For example, the question is, I've been told over the years the reason the City stopped enforcing these notices that they'd send out about dangerous conditions was that the City couldn't get a contractor to bid because of the City's very bad payment policies, because the City didn't pay contractors.
And the second question was, the City limited many contractors because of certain bonding requirements that were too expensive for contractors to pay.
Now, have you overcome those problems? If we identify the million dollars, say, that could be used for this purpose, what would that buy us in terms of doing this kind of work?
Right. If the funding identified as legal by the Law Department and we could use it, then it would eliminate the main problem, because the problem was that we didn't pay the bill; it's that we gave the contractor 177 10/24/00 STREETS/SERVICES - RES. 000041 assessment bills and he had to go out and collect it from 80 individual people. They didn't want to do that anymore. If we identified this million dollars, then that's a big part of the program and we could pay the contractor in advance and then send out the bills to the individual property owners so that they would pay their fair share of the assessment. But in that, we wouldn't necessarily have to put in 100 or 200 percent overage that the contractors put in on things like that to collect the bills.
Well, have you proposed ideas such as going back to the old way but telling the contractor that if the citizens don't make the payment, the homeowners don't make the payment, the City will? And then the City will take the enforcement action so that the contractor doesn't have to do that?
Well, that's one thing we could look into a little more. We haven't looked so much in that simply because, again, we could not identify any funds to pay the contractors with. 178 10/24/00 STREETS/SERVICES - RES. 000041
Well, I just think there's so many ways. If the City acted in a responsible fashion rather than, so often like what we talk about when we think of landlords that don't fulfill their property duties, like the slum landlords, a common phrase, if the City stopped acting like a slum landlord in these situations and really rolled up its sleeve, I think they would offer us in Council a number of potential approaches.
And we could have an analysis of which approach we should use based upon which approach might produce more per dollar.
Well, we could -- you know, that is true, and part of our charge is to identify some of these different sources and we feel tentatively we have done that. But it's not our charge in the Streets Department to go to a funding agency and say, Give us money. That's for the elected officials to make an intelligent determination of where the City's money should go. That's not our responsibility. 179 10/24/00 STREETS/SERVICES - RES. 000041
Suppose we said, assume that the City is going to have a million dollars available, how would the Streets Department propose dealing with this problem?
Well, if that was available, the Streets Department would propose that --
The same old way you propose. You would advertise, you would pay double or triple the amount of money you have to pay because you have no alternative method of doing that.
That's not correct. How we would do it if we didn't have that, we would bundle the driveways or the alleys or the walls into whatever funding source we had, and we would say to a contractor, You're not just doing one thing, you're doing 10, 15 driveways, if the funding was available. At that point in time, we'd also say to the contractor, We're going to pay you with cash so don't put any overage on us, because it's not like the old days. We would at that point in time take on the responsibility of some of that bill- 180 10/24/00 STREETS/SERVICES - RES. 000041 collecting, but the Water Revenue Bureau has said that they're willing to handle some of that for us. We -- after the contractor was finished, we would measure exactly what he paid the district surveyor, as is outlined in the existing code, would go out and measure the driveway, form the bills, transmit the bills to the Water Revenue Bureau. They would send them out, the people would pay. Eventually, the money would go back into this revolving fund tentatively.
And you would do that system to do what kind of work? You mentioned the Water Revenue Bureau.
They're just simply the best -- we've identified them as the best funding agency to send out the billings and help us collect it. They have the best accounting system in the City.
So the City would try to get payment from the individual homeowners.
As is their responsibility under current law. 181 10/24/00 STREETS/SERVICES - RES. 000041
Mm-hmm. All right, that's the first specific proposal I have heard. Would it be a bill, which could be paid over time?
We tentatively would propose that it would be amortized over a four-year period. We feel that the average bill 9 would be at that point in time maybe $100 a year over 4 years. We feel pretty much everybody could afford that, tentatively.
Well, this is the first time I've heard that kind of a specific proposal. That's encouraging for me to hear that.
Well, again, that's just some tentative thinking in the Streets Department right now.
And you say that in a month or so, you expect that the City Administration, for which you cannot speak, you would hope that they would be ready with something?
And you would be ready with this kind of funding arrangement? Have 182 10/24/00 STREETS/SERVICES - RES. 000041 you gone through the different steps necessary to get approval for this kind of funding arrangement that you've described?
Well, no, this type of collect -- the current laws, as they exist, allow us to use that type of collection.
So would -- (Unintelligible, parties talking over each other.)
Thank you. 183 10/24/00 STREETS/SERVICES - RES. 000041 In line with a comment made by Councilman Cohen earlier about the issue the notice when there is a danger and what the City's liability may or may not be, and as the Councilman said, we don't necessarily want to get into a big legal discussion about this, but I think it's also important for the record that whether the City has provided notice in some of these situations, another component of the Streets Department, the Sanitation Division, will take it upon itself, and I think, making the right decision, to reroute our City sanitation vehicles from a driveway or a retaining wall that they've determined to be dangerous for themselves. Forget about whether it's been condemned or not or whether anyone's sent a notice or not. They made a determination that they're not sending their personnel and our equipment in those areas, and reroute the trash pickup to the front. That is the most blatant sign that there is some kind of danger, and the City workers at least are taking it upon themselves to not put themselves in a dangerous situation. It is an admission of a danger right then and there. 184 10/24/00 STREETS/SERVICES - RES. 000041
Lawyers would call that very strong evidence of an admission by the City that the condition was dangerous.
Are there any other questions for these witnesses? (No further questions.)
This concludes the public hearing on the Streets and Services Committee on Resolution No. 41. We're going into the public meeting. At the request of the sponsor of the resolution, we will recess the meeting on the Resolution 41 until November 21st at 10 a.m., on November the 21st, the year 2000. Thank you for your testimony.
Is that the report will be available to this committee. 185 10/24/00 STREETS/SERVICES - RES. 000041
A written report that we can actually hold in our hands and review? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.
I didn't -- a report will be available to this committee on November the 21st, at o'clock a.m. 8
Thank you. (Adjourned at 5:25 p.m.) - - - 186 C E R T I F I C A T E I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of Wednesday, October 24, 2000, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON STREETS AND SERVICES BILL NO.'s 000506, 000508, 000510, 000511, 000512, 000513, 000538, 000542, 000547, 000582, 000584, 000589, 000604, 000605, 000606 RESOLUTION NO. 000041 __________________________________, JOSEPHINE CARDILLO, Registered Professional Reporter