The fast flurry of bills that flew through Legislative Hall on June 30 has ended, and we have wrapped up the 145th General Assembly. This was my first full session as a legislator (I was first elected in a special election in 2007), and I am proud that we passed several critical pieces of legislation in the last two years.
This year alone, we approved creation of a statewide curbside recycling program that will allow every resident to choose whether to participate at no cost to them. The fact that it is voluntary and doesn’t place an additional cost burden on residents is key to why I think it will be a huge success.
We also passed a series of bills addressing the problems we discovered in the wake of Earl Bradley, a pedophile pediatrician from Lewes. The unspeakable horrors he committed have stunned us all, and we have taken action to hopefully prevent something like this from ever happening again.
We also once again left Dover on time with a balanced budget in place, something not every state can say. We did this without raising taxes and were able to restore some of the things we were forced to take out of last year’s budget. We restored the 2.5-percent pay cut for our hard-working state employees, which is something I felt was absolutely necessary. We also filled the holes left by declining stimulus money to make sure programs like Medicaid are fully funded.
I am also proud that we have taken several important steps to improve the climate for small businesses in our state, protected children from sexual predators and preserved funding for our senior centers throughout the state. There are many other accomplishments from this session, too many to note here. Rest assured that we will continue to work to improve the quality of life for all Delawareans.
As always, should you need to contact me, please call my office at 744-4181.
State Rep. Bill Carson (D-Smyrna) represents the 28th District.
