things you learn when you start off and i had the great honor of being a county council person in new castle countyner or council person has a district seven times larger than a state rep and three bigger than a state senator. what i learned early on if you are in the county you got to go through someone else to get help. you got to go to the governor, go to your state legislator, the state senators. and guess what? i stopped that. no kidding. because i'm telling you, you know, one of the things that we expect people to do is we think people are like us, very familiar with all the detail of how government works. they don't know whether there is a pothole in their side street, whether it's a county, state, they don't know who is responsible. and they come to the county all the time as was my experience in new castle county. when you don't have the funding you have for the other programs you find it is just hard. one of the things i found out early on was we always did better when there was direct funding for the things that related to the county. it is one of the hardest jobs, i really mean it. i'm

i know we've got a couple of people from kent county, alan angel, dave carter from new castle county that applause for dave, that's okay, and as well as matt meyer who is our county executive in new castle county. matt and i have worked together and known each other for a long time, he's been innovative in new castle county and it's great to be with him. as a former governor, i'm a huge fan of my colleagues in state, county and local governments. nobody knows better than you how satisfying it is to work on issues that affect people's lives. president biden, as you heard, asked me two years ago to serve as the u.s. ambassador to the organization for economic cooperation and development. this is a group of 38 democracies. and market oriented economic systems whose motto is better policies for better lives. i also served for a year as chair of the national governor's association. i got a lot of value out of the best practice sharing amongst governor of both parties. we're all nonpartisan when it comes to better ways to solve a problem. while we do a great job of learning from each other

>> look, some of you know i started as a councilman in delaware and the county executive in new castle countytt meyer, where are you sitting? [applause] matt is hiding because -- i am not kidding, it is good to see you. matt knows what i am talking about. when people have a problem, they have your number, they knock on your door, and only you but your spouses' cannot show up without can you fix my such and such? i always had an enormous respect for the job that you do. you are the ones who make people make sure that everything gets fixed, the library stays open late so kids can do their homework, the sewer system is backing up into the creek and basement and making sure that the public health department runs smoothly and that your communities are growing and changing -- meeting the growing and changing populations. a huge responsibility that you have. they touch every aspect of life. when your constituents call needing help with a state problem or a city problem, you take the call. you get it done, you call and make sure that you find out how to get it done. simply put, you get things done. f