Philadelphia’s Top Six, the Northwest’s Top Five

As the year draws to a close we should all reflect on just how disgraceful, inept and corrupt our city government has proven itself to be  — one more time.

 

It is not just the city elected and appointed leadership that has brought this about, but in many cases it is the serving state and federal officials who have repeatedly financed failure and looked the other way when it came to required compliance, consistency and completion of projects using public money. What many don’t realize is that the largest portion of funding often comes from the federal government, but then strained through state and city conduits.  This is where much of the compliance is supposed to take place, (and does not) and also where much of it is siphoned off under the radar.

We have compiled a list of the worst of the worst examples of waste, fraud and abuse, many of which are still in the process of being understood, investigated and hopefully prosecuted where applicable.

PHILADELPHIA

1. Carl Greene and HUD – can it get any worse than where city attorneys and leadership write a contract with an individual who has several standing legal cases accusing him of sexual misconduct in his job as PHA director in Detroit, promising him the same job in Philadelphia, at a salary as high as any in the nation, with a written agreement that if he is found guilty of that misconduct it can never in any way cause him to lose his job in Philadelphia?  Not only does he apparently repeat his misdeeds, the city covers it up and uses HUD funds to pay off the victims. The feds want answers on the spending of HUD's money and Ballard Spahr's billing records, even if the city does not.

2. State Senator Vince Fumo is unabashedly proud of how he shakes down a public utility to fund a pet community organization in his district and says so on public radio.  Amazed that he is convicted for this and other misuse of public money and employees, he gets a light sentence, which when appealed gets more sympathy from many of the voters and the judge himself. His quote on air: “The only reason those other politicians are criticizing what I have done is because they are jealous they did think of it first to get money for their people.”

3. Sheriff Green resigns as information is leaked regarding a slush fun in his control that reflects accumulated funds from the sale of properties that have never been refunded to the titled owners or their heirs. It seems no effort to even locate those recipients was even attempted.  At the same time some very inside deals on who gets to skim from the city advertising budget for the sheriff sales becomes a story of nepotism. Then we have the “invisible list” of individuals who are long-standing tax delinquents in this city, have been ordered to sheriff’s sale, but for some reason never make the sale list. Second in command takes over, advertising is moved to what is reportedly an outside agency, and we are told the money is being routed to those who were entitled to it.  Investigation and prosecution? — nothing yet.

4. School Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, with questionable history in other cities, is hired with the most generous contract of its type in the nation. Her arrogance makes headlines as she minimizes management problems, declining graduation rates, racial and ethnic conflicts at schools, and budget deficits that reach new highs. Her use of personal influence in granting contracts for security systems outside of required guidelines cause more clashes with the political structure and Commission members resign in the turmoil.  She is removed with nearly a million dollar payout and then adds insult to injury by filing for unemployment compensation. Again, who writes these sweetheart contracts that simply throw taxpayer money down a rat hole?

5. The Family Court Building project where a $12 million dollar project that involves what looks like cozy insider dealing close to a respected Judge goes public and is under investigation by the FBI. Information circulated includes a paid advisor and golf buddy of Judge Ronald Castile (former Phila DA) who split his payments under a contract that some claim was never executed, with developer Donald Pulver. The advisor, Jeffery Rotwitt claims that Judge Castile knew of every detail of the arrangement.  Castile says he knew nothing about it. Rothwitt is fired from the well-known Obermeyer firm and the issue seems to fade into the sunset. Case closed ???  Does anyone think Rothwitt will miss a lunch?

6. BRT patronage deals. Leaks and investigative efforts by the Philadelphia Inquirer bring forward details of another example of this city’s bi-partisan patronage mills. Long influenced by Democratic Party Chair  Congressman Bob Brady and now-convicted Senator Vince Fumo, this 200 employee organization is just chock full of patronage jobs by folks who in many cases lack any expertise in property assessment but are paid handsomely. CEO Enrico Foglia has no college degree or any experience in property assessment but does hand out the paychecks, and is a friend of Fumo.  City judges fire Tax Assessor Joseph A. Russo for improprieties   A long list of unbalanced assessments and what appears as favoritism to certain connected developers are part of the unfolding investigative process. Still unexplained is how $4.7 million in wages paid to 80 employees of the BRT has been charged to the school district budget for years. Some of these jobs have such strong political connections that they are reported to be in direct violation of the city’s rules of ethics. The remedy- -  increase everyone’s real estate taxes temporarily and talk about someday doing a fair reassessment of all property.

THE NORTHWEST

The Germantown Settlement mega-fraud really should be #1 on the list of city political frauds but since it had its start, and has been festering in Germantown since the mid-1970s, we will list it here.  Still never covered anywhere near the level to which it misused public money, destroyed a community and then used political authority as an end run around compliance, this is as big and far reaching as it gets.  While no reliable audits have ever been done by the 30-odd corporations that were the recipients of massive injections of public and private charity dollars, a high level city official did not blink an eye when the figure of an unaccounted for $500 million in free real estate and direct funding was mentioned. A close political relationship with City Councilwoman Donna Miller, State Representatives Dwight Evans and John Myers, and U.S. Congressman Chaka Fattah, this conglomerate of corporations with mostly the same officers were guaranteed funding from virtually every public and semi-public agency from HUD on down from the late 1970s until 2007. Compliance documents that anyone doing business in this manner would have to present quarterly were optional for Emanuel Freeman, who ran this empire from two locations in Germantown over the years. This year two of the corporations filed bankruptcy and that case is ongoing.  What is not ongoing is the FBI and City IG investigations, both of which were active for about three years but ended almost simultaneously without explanation.  Both are sitting gathering dust in the office of U.S. Attorney Zane Memeger.  The magnitude and duration of this very insider dealing from the highest level of elected leadership would parallel what took place in the Grand Jury investigations on 1947-49. Those investigations and convictions ended a 70-year political empire.

2. Dwight Evans empire and largess in spreading around public money through OARC and other conduits reached a fever pitch in the last year and cost him the respect of his own political party.  As appropriations chair in the Pa House of Representatives he doled out money for projects statewide while there was Democratic majority, but the amount that found its way to his district and nearby in Philadelphia astounded even the party faithful.  Too numerous to list here, his dealings made major news when he earmarked $1 million for a one day jazz concert near his local offices and had little backup information as to how it would be spent, but plenty of overestimation as to how many would attend and need this amount of funding. A clash with the power base in the Martin Luther King school contract made headlines. Evans supported a firm that supplied him with significant campaign contributions as he apparently strong-armed School Commission members and the firm the school and the parent teacher group had chosen. The outside firm resigned after a closed door meeting. This exploded into a major revision as to how that school was to be structured, but it was the beginning of the end for “Mr. ATM” (That was the characterization of Dwight Evans by his own associated State Rep John Myers when he was introduced to the public at a store dedication in East Germantown.)  With a reputation like that, his own party actually held a special election and removed him as Appropriations Chair only weeks before he would have lost it anyway with the new Republican majority in Harrisburg.  It looks like some folks wanted to send a message.

3.  The Chestnut Hill College expansion rezoning under the radar. Few know all the details, but the first of three Donna Reed Miller zoning escapades began a few years back but was finalized this year, and it takes big chunk out of some of the most protected residential and natural landscape in the area. While some of the points can be argued and compromised to what would preserve nature and allow some expansion, the method here is too, too familiar.  Why waste time and money debating the values of preservation and consistency, when all it takes is the all-powerful magic wand of a city councilperson bringing forth a bill to do something in their own district.  Voting robots will always approve such requests, usually in a 17-0 fashion with the presumption that the bill has been thorough the strainer of federal and state law, city codes, sound architectural planning and overview as well as having majority support in the community. Of course, almost none of that happened, the big boy lobbyists and politicians told Councilwoman Miller what the outcome was to be — and viola! It happened.

4. Chelten Plaza in Germantown was another combination of Dwight Evans and Donna Reed Miller doing a deal in the dark that was intended from the outset to circumvent both state law and city codes. Major contributions to Dwight Evans got Mr. Pat Burns of Fresh Grocer fame an 11th hour signature on a grant of state funding to bring a fresh food store to Chelten and Pulaski Aves. in Germantown. Subverting State Law that required community participation in the drawing of the plans themselves, a reckless issuance of a building permit that was later revoked, brought a massive community pushback and a legal appeal at Licenses and Inspections. Despite these multiple violations of the law, a bait and switch on the food store, and corrupt  practice, Donna Reed Miller smacked the community hard and drew up special spot zoning for the one building the connected developer wanted to complete. Germantown gets no fresh food store,  but its 13th Dollar Store.

5. Leaving a trail of destruction on her way out of City Council, Donna Reed Miller approves another round of spot and inconsistent zoning in Chestnut Hill, despite strong standing zoning and district controls that prohibit such development.  The project of developer Bowman Properties and Richard Snowden,  ( with his family  long a major contributor to Miller, and one whom she has helped with city tax delinquency over the years), a major six story no-setback mega-plex was just sent through city council this week as the grand finale to years of running roughshod over the citizens of the Northwest.

Jim Foster

Publisher