State lawmaker Dave Wilson (R-Lincoln) seeks to join the taxpayer lawsuit filed in July against the Diamond State Port Corporation and Enstrucutre.
While as a lawmakers for a southern district, the port is not in his district, he said, "...taxpayers need to know how their money is being spent."
Wilson's legal filings, submitted last week, say he has an identifiable interest in the case against the public private partnership that oversees the Port of Wilmington and its Edgemoor expansion.
He was first elected to the Delaware state senate for district 18 in 2018. Before that, he was a state house rep, and sponsored the concurrent resolution to support Delaware's partnership with Gulftainer to manage the port in 2018.
Wilson asks the Delaware Superior Court to let him join the case as an intervenor. The suit filed in July raises issues with the port’s management over the last eight years. It claims at several points DSPC did not get required General Assembly approval or update lawmakers with developments.
One of these, the legal filings say, is when Gulftainer got a $350 million credit line on DSPC's properties at the Port of Wilmington in 2019. It claims that Delaware statutes governing the port required the DSPC to inform the general assembly or the Bond Committee of the credit line, but it didn't.
Senator Wilson's request to join as an intervenor says he, along with other members of the General Assembly, and the Bond Bill Committee, "lacked the opportunity to debate, approve, or consider this proposed transaction."
Wilson is a Bond Bill Committee member. During hearings in April for fiscal year 2027's budget, he objected to the added $110 million requested to cover new estimated costs for the Edgemoor expansion.
His filing said lawmakers were asked, "to hastily and improperly adopt," a section on the bond bill that gives the DNREC secretary "exclusive authority" to waive "any permit or approval requirements" for the Delaware Container Terminal Project.
His request to join the suit argues that during the bond bill's hearings, he did not get answers to questions about contracts signed earlier this year for Edgemoor site prep construction or specific plans for the bond money.
He said while the port's stewards may have competition from port managers in Philadelphia, "We've got competitions in everything we do."
He said as a farmer and auctioneer, "in private enterprise, I don't have any place to go to ask taxpayers to help me fund my projects."
Wilson's request to join says he asked for information on the added expense during the bond hearings, and accused it of appearing "predetermined." But he was told the committee could not discuss the specifics of the money request, "as disclosure of this information or elaborate discussion regarding the request would contain and possibly disclose proprietary information."
According to taxpayer suit, many of DSPC's actions, including its transfer of port operations from Gulftainer to Enstructure in 2023 are, "void" because it didn’t follow code that the organization, “not enter into any agreement to transfer, privatize, or lease all...of the Port of Wilmington to a single entity.”
It also accused DSPC of entering into construction contracts and giving "notices to proceed" on the port expansion without a competitive bidding process, required by the State Procurement Act.
Wilson takes issue with this, he said, given that the state has already allocated hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money for the project.
He request to join the suit as an intervenor says those contracted for construction underway for the port expansion currently and those agreements, "costing many millions of dollars are not known and have not been publicly disclosed." It adds that the information has been "denied" to general assembly members who asked for the information, "including but not limited to the contractors' identities, terms of the contract, costs and pay schedules."
To join the case, the presiding judge has to approve Wilson’s request. DSPC and Enstructure have until September 16 to respond to the suit, according to court filings.
