Home

“The Privatization of Public Land” is a serial publication of 16 blog posts presenting the saga of  the Fort DuPont Redevelopment and Preservation Corporation (FDRPC) which was established by the General Assembly in 2014 as a public-private partnership to bolster the economy of Delaware City.

The proposal to construct a luxury RV campground has been the most controversial Fort DuPont project. Preservation of open land remains a top priority for Delaware’s government with allocations of $20 million for both FYs 2023 & 2024. Land acquired by the Open Space program can only be privatized by a vote of the General Assembly.

However, FDRPC has quietly sold almost half of Fort DuPont State Park for private development without a vote of the General Assembly. I’m a plaintiff in a whistleblower lawsuit to stop construction of the campground and return the land to the State Parks Department. Below are some of the highlights from this series of blog posts.

Post #2 raises the question of whether Valerie Longhurst paid fair market rent for a home where her family lived for more than four years. In a comment, her landlord, former Delaware City Mayor, John Buchheit, stated, “As for Longhurst no way did she ever pay me $50,000 in rents…”

Post #4 reports that early in April, DOJ assessed Blue Water Development (the campground developer) $830,000 in penalties for violating the Delaware Fraud Act at their Pine Haven campground in Sussex.

Post #8 presents substantial evidence that Blue Water and Sun Communities Inc. (the owner) are walking away from their $1.5 million down payment and have no further interest in developing this campground.

I had planned to wrap up this publication with Post #13 “Privatization Cover Up” which was published on May 10th . I shared this post by email with Ray Bevins expecting to publish “declined to comment”.

The evening before publication, we received comments and denials from DNREC Media Relations leading to an additional Post #14 where we published DNREC’s comment and our response.

With no documentation or specifics, DNREC claims that Fort DuPont State Park continues to exist. However, the building identified as the park office has been abandoned for three years and there are no slips for fee collection and no mention of a park superintendent.