Okay. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Let me respond to your question of concern over training. We are very much concerned that at each precinct it goes smoothly. Our goal was not to have someone come in to run that election. Our goal was to have the 1681 people trained to be at that particular location to work with the people who you're talking about anyway. So this is just a backup.
Okay. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: It's an additional stopgap to help us to make sure that there's no problem.
This is like a technical support person at the polling place? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Absolutely correct.
Mr. Voight, excuse me. Kindly identify yourself for the record.
My name is Fred Voight, I'm with the Committee of Seventy. I'm part of 486 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 the procurement team who was asked to serve by the prior Mayor. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: If I can just before you continue, just to respond, what I'd like to read is one sentence that's in the RFP that will clearly identify what we're attempting to do, and it's called -- it's under System Support Services, "For the May 15, 2001 primary election and at the City's sole option the November 6, 2001 election, the successful proposer must provide at its sole cost one person per voting district fully trained in all operational tasks of the DRE voting device. The successful proposer must provide separate pricing for the November 6th election. The successful proposer will recruit Philadelphia residents to satisfy this requirement. In accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the city commissioners will appoint each of these individuals as an overseer for a specific voting division. The individuals will be required to be present in their assigned polling places from 6:30 a.m. until the district tabulation is complete to oversee and ensure proper an efficient operation 487 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 of the DRE voting devices and to provide assistance to polling place officials if necessary." So it's a backup, it's two levels.
I understand, right. And my last question on this, because I'm actually still working off of a yield from Councilwoman Tasco, is there will be coordination between this person selected by the company to be at the polling place for 13, hours that day and 12 the Election Board so that everyone knows who the 13 other is and what their role and responsibility 14 and who can do what and who can't do what and all of those kind of issues?
This provision is actually put in at the request of the commissioners themselves. And the reason that it's still work in progress is that the primary for us is obviously is training the Election Board, the people in our divisions who are going to be there responsible for running elections forever, so they've got to know how to do this. This is not intended to be a substitute for them in any way, but by the same token, this is not meant to be 488 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 some kind of perk that's going to get members of the election board angry that they're being treated unfairly. It's really going to be worked so that this is a one-time assistance.
Well, are the judges and the machine operators going to be trained also?
Absolutely, absolutely. The whole training, the thrust of the training is for the Board.
That's really where we're going to make it or not make it. Having this person for one election isn't going to do it for the next four elections. That's really the thrust of it.
Identifying who and where you get that person is a subject of continuing discussion.
Your point is well taken, but the whole point is that there's a logistics problem, there's a reliability problem, there are 489 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 all sorts of problems in terms of ensuring that someone is there doing this job on Election Day. Work in progress. Hopefully, this process will continue as the procurement process continues because it really is important that these machines be purchased and put into place for the 2001 elections. We don't want to see these going into place in an election where we have a high turnout. We want it ideally to go into place at the lowest turnout election in the four-year cycle which is the DA's election in 2001. The ideal is to get it done, use it for the primary for the first time, the lowest turnout election of all. If you can't get it done then, then fall back to November. The ideal is, and that's the way the RFP has been written, the whole process has been approached, get it done for that spring primary.
Madam Chair, I was asking questions based on a yield from Councilwoman Tasco, but my light was on earlier and I'd like to not lose my place in the queue.
Very well. The Chair now recognizes Councilwoman Tasco.
Now, I have other 490 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 questions, but if other councilmembers want to talk about the voting machines while they're here, I will yield to them on the voting machines but I want to come back to my time.
Do you have questions on the voting machine? The Chair recognizes Councilman Kenney.
Thank you very much. Commissioner, you indicated in your testimony that it was going to be the sole cost of the vendor. Well, in reality, it's going to be o our costs because we're buying a machine that's a part of the contract. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Of course.
One things that I would suggest is that since you're going to go look at elections -- and I don't mean this for Fred because I know Fred's got experience in this. If you're going to go look at elections in Columbus and Chicago and Baltimore and wherever, we ought to look at election here in Philly. Have your people go out into the polling places in Philadelphia, in South Philly, Northeast, West 491 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 Philly, and see how that ebb and flow of that election works because part of the problem here, and I think it's been alluded to by a number of people who have questioned and have concerns, for a Penn student in a division in the 1st ward on a new election or a 2nd ward or 56th ward on a new election with a new voting machine, and you're look are for trouble. One of the things that I've learned and heard over the years, there's a whole staff of people that are there already, from the judge, minority inspector, the majority inspector, the clerk, all of these people that are in there and for years have been sorely underpaid and underappreciated for the length of time and the work they do that day. Pay them the extra money or look at potentially paying them the extra money, have a roving supervisor of some kind to be responsible for 10 or or 25 different 20 divisions. If there's a problem, they pick up the phone, beep somebody, have them come and fix the machine. You're dealing with 1981 people seems to me to be a amazingly difficult and complicated task of placing them, finding them, training them, and then having them interact with these people 492 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 that have run elections, some of them for and 25 years. While I recognize the desire to do this right and to get off on the right foot, I mean, this is going to be a big change for people to begin with, and hopefully it's going to be a big positive change. I hate to see it get off with some problem at a polling place DA's Office and Fred's people and the police have to come respond to because there's some dispute as to what's going on in the division. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: I just would like to comment on one and then Fred would like to comment. Realize that the committee has been working very closely with the City commissioners an all of their people and also with the Committee of Seventy, so we are learning from everyone and they certainly know all there is to know about locations and they are the ones who made the requirement that we put that in the RFP.
I think your committee members need to go out and spend a couple hours in a division in the polling place just to kind of see the dynamic of it. It's 493 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 different in any state and in every city in the country, and it's certainly unique here, good and bad. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Everyone on the committee is a Philadelphia resident and all of us have all voted and I personally have seen it and understand it and so has all the rest.
I just want to move on to one other aspect of the machines.
Excuse me, I think Mr. Voight also would like to be recognized.
Again, this is not fixed in stone, this particular element. It's a work in progress, and as a work in progress to try to ensure, number one, that the Election Boards themselves are well trained. And two, that there's a backup. And how that backup, where comes from, and how its drawn is still a work in progress. All of the people involved are intimately familiar with how elections are conducted. I have spent more time in my life in the voting machine warehouse than probably anyone other than Tommy Montag (ph).
I excluded you in 494 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 my comment. I said from the beginning you were --
What we've tried to do is to give them nine election people the benefit of that. The choices of the jurisdictions that we're going to see in part are not an attempt to replicate Philadelphia. One of the ironies is, you know, when you go to someplace else you go, "Well, gee, it's like us because it's got X-number of people." Well, it's not like us. We are unique in many respects. But we try to pick jurisdictions that most adequately reflect the kinds of things we want in a desirable system. That's why we picked Baltimore, that's why we picked Fairfax, Virginia. In Fairfax, Virginia, it was just a Republican primary, but it's the kind of machine that we may want to have. And this is the final stage. I mean, this thing has been going on for -- well, since Commissioner Tasco was involved and before that. So this is nothing new. It's a culmination of a process, not the beginning.
Let me ask you a question about the vendors. How many companies in this country make voting machines? 495 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005
Depends on what kind. What we did, the methodology that we pursued was to identify through the Federal Elections Commission first every company. Second, what we did was identify those companies that are certified in Pennsylvania that make full-face ballots. Now, there are lots of different jurisdictions that use punch cards, they use all different kind of ways, they use imaging systems, they use scanning systems. But based upon the prior work of the committee that was appointed by the Mayor back in 1994 that was bipartisan, included everybody, it was decided that what we wanted to have in Philadelphia was a system not dissimilar to the one we have, that our voters for good and sufficient political reasons in a positive political fight like to see the whole thing. They don't want to go in and see a scroll where they see part of the ballot, but they want to see the whole face. That's what our voters are used to.
Well, those are the people 496 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 that responded to the RFP.
There were four. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: No, I believe there were eight companies certified within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania who could respond to our RFP.
To a full-face request. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: They were all invited -- no, I'm sorry. There was not eight that said full face. There were five had full face. Only four came and submitted RFPs.
How many are we considering now? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: We are evaluating all four. I will -- let me say, we're in the midst of the evaluation, so let's say that we are evaluating the four companies who did present their RFPs. We have not made any cuts yet.
Will there be a cut down to a certified list -- not certified list, but a short list. 497 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: We will probably end up with a short list of two, yes.
Of two. Now, of any of those companies, the four or the potentially short list of two, we've had this discussion about and we've talked about nothing but purchase of machines for this whole discussion. Have we ever investigated or looked at the possibly at a lower cost over time leasing, lease-purchase, leasing the machines with a maintenance contract? Has there been in other type of scenario other than a straight out $21 million purchase. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: At the appropriate time during the course of negotiations with the successful vendors, we will ask them and entertain alternate financing programs such as leasing. I would also like to add --
Excuse me, before you add that, are there potentially any companies of the four that would say they wouldn't be interested in that kind of arrangement and it would be eliminated from the short list? Isn't appropriate to kind of ask that question now 498 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 before we short-list them? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Let's say any company who wants to do business with anyone with that size of order can provide alternate financing through leasing by going to independent companies. I mean, there's no magic to go to a major leasing company and write a lease, so I cannot imagine anybody saying, "We're not going to talk to you because you're going to lease." So at the appropriate time, that will be a point of discussion. I would like to add one other thing that I hear a lot of conversation about alternate methods of funding the voting machines and whether we can use an authority or not. I have not checked with the City Solicitor's office or the Finance Department with that, but I do know that last year or two years ago we successfully acquired our automatic meter reading equipment for the Water Department through the Municipal Authority. So I believe that we will be able to handle these if it's so desired through one of the authorities.
Is the final 499 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 selection and recommendation and then request either for outright purchase or lease going to be coming back here to Council? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: No. 6
Why? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Today it's in the capital budget. If the capital budget is approved, it's like anything else, the process continues, award is made, and so forth and so on.
A $21 million expenditure. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: We've had larger expenditures that have gone through that once they are adopted and included in the capital budget, they then proceed along its course.
Would you have any opposition to it having coming back at some point in time to Council for information and/or approval? I mean, we're talking about a major expenditure that will have an affect of the average citizen's life over the next 10 to 15 years. So at some point in time, four years from now if we do this deal with X company and it 500 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 doesn't work out and Commissioner Applebaum is no 3 longer the commissioner and Fred is -- COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Are you telling me something?
The question is, is that I have some discomfort with once we agree, once we approve the money that somehow it is now totally out of our hands and you guys can go and do what you want. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: I feel that if City Council would so desire to have a briefing, we certainly could do that, a briefing and a discussion. But realize, we're up against the clock.
We've had some briefings lately that have been very elusive, so I'm a little worried about briefings. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Let's say we're up against the clock. Our goal is to have equipment ready for us delivered January in the year 2001, ready for an election May 2001. In order to accommodate that, most likely we would have to make an award to the successful company by July 1st of this year, So the time is short. 501 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 Now, I believe that based on what you're saying there that if City Council would suggest that we bring that to City Council for discussion and for information, I would have no 6 problem with that, but I don't think there's any legal requirements for a vote of any kind. But I think it's important to bring to your attention where we are and what we're doing, and I would certainly recommend we do that.
It's important for another reason. Because many of you are actively involved in the running of an election, you're a part of the educational process, that is, part of this ought to be educating you as to how this works so that you in turn can communicate to your constituents. I mean, that goes a long way towards everybody being on the same page. In the first instance, the commissioners themselves, the voting commissioners are going to have to agree that this is the direction that they want to go in. Everybody's going to be on the same page if we're going to get this done. Remember, it was a very, very short time frame, and the last thing we want to do is have everybody trying to 502 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 micro-manage the process. But ultimately we're going to need anybody's help in making sure it works. Remember that Montgomery County, a county very adjacent to us, decided to go in a different path and they bought all new machines. Now, we knew at the time that that's not the kind of machine that we would ever by for Philadelphia County. They were scroll machines, they fit in a suitcase. Well, fitting in a suitcase is nice except, you know, people in Philadelphia sometimes take souvenirs. (Laughter.)
They can't use the thing for anything else, but you know those metal machines that we had, the fabricated machines? How many do you think have walked? I mean, what use --
We looked at that and we go, "Oh, my God," and then they scroll so you had to go all the way through the full ballot in order to vote. Well, people don't want to do that. They want to vote, they want to skip, they want to 503 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 be able to go here and there. Well, we don't want to have to relive that kind of thing because we're not going to go in that direction, but we will need your help in making sure that it gets done and it works.
Madam President, I'm finished on the voting machines, but I'd like to get back on line on some other things.
Thank you. Councilman Cohen, is this regarding the voting machines?
I'm James Roundtree and I'm director of the Minority Business Enterprize Council, and I just wanted to add that each one of the vendors that we have interviewed thus far has meaningful and substantial participation for both minority and women firms and it will depend on which firm that is ultimately selected, the final amount of participation that will occur in each instance. 504 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Cohen.
Mr. Roundtree, if we went ahead with the selection of 1618 different people, who would pick them? Is there anything in your agreement, in the RFP? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: The responsibility -- this is Lou Applebaum, not Jim Roundtree speaking. The responsibility of providing the trained people will be of the vendor who is hired by the manufacturer to handle and control and be responsible for the training of those people. They will make the selections. It will be under their control.
I would have some question about that very seriously. I think the point Councilwoman Tasco raised is a very valid point. With due respect, Mr. Voight, to you and to the folks in the warehouse, there's nothing like the dynamics of a voting precinct. People have to work together and the people who work there year after year are very jealous of their responsibilities. They almost automatically 505 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 resent anybody else coming in. They grudgingly permit a repair person to fix the machine because they have a real need for that. An therefore, it would seem to me that the selection process ought to go in the same way that the machine inspector process goes and that the City ought not to advocate its responsibility for picking people, but the City itself ought to pick the people. It's the best way also of enforcing the minority rules that we want enforced in all cases. And it seems to me that by your statement in the RFP, whoever proposed this understood it because you want the person there, they have to be a City resident there from 6:30 in the morning until the end the voting. It means that person can't vote at his or her vote at his or her own polling place unless they live right in that polling place because the voting machines won't open till 7:00. If they have to be there all the time, they're not going to be able to get away to vote. And I don't think we want to force people into voting absentee. So I think that whoever proposed this probably assumed that the choice would be among the people in the voting precinct, and that may 506 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 make since, but I think Councilwoman Tasco' proposal is the only one that makes sense in real life. If there is to be such a person, I'm not convinced that this need be, but I can see your underlying reason of wanting somebody specially trained to backup, it's like having a repair person there present. But the relationships of people there are very delicate, and you run the problem that the person who comes in will believe, no matter how often you say you're just there to backup, that person often comes to believe that he or she there as the real overseer. They'll learn this word, you know, in the Pennsylvania statute and they'll act as the overseer and you're going to have problems.
Councilman, I think Mr. Voight would like address that for the last time.
Again, it's a work in progress. All of us are sensitive to how a polling place works and how you don't want to disrupt that process. You don't want to interject something that's going to make that polling place an unpleasant place for the people who have to 507 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 work there. They're the most important part of it. There's nothing fixed in stone. This was a suggestion that was put in here originally at the behest of the commissioners. How you worked it out, how you get the people, how you get the people to know how to get to someplace.
Mr. Vogel (sic), we want some assurance that we're going to have something to say about that aspect because --
The three elected commissioners are the ones who have the legal authority to appoint an overseer under the election code. I would suggest to you that those three commissioners are responsive to you on a bipartisan bases. They're not going to do something -- I'm not speaking for them, but I can assure you that I know them. They're not going to do something stupid. They're not going to do something without consulting with you both in your capacity as Councilpeople and in your respective political capacities. Again, they want it to 508 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 work. Ultimately if it doesn't work, the people whose necks are on the line and who will be hung by the citizens of Philadelphia aren't you, aren't me, it's the three of them, okay.
Well, to a lesser degree. They go up the pole first. They're not going to do that without actually going through the process.
Well, what they've done so far -- and we think they're all fine people and we respect them a lot. But what they've done so far is put in language that distresses us because they're looking at it from one position operating the whole thing citywide and we're looking at it from our own local experiences. We'd like to have assurance that before there is a final decision, that it comes back to this body in some fashion. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: As I indicated before, prior to making an award, we will sit down with City Council and we'll have a complete discussion and briefing of the whole matter and 509 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 everyone will have their appropriate input. And we, as Fred said, are not going to do anything foolish/ the voting commissioners are part of this. They have their full responsibility and we believe strongly that we're on the right track, and maybe your suggestions are absolutely right and we shouldn't use that mechanism then we might not, but we'll continue.
At this point, we miss the elegance of Councilwoman Clark who would tell us about the story about "trust me." (Laughter.)
And that's what we're being asked. We don't feel as if we would like to just trust. We feel we have a responsibility, being the 17 or people elected 18 to make general policy decisions, we'd like to have a little more than having to trust. We'd like to be involved in making the actual decision or at least having an opportunity to say "yes" or "no." That's the concern. I don't think we have to maybe debate it anymore, but I wanted to make it very clear -- COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Thank you. 510 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005
Thank you. Are there any other questions regarding the voting machine issue? The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.
Thank you, Madam President. Thank you for the assurance that Council will have a final look at as you proceed down the line. And in an attempt to honor the deadline you're under, to the extent that it's possible, if you could forward us information prior to this ultimate sit-down and re-look-at, that would be helpful. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: We will do that.
Thank you. Mr. Applebaum, just very briefly, we've had extensive 511 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 discussion about the training issue for the workers. My concern is for voters in this part of the discussion. And I know the RFP talked about what the vendor had to provide in terms of 1681 people at the 1681 polling places and all of that. Is there a laid-out game plan at the moment for how we're going to communicate to the voters of this City about these new machines? Are we going to do mailings? Are we going to have a video presentation on cable TV? Are we going to have models of the machine at libraries in anticipation of the election? Tell us a little bit about that. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Everything you just stated, the answer would be yes. Part of the proposal requires the vendor to supply us with VCR tapes, with training classes. We talked about having them in libraries and as a full public relations task to introduce to the citizens of the City of Philadelphia this new equipment.
Wonderful. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: And also the company that -- one of the companies that were brought to us, and it so happened that some of the vendors brought the same companies to us who are 512 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 going to do that work.
That's amazing. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: And they are all companies that are in our MBEC book, so we feel comfortable that whichever vendor we select of the two that we short-list, the participants will match, will work.
Can you forward to us through the Chair information you have on the past three fiscal years and the two elections in each of those two years on the transport and pickup operation that we utilize to get the machines from the warehouse to wherever they're going, who's done the work, size of the contract, companies involved, and whether any of those firms are minority or female or other companies? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Yes, sir.
It's my understanding that the new machines are going to be picked up, they have to be stored by the vendor at a particular location for eventual transportation to polling places, and I'd like to know about potential storage opportunities for the new machines as well as their eventual kind of 513 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 final resting place. We had some decision last year with the Public Property Commission. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: I believe I presented you with a report on that, but we can do that. And again, the three contracts or the three years you're talking about are contracts issued by procurement for transportation of machines from the ware house to the polling places.
Right. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: We can get that for you and also the new plans for the temporary warehouse for the new machines. We'll present that to you again.
The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco. I only meant to give 30 seconds when I started and everybody went off on my time. I just want to make three points for the record so it will be clear. One, we do not consider offering a recommendation for that position as a perk. Two, I think you will have some standards for that person in terms of their 514 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 ability to understand computers and things of that nature, and certainly, we can find people in our community to do that. And finally, Mr. Voigt, most people don't know the commissioners. When the machines don't work and the polling places don't open, they get on us. I'm finished with the voting. I'd just like to ask two questions, one of Mr. Applebaum. On -1920 you and in your testimony talked about the contracting function where you contract for special services to capture overpayment for the state sales tax. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Yes.
What special and unique service this vendor provide that a staff person on your staff could not provide at a lower cost? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: The contract that you're speaking of is a professional service contract with a vendor who has access to all of the bids that they're all public information. They then through their staff, it's all done externally by this company, they visit the construction companies who have been awarded 515 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 contracts and have completed contracts. They work with the vendors, they go through their accounting records, they go through their paid bills, and through that procedure determine the amounts of overpayments that they might have made to their suppliers for products that are ultimately going to the City of Philadelphia to be included in our construction. And the vendor, based on that information, files a claim with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. If the Commonwealth honors that claim, we then receive a refund check. If not, the vendor takes it into court and the vendor handles the total program. We then receive checks from the Commonwealth for these refunds, and the vendor is then paid a percentage of that check as his fee. So there's absolutely no cost to the City of Philadelphia for any of this process.
So the 250 comes from what you recapture. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Correct. The problem is, the fee that we pay them is chargeable to the Procurement Department, it's in our budget, so to speak, but when the funds come in from the Commonwealth, they are deposited in the General 516 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 Fund and not allocated to procurement even though it does show in our budget documents the amount of money we collected.
One question, Mr. Roundtree. We had some discussion in the last couple of weeks about the airport's master plan and some advertising RFPs that are on the street and I asked about the affirmative minority participation. To date, I am still waiting for the information about the affirmative action program there, and I'd like to know from you just what the status is. I can't seem to get an answer about what they're doing about minority participation.
Unfortunately, Councilwoman, so are we. We are waiting for the same information. I think the Department of Aviation will also be here, and that would be a very good question to ask the director because we haven't receive that information either.
Are you a part of the discussions on the whole master plan and the other advertising RFPs that are going on? Are you at the table during those discussions? If you're 517 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 not, why not?
Again, that's is a very good question to ask the aviation director. Initially, what MBEC is involved in is when they first do their initial draft of an RFP. They send thier request to the MBEC and ask for us to help them develop ranges. Once we do that, we send it back and it's advertised. We're also asked when the proposals come in to review the proposals and make a recommendation, but I have not been a part of the selection process or the interview process.
Have you in the past been part of the -- what was your involvement prior --
Prior to the new director, I had been involved in most of the major activities at the airport from the selection standpoint. With the major vendor, I participated with the Law Department in drafting the DBE program. I had some conversations on the transportation contract and about three other major pieces of business that the airport had under prior directors.
But under this 518 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 director, you have not been at the table.
Thank you. I think we're definitely going to have to go by the five-minute rule here. The Chair recognizes Councilman Ortiz.
Thank you, Madam President. MIT is going to get a lot of requests from several ward leaders for computer experts to come in and handle Election Day elections for them. I can see that now, "hacker wanted, working elections in Philadelphia, Make your test for democracy," I guess, right? Mr. Roundtree, MBEC, we have a lot of building going on in the City of Philadelphia, and a lot of this building is going on by the fact that we have given TIFs, tax breaks, all the way down the line. Do we have figures in terms of one, how many -- what is the percentage of minority contractors involved? Are there any primary minority contractors? If there are 519 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 subcontractors, what are they doing and in what places? And in terms of the skilled jobs in the building trades, we passed a prevailing wage bill 5 after much discussion here last summer. A few commitments were made to this Council in terms of minority hiring and the minority percentages that were going to be going into those different jobs that are currently being performed across the City. You were supposed to be working with the building trades to set up a series of regulations and, I would imagine, objectives to be reached and dates that we would reach those objectives. What has happened? I know that's a lot of questions in one but, you know, see if you can make sense.
There are so many, Councilman. What I'm going to have to do is when we go back to the office review every last one of them and provide you a written response for that. But I can tell you that from the standpoint of meeting with the various trade unions, nothing has happened.
Nothing has 520 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 happened?
Nothing has happened. Let me quantify that. I have gotten from the electricians and the carpenters indicating that they would be willing to sit down and help draft a procedure of how they can be involved. And by being involved, giving me the information that we --
This is February 15th. We passed the legislation in September.
Yes. And as you know, during the time we passed the legislation, it was election time and basically no one wanted to do anything during the election period. I have had a tremendous amount of --
Yes, it does. Yes, it does. But nobody would like to make commitments until they find out what administration is going to be in office next, and I have been very frustrated in trying to establish anything without anyone wanting to make a commitment.
Well, when this 521 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 Council passed that legislation, we were not -- that's not a part of the legislation that no one wants to make commitment. Commitments were made to this Council during the process of hearings of that legislation. We had a great deal of debate because a lot of us had a lot of reservations about it and we did not put and say, well, you know, we're going to see and ask questions about who's going to be in what place and so on.
It was a commitment to begin doing the things that are to be done. We have people working today in construction projects in the City of Philadelphia, many individual that come from Texas, Florida, that come from different states, and we're not hiring individuals from the City of Philadelphia. And that, to me, is unconscionable when we go through the process of passing emergency legislation because it had to be done at that time and then our citizens are not enjoying the benefits of this boom in building that we're having. I said one time that I was in this Council when the Convention Center got built and our community and our citizens did not 522 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 participate in that boom. And now we're going through another boom, and I want to see some results in terms of the citizens of Philadelphia participating in the jobs that are being done in Philadelphia. And I really cannot understand why is it so difficult if MBEC is there to get that data and the reasons why these things are not happening. An election is not an excuse.
May I respond before you go on, because I'm going to lose your train of thought.
Until September you had not empowered MBEC to do anything other than monitor the business participation. As of September you gave us that responsibility. However, the bill that you passed did not give us any implementation power, so the next issue for us is to develop policies around implementation. That is the level of frustration that I was telling you about. You also need to know that the amount of construction that is going on, although there are a number projects that are on the bill, the actual activity has slowed somewhat. There's 523 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 going to be a boom, and you're absolutely right, there are people on what they call temporary cards from as far west as Texas and as far south as Florida. However, until -- and I talked to Councilman Clarke. Until we can get together and come up with an implementation policy, we don't have the responsibility right now to go in and order anybody to give us any information.
I asked at that time for a census, a census. I wanted to know how many individuals, first of all, from Philadelphia were in the skilled trades from Philadelphia. Two, I wanted to know in terms of ethnic background. We never got that.
We requested that from the people and they were supposed to get it to you.
They were supposed to get it to you. We have right now the Penn's Landing project, Disney Quest, two stadiums, one practice facility, a couple of hotels that are 524 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 going to go up, a whole series of buildings going on, all of them, all of them are being financed in one way or the other through taxpayers, Philadelphia taxpayers' money. And all that I want to know is, what are they and we as a city receiving as a benefit in terms of jobs and contracts and I want a description of those contracts and those jobs and the people who are manning them, that is all. That's the main function of MBEC.
No, sir. May I remind you that our main function is to provide assistance on City projects. But when you go into a TIF, it is a different set of circumstances. If it's funded through PAID or if it's funded through the Municipal Authority or some other entity, once it's funded through that entity, it becomes their responsibility to provide information or to monitor that process. The most difficult aspect of what we do is that a number of the quasi City agencies had not at that point had affirmative action policies, nor did they name MBEC as monitoring authority or agency. When you, again, talk about how it's funded when it has matching 525 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 dollars, there are other entities that are involved in the actual monitoring process. I'll give you a painstaking example. The Kvaerner, the Navy Yard, although the MBEC was involved in the initial review of their plan, the actual monitoring procedure went to OHCD at the time and they hired the urban coalition. One of the things that the MBEC did to stay involved was to try and help the activity to assure this Council that they would have some participation, but we are not the authority that can evoke any activity. If they don't do what you ask, we don't have the authority to say, "You won't get paid, you can't do any" --
I understand. There are very little teeth that is in the MBEC, but at least the ability to get the data necessary. And Kvaerner, Kvaerner's a great example of the failures of like the Gussie Clark saying that she said, we trusted in the Kvaerner deal and we got shafted. But I think that we have one legislation that we passed, some commitments were made, nothing has been done. We have projects that are going on and we want should data. 526 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005
Would you forward that to the Chair, please, and I will make certain that each Councilmember receives that?
I actually wanted to respond somewhat to Councilman Ortiz. There actually had been something done, although informally, when Miss Hamilton who was then the director of MBEC for City Council was here. She drafted a letter in conjunction with Mr. Roundtree and forwarded that letter to Mr. Dougherty who was the business agent for the electricians union. He subsequently forwarded a copy to that letter to the head of building and trades, Mr. Gillespie. My understanding is that he said he would be willing to respond to the information and the questions that were put in that letter and it asked about the things that you now speak of, the locations of the individuals, zip codes, the all nine yards. The problem was, as a follow-up, Miss 527 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 Hamilton left to do other things, and I kind of think that's where the breakdown occurred on our end. But I don't know about MBEC as it relates to Mr. Roundtree. But I can say that's where it kind where it broke down with us. So I think that we can potentially get some dialogue going along with Mr. Gillespie and the building trade union as it relates to the response of those questions.
I know about the letter that Miss Hamilton sent, but it was through MBEC. And I believe that at this point in time because of the commitments that were made, because of everything that is going on in the City of Philadelphia, we have to make sure that the citizens of Philadelphia are participating in all of the things that are going on. It makes no 18 sense, it makes no sense to have this huge economic boom in this city in terms of construction, in terms of development, and have no 21 participation either by contractors or by people in terms of their jobs. It makes no sense to have people from Southwestern Texas coming in to do jobs here in Philadelphia that can be done by Philadelphia residents. I think it's 528 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 unconscionable. Madam Chair, I have no further questions.
We have quite a list here. The Chair recognizes Councilman Kenney.
Again, I'm going to start timing. We will have five minutes for the first go-around. I think everybody's been given a great deal of latitude. We have a number of Councilpeople that want to ask questions and we've had a number of witnesses in the audience since 9 o'clock this morning. The Chair recognizes Councilman Kenney.
Thank you very much, Madam President. Commissioner Applebaum, do we have a system or any procedure to tack our contractors who either fail to perform up to their -- up to what they have contracted to do or that have violated state or city laws or federal laws and attempt to go through department by department to identify those contractors and to eliminate them 529 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 from future City building? For example, if an individual's contracted with the Water Department or the Department of License and Inspection to do certain demolition work and that stuff winds up being dumped on the street somewhere in West Philadelphia and the Police Department catch them and the DA's Office is now proceeding with whatever they do, are we aware of that and do we prohibit or preclude those contractors in the future from bidding work? What happens with that? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: We are aware of those instances because the operating departments must bring them to our attention, and it is our responsibility to start the process to default the vendors and also go against their performance bond if they so exist. On future bids, before every award is made, a determination is made whether that bidder who happens to be the lowest bidder is also responsive and responsible. Vendors who are non-responsible who have done poor workmanship or who have short-dump, the ones that you're talking about, I'm quite aware of that. We then make the decision to not make awards, call 530 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 them a non-responsible vendor and we will not award to them.
Have there been situations in the past that you're aware of not retrospectively that people had slipped through our net, so to speak, and have acquired additional City work while either in dispute with another department or under investigation or under arrest for various violations of state and city law? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: I don't believe so. In the public works arena, every vendor who requests to bid on a Public Works contract must submit a prequalification questionnaire. The prequalifications questionnaire has those types of questions inserted asked in the questionnaire. It then goes to the operating department. They make a determination whether that bidder should be allowed to bid or not. So I would say through that process, we catch 90, 95 percent of it. I cannot say that there's absolutely no one who falls through the cracks; they might.
Does the same holds true for payment of taxes, payment of other types 531 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 of requirements that have not been paid? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: The Revenue Department -- it's either the Revenue Department or the Finance Department, I'm not sure who controls that, has programs that where a check is going to be issued to a vendor on a city contract is matched against the delinquency list. And if delinquency, they will not issue that check.
Do we go down as far as dealing with individual principals of companies. I know there's often a shell game going on where XYZ Company becomes ABC Company after their XYZ Company got in trouble, and we have the same basic principles just basically operating under a different corporate veil. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Well, we've had that and we've caught them. And we had one recently, I'm not going to mention names, that the company was defaulted, all the contracts canceled. In fact, the DA is -- we brought that to the attention DA's attention, and they're investigating them. And then the same principles came up in another company. We were aware of that and stopped them. So we try our very, very best 532 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 to --
Let me ask you a related question on the abandoned car removal program and the salvers. We are now going to go out and solicit, and we have already, a large number of salvers from the region. Do we have similar requirements to do background checks on the principals of the company and on their employees? I don't want to bad mouth directly the towing and salving business because there are a lot of reputable people in it, but there seems to be that gray area where what I'm afraid of is that one of the salvers that we may hire from the suburbs is going to come in and pick up a junk, hawked it, six months before hand one of his employees dumped on the street himself. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: We have stringent, stringent background checks. They must, first of all, be certified by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania with a salvers license. Their equipment must be looked at by L&I and they certify tow trucks. The Police Department visits their location to make sure that they have adequate storage facility for the 533 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 abandoned cars, and they also -- the Police Department does background checks on the principals and on their employees as part of the program.
Also making sure that their employees are licensed drivers in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: I would assume when Police Department makes the background check, that's part of it, that's probably they start with the driver's license and through that get other information.
Could you provide me what criteria we're imposing upon these people who want to bid on this work as far as what they're required to provide? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Absolutely. We have that. We just issued that statement to all of the salvers who came to our meeting all of the requirements. We have that. I'll be glad to issue that to the Chair.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair. 534 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005
Thank you. The Chair now recognizes Councilman Cohen.
Thank you, Madam President. Who makes the decision as to the priority of picking up the cars? Does the salver do it? Does the police captain do it? Who does it? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: That, I believe, is handled by the abandoned officer that at the current time is located in each police district. There's an officer within each district who has the responsibility and control of the abandon car program.
And that officer would have the power to direct the order? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: I believe so.
Because the answers we get in the 35th District is that it's up the salvers, they make the decisions, they pick which cars, among the cars that are sent to them, they are the ones that pick them. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: No, the cars 535 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 are picked out by the Police Department, by an officer, and then it goes to the abandoned officer person in that district how has a responsibility for it. Salvers are not permitted to come in and just take cars away.
So it's the police abandoned officer who can determine the priority? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Correct.
Because there have been instances where cars have been in the middle of the block for a week and the salver says, well, he's busy with other cars. We're told that, but you say that should not happen, the police captain would have would have the power to direct the salver to go to a particular car and get that next? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Absolutely.
Very good. Now, back to the voting machine on a different aspect. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Sure.
I may have not heard this accurately. I thought at one point it was said in the procedure that something was going to be taken at the end of the voting, something was 536 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 going to be carried somewhere else and that two hours after the election we think we could have a result. Isn't this an electronic system? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Of course.
Well, I thought that one of the values of doing this was that maybe two minutes after the election, at 9:02, there would be reports. Say if the voting stopped at 8:00, then at 8:02 there would be reports because all the results would electronically be transmitted from every polling place in the City to one central location. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: It is not possible to have every polling place in the City of Philadelphia set up with the correct equipment that will be able to take the electronic data and read it from each polling place. Realize, the polling places, some of them don't even have telephone lines. So in order to properly control it, we are establishing, I believe the number is 10 regional centers. So where the electronic media that is removed from the voting machine will be delivered to that location, will be inserted into a reader, that reader will then transmit the 537 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 information from that electronic media directly to a mainframe that will be under control in Election Central. I said two hours; I would hope that it will be a lot less than that, but it will depend upon the traffic moving the electronic media from polling places to ten central locations. And also, you must realize we have to have a backup to that electronic media. So at each polling location, there would be a process that they will go through to close the polling location. And part of that process is closing the machine and having the machine print out a paper tape that will have all of the totals inscribed. That paper tape and the electronic media will be delivered to the regional's tabulating Centers. Also, the information is also contained within the machine. So there's three sources of information: It's in the machine, it's on a paper tape, and it's in a piece of electronic media, a diskette or whatever. And then it will transmitted, as I mentioned, to the regional centers that will who then read the media, transmit it to Election Central. Most likely it will take less than two hours. But if there's a snowstorm that day and you have trouble, 538 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 difficulty in moving the media to the regional centers, that will slow it down.
Well I find that, I have to tell you, terribly disappointing because often in the mayoral race we know very quickly. We often know within a half an hour the radio is broad casting from the preliminary result because the police pick it up at the polling station and get it -- I think they bring it right downtown or they get it to some central location very quickly, you know, on the quick tally that the police take right after the end of the voting. I -- COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: There still will be --
What we were talking act with the evidence, I was clearly under the impression we'd know within minutes and nobody would have any questions and there wouldn't be time for anybody -- COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: I think it's impractical to think that within a couple of minutes you're going to have the results from 3500 voting machines within two minutes fully tabulated and completed, even if you put -- if you put 539 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 cellular telephones in every machine had them phone them in, the results into some central computer, it would still take time. You have 3500 machines that you have to report on. Now, there will be flash returns that will occur fast, but my comment at the two hours, it will be absolutely 100 percent correct, the numbers will be verified, entered into the computer and completed.
Well, could we get more information on that part? Because I find that very troubling because it seems to me electronically the moment the voting is ended, I understood the machines already had the votes tabulated. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Of course --
That it took no time to tabulate the votes in the machine. By the moment the machine was closed, there would be a tabulation. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: There is. The moment the machine is closed --
And then electronically to have 3500 polling, you know, voting machines to go into a computer is nothing 540 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 today. They have billions in a second. There are billions of operations that take place. So I would like to yield to Councilman Rizzo who apparently wants to discuss this issue, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Councilman. You want to yield to Councilman Rizzo and then unfortunately your time is up.
I was aware that the new voting machines are not on line. And what you described and what Councilman Cohen described in today's world of technology, downloading 3500 locations to a central location is a piece of cake in the computer world. If we're spending $21 million on voting machines, I would hope that we wouldn't still be utilizing part of the old process and not using the entire world of technology if we have to equip these polling places with a portable device that makes that vote on line, and the minute the polls close it downloads to a central location. It seems as though that's something that we should explore. I'd be interested to know throughout the country that's using this technology, are any cities, 541 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 communities, using the technology that we're describing that we wish we could be because to use a system where you have to still run cartridges to a satellite location then download it to a central location seems to me that we're spending $21 million and not utilizing it to the degree that it could be utilized.
Let me just, if I might, answer your question, both of your questions. One, there's a big myth, the myth of computer world, the myth of the Internet, and in fact there are experiments in voting on the Internet. For those of us read the papers last week, we might have seen a little problem with hackers bringing down systems. Well, what you want to avoid in terms of technology is you want -- you want speed you want accuracy, you want security. And one of things that you have to be able to do is have a paper trail, have an actual trail so that you can go back, no matter what disaster befalls you, and totally reconstruct the election. There was a panel that was put together in California by IBM, the secretaries of states of five different jurisdiction to review the Internet 542 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 and to look forward in terms of how one could use the most modern technology developed. And what they in unanimously came back and said was, "No, we're not ready for that yet." What we're looking at is state-of-the-art technology. We are looking at stuff which is right at the cutting edge, but which is used and has been used successfully in other jurisdictions. What we don't want to do is to be guinea pigs. We may want to be risk averse. We may want to be conservative because we want to be right. Now, one of the things that people talk about is, gee, why couldn't you use cell phones. In fact, the commissioner was one of the proponents of that. Well, it happens to be our polling places in Philadelphia and in Pennsylvania by law are in our neighborhoods. We have lots of places that don't have telephones, some of them don't have running water, some of them don't have bath facilities, some of them are fairly primitive, but they're in our neighborhoods. Now, many of those places may or may not be conducive to the cell phone. Again, we have this myth of technology that somehow a cell phone can be used 543 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 every place in the City. I can tell you there are places, where we have polling places in public buildings where you can't use a cell phone. Now, again, we went to the FEC which has catalog state-of-the-art equipment which has been certified. The key is certification. We went to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, state-of-the-art technology which has been certified and which has been used in a jurisdiction of comparable size, that's the kind of criteria that you have to use, not myth, not belief, reality. And that's what everybody is involved with bid.
I understand the potential problems association with the Internet, but we're not talking about the Internet here, we're talking about a closed system that is a secure system that we're talking about the transmission of data either through a telephone line or digital signal through a cellular telephone. I don't want to continue this, but all I'm suggesting is that if we're going to spend all of this money on technology, assure me that we can some day get there, that maybe in the first election we'll have to do with what Commissioner 544 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 Applebaum described, but we have equipment that can be upgraded to meet the needs of --
Councilman, I can't make that commitment so long as we choose or are compelled to change polling places with frequency where we use polling places that are in people's homes, where we use polling places that are in commercial establishments which change and change almost every election. So long as you are not in a position to guarantee that you're going to use the same site and are able to hardwire that site, and I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Well, there's another comment I would just like to add and that's the security factor. The transmission of the data from the cartridges to election central must be done on a secured site. You cannot use open telephone lines. So you would then -- in order to have each location do it on their own, we would have to have 1600 or how many locations hardwired with a telephone system to each one of those locations for each election. That could be very costly because we have to be -- in addition 545 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 to everything else, we must be very conscious of the security factor and no one can break in and change the numbers.
Again, I don't want to continue this, but I'm hoping that the equipment that we spend all of this money isn't something antiquated when get it, that if there is something out there that can have add-ons or enhancements -- COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Let me just add one thing. One of the members of the committee is a representative from the Mayor's Office of Information Services, and this particular gentleman is very experienced in computers and computerization, and he is -- we're using his ability on the technology issues and he, I feel confident, knows the technology that we're talking about.
Thank you very much. Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown. 546 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005
To your testimony, , second paragraph, and I quote, "An increase of 500,000 in Class 200 provides for the increased cost of mandated advertising." Can you speak first to what that is? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: The Procurement Department is responsible for placement and paying of all advertisements that appear in the local newspapers. These are legally mandated ads for procurement for election, et cetera, and et cetera. Every year we have gone back at the end of budget year, and through the transfer process, have had requested monies transferred to us because we've always been short.
Okay. COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Hopefully, this additional allotment of $500,000 will prevent us from running out at the end of the year and resorting to a transfer. But the advertizing, the election advertising, the bid advertising, all of these advertising costs are on the Procurement 547 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 Department's budget.
To follow up in the spirit of Councilman Ortiz's comments, what percentage or is it a practice to include minority-owned print media and/or electronic media? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: Yes, we advertise regularly in the two, the Philadelphia Daily News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and then we advertise regularly in the Philadelphia Tribune, and the Al Dia newspaper and the other minority newspapers.
Thank you very much. Mr. Roundtree, you speak to, your testimony, second paragraph, second sentence, "This represents a decline from FY '98's 14.8 percent of the total $316 million awarded," with regards to contract participation. Why the decline?
Jim Roundtree, MBEC. There are a number of reasons, contract variations. On the next page you'll see a graph that depicts public works versus service supply 548 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 and equipment, and the most glowing thing in that area is the actual service supply and equipment because we did pretty well with public works. But because of the nature of how the City's been purchasing a number of equipment purchases and supply items, we've had a lack of participation in those areas. And that's the response.
You say lack of -- so is that due to -- what is that due to?
In certain items, we've gone directly to the manufacturer versus distributors so, therefore, at this point, we don't have any minority or women manufacturers that the City purchases from. Not to say that there are no minority and women manufacturers in the country, but the City of Philadelphia has not been purchasing from any.
Did you want to add something, Mr. Applebaum? COMMISSIONER APPLEBAUM: No. That is correct.
In this instance there's been a dramatic increase, so what factors have sparked that progress?
We have gone to an automated application tracking process where we can input the information and then it can take a little bit more time and do the desk audits, so we feel that the automation has helped us increase our level of efficiency in that area.
Referring, again, to Councilman Ortiz's passionate comments, aren't those type of technical services, can't they also be utilized with regards to the kind of issues Angel Ortiz spoke of?
Yes. We just purchased a tracking system for employment and business activities. But up until September, the MBEC was only responsible for tracking business participation with the exception of Executive Order 95, which is a labor agreement, labor management agreement. We have two projects that we've had participation of those that we actually 550 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 had -- we actually monitor the employee side. But heretofore, the MBEC has only been responsible for monitoring the business of the city.
Last , first paragraph, the guide that speaks to how to do business with the City, I'm always concerned about outreach and making sure word gets out in the hinterland, if you will, so what entities do you first look to? In addition to PCDC, what other avenues do you look to ensure that information gets to persons who want to do business with the City?
These seminars are based on people who have submitted applications to the City to either be certified as minority women or disabled businesses or businesses who are interested in utilizing those firms for City contracts. PCDC and PIDC and the Procurement Department participate with the MBEC in assuring firms that they understand what requirement are needed to participate on City contracts. Those 551 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 are what those workshops are about.
I would ask that you also look to and consider those who have the aspiration but don't have a clue of how to start. And so vehicles like the Northeast chamber and the West Philadelphia chamber and the various local chambers there's also opportunity there for individuals who want the opportunity, but have no 10 clue of where to start with regards to the City bureaucracy.
Yes. So that you know, Councilwoman, we have gone on many occasions to various sections of the City to put on, if you will, a show as to how you get certified, how you get into the procurement system, and then invited them to this more formal activity. We have worked with the North Philadelphia chamber, we have worked with the West Philadelphia chamber, and it's another group out in West Philadelphia, the West Philadelphia Incubator -- they escape me.
Yes. We've worked with them where we've gone to their establishment, talked with people who are interested in starting 552 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 their business and then telling them the nuances of the City procurement process and inviting them to a larger workshop where they can meet other individuals who are either interested in starting their businesses or expanding their business to include City contract opportunities.
Thank you. My final comment is being 45 days old, but also recognizing oftentimes there's a criticism that City departments do not talk to each other. Let me commend you for what I've read on paper with regards to your two departments, but I'll always be looking for tangible examples where what's on paper is reflected in reality.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll try to be brief. Mr. Roundtree, in following up to Councilman Ortiz's questioning and the follow-up 553 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 to my questioning related to economic stimulus program outlined in the five-year financial plan, for the record, Minority Business Enterprise Council has no oversight or monitoring authority over PIDC or PAID or Redevelopment Authority; is that true?
And the affirmative action policies of those agencies are inconsistent with the City's affirmative action policy; is that true?
Well, I wouldn't say that. I would defer to them to respond to you on that, but from what I know, they have agreed in many cases to use Executive Order 193 specifically where calls for certification of businesses to be counted toward participation. Now, beyond that is where you need to ask them specifically.
By inconsistent, I don't mean to what extent are they inconsistent. I mean, it's not the exact same policy. They do not always follow the executive order.
Exactly. They have the option. 554 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005
Furthermore, your agency does not have any monitoring or oversight authority over loan contracts at all?
For the record, would you please make formal recommendations to this body as to how we could give you that monitoring and oversight authority particularly on development projects as it relates to quasi public loan contracts?
Thank you, Councilman. We brought up that issue before because monitoring is very important to make sure the job gets done. Thank you for bringing up that issue. Councilwoman Tasco. Did she leave the room?
She said I could take her place whenever she was on the phone. (Laughter.)
That's pretty 555 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 good. What can we say? Councilman Nutter.