“Tomorrow’s vote isn’t about efficiency — it’s about control. R25-149 takes power from you and gives it to insiders.”​

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R25-149 looks like efficiency, but it’s really a shortcut to silence. Tomorrow, Council will vote on whether sponsors can cut off the full reading of ordinances and declare them “introduced” with nothing more than a partial title and a majority vote. That means controversial bills can be slipped onto the agenda with little notice, the Council President stripped of the authority to safeguard the process, and residents left in the dark until it’s too late. This isn’t streamlining — it’s sidelining. And the people who lose are the very ones who should matter most: the taxpayers of New Castle County.

“When rezoning can happen anytime, residents lose every time.”​​​

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​R25-127 is sold as a routine “update,” but it’s really a power shift that takes predictability away from residents and hands flexibility to developers. For decades, rezonings were on a tri-annual calendar, giving families and civic groups time to prepare, organize, and speak up. This change scraps that guardrail. Now rezonings can be pushed through at any time, timed for political convenience or when neighborhoods are least able to fight back. The Council President loses control of the calendar, residents lose their footing, and developers gain the upper hand in the inside game of land use.

Two “procedural” votes that rewired rezonings—and why families,

not insiders, will pay​

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Update: R25-249 & R25-127

Passed Unanimously 13-0

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Blackout Governance​​

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Stealth rule changes put rezonings on fast-forward—families pay

while insiders sprint

​​In one Tuesday-night blur, Council turned a mid-sentence motion into a “formal introduction” and erased the February/June/October rezoning calendar—the public’s only reliable warning. That’s not reform; it’s a playbook: shrink notice, dodge scrutiny, and run the clock for lobbyists while neighborhoods arrive after the buzzer. We know how this ends—traffic that steals your time, stormwater that finds your basement, classrooms without seats, and costs that quietly land on your bill. This isn’t housekeeping; it’s governance by ambush. Fix it now: restore the rezoning calendar, kill the mid-title trick, and publish plain-English roll calls so people can see what’s being done in their name—before it’s done to their street.

Coming Soon