Support For School
Editor:
To the leaders of Worcester County and the State of Maryland, I cannot convey how troubled I am about the recent news that the new Buckingham Elementary School project is in jeopardy. I have a son at Buckingham.
I adamantly oppose the idea that Berlin students be bussed to neighboring town schools. I find it disturbing that state and local representatives are questioning the need to rebuild the only Title 1 school in the northern part of our county. This is an issue of equity.
Buckingham is 1 of 3 schools that are Title 1 in the entire county. The current building was built in 1978 and is woefully inadequate for the needs of children today. Yet, in spite of the building’s deficiencies, faculty and staff do an amazing job teaching our children each and every day. Our children deserve the same educational opportunities that the students of Showell and Ocean City receive in their updated buildings.
I urge you to understand the perspectives of all your stakeholders and to make decisions that are just and equitable. State and county representatives must work together with Worcester County Public Schools to find a way forward and build a new Buckingham Elementary School.
Honor McElroy
Berlin
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Governor Asked To Intervene
Editor:
(The following letter was addressed to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.)
We, as the Worcester County Delegation, respectfully request your full support for State funding for the Buckingham Replacement School in Berlin, Maryland, with its roots going back to its 1765 founding.
Buckingham Elementary School, built in 1978 with no major renovations or additions in 45 years, is a community school, the largest Title I school in Worcester County, with 60 percent of BES students coming from homes of poverty and qualifying for Free and Reduced Meals. It has five portable classrooms, four instructional spaces in its media center, and a bus parking area not designed for bus traffic, making for a growing safety concern at the school.
Following the completion of construction of replacement schools for Ocean City Elementary School (2005) and Showell Elementary School (2020), it is now time to address the building and instructional space deficiencies identified in the January 2023 Buckingham Elementary Feasibility Study and to provide Buckingham students the school they deserve. Of the three elementary schools in the northern region of the county, Buckingham also represents the highest concentration of minority students with 42 percent identifying as non-white.
We especially are concerned and dismayed with the recent ruling by the Interagency Commission on School Construction (IAC) that Buckingham Elementary School is not eligible for State funding. When Worcester County requested State funding for Showell Elementary School Replacement project four years ago, the IAC determined that neither Buckingham Elementary nor Berlin Intermediate School were considered adjacent schools to Showell Elementary.
On behalf of Worcester County, we specifically are requesting that the same IAC school adjacent interpretations and determinations which resulted in Worcester County receiving $8.67 million of State construction funding for the Showell Elementary project be applied to our request for Buckingham Elementary funding. In addition, we are requesting that the IAC consider a funding mechanism, which would allow access to the $5.99 million Built-To-Learn school construction funding allocated to Worcester County by the Maryland Stadium Authority through the 2021 Built-To-Learn legislation.
The entire Worcester County community has come together in support of the Build Buckingham campaign including the Worcester County Commission, the Berlin Chamber of Commerce, and numerous civic, faith-based, and community organizations representing a strong cross section of deep and strong support for the Buckingham Elementary Replacement School.
We urge you to support the necessary state funding for the Buckingham Elementary Replacement School and request your assistance in working with us and with Worcester County to move forward to make the Buckingham Elementary Replacement School a reality.
Senator Mary Beth Carozza
Delegate Charles Otto
Delegate Wayne Hartman
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Wind Farm Concerns
Editor:
It’s been a while since I wrote about the windmill farms being proposed along the Delaware shoreline.
Recently stories have surfaced that Orsted, the Danish Renewable Energy Giant has experienced some deep concerns with future projects in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. The story reflects on the costs have grown so big that Orsted cannot afford to build these projects. In fact, Orstead wants to write off $2.12 Billion Dollars due to supply chain problems. The company said that the projects were being hit by delays to suppliers and contractors, like wind turbine component manufacturers and specialized ships needed to install large machines whose blades are as long as football fields.
In other news, Orsted’s shares tumbled 25% after these news stories broke in August of 2023. Orsted continued to say that there is not enough money coming in and the slower-than-anticipated receipts of revenues from contractors and suppliers could cause Orsted to walk away completely.
Please Google more sites for additional stories related to windmill farms that are not going forward, due to rising interest rates, material and supply costs have been going sky high and they cannot afford to build.
If Orsted is starting to fail, that means some of the other wind farm companies are feeling the same ripple effect.
Orstead believes if they are to stay in business they are going to have to forward the additional costs to you and me.
Please feel free to forward this letter onto your friends and family.
David A. Gordon
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Time To Get Educated
Editor:
It is imperative we all educate ourselves prior to BOEM’s (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management) offshore wind session on Tuesday, Oct. 24 at Ocean City Elementary School.
I recently viewed an informative presentation on offshore wind by Lisa Quattrocki Knight, MD/PhD, a founder of Green Oceans (green-oceans.org). As a self-identified “lifelong liberal democrat,” she is a firm believer in climate change and its peril to the planet. Initially, when the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) injected almost $400 billion into the renewable energy space, Dr. Quattrocki Knight believed “Offshore Wind” would be good for the planet.
As one of the first wind projects was slated for construction off the Rhode Island coast (near where she lives), she wanted to learn more about it, and has spent the past year studying its many aspects. Dr. Quattrocki Knight found much that concerned her, which she puts forth in this presentation: https://rumble.com/v3p5j9t-green-oceans-presntation-on-wind-power-in-westport-mass-sept-.-19-2023.html.
Some of Dr. Quattrocki Knight’s findings are:
- Wind companies and oil and gas companies are virtually one and the same. Danish Oil & Natural Gas (DONG), which now calls itself “Orsted,” owns Block Island Wind, Revolution Wind, Skipjack Wind, Ocean Wind 1 & 2, South Fork Wind, and Sunrise Wind. British Petroleum and Equinor (i.e., Norway’s Statoil) co-own Empire Wind and Beacon Wind. Avangrid (co-owner of Vineyard Wind) is owned by the Spanish oil company, Iberdrola. Shell co-owns the Atlantic Shores and South Coast wind projects.
- American taxpayers are paying 30% of the construction costs (although wind companies are now asking for 40-50%), without receiving any equity.
- Covering 2.2 million acres of the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf, wind projects are slated to be built in some of our most precious marine resource areas. One location is Coxes Ledge off the coast of RI (one of the most fertile marine ecosystems in the world) threatening the survival of the Southern New England Cod and risking the extinction of the North Atlantic Right Whale. Another being the largest Horseshoe Crab Sanctuary in the world off the Delaware coast. Many may not know that horseshoe crab blood is essential to the security of almost all medicines, IVs, vaccines and cancer treatments. BOEM has chosen to ignore NOAA’s finding and letters regarding the detrimental impacts to our oceans.
- Critical information in wind companies’ Environmental Impact Statements (such as emergency response plans) is withheld from the public as being confidential. BOEM has refused attempts by Green Oceans and other groups to gain access via a Freedom of Information Act request.
- Wind companies are not required to set aside any funding for decommissioning until projects have been up and running for 10 years. After the projects are built, they are then sold to LLCs that can easily walk away should disaster occur, saddling rate payers with clean-up costs which could be up to 10% of the construction cost.
I implore everyone to listen to this presentation before our meeting on Oct. 24.
Dianna Harris
West Ocean City