Milford Times sent questions to all candidates running for election in the primary on September 15, 2026. Both candidates received the same questions, and they are reprinted here with the exact answers provided by the candidate.
Kent and Sussex counties continue to face rising housing costs, while many residents are concerned about preserving the character of existing neighborhoods. What specific policies would you support to increase housing affordability while protecting property rights and maintaining the quality of life in our communities?
I‘ve spent decades estimating commercial construction in the specialty trades, so I look at construction costs the way I’d look at a bid sheet: what’s actually driving the costs? It’s permitting timelines, utility connection costs, impact fees, and legislative and bureaucratic mandates that get priced into every unit before a shovel pokes the dirt. When a project sits in approvals for two years, carrying costs don’t disappear; they land in the sale price or the rent.
Let’s start by attacking the cost side. We need hard clocks on state-level permitting and DelDOT review. Repeal the 2017 realty transfer tax increase. Delaware has the highest transfer tax in the country, and it lands on the construction contract for new and existing homes. Why tax the very thing we’re short of, as well as reduce flexibility for working families who live here? Reject mandates like project labor agreements, rent control, and other government schemes that inflate construction while reducing supply. And plan water and sewer capacity ahead of demand instead of letting it become a bottleneck that we must pay a premium to solve.
What I don’t (and won’t) support is Dover overriding local zoning and decision making. Milford, Frederica, Magnolia, and Houston each know their own needs and have the right to make their own decisions about how to and if to grow. Neighborhood character is decided by A) the people who live in the neighborhood; and B) the property owner. Not by state mandates written for New Castle County conditions and imposed on us.
Many Delaware families continue to face higher costs for groceries, utilities, insurance, and other everyday expenses. What do you believe is the most important action the General Assembly can take to strengthen Delaware’s economy and reduce the financial burden on working families?
Back off and stop making it more expensive to live here. That’s the most important thing Leg Hall can do, and it’s the thing they, and their fellows in the administrative state seem least willing to do.
Look at where the squeeze comes from. Power rates are driven up by policy choices Delaware made, and families, small businesses, farms, and employers pay those costs. Insurance costs climb under a growing regulatory load, including our unacceptable health insurance and workmen’s comp rates. Delaware taxes and fees are on the rise, and the General Assembly is practically salivating when they think of raising personal income tax rates. It’s coming, folks.
The discipline we need is simple: before any new mandate, fee, or program passes, somebody in that chamber should have to answer one question: what does this cost a family in trying to make a paycheck stretch? Families don’t get to round up and send someone else the bill. The General Assembly does it every session. A dollar left in a family’s pocket does more for Delaware’s economy than a dollar routed through Dover.
That’s why I will reintroduce and fight for a “Delaware Regulatory Reform Act”, which was first posited by our own retiring 33rd State Representative Charles Postles. Any regulation proposed by the various state agencies must be quantified against the burden it will put on small business and farms—with the requirement for those affected or hurt by the proposed regulation to have an opportunity to comment and object via the law. Also, regulations with a cost, but little benefit should be subject to review and deletion on a regular basis.
Southern Delaware continues to grow, but many residents still commute long distances for higher-paying jobs. What industries or economic initiatives would you prioritize to create more quality jobs within the district, and what role should state government play in attracting those employers?
I don’t think Lower Delaware lacks workers; it lacks employers close to home, and it lacks the trained workforce that attracts them. We should double down on working both ends.
In the world of commercial and institutional construction, I see contractors across Kent and Sussex that are looking for skilled people, or people who can be trained. These are careers starting at $60,000 and reaching well over six figures with experience and without a dollar of college debt. I founded the Buccaneer Educational Foundation, which, due to some extraordinary community boosters, put over $150,000 into Milford students in its first full year — including $70,000 for Milford FFA–because I believe career pathways can be built and fulfilled here. Expanding vo-tech capacity and apprenticeship slots is the highest-return economic investment the state can make. Stable careers create stable families.
Boost the fundamental industries that are a natural fit for this area: Agriculture, food processing, construction, healthcare, and small manufacturing. What attracts them isn’t a check from Dover. I’m skeptical of big incentive packages that tax existing businesses to subsidize new or trendy ones. What attracts them is no mystery and works anywhere in the country it’s tried: predictable permitting/zoning, reasonable energy costs, and a regulatory climate that doesn’t treat employers like suspects. Get the fundamentals right and Lower Delaware sells itself. Get them wrong and no incentive is big enough; which we’ve seen time and time again in Delaware.
Population growth has increased demand on roads, schools, emergency services, water, wastewater systems, and public safety. How should Delaware balance continued growth with the infrastructure investments needed to support it, and who should bear the cost of those improvements?
Growth should pay for growth, in my view, and infrastructure should lead it, not chase it.
The pattern in Delaware, however, has been backwards. We approve the rooftops first and scramble for the capacity later, and then existing residents get handed the bill and stuck in the traffic.
Three basic principles should apply. One is sequencing: development approvals should be tied to actual infrastructure capacity–road service levels, water and sewer, school seats– not to capacity we hope to build someday. Another is cost allocation: impact fees and developer contributions should genuinely reflect what new construction demands from the system, so our current citizens aren’t subsidizing the strain. Lastly, honest state budgeting: as a school board member I fought for our district’s fair share of state construction funding, both openly and in advocacy to our legislators and DOE, and I’ve seen how capital money follows political weight instead of enrollment growth. Kent and Sussex are where the growth is; I think the capital budget should reflect that. Instead, this year’s Bond Bill hands New Castle County $435 million for school construction, and Lower Delaware nothing. Fair?
As to growth: ultimately, people move here because this is a good place to live. What we need to do, above all, is make sure it’s a good place to live for the folks who already live here.
Several large data center projects have been proposed across Delaware. Supporters cite economic development and tax revenue, while opponents raise concerns about electricity demand, water usage, environmental impacts, and effects on surrounding communities. Under what circumstances would you support or oppose future data center development?
I’ll be direct: I don’t think we want them here in southern Kent, and I haven’t heard a pitch yet that changes my mind.Let’s start with the jobs, because that’s always the opening argument. A facility that eats dozens or hundreds of acres and the electricity of a small city employs a couple dozen people once construction is complete. Most of those positions go to specialists brought in from elsewhere. We’d be handing over farmland and grid capacity in exchange for an employment headcount smaller than a lot of our local businesses already carry.
Every one of us has watched our electric bills climb for reasons for which nobody in Dover will take responsibility. Now we’re told to welcome the single largest new load anyone has proposed in this state, and to trust that somehow the cost of building generation and transmission to serve it won’t find its way onto our bills. I’ve been on the cost side of enough projects to know how this ends.
The water is a serious question. Our farmers irrigate out of that aquifer. Our poultry operations depend on it. Thousands of us (including my own rural household) draw from an onsite well. Nobody has shown me the numbers on what a sustained industrial cooling draw of millions of gallons of water does to it over twenty years. “We’ll monitor it” is not good enough.
Once our finite and shrinking supply of prime Kent County ground goes under the slab, it is gone. Not paused but gone. My family didn’t build a life here decades ago so we could rezone it for server farms owned by Silicon Valley. When things don’t go as advertised, who will be left holding the bag? If you said the taxpayers, small businesses, farms, and stakeholders in Lower Delaware, go to the head of the class.
Here’s what actually concerns me most. When out of state interests can’t get a local council to say yes, the next move will inevitably be to go to Dover and get local authority stripped away. If that bill ever comes, I’ll be a hard no, and I’ll say so on the floor. The people of this district get to decide what gets built in this district. Not a state agency, and not a Silicon Valley corporation with a lobbying budget larger than Kent County’s.
If someone wants to build on land already zoned industrial, bring their own generation, pay the full freight for transmission, publish their water draw or closed-loop system, take no tax abatement, and win an honest vote from the local governing body, I and others will listen. For now, if the reported experience of other states and municipalities is a guide, that’s not the deal they’ve offered anywhere else.
No serious person is saying the United States does not need server farms / data centers. Our national security depends on beating our world competitors, such as China, in AI development and accessibility. I think, however, Lower Delaware is simply not the right fit for these structures and their possible side effects.
Agriculture remains one of Delaware’s most important industries, yet productive farmland continues to be converted to residential and commercial development. What policies, if any, would you support to preserve Delaware farmland while respecting private property rights and accommodating responsible growth?
Agribusiness isn’t just one of many industries in our area. If anything, it’s the backbone of this district, and once farmland goes under sidewalks and rooftops it never comes back. I’m a Delaware Farm Bureau member and a trustee of the Delaware Agricultural Museum, and I am deeply concerned about our agricultural heritage and the rural character of our district.
The good news is Delaware already has the right model: the Aglands Preservation Program, where farmers voluntarily sell development rights and keep farming their own ground. It’s voluntary, it respects property rights, and it works: Delaware leads the nation (reports the USDA) in the share of farmland preserved permanently. My priority would be funding it consistently. When the state runs surpluses, preservation should be in line for real money, because every cycle we underfund it, another farm gets an offer the program can’t match.
What I won’t support is preservation by regulation, like downzoning a farmer’s land or restricting his options, so the public gets open space without paying for it. That’s taking value from the one family that grew our food and calling it “policy”. A farmer’s land is his retirement account, and government has no business raiding it.
Beyond preservation, let’s strive to keep farming viable. We must hold the line on the estate tax exemption, cut regulatory burden, and back the next generation through FFA and ag education.
Delaware continues to experience the effects of opioid addiction and overdose deaths, placing strain on families, healthcare providers, law enforcement, and social services. What role should state government play in addressing the opioid crisis, and what specific policies would you support to reduce addiction while expanding access to treatment and recovery services?
The first duty of government is to protect its citizens and relaxing on any facet of the drug issue is failing that test twice over; once in the overdose numbers, and again in the crime that follows addiction into our communities.
There are victims here: the storefront owner in Milford dealing with repeated theft. The families whose homes or cars were broken into for whatever could be traded for a fix. The local neighborhood watching a rental house turn into a problem property. Drug addiction is not a victimless condition. It generates theft, disorder, and violence; and the people bearing those costs need and deserve a state government that takes their side first.
So, in my view, enforcement comes first. Dealers trafficking fentanyl and really any drug are poisoning our neighbors for profit, and sentencing should reflect that. I’d support tougher penalties and consistent prosecution and sentencing for fentanyl trafficking, real resources for police and prosecutors to attack the supply, and enforcement of the theft and property crime laws already on the books. I helped write House Bill 32 to fund school resource officers and constables, because protecting communities starts with officers on the ground. That includes our local schools.
Enforcement can and should then be the doorway to treatment. Delaware’s opioid settlement dollars (over two hundred million over the coming years) must build actual treatment beds, detox, and recovery capacity in Kent and Sussex, with public accountability. Compassion for the addicted must never become leniency for the trade that profits off them and society.
Communities throughout Delaware are seeing increased concerns related to homelessness, including access to affordable housing, mental health services, addiction treatment, and public safety. What policies do you believe would most effectively address homelessness while balancing compassion for those in need with the concerns of residents, businesses, and local governments?
Homelessness isn’t one problem, so I don’t think it can have one answer. Some people are priced out and need housing they can afford. Some are in addiction. Many are living with untreated mental illness. Lumping them together guarantees a policy that is bound to fail perhaps all three.
For those priced out, the answer is the supply-side housing agenda I’ve laid out: cut the permitting delays, mandates and oppressive rules on rentals, and transaction taxes that make Delaware housing artificially expensive. For addiction and mental illness, the state has to fund actual capacity — treatment beds, detox, and psychiatric services in Kent and Sussex because compassion without treatment is just tolerance. Opioid settlement dollars should be building that capacity.
But compassion has to run both ways. Citizens and small business owners have a right to safe parks, clean downtowns, secure storefronts and peace of mind. I don’t accept the idea that allowing encampments in public spaces is kindness. It’s abandonment, of both the person dwelling in the tent and the community around them. Services should be offered, genuinely and repeatedly. What can’t be optional is the rule of law in public behavior.
Finally, keep decisions local. Milford’s situation isn’t Wilmington’s. Towns and counties need state support and flexibility, not a one-size mandate written for somewhere else.
Why are you the best candidate to represent the residents of the 33rd District, and what distinguishes you from your primary opponent?
Voters deserve a representative who has already done the work, not one who promises to learn on the job.
For many years I’ve worked commercial construction; a career spent inside real budgets, profit/loss, and high expectations where the numbers have to work, and nobody bails you out when they don’t. Aside from two decades volunteering for many of our educational, civic, and agricultural organizations, for the last four years I served on the Milford School Board, including as Vice President, helping to manage and oversee one of this district’s largest public budgets, protecting parents’ rights, safeguarding curriculum development, review and adherence, and standing up publicly against tax increases imposed without a referendum. I was part of the Board which cut tax rates repeatedly.
As a consequence of that service, I’ve already been deeply involved in helping parents, taxpayers, and teachers navigate the system and find help when needed. “Constituent services?”- I’ve been doing that for years already.As chairman of the Delaware School Boards Association’s Legislative Committee, I’ve spent years in Legislative Hall working bills — I helped write House Bill 32, which funds school resource officers and constables statewide. I’ve worked in concert with others to limit the worst impulses among the General Assembly; I’ve fought for legislation that, for example, would help our local schools, not hinder them.
And I founded the Buccaneer Educational Foundation, which, due to the efforts of some extraordinary citizens, put more than $150,000 into Milford students in its first full year.
This being a Republican primary, here I must relate that in my three terms as Chair of the 33rd District Republican Party, I’ve recruited, trained, and worked diligently for Republican candidates. I led the local Party through growth; during my tenure as Chair, we overtook the other party in total registrations and there it has remained. No one will ever have to ask where I was when it came time to stand up for our conservative values and the individuals in our communities who hold them dear.
That’s the distinction in this primary: a record versus a resume. I’ve been elected in this community, governed in this community, delivered for this community — and I’ve spent three terms as 33rd District Republican Committee chairman helping elect the conservatives who represent us now. My values are proven, not stated: parental rights, the Second Amendment, fiscal restraint, and local control.
I’m asking for your vote on September 15. I’m ready on day one.
