Also this issue: Seeking a Cure City Council members recommend prison health-care reforms days after the administration agrees to investigate alleged neglect. -Gwen Shaffer Rent! One woman's struggle to find a decent place to live. -Daniel Brook Ralph and Ruthie: The Movie Kinky sex, murder and mayhem -- the life of Ruthann Seccio -- may be coming to a movie screen near you. -Brendan McGarvey Variety Club -Mary F. Patel The Bell Curve City Paper's weekly gauge of Philly's Quality of Life

June 13-19, 2002

hall monitor

Condomania

by Daniel Brook

After Council unanimously passed a bill requiring the City to pay for trash collection in condominiums and narrowly voted to table a bill to lower the wage tax on the working poor, Councilman Angel Ortiz muttered sarcastically, “Profiles in courage.” But with the intense lobbying effort for the condominium measure and the anemic public turnout on the wage-tax bill, it would have taken a lot of courage to vote against the condo owners and for low-wage workers.

The Philadelphia Condominium Managers Association (PCMA) spearheaded lobbying efforts on behalf of Jim Kenney's condominium trash collection bill. Incoming PCMA president Scott Tocher, a Rittenhouse Square condominium manager, said, "the efforts of the homeowners really made the difference."

To put pressure on wavering Council members, PCMA mobilized the city's condo owners. The group's executive board sent faxes to building managers urging them to work the trash collection issue into conversations with residents. Homeowners were asked to write to their Council members urging them to support the bill. Copies of the letters were sent to the mayor as well. Tocher said, "We'd heard through our contacts at City Hall that the mayor was reluctant to address the issue."

In addition to the grassroots efforts, Tocher personally met face-to-face with five Council members.

On the day of the vote, the Council chamber was packed with condo owners. After the unanimous passage of their bill, audience members broke into applause and then promptly left the chamber. Their departure left the public seating area nearly empty for the wage-tax debate.

Often the working poor can't attend council meetings at 11 a.m. on a Thursday -- they're most likely working, often in hotel and food service jobs -- but their advocates didn't make much of a showing either.

Referring to Councilman David Cohen's wage-tax bill, John Dodds, director of the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, a group whose goal is to reduce unemployment and make all jobs pay a living wage, said, "We just haven't focused in on that one, I must confess."

Craig Robbins, head organizer at the Philadelphia office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), said, "In general, we support [the bill but] we haven't gotten involved in a big way." Robbins acknowledges that "the Cohen folks have definitely contacted us and urged us to come. People feel like this is a natural for ACORN."

A week before the vote on his wage-tax proposal Councilman Cohen said, "Bills don't pass in a vacuum." How true that is.

Watch This

Scott Tocher of the Philadelphia Condominium Association gives a big shout-out to the folks at www.hallwatch.org for helping condo owners “bombard” City Council members with e-mails. Hallwatch is a website which aims to put Philadelphians in touch with their elected representatives.

Another shout-out to Hallwatch is in order for recently posting a searchable index of campaign contributions to Mayor Street. Most of the top donors are the usual suspects: law firms and labor unions. But one surprising name on the top 10 is Jon Corzine, the New Jersey senator. The super-rich former Goldman Sachs CEO donated a cool 25 grand to Mayor Street. A Corzine spokesperson couldn't be reached for comment before press time.

Tif Times

Two TIF extension bills cleared Council last Thursday. Tax Increment Financing (TIF) provides tax breaks for real estate developers that allow them to pay building costs with money that would otherwise go to the city as taxes. The first bill, sponsored by Councilman Frank DiCicco, applies to the site of the former Schmidt’s Brewery, now part of developer Bart Blatstein’s Northern Liberties empire. The second bill, sponsored by Councilman Darrell Clarke, applies to the so-called “Jump Street” project on North Broad at Cecil B. Moore Avenue. Slow progress on both projects necessitated the extension measures. Both bills passed 16-1.

The one "no" vote on each bill was from Councilman Wilson Goode Jr. The councilman has a long-standing policy of opposing all TIFs on principle. Tax breaks "should not be developer-driven," says Goode. "[They] should be development-driven."

Goode believes TIFs ought to be used to spur development in blighted parts of the city and go to any developer willing to build in those areas. Currently, the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) and the administration work together to offer TIFs to individual developers on individual projects. Goode derides the process as "a lot of wheeling and dealing [with] taxpayers' money" which benefits a "preferred clientele" of connected developers.

Robert Fina, senior vice president at PIDC points the finger right back at City Council. Fina says when PIDC tries to use TIFs to spur development in blighted areas City Council members are the first ones to ask who the developer is who's getting the TIF. Fina says TIFs are only considered when other loan programs "don't fill the gap" in a particular deal.

Despite the 16-1 votes, Councilman Goode insists that people are coming around to his way of seeing things. Goode mentions that under current PIDC director Peter Longstreth, no new TIFs have been initiated.

Fina attributes that lack of new TIFs to a sluggish national economy that has slowed real estate development generally, not to any conscious policy change at PIDC.

Ward Cleaving

In the contentious battle for control of the city’s 33rd Ward, Councilman Rick Mariano backed insurgent candidate Candido Silva Jr. against incumbent Donna Aument. The ward fight, which broke down largely along racial lines -- Latinos versus whites -- appears headed to a panel of Democratic ward leaders.

Mariano and other Silva supporters allege that two Silva supporters were barred from the election meeting and that Silva's nomination was never recognized. This left Aument the only candidate up for election.

"He was robbed, downright robbed," said Mariano referring to Silva.

Asked whether he was backing Silva because his councilmanic district has gone from majority white to majority minority, Mariano says no. The councilman says he opposes Aument because she lacks the work ethic to get out the vote. "I need people who'll work to elect Rendell in the fall and Rick Mariano and John Street in the spring," said the councilman, referring to himself in the third person. "That's how it works. It's a business."

When asked whether he believed the panel of ward leaders that will look into the alleged election irregularities will be fair, the councilman responded, "You're not getting me to comment on that one."

Neither Aument nor her supporters could be reached for comment before press time.