We Need Answers

By JAMES FOSTER

Publisher 

As our review of the use of public dollars expands we will print in each issue a specific example of how public money was spent under circumstances that have raised more than curiosity, and in many cases made the news, often  with outrage but without explanation.

The mid-2009 closing of a 35 year old city business funding agency is one of those cases.  PCDC or Philadelphia Commercial Development Corporation made the headlines on more than one occasion in 2007-2008 as 14-year Chairman Curtis Jones (now serving in City Council) broke into a screaming match with neighbors defending a $700,000 private security camera system that had not functioned for some time, and what was later described as a cozy but illegal use of development money that included severance and paying for his private automobile.

Funding for this entity in recent years was described in the mainstream press as federal dollars channeled through the city by Mr. Jones mentor, Chaka Fattah.  However, no   explanation was given in the surprise closing down of the entity announced in the Philadelphia Inquirer as effective June 30, 2009 when "The City plans to stop providing federal funds".  The Philadelphia Tribune expanded this story.

What we have found since is that in those last months of that entity's existence the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania threw $700,000 its way, most of it weeks before it closed down. State records show that it granted $2,900.000 to PCDC with the help of Sen. Vincent Hughes and the approval of Appropriations Chair Dwight Evans from October 2007 until its closing.

Maybe our City Controller or State Auditor General will want to find out why three quarters of a million went to a failing organization in its last days after the city and feds had cut them off.