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Town Square LIVE Weekly Review: March 4, 2021

Sara Pletcher March 4, 2021 Town Square Live, Weekly Review

Town Square LIVE Weekly Review:
March 4, 2021

Open the Weekly Review Here
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This Week’s Top Headlines Include:

Community

They’re baaaackkkkkk. Cicada onslaught is on its way this spring

Nnanna Njoku embracing lead role for No. 1-ranked Sanford heading into tournament 

Three takeaways on achieving Black excellence, influencing Wilmington’s future 

Government

Legislature returns Tuesday, will keep virtual format 

In record time: DNREC sells out of surf fishing tags 

Health

Here’s where to be tested week of March 1  

Take whatever vaccine you are offered, state health officials emphasize 

State expects shipment of one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, maybe by week’s end

Food & Dining

New program allows people to dine out, help raise money for Do More 24 campaign

Booth House Tavern to return to Historic New Castle 

Education

Appoquinimink warms to later start for middle, high schools 

UD ramps up restrictions designed keep COVID cases from continuing to climb

Sports

Blue Coats make first playoff berth

Wilmington Christian girls move on in tourney by beating Sussex Tech, 57-47

RELATED STORIES:

Town Square LIVE Weekly Review – September 9, 2021
Town Square LIVE Weekly Review: March 11, 2021
Town Square LIVE Weekly Review – June 23, 2022
Town Square LIVE Weekly Review – Feb. 24, 2022
Sara Pletcher
Sara Pletcher

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  • State to invest $110 million in expanding broadband ‘the last mile’
    a group of people standing in a room

    Sussex County legislators gather to look at broadband maps. Clockwise from top, Sen. Brian Pettyjohn, Rep. Jesse Vanderwende, Rep. Ruth Briggs King, Rep. Charlie Postles and Sen. Dave Wilson.   COVID-19 funds will pay for a $110 million Delaware investment aimed at guaranteeing high-speed broadband internet access for every home and business in the state.  The expansion project, announced Thursday by Delaware lawmakers in Bridgeville, will be paid for using funds allocated by the American Rescue Plan Act. Delaware received nearly $1 billion from the federal stimulus package. Gov. John Carney said that the “digital divide” became especially apparent during the pandemic.  “One of the things that we have learned over the last year and a half is something that we already knew, which is increasingly, broadband internet access is important to our families, our students and our businesses,” Carney said. “We have deserts across our state, particularly here in Sussex County.” Carney said that because internet access has become so integral to modern life, he decided to make the $110 million project his first major announcement relating to ARP funds.  Currently, about 11,600 Delaware homes and businesses lack access to high-speed broadband service. Delaware had 443,195 homes, as of 2019. The broadband infrastructure project will target investments to areas currently unserved or underserved and will prioritize projects that achieve “last mile” connections to households and businesses. State Sen. Brian Pettyjohn, R-Georgetown, whose district includes many areas identified as high-speed internet deserts, said the issue was one he became passionate about long before he joined the General Assembly. “In high density areas it’s pretty simple,” Pettyjohn said. “In a mile, you can get a lot of customers, but here in Sussex County, a mile might get you two people.” Pettyjohn compared the investment to the Hill-Poage Act of 1949, which authorized the federal government to expand telephone access to rural areas.  “Now we’re seeing that with this next utility — the utility of the 21st century — and that’s broadband,” Pettyjohn said.  Pettyjohn said later that money will be allocated in the form of grants to internet service providers to put in lines. Some money also will go to low-income families to connect to the service. “If you have a line but you don’t get to the last mile, it’s no good,” said Congresswoman Lisa Blunt-Rochester. “If you have one to the last mile, but a kid doesn’t have a laptop, it’s no good.” Blunt-Rochester said the ARP funds have presented Delaware with a “once in a generation opportunity.” For her, access to high-speed internet is a matter of equity. “All of us — Democrats, Republicans, independents, black, white — whatever you are, wherever you come from, we are connected,” Blunt-Rochester said. “To me, broadband is part of that connection.” In rural areas, high-speed internet access has uses that urbanites might not consider.  Farmers rely on the internet to conduct their business too, explained Rep. Jesse Vanderwende, R-Bridgeville.  “As a business person on the agriculture side of things, I can pull out my cell phone, and I can check on my poultry houses, I can monitor where the harvesters are in the field as we speak and I can also look at my irrigation systems to make all that technology come together be profitable for us as a family, as a business and as an industry,” Vanderwende said.  Vanderwende said rural communities like the one he represents “need this last piece to happen.” Rep. Ruth Briggs King, R-Georgetown, said the pandemic emphasized the need for high-speed internet personally. When the General Assembly began to conduct the state’s business virtually, Briggs King realized her house wasn’t equipped with internet fast enough to participate.  “I had to go into another office to be able to do that because of the lack of speed and the bandwidth I needed,” Briggs King said. “That was like many other people trying to work from home and trying to bring their kids’ schoolwork into the house.” She said access to the internet must not be considered a luxury, like cable TV used to be, but a necessity. During the pandemic, “we saw many people come to their resort homes or second homes in Sussex County, because they were able to work at their business in DC, New York, New Jersey, or wherever,” Briggs King said. “And we had the same thing for many of our local people who work out of the area.” “It’s a global economy,” Briggs King said. “Every Delawarean should be able to participate in it.”  

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  • Medical aid in dying bill narrowly advances to House floor

    A bill to allow mentally competent adult patients with terminal illnesses to request a prescription for life-ending medications was narrowly released from the House Health and Human Development Committee Tuesday.  The practice is often referred to by supporters as “right to die” or “death with dignity” and by opponents as “physician-assisted suicide.”  “Medical aid in dying” is a neutral term to describe the practice. House Bill 140’s sponsor, Rep. Paul Baumbach, D-Newark, said that at the bill’s core, it aims to do one thing: provide “one additional end of life option for mentally capable adults with a terminal disease with a wall of protections to ensure that it is only available for mentally capable adults with a terminal disease.” Opponents argued during a press conference Tuesday and during the committee meeting’s public comment portion Wednesday that aid in dying legislation violates the Hippocratic oath to do no harm, devalues the sanctity of life and deprioritizes investment in life-sustaining treatment for terminal patients. Some referred to the practice as euthanasia.  Medical aid in dying is legal in 10 states and 1 territory, including Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont, California, Colorado, Hawaii, New Jersey, Maine, New Mexico and the District of Columbia. Terri Hancharick, chairperson for the State Council for Persons with Disabilities, said during the press conference that end-of-life options should focus on supporting people where they are, rather than giving them the option of dying. “Give them the option of living. Give them the option of support. Help them to live their best lives,” Hancharick said. “Instead of institutionalizing death for the disability community, Delaware legislators should focus on ensuring that everyone has the care and resources that they need.” But Dr. Christopher Riddle, professor of philosophy and director of the Applied Ethics Institute at Utica College, argued that supporting a terminal patient’s right to live and offering them the option to end their suffering are not mutually exclusive. “What these people, these opponents are ultimately going to say is that ‘gosh, that sounds a lot like a lack of adequate services to support many people — many people with disability.’ And the sort of tagline has become ‘people with disabilities need support to live, not to die,’” Riddle said. “Here I want to suggest that there’s a good deal of truth in that, that ultimately, yes, we are failing people with disabilities in many, many ways,” he said. “I fear that people who make these objections make a false dichotomy — they suggest it’s either medical aid in dying or supporting people with disabilities to flourish.”  Dozens of public commenters shared their stories of caring for loved ones in their final days and weeks of life.  Some said their loved ones fought through their illnesses and lived for years — proof for them that there always remains hope and suicide should never be an option.  Others talked about the agony their loved ones felt in those last days — the excruciating pain they endured, despite knowing that the end was imminent. For those, the only humane option, they said, would be to give their loved ones the autonomy to end their lives on their own terms.  Then there is the religious argument. Many said that medical aid in dying, which they compared to the issue of abortion, violates the sanctity of life.  The Catholic Church is vehemently opposed to the practice. The Vatican in 2020 issued a statement with Pope Francis’ endorsement that called aid in dying an “intrinsically evil” act and said “euthanasia is a crime” and a “grave sin.” Many representatives conveyed that their constituents, too, overwhelmingly oppose the measure.  “Without a doubt, 20 to 1 in my district are opposed to this, as they have been in the past,” said Rep. Ruth Briggs King, R-Millsboro.  She told the committee about her father who was diagnosed with lung cancer and how at one point, he was given 18 months to live. He lived for 18 years, she said, suggesting that had aid in dying been an option, he could have been robbed of nearly two decades.  Ultimately, Briggs King said, “It’s not necessarily about my choices or my personal experiences. It’s about representing the needs of those who have elected me — and wholeheartedly, they do not support this legislation.” Many other legislators took time to ask about what the law would mean for the insurance industry, what obligations medical providers would have under the law, and what punishments might be imposed should a doctor violate or abuse the law.  Doctors, for example, would never be allowed to encourage medical aid in dying over continued life-sustaining treatment.  Some said they fear insurance companies might try to encourage the practice to avoid costly medical bills that might be associated with continued care. Expert witnesses assured the committee that in the 10 states and one territory where it’s legal, no evidence has shown that insurance companies have denied coverage, either for patients who choose to die or for those who choose to continue treatment.  Eight members ultimately voted to release the bill from the committee and seven voted against. It will now advance to the full House of Representatives for consideration. If passed in the House, it will go before a Senate Committee for review. If released from that committee, it will be debated by the full Senate, and if passed there, will go before Gov. John Carney for his signature.

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  • Talk of raising minimum wage worries restaurants still reeling from COVID-19
    Workers -- pre-COVID -- in the kitchen of El Camino Mexican Restaurant in Wilmington.

        Restaurateurs are listening with great alarm to state and national talk about raising minimum wage to $15 an hour. Carl Georigi, CEO of the Platinum Dining Group, says that raising minimum wage from $9.25 an hour to $11 by next year — the first hike a state bill proposes on the way to $15 by 2026 —  would cost his six New Castle County restaurants millions. Ryan German, who owns Caffe Gelato in Newark, says he fears it will keep high school and college age workers from getting jobs in the industry, partly because they generally are starting first jobs with no skills. Scott Kammerer, president of Sodel Concepts, which owns 12 restaurants in Sussex County, and is chairman of the board of the Delaware Restaurant Association, says a higher minimum wage would force mom and pop restaurants to hire fewer people, shorten operating hours or even go out of business. Larger ones could be forced to consider reducing benefits. The timing couldn’t be worse to ask restaurants to raise minimum wage, Georigi says.   “You’re asking an industry that has been decimated and lost over $1 billion in revenue to now navigate through increased minimum wage at a time when we are our most vulnerable,” Georigi says, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s a huge concern, to say the least.” A proposed bill to raise minimum wage to $15 an hour has been floating among Delaware legislators for nearly two months. It’s not a new idea and has been shot down before. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Jack Walsh, D-Stanton, would raise minimum wage in increments to $15 by 2026. It would start with a hike from Delaware’s current minimum wage of $9.25 to $11 on Jan. 1, 2022. An extra dollar would be added each January until 2026. Raising minimum wage has long been a plank in Democratic election platforms nationwide, including President Joe Biden’s.  They believe it will help raise people out of poverty and economic straits.  Biden announced last week that he would seek a federal minimum wage hike “to at least $15 an hour” as part of a $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid package. On Friday, his office said he was signing an executive order to start the process to require federal contractors to pay all employees at least $15.      Walsh, who is head of the Senate Labor Committee, said it was “too early to really know what would happen at the federal level” when asked how Biden’s moves would affect his bill. The bill draft that was circulated last year included a clause specifying that if a federal minimum wage was established that’s higher than Delaware’s, the First State’s minimum wage immediately would be raised to match that. Biden’s move to set a rate that contractors must pay is not the same as raising federal  minimum wage, which would require legislation, said Anthony Delcollo, a former state representative who is now the Delaware Senate Republican attorney. The new rule would be just another requirement, such as the ones that prohibit discrimination.  Requiring higher pay for contracts would, however, provide a push toward a higher minimum wage, Delcollo said. Walsh has said that he floated the bill early to start conversations. A week ago, he texted that he’s still working with all advocates on the final language for the bill.    Carrie Leishman, president of the Delaware Restaurant Association, said state restaurants will fight any minimum wage hike. Restaurants are still 20 percent below the number of employees they had a year ago, she said.  She pointed out that the state three times has offered grants and other financial assistance to restaurants, which were closed in March as the pandemic hit. They were allowed to open with restrictions on how many people they could serve inside. Those numbers were raised, then cut as COVID-19 cases rose and then the state imposed a curfew through the holidays that’s just been lifted. “We are in a time when restaurants have no profits,” Leishman said. “We need legislation that helps put people back to work. That should be the priority of the legislature.” Delaware isn’t the only state where minimum wage is a topic. New York and California raised minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2016. Other states have followed suit, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey and even Florida, which voted for a $15 minimum wage the same day it chose Donald Trump for president.   German said a “cookie cutter” $15 minimum wage can’t be fairly applied across all regions, industries and jobs. “$15 an hour in Seattle, Washington, or Washington, D.C., or New York is certainly different than $15 an hour in Delaware and certainly different than $15 an hour in parts of Alabama, Mississippi and West Virginia,” he said. If minimum wage is raised, German said, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to follow through with plans for a summer initiative to hire high school students to help them get some experience and a notch on their resumes. He’d hoped to do it last year, but the program was whacked by COVID-19. “Personally for me in our restaurant, if the starting wage is $15, I think we have to look for more experienced, very reliable individuals who we know can produce at that $15 an hour rate,” German said. The restaurant owners said they worry about the unintended consequences of a $15 minimum wage. Many have workers who will not accept extra hours because they said the extra cash could cause them to lose state benefits such as food, childcare and healthcare programs.    The extra pay through overtime and extra hours aren’t enough to pay for those things themselves, the restaurateurs say they are told by employees.  Many wondered how much a $15 an hour wage hike would help. The Congressional Budget office has said raising minimum wage to $15 would raise the incomes of about 17 million people, pulling 1.3 million Americans out of poverty. Another […]

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  • Delaware’s vaccine goal in June: Adding 17,000 more people
    Covid breakdown

        Delaware wants to vaccinate 17,000 people between now and July 4 to meet the goal President Joe Biden has set to have 70% of the population vaccinated by the Fourth of July. Gov. John Carney says that means the state needs to vaccinate about 5,000 people a week for the next month. “And celebrate Independence Day like no other,” Carney said during his weekly COVID-19 press conference Tuesday. This goal comes with a challenge, as the state has seen a drop in the demand for the vaccine in recent weeks.  Nearly one million vaccines have been administered through the state of Delaware and the state released a new data set showing the percentages vaccinated in each age group. Those ages 65 and older, who are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19 related complications, have reached a 90% vaccination rate of at least one dose. Those 18-34 have the lowest adult rate of vaccination inI the state.  In order to encourage people to be vaccinated, state has started awarding prizes for those who have gotten vaccinated and is seeking partnerships with small businesses, creating discounts and benefits for those with vaccination cards.  The first drawing for the vaccination incentive program, dubbed DE Wins! was held on May 31 at the Delaware Lottery. One $5,000 cash prize was awarded along with a two yearlong Delaware state park passes and a Wilmington Blue rocks Luxury suite pack.  The winner hasn’t been announced. The state has given each vaccinated person a number, and the lottery uses those numbers to pull winners. The numbers are then sent to the state Division of Public Health, where the winners are located. They have the option of not revealing who they are, just like lottery winners do. The next raffle will be held on June 4, and during that one Firefly passes and camping accommodations will be awarded. To be eligible for that one, Delawareans must be vaccinated before June 3.  The final prize drawing will be June 30, when $302,000 will be awarded to one winner and two 3-digit license plates will be awarded. Everyone in the state who had a vaccine will be eligible for that drawing. With the loss of the Dover Speedway as a location for vaccinations and declining demand for the big event, the state has changed its approach to making vaccines available. It’s now targeting smaller areas. The Curative vaccine clinic stationed at the Dover DelTech campus will be traveling to a different place each day starting June 8.  On Tuesdays Curative will be at Delaware State University.  On Wednesdays, On Wednesday Curative will be on Newarks Main Street offering vaccines to diners during Alfresco night.  A Thursday location hasn’t been decided. On Fridays Curative will be back at Del Tech Dover campus under the solar panels in the parking lot.  On Saturdays Curative will be at the Milford Farmers Market on South Walnut Street, There also will be a state-run vaccination event at the Starboard in Dewey Beach on Saturday, June 5 between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. One of the things the state is trying to do is to combat myths and so encourage people who might be afraid of taking a vaccine to get a shot. Dr. Karyl Rattay, director of the Division of Public Health, addressed during the press release in a Myth vs. Facts segment during Tuesday’s show. No 1: Myth – The vaccine will alter my DNA. Fact – None of the vaccines interact with you DNA, so it cannot alter it.  No. 2: Myth – The vaccine injects you with a microchip. Fact- The vaccines contain things such as salts and fats along with other chemicals, but no chemicals or tracking devices. Full ingredients list for each of the vaccines can be found here. No. 3: Myth – The vaccine will affect my chance of getting pregnant. Fact – There is no evidence that loss of fertility is a side effect of the COVID-19 vaccines. In fact, thousands of women have gotten the vaccine have also gotten pregnant. Rattay said that the vaccine also has no effect on children’s development or the process of puberty.        

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  • Delaware Symphony Orchestra’s January concert postponed

    The Delaware Symphony Orchestra’s January concert will now take place sometime in June. Photo courtesy of Delaware Symphony Orchestra. Citing a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases and concerns surrounding the omicron variant, the Delaware Symphony Orchestra has postponed its Jan. 21, 2022 concert featuring pianist Lara Downes until an undetermined date in June.  “With the enormous rise in infection rates in the region, even among the fully vaccinated, we have made the unfortunate decision to postpone our January concert,” said J.C. Barker, executive director of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra. “This was a difficult choice, but one that we feel is necessary to ensure the health and safety of our musicians and patrons.” The concert, which will feature the music of American composer George Gershwin and Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, will now serve as the orchestra’s season finale.  The Delaware Symphony’s 2022 Classics Series will now debut with their concert “Dance!” scheduled for February 11, 2022, with featured soloist David Krauss, principal trumpet of The Metropolitan Opera. “The Delaware Symphony remains committed to bringing the joy of live performances back to our audiences,” said David J. Kubacki, the orchestra’s board president. “But we feel it the responsible choice to wait a bit longer to gather again. We hope everyone stays safe and look forward to seeing you soon.” While an exact date for the rescheduled concert will not be announced until sometime in the early new year, it is expected to take place at some point in June, the group said.  If you hold tickets for this concert, no immediate action is needed. All ticket holders will be contacted directly with more information. For more information about the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, visit delawaresymphony.org.  

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