Sunshine Week 2023

Ensuring Transparency and Accountability:

Why Delaware Needs an Inspector General Now!

A Virtual Sunshine Week Event via Zoom

Monday, April 24, 2023 • 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EDT

The Delaware Coalition for Open Government and Delaware Press Association invite you to join us for a panel discussion, moderated by DelCOG President John Kowalko III. Additional sponsors include Common Cause Delaware, Delaware Poor People’s Campaign, Delaware Public Preschool Coalition, League of Women Voters of New Castle County, Lead-Free Delaware, Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League, Network Delaware, New Jersey Society of Professional Journalists, and RISE Delaware.

Register here for the DelCOG 2023 Sunshine Week program.

Speaker Biographies

Stephen B. Street, Jr., Louisiana State Inspector General since 2008
Stephen Street, a Certified Inspector General, specializes in criminal law at the state and federal level. His office of the IG – an independent, statutorily empowered law enforcement agency, dedicated to investigating fraud and public corruption – handles criminal cases and white-collar crime, both independently and with law enforcement partners. He recently completed four terms as President of the National Association of Inspectors General, incorporating Inspector General, Law Enforcement and Oversight communities of the US and several foreign countries.

Laura Sturgeon, Delaware State Senator
Laura Sturgeon, the first Latina elected to the state senate, taught English and Spanish in Delaware public high schools for more than 20 years. She has worked to legislate more resources for students in elementary and middle schools, better pay for teachers, and fully-funded services for people with intellectual disabilities. Other challenges addressed: The need for increased gun safety, greater ease of voter registration, more family leave time, a woman’s right to choose, and a variety of environmental measures. She favors an Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

Anitra Johnson, Delaware Online Underserved Communities Reporter
Anitra Johnson reports on the perspectives of discounted citizens in full view of the public and government officials. Having grown up in a household where community leaders discussed plans to organize rallies for political equity and economic opportunity, and inspired by her own experience in the age of court-ordered busing, the “war” on drugs that decimated Black communities, and the pushback against collective Black achievement in the modern-day, civil rights era, she shines a light on and gives voice to those whose voices often are not heard.

Sarah Bucic, MSN, RN, Co-chair Lead-Free Delaware
Industrial exposure to lead from sandblasting paint off a water tower near her home in 2017 motivated Sarah Bucic to address childhood lead poisoning. She worked on the first bill in the nation to ban new application of lead-based paint on outdoor structures (2018), a bill to restart the Childhood Lead Poisoning Advisory Committee (2019), and a bill to require mandatory blood lead screening of all 24-month-old children (2021). She is at the forefront of the issue of lead in drinking water in Delaware public schools, a high-profile case highlighting the need for an OIG.

For more information: 302-368-1823 or delcogdata@aol.com