Sunday, March 18, 2018

Guest Contributor Bill Dilks: Felician Sisters Orphanage Property

24th District Candidate Bill Dilks
As a businessman and project manager, accountability is mine, success or fail. There is no such thing as "It wasn't my fault." It’s not always fair, but that's just the way life is. Failure is not an option! The epic fail of this entire RT4 Orphanage fiasco lies on the shoulders of our state representative, Mr. Ed Osienski.

In 2015, the Felician Sisters had been "engaged with State/County officials for more than 2 years” (since 2013.) What happened between 2013 and 2015? Mr. Osienski did not stay on top of this. The result is a huge tragedy for open space along the RT4 community corridor.  Two simple things needed to be done.

First, get the property down-zone approval for just the Felician Sisters units.  "...some members of County Council began expressing opposition to our request”. So Mr. Osienski said the rezoning approach would not have worked. He was defeated without even trying. (I’m sure we’ll hear in detail the excuses on how naive this approach is and how this could have never gotten done. Yet, the failure still remains.)

Second, Mr. Osienski stated he got state funding to help purchase the land. Yet he only got partial state funding. And the Sisters saw through this obfuscation. More balls were dropped here than by Tom Brady in the Superbowl.

Mr. Osienski waited from 2013 until crunch time of July 2017 before even attempting to secure State funding for public acquisition.  So after 4 years of equivocation, the Sisters gave up due to the inertia of Mr. Osienski. The zoning wasn't going to change. Mr. Osienski had only half of the promised funds. So the Sisters had no choice but to push the button to get their project moving forward with the high-density zoning in place.

It is a complex issue, too complex for Mr. Osienski to handle. I would have been in constant contact with the Sisters, coordinating, coercing, passionately pushing and driving everyone, the county executive and council members, colleagues in Dover, and the Governor, rallying the citizenry, anyone and everyone. I would have been constantly updating the residents from the beginning, going back to 2013. Ongoing meetings would’ve been scheduled specifically for this, for years if need be. I would have wrapped my arms around the entire project from the get-go, and gotten the job done. Yet, I’m sure again we’ll hear excuses of how “it doesn’t work that way”, from a man who we now know was in over his head.

Mr Osienski handles the day-to-day interests for our district, as the job calls for. It’s the heavy lifting that is beyond his grasp. We need someone in place who supports the community each day, and who has the background and drive to manage the big ticket items.

Open land, and protecting our environment and coastline should not suffer due to the inept handling by our representatives. These initiatives are just too important.

The end result? Epic fail. Did Mr. Osienski drop the ball?  He never picked it up in the first place.

Bill Dilks is running for State Representative for the 24th District. Visit his webpage.


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NOTE - The Ogletown Resilience Blog is non-partisan, and as such, we are willing to consider the views and contributions of all citizens who share our concerns for the Environment, regardless of their Political Party affiliation. 

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