With the help of a generous Court of Common Pleas judge and a good attorney, 38 year old former Sussex Central High School principal, Dana Goodman, is free on bail.  Judge Rosemary Beauregard reduced Goodman’s bond from $331,000 to $125,000 dollars, which he was able to post Thursday. 

 He has been ordered to have no contact with the 17 year old victim,  the Indian River School District or its employees and no contact - direct or indirect - with any children under the age of 18.  Goodman is charged with 30 counts of 4th degree rape and continual sexual abuse of a child and endangering the welfare of a child.  All are felony offenses.

On Goodman’s release the school district has this comment:

Statement concerning the posting of bond by Sussex Central High School Principal Dana Goodman: 

“Mr. Goodman continues to be prohibited from having any contact with Indian River School District students or staff while his case is being adjudicated. The Indian River Board of Education has directed administrative staff to advertise the position of principal of Sussex Central High School, identify qualified applicants to be interviewed by the board and conduct background checks on all such applicants consistent with IRSD procedures.”                                               

                                Susan Bunting, SuperintendentMay 9, 2008

Earlier this week the Indian River School District appointed former IR and Woodbridge School District teacher and administrator, Robert Powell, as the interim principal at Sussex Central High School for the remainder of the school year.  Also Assistant IR Superintendent Gary Brittingham has been assigned to the school for the rest of the school year. 

The school district has now announced a special meeting for parents and members of the community regarding Sussex Central High School: 

Not that you would know it from any of the other news coverage out there, but Noe Gonzalo Mendez-Perez, the deceased driver of the Chevy Surburban that was involved in a horrific crash Saturday night at the intersection of Route 9 and Route 30 in Georgetown, was here illegally. Also, Apoliar Gutierrez Santico, the man who fled the scene, was here illegally. From WGMD News:

State police have charged a Laurel man with leaving the scene of the five-vehicle accident near Georgetown that killed four people. Police say 38-year-old Apoliar Gutierrez-Santico surrendered to police Monday morning. Other charges against him include driving without a license and failure to have proof of insurance. Police say he was driving a car that was struck during the chain reaction crash. The crash happened Saturday night at the intersection of Routes 9 and 30. Three of those killed were inside an SUV that rear-ended a car, sending it into the car driven by Gutierrez-Santico. His car also struck another vehicle. The driver of the first car, 29-year-old Rolanda Ayers of Lewes, also died. The operator of the SUV has been identified as 30 year-old Noe Gonzalo Mendez-Perez of Georgetown. Both Gutierrez-Santico and Mendez-Perez were in the country illegally. LINK 

The two passengers of Mendez-Perez’s SUV have not been identified yet. They were burned beyond recognition. Everyone else involved in the crash was a citizen of the United States, including Rolanda Ayers of Lewes who was also killed.

According to Cpl. Wes Barnett of the Delaware State Police, the cause of the crash is still being investigated.

From all accounts to date, it appears that Mendez-Perez failed to stop at the intersection, hit the cars in front of him, and triggered the crash. Why? We don’t know. But this is where we need to really stop and understand why it’s so important that people who are in the United States are here legally.

What if Mendez-Perez simply had poor eyesight, something that would have been caught at the DMV, something that could have been corrected with glasses? What if he had a history of traffic problems, like maybe a string of DUIs? Maybe Mendez-Perez was someone who wouldn’t have qualified for a driver’s license in Delaware even if he was a citizen.

The situation is unacceptable.We need to have a population of people living under the same laws. We also need a population that goes through the same processes to get certain privileges, like a driver’s license. It’s that simple.

Is it true that a certain Recorder of Deeds is considering a run for Insurance Commissioner? From the looks of this:

I’d say yes….

Earlier today, WGMD News reported the story of three men arrested by the Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife for spotlighting deer:

Three men have been charged with spotlighting and killing deer in Fenwick Island. Fish and Wildlife Enforcement Agents arrested 28 year old Manuel Galvan, 32 year old Ariosto Lopez and 36 year old Javier Mendez on Wednesday after receiving a complaint about spotlighting. Each of the men face a variety of charges and officials also seized a truck and .22 caliber rifle as evidence. All three are being held at SCI in default of $3500 dollars secured bond.

Since then, and after making more phone calls than a teenager on a Friday night, WGMD has learned that the trio of deer poachers were in the United States illegally. Here’s what we know so far:

- The Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement had to make the determination as to whether or not the men were legally in the USA.

- The men are “Mexican nationals.” This was determined by ICE (much cooler name than “INS,” by the way), as the men sat at the Sussex Correctional Institution.

- Only one of the men had a driver’s license. The license was from Florida. Florida is one of the few states that will issue a driver’s license to an illegal immigrant. Big thanks to the Sunshine State for aiding a series of criminal acts with their slacker policy.

- The three were caught in Fenwick Island “spotlighting” deer, which is illegal. No one had a hunting license. They killed an antlerless deer that did not have a tag. Some of the other charges against them are shooting near a road, hunting out of season, and conspiracy. They were hunting with a .22 caliber rifle, which is also illegal.

- They were apparently not shooting from their truck, but they did throw the deer in the truck, and the truck has been seized.

- The .22 caliber rifle was the only weapon they were caught with. But that still begs the question as to how people in the USA and Delaware illegally got their hands on a rifle like that.

- The Delaware Fish and Wildlife officers were unable to communicate with the armed criminals because of a language barrier. They had to get an officer from Laurel to translate. What an incredibly dangerous situation for our men and women at Fish and Wildlife, fully armed people who can’t understand each other face to face in the middle of a crime scene.

- According to Michael Gilhooly from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the men may be entitled to a hearing, but when the State is finished with them, ICE will take them into custody and deport them, which is eerily similar to the way law abiding citizens of the United States want situations like this to be handled.

Dramatic reenactment of the deer’s final moments.

So “thank you” to Delaware Fish and Wildlife and ICE for administering some much needed justice. At a time when Delawareans are getting ready for a wave of regulations and financial costs associated with the State’s new Salt Water Fishing License, it’s nice to know that this is at least one area where being a lawful US citizen is an advantage. I’m sure that deer would totally agree with me.

Jared Morris and Dan Gaffney at the Best of Delaware celebration on July 19th in Dover.

Now you can hear WGMD Radio live on your computer. Just go HERE and click on the Listen Live button and you’ll soon be enjoying Sussex County’s number one talk radio station.

LIVE, INTERNATIONAL, AND LOVING IT!

This morning, News Journal readers were greeted with two articles about the “cancer cluster” that was “confirmed” by the Delaware Division of Public Health.  In an earlier, August 5th article, we learned that six areas in Sussex were “examined in the report.”  Those areas are ”Dagsboro, Frankford, Georgetown, Millsboro, Ocean View and Selbyville,” and the cancer rates in those areas were found to be “17 percent higher than the national average.” 

In one of today’s News Journal articles about the “cancer cluster” titled,  Frustrated eastern Sussex residents want answers,” Tom Burke, a “professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,” discusses some of the factors that may be involved in the higher than average cancer rates:

Sprawl has a measurable effect on air and water quality, said Tom Burke, professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. More houses mean more traffic, which contaminates the air, Burke said. When it rains on rooftops and blacktop, the water does not “percolate” through the soil, but instead sends oil and fertilizer directly into the lakes and streams, he said.

More houses mean more wells and more septic tanks, he noted. People are drinking from the same groundwater into which they send their waste, he said.             

“There’s this whole cascade of environmental effects,” Burke said. “You have this taxing of a system.”             

 

The Indian River power plant, owned by NRG Energy, is also cited,

 

The Indian River power plant started operation in the late 1950s, and was bought by NRG Energy in 2001. It is the state’s top source of toxic and smog-forming pollution. The state last year passed pollution-control rules that would reduce emissions from the plant, but NRG has said it won’t be able to meet the state’s goals for reducing those emissions by 2009.

In another article in today’s News Journal, titled, State hunts cancer clusters,” there is a disturbing subtitle, “More heavily populated northern Del. needs attention before Sussex, activists argue.”  And it continues:

Sussex community groups have called for the state to study NRG Energy’s Indian River power plant near Millsboro as a possible contributor. But some northern Delaware civic leaders say that the state’s environmental monitoring resources are already stretched thin and that the state ought to devote attention to areas of Wilmington and northern Delaware where an environmental risk has been established.

So, some people in New Castle County want to push Sussex under the rug because our “environmental risks” basically haven’t been studied enough.  Sussex countians were called “the squeaky wheel,” by one Wilmington “community leader.”

As it stands now, a wind farm has been approved by the Public Service Commission for Sussex County.  But currently, Delmarva Power and Light and Conectiv are fighting that clean source of energy, while NRG is fighting any clean up of their facility in Indian River. With new development cropping up all over the county, increased congestion on our roadways, more people tapping into our natural resources, and the State’s biggest polluter in our back yard,  SUSSEX COUNTIANS SHOULD BE “THE SQUEAKY WHEEL!”    

(The original post said this, “bush Sussex under the rug.” That was obviously some kind of a Freudian typo, sorry). 

Jose R. Garcia walked away from a work detail at the Sussex Community Correction Center. He’s still on the loose.

From the WGMD News Room:

A walk-away occurred recently in which a tier 2 sex offender-Jose Garcia of Georgetown was on work detail at the Sussex Community Correction Center—and then without anyone noticing until hours later—walked out in shackles. Apparently he stole a vehicle and is still on the loose. The media and public weren’t notified until the next week, and Commissioner of Corrections for the State of Delaware Carl Danberg– on WGMD’s The Randy Nelson Show—apologized saying that there are ways that communication to the public can be improved.

You can LISTEN to Commissioner of Corrections for the State of Delaware, Carl Danberg, apologize for his office endangering us all and giving this guy one heck of a head start HERE.

So why did it take until the next week to inform the public that Garcia was (and still is), on the loose? Well, because Danberg was out of the office:

Danberg explains that he was away on military leave, and that his staff was unable to reach him immediately. So they delayed instead of communicating that information to the public right away. Danberg says they have addressed the mistake that was made, and believes the problem has been fixed.

UPDATE: From WGMD News:

DOC spokesman, John Painter, tells WGMD’s Jared Morris Show that Garcia, who is also a Tier 2 sex offender, turned himself in without incident on Sunday. Garcia walked away from an on-site work detail at SCCC and allegedly stole a truck from a nearby residence. He is now being held at SCI.

The Positive Growth Alliance had its “Quality of Life” Awards tonight, and through a series of events, I ended up in the same place and stayed long enough to get a little information.

I asked Rich Collins, Executive Director of the Positive Growth Alliance, to tell me about the event:

Rich Collins, Executive Director, Positive Growth Alliance

“The Positive Growth Alliance Annual “Quality of Life” Awards Banquet celebrates the folks who, through their effort, bring about a better quality of life for Sussex County.” - Rich Collins

Joshua Freeman, (1964-2006), received “The Lifetime Achievement Award.” Freeman is credited with such projects as Sea Colony and Bear Trap Dunes Golf Club, and is characterized as “a true philanthropist and leader in the community.”

Joshua Freeman

The Lifetime Achievement Award - Awarded to an individual who has achieved notable improvements in the quality of life for themselves, their families, and the community. While working towards their goals, this person has consistently applied optimism, creativity, entrepreneurship and a superior work ethic to overcome the challenges we all face. The result is a lifetime achievement that is worthy of the highest commendation.

“The Progress in Healthcare Award” went to Beebe Medical Center in Lewes, Delaware.

The Progress in Healthcare Award - Presented to the organization which has responded to the needs of our growing community by providing convenient, state-of-the-art and constantly improving health care/health care services.

And last, but certainly not least, “The Individual Freedom Award” was given to Senator Thurman Adams. According to the program, “Not only has Senator Adams served longer than any other member of the current state senate, but he is the longest serving senator in Delaware history.”

Senator Thurman Adams (D-Bridgeville)

The Individual Freedom Award - Presented to an elected official who understands that the primary function of government is the protection of our individual freedoms. The person chosen is a champion of economic growth, private enterprise, and entrepreneurship. This person understands that the flame of liberty must always be protected from those who lack the understanding to appreciate it.

That “flame of liberty” line chokes me up every time. And in case someone wanted to see it, here’s the front of the program and the list of sponsors:

Dirk Moore, the man accused of ransacking the MADD offices in Dover on January 16, 2007, has been cleared of all charges related to the crime.

I’m ecstatic about it.” - Dirk Moore

I spoke with Mr Moore tonight and he said that the digital video recording from the Food Lion in Lewes got him off. It showed him going into the store scant minutes before he was allegedly throwing pamphlets around the MADD office in Georgetown. As he stated in a document sent to multiple media outlets and others last month:

“I would like to address the charge which has been brought against me by MADD office in Georgetown and Rep. John Atkins, where I was accused of ransacking the Georgetown MADD office. I did not do it! I don’t even know where the office is located. At the exact time I was supposed to have been in the MADD office in Georgetown, I was in the Village of 5 Points’ Food Lion purchasing lightbulbs for a pumphouse and money orders $220.92.” - Dirk Moore

The Georgetown Police sought Moore for the incident at the MADD office after receiving a tip from State Representative John Atkins. Upon hearing that the police were looking for him, Moore immediately turned himself in and began declaring his innocence. Mr Moore said it took prosecutors about 3 weeks to finally review the tape and clear him of the charges.

“I didn’t do it. I had to fight for my own rights.” - Dirk Moore

Which means that the guy who did it is still out there. Any other tips, Representative Atkins?

I guess I should also mention that Dirk Moore suggested the title to this article, thanks, Dirk.

Dirk Moore, the man who allegedly ransacked the MADD offices on January 16, 2007, says he’s not guilty of the crime, and has never met Representative John Atkins, the man who apparently directed police towards Moore during the incident’s investigation. Moore makes his case in a well written document provided to multiple media outlets and others. Moore provides signed statements, receipts and letters to bolster his case.

I would like to address the charge which has been brought against me by MADD office in Georgetown and Rep. John Adkins, where I was accused of ransacking the Georgetown MADD office. I did not do it! I don’t even know where the office is located. At the exact time I was supposed to have been in the MADD office in Georgetown, I was in the Village of 5 Points’ Food Lion purchasing lightbulbs for a pumphouse and money orders $220.92.” -Dirk Moore

Contrary to other reports, the statement by the Food Lion employee was not signed, and when I spoke with that employee today by phone, he explained to me that he wasn’t authorized to sign a statement like that and I’d have to direct my inquiries to their legal department. Moore does, however, provide receipts from the Food Lion that would put him in Lewes around the time of the incident, and does provide other sworn and signed statements that back up his assertion.

The incident at the Georgetown MADD office apparently was a reaction to MADD’s response to the Ocean City Police Department’s handling of a traffic stop involving Delaware State Representative John Atkins, where Atkins registered a .14 on a PBT and was allowed to get a ride home.

Moore also makes a statement on the sunken boats in the canal in Rehoboth.

“Regarding the sunken boats in and around the Rehoboth Bay and Rehoboth Canal; I have not and never have abandoned any boat.

The boats that are sunk in the Rehoboth Canal were not abandoned. There is clear evidence that the two boats were a victim of Vandalism. All the windows were busted out, the ship’s wheel stolen, and all valuable hardware were stripped off from both boats.” - Dirk Moore

We’ll follow this story and provide updates as available.