levin, the former Chief Executive Officer of Happy Harry's, former Director of the Delaware Economic Development Office, and former Chairman of the Diamond State Port Corporation board, was appointed chairman by Governor Matt Meyer without having served a day on the council. Across 4 published sets of minutes covering the fiscal year in which the port received $110 million, the council never once said the word port.
Why did the Port of Wilmington lose the Chiquita ships?
The berths at the Port of Wilmington sit on the Christina River at 35 to 38 feet, while the main channel of the Delaware runs 45 feet deep, and a loaded ship that clears the channel cannot clear the berth. With the port undredged and its berths shoaled, the Chiquita ships that had called at Wilmington for 37 years went 11 miles upriver to Chester, Pennsylvania. On Monday, February 16, 2026, the parking lot at the Port of Wilmington was empty on Presidents Day for the first time in 30 years, and the 45 men of Local 1694 of the International Longshoremen's Association, who held the temperature of banana cargo inside four hundredths of a degree and made Wilmington the second largest banana port on earth after Antwerp, stayed home.
Was anything in this report illegal?
The report does not allege a crime. Every contribution it documents was filed and posted as Delaware law requires, and Darrell J. Baker registered all 10 of his lobbying clients on time over 18 years. Delaware caps contributions to a statewide candidate at $1,200 under 15 Del. C. section 8010 and contains no rule aggregating contributions from limited liability companies under common ownership, so 5 companies at 2 addresses could lawfully reach $5,200. The report's argument is that the disclosure system worked, the records were public on State websites before the vote, and nobody in Delaware government read them.
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What's Here. What's Coming.
The Truthline Network Publication Attachments List for This Report
For the growing number of readers who enjoy deep dives, explainers, and additional information, below are PDFs that supplement this report.
[PDF] Governor Matt Meyer, Executive Order 16
[PDF] Governor Matt Meyer, Executive Order 18
[PDF] Governor Matt Meyer, Executive Order
"The Quiet Dismantling of Delaware's Democratic Guardrails." Governor Matt Meyer's Land Use Code Law Protections Override. Governor Meyer's Executive Orders 18 and Companion Executive Order 16. A must-read for every Delaware resident.
[PDF] County Executive Marcus Henry, Executive Order 2026-06 (County Executive Marcus Henry following Governor Matt Meyer's lead)
[PDF] Governor Matt Meyer, Executive Order
[PDF] Governor Matt Meyer, Executive Order
Union Business
"A Teamsters local threw him out for misrepresentation involving its money.
New Castle County elected him anyway. He has watched
the county's money ever since."
In 2001, James P. Hoffa, General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and son of Jimmy Hoffa, reached down into Local 326 in Delaware and admonished one business agent for misrepresentation and misuse of union money. That business agent was George Smiley. The International's Executive Committee found him guilty of misrepresentation on appeal. Smiley paid the money back and lost his union post.
Michael J. Ciabattoni, a former president of Local 326, said it on the record to The News Journal in 2004: "If you want to say we had a vendetta because he was a crook, he's correct. I don't like thieves."
The Teamsters told the newspaper George Smiley was unworthy of their endorsement. Their own local endorsed his opponent. New Castle County elected George Smiley anyway.
Today Councilman George Smiley co-chairs the Finance Committee of New Castle County Council, the committee that watches the county's money.
Twenty-two years after James P. Hoffa admonished him, the United States Tax Court described how developer Nicholas Ferrara Jr. brought a rezoning to Councilman George Smiley in 2006, and how by March 2007 Councilman Smiley was in favor. Six years later, 58 acres beside the New Castle County Airport, appraised at $6,900,000 as industrial land, sold for $11,100,000, rezoned as commercial. $4,200,000 of that went to the developer's partnership for the political work.
Before he was a councilman, George Smiley was a business agent at that union hall. When members called on a Friday looking for him, staff were told to say he was out on union business. He was on his boat. The boat was named Union Business.
The rezoning that followed carries three signatures, and two of the people who signed it now run the State of Delaware.
The Tax Court was deciding a tax bill. Nobody put Councilman George Smiley's conduct before it. That question has never been asked by anyone with the power to answer it.
And there's the MORE we haven't named.
[PDF] T.C. Memo. 2024-59, Parkway Gravel Inc. and Subsidiaries v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue
[PDF] Truthline Memorandum, "The Tax Court Record: Ferrara, Smiley, and the Airport Corridor Rezoning Chain", Companion Document to “The Quiet Dismantling of Delaware’s Democratic Guardrails”
[PDF] Truthline Memorandum, "Twenty Years, One Councilman: The George Smiley File, The Tax Court Record, the Property Chain, and the Questions Nobody Has Asked", Companion Document to “The Quiet Dismantling of Delaware’s Democratic Guardrails”
Discover the Truth About New Castle County Government's Finances Through The In-Depth Web Series Below
1. "PART I: The New Castle County Tax Reckoning" (Released July 20, 2026)
2. "PART II: The New Castle County Tax Reckoning" (To be released September, 2026)
3. "Companion Report: Chapter 1" (To be released September 2026)
4. "Companion Report: Chapter 2" (To be released September 2026)
5. "Companion Report: Chapter 3" (To be released September 2026)
6. "Companion Report: Chapter 4" (To be released September 2026)
7. "Companion Report: Chapter 5" (To be released September 2026)
"One Two-part report. Five Companion Reports. One investigation.
Three audiences. One truth."
Discover The Truth About Port of Wilmington, Delaware Deals, Litigation, and Lies Through the In-Depth Web Series Below
1. "Everyone in the Fight Paid the Man Who Would Decide It" (Released August, 2026)
2. "Thirty Million for A Marina" (To be released September 2026)
3. "Three Port Deals: Name One" (To be released September 2026)
"A Three-report series. Two Delaware governments. Two Offices.
One investigation. Three audiences. One truth."
Discover The Truth About the Port of Wilmington Through The
In-Depth Web Series Below
1. "PART I: The Port They Left Behind" (To be released August, 2026)
2. "PART II: The Port They Left Behind" (To be released August, 2026)
"A Two-part report. Three Delaware governments. Ongoing investigation.
Three audiences. One truth."
Discover The Truth About How State and County Legislators Collude Through The In-Depth Web Series Below
1. PART I: Brookside Neighborhood Improvement District Critical Facts, Your Rights, Your Money (To be released August 2026)
2. PART I One-pager: Brookside Neighborhood Improvement District Critical Facts, Your Rights, Your Money (To be released August 2026)
3. PART II: Brookside Neighborhood Improvement District (To be released August 2026)
4. PART II One pager: Brookside Neighborhood Improvement District (To be released August 2026)
5. PART III: Brookside Neighborhood Improvement District (To be released August 2026)
6. PART III One pager: Brookside Neighborhood Improvement District (To be released August 2026)
7. PART IV: Brookside Neighborhood Improvement District (to be released August 2026
7. PART IV: Brookside Neighborhood Improvement District (to be released August 2026
1. New Castle County Legislation on Neighborhood Improvement Districts (NID), Sponsored by New Castle County Councilwoman Kilpatrick
2. State of Delaware Legislation on Neighborhood Improvement Districts (NID), Sponsored by Senator Stephanie Hansen
"A Four-report series. Two colluding governments. Two investigations.
Three audiences. Remain vigilant. One truth."
A Note on Methodology and Sourcing
This supplement follows the same sourcing standards as all Truthline Reports. Every claim is traceable to a government document, court filing, campaign finance disclosure, published tariff, statutory text, or on-the-record statement from a named official. Where unnamed sources provide context, the underlying facts are independently verifiable through public records.
"We make it easy to verify. We make it hard to misquote."
RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Evidence File: Receipts, Sources, and Primary Documents
Everyone in the Fight Paid the Man Who Would Decide It. The Truthline Network. Karen Hartley-Nagle, Founder, Publisher, and Editor-in-Chief. Compiled August 5, 2026. All URLs verified as of August 4, 2026.
Citations follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, seventh edition. Legal materials, including court decisions, statutes, constitutional provisions, session laws, and executive orders, follow The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, as the seventh edition directs. Entries are grouped by category and alphabetized within each category.
158 documents. 9 the State would not produce.
Every document in this list was published by the State of Delaware, filed in a federal court, recorded by New Castle County, or issued by the United States government, except where the entry itself states otherwise.
Part I. What Delaware Would Not Produce
This list belongs in an evidence file for the same reason the sources do. It is the record of what the State holds and has not released, and it is the map for anyone who reads this after us. Each item below was sought in the reporting of this investigation and was not obtained.
NP-01. Minutes of the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council meeting of June 15, 2026. The worksheets adopted at that meeting are published. The minutes are not. Every other meeting in this cycle was minuted within 9 days.
NP-02. Roll call and actions history for House Bill 500. As of August 4, 2026, the General Assembly's bill detail page shows status Out of Committee, volume and chapter N/A, and empty roll call and actions tables, while the Governor's own legislative advisory records the bill as signed and enrolled.
NP-03. The balance of the special unclaimed property fund controlled by the Department of Finance, drawn down twice for the Edgemoor terminal.
NP-04. The appraisal supporting the $30 million valuation of the Summit North Marina leasehold and improvements.
NP-05. The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control concession and lease for Summit North Marina, and the payment ledger showing amounts owed and received.
NP-06. The purchase agreement executed under House Bill 500, which must name every party receiving public money.
NP-07. The rating agency presentation dated April 8, 2026, cited by name and date as a source in the Kroll Bond Rating Agency surveillance report.
NP-08. The identity of the independent auditor of the Diamond State Port Corporation, on whose report CliftonLarsonAllen LLP states its own opinion rests.
NP-09. The Jacobs Engineering Group technical reports of October and December 2025, prepared for the Diamond State Port Corporation and not released for public comment.
Part II. The Record
158 sources, numbered S-001 through S-158, in 14 categories. Compiled August 5, 2026. All URLs verified as of August 4, 2026. This consolidated list was prepared August 11, 2026.
Citations follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, seventh edition. Legal materials, including court decisions, statutes, constitutional provisions, session laws, and executive orders, follow The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, as the seventh edition directs. Categories are alphabetical. Entries are alphabetical within each category. Initial articles are disregarded in both orders, as APA directs. Each entry carries a permanent source number.
The report these sources support: https://www.karenhartleynagle.com/everyone-in-the-fight-paid
I. Campaign Finance And Lobbying Disclosure
S-001. Delaware Department of Elections, Campaign Finance Section. (2016-2026). Change Can't Wait PAC, account 02005278, 29 reports, June 17, 2021 through December 31, 2025 [Financial reports]. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://cfrs.elections.delaware.gov/
S-002. Delaware Department of Elections, Campaign Finance Section. (2016-2025). Change Can't Wait PAC, account 02005278 [Financial reports]. Contributions of Alan B. Levin: $5,000 (October 28, 2022), $5,000 (September 29, 2023), $15,000 (June 10, 2024); Michael Bloomberg, $250,000 (September 4, 2024). Retrieved August 5, 2026.
https://cfrs.elections.delaware.gov/
S-003. Delaware Department of Elections, Campaign Finance Section. (2016-2026). Citizens for a New Delaware Way, account 02006097, 6 reports, May 24, 2024 through December 31, 2025 [Financial reports]. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://cfrs.elections.delaware.gov/
S-004. Delaware Department of Elections, Campaign Finance Section. (2024-2025). Citizens for a New Delaware Way, account 02006097, and Citizens for a New Delaware Way Third-Party Advertiser [Financial reports]. Contributions of Phillip Shawe and TransPerfect Translations International totaling $1,300,000 across 5 contributions, June 13, 2024 to November 18, 2025. Retrieved August 5, 2026.
https://cfrs.elections.delaware.gov/
S-005. Delaware Department of Elections, Campaign Finance Section. (2019-2024). Hynansky and Capano contributions across Meyer-linked committees, including the contribution of $25,000 filed June 8, 2023 under the name John Hyanski [Financial reports]. Retrieved August 5, 2026.
https://cfrs.elections.delaware.gov/
S-006. Delaware Department of Elections, Campaign Finance Section. (2016-2026). Meyer for Delaware, account 01005311, 20 reports, January 1, 2022 through December 31, 2025, including the 8-day pre-general report covering October 8 to October 28, 2024 (521 line items) and the year-end report covering October 29 to December 31, 2024 (376 line items), filed January 23, 2025 [Financial reports]. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://cfrs.elections.delaware.gov/
S-007. Delaware Department of Elections, Campaign Finance Section. (2021-2024). Meyer for Delaware, account 01005311 [Financial reports]. Contributions of Alan B. Levin, $1,200 (December 18, 2021) and $1,200 (September 22, 2024); E. Thomas Harvey, $1,200 (December 18, 2021); Robin Harvey, $1,200 (December 18, 2021); Thomas Harvey, $1,200 (December 30, 2021); Thomas Hanna, $1,200 (January 3, 2022); Katherine Kinnard, $1,200 (January 4, 2022); Murray Dingwall, $1,200 (January 25, 2022). Retrieved August 5, 2026.
https://cfrs.elections.delaware.gov/
S-008. Delaware Department of Elections, Campaign Finance Section. (2016-2026). Meyer for New Castle County, account 01003643, 24 reports, February 7, 2016 through December 31, 2021 [Financial reports]. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://cfrs.elections.delaware.gov/
S-009. Delaware Department of Elections, Campaign Finance Section. (2016-2017). Meyer for New Castle County, account 01003643 [Financial reports]. Contributions of Alan B. Levin, $500 (April 18, 2016), $600 (October 14, 2016), $600 (December 7, 2017), several filed under the employer name Ellen and Alan Levin Family Foundation. Retrieved August 5, 2026.
https://cfrs.elections.delaware.gov/
S-010. Delaware Department of Elections. (2026). Office of the State Election Commissioner, Anthony J. Albence, Commissioner, 905 South Governors Avenue, Suite 170, Dover, Delaware. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://elections.delaware.gov/
S-011. Delaware Public Integrity Commission. (2026). Public Integrity Reporting System, employer authorization file [Data set]. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://pirs.delaware.gov/documents/EmployerAuthorizationCsv
II. Constitutional Provisions, Statutes, and Session Laws
S-012. Del. Code Ann. tit. 6, § 18-201 (certificate of formation; limited liability companies).
https://delcode.delaware.gov/title6/c018/sc02/index.html
S-013. Del. Code Ann. tit. 15, ch. 80, subch. II, § 8010 (campaign contribution limits).
https://delcode.delaware.gov/title15/c080/sc02/index.html
S-014. Del. Code Ann. tit. 29, ch. 87, subch. II, §§ 8780-8789 (Diamond State Port Corporation; § 8783 concurrent resolution requirement).
https://delcode.delaware.gov/title29/c087/sc02/index.html
S-015. Del. Const. art. VIII, § 6(b) (98 percent appropriation limit).
https://delcode.delaware.gov/constitution/index.shtml
S-016. H.B. 305, 152d Gen. Assemb. (Del. 2024) (forgiving $16.5 million of the Auto and RoRo berth loan).
https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=130504
S-017. H.B. 400, 153d Gen. Assemb. (Del. 2026) (business entity fee and annual tax increases; 3/5 vote required under Del. Const. art. VIII, § 10; signed May 21, 2026; annual tax provisions retroactive to Jan. 1, 2026).
https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail/143069
S-018. H.B. 500, 153d Gen. Assemb. (Del. 2026) (Fiscal Year 2027 Bond and Capital Improvements Act; passed early hours July 1, 2026; signed July 6, 2026; 85 Del. Laws ch. 341).
https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=143658
S-019. Office of the Governor of Delaware. (2026). Legislative advisory no. 46 (recording House Bill 500 signed July 6, 2026, volume 85, chapter 341).
https://governor.delaware.gov/legislative-advisories/legislative-advisories-46/
S-020. Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1922, § 11, 33 U.S.C. § 555; 33 C.F.R. § 207.800 (waterborne commerce reporting).
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title33-section555
S-021. Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1922, § 11, 33 C.F.R. § 207.800 (implementing regulation).
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-33/section-207.800
S-022. 46 U.S.C. § 40501(f) (marine terminal tariff filing).
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title46-section40501
III. Contemporaneous News Coverage And Trade Press
A. Reporting
S-023. American Journal of Transportation. (2026). Delaware River ports positioned for widespread growth (quoting Christian Holt, Holt Logistics).
S-024. Associated Press. (2014, January). Hybrid offers $55M for bankrupt Fisker in bid war. The Seattle Times.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/hybrid-offers-55m-for-bankrupt-fisker-in-bid-war/
S-025. Associated Press. (2017, October 10). Harvey Hanna to acquire former General Motors Boxwood Road plant; sale price and redevelopment plans not disclosed.
No public URL. Document held in the Truthline file.
S-026. Baker, K. (2023, July 24). What Hunter Biden's emails reveal about his investment in now-defunct Fisker Automotive. Delaware Online and The News Journal.
S-027. Delaware Business Times. (n.d.). Harvey, Hanna closes on GM plant.
https://delawarebusinesstimes.com/news/harvey-hanna-closes-gm-plant/
S-028. Delaware Business Times. (n.d.). How the deal for Delaware's largest building got done.
https://delawarebusinesstimes.com/news/the-deal-for-delawares-largest-building/
S-029. Delaware Business Times. (n.d.). Residents embrace Harvey Hanna's plans for Boxwood site.
https://delawarebusinesstimes.com/news/residents-embrace-harvey-hannas-plans-boxwood-site/
S-030. Delaware Business Times. (2024, December). Dole expands Port of Wilmington service.
https://delawarebusinesstimes.com/news/dole-expands-port-of-wilmington-service/
S-031. Delaware Business Times. (2025, June). Chiquita renews Port Wilmington lease.
https://delawarebusinesstimes.com/news/chiquita-port-wilmington-lease/
S-032. Delaware Business Times. (2026, May 4). Permitting Accelerator applications now available.
https://delawarebusinesstimes.com/news/permitting-accelerator-applications-available/
S-033. Delaware Public Media. (2013, March 7). Kinder Morgan suspends pursuit of Port of Wilmington lease deal.
S-034. Delaware Public Media. (2014, February 15). Wanxiang to acquire Boxwood Road plant after Fisker asset auction.
S-035. Delaware Public Media. (2015, April 30). Alan Levin out as DEDO director.
https://www.delawarepublic.org/politics-government/2015-04-30/alan-levin-out-as-dedo-director
S-036. Delaware Public Media. (2026, June 29). Coverage of the fiscal year 2027 bond bill vote.
https://www.delawarepublic.org/
S-037. Delaware Public Media. (2026, July 9). Coverage of the line item veto.
https://www.delawarepublic.org/
S-038. Delaware Public Media. (2026, July 14). Dover City Council opens door to clean hydrogen plants in city limits through ordinance change.
S-039. Delaware Public Media. (2026, July 15). Philly port operators file new complaint over Port of Wilmington expansion, ask judge to halt project.
S-040. Delaware Public Media. (2026, July 26). Gov. Meyer sets transparency rules for Delaware's unclaimed property task force.
S-041. Delaware Public Media. (2026, August 1). New complaint argues Diamond State Port Corporation and Enstructure agreements are void.
S-042. Delaware Public Media. (2026, August 4). Aternium plans clean hydrogen plant in Dover, but isn't counting on federal help.
S-043. DiStefano, J. N. (2020, February). Amazon's Boxwood Road warehouse and the $4.5 million subsidy [PhillyDeals column]. The Philadelphia Inquirer.
https://www.inquirer.com/business/phillydeals/
S-044. DiStefano, J. N. (2020, May 20). Amazon pledges plenty of robotics at former GM plant. The Philadelphia Inquirer.
https://www.inquirer.com/news/amazon-wilmington-robotics-state-subsidy-20200520.html
S-045. NBC News. (2009, October). Plug-in hybrid maker plans to use old GM plant.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna33519286
S-046. The Philadelphia Inquirer. (2024, February 18). Coverage of the Delaware River Port Authority lease with Holt Logistics, the 1984 terms, the 1993 reduction, and the 2022 inspector general report.
S-047. The Philadelphia Inquirer. (2025, February 13). Coverage of the appraisal valuing the Walt Whitman Bridge parcel at $330,000 annually.
https://www.inquirer.com/business/drpa-holt-logistics-lease-comptroller-20250213.html
S-048. The Philadelphia Inquirer. (2025, July 1). Coverage of the Crowley Central America service at the Gloucester City terminal.
https://www.inquirer.com/business/holt-crowley-imports-shipping-tariffs-fruit-20250701.html
S-049. The Philadelphia Inquirer. (2026, March 17). Coverage of the order requiring the Delaware River Port Authority to comply with New Jersey State Comptroller subpoenas.
https://www.inquirer.com/news/new-jersey/drpa-comptroller-subpoenas-judge-order-20260317.html
S-050. The Produce News. (2025). Holt has sights set on growth and sustainability (quoting Leo Holt on East Coast Chilean fruit share).
https://theproducenews.com/delaware-ports/holt-has-sights-set-growth-and-sustainability
S-051. Renewable Energy Magazine. (2026, August 5). Aternium picks Delaware for first U.S. heavy water and high-purity hydrogen production facility.
S-052. Taylor, A., & Nathans, A. (2014, June 3). New Castle County to make offer on Boxwood plant. The News Journal.
S-053. WHYY News. (2026, August 3). Delaware governor sets ethics standard for task force (Sarah Mueller, quoting Charles Elson, Jonah Anderson, Bryan Townsend, and Jenevieve Worley).
B. Journalist Credentials and Author Records
S-054. DiStefano, J. N. (n.d.). Author page. The Philadelphia Inquirer.
https://www.inquirer.com/author/distefano_joseph_n/
S-055. The Nation. (n.d.). Joseph N. DiStefano, contributor biography.
https://www.thenation.com/authors/joseph-n-distefano/
S-056. Technical.ly Philly. (2011, November 11). Inquirer business columnist Joseph N. DiStefano on Philly tech [Interview].
IV. Corporate, firm, Organizational, And Biographical Records
S-057. Barnes & Thornburg LLP. (2021, June 14). Announcement of the hiring of Thomas McGonigle, Shawn Tucker, Michael Maimone, Mary Kate McLaughlin, Douglas Gramiak, Michael DeNote, Sawyer Traver, and Whitney Potts.
https://btlaw.com/en/news-events/
S-058. Delaware Prosperity Partnership. (n.d.). Amazon builds on 20-plus years of investments in Delaware.
https://www.choosedelaware.com/archives/amazon-invests-in-delaware-new-fulfillment-center/
S-059. Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP. (2026). Geoffrey A. Sawyer III, partner, Wilmington [Professional biography]. Retrieved August 5, 2026.
https://www.faegredrinker.com/en/professionals/s/sawyer-geoffrey-a
S-060. Gulftainer. (2018, September 18). Gulftainer signs 50-year, $600 million concession to operate and expand Port of Wilmington.
S-061. Harvey, Hanna & Associates. (2024). Complete 130,000 SF industrial space at Delaware River Industrial Park.
S-062. Harvey, Hanna & Associates. (2026). Hospitality. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://harveyhanna.com/hospitality/
S-063. Harvey, Hanna & Associates. (2026). Our work. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://harveyhanna.com/our-work/
S-064. Harvey, Hanna & Associates, Inc. (2025, March 31). E. Thomas Harvey III, executive biography [Corporate document].
No public URL. Document held in the Truthline file.
S-065. Holt Logistics Corp. (2026). Corporate information, 101 South King Street, Gloucester City, New Jersey. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
S-066. Niskanen Center. (n.d.). Delaware offered Amazon $4.5 million to locate a new facility there.
S-067. SoDel Concepts. (2026). Levin named to the list of most influential Delawareans [Press release, quoting president Scott Kammerer].
https://sodelconcepts.com/press/levin-named-to-the-list-of-most-influential-delawareans
S-068. State of Delaware, Delaware Economic Development Office. (n.d.). Hon. Alan B. Levin, Cabinet Secretary [Official biography].
No public URL. Document held in the Truthline file.
S-069. TKO Hospitality Management. (2026). Portfolio. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://tkohospitalitymgt.com/
V. Credit Rating and Bond Market Records
S-070. Fitch Ratings. (2026, April 15). Fitch rates Delaware's $452MM GOs 'AAA'; outlook stable.
https://financefiles.delaware.gov/Bond/Fitch_Series_2026_April_15_2026.pdf
S-071. Kroll Bond Rating Agency. (2026, May 6). State of Delaware, general obligation surveillance report (Doc. ID 1014848).
https://financefiles.delaware.gov/Bond/KBRA_Surveillance_May_6_2026.pdf
S-072. Moody's Ratings. (2025, April 11). Moody's Ratings assigns Aaa to Delaware's general obligation bonds; outlook stable (posted by the Delaware Department of Finance under the heading April Moody's 2026).
https://financefiles.delaware.gov/Bond/Moodys_Series_2026_April_11_2026.pdf
S-073. S&P Global Ratings. (2026, April 15). Delaware Series 2026A-B GO and GO refunding bonds assigned 'AAA' rating.
https://financefiles.delaware.gov/Bond/S%26P_Global_Series_2026_Apr_15_2026.pdf
S-074. State of Delaware, Department of Finance. (2026). Investor information and rating agencies' credit reports. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://finance.delaware.gov/financial-reports/rating-agencies-credit-reports/
S-075. State of Delaware. (2026, April 16). Summary notice of sale, general obligation bonds series 2026A and general obligation refunding bonds series 2026B.
https://financefiles.delaware.gov/Bond/Summary_NOS-Series_2026A_and_Series_2026B.pdf
VI. Executive Orders and Attorney General Opinions
S-076. Del. Att'y Gen. Op. 24-IB04 (Jan. 29, 2024) (Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control statement that Holt owned two appellants and that Holt's counsel represented the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority).
https://attorneygeneral.delaware.gov/opinions/
S-077. Delaware Executive Order No. 3 (2025) (ethics and transparency; requiring exemplary conduct of all state employees).
https://governor.delaware.gov/executive-orders/
S-078. Delaware Executive Order No. 16 (2026) (Delaware Strategies for State Policies and Spending; 2026 State Smart Growth Visioning process).
https://governor.delaware.gov/executive-orders/
S-079. Delaware Executive Order No. 18 (Feb. 26, 2026) (Delaware Permitting Accelerator).
https://governor.delaware.gov/executive-orders/executive-order-18/
S-080. Delaware Executive Order No. 23 (July 26, 2026) (amending Executive Order No. 18 to authorize updates to the Delaware Permitting Accelerator and to require publication).
https://governor.delaware.gov/executive-orders/executive-order-23/
S-081. Delaware Executive Order No. 25 (as served) / No. 26 (as announced) (July 16, 2026), Safeguarding the Unclaimed Property Task Force from Conflicts of Interest and Ensuring That Delaware's Unclaimed Property Policy Is Written for the Public, Not for the Industry That Profits from It.
https://governor.delaware.gov/executive-orders/executive-order-25/
S-082. Delaware Executive Order No. 62 (Aug. 27, 2024) (Governor Carney; constituting the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council; members serve at the Governor's pleasure; Governor designates chair).
https://governor.delaware.gov/executive-orders/
S-083. Office of the Governor of Delaware. (2026). Executive orders archive index. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://governor.delaware.gov/executive-orders/
VII. Firsthand and Original Research Records
S-084. Ashe, W., Jr., International Vice President, International Longshoremen's Association Local 1694. (2026). Statements on the February 2026 vessel diversions and the Presidents' Day shift.
No public URL. Document held in the Truthline file.
S-085. Hartley-Nagle, K. (2026, March 16). Attendance at the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council meeting, recorded on the State's official attendance roll.
https://financefiles.delaware.gov/DEFAC/minutes/Minutes_03.2026_FINAL.pdf
S-086. Person with direct knowledge of AutoPort's decision. (2026, July). Statement that AutoPort is not returning to the Port of Wilmington.
No public URL. Document held in the Truthline file.
S-087. The Truthline Network. (2026). Port money map audit: 92 campaign finance reports across 5 Meyer-linked committees; 9,063 contributions totaling $7,998,435 [Unpublished research document].
No public URL. Document held in the Truthline file.
VIII. Government Communications, Statements, and Official Web Records
S-088. Delaware Department of State. (2026). Office of the Secretary of State, Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez, and departmental organizational charts. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://sos.delaware.gov/charuni-patibanda-sanchez/
S-089. Office of Governor Jack Markell. (2012, November 15). Governor announces senior staff changes: Chief of Staff Thomas McGonigle to Drinker Biddle.
https://news.delaware.gov/?p=6106
S-090. Office of Governor Jack Markell. (2015, April 30). Economic Development Director Alan Levin to end tenure in June, departing at the end of the legislative session; confirmation of Bernice Whaley.
https://news.delaware.gov/?p=22616
S-091. Office of Governor Jack Markell. (2016, October 21). Governor, legislators comment on redevelopment of former GM Boxwood Road manufacturing facility.
https://news.delaware.gov/?p=36069
S-092. Office of Governor John Carney. (2018, April). Statement urging the General Assembly to pass a concurrent resolution approving the Gulftainer transaction.
S-093. Office of Governor Matt Meyer. (2025, June 5). Post announcing the Chiquita renewal [Facebook post].
https://www.facebook.com/GovernorMattMeyer
S-094. Office of Governor Matt Meyer. (2026, February 26). Governor Matt Meyer signs executive order streamlining state permitting regulations.
S-095. Office of Governor Matt Meyer. (2026, July 16). Governor Meyer signs executive order strengthening conflict-of-interest standards for unclaimed property task force (media contact Jonah Anderson).
S-096. Office of the Governor of Delaware. (n.d.). Appointment announcement for Gregory Patterson.
https://news.delaware.gov/?p=117304
S-097. Patterson, G., Secretary, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. (2026). Testimony before the Joint Committee on Capital Improvement regarding the acquisition of Summit North Marina [Joint Committee on Capital Improvement hearing record].
S-098. Sokola, D., Senate President Pro Tempore. (2026, March). Statement on the removal of Michael Houghton from the Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council.
https://senatedems.delaware.gov/
IX. Judicial Records
A. United States District Courts and Courts of Appeals
S-099. Fireman's Fund Ins. Co. v. Summit N. Marina, LLC, No. 1:19-cv-00498 (D. Del., filed Mar. 13, 2019).
S-100. Gloucester Terminals LLC v. Teamsters Local Union 929, No. 2:16-cv-05322 (E.D. Pa., filed Oct. 11, 2016).
https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%22Gloucester+Terminals%22+%22Teamsters%22
S-101. Greenwich Terminals LLC v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng'rs, No. 2:23-cv-04283 (E.D. Pa. filed Nov. 3, 2023) (Kearney, J.).
https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%22Greenwich+Terminals%22+%22Army+Corps%22
S-102. Greenwich Terminals LLC v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng'rs, Nos. 23-4283 & 24-1008, 2024 WL 4595590 (E.D. Pa. Oct. 28, 2024) (Kearney, J.) (memorandum opinion vacating permits).
https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%22Greenwich+Terminals%22+2024+WL+4595590
S-103. Greenwich Terminals LLC v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng'rs, No. 2:26-cv-04821-MAK (E.D. Pa., filed July 10, 2026) (complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief; defendants U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Col. Jesse Curry, Todd Schaible, and Ryan Baum).
S-104. Holt Cargo Sys., Inc. v. Del. River Port Auth. (E.D. Pa. 1998), aff'd in part (3d Cir. Jan. 20, 1999).
https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%22Holt+Cargo+Systems%22+%22Delaware+River+Port+Authority%22
S-105. Holt Cargo Sys. v. Int'l Longshoremen's Ass'n, No. 1:94-cv-00174 (D.N.J. filed Jan. 12, 1994).
https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%22Holt+Cargo+Systems%22+%22Longshoremen%22
S-106. Holt Cargo Sys. v. Int'l Longshoremen's Ass'n, No. 2:93-cv-06907 (E.D. Pa., filed Dec. 22, 1993).
https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%22Holt+Cargo+Systems%22+%22Longshoremen%22
S-107. Holt Hauling & Warehouse Sys. v. Gloucester Marine Terminal, No. 02-02203 (Bankr. D. Del. filed Mar. 2002).
https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%22Holt+Hauling%22+%22Gloucester+Marine+Terminal%22
S-108. Holt Hauling & Warehousing Sys. v. Int'l Longshoremen's Ass'n, No. 2:93-cv-07059 (E.D. Pa. filed Dec. 30, 1993).
https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%22Holt+Hauling%22+%22Longshoremen%22
S-109. Holt Hauling v. Port of Philadelphia, No. 2:98-cv-00030 (E.D. Pa. filed Jan. 5, 1998).
https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%22Holt+Hauling%22+%22Port+of+Philadelphia%22
S-110. Phila. Reg'l Port Auth. v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng'rs, No. 2:24-cv-01008 (E.D. Pa. filed Mar. 8, 2024) (Kearney, J.).
https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%22Philadelphia+Regional+Port+Authority%22+%22Army+Corps%22
S-111. Picchi v. Summit N. Marina, Inc., No. 1:06-cv-00193-MPT (D. Del.), Document 20, Defendant's Initial Disclosures (filed Oct. 24, 2006).
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.36324.20.0.pdf
S-112. Picchi v. Summit N. Marina, Inc., No. 1:06-cv-00193-MPT (D. Del.), Document 42, Answers to Plaintiff's First Set of Interrogatories with notarized affidavit of Darrell J. Baker at 3 (filed June 14, 2007).
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.36324.42.0.pdf
B. Delaware State Courts
S-113. Greenwich Terminals LLC v. Dep't of Nat. Res. & Envtl. Control, and Curran v. Dep't of Nat. Res. & Envtl. Control (Del. Super. Ct. Apr. 14, 2025).
https://courts.delaware.gov/opinions/
S-114. Superior Court of the State of Delaware in and for New Castle County, Case Parties docket sheet, taxpayer action filed July 27, 2026 (Boese, Graham, Graham, Hahn, and Mooney v. Diamond State Port Corp.; attorney identification 002243; recusal of Judge Sean Lugg granted July 30, 2026; reassigned to Judge Sheldon K. Rennie).
https://courtconnect.courts.delaware.gov/
C. Docket Retrieval Systems
S-115. Free Law Project. (2026). CourtListener and the RECAP Archive. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://www.courtlistener.com/
S-116. United States Courts. (2026). Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER). Retrieved August 4, 2026.
X. Opposition Research Compilations
S-117. Deep Dive Public Research. (2024, May). County Executive Matt Meyer, candidate for Governor of Delaware [Research memorandum, 107 pp.]. Marisa Burrill Nickols, Research Consultant and Principal.
No public URL. Document held in the Truthline file.
S-118. Matt Meyer research report [Research book, 594 pp.]. (n.d.). Compiled for the 2024 Delaware gubernatorial primary.
No public URL. Document held in the Truthline file.
XI. Port, Maritime, and Trade Record
S-119. Delaware State Parks. (2026). Summit North Marina concession page. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://www.destateparks.com/summit-north-marina/
S-120. Diamond State Port Corporation. (2021). Federal consistency certification, Delaware Coastal Management Program, project reference 2021_0013 (berth maintenance dredging, 75,000 cubic yards annually for 10 years).
https://dnrec.alpha.delaware.gov/coastal-programs/federal-consistency/
S-121. Diamond State Port Corporation. (2025). Resolution 25-03, January 10, 2025 (authorizing purchase of 1.91 acres at 701 Christiana Avenue for $2,850,000).
https://port.delaware.gov/diamond-state-port-corporation-board-documents/
S-122. Diamond State Port Corporation. (2025-2026). Board of directors meeting minutes of June 23, July 28, and September 30, 2025, and resolutions 25-06 and 26-01 on the Pigeon Point option.
https://port.delaware.gov/diamond-state-port-corporation-board-documents/
S-123. Diamond State Port Corporation. (2025-2026). Board of directors meeting presentations, August 2025 through July 2026, including the February 2, March 23, April 20, and May 22, 2026 presentations and the July 15, 2026 presentation at page 9.
https://port.delaware.gov/board-of-directors-meetings/
S-124. Diamond State Port Corporation. (2026). Home page, carrying vessel and tonnage figures. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
S-125. Diamond State Port Corporation. (2026, July 15). Board meeting presentation [Direct file].
S-126. Enstructure Wilmington. (2023, September 25). Fresh fruit [Web page, last modified].
https://portwilmington.com/fresh-fruit/
S-127. Enstructure Wilmington. (2026, June 3). Auto and RORO [Web page, last modified].
https://portwilmington.com/auto-roro/
S-128. Maritime Exchange for the Delaware River and Bay. (2026). Maritime On-Line ship reporting. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://www.maritimedelriv.com/mol/
S-129. PhilaPort. (2025, January 22). PhilaPort marks historic milestones with major infrastructure developments and record volumes.
S-130. PhilaPort. (2026, January 13). PhilaPort closes 2025 with record container volume leading U.S. East Coast growth.
S-131. Port of Wilmington. (2026). Tariff No. 1J, § 11.2, filed under 46 U.S.C. § 40501(f).
S-132. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Waterborne Commerce Statistics Center. (2026). Waterborne commerce of the United States, part 1: waterways and harbors, Atlantic coast. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://ndc.ops.usace.army.mil/wcsc/webpub/
S-133. U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. (2026). U.S. waterborne freight and port performance freight statistics. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://www.bts.gov/content/us-waterborne-freight
S-134. U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (2012-2025). Vessel manifest records, port of Wilmington, Delaware, port code 1103, and consignee records for Chiquita Fresh North America. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://www.importinfo.com/port/wilmington-delaware/1103
S-135. U.S. National Ice Center. (2026, February 9). Ice analysis, Delaware and Christina Rivers.
XII. The Report Itself
S-136. Hartley-Nagle, K. (2026, August 8). Everyone in the fight paid the man who would decide it: All wrote checks to Matt Meyer's campaign for Governor [Investigative report]. The Truthline Network.
https://www.karenhartleynagle.com/everyone-in-the-fight-paid
XIII. State and County Expenditure, Property and Corporate Records
S-137. Delaware Council on Development Finance. (2022, March 28). Council on Development Finance approves eight Site Readiness Fund projects totaling $6.2 million, including $1,000,000 to Drawbridge Claymont for development of an industrial site on 58 acres at 6300 Philadelphia Pike, Claymont, Delaware, for demolition and engineering services. State of Delaware.
S-138. Delaware Division of Corporations. (2026). Entity records for Chesapeake and Delaware Dredging LLC, Pristine Yacht Services LLC, Summit North Dredging LLC, Summit North Marina LLC, and Summit Point LLC. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://icis.corp.delaware.gov/
S-139. Delaware Division of Small Business. (2026). Site Readiness Fund, established by Senate Bill 127 [Program page]. Retrieved August 11, 2026.
https://business.delaware.gov/site-readiness-fund/
S-140. New Castle County. (2026). Land use and development records for the Interstate 495 Exit 4 corridor: Edgemoor Road, Lighthouse Road and Hay Road. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://www.newcastlede.gov/210/Land-Use
S-141. New Castle County. (2026). Open Checkbook. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://checkbook.newcastlede.gov
S-142. New Castle County. (2026). Open finance platform. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://newcastle.finance.socrata.com
S-143. New Castle County Office of Law. (2018-2026). Monthly reports of outside counsel expenditures (partial set; a small number of monthly reports were obtained and reviewed).
https://www.newcastlede.gov/280/Law
S-144. New Castle County Recorder of Deeds. (2017, October 25). Instrument recording the conveyance of 801 Boxwood Road, Wilmington, Delaware, 142 acres, from Wanxiang America Inc. to Boxwood Industrial Park LLC.
https://www.nccde.org/1088/Recorder-of-Deeds
S-145. New Castle County Recorder of Deeds. (2025). Recorded instruments for tax parcel 26-066.00-001, 701 Christiana Avenue, Wilmington, Delaware, 1.91 acres. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://www.nccde.org/1088/Recorder-of-Deeds
S-146. State of Delaware. (2026). State of Delaware checkbook [Data set, 5s6n-7hpx], current through June 29, 2026. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://data.delaware.gov/Government-Finance/State-of-Delaware-Checkbook/5s6n-7hpx
XIV. State Fiscal, Budget, and Audit Records
S-147. CliftonLarsonAllen LLP. (2025, December 22). Independent auditors' report. In State of Delaware, Annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025 (disclaimer of opinion on business-type activities and the unemployment fund; Diamond State Port Corporation audited by other auditors).
https://accountingfiles.delaware.gov/docs/2025acfr.pdf
S-148. Delaware Division of Accounting. (2026). Annual comprehensive financial reports. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://accounting.delaware.gov/reports-transparency/annual-comprehensive-financial-reports
S-149. Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council. (2025, October 21). Minutes of the October 20, 2025 meeting, with tables 1a, 1b, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
https://financefiles.delaware.gov/DEFAC/12-25/Minutes_10.20.25_FINAL.pdf
S-150. Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council. (2025, December 16). Minutes of the December 15, 2025 meeting.
https://financefiles.delaware.gov/DEFAC/minutes/Minutes_12.2025_FINAL.pdf
S-151. Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council. (2026, March 24). Minutes of the March 16, 2026 meeting.
https://financefiles.delaware.gov/DEFAC/minutes/Minutes_03.2026_FINAL.pdf
S-152. Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council. (2026, May 27). Minutes of the May 18, 2026 meeting, with the attached public comment of Rick Geisenberger.
https://financefiles.delaware.gov/DEFAC/minutes/Minutes_05_2026_FINAL.pdf
S-153. Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council. (2026, June 12). Balance and appropriations worksheet and general fund revenue worksheet, fiscal years 2026-2028, prepared for the June 15, 2026 meeting (no minutes published as of August 4, 2026).
https://financefiles.delaware.gov/DEFAC/06_26/
S-154. Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council. (2026). Revenue forecast index. Retrieved August 4, 2026.
https://finance.delaware.gov/financial-reports/defac-revenue-forecast/
S-155. Delaware Office of Management and Budget. (2026). Fiscal year 2027 operating budget financial summary (identifying unclaimed property as the State's third-largest revenue source).
https://budget.delaware.gov/budget/fy2027/documents/operating/financial-summary.pdf
S-156. Delaware unclaimed property legislative task force. (2014-2015). Task force record, chaired by Michael Houghton.
https://legis.delaware.gov/TaskForceDetail?taskForceId=82
S-157. Smith, M. R., Secretary of Finance. (2026, June 23). Monthly financial report for the month ending May 31, 2026, transmitted to the Governor and the members of the 153rd General Assembly, exhibit A-1.
https://finance.delaware.gov/financial-reports/monthly-financial-report/
S-158. Smith, M. R., Secretary of Finance. (2026, July 29). Monthly financial report for the month ending June 30, 2026, statement of general fund receipts and refund disbursements by major category.
https://finance.delaware.gov/financial-reports/monthly-financial-report/
STANDING EXCEPTION. The archived August 25, 2016 New Castle County executive candidate forum is the sole surviving record of the three different port deals statement and of the Gordon exchange. It is cited by name in the body text and in the source list of the Port Master File and of Three Port Deals: Name One, and it is not stripped from any deliverable built from them.
https://portwilmington.com/fresh-fruit/
Attribution:
Content and analysis © 2025 The Truthline Network, a division of Nexus Innovation Group LLC.
All content authored by Karen Hartley-Nagle, Founder & Publisher, The Truthline Network; Editor-in-Chief, Host & Executive Producer, The Truthline (Radio & Live); Former President, New Castle County Council (2016–2024); Founder & CEO, Nexus Innovation Group, LLC.
Excerpts, data, or quotations may be reproduced for noncommercial use with attribution to The Truthline Network and a direct link to the original report. Commercial use or republication requires written permission.
Cite as:
Hartley-Nagle, K. (2026, August 8). Everyone in the Fight Paid the Man Who Would Decide It: The Truthline Network. https://www.karenhartleynagle.com/everyone-in-the-fight-paid
Read full documents: The Evidence File → Sources above
“Transparency isn’t charity. It’s the rent you pay for power”
Read The New Castle County Tax Reckoning Series:
PART I | PART II | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chaper 5
Read The Audit Reckoning Series:
Report 1 | Report 2 | Report 3 | Report 4 | Coming Soon: Report 5 & Report 6
THE TRUTHLINE NETWORK
“Truth doesn't whisper. It breaks through.”
In 2001, James P. Hoffa, General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and son of Jimmy Hoffa, reached down into Local 326 in Delaware and admonished one business agent for misrepresentation and misuse of union money. That business agent was George Smiley. The International's Executive Committee found him guilty of misrepresentation on appeal. Smiley paid the money back and lost his union post.
Michael J. Ciabattoni, a former president of Local 326, said it on the record to The News Journal in 2004: "If you want to say we had a vendetta because he was a crook, he's correct. I don't like thieves."
The Teamsters told the newspaper George Smiley was unworthy of their endorsement. Their own local endorsed his opponent. New Castle County elected George Smiley anyway.
Today Councilman George Smiley co-chairs the Finance Committee of New Castle County Council, the committee that watches the county's money.
Twenty-two years after James P. Hoffa admonished him, the United States Tax Court described how developer Nicholas Ferrara Jr. brought a rezoning to Councilman George Smiley in 2006, and how by March 2007 Councilman Smiley was in favor. Six years later, 58 acres beside the New Castle County Airport, appraised at $6,900,000 as industrial land, sold for $11,100,000, rezoned as commercial. $4,200,000 of that went to the developer's partnership for the political work.
Before he was a councilman, George Smiley was a business agent at that union hall. When members called on a Friday looking for him, staff were told to say he was out on union business. He was on his boat. The boat was named Union Business.
The rezoning that followed carries three signatures, and two of the people who signed it now run the State of Delaware.
The Tax Court was deciding a tax bill. Nobody put Councilman George Smiley's conduct before it. That question has never been asked by anyone with the power to answer it.
And there's the MORE we haven't named.
“The headlines wrote themselves.”
