• Delaware history from The News Journal archives March 1-7 includes woman, baby and dog rescued from burning a home in 1926.
• Prisoners sue state over conditions at Sussex Correctional Institution in 1976.
• Jump in electric rates in 2006 sparks talks of reregulating the industry.

“Pages of history” features excerpts from The News Journal archives including The Morning News and The Evening Journal. See the archives at delawareonline.com.

March 1, 2006, The News Journal

Under plan, 59% electric rate hike to be phased in

Delmarva Power has proposed phasing in electricity rate increases to reduce the shock of a 59% price hike for residents scheduled to begin May 1.

If the proposal is approved by the state, the typical residential bill would go up slightly less than $18 a month on May 1. Then on Jan. 1, the typical bill would go up again by the same amount. On May 1, 2007, a last increase of $34 would be added, assuming no other change in the market price for electricity. …

Delmarva Power officials unveiled the proposal Tuesday as part of a response to an executive order issued last month by Gov. Ruth Ann Minner. She asked state agencies to study possible responses to the rate hike, including the option of reregulating the industry.

In 1999, state lawmakers removed controls on the price of wholesale electricity, reshaping the power market in the state. As part of the change, electricity rates were lowered by 7.5% until 2003.

Delmarva Power says the coming 59% increase is mainly caused by price hikes in the cost of the fuels that generate electricity, such as natural gas and coal.

Under deregulation, Delmarva must buy about one-third of its total power needs on the wholesale market every year. If the wholesale market is lower next year, customers could save some money. If the wholesale market is up, then rates could go even higher than they are currently expected to go….

Deregulation was expected to reduce electricity prices by bringing competition to the electric market, but only the largest power customers in the state are able to shop for power. Residents do not have a choice about who supplies their electricity.

Some lawmakers are calling for the state to reregulate the industry….

Reregulating part or all of the electricity market is unlikely to have any impact on the 59% rises in bills, experts say, but could prevent dramatic price spikes in the future….

More recent Delmarva Power news: Company says Delaware safe during cold snap from national energy strain

March 3, 1976, The Morning News page

Sussex prison dilemma prompts judicial warning

If the General Assembly doesn’t do something soon about the crumbling Sussex Correctional Institution, he will, a federal judge strongly hinted yesterday.

Judge Murray M. Schwartz said he frankly hopes lawmakers will come up with the extra $1.6 million needed for a thorough overhaul of the Georgetown prison this month.

Austin Smotherman will carry a three-stroke lead into the weekend at the Cognizant Classic at The Palm Beaches.

Smotherman followed his opening 62 with a 2-under-par 69 on Friday at PGA National’s Champion Course in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. That brought him to 11 under, comfortably clear of Taylor Moore, who is in second after his second straight 4-under 67.

Cognizant Classic scoreboard

“Yeah, leading a PGA Tour event, come on, pretty awesome,” Smotherman said.

Smotherman, 31, is in fine position for his first win on the PGA Tour since turning pro a decade ago. He has won three times on the Korn Ferry Tour, including last June.

Afterwards, he credited himself with playing “Austin Smotherman golf.” When asked what that meant, he responded, “as boring and simple as it can be.

“That’s what I want to do out there. I feel like I ball strike it good enough to have that kind of boring golf, a bunch of fairways ideally,” he said.

He suffered three bogeys Friday after a bogey-free opening round, but the key stretch for him after starting on the back nine was between Nos. 17 and 3. He birdied four holes in that stretch, starting with a 54-foot bomb at the par-3 17th hole.

“Anything under par I thought would have been (good) following up a round like yesterday, which was a special one,” he said, “and try not to get too far ahead of myself thinking I’m going to make every long putt I’m looking at, like kind of was the feeling yesterday, and then today I still make a 55-footer on 17.”

ATLANTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – State legislators are considering more changes to Georgia’s voting law, proposing a new bill that would alter the way early voters cast ballots.

State Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Republican from Cumming, introduced SB 568 this week. The proposal would assign early voters to one precinct in their county. Currently, voters can cast early votes at any precinct in their county.

It would also move early voting to a hand-marked paper ballot system, where voters use a pen to mark their selections, instead of the currently used touchscreen system.

“So that we would not have to print so many permutations at the paper ballots, we would assign voters to an early voting location,” said Dolezal. “Most people are going to vote to the at the early voting location closest to their home anyway.”

The bill was immediately met with backlash from democrats as a barrier to the vote.

“I have no idea how voting on a piece of paper, marking it down with your pencil in any way suppresses the vote,” said Dolezal. “For most counties out of, you know, 140 call it out of 159, they just have one location.”

Dolezal’s proposal would also require local clerks to publicly post their entire voting rolls ahead of elections.

“Making public every single voter who is qualified to vote is to some extent, a little bit of an invasion of privacy for each individual voter,” said state Sen. Sonya Halpern (D-Atlanta). “We need to have trust in our election officials to run those elections.”

It’s the latest change the legislature has proposed to Georgia’s voting system.

“You have dirty, dirty voting rolls, you’re going to have dirty elections,” Dolezal said.

The bill would also shift responsibility for voter challenges from the counties to the State Elections Board. In addition, it would also move the threshold for an automatic recount in the state from a 1.5% margin to 2%.

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