COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COUNCIL OF THE WHOLE - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, March 28, 2006 10:25 a.m. - - - PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL COUNCILMAN DARRELL L. CLARKE COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILWOMAN BLONDELL REYNOLDS BROWN COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO BILLS 060001, 060002, 060003, 060004, 060006, 060007, 060008, 060014, 060089 and 060090. RESOLUTIONS 060019, 060099, 060100 and 060119. - - - V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Services Eleven Penn Center 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 2
Good morning. We will begin our recessed hearing this morning, our hearing on the budget. We'll begin with testimony from the District Attorney. Good morning, Madam DA.
Good morning, Madam Chairwoman. My name is Lynne, L-Y-N-N-E, Abraham, A-B-R-A-H-A-M. I'm the District Attorney of Philadelphia. I have previously submitted to Council my remarks for today's hearing, plus the attachments, and I would move that the remarks and the attachments be delineated or marked as an Exhibit A and entered into the record of City Council. May that be done?
Yes, it can, and we will include it in detail as if you had read it into the record.
Thank you very much. That will dispense with my having to read it.
I'm pleased to be before the Council once again, Councilwoman Blackwell, to speak about some important issues that I have outlined in my remarks, and essentially they are interconnected and in many respects mutually interdependent. First we want to speak about witness relocation. My remarks indicate that as far back as 1994, 12 years ago, I brought to Council my deep concerns about witness -- we called it witness protection at that time. I think the more apt phrase is "witness relocation" and the need as an essential part of our crime-fighting program to have people removed or put in a safe place or put at ease, to the maximum extent that we could make them feel at ease, when they testify in difficult and frequently emotionally 4 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. charged cases, such as homicides and major felonies. Unfortunately, for the past years, we have not received any 5 positive response from City Council. 6 I pointed out in my earlier 7 remarks that back in the '60s very few, 8 if any, cases were unsolved. Today we 9 have about 178 cases from last year's 10 homicides alone that are unsolved. The 11 year before we have about 130 cases of 12 that 2004's homicide total that are unsolved. So over the years, the number of unsolved cases has grown, not because people don't know what happened, not because there aren't witnesses out there who saw and heard and know who the perpetrators are, but over the years, there's been a steady erosion of people's confidence in law enforcement to protect them if they come forward, and we have seen this played out to its horrible extent in the few-week-ago trial of Faheem Thomas Childs where two people who 5 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. were arrested, Johnson and Spady, were not arrested because of any cooperation by local citizenry. Even in the face of marches by thousands, prayer meetings, vigils, corner rallies that you and I and others in Council attended, every one of them, but because the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms division of the federal government developed a tip from a source. Absent that, that case would still be unsolved, and it really is partially unsolved to this day because the other side of the shooting parties has not been identified and/or arrested and prosecuted. In the Faheem Thomas Childs case, in the initial investigative stages, at least a half dozen people gave testimony to the police about what they saw and who they saw and who did what to whom. By the time the trial came on, as you saw in the press and we saw in the courtroom, every one of those witnesses denied making any of the statements to 6 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. the police, claimed that they didn't remember anything, and that if they did say anything, they only said it because they were allegedly coerced by the police. In today's Daily News, there is another story of a case on trial before the Honorable Sheila Woods-Skipper where the witnesses are similarly disremembering what they told the police in their statements after the crimes were perpetrated. This City can't really tolerate the kind of activities that we've seen of recent date where it is a badge of pride and honor for young people to walk around with T-shirts that say "stop snitchin" and that the culture of the street is that snitching is bad or telling -- I like to say telling the truth is bad and being a good sport and keeping your mouth shut on pain of something terrible happening to you is the way to go. Morally it's indefensible. And as a city 7 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. and as a country, we can't tolerate witness intimidation and witness fright to this level. Make no mistake about it. It is real. It is palpable. People feel it. They are terribly concerned that they're going to be killed, that their house will be burned down, that their children will be harmed, and that's why we have been championing a Witness Relocation Program for these 12 years.
Fortunately, we were able to get some money from the Attorney General's funds funded by the state, of course, which has been $1 million that has been transferred from the state budget into the Attorney General's fund, which has been shared by counties, including Philadelphia. And 20 that money has helped us dramatically in the way we can relocate a person in an instant, literally take a whole family out of a house overnight and move them someplace else. In addition to that, we have 8 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. really no funds at all, because the small federal grant that we had has run out. It was just a small amount of money for a few years. This year, we're faced with an additional dilemma, that the Governor has threatened to zero out of the Attorney General's money the million dollars that the state traditionally puts in his budget, and we have been holding news conferences and importuning the legislature not to allow the Governor to do this and not to put money in the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, which would require cities like us to lay money out first and then make an application for a grant every time we need something to the state. Not only will it be difficult and dangerous to our victims and witnesses, because we have no money at all to put anybody any place, but we also have to reveal to a non-law enforcement agency information which we cannot reveal, and that is 9 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. secret information that only one law enforcement agency can share with another. And we are moving in the legislature to try to get that back in the Attorney General's budget, but the future is, as of today, uncertain. That makes it all the more imperative that Council step up to the plate and the Mayor step up to the plate and take ownership of this problem. It is just a terrible fear that people live under when they know that they don't have City dollars and the City's pledge to help them if they are in difficulty becoming a witness. The other thing I wanted to talk about briefly, but importantly, is, with regard to witness relocation, it is not necessary that this Council put money in the District Attorney's budget for this purpose. Councilman Kenney has suggested in his letter establishing a fund, and that would be, of course, satisfactory so long as the fund -- we 10 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. have no objection to telling Council what we're going to use the money for, but this has to be confidential information kept within law enforcement, which we cannot share with the City. In other words, we can't say, We moved Jannie Blackwell from this address to that address. We did this and we put her there and we're moving her here or her children are being taken there or so forth. So it has to be crafted in such a way that law enforcement-sensitive information is kept within our office. And this takes some leap of faith, but I can guarantee to the Council that if Councilman Kenney's proposal is talked about and made real by July the 1st, I believe that Council will be well satisfied with our explanations, and we will use the money wisely and strictly in accordance with what the proposals are for witness relocation. The other thing I want to speak 11 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. about briefly is the Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia. Out of the same tragedy of Faheem Thomas Childs came not only the crystallization of witness relocation issues, but also a program, a 10-point 10-year program, which my office crafted as a result of input from a variety of agencies. I'm not asking for specific money in my budget for these programs. However, this 10-point program does take funding. State Representative Dwight Evans has really led the charge over this past months to put money in 15 the budget, including money for a gun 16 court, which my office does receive 17 something of.
However, all the other 18 monies have been given by the state to the other facets of the program, so we're not receiving any of that. It is, I think, important for the City, since this is a 10-point Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia, not a safer Allentown or a safer Allegheny County, but a safer Philadelphia, that 12 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. City Council, the Mayor, Representative Evans, a representative of my office talk with you about funding of the programs covered by the Blueprint. I put that in my message because I think the fact of witness relocation and the Blueprint cannot go unmentioned. In addition to that, the need for additional funding for the prosecutor's office has become really critical. The Mayor has put in a zero-based budget for this year. 2 million last year and about a million the year before. So we're down about two and a half million dollars over the past two years at a time when while some crime is declining, other crime is increasing, particularly, but not limited to, crimes such as public nuisance bars and stop-and-go's, with which I know you're intimately familiar, homicides and a burgeoning economic crime problem, which 13 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. has suffered greatly. Our Public Nuisance Task Force has lost three people, economic Crimes has lost three people, and the Homicide Division has lost people, and it is absolutely at the stretched-out point. Our homicide attorneys are working just to the bone. These homicide trials are stressful, they're difficult, they're long term, and we frequently have to try a defendant's case three or four different times because of multiple defendants in the court has elected to separate all of them. And so, therefore, we are asking for $300,000 for four homicide prosecutors, which will enable us to move prosecutors up from our other divisions into the homicide program and make the needed adjustments to our homicide program that are essential by the number of homicides. This year we're only slightly behind last year at this time. In January, we're a little bit ahead of 14 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. where we were in 2004. We had 29 homicides as opposed to 27 in 2004. We've tailed off a little bit, but there's nothing to be comfortable about, since last weekend we had six homicides. We had three homicides during the week and we've had two more or three more over the weekend, and last night a body was found. Over the weekend at least one young man of was found dead in a 12 school yard, and another man was found 13 dead in an arson fire, which was 14 apparently a covered-up homicide. 15 So we are really entreating 16 Council to recognize that we just can't do this on the budget that we have and that we do need these four new homicide prosecutors in our Homicide Division. Finally, the money that we have asked for are two other categories. A half million dollars for salary parity. We have attached to our remarks and our statement charts showing that if you have before you, for example, Attachment 2A, 15 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. in 1996, the difference between major law firms and our office was roughly half. In other words, if you started off at roughly 30,000 in our office, in major law firms it was roughly 60,000. If you look at the chart over the course from 1996 to 2006, you can see that the difference between salaries of law firms and salaries in the DA's office have dramatically widened in the gap between the two. There's virtually no movement in the District Attorney's office between 1996 and 2006. Not none, just not a lot. So essentially, we've gone to maybe from 35,000, we've gone up in ten years $15,000. That's hardly an appropriate figure. At the same time, college tuition and law school tuitions have dramatically escalated. Our DAs come frequently married with family members, and the law school and the undergraduate school loans are dramatic.
At the same time, the major law firms in Philadelphia, and there are several 16 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. articles attached, their salaries have grown from roughly 60,000 to between 125,000 and 135,000, meaning that the gap between what we're getting and the gap they're getting for talent in our office that is no less good than talent at the law firms; in other words, any of our lawyers can go to any of these law firms -- and frequently after they stay with us for a brief period of time, that's exactly where they go, but the spread between our salary at start and theirs has shifted from roughly 50/50 to now our salary is one-third the salary of law firms. In addition to that, our lawyers, our young lawyers, are leaving after about three years. It used to be that the young classes stayed in for a much more lengthy period of service. But the lure of high salaries, the ability to pay your bills, the ability to raise your children, put them through school and do all the things that you want to do, when 17 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. measured by the outside world, is too great for them to resist the tug. And so, therefore, just when they're beginning to start to learn what it's like to be an attorney trying difficult and complicated cases, they generally leave. Now, this is not to say that the people remaining are not wonderful and they're not working hard and it's not to say that we don't have seasoned prosecutors. Mr. Toczydlowski has been in the office for 30 years. But it's not about him. It's about the new crop that's coming in to replace the crop that is getting to the point where they're looking to retiring, phasing down, doing something else. So the half million dollars for salary parity will not only try to edge up our starting salary, not nearly to the level of what law firms get, because that wouldn't be possible in public service, but it does mean that we should raise our 18 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. starting salary to, for example, the City Solicitors' starting salary, and they have a much greater salary leeway than we do. So the City Solicitors just got a salary raise. And when our DAs look at the raises the Administration got, that they look at the raises that the City Solicitor has gotten and the fact that the City Solicitor's office doesn't keep in-house all of its business -- for millions of dollars, the City contracts out to law firms, major law firms, a lot of work of the City Solicitors. And I'm not saying that's good, bad or indifferent. It is what it is. What it means is that our DAs are starting below the City Solicitors, and the people who need merit raises aren't getting them. So that's, of course, important, salary parity at least with the City Solicitor's office. So it will enable us to give merit raises. It will enable us to start our starting salary a little bit higher. 19 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. And, finally, we've asked for $405,000 for our Economic Crime Unit for prosecutors, detectives and a paralegal. Our Economic Crimes Unit handles a variety of cases, and as I mentioned before, they are down three attorneys. We have had to raise, as I said we would last year when I came before Council, our threshold amount from initially it was $10,000. Any economic crime case such as economic crimes, embezzlements; counterfeit check schemes; identity theft; home improvement schemes; scans against the elderly; abuse of powers of attorney; forgery of official documents; forged deeds cases, some called house dealing cases; mortgage fraud and a whole budget of other economic crimes. We've had to raise that threshold amount from $10,000 to $25,000. And if things don't improve this year, we're going to raise it to $50,000. In other words, we won't even look at a case that doesn't have a cash value of $50,000 in losses. To me, 20 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
it's the worst dream imaginable as a District Attorney and it's even worse from a victim's point of view to do what we've been doing. We've been telling forged deed cases, Go to the police and report your case to the police. We don't have the manpower or the money to investigate. And the police tell the victims, It's not a crime, go file a civil lawsuit. And it's not the Police Department's fault. It's the victims who get to suffer. So the 405,000 that we have asked Council to supplement our zero budget this year will help us with three detectives, three district attorneys and one paralegal. These are deeply investigated, very complex cases. This involves, for example, stealing a bank's computer with your information on it and identity theft of all kinds, scams and frauds of all kinds, lawyer abuse and so forth. These are difficult cases. And when it becomes 21 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. a case involving elderly, it's more difficult, because frequently we're dealing with infirm, put upon and in difficult mental situations, many of our elder victims who come to us looking for help. We want to be able to help them. We want to at least be able to initiate investigations to tell them whether a crime has been committed or not. And if it is a crime, we want to vigorously prosecute. So the total figures we have asked City Council for are about a million 200,000. It's a million 205,000 to be exact: 500,000 for salary adjustments, 300,000 for four homicide prosecutors, 405,000 for our Economic Crime Unit. And I thank the Chair.
Thank you very much. You mentioned the Protection Pilot Program, Witness Protection Program, and Jim Kenney's proposal. What 22 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. would your office like to see included in the budget for this?
Well, I think initially the Councilman asked for like $5 million in a revolving account. I think that's a little bit on the heavy side. I don't believe that kind of money will be needed, but I'm not prepared to say at this moment how much will. I think the first way to look at it is to -- I think that at least a million dollars should be put in that fund, that that fund should be used as needed, and that fund, I also should mention, would be to supplant, not to replace, state funding. The state funding only enables us to do so much. A half million dollars doesn't really go all that far. I know it sounds like a lot, and I'm not denigrating a half million dollars, but, first of all, we have no guarantee that's what we're going to get, and we don't even know what we're going to get this year. We're hopeful 23 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. we'll get the half million dollars we got last year from the state. So I think a million dollars to start off with in that fund. And then we'll use it to supplement really what we're getting from the state, and we'll see how it goes after the first year or so of the program, whether we're optimistic or pessimistic about witness relocation.
Do other cities have dollars coming in that we don't in this area, for example?
Well, other cities have the same thing that we have. In other words, the million dollars, we are the lucky ones in that because our homicide and serious caseload is so dramatic, we get half of the $1 million that has traditionally been set aside for witness relocation. Nineteen other counties get money for witness relocation, but there's no more federal money, if that's what you're asking. The 24 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. federal government has zeroed out almost all programs. As you well know, the Bush Administration has really cut all kinds of helpful programs to communities and children and law enforcement down to almost nothing. So we're not getting any federal money. So the answer is, as far as I'm aware, there's no money coming in for witness relocation.
Have you made this request of the Administration for this 1.2 or are they aware of it?
Well, as I do every year before I come to Council, I always speak with the Mayor and tell the Mayor what our needs are, where we are and what our absolute essential requests are. So I did that this year as well.
Thank you very much. You know I'm always concerned about this issue, although it's 25 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. technically not your arena, where we have witnesses in front of, especially in CJC where we have both folks in court together. Is that any better or are we still having those same problems?
Where the perpetrators and the potential victims are in court together.
Well, we've only been able to do one thing regarding that, and that was, we authored a constitutional amendment for children of tender years. So if a little child sees his mother, father or somebody close to them, even somebody out in the street, not close emotionally but close physically, murdered or seriously injured and the judge makes a finding that the child of tender years would be so traumatized if confronted with the person, the perpetrator, the child is permitted -- and it has to be a child of 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. tender years and it has to be a finding by a Court after a hearing and findings of fact -- the child can do his or her testimony on closed-circuit TV with the defendant in another room and the defendant's lawyer in with the child and the prosecutor and the judge. Aside from that, there is no 10 way that our Constitution in Pennsylvania or our Constitution in the United States allows people to testify when the defendant is someplace else or the witness is someplace else. As a matter of fact, our Supreme Court has made the determination that confrontation and cross-examination in Pennsylvania means eyeball to eyeball. And so that's why we were able to get, with much difficulty, and it took us almost ten years to do it, the small child, the child of tender years, exception to the confrontation clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution. But, similarly, Madam Chair, you have to understand that most victims 27 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. and witnesses come from the same neighborhood. It's not like some stranger sees something, although many times it is a total stranger, but frequently when you get these feelings of threat and intimidation, it comes from people who know each other. I am not suggesting that people who don't know each other aren't threatened. A man approached me at the Reading Terminal last weekend and said, I was hit by a drunken driver and somehow his lawyer got my name and address, and I've been getting phone calls about coming to court. They want to talk to me. And I'm worried I'm going to be intimidated, so don't expect me to show up. I mean, it was a drunk driving case. It's gone down to drunk driving cases where witnesses are fearful of coming to court. So I think there's nothing you can do to avoid being in the same room. 28 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. We do have witness rooms. We do have rooms adjacent to court where witnesses may wait so they don't have this business. And I don't mean to suggest that thousands of witnesses don't come into court every week and testify, because they do. I'm just saying there's this undercurrent, this immediacy of witness relocation money that needs to be given to us so that we can take care of the worst of the worst cases and find out how deep and how serious this problem is.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Madam District Attorney.
Madam Chair, I actually do not have so much a question for our District Attorney. I want to raise the issue with regard to 29 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. the additional budget request that has been laid out. I've had an extensive conversation with District Attorney Abraham on these topics and some other matters, and so what I'd like to do in the appropriate forum -- and I know that there are a couple different ways to do this, but for the moment, we're in this particular forum. I don't know if it's been circulated. I know that there is in the document, the testimony, that lays out the three items there is a document on my desk, although I'm not exactly sure where it came from, that lays out the $500,000 for salary parity, $300,000 for four homicide prosecutors and $405,000 for Economic Crime, which is three prosecutors, three detectives, one paralegal. It's been mentioned a couple times. Councilman Kenney has already introduced a proposed amendment to the FY07 budget dealing with the issue of witness protection or witness relocation. 30 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. So this would not interfere with that particular matter at all, but what I'd like to do, Madam Chair, but with your guidance, is either put forward a proposed amendment that is in concert with what the District Attorney has laid out either in the public hearing or in a more formal fashion. If we could go into a public meeting, I could offer it and then it becomes a part of this particular process, and then we'll just deal with it with all the other amendments as a part of the budget process. So I'd rely on your judgment and ruling with regard to that, but I'd like to address this particular matter.
Absolutely. It seems to me, Councilman, that you can put that in at any time and then we can consider it at the appropriate time, but any time you come in and you submit it, circulate it and submit it, then it's on our agenda to be considered and voted on. 31 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Then what I'd like to do is, if I could have access to one of our Sergeant-At-Arms, is at least put this forward, just hand it up. We'll make sure that copies are made available and placed on all the members' desks, as well as a copy to the stenographer, but I'd at least like to get it in this process to ensure that it's considered at the same time as all the other measures.
I'd offer this amendment to the proposed FY07 budget related to the District Attorney's office.
The Sergeant-At-Arms will make copies and distribute it and then we'll call on you again to present it.
That's 32 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. fine. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Madam Chair. District Attorney Abraham, how are you today?
Good. Maybe you can explain. A police officer that works in your office could be a police officer that's referred to as a county detective or -- it's a different category.
It's a different category, but, yes, they're all considered county detectives.
They're compensated at a higher rate than a police officer?
Let Mr. Toczydlowski tell you about the 33 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. compensation package for police officers.
Good morning. My name is Albert Toczydlowski, T-O-C-Z-Y-D-L-O-W-S-K-I, Deputy District Attorney. Councilman, at one point in time, we had all county detectives assigned to the District Attorney's office. Several years ago when the DA was elected, she came to an agreement with the Police Commissioner. In lieu of hiring county detectives, officers or detectives will be detailed from the Police Department. In the beginning, they were all detectives, so they were all paid the same as county detectives. We then had some police officers detailed. We just recently had, frankly, a labor arbitration concerning this very issue about what county detectives and police officers would make, and that's been resolved, as far as I know. So that we have county detectives and 2. Now 34 1 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. all we have left are county detective 2's. The detectives that come from the Police Department are paid the same as our county detectives. The police officers that come over are paid as police officers, because they're detailed from the Police Department.
This is where I'm heading with the question: As you know, the Mayor has authorized $10 million in overtime. There's just one more part of my question. The police officers that are detailed out -- and I won't ask you a number, but I assume there's a few -- are they paid for by the Police Department or does that compensation come from the DA back to the Police Department?
It comes from the DA back to the Police Department. We pay for those officers.
So you're not going to get a little slice of the 10 million? 35 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
Trust me, if we 7 were getting any of the 10 million, I 8 would have told you, that that would not 9 be a secret. 10 Also, you should know that police officers can come and go as they pretty much choose. In other words, when they're detailed, they have the right to go back to the Police Department. They can take promotional exams and go back to the Police Department. The point of it, frankly, is to better train police officers and detectives in the realities of trying a case. Making an arrest on the street is one thing. That's just the beginning. But getting a case ready to go to trial is something else. So when we have police officers and detectives investigating and getting cases ready for 36 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. trial, it's a much different and much more intense police level that we're approaching. So when these officers know what it's like not only to just put your hand on somebody and say, You're arrested, but from the arrest to the successful prosecution, that's a training mechanism that we use. It enhances the ability of officers to make intelligent judgments when they're back on the street. It also gives our district attorneys assistance, the needed investigative and follow-up help that they need, and it's better for law enforcement in general when police and prosecutors work in tandem.
Thank you for that. The other question I have, when you hire, and we'll use the expression, a young assistant district attorney, does your office incur expenses associated with the training of that individual?
Well, we have a 37 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. training program, so we do have assistant DAs who are in our training program. So there is always an expense for that. For example, the person who is in charge of training is an assistant district attorney, former homicide prosecutor. So there's time, expense, money, of course, and there's also on-the-job training, learning as you go. So there's always an expense. You never just sort of come out fully formed. You have to learn.
The point of the question is, in conversation with Chief Burrelli of the Delaware River Port Authority, he pointed out something that was very interesting to me. Many young officers would come to his department and use it as a stepping stone, because they didn't particularly like the environment of patrolling the bridges. They wanted to get involved in different type of policing, and they were using the training that they received at the 38 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Delaware River Port Authority to move on after a short period of time, after a significant amount of money for the academy, et cetera, was spent. He's implemented something that I think is very unique, is a commitment. You have to work there X number of years before -- I guess like the West Point, I guess. You go to West Point or Annapolis, you have to stay in the military. But if they decide to leave before, they have to reimburse the Delaware River Port Authority for their training that they utilized as a stepping stone.
Well, Councilman, that sounds very intriguing. However, these are lawyers, and we ask for a three-year commitment, because, as I mentioned to the Chair, when you're taking a raw lawyer out of school and you're training him or her to be a litigator, it takes time, it takes expense, it takes a tremendous amount of 39 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. effort. We not only have full-time trainers, but the chiefs of the units, the Juvenile Unit, the Municipal Court Unit, the Waivers Unit, all of our units are trainers as well. So you're getting on-the-job trainers training you from the moment you walk into the office all the way through. The problem is that after the three years -- they give us a three-year commitment. They're just about getting to the point where they're really starting to show a return on our initial investment and they say, Well, gotta go, I've been offered a job at twice or three times the salary, and they go. Frankly, most people keep their commitments, but legally there's nothing we can do to an attorney who says we --
You answered my question. You do have a commitment. At least you get them for three years and not a year.
Well, but some 40 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. leave before, but most of them, I have to say, are honest and honorable and they keep their commitment. But after the three years, they say, I did my three years, good-bye. And that's not good for the people of Philadelphia. It's not good for us either, because we have to start the whole process all over again. We would like to encourage our lawyers, and we can do this with more money, to stay a year, two or three or more longer.
There's nothing like experience, I'm sure. Well, thank you and I appreciate all of your good work and the people that work with you.
Thank you. Before I call on Councilwoman Brown, Councilman Nutter, you referred to 41 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. an FY07 budget request. Has this now been circulated?
All right. And would you read the additional request you're making?
Absolutely. Madam Chair, I think in light of the testimony and, even more specifically, given what has been going on in Philadelphia in recent times, I know you're aware I put forward a proposed amendment to the budget with regard to the Police Department as well, but I think the District Attorney's testimony, both written and oral, lays out a compelling case for consideration of this kind of request, especially at this time. Having said that, the proposed amendment is an additional funding to the FY07 budget of $500,000 for salary parity, $300,000 for four homicide prosecutors, $405,000 for Economic Crime, 42 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. which involves three prosecutors, three detectives and one paralegal. The total, Madam Chair, is $1,205,000 in total, and I would ask that this amendment be offered at this time for consideration during the rest of our budget process.
Thank you very much. It is so noted. It has been distributed and it will be considered at the appropriate time. Thank you, Councilman.
A few 43 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. questions. Let me start with the Community Education Involvement Program that --
If you would, just elaborate, if you would, on the advertising. Also, has the Community Education Involvement Program been extended to include after-school programming? Give us a sense of the scope of it and its locations.
Well, the importance of the Blueprint, it was felt by the core group and by Representative Evans, that we educate the community on the need to be participant in crime-fighting efforts. And so the money was put aside. It was about a half million dollars to go to Men United for a Safer Philadelphia, Mothers in Charge and 44 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. other similar groups. It did not come to me. I didn't get any of it. It's for those groups who advocate at those vigils and at speeches and at community events, and this cuts across all the activities that groups like Men United and Mothers in charge engage in as part of their activities. It also includes billboard campaigns and the anti-stop snitching programs and --
Correct. And advocating for passage of gun legislation in Harrisburg that is more attune to Philadelphia's needs and so forth. So it's for them. That's where this money goes.
Just as a follow-up to your answer, give me your gut take, reality take on how successful we may or may not be with regards to the measures that have been put forth by 45 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. members of the Philadelphia delegation around additional gun restriction measures.
Well, you know Councilman Clarke and I have been going around this path for a long time. I want to be optimistic, but I'm always cautious, and I'm going to give you a reason for my caution. At the very same time that the legislature is considering bills put forth by Dwight Evans at the behest of either Councilman Clarke and/or others, including me, I signed onto all of them, is the "shoot first" bill that's pending now in our legislature. There's a bill 18 actually introduced that will change the laws of self-defense in this Commonwealth for all times. Ever since ancient English common law, which we adopted, a person had to respond to force with force of about equal level. So if I punch you in the nose, you can't go out and get a machine gun and kill me. However, today 46 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. if this bill is passed as it's presently constituted, if you feel as an individual that I'm going to hurt you, you can pull out your gun and shoot me and ask questions later. It's the "shoot first and ask questions later" bill that's pending in our legislature. So I want to be careful when I say that while I do want Philadelphia to have the gun laws which we used to have in 1995 and '96 where we regulate gun licensure, where we say what's legal in Philadelphia, a City of the first class or not, and I want that to happen, I'm worried when the NRA is targeting Pennsylvania as one of the states to put in this, I call it, "shoot first and ask questions later" bill, because that will mean that anybody with a gun, even an illegal gun, can say, Well, I thought he or she was going to hit me with his car, so I had to kill him to prevent that from happening, or I had to shoot this person because I was somehow in my mind fearful. 47 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. So there's no more -- there's not going to be any more retreat. In other words, if I was coming at you and I threatened to punch you, you might think better of it. Instead of standing up to me toe to toe, you'd say, Well, I don't think it's worth it, I'll back off, I don't want a punch in the nose, I don't want to have a fight with Lynne Abraham. Now you can pull out your gun and shoot me, if this bill passes, and say, Well, she was going to hurt me, so I had to protect myself against who knows what she was capable of doing. That is really, really worrisome. So I think we have to not keep our eye on this ball. We have to keep our eye on all the balls that are up in the air in Harrisburg vis-a-vis gun laws, and "we," that means the Philadelphia delegation.
Sure. So are there organized efforts with members of the Philadelphia delegation and/or 48 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. others who are doing as you just suggested, keeping an eye on the ball and looking for ways to --
Well, I know that, for example, the Brady -- oh, what's it called? The Brady group, the Jim Brady group.
I can't remember the name of the organization. It slipped my mind for the moment. But they're on top of this, and all of the good government groups who are interested in gun safety are on this. But the NRA is a powerful force, as you know, and we're a rural state, which doesn't have the problems that Philadelphia has, and those gun owners think that we in Philadelphia, we have a problem, they don't. So I'm not sure what's going to happen with any of these bills. I want to be optimistic. Senator Fumo now says he's in favor of changing laws back to 49 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. where they were before the committee he chaired took them all away from us in 1996, and he's a lifetime member of the NRA, but I don't know what their fate will be in the legislature. I want to be optimistic, but I'm cautious.
Okay. Could you please talk a little bit more about this revolving fund and to a more specific question --
It's really not a revolving fund, but a specified set amount of money that's set aside. And what happens is, it will be used as needed and replenished so that the money never falls below, let's say, the figure I picked, a million dollars.
Okay. Another question. The Witness Protection Program, somewhere in the testimony there's a discussion of $250,000.
Yes. That was my quoted remarks in 1996, Councilwoman. I think if you'll find the page -- and I 50 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. have a different version, a wider-spaced version than you do and mine is single paged, not double paged. If you will look at that quote, it's to point out that around 1994 I started talking about witness relocation, and in 1996, I asked Council for $250,000 to start a Witness Relocation Program. That was merely to highlight the fact that I've been asking for this program for years and it has 12 yet been funded -- it is yet to be funded by Council.
I see. So what criteria do you use when making determinations about how those dollars would be spent? Is it the level of the crime or the amount of people involved in testifying?
Well, it can probably be a combination of both things, but usually the people have the most of fear and express their fear most in the most serious kinds of cases, the assaults with intent to kill, aggravated assault 51 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. and especially homicide. When they go to the police station and give information to the Police Department, they say right now, You know, I know this guy, and if he knows I'm going to testify against him, which is going to be within about five or six or ten working days, he's going to kill me or kill my family or so forth, or it's out on the street that anybody who testifies against this group will be killed. So the Police Department at that very moment, the detective at that very moment will say, We'll make arrangements for you to be moved. They and we together coordinate our efforts and get that person out of his house, if necessary, that very night.
So they're put up at a hotel. Now, again, that takes money. We don't have any money for that. So since we have this Attorney General 52 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. money, we can put that person -- you can't move a person at o'clock in the 4 morning. They have to have all their kids and everybody in their household. And it depends on what the nature of the threat is. So if it's just personal to you or to a person, then it's that person. If it's the whole family that the person is worried about, we have to move the whole family, and that includes several generations and lots of people. It could be eight, ten, 12 people living in a household.
Is it fair to say it's too early yet to tell if having these additional dollars in place which assist in witness protection, that that is indeed having an impact in terms of the level of convictions? Is it too early to tell?
Well, let me say it this way: The best measure I can say is that in our Witness Relocation Program -- we don't call it witness 53 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. protection, because I think that conjures up a bad image. It conjures up sitting around a pool with drinks and fancy hotels in Florida and having a good old time and a changed identity. This program is not for that purpose. It's merely to remove you from harm's way for a finite period of time and to make sure that you come back to Philadelphia. In other words, if we ship you to another state, which we sometimes do, we have to fly you in or have you take a train in or whatever mode of transportation. We have to put you up at a hotel. That will be covered by witness relocation. Nobody in our program who has been in witness relocation and who has come and testified has ever, cross our fingers, to date ever been harmed. So that means -- and this is over about four or five years. That shows that the program does work.
It speaks 54 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. to the value, indeed.
It does have value if you follow the rules of the program and abide by the requirements of the program.
There are people who don't want to be protected. They just want to challenge -- they say, Well, I don't care, I'm fine, he knows I'm going to testify against him. And that happened a few weeks ago where a person testified against another person whom he knew and he knew that he was in danger, and he was murdered, but he didn't want our help.
Okay. My final question, I want to hear your philosophical perspective on this. First tell me how many young people last year, or as last you can recall, under the age of 17 have committed heinous crimes and have been tried as adults.
I don't have that 55 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. figure for you, but I can get it. It's relatively small. Excuse me. Let me just consult with my Deputy for the Juvenile Division. I was just checking with George Mosee, the Deputy for our Juvenile Division. We don't have that number available to us, but we'll get it to you.
So as you move to secure that information for the Chair --
Most importantly, murders, if you will, for young people under the age of 17 and then, further, for young people under the age of 12. And then give me your perspective on decisions and judgments that are reached to try young people as adults. Often times high school 56 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. drop-outs can't read, come from disturbing backgrounds, et cetera, et cetera, that leads them down the road of crime. What is your philosophical perspective?
Oh, sure. Well, first of all, it's not a matter of philosophy. It's a matter of state law, and state law mandates that all juveniles who commit murder are initially to be tried as adults. And that means that at the defendant's lawyer's request, the lawyer for the defense can request that the case be sent back to Juvenile Court and there has been a hearing, where evidence is put forth why the defense lawyer wants the child sent back to Juvenile Court and why we may either agree with the defense attorney, in which case there's not a whole lot to argue about, or we believe that the person is 57 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. best tried as an adult because the person is incapable of being habilitated or rehabilitated in the brief time that he or she may be in juvenile custody. They may have mental or emotional disorders that can't be addressed on a short-term basis. And, of course, it depends on the juvenile's record, his background. I'm saying his. It's usually his, but it's sometimes her. His prior criminal record, his previous incarcerations, what kind of weapon, how many were there and so forth.
And we can put forth some of those factors in our letter to you so that you'll know.
I'd appreciate that. Finally, the truancy court, the 58 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. status of that, where it is and --
We don't have truancy. Remember, Councilwoman, we started a truancy program, but when Council and the Mayor cut our budget, we said that we'd have to cut truancy. We had several people working on truancy, which I believe is one of the major markers. It's not a predictor.
But it's a marker, as you know. You were a teacher. It's a major marker in predicting the possibility of future delinquency. And when we lost our money, we lost our truancy effort. That doesn't mean we don't have in Juvenile Court -- really, it's dependency court. When kids are not attending school, the state does have the authority and the judges do have the authority to declare that person a dependent child and take them out of the home. It doesn't necessarily answer the question, because many of our kids live 59 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. in their homes, their parents walk them up to the school yard, the kid goes in the door and out the back door. And you may have read the other day that one of the offenders in an almost homicide had failed to attend school almost every day this year and a huge number of days last year. They don't call that -- they call that person a non-attender. We call it a truant. It's not a drop-out, but for all intents and purposes, he is not there.
So now when young people land at a place where they have X number of truants, there is no, for lack of a better word, hammer in place?
Well, the police pick them up. They take them to their police station. They call their parents and say, Come down and pick up your kid. They do arrange with the schools to take them to the nearest school to the police station, so they're not sitting in police custody. But it's a major problem. 60 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
Our truancy program, we had one full-time assistant DA, with the help of others in the office, and that was Lynne Nichols, who went around. And it was only, you remember, in a cluster. It was in one of the, I think, clusters of 11 Philadelphia. And I thought she was 12 making great progress, because what she 13 was doing is, she was having face-to-face meetings with parents and really using the carrot and stick approach. You must get your kids to school. Where was your child last Wednesday? If you do not bring your child to school, we will go to the Department of Human Services and see the possibility of maybe taking your child from you. We'd rather not do that. And more often than not, after she got their attention, they really --
They got it, yes. 61 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. The light went on and they got it. Who wants to have their kid taken away from them? So they really got it. We thought we were making great strides, but then our funding went and that was the end of that.
This past fiscal year was the first time that those dollars stopped, correct?
Oh, no. No. 12 That stopped three or four years ago. We haven't been doing that.
Madam Chair, one follow-up. Could you please forward to the Chair what that bottom-line cost was and what that paid for?
Sure. We can also put down what's happening in truancy matters now for you. 62 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
Yes. Mr. Mosee will handle that for you as well in his letter --
You're welcome. Thank you very much. Are there any further questions for the DA? (No response.)
I thank you. MR. McPHERSON: Our next department is the Defender's Association.
Good morning. Feel free to identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony. 63 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
I'm Ellen Greenlee, Chief Defender of the Defender Association. On my left is the First Assistant Defender, Charles Cunningham, and on my right is the Controller, Selim Tawadros.
Thank you. Would you pull your microphone up closer.
I have a little less voice than usual. I've been ill for a few days.
Thank you. We welcome you, and feel free to begin your testimony.
Thank you, Councilwoman, for the opportunity to 64 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. appear before Council today to present our appropriation request on behalf of the Defender Association and also to thank you and the other members of City Council and the Administration for the continuing support of the work of the Defender Association. For almost four decades, we've provided legal representation to Philadelphia's poorest citizens who are charged with crimes, to those who are mentally ill, and children who are dependent and/or neglected, among others. It has been a successful collaboration, I think, and we have continuously striven to provide effective representation not based on one's ability to pay for counsel. There are myriad ways in which our work saves the City millions of dollars annually. For instance, our work in homicide representation over the past 13 years where we have represented close to 1,200 clients, with no client having 65 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. received the death penalty, has received national recognition and has resulted in huge savings in perfunctory death penalty appeals and post conviction costs. Also, our Probation, Parole and Alternative Sentencing Unit, working with Adult Social Services, have placed thousands of those incarcerated into community placements and therapeutic environments in lieu of remaining in prison. Also, our specialists in the Juvenile Unit and Juvenile Special Defense Unit have kept countless young people from becoming embroiled in a system of placements outside Philadelphia and away from their homes. But none of this is really free, as you know only so well. We are experiencing increasing demands for services in the Adult Trial Units, in our Appeals Unit, in Juvenile and in Major Trials with the opening of a number of new courtrooms in the past two years. We 66 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. have a very substantial additional appropriation request first to avoid a deficit position as we conclude Fiscal Year '06 and, secondly, to put us in solid financial shape for Fiscal Year '07. The particulars of our requests are as follows: In terms of attorney salaries -- and I join with the District Attorney in asking for a comprehensive study of the salaries, especially among the three largest public interest law firms or public service law firms, the District Attorney, the City Solicitor and the Defender Association, to reach an equitable level in terms of salaries. We have been playing catch-up for a number of years. We have never caught up. We remain hopeful that at some point in the not too distant future we will catch up with the salaries of our peers in the public interest section. In 2002, Mayor Street's plan to increase our starting salaries and to make them a little better resulted in a 67 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. salary at that point in time of $42,000. We lost momentum after that, with no 4 funding in 2004 or 2005 for salaries. However, in September 2005, we did raise our starting salary to $45,000, though still below the District Attorneys' salaries and now considerably below the salary of Assistant City Solicitors. In Fiscal Year '07, we must add three percent to that, and the City has offered three percent in salary increases so that we can raise our starting salary to $46,350, which is still below our peers and still, as you know, so far below what is almost a living wage in terms of one who is an attorney. We also have, in terms of increases in level of services and demands for our services, we have an authorized number for several years of 216 attorneys, but we have received funding for only 209, with the City allowing for attrition. With the increase in our starting salary to 42,000 68 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. in 2002, our levels of attrition have dropped, so that we really need to be funded at the 216 level for the entire year and not 209.
What that means right now is that we have seven basically unfunded positions in terms of salary and benefits. So we're asking that these seven positions, additional positions, need to be funded to bring us at that point to where we should be at 216. However, due to our increased workload and the opening of new courtrooms in Municipal Court, Family Court and Major Trials and more required appeals for our Appeals Unit, we need to add 13 attorney positions in addition to bringing up the 209 to 216. That's our request in terms of attorney staffing. One of the continuing problems we have had and one of our most troublesome areas in terms of funding is that over the past three years, we have received no funding for benefits, despite the fact that we are not part of the 69 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. City's plans, obviously, since we are a private association and we must pay fully for all benefits. We have done an excellent job through the good efforts of our Controller, Assistant Controllers and Business Manager to contain our costs and to share the burden with our staff, but we must have funding to meet these constantly increasing costs. It goes without saying that we cannot have anything in the way of salary increases if we do not have a concurrent increase in the benefits costs, which continue to rise each year. The only other additional staffing that we need to request of the Administration is that we need to add in our IT Department two positions. We need a support technician to help service the almost 500 employees, all of whom have computers at their disposal, and we need to add a programmer as we try to meet the demands created by the expansion of technology and the new statewide Common 70 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Pleas Case Management System, which we finally know as CPCMS, which is to go into existence shortly, we understand. We have one other significant financial problem that has arisen, and, that is, a very large threefold increase in our malpractice insurance. As you're probably aware, our present carrier, CNA, has decided not to renew our coverage following settlement in a child advocate case, the first sizeable settlement in the history of the Defender Association. Two additional complaints have been filed in the child advocate area, so our insurer has bailed out, and we are presently looking for an insurance carrier. It appears that our costs will triple to $300,000 for the year. We have, of course, discussed this situation with the Administration's Risk Management people, and we are, as we are in all of this, on our own to try to find appropriate insurance. I would be much happier today 71 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. to be able to simply regale you with success stories and some of the accomplishments mentioned in our written testimony, but our financial situation remains perilous unless we are able to reach an agreement on these articulated financial needs of the Association. I thank you for your time and attention. We are justifiably proud of our staff and the service they provide to Philadelphia citizens. I'll certainly be happy to answer any questions or any concerns that you may have or any of the members of City Council. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Have you made the Administration aware of the $475,000 deficit you have and requested that you get the dollars you need?
We have done that in writing only about ten days ago and have not had any opportunity to meet with the Budget Director around that 72 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. issue or these other issues mentioned here today.
So you've made them aware. Have they had any response as of this date?
Not yet, no. 8 We're hopeful. We remain ever hopeful of a response.
All right. Is our Finance Department here and are they in sync with the Defender Association needing these dollars? Can you let us know what the Administration's position is and especially with regard to the Common Pleas Management System?
Dianne Reed, Budget Director. We received this request yesterday in our office, and we held the Defender's Association harmless last year. They did not get the cut; they did not get the raise. They are scheduled for the three percent and the four percent raise. 73 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. The CPCMS study is not completed, and the Administration is recommending holding off on all requests relating to that until the GAAP analysis remediation part of this is completed. We would have to look at the insurance issue.
When will that be, this analysis you just referred to?
Hopefully very soon, because the system is supposed to go live at the end of May.
Well, we need you to let us know about that. Certainly we don't have that information.
Right. The person in MOIS who is the Project Manager for this thinks that all justice partners should be in pretty good shape, except for the fact that when other counties have gone live with this in the state, the AOPC, which is the state organization that has requested this change, has 74 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. really not given them any data to test in advance, and so it's kind of been a last-minute, seat-of-the-pants type of deal. However, Philadelphia is 40 percent of the caseload and there is a fervent plea in to try to get some of that, some testing material up front, and that's kind of where the gap in information lies.
Well, certainly we would need this information before we complete our budget process.
Well, that's going to be important, because our colleagues are going to be concerned about passing a budget with the pending information, and we would like to get this done in the Administration's interest, but when you're waiting for information, my colleagues are really -- the Council will have issues if we don't have that information prior to the 75 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. expected passage.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning. A couple questions. The Mobile Outreach Program that is an extension of the Child Advocacy Unit, first, congratulations on that innovation, if you will. How successful has it been? How many young people are in the program? And what's the process used to recruit or enroll young people with the Mobile Outreach?
I can get you the specific numbers, Councilwoman, but the program has been quite successful. It's actually been operating just over the last year, and we've had teams of attorneys and social workers who have visited the youngsters for the most part in their placements. I don't know -- 76 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
In their placements, where they're, say, at Northern Homes or in some type of placement like that.
I can get you the specific information as to numbers. I know that they have seen hundreds of children. They have prepared a wonderful booklet that they give to them about their rights, and they are working individually with the young people to try to get them ready for the transition into adulthood. I'll get you some more information about that. I'd be happy to send that along.
Please. I'd be curious to know as well, is there any tie-in, connect, linkage with the Managing Director's office of Juvenile -- it's a recent initiative that targets 77 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. certain police districts where there's high juvenile delinquent activity. I cannot recall the name of that program, launched by the Mayor and the Managing Director about two months ago.
I'm just curious to know if there's any linkage with this. I cannot remember what it is.
I don't think there's any specific linkage to that, that I'm aware of.
So this is principally for young people who are currently housed in group facilities?
For the most part, and for other individual clients that we have who are at that 15, 16 age who need this kind of assistance. But I think the bulk of the people and the reason that it's called Mobile is that we're sending teams out to visit them in placements. But we're also providing the 78 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. same kind of effort for clients who are in their home but are clients of ours.
Okay. So there would be good sense in having a tie-in with this initiative that is designed to capture young people who appear to be on the brink of headed down the wrong path and juveniles between the age of and 16. And it's run out of 11 the Managing Director's office. I'm 12 going to get the name of it for you.
But I think they're older. I think they're young adults pretty much who are the target of that program. Aren't they, Charlie?
Young adults. They're like between 18 and 22, are more the focus of that program. We're looking at the youngsters who before they're 18. 79 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. 15, and maybe 17. 3
So we're a step 5 before that so they don't get to that 6 point. 7
Exactly. 8 You talk on of your 9 testimony about activities to improve 10 relations between minority youth and law 11 enforcement. The District Attorney has 12 just spoken to innovative ways they have 13 of bringing to young people what they 14 need to know about law enforcement. Is 15 your department doing anything along 16 those lines, just the education, helping young people understand the consequence of conduct, that kind of thing?
Well, I think through the disproportionate minority group, the Chief of our unit, Bob Listenbee, has been very actively involved in several forums that they have had here in Philadelphia where they bring representatives of law enforcement, 80 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. school police, sheriffs, police officers, and they have panel meetings with young people. And I was at the first one that they had, and it's a very fascinating, honest kind of dialogue that they have about respect and how one's comments are perceived. It seems to be having a very positive effect in terms of the youngsters. The last forum was very well attended. It was at one of the -- no. 12 It was down at 6th and Walnut Streets, I believe.
So is that an ongoing prescribed program that happens X number of weeks at designated sites around the City?
No, I don't think so. I don't think it's really something that's funded from Philadelphia and has any -- it's a statewide program, the one that I'm talking about where we've had the youth forums here. It's been run through the state. It's not Philadelphia based. 81 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
Okay. I just have one final question. I just want to be clear in my context here. It's what one would call a detail. Culturally speaking, there really is a difference between African and African-American. So in your Exhibit-B at the top, most of us might know that that means African-American, but some of us might not. So just for clarity purposes, I would like to suggest that you may want to change that to African-American. I mean, there may come a time when you then have to draw a distinction between African immigrants and African-Americans.
I think this is supposed to be African-American as I look 82 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. at it.
I think that's a typo, Councilwoman. That's intended to be African-American.
I would have to thank Joe Meade. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Madam Defender and Mr. Cunningham and --
Yes. Good morning to you, too. 83 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
Madam Chair, I'd like to go back to where you were and see if we can get Ms. Reed back up at the table. You had asked a series of questions.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Ms. Reed. Ms. Reed, I'm looking at the Defender's first page of testimony. The Chair asked you earlier about items related to this CPCMS, which I don't exactly know what that is, but the third paragraph of the testimony makes reference to an anticipated $475,000 deficit by the end of the current fiscal year, and what I'd like to know is what, if any, plans does the Administration have to deal with that particular issue, one? Second, was this anticipated at a time when you were at 84 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. the table not too long ago and we had an extended conversation last week with regard to the mid-year transfer? Why wasn't this issue dealt with as a part of the mid-year transfer?
Dianne Reed, Budget Director. The Defender's Association is a Class 200 contract. They are not a City department.
And as I said, we only just received this information. We didn't have their budget detail. There was no submission, that I'm aware of. And so we'll have to see what we have to do about '06. A discussion needs to take place.
Okay. But you are now aware of this $475,000 anticipated FY06 deficit?
Yes. I can see it on the page. 85 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
Now, with regard to FY07, the testimony seems to indicate the prospect of a $2.5 million deficit for FY07. Is this consistent with the information you seem to indicate you received somewhere in the past couple days?
What it is, is a new database that the AOPC is setting up and all county justice systems need to put their data into that system in the format that the AOPC has dictated. In the case of Philadelphia and several areas, that actually entails kind of a dumbing down 86 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. from our system. And there have been extensive conversations going on for months about what kind of accommodations could be made for Philadelphia so that we could continue to enter data into our systems and have it update this state system in a manner that will allow us to complete our business on a timely basis. I mean, one of the tests that --
Let me just finish. This is really interesting. One of the tests that the Police Department did was that under our current system, it takes them about 11 seconds to enter data with the kind of codes that we use. Using the drop-down menus that are in the AOPC system, it takes three minutes, three to four minutes per data entry. And, of course, there are hundreds, especially if in fact there's a conspiracy type of situation where multiple people need to report. And so the DA has actually gone to the 87 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Rules Committee of the Supreme Court to try to get some consideration for Philadelphia. So this is all kind of working its way through, and it's very complex.
Is there a software incompatibility issue or is our software, it sounds like, slightly more sophisticated than the AOPC?
As I understand it, our software is more sophisticated. Our codes are slightly different. Although there are ways that these things can be patched together apparently.
Okay. Was any funding provided by AOPC for implementation or integration?
No. The First Judicial District has kind of -- was managing this for justice partners. We became concerned. In fact, starting with the conversation that we had with the Defender's Association when they came to us last January, they were concerned, and 88 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. so we actually have paid from the Administration for a GAAP analysis study and then a remediation study to look at all the justice partners who work with the FJD to try to make sure that we could get an enterprise solution that would work for everybody rather than having each of those agencies go by itself and try to come up with a silo solution that may not be compatible and might cost a lot more money.
Is there any opportunity here -- I don't know if it is within the guidelines. Is this something that we should be looking at from a Productivity Bank loan standpoint to bridge the financial gap?
Thank you. Budget Director, this isn't 89 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. part of Project OCEAN, is it?
I can hear the waves crashing in the background. Okay. Thank you. So you're going to get back to us based on your dialogue with the Chair and my questions as to the FY06 potential deficit, as well as the outstanding questions on the CPCMS system and then any financial impact from that or other components of the FY07 budget that might result in a deficit?
Okay. Madam Defender Greenlee, I read through the testimony. You made obvious references not only to the deficits that you might anticipate, but I know I heard somewhere in the course of this a discussion about salaries and parity and those kinds of issues. Is it possible to provide to the Chair in a kind of one-page document an outline of -- it 90 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. seems that you're making a bit of a budget request supplement or an enhancement to your budget. If you could lay out for us what the categories are and what the dollar amounts are just on one sheet of paper and then give us a total, that would be helpful.
If you could forward that to the Chair, then we would know exactly what the request is.
Thank you, Councilman. Are there any other questions for the Defender's Association? (No response.)
Thank you, Councilwoman. 91 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
Certainly. MR. McPHERSON: The next department is the City Commissioners.
Good morning and welcome. Please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony.
My name is Bob Lee. I'm the Voter Registration Administrator for the City Commissioners Office. I'm here for the Commissioners to present the budget.
I would like to thank you for this opportunity to present our Fiscal Year 2007 operating budget. The City Commissioners' proposed budget as laid down by the 92 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Administration is Class 100, $4,737,354; Class 200, $2,786,964; Class 300, $551,652; and Class 400, $50,145. This operating budget class of 100 represents an additional $99,924 over our FY06 estimated obligations, which provide the funds for a three percent wage increase. However, it does not provide any funding to replace employees lost to attrition. It does not provide any additional funding as requested to bring our employment levels up to 101 employees. We've lost two employees since December. We were at 89 in December. We lost two employees since. We're losing another one in May. We requested new 18 positions back in FY01, which would have 19 taken us to 109. That never happened. 20 Budgetary constraints have prevented us 21 from even reaching the 101 level that we 22 think is the minimum needed to properly 23 staff the office. 24 We made every effort to reduce 25 our expenditures where it's possible, and 93 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. we've been successful in obtaining more than $20 million in federal Help American grants. In fact, it's $22 million. We'll continue to try to effect cost savings as we go about our work, but our problem is that recent changes in federal and state law is putting a massive workload on the department. It was interesting listening to the previous testifiers talk about a statewide system, because little or no 13 people know that the voter registration office is now on a statewide voter registration system that we went on in December 27th, 2005. We attempted to avoid going on that system at all costs until the very last minute where we had to go on by federal law, and the reason we attempted to avoid it is because the system is slow, it's cumbersome and the laws and the system processes require numerous additional steps in processing a single voter registration application. We believe this new system is 94 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. going to substantially increase our workload and require that we have additional employees and additional funding at least up to the 101 level of full-time employees. We've been using it for four months. We've learned its handicaps. We also had to implement a new electronic voting system, which we did successfully in 2002, and we've been using it since. However, recent federal law and a court agreement settlement in federal court required that we upgrade the voting machines so that they would provide an audio device that would allow those visually impaired voters the opportunity to vote independently and in private. Both the court agreement and the federal HAVA Act required that that be completed by January of '06, and I'm proud to say that Philadelphia County is probably one of two or three in the state that met that deadline, thereby ensuring our qualification for our $22 million in 95 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. federal funds. We recently conducted a special election on March 14th in the 174th District for state rep, and all of the precincts in that district had at least one machine that was audio equipped for visually impaired voters to vote independently. These new systems naturally bring new expenses. The voting system has an annual software maintenance fee of $100,000. The absentee system has a software maintenance fee of $38,000. None of those items are included in our budget. We requested the money for that and it's not in the budget. We requested additional funding to cover increased postage costs that we're going to be incurring because of mandated mailings and notices that are required to be mailed out of the new SURE system, and that has not been included. We requested additional funding to bring the employee levels up to 101, 96 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. and that has not been approved or put into the budget.
Our budget is basically static. It's not changed. It's not increased to allow us to meet these increasing workloads. Thank you for the opportunity. I'll answer any questions you may have.
Thank you very much. You're requesting 16.5 million in the Grants Revenue for '07. Can you tell us who the grantor is and how these funds will be spent?
The grantor is the federal government. Under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, Congress set aside a certain amount of money to implement election reform changes after the Florida election in 2000. The way the grants work is, the money is sent to the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth has to submit a Commonwealth state plan to get the funds. They did that, and 97 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. they've been awarded the funds. Each county has to submit a county plan as to how they intend to spend their allocations under the grants. Philadelphia County did that, and we've been awarded approximately $22 million in grants. Some of the funds are earmarked for specific purposes by the federal government and also by the state government. Some of the other funds are discretionary in our use. And we use quite a bit of that money. The discretionary money in 2004, we probably ran one of the most extensive voter education programs on our voting system than was done anywhere in the Commonwealth. We spent over $500,000 placing advertisements in newspapers, telling people how to vote, the new ID requirements, the availability of provisional ballots, and we also mailed to every voter in the City a postcard giving them information on the new law, 98 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. listing their name and address as it was in the records, telling them where their polling place was, and if they needed to bring ID, we informed them of that fact to bring ID to the polls. And in November '04, we had a very high turnout in Philadelphia. And considering the new laws -- this is the first presidential election that a lot of voters were voting on our new system -- everything went very well.
Thank you. You're requesting 12.3 million in payments to other funds as part of your grant request. Can you tell us what funds you will be paying and if there are restrictions placed on any use of these funds?
Those other funds are not determined by the City Commissioners Office. This is basically a reimbursement or money that has been allocated to Philadelphia because it 99 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. replaced its lever voting machines after the November 2000 election. Back in April of 2001, Commissioner Tartaglione testified before a Congressional panel and asked that any funds be made retroactive back to November 2000, and fortunately for us, we signed our contract for our voting system in March of 2001. So that's basically what qualified us for these funds.
Thank you. We'd like to ask our Budget Director how these funds will be used.
Dianne Reed, Budget Director. The payment from the Grants Revenue Fund of 12 million 3 reimburses the capital expenditures for the voting machines, and this is the amount that we estimate will be required in '07. We had an appropriation of about 18 million for this in '06 and we haven't actually received the amount that we expected by 100 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. this point. So the '07 appropriation includes receiving that perhaps in '07 if it doesn't come in in time for '06.
It is in the '07 budget request. That million 3 would 12 cover getting the money in '07. We also have an appropriation in '06. So whichever year the money comes in, we'll be able to make the reimbursement to the Capital Fund.
Where is the payment reflected to another fund then? We don't see it in the capital budget.
I don't know where it is in the capital budget. I will try to find that out for you.
Thank you. We would like to know where that is 101 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. and what that is, and ask that you get back to us so that we may distribute that information.
Thank you, Madam Chair. A couple of quick questions. One, what do we pay the temporary workers, the 90-day workers?
Ms. Reed, Council passed a law recently requiring an increase in the minimum wage locally for companies that contract with the City of Philadelphia. I think Councilman Goode sponsored that bill.
That was 150 percent of the minimum wage, whatever it is, the living wage bill. I think that most City contractors are above that amount already, so that will only be like 8 something an hour, since the minimum wage for PA right now is only 5.15.
So we passed a bill in Council requiring any contractor/vendors to pay more than $6 an hour?
So how can we, the City of Philadelphia, only pay people that are working for us 5.15?
From your perspective, do you think that's somewhat inconsistent?
It could be inconsistent, but there were a lot of 103 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. clauses in that, so it may be in an excluded class. On the face of it, it doesn't look like it's consistent.
The people that work for us are different. So if you're a public employee, you can make less than the required amount. At a minimum, I think that the Commissioners Office should probably bring that to the table. And I'm not attempting to tell an independently elected official what to do, but I think that there should probably be some reference to our requirement; i.e., legislation that was passed by this Council, signed by the Mayor, and what individuals are being paid who work for the City. It probably should be referenced to the Council President and members of Council. Would you agree, sir?
You made another statement. You made reference to 104 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. the maintenance of the machines, the new machines, and that money wasn't allocated for that long-term maintenance.
The machine maintenance, let's say when we signed the contract --
Software maintenance is the key element, yeah. There's a $100,000 software maintenance fee and support fee for the voting system and there's $38,000 for the optical scan absentee voting system that we have. Those are not included in our budget.
Well, there were different costs. There was no software maintenance fee obviously because they were mechanical machines, but you had different costs with bringing in outside mechanics and technicians to work on those machines. There was more extensive 105 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. printing costs in printing ballot strips and things like that. So the costs with the system are different. We no longer use the outside technicians, except for Election Day. We use them to provide coverage of one technician per ward throughout the City, but we don't use them for preparing and maintaining our machines and setting up for election. That's done by all City employees now. The only time we would use outsiders if we had to is under the result of a court order where we were made to do a change at the last minute.
Shouldn't the elimination of that cost associated with the old machines, the physical maintenance of those old machines, offset the costs associated with the new machines?
You would think so, but there's some issues that -- I mean, because these are electronic machines and the issues that are out in the election 106 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. world, we do an awful lot of testing. I mean, we test these machines twice between each election and then we test it with the actual election ballot on there before they are shipped, every single machine. And then when they come back, they're tested and audited again. So what we may have saved in time and labor expenses on using mechanical machines, we're eating up in doing a lot of testing just to make sure the machines are consistently and accurately recording what's cast on the machines. I don't know what you save on the outside mechanics or the printing.
You don't have to do it now, but through the Chair, can you get some numbers on the cost of maintaining the old machines that we no 22 longer have the responsibility and compare that with the cost of the new software maintenance?
Yeah. Robin, our 107 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Budget Officer, says we anticipate saving approximately 175,000.
All right. If you could just break that down, forward it to the Chair, the elimination of the cost of the old machines versus the requirements on the new machines as it relates to maintenance.
Thank you. Councilman Nutter. 108 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, can I have the Budget Director back? I want to finish up in the area where you were just a second ago.
In response to the Chair's question with regard to the capital budget item, the total amount that we're anticipating from this HAVA reimbursement is 12.38 million; is that right?
And you indicated that it's in the Grants Revenue Fund. These were obviously capital dollars. My recollection is, the total cost of the machines was $21, $22 million?
Right. We have been receiving the money over a few years and we expect it to be ending at this point 109 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. when we get these final payments in.
You've been getting reimbursement for the previous expenditures?
My 15 recollection was we spent $21, $22 16 million on new voting machines, right? 17 What money are you talking about? 18
The outstanding 19 reimbursement that we're waiting for, the 20 money that has been spent. So this is a reimbursement from the federal government, which goes in the Grants Revenue Fund, and then the Grants Revenue Fund reimburses whatever capital account this is coming out of. 110 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
You're saying we have received previous reimbursement already?
What's the total amount that we're going to get reimbursed?
I don't have those 111 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. records with me, but we can get that information back to you.
That will go to pay off whatever capital account the expenditure was actually made from to pay for the voting machines.
So you're saying the department that paid for it, they get the money back?
Well, it may just be an account that the City uses. We have equipment accounts.
But it wouldn't have to go there? I mean, these are capital dollars. They are ours. I mean, we can use them essentially however we want for any -- 112 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
No, I doubt it. Since this is a federal grant, federal grants require strict accounting, because that's one of the conditions of federal grants. You cannot supplement or use those funds in any other way. So, no. 8
What are the restrictions? I mean, they're reimbursing us for something that we spent and we could have spent those dollars on anything. So how can they tell us how we can spend a reimbursement? I mean, it was ours to start with.
The receipts have to match the grant amount. So you cannot use this money in any sort of a supplemental way.
But we paid for them already. We bought our voting machines before this mess ever started. 113 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. We passed a bill. The voters approved it. We bought our machines. The last days of the Rendell Administration into the Street Administration, we cobbled together dollars to buy these machines. Then Florida happens. The Congress, they do whatever they do, and then they decide everybody has got to upgrade and they want to give people money back. We had already started before the hanging chad situation ever happened.
But I don't think this comes from any GO-supported capital account. This is some other kind of capital account that I will have to get you information on.
Okay. Mr. Lee, I'm assuming you've been working with this for a little while. What's your understanding of this situation?
Well, there's approximately $22 million that's going to be provided to Philadelphia County. Of 114 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. that, Congress specifically earmarked in the HAVA Act that each precinct be reimbursed to the level of $4,000.
Each division, $4,000 per division. They then funded that at a level of about $3,200 a division. So whatever money came to Philadelphia immediately as a strict reimbursement for the replacement of lever machines, there was $5,366,121.87. That's a definite reimbursement.
That's mandated by Congress. That's in the Commonwealth's state plan. In addition to that --
No. You didn't get it yet. It's still in the state bank 115 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. account.
In addition to that, when the Commonwealth broke the money out and they did the state plan, they also allotted another amount for voting systems to Philadelphia, and I can give you that amount in a second. I think it was 8 million and 80 thousand or something like that. Of that amount, the Commission was permitted to use ten percent for other than voting system expenditures, which we have opted to do. It was $8,081,878.18. The Commission has opted to use ten percent of that funds for other than voting system expenditures.
Yeah. So the balance of that, plus the $5,366,000 will be coming to the City of Philadelphia as a reimbursement towards that $21 million expenditure. 116 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
Other funds in the grant, $1,457,000 we just got notified was approved. We got the confirmation of that today. That money can only be used for modifying polling places and making polling places accessible for people with disabilities.
It's called HAVA Section 251 money. There's $1.4 million. It's specifically for polling place accessibility, nothing else.
So this has nothing to do with the machine replacement?
Now, you said that there's 5,366,121.87 sitting in a state account right now?
What do we 117 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. have to do to get it? I mean, what are they waiting for?
Well, that money will be released to us when we put in a request for them to send it here as working capital. However, we're not permitted to do that until we are fully HAVA compliant, and that means not only voting systems, but every other HAVA requirement. It's our position that we are fully HAVA compliant. I would expect that sometime after the use of the machines in the first election for federal office, which will be May 16th, that we can put in an application to get both the Section 102 money, which is the 5,366,000, and the other Title 2 voting system money, which is the 8 million less 800,000. So I would expect that the Commissioners will be signing a funding request for those funds shortly after we certify the returns for the primary, and our position will be that we qualify for 118 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. them because we are HAVA compliant and we've conducted an election with a HAVA-compliant system.
Okay. Now, the earlier testimony was that we had received some reimbursement funds related to the voting machines. Do you have any information about that?
The City Commissioners was awarded other funds under this grant. I believe 1.9 million was for Title 3 requirements, not voting systems. They could be used for voting systems, but they're earmarked for Title 3 requirements. We spent about --
Implementing provisional voting, voter education, poll education. That's what I alluded to earlier where we spent more than $550,000 before the November '04 general election, educating voters and sent out a voter notice of where to go to vote and about 119 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. the new laws. So the funds that we spent -- and we spent those out of our '04 operating budget, hoping that the grant money would be here. It wasn't here. We went into default on the budget, had to use '06 money. It eventually got put back in there through a year-end transfer. It was a real long process. It delayed paying the poll workers for May of '05. But those reimbursements were not for voting systems.
Now, Ms. Reed, the $12.3 million that's been the topic of discussion this morning, if it is a pure reimbursement and eligible for capital use, wouldn't you be able to add that $12 million to the now anticipated $52 million FY07 capital budget?
No. That's a GO-funded budget. This is an index code in the Finance Department for a capital account. It's not the same at all. 120 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
Wherever the capital account in Finance, which probably was a transfer from another account. So it's an accounting transaction.
No, but you have cash. What are you going to do with the cash when the check comes in? What are you going to do with it?
Complete the accounting transaction. This is an accounting matter. We'll have to get --
Debits, credits, cancel out, whatever. You have $12.38 million that someone has dropped 121 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. in your lap for a cost that you paid four years ago. What are you going to do with the $12 million?
It's an accounting transaction that will go in to replenish whatever account that came out of. So that is a cash transaction. This is not a capital budget transaction.
Okay. Fine. You replenish the account. Now that you have satisfied that need to replenish the account and make all the accountants happy, what are you going to do with the $12 million that they sent us?
The transaction is completed. There's nothing else to do. I mean, we'll have to get some information from the Finance Accounting Department for you on this, but it's not like this is GO money that you can add to the GO capital budget.
Okay. If I didn't have a speaking engagement 122 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. tonight, I would probably just bang my head right on this table right now. Okay. You'll get an answer to the Chair?
Thank you very much. All right. If there are no 13 further questions, we will recess until 1:15 when we will hear from the Law Department and the City Rep and Director of Commerce. Thank you all. (Luncheon recess.)
Our hearing will resume. We now have the Law Department. Thank you. Welcome. Please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony. Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, Councilwoman. 123 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
I'm Romulo Diaz, City Solicitor. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today in support of the Law Department's budget request for Fiscal Year 2007. I'm accompanied today by Donna Mouzayck, First Deputy City Solicitor; Don Marino, Chair of Litigation; Barbara Ash, Chair of Social Services; Dan Cantu-Hertzler, Acting Chair of Corporate and Tax, as well as Chris Lane, Director of Administration. I will summarize my prepared statement, in the interest of time.
Thank you. We will submit it for the record in its entirety.
Thank you, Councilwoman. In FY2007, we will continue critical reforms and initiatives, including collection of delinquent tax 124 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. and non-tax revenues owed to the City; implementation of contract reform legislation authorized by voters last November; and planning for new financial assistance requirements effective July 1; preparation for local gaming facilities; development of Wireless Philadelphia, which will help bridge the digital divide, promote economic development and tourism and reduce costs of government; and removal of barriers to the permanent placement of children and emphasis on programs that will allow more families to stay together. Overall, the Law Department requests $15,155,824 in the General Fund for FY2007, a net increase of $1,108,081 from estimated obligations for FY2006. The Department will also increase its General Fund staffing levels from 185 in FY2006 to 197 in FY2007. I refer Councilmembers to my written testimony for our request in connection with other City funding sources. 125 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. I am proud of the Department's many accomplishments in FY2006 and will mention only a few of them. With your help, we established financial hardship agreement guidelines and a Conditional Forgiveness Program providing payment options and relief to eligible homeowners who owe delinquent real estate taxes and, thus, could be threatened with the loss of their homes. Older delinquent real estate tax accounts were referred to outside counsel working for a statutory legal fee at no cost to the City and with excellent results. For the first half of FY2006, the results for all collection efforts by the Law Department, including outside counsel, were the best in six fiscal years. We project non-tax fines involving Air Management, Building, Electrical, Fire Prevention, Health and Property Maintenance codes will reach $14.7 million, nearly equal to the Law Department's entire General Fund 126 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. operating budget. Despite potential liabilities of $14 to $17 million, we achieved a major victory in reaching a no-cost settlement of the 25-year-old Metal Bank Superfund case. The Law Department played a key role in negotiating a federal, state, local settlement with a major Philadelphia employer, yielding $500,000 in fines and tens of millions of dollars in air quality improvements that will benefit Philadelphia residents for years to come. Finally, I am proud of our commitment to diversity contracting, which resulted in nearly 43 percent of our contracts being awarded to minority and women contractors in FY2005. In addition, the Law Department continues to place a high priority on maintaining a diverse workforce. Of the total Law Department staff in February 2006, 68 percent were women and nearly 50 percent were minority 127 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. and disabled. In short, the Law Department reflects the people we serve through our commitment to diversity and opportunity. That concludes my oral summary, and I appreciate your direction that my formal written statement will be entered into the record. I would be pleased to respond to any questions that you may have at this time.
Thank you very much. I have just two questions, and may I note we think that you're a good City Solicitor and appreciate the job you're doing for us.
On of your testimony, you state that older delinquent real estate accounts have been referred to outside counsel working for a statutory legal fee at no 24 cost to the City but with great results. Results for the first half of Fiscal Year 128 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. '06 were the best in six fiscal years. Both the Revenue Department and now Law mention how good delinquent collections are doing, yet the revenue estimates in Fiscal Year '06 for prior real estate is being reduced from 48 to 38 million. Maybe the Administration can respond to this anomaly. Are collections improving or are they deteriorating, or how is the money being logged and, if so, where? How are these --
Our collections are definitely improving, Councilwoman Blackwell. Through January, I believe, of this year, we had collected in all of the Law Department collections on taxes, I believe it was $74 million. And so I'm not sure where the numbers that you're referring to might be coming from. If I could have just a moment.
The budget and brief, our green book, where the revenue and the prior No. 2.
I understand that 129 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. there may be a coding error in the Finance Department designation of certain collections, and I understand that the Finance Department will be getting back to you for the record on that. We will make that request, but that's what Mr. Lane advises me.
Does that mean we may have more money available than is listed?
I understand the Finance Department is going to be issuing a letter. The numbers that -- the reason for my hesitation, Councilwoman Blackwell, is that the numbers that you're referring to are not reflected, I believe, in the Law Department budget submission, but I'm advised by our administration budget officials; that is, from the Law Department administration, that a letter will be forthcoming from the Finance Department clarifying that particular situation.
Thank 130 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. you very much.
My last question is, you mention your NTI Regulatory Affairs Unit has contributed to City collections through their high rate of closing matters and collecting fines involving Air Management, Building, Electrical, Fire Prevention, Health and Property Maintenance codes. It does not appear that these additional collections are included in the revenue estimates. As an example, Health Department revenues in, quote, "other category" are being reduced from 2.8 million in Fiscal Year '06 to 600,000. Are collections improving or is the Administration not recording or listing these revenues?
I can only speak, Councilwoman, for the Law Department. Our collections in those areas are definitely improving, but as this issue has come up previously and I checked into 131 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. it, the collections are reflected in the budget submissions for the individual department or departments to whom those revenues are credited. For a collection on behalf of a Health Department fine, for example, those collections would be credited to the Health Department revenue sources and not reflected in the Law Department. So I think that may be the background on that particular issue.
Thank you, Mr. City Solicitor. Are there other questions? (No response.)
Just a couple of questions. I received a response as a part of the overall responses. I guess you were here for Five-Year Plan hearings a couple weeks back, and I requested the legal costs for the federal corruption investigation, and I guess it's possible that my question was too narrow. It seems that I may have just asked for FY06 and FY07, which is what you responded to. Can you go back to, I guess, what would have been FY04 and FY05 for those costs and then we could have a complete, up-to-date total?
Sure. We actually had a very small expenditure for the federal investigation in FY03. And if 133 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. you were to add all of those costs, FY03 through our projected expenditures in FY06, we're talking about a total expenditure of about $4.2 million, including all funding streams to the Law Department. Most of that is for the General Fund, and of that amount, we estimate about 2.85 million of the 4.2 million is associated with the cost for cooperating with the federal investigation. For example, we have had, through the Law Department and outside counsel, to review some nearly 500,000 document pages, 700,000 e-mails, 60 gigabytes of computer data, 75 current and former City employees interviewed. We covered five trials and responded to some 130 subpoenas for document requests. So most of that 4.2 million -- as I indicated, about 2.85 million -- was associated for the cost of the City cooperation with the federal authorities.
And what was the other approximately 1.35 for? 134 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
That was in connection with representation of individuals, either because they were the subject of a representation requirement, most often through a conflict issue where it was thought inappropriate by the federal authorities that our outside counsel representing the City as a whole, in their view, should not be representing particular individuals.
So in kind of shorthand, is it fair to say that the 1.35 was for actual legal expenses, legal representation expenses?
I think that's probably a fair summary. I'd have to go back and review the individual items, and I could provide that for the record, but I think for purposes of this line of questioning, that's a fair summary.
And so let's then go back. The 2.85 in a category of cooperating with the federal investigation, again, what exactly does 135 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. that mean and how is that distinct from the 1.35?
Much of the work that's being done in connection with the federal investigation is, in a very straightforward way, investigation and it's responding and reviewing documents and the kinds of materials I mentioned before, the nearly half a million pages worth of documents, the 700,000 e-mails, things of that nature that we review through outside counsel to determine whether the information might be relevant and, if relevant, if it's potentially covered by some type of confidentiality or other privilege.
So you're suggesting that from FY03 through FY06, you're estimating $4.2 million, and then the response from that Five-Year Plan hearing seems to indicate, and the budget book reflects as well, you're anticipating for FY07 $537,424 at the moment? 136 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
I believe that's correct for the General Fund, but the total amount in '07 is an additional 50,000. So that the amount that we have requested in FY07 budget authority is $587,424, which reflects both the General Fund and Aviation Fund requests, which are reflected in the document before you.
Related to Aviation Fund issues. I don't know that I would restrict it to the Airport.
I understand. So through FY07, the anticipated expenditure is approximately $4.7 million?
Now, let me 137 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. move into another area and then I'll come back to some other things.
And if I may, Councilman, given the experience that we've had to date, the cooperation number that I gave you earlier, the $2.85 million for the general cooperation expenses, review of documents, electronic data, et cetera, we would expect that to also apply to about two-thirds of the expenditures that we anticipate for FY07. I gave you a number earlier of 2.85 million. So if one were to add about --
You made reference proudly, and it's certainly something to be proud about, your record with regard to what's generally referred to as MBE/WBE contracts in the Law Department. Does that come mostly from 138 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. the Class 250 category in the budget book?
I don't know if I would say that they're reflective of just that category. In fact, the --
But definitely Class 10 200. These are professional services. 11 And the MBEC reporting requirements now 12 have expanded the contracts against which 13 we measure performance to include 14 contracts which we manage. For example, 15 like the Lexus-Nexus electronic research 16 capability is now counted toward our performance even though it's not funded out of the Law Department.
Could you provide to the Chair by contract and I guess by contractor a list which would indicate how you arrived at the numbers, the percentages, with detailed information for each contractor related to race, gender and geography. What I 139 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. mean by geography is --
-- Philadelphia versus the rest of the -- in the City, outside the City.
I'd be pleased to do it, consistent with the longstanding discussion that you and I have had about privileges associated with the federal investigation.
Okay. I understand that. I mean, this shouldn't interfere too much with that.
I think I heard you talk about a request for contract details, and to the extent that those contract details might divulge confidential information about the federal investigation, I would have to demur on that, but obviously with respect to how we count the dollars for MBEC performance results, I'm more than happy to give you that information.
I 140 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. understand. On , I'd take a guess that if you go to a lot of these lines, 253 representations, bottom of into 6 17, I'm assuming that the abbreviations 7 here are investigation cooperating/client 8 representation? 9
Most of 11 those are -- not most. Some of those are 12 going to be the federal corruption 13 investigation? 14
I assume that's how you'll continue to designate them. Okay. There's been a fair amount of discussion back and forth in the news media about the campaign finance ordinances that have been passed. Some are related to contract reform. I don't think they've been the subject of much discussion or controversy so far, but the 141 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. other bill that was passed -- there have been two of them, one in 2003 authored by Councilman Goode and then a subsequent amendment to that bill primarily done by Councilman O'Neill, which added offices that are covered, as well as increased the contribution limits. My recollection is, there's been some correspondence from groups and organizations, as well as possibly news media accounts about this, and then I saw a response from you indicating that there basically was nothing else to do from an enforcement standpoint. Could you better detail, I guess, for us how you arrived at that conclusion in terms of who has to comply or who doesn't have to comply, what the role of the Solicitor's office is specific to enforcement and if there is anything else that needs to be done in this particular regard?
The campaign finance legislation that has been enacted in the 142 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. City imposes limits on contributions to persons who have announced intentions to run for City elective office. The contribution limits are $2,500 by individuals and $10,000 for businesses. The legislation does not limit contributions to persons who merely indicate a willingness or availability to run, and the reason for that second point and the interpretation that the Law Department has provided on campaign finance is that we believe that is required by settled case law interpreting other city laws and with how courts would enforce the law.
And how courts would enforce campaign finance law enacted by the City. As to your last question, should anything more be done or is needed in this regard, I've indicated to the Committee of Seventy and others that I 143 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. believe that's a policy question that is not within the scope of my responsibilities, that I have focused on what I believe the law to be and how a court would likely interpret the existing campaign finance law adopted by City Council.
So is the main issue here either the Court's interpretation or what the present definition of "candidate" is or may be? I mean, is that the central issue?
Well, the issue related to candidate is how courts, through settled case law, have interpreted that phrase, and it has been interpreted not to include those who have announced merely an intention to run or availability to run for an elective office in the City.
Right. Well, I understand that, but for certain narrowly defined purposes, we can have, in accordance with the code provision, I 144 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. think we're allowed to have definitions that apply to certain situations; is that correct?
Certainly the City Council consistent with the law can interpret and define particular terms, but what I am referring to in terms of settled case law is what I believe not only Pennsylvania courts but also federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court, have indicated were within the scope of campaign finance restrictions, which would otherwise be interpreted by some as a potential abridgement of First Amendment rights. And so I think there is a fine line that needs to be drawn as between what is an acceptable level of campaign finance regulation and that which runs afoul First Amendment privileges as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court.
Right. I understand. 145 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Let me go back to the budget book for a second. On , there is a line item involving $85,000. All of these expenses seem to be related to the Aviation Fund or the aviation section at least, $85,000 for a category called "airline bankruptcies." Are we in the middle of litigation? Are we anticipating some? What are we paying for?
I think there's no 13 surprise that the airline industry has been under tremendous economic pressures of the last few years. We were very directly involved most recently in a very substantial way in the second bankruptcy of U.S. Airways. We've also been involved in national airlines, United and other aviation industry bankruptcies. So we have prudently, I think, listed and expected a line item reflecting ongoing lower level of interest types of bankruptcies in which we are continuing to be engaged, and 85,000 we thought was 146 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. an appropriate level of expenditure for the coming year.
Subject to something actually happening, or are you just -- I mean, are we constantly doing research? This is to anticipate something that may happen and you just have it designated for that particular use?
We have some ongoing bankruptcy involvement I believe with national airlines. I'd have to provide for the record, Councilman, exactly what the ongoing level of bankruptcy involvement is. We have closed out, for example, the second U.S. Airways bankruptcy, but there was a deadline of, I believe, yesterday for U.S. Airways to accept or reject all of the leases relating to its locations. So even after the bankruptcy proceeding was officially terminated at least insofar as the bankruptcy court appearances, we still had ongoing activities, and I wouldn't be 147 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. surprised if either in U.S. Airways or in other ongoing bankruptcies we would have some expenses. But I'm not focused on a particular airline or a particular new level of work when we projected the 85,000.
Okay. Two last areas. Concern has been expressed to me -- it may have also been expressed to other members -- regarding a particular enforcement issue, and it revolves around billboards and apparently some enforcement matters that have gone through the state court system and apparently a few that have even made their way into the federal court system up to and including the United States Supreme Court. The issue seems to revolve around what happens after someone loses in these matters and whether or not the City then requires the removal of the billboard or payment of overdue fees, and in many instances they either languish -- 148 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. or a concern is that they languish in the courts or we get to the point of making settlements or extended continuances. Five particular cases have been pointed out to me and I just wanted to better understand what was going on. Should I tell you what the cases are or are you already familiar with these cases, or how do you want to proceed?
I'm more than happy to give you a summary of where I think we are in the billboard litigation area, and if you have particular follow-on questions, I'd be happy to respond to those. I can tell you it has been an extremely difficult and frustrating effort to enforce the City's billboard requirements.
In fact, it has been characterized to me by representatives of the billboard industry that they are 149 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. engaged in a full-scale billboard war in Philadelphia.
"They" being the billboard industry. Every step in the enforcement process has led to new litigation. So we're not talking about finality with respect to any of these matters that you referred to, even for those where the United States Supreme Court has denied certiorari. What we have, I think, in the main are the following ongoing litigation matters involving the billboard industry, and I think it's, from my perspective, more helpful to give you a summary than to worry about the onesies and twosies, because we've not significant numbers out there of billboards that need to be regulated effectively. We have about 2,800 billboards that the Licenses and Inspections 150 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Department considers to be legal. With respect to those legal billboards, you may recall that the effort by the City previously to set a billboard licensing fee was the subject of litigation and was struck down in terms of the City's authority to enforce its license fee. Last June, I believe it was June, of 2005 as part of the budget process, the City Council enacted a billboard license fee. That fee has been the subject of litigation by the billboard industry. Although it is currently on a voluntary basis continuing to pay much of that fee.
They've litigated in connection with the seven percent excise tax, which was also enacted last June as 151 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. part of the process related to the budget. There has been an effort by the City to enforce against what we consider to be the illegal so-called eight-sheet billboards, which are located frequently in neighborhoods on the sides of residential and commercial structures and the subject often of inappropriate advertising given the locations, involving alcohol, tobacco and other products that one would assume shouldn't be near schools and in neighborhoods. The billboard industry has litigated our efforts to enforce against those 800 to 900 illegal signs. We also have seen efforts by City Council to legislate with respect to the proximity of certain advertising, like alcohol, near schools and faith institutions, and all of those efforts are currently the subject of litigation against the City of Philadelphia. And so if you look at it as a whole, it is clear to me anyway that we 152 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. need a much more comprehensive approach than five individual billboard cases might provide, and I have been, through my office, engaged in attempting a comprehensive settlement. It hasn't been reached, but I am hopeful that it might be. And I think if we were successful in reaching such a settlement, it would allow us to legitimize those billboards that can be legitimized, remove those that are illegal, hopefully at no cost to the City, and provide a revenue stream consistent with the requirements of the Five-Year Plan. That is my hope, and as soon as I'm in a position to report further, I'd be happy to do so publicly, but I would also offer to do so privately, if that would be helpful to you or other members of City Council.
Well, thank you. It would certainly be helpful to me. I guess the one thing I didn't completely understand, once we have won 153 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. or the other side has lost, why don't we just go and take the billboard down ourselves?
Well, the normal requirement is that you get a judgment in your favor and then you seek to enforce through a judicial process that judgment. At every step when the enforcement is contemplated, there is additional litigation and appeal. We have considered the possibility, in the example of the eight-sheets that we believe to be wholesale illegal, the possibility of removing those at the City's cost, but it seems to me that we would certainly have the liabilities associated with that. We would have the costs associated with that to the extent that we didn't get compensated for our expenditures.
That would probably lead to one more piece of litigation with 154 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. respect to whether that was an appropriate chargeback. In short, it seems to me that trying to remove these at an individual level, putting aside the liability and putting aside the cost and putting aside future litigation, it seems to me at least that trying to seek a comprehensive settlement with regard to how these ought to be removed and how they ought to be assumed as to the costs by the billboard industry is a much more effective way to proceed, and that's the reason we have been moving in that direction.
Well, I look forward to the briefing, but do you have a sense of the timetable?
I'm hoping, Councilman, that it is imminent, but I can't give you an exact date, and I'm 155 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. happy to provide, as I suggested earlier, more details for you privately.
You indicated that you had a list of, I guess it was, billboards that are legal?
The Department of Licenses and Inspections does. We may have it in the Law Department, but I'm sure if you were interested in a list, I could seek it for the record.
And then there's a much larger list, I assume, of illegal?
Well, the ones that I'm aware of that -- the list that's been used for estimating revenues for both excise tax purposes and license fee purposes indicates about 2,800 sign faces as they're normally termed in the billboard industry, that there are about 2,800 sign faces that the Licenses and 156 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Inspections Department considers to be legal. I am told that there are an estimated 800 to 900 eight-sheets that are considered illegal. And then there are the individual signs that you indicated have been the subject of litigation. I suspect that we're talking about a relatively small number. So it would appear that the legal sign faces are probably outnumbering the illegal ones at this point.
We are collecting. I've been checking with the Revenue Commissioner and the budget department, and it's my understanding that we anticipate receiving both excise taxes, the seven percent excise tax adopted June of last year, as well as billboard fees for the current fiscal year. And I believe we're projecting about 1.5 million in the way of a license -- I'm sorry; 1.5 million in connection with the 157 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. excise tax and a significant sum, I don't have the exact number before me, in connection with the billboard license fee.
If you could provide that information to the Chair, that would be helpful.
Speaking of imminent, I remember getting last year either an opinion or a part of a veto message document. It's hard to keep track of the veto messages I get. I get a fair number of them, so I can't always keep track of the veto messages. But in one of the documents, there was mention made -- this is with regard to bond financings and the issue of competitive bidding and qualified teams and those matters, and one of the answers to either an issue or a question, you had laid out that you didn't really need to address a particular issue because an Executive 158 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Order was imminent in terms of addressing that issue. My recollection is that was, I believe, sometime in December of 2005 tied to a particular piece of legislation. Can you tell me what the status is of the Executive Order that was referenced in the December 2005 letter?
My recollection of the Acting Finance Director's testimony before City Council two or three weeks ago suggested that it was still being worked; that is, the draft Executive Order. It has been a difficult process, not only because there was a desire to craft an Executive Order that, as much as possible, paralleled the contract reform legislation not applicable to some or all bond transactions, but there was also a desire to ensure that the City remained competitive and was not in fact put in an uncompetitive position relative to other bond issuers. I'd be pleased to ask the 159 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Finance Director to provide a more detailed response for the record, if that is your desire.
Well, I'd appreciate that, but, I mean, I always make the general assumption that any Executive Order, no matter what department it affects, ultimately is either being worked on directly by the Law Department or finds its way back to the Law Department even if someone else came up with the idea. From a Law Department standpoint, what do you think the timing is for the issuance of this particular Executive Order?
Well, I would hope it would be soon, but I'd have to request that timing estimate from the client, because we are in this regard the drafters as opposed to the client. I would hope it would be soon, but as you suggest, it has been less timely in its completion than I think anybody in the 160 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Administration would have liked to see.
Okay. Well, I mean, I think it certainly passed the expiration date of the term "imminent" from December of last year. I mean, it's outside of that range. So now we're into "soon"?
Well, all I can tell you is what I just said, which is that it has been less timely than anyone would have desired. I can get a time estimate from the client. I am not the client in this matter. But I understand your desire for something sooner rather than later, and I think that coincides with the client's desire as well.
Well, the client is certainly the Finance Department and obviously insofar as Executive Orders are approved and signed by the Mayor, I would certainly count the Mayor as a client as well. But we've been working directly 161 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. with the Finance Department on this draft.
So this is primarily a Finance Department issue and they're moving the issue? I mean, are they the generator, instigator, creator of ideas and policy in this particular regard?
I suspect everybody has ideas on this Executive Order, but they are the principal client with whom we work on a day-to-day basis with regard to bond transactions.
Okay. Last question. And thank you, Madam Chair. Solicitor, this is a particularly delicate discussion, which in no way, shape or form reflects any view or opinion on my part, but it is an attempt to get to the heart of a question and, if not, a criticism of the government in general and this Council in particular. So now I ask as our attorney 162 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. to try to give some response. I will not make reference to any particular individual in this discussion, and speak in more general fashion, if not, slightly hypothetically. Of course, the reality is, there is a live situation. I make reference to in the past week or so, at least three major newspapers, and I'm not sure what one of them has said in particular on their editorial pages, but the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and the Philadelphia Tribune have made particular commentaries, editorial comment, with regard to lack of action by City Council in regard to a matter which just occurred with regard to a member on March 17, 2006. You have written to us, provided advice to the Council President in a letter dated March 20th in response to a letter from the President dated March 16th, giving advice with regard to 163 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. the issue of the ability of a member to hold office following action in criminal legal proceedings. On Sunday, the 26th, the Philadelphia Inquirer gave their opinion for the second time, made reference to, and I quote, responding to the point that's been raised with regard to a nuance in criminal law, "that a person isn't technically," quote/unquote, "convicted of a crime until formal sentencing. Here's a thought: Council should come up with a new policy. Upon a guilty felony verdict by judge or jury, a member of Council must resign or be expelled." Philadelphia Daily News on Wednesday, March 22nd gave their opinion and decried the fact that a member could still pull a City paycheck while a convicted felon. Today the Philadelphia Tribune on their editorial page criticized City Council as adding further insult to 164 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. taxpayers by having them continue to pay the salary of a member in this particular situation and that the City Council should take action to prevent a member from attending or participating in Council business. My question to you is, based on your analysis of the law as you have laid out to us in the letter dated March 20th, is there any action that could be taken by City Council? And I'm only aware of, I believe, four different types of legislative action that this body primarily can take on any set of matters. We can pass a bill, we can pass a resolution, we can amend City Council rules, or we can change the Home Rule Charter. Are you aware of any other legislative action that this body can take in any regard, not specific to this particular matter?
Understood. I'm just trying to think about legislative 165 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. authorities that are authorized for City Council, and I, off the top of my head, don't consider -- I don't think of another category. That's correct.
Okay. So our powers under the Home Rule Charter, if not the state enabling act for a city of the first class, are limited to passing bills, passing resolutions, amending or creating our own rules for this body and amending the Home Rule Charter; is that right?
Okay. In your legal opinion as the City Solicitor and our attorney, given the critique and the criticism as laid out by three major daily newspapers within the last eight to ten days and what they think we should do within our powers, is there any bill, resolution, amendment to our own rules or change in the Home Rule Charter that could be taken that would cause any 166 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. different result than the opinion that you laid out and the requirements of the Constitution of the Commonwealth or any other case law related to this type of matter?
I will give you a response, but let me just predicate that response briefly. I believe you and the members of City Council are put unfairly in a very difficult position by the media, because it is my legal judgment that you have no authority to effectuate the result that has been requested of City Council under the law. And despite one of the characterizations in the editorial that you read to me a moment ago, we're dealing with an official who has not been convicted of any crime. He has been found guilty in terms of a jury verdict, which is not conviction under Pennsylvania law, and, therefore, he is not subject to removal from office under Pennsylvania law, except upon conviction, 167 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. which is understood to mean a judgment of sentence upon a guilty verdict. That has not occurred. It may occur on July 6th, is my understanding, of this year, but until that date, City Council has no 7 authority to effectuate the results that have been demanded of it by the media through the mechanisms that you have noticed or summarized in your question to me.
If we remove ourselves from the present circumstance, is there any other circumstance or condition under which City Council -- let's put aside the current matter. Another member, another situation, anything else that happens. Is there any bill, any resolution, any change to our rules of Council or any Home Rule Charter amendment that somehow could be crafted or created that would allow City Council to expel a member from this body or force a member to resign for any reason? 168 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
With respect to a criminal matter, and that's all that I am going to consider right now, with respect to a criminal matter, I believe the answer is unequivocally no with regard to expulsion prior to conviction, which upon conviction is automatic in terms of removal from office, in my judgment. And so there may be some internal leadership issues that could be addressed by Council rules that it has the authority to adopt, not unlike those that have been adopted by the federal Congress, but with regard to expulsion or removal --
Are you specifically speaking about if someone were in a leadership post to which they've probably either been elected or appointed by the members and some action that under that circumstance those same members, to the extent that someone can either be appointed or elected to something, they can usually be unelected or de-appointed in that particular 169 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. circumstance, but that's an internal matter that has, I think, still nothing to do with whether the person serves in the body; is that correct?
That's correct. We're dealing with leadership posts that I understand both the Majority party and the Minority party and the United States Congress have adopted for the regulation of their members as to their leadership post, but not to elective office as elected to positions of responsibility by the voters.
So for me to finally understand this, it sounds like the only way an individual under whatever circumstance, and not speaking to the current matter at all, the only circumstance under which a person who has been elected by the voters to be removed from office is either upon final conviction, which means sentencing, or some proceeding which may possibly involve impeachment under rules by the 170 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. General Assembly; is that correct?
Certainly upon conviction, but it's not clear to me that there is authority at the General Assembly either to do something in connection with impeachment. In fact, the case law that I have seen has suggested that even with regard to a recall procedure by the voters, that it must be based upon cause, and there is case law describing what cause is, and it is certainly more than inconvenience. So it is not clear to me what the General Assembly authority would be in this connection, but in the opinion that I wrote dated March that you 18 alluded to earlier, I did note that there 19 is a procedure for officials not 20 employing the convicted individual to seek removal from office. It is called a quo warranto proceeding. It can be brought by a District Attorney of the county involved or the Attorney General of the Commonwealth, but only upon 171 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. conviction of the individual involved. And I moreover stated in my opinion that I believe that upon conviction, removal is automatic and that the City would have the authority to stop the paycheck of a convicted official without having to go to a third-party proceeding to seek removal.
Lastly, could you forward your direct opinion with regard to the authority and powers of City Council, not specific to any particular person, but to the general question of either the body's ability to force a resignation or expel a member given the at least four forms of legislative action that we can take? If you could forward to the Chair your formal opinion with regard to that power or lack thereof, I would greatly appreciate it.
And, again, I would simply indicate that I don't believe that any of the proposed actions, those proposed by the media, are within Council's authority, but I will provide a formal opinion for the record through the Chair as quickly as possible.
I understand. -- (continued) your opinion with regard to any actions that the Council Committee on Ethics could or could not take in that particular context, that would be helpful as well.
Thank you. Councilwoman Reynolds Brown. 173 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
I understand that there has already been discussion and dialogue around the Conditional Tax Forgiveness Program.
Well, first let me commend the leadership and you and your staff for doing what I call "taking it to the trenches" to talk radio where persons who are and will be most adversely affected get to hear it from your mouth to their ears about the why and where kind of information. I think it's out-of-the-box thinking. Because we all get the mail and the printed material, but to hear it and then to hear the instructions I think makes an enormous difference. So I think that's a 174 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. practice you should continue. Speak to how is the program going since it is relatively new in terms of approach to citizens, what has been the impact or the effect of the level of complaints, and has doing the way you do it, has this neutralized the negative feedback, the mystique, the confusion, the misinformation that came with the initial delivery of the program.
Thank you, Councilwoman. With the help of members of City Council and their staffs and other stakeholders, immediately upon becoming City Solicitor in April of last year, I sought some effort to come up with a program that would reduce the likelihood that people might lose their homes through sheriff sales because of delinquent real estate taxes. Just before I had become City Solicitor, some 61,000 delinquent tax accounts had been referred by the City for collection to Linebarger, our collection agent on this 175 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. matter.
Through a process involving a number of stakeholders, we formulated a program that had two parts. One was to work out a repayment option for folks that were at the 150 percent of federal poverty level or below to make the repayment option possible, and for those that are on the lowest economic circumstances, such as Social Security income, we're prepared to have a minimum payment of $25 a month to allow people to become tax compliant and take whatever time it takes to repay their obligations to the City and stay in their homes.
But I also wanted to make sure that in addition to that we incentivize people to stay on these what could be some long repayment plans. We didn't want to see a repeat of the circumstances that some of us have heard about and dealt with in connection with 176 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. repayment of the PGW bills, for example. So as part of an effort to incentivize people to pay up or to stay current on their repayment plans, we came up with what we ultimately termed the Conditional Forgiveness Tax Program. If you're up to 250 percent of federal poverty guidelines, for a family of four, that's approximately $48,000 income a year, and I think that would scoop up a very large percentage of City residents, but if you're at 250 percent of the federal poverty level and you sign up for this program by May 1st or you repay the amount of your delinquency by May 1st, we will forgive all of the interest and penalties associated with that account. We believe that could save the average taxpayer about 40 percent on their entire tax bill. We believe that as many as 20,000 taxpayers may reside in their homes and could be eligible for the program, assuming they meet the economic guidelines. And we believe that those 177 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. accounts would provide the City potentially with up to $100 million worth of tax collections. Now, if we forgive the interest and penalties and that's about 40 percent, that means that the City could collect about $60 million, that people could be forgiven about 40 million of it, they would become tax compliant, they would be into the system. And as I think we all understand, when you deal with people who are newly non-paying taxpayers or newly delinquent, we have a much better opportunity to collect those dollars owed to the City. In this instance, we're dealing with taxpayers who on average have been delinquent more than five years. So we really needed to come up with some new tools to bring them into the system, and I'm very hopeful that in fact this process will allow us to do that. As of last Friday, which is the last information that I have, we've had 178 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. about a thousand taxpayers contact Linebarger about this program. We're still far short of the 20,000 that we think potentially could qualify, which is why I've been beating the bushes, been on radio, television, talking to the news media. We really want to get the word out, and I've gone on as long as I have because I'm trying to get the word out through this Council proceeding for media who may be here that this is a real opportunity and we hope people will take advantage of it by the deadline of May 1st.
It is an opportunity. My personal opinion is I think it's government at its best in trying to find out-of-the-box, innovative ways of helping citizens honor up in many instances where they want to. So I would imagine tracking is certainly in place if already you know you're at the 1,000 benchmark. Are there any linkages with 179 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. CDCs around the City and/or Department of License and Inspection for landlords or homeowners who deal with L&I, just in terms of different layers and tentacles to get the messages out?
Well, we've been working directly with housing counselors. I've offered if there are Councilmembers, and I make the offer again today, who would like to have a community meeting, who would like to have participation by myself or others from the Law Department and the law firm of Linebarger, which is handling this collection effort for us, we want to be able to assist in getting the word out in every mechanism and proceeding that we can find.
Okay. Another resource you may want to consider are transition to work programs that service folks of that particular population who would benefit from this as well. And are you familiar with the Benefit Bank? 180 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
Okay. That's another avenue that has been put in place by the Mayor's office of faith-based initiatives for citizens who meet income criteria as you just defined, and it's a one-stop-shop for all the breadth of services one can benefit from if you are of a certain income level. And so this program would neatly fit into the Benefit Bank as well.
Sure. DHS. On of your testimony, you give discussion to the continued work with DHS in the development of programs to remove barriers for permanent placement of children. So give us an update on where that is, how you're assisting, why and how it's working and where the progress has been. 181 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
I want to ask Barbara Ash, our Chair for Social Services, to join me, but if I could very briefly indicate that this clearly is important to our families and children, and it's one that I have been directly involved in. One of the things that I'm trying to accomplish is to work directly with the Family Court. We've had numerous conversations with the new Administrative Judge, Dougherty, and I continue to have those conversations, expect to meet with him again soon. But essentially what we're trying to accomplish is really focus on prevention. We want to intervene at a much earlier stage in the cycle for two primary reasons. First, it seems to me that's when you can be most effective and that's when you can be, frankly, most efficient from a cost perspective. Once we get people into the system, it takes a long time and it costs 182 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. a lot of money to get results that may or may not be equivalent to effective prevention services. So as part of the DHS budget for FY07 and the request that has been made to the Department of Public Welfare for the Commonwealth, we have begun to essentially steer toward prevention services and funding for those programs as opposed to the judicial system, which obviously still needs to operate and we want to support it, but it is always better to do the prevention. And I'm going to ask Barbara, if you would, just talk for a moment about what kind of successes we've had to date.
Excuse me. Identify yourself for the record, please, and talk directly into the mike. 183 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
I'm sorry. Barbara Ash, Chair, Social Services, Division of the Law Department. As the Solicitor has said, one of the biggest things that we have been doing is, prior to, I guess, about three years now we used to run what we call lists in the courtroom.
Lists, where a Solicitor would be assigned to a different courtroom and not follow a case from inception. With the Mayor's system of now trying to -- with the Mayor's program of trying to make sure that children are adequately represented, we have hired approximately another 14 attorneys, where we now have attorneys assigned to a case from its inception. So, therefore, the attorneys work with the DHS social worker very closely, and we are targeting cases to leave the system. A lot of cases that 184 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. are in the system have been in the system a long time, and prior to that, the attorneys did not know the cases very well. The social workers were not well versed in what they need to do legally for the children to exit the system. One of the things that we have been working on was working with getting older children out of the system. A lot of older children who are no longer considered to be good candidates for adoptions have been lingering in foster care for long periods of time. One of the things we've instituted is permanent legal custodianship. We are one of the first jurisdictions to use this system so effectively, and since its inception in early 2004, 1,185 children have been placed with their family members without DHS's involvement. Prior to that, children would have to stay in care with their kin, continue to stay committed to the department. And now we have freed them, so those kids can go with their 185 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. caregiver, and their caregiver could make decisions about them without having to be court involved.
And hopefully captures those children so that they don't have to age out the system.
That's right. And what that does is, that gives them a family when they get past 18. A lot of times children who remain in foster care, once they leave at age 18, they lose ties with their foster parents and caretakers. But now they are family members. They are more engaged in the community. And these children do do well.
So the funding is there for those 14 attorneys to continue to be assigned to a child and then stay with that child throughout their connection with Family Court. Is that what I'm hearing? 186 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
That's what you're hearing. All of our attorneys are assigned to cases. It's dedicated caseloads. And they remain with those caseloads until that child exits the system.
If I could add just one more item, in connection with the attorneys staying with the children and being assigned to a particular courtroom as part of a team effort, one of the issues we've had to address, particularly in Barbara's area, in Social Services, is a high attrition rate. This is a very difficult area of legal practice, and one of the things that we have focused on -- and I say "we," because it's really been an effort involving myself and Donna Mouzayck, the First Deputy, and Barbara and the folks who work in the Social Services group. We've really tried to focus on supporting them and letting them know that not only do I and all of us 187 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. consider this to be important work, but we want to be there to support their ongoing effort so that we can cut down on the high level of attrition rate. And so far in the last few months, I can say, thank goodness, that attrition seems to be slowing down and we've been able to hire and get the authority to hire the attorneys that we need to staff up completely in Social Services. So I think we're in a good place now. We're not out of the woods, but we're working hard to make sure that we've got an effective Law Department partner as part of this DHS effort to support our children and our families.
Very good. What do you think has been a factor for the trend and fewer and fewer levels of attrition?
What do you believe has been the factor? You say 188 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. the attrition rate is beginning to take a downward trend. So what do you think is an attributing factor to that? More staff that are able to just keep their arms around these cases, or what?
I have my view, but I think Barbara wants to say something, so I'll let Barbara say it and then I'll add if I need to. Go ahead.
Well, traditionally, Social Services has not been viewed upon very positively in a lot of fields. For instance, we did not have a lot of support from prior administrators. With Mayor Street, with the Solicitors that have come along, children have been put at a priority by the City and the Law Department. We have actively engaged to interview attorneys who not only say they want a job with the City to get a job, but attorneys who have had some experience in the social services field, 189 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. attorneys who are dedicated. And just today an attorney showed me a letter that --
Yes. Just today an attorney showed me a letter that he got from a law firm that offered him $100,000 salary to come to work for them, and he said no, he liked working in his unit because he now sees that the Administration is positive towards children, is giving us the support we need. And we have a very close working relationship with the Department of Human Services, and whenever our attorneys now say that they need something, it's not like, That's too much money. We have total support of the Solicitor. He is very involved in my shop, and he continues to stay involved, and he wants to know. And when it starts from your leadership down, then people are proud of their work. 190 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. We also now are reducing the caseloads and we're seeing results. We're seeing children come up to us and say, Thank you for giving us a family. And there's nothing that -- when I went to law school, I did not expect that I could be rewarded with the work that I'm doing, and I think that that's the most important thing. We don't bring any money into the City, yes. We spend the money, but we're saving lives.
Saving lives indeed. And departments are talking to each other, particularly those departments that are intimately involved with children at different junctures of their lives. So that's been a change. I worked in Family Court for a few years, and this kind of program was simply not in place. So I think it's enormous progress. Final question. Is there a link between what you're doing and the work of the Managing Director's office, 191 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. this newly announced program that focuses on police districts, where they're beginning to see -- they sort of capture children early who are becoming entangled with the juvenile justice system? So they capture them in a preventive/intervention kind of way so that they don't end up where we don't want them to be? I can't recall the name of that program.
Or Adolescent Violence Reduction. And, yes, we are very directly engaged. The Mayor has had numerous meetings, at which both the Managing Director and I have participated, along with Barbara and the DHS Director, et cetera. We believe, again, the more focus we make earlier in the child's life to intervene and really steer them into a positive direction, the more likely that 192 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. we're going to be able to keep them in that positive direction. We've gotten some preliminary support from the state in connection with the budget for Fiscal '07, but we haven't gotten all that we wanted. So just before coming over here, I authorized an appeal to protect our needs in connection with the youth program, such as the one that you just mentioned, the AVRP program, and we're going to continue moving in that direction.
Okay. Any connection, link with the Achievement Independence Center at 7th and Market?
It's funny that you ask. Ellen Walker, who is the Acting Deputy for Prevention, is coming to speak to my attorneys. Because a lot of times in court, we want to refer the families -- I understand that we want to get more families to be involved in Achieving Independence Youth Center, and so my attorneys are referring families to 193 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. that, especially those families that the children are not committed to us but we're just offering services to those families. So, yes, we are doing that, and she is going to be speaking to my attorneys to do it periodically so they'll know what's been happening and what is new at the center.
And what opportunities exist across systems to better serve children.
Okay. I want to put on the record how much I appreciated the good work of Donna, and I'm going to spell it, because I'll butcher it otherwise, M-O-U-Z-A-Y-C-K, who was helpful with the City employee adoptive benefits, some might call it, challenge and helpful in the way that we were able to settle that and in a wonderful way for that City employee. So thank you very, very much for the 194 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. important work.
Councilman Rizzo. This is the final Councilman questioning so we can move on to the Commerce Department. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair. City Solicitor, could you tell me what the Law Department's involvement is in a project called Project OCEAN, an IT project?
The Law Department's involvement is through our Intellectual Property Division. We have served as legal counsel to the folks who have responsibility on both the program side in the Water Revenue Bureau as well as 195 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. the technical side in the Mayor's Office of Information Services.
From what I understand, we have a project that's tagged Project OCEAN, who this project was supposed to develop, like you mentioned, a Water Revenue billing program, and to date, we've spent almost $20 million on this program, with licensing, et cetera, which is going to -- that was probably a good investment, the licensing, because it's going to be needed for whenever this project gets developed. But can you tell for the record, has the company that was contracted with, Oracle, have they abandoned this project? Could you just fill us in a little bit on what the problem is with this project and is it going to be litigated or what exactly is going to occur here? Because we're talking a significant amount of money, as you would agree.
We, "we" being the 196 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. so-called Information Technology Governing Board, have been very much engaged with this effort trying to come to a conclusion that would meet our requirements in the most cost-effective way. I participate as a member of the ITGB so-called, and we have come up with an approach that we think, with Oracle's support, can work. The next step in that process is to meet at a very senior level of the Oracle Corporation, because we think it's in both their interest and ours to come to a mutually satisfactory resolution 16 that protects not only our reputations on the Oracle side but also the requirements and the costs on the City side. So I am very hopeful that we're going to have the high-level meeting at a senior corporate level that will integrate the three operating divisions that have had some piece of this project in the past. We will be participating through the divisional deputy who heads 197 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. our Intellectual Property Division, Michael Athay, and I'd be happy to schedule a private briefing for you to bring you up to date and let you know where we're going. And I think you can probably appreciate that in a public forum, I'd prefer not to say more than I have said. But it's very clearly on my radar screen and we are very much involved in trying to get a satisfactory resolution for the City.
I'll respect that comment. There's another issue that has been dragging on and it probably needs your attention. It's an issue of, legislation was passed here, a bill was passed here in this Council, to establish a rotational towing program where an effort to try to bring under control the wreck chasing that we have in the City of Philadelphia where people are, through the Procurement Department, placed on a rotation. If there's an accident on the 198 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Expressway, company A comes, B, C until you rotate back around. Well, it's been a really long time, and this is an important issue to our City. This is a practice that needs to be brought under control, this wreck chasing, and I would appreciate whatever you could do to get this on track, because there's apparently a lot of people involved, the Police Department, Procurement. Procurement seems like they've been moving forward. And whoever the attorney in your shop is that is working with the Police Department, I think it would be greatly appreciated, because I get people constantly asking me when will this rotational system be established to make it a better situation than it is currently. So I don't know what you can do, but I'd appreciate whatever you could do to get this thing moving for us.
I'd be happy, Councilman, to check into it as soon as I 199 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. return to the office and provide a response for the record. I'll let you know not only where we are, but when we're going to get to the goal line on this effort.
Again, it's a situation that has been here for many, many years, and I think that this is an opportunity, and we've said to the people that are involved in this practice of wreck chasing that, We want to bring you in, but there's a right way to do it and racing to the scene of an accident, getting a person at their worst time when they're involved in an accident, having them sign a document that the fine print is scary, it really is, and then try to get your vehicle back if you decide to not do business with one of these individuals is not a very pleasant situation. So I think the quicker we can get this, like you said, to the goal line would be greatly appreciated. 200 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
All right. You have my commitment to work with you in trying to get that objective.
Great. Thank you. Thank you for all of your good work. I know you have some tough times over there.
Thank you very much. MR. McPHERSON: The next department is the City Rep and the Director of Commerce.
Thank you very much. Please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony.
Good afternoon, Councilwoman Blackwell. My name is Duane Bumb, Senior Deputy Director of Commerce. I'm here for City Representative and Director of Commerce Stephanie Naidoff, who is ill and unable to join us today. 201 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Here with me today are Mjenzi Traylor, First Deputy Director --
Excuse me. Could we have a little quiet. Thank you.
Here with me today are Mjenzi Traylor, First Deputy Director of Commerce; Charles Isdell, Director of Aviation; Janis Pierce, Deputy City Representative, and actually a whole host of other heads of related agencies in support of our efforts. I'm here today to provide testimony on behalf of the Department's FY2007 operating budget requesting $267.5 million, an increase of $30.9 million over the FY2006 estimated obligations. And if I have your permission, Councilwoman, I'd like to condense some of the testimony that we have provided, and then we'll be happy to answer any questions you may have after that.
202 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Absolutely, and it will be presented as if it were read in entirety.
But I'll finish this first part. 7 million. I'm going to skip over -- we give some description of various departments. The Office of the City Representative, one of the highlights this past year, as you all know, would have been our participation in the Live 8 and Elton John concerts. Within Commerce, where we administer international business development, Keystone Opportunity Zone, the Mayor's 203 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Business Action Team and a whole series of other services to the business community. I want to focus some discussion, though, on some of the new initiatives that we are proposing in the current budget. Over the past year, the departmental activities have centered on the objectives, strategies and tactics outlined in the City's Economic Development Blueprint, which serves as a strategic plan for economic development in the City. Among the priority listed in the Blueprint is the New River City Initiative. Already the Administration's commitment to public investment, planning, site assemblage and infrastructure improvements have helped to stimulate widespread private investment along the waterfront. The City has committed to providing $125 million from unlocked water and sewer bond reserve funds and will leverage state and federal funds to address the 204 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. standard public responsibilities of planning, land assembly, environmental remediation, demolition and infrastructure. The investment will create opportunities for private developers to commit significantly greater levels of capital in anticipation of market-rate returns. This measure was introduced in City Council in January, and we will be briefing Councilmembers shortly to move this exciting initiative forward. Another initiative concerns the use of $150 million in bond proceeds to fund improvements in neighborhood and cultural corridors. The idea for this initiative was born out of a broad strategic thinking in two distinct areas. On the commercial corridor side, beginning in FY06, the City broadened the scope of NTI to focus attention and resources on neighborhood commercial corridors. The initial phase of NTI acknowledged the need for focused 205 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. attention on neighborhood commercial corridors but, for the most part, did not attempt to tackle this issue. On a parallel track, during 2005, the Mayor met with many cultural and civic leaders and Councilmembers to discuss the growing needs of Philadelphia's cultural community. In addition, the Mayor's Arts Funding Task Force has convened over the past year to discuss sustainable funding for arts and culture. With the guidance of the Task Force, the Mayor has been able to identify a number of significant projects that, with support of the City of Philadelphia and other funders, will have major impact on Philadelphia's arts and cultural community. Today, we are fortunate enough to be in a position to act and invest strategically in our neighborhood and retail corridors, as well as in our cultural corridors. A portion of the $150 million proceeds will be used to 206 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. advocate for and grow Philadelphia's commercial amenities, including those found in some of our cultural corridors like the Ben Franklin Parkway and the Avenue of the Arts. A second target use of the bond proceeds will be to implement the ReStore Philadelphia Corridor Program under the direction of NTI. The goal is to restore the historic role of neighborhood commercial corridors as central places to shop, to work and to meet neighbors. Potential uses of the bond proceeds may include streetscape and lighting improvements, acquisition and renovation of select commercial buildings, and a loan reserve pool to increase access to capital for small businesses. Philadelphia generates a significant amount of funding to support its vibrant hospitality and tourism sector.
The Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Corporation, or GPTMC, is partially funded through the tourism tax 207 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. and is a national model for the support of the hospitality and tourism industry. GPTMC continues to utilize its portion of the tax applied to hotel bills to advertise and market the region's tourism assets, including arts and cultural destinations. These promotional efforts as well as the efforts of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, or PCVB, to attract conventions, meetings and international tourists are paying dividends. Philadelphia has received positive recognition in national and international publications, including being named "America's next great city" by National Geographic Traveler Magazine in 2005, as well as being one of four cities in the world to watch by Time Magazine in 2006. Rather than stand back and enjoy the accolades, however, we plan to capitalize on this recent positive interest in the City. 5 million line item for promoting Philadelphia will 208 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. be used to broaden existing marketing efforts by GPTMC and PCVB to elevate the national and international profile of Philadelphia, increase visitor trips, respond to mounting competition from other cities, and ultimately encourage both businesses and employees to make Philadelphia their home. On the knowledge industry front, Philadelphia has a competitive advantage in the knowledge industry. Our outstanding universities, research facilities and highly skilled workforce make Philadelphia a valuable location for 21st century business. This advantage was recognized in the Economic Development Blueprint, and growth of the City's knowledge industry is one of the Administration's key objectives. Through a combination of student retention initiatives, the knowledge industrial partnership, workforce development programs and targeted incentive programs, Philadelphia can grow the knowledge 209 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. industry jobs necessary to expand our residential population and our economy. Building on these activities, over the coming year Innovation Philadelphia will expand its investments targeting Philadelphia start-up companies, launch an innovative new intellectual property donation program, refine and implement a strategy to grow the City's creative economy, and spearhead an effort to attract the key 13 to 34-year-old knowledge worker 14 demographic that is so important to the 15 City's future success. 5 17 million in the FY07 budget to support 18 Innovation Philadelphia and continue 19 those crucial efforts to grow the City's 20 innovation economy. 21 Our testimony cites several 22 examples of major developments in the 23 City which are indicators of the positive 24 growth momentum we're experiencing right 25 now. Some of that extends to our 210 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. neighborhoods, and we've got other examples across neighborhoods across the City. I want to turn to the third division of our department and the most substantial, Aviation. The Division of Aviation oversees the various planning, operational and development activities associated with Philadelphia International Airport and Northeast Philadelphia Airport. 2 million. The additional funding is required due to increases in existing operational, security and maintenance requirements, as well as increased funding for capital projects on a pay-as-you-go basis. 2 million, including appropriations in the Police, Fire, Fleet Management, Public Property, 211 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Law and Finance Departments, as well as debt service appropriations within the Sinking Fund Commission, which will be fully funded by non-tax revenues from airport operations. There have been a number of successes over the past year and I'm going to leave that to the Aviation Director to detail for you in the Q and A.
And with that, I will submit this testimony, and we're happy to respond to any questions you might have.
Thank you very much. On of your testimony under the New River City Initiative, you state that the City has committed to provide $125 million. Can you explain how the City has committed these funds, what the benefits to the City are of spending them, when we'll begin receiving these benefits and whether or not they're included in the Five-Year Plan?
I can't actually 212 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. answer that last question. It is in the Five-Year Plan, I believe. The New River City Initiative would be authorized under a bill that was introduced in City Council two months ago, and we will have a hearing on that. We'll have a public hearing on that to give much more detail. But to answer your questions, we have at least $125 million currently in Water Revenue reserve funds, which can be released by putting in place a surety bond. Those $125 million of bond proceeds can then be applied to appropriate capital-eligible expenditures for water and sewer investments across the City. We are focusing them in four areas: To encourage private development along our waterfronts. A good example of that would be some of the major housing developments that are being considered both along the North Delaware, the Central Waterfront and along the lower Schuylkill. Some of the public 213 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. infrastructure along those same waterways, including public parks and trails that can also act as amenities for the private investment; some public investments throughout the City in what we call the Green City strategy, which would provide primarily storm water relief in neighborhoods as part of larger housing developments. One example of that might be the large Mill Creek development in West Philadelphia, which will provide us with an opportunity to create some new and innovative storm sewer relief strategies to relieve overflow in that neighborhood. Again, all of these investments -- I'm sorry. The fourth category would be funding within the Navy Yard, a fully publicly owned facility to upgrade the level of water and sewer infrastructure so that it is standardized with the City's other infrastructure throughout the City as we integrate that 1,200-acre parcel into the City's 214 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. City-wide system. All of those developments that are being proposed are being targeted strategically to increase the City -- to be consistent with the master plan that's been undertaken for all the waterfront areas and also to leverage maximum investment by the private sector.
All right. We are certainly interested in where these projects are, but we believe if the Administration wants to push forward to considering this for '06, that we really need details immediately, or Council may want to consider pushing it forward to the '07 budget so that we have plenty of time to consider them. On of your testimony, you state, quote, "Today we are fortunate enough to be in a position to act and invest strategically in our neighborhood retail corridors, as well as our cultural corridors." Based on PICA's testimony that 215 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. identifies almost 500 million of speculative items and risks, is now the best time for us to borrow and create new debt?
Again, we'll have much more detail for you when we introduce legislation that would authorize the $150 million bond issue, but I can tell you that from our perspective, yes, we -- again, of the $150 million, it is for capital-eligible activities. Most of those investments are for City-owned facilities. And I know there's been some discussion here about the need to increase the amount of investment in deferred maintenance, whether that be for streetscape improvements, which is the commercial corridor component of that initiative, or in some of the major cultural institutions, like the Art Museum, which in fact is a City responsibility.
Thank you. 216 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. The Planning Commission testified that the City should be spending $185 million a year on maintaining our infrastructure, yet our capital budget is for nearly 52 million as opposed to 185 million. How do you reconcile the differences in those figures in terms of what's best or what's prudent at this time?
I can't address directly the discrepancy that they are citing in the number you're stating. I can tell you that part of the challenge in the City capital budget is funding within the bond cap under the City's general capacity for debt. The $150 million, which would be proposed to be issued through the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development, would accomplish much of that by, again, investing in City-owned resources to take the burden off of the capital bill and also not to increase the City's debt capacity. 217 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
You're requesting a $2 million increase in economic stimulus funds for '07. How do you intend on spending them and how did you spend the '05 and '06 economic stimulus funds?
The economic stimulus funds are probably our most flexible funding source. We use them for a whole variety of our financial incentive tools. We provide some staffing oversight. The Mayor's Business Action Team, for example, is funded through that funding source. We use them as part of our very successful business retention efforts. I think we are citing within, for example, our office retention efforts having successfully retained 96 of 98 major companies in the Central Business District, some of those of which we were required to provide incentives in order to keep Philadelphia as a competitive location. So the economic stimulus fund was part of that. 218 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Sometimes it leveraged state resources or other non-City resources as part of a total incentive package. We also use those funds to support initiatives like Select Greater Philadelphia, which is the regional marketing effort. We have in the past used those funds in part to support the activities of Innovation Philadelphia. We are here today to talk about a separate line item for Innovation Philadelphia, but to answer your question about how we used them in the last two years, the funds have been used to support that effort. We use those funds to support several non-profit organizations that provide technical assistance to the City. Those organizations can range from groups like the African-American Chamber of Commerce, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Philadelphia Development Partnership, Women's Opportunity Resource Center. There are a whole series of 219 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. those. We use those funds to provide incentives like facade grants along commercial corridors where we provide matching grant money to small businesses to improve the fronts of their buildings. We use those funds to provide festival grants through neighborhoods in the City and planning grants to non-profit community organization. Those are just some of the examples of the sort of activities we fund. We find that we never have enough money to do all the things we want to do on a City-wide basis and, hence, our request to increase the funding source.
Thank you. Would you submit to the Chair a list that we can make available to our colleagues of how these funds were used in the last three years and what you plan for '07?
Thank 220 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. you. Can you explain why you zeroed out the Convention Center subsidy payment in year FY09 to '11? Does not the City have a legal obligation to budget this payment per the Use and Lease Agreement?
I think, if I could, if the Budget Director is still here, I would like to defer that to her.
Dianne Reed, Budget Director. There has been dialogue between the Administration and the Governor regarding how some of the gaming funds would be disposed, and the money that could be used to relieve Philadelphia of its obligations for the Convention Center comes from this funding, which is disbursed by DCED. The City remains hopeful that the Governor and the administration in Harrisburg will allow us to use those funds in this way. 221 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
Do you have a legal opinion stating that the City obligation to pay the subsidy is no 5 longer valid?
It certainly seems to us that without this opinion, then we have a real issue about how we budget these dollars. So we would like you to submit that to the Chair, if you would.
Thank you very much. Councilwoman Brown, and then I'll come back. We have some questions for Mjenzi Traylor.
But, Councilwoman Brown, I'll yield to you first.
Thank you. 222 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Good afternoon, everyone.
I want to make sure I heard you correctly with regards to the 150 million for the capital infrastructure to support Philadelphia's anchor cultural institutions. So did I not hear you say that those dollars will be targeted for the institutions owned by the City?
I said that, but in fact, that is only part of how we would use that. It is a much more comprehensive sort of effort than just that. I think that a substantial portion -- let me back up just a second. Of the $150 million -- and, again, we have not presented you the legislation, so you have not had any briefing on this.
The two major components of it are this ReStore Program, which is a commercial corridor 223 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. effort, and the other part of it, sort of just under half of it, we think is for the commercial -- or the cultural corridor effort. The cultural corridor effort I think are sort of -- the sense of it right now is that it would be primarily for capital infrastructure or capital investments. Much of that would be in City-owned facilities. And, again, I would use the example of the Art Museum.
But there are in fact a whole series of smaller cultural organizations that have capital needs, whether those be like roof repairs or ADA accessibility or other sorts of things that we would intend to sort of make a part of that funding available for those sorts of organizations that could demonstrate that had some planning in place for that improvement and some capacity to match some of that funding. 224 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. And we also want to build in some capacity building when we are providing assistance to non-profits, smaller cultural organizations, partly because we believe that although the dollars wouldn't indicate, we think that the technical assistance that can be provided to provide capacity building and board development and other sorts of aspects of capacity building are just as important in the long run as helping them to sort of make some of the physical improvements they need to make to their institutions.
Sure. It's no secret that there are a lot of us anxious to know what those details will be. Are you at liberty to say when the roll-out will happen?
We're hoping to have a full proposal ready for the Mayor's office to review within the next three weeks.
Okay. And I guess the same would apply for the 225 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. ReStore Philadelphia Corridor Program, the neighborhood corridors. We'll get that detail around the same time?
That's right. They'll come together as the same package to you for review.
All right, then. Different topic. Councilman Clarke and I have introduced a bill to consolidate Philadelphia Fairmount Park and the Rec Department based on a strategic plan recommendation and the fact that we're the only city out of the top ten that haven't moved in that direction, and one discovery that he and I have learned is that there is a lot of art in the Philadelphia Fairmount Park historic mansions. So to GPTMC, I'm curious to know with the promoting Philadelphia piece, if you or a member of your team are aware or have had discussions about that potential opportunity as an revenue generator for 226 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. GPTMC.
I know Meryl Levitz is here, I think. So I don't really want to --
Is she? All right. Madam Chair, could we ask Meryl Levitz, the leadership at GPTMC, to come to the witness table.
Absolutely. Would you come forward. Thank you. Please identify yourself to the record and respond to the Councilwoman's question.
We've discovered in our doing the homework around Philadelphia Fairmount Park and the Rec Department that in the Fairmount 227 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Park mansions, there's a lot of artwork that's decades and decades years old, and there's a concern that that may be an opportunity for one of our City's marketing entities to seize the moment and capture that artwork as a potential to market it in such a way so that it generates revenue for the Park. And in my discussions with a number of individuals, the Philadelphia Visitors and Convention Bureau and/or GPTMC, they need to be aware of it, because you may not be, but then, B, look to see if there is an opportunity there. And so to the question, this $2.5 million line item for promoting Philadelphia, had anyone approached you about that reality that exists right now in the Fairmount Park mansions?
No, but it's intriguing, and in the past when we've looked at the Fairmount Park houses, we realized that there's a tourism opportunity there, but we're not aware of 228 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. who owns what and how things are catalogued and what permission might be needed. But we would be interested in looking at and adding on to the neighborhood tourism network program and the building of the Park itself.
Okay. So I want to put that on the record, and I'd be remiss not to acknowledge Councilman Frank Rizzo's staff person, who actually brought it to my attention in my visit with Councilmembers. Councilman Frank Rizzo, point of information, was that not Stewart -- help me out. Stewart Graham?
Yes, it was Stewart Graham, and Stewart brought out the point to Councilman Blondell Reynolds Brown that we have the real deal here, Williamsburg. If this thing was packaged properly, we could probably really 229 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. attract a lot of people to the mansions.
It has always seemed just out of our reach. And, Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown, we have talked about it. We've talked about it with Councilman Clarke, and it's something that just needs to be studied in a comprehensive way before we could make it visitor ready.
Especially before we turn more and more over to the non-profit sector. We'll be out of mansions soon. So it's unfortunate, but we had an opportunity. And not that that's bad what we did to preserve some of those, but it's something that we should really study. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Meryl Levitz. My final question, Madam Chair, 230 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. goes to testimony on , which speaks to MBE/WBE participation in the local economy. Under New Initiatives, it says, and I quote, "Make Philadelphia a national model for MBE/WBE participation in the local economy." What steps are you putting in place, plan to put in place that move you towards this goal?
We've been working closely with the MBEC office on this. What I skipped over in my testimony, and maybe I should sort of point to it, on , which is these ten sort of components of our Blueprint. We are just finalizing a progress report for City Council that will be out next month for you and, in fact, will detail very specifically the progress we've made on that and all the other sort of components.
Okay, then. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you, Madam Chair. 231 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.
Thank you very much. We have questions for Mjenzi Traylor and Curtis Jones. Would you come forward. Councilwoman Miller has asked that we ask you about the international trade mission. And certainly I want to commend you on the work you're doing, the Job Fair Plan for the Mayor's Commission on African and Caribbean Immigrant Affairs. You're doing a wonderful job there and are doing a lot to bring our community together with people from all over the world. She specifically asks that you give a report on international trade and the activities you're involved with, associated therein. And also, the second 232 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. part of her question is how much is the budget for your activities.
Thank you, Madam Chairman. I'm Mjenzi Traylor, First Deputy Director of the Commerce Department. And the International Division of the Commerce Department has been quite busy in a number of initiatives, one of our primary ones being the establishment of the Greater Philadelphia Global Partnership, or GP-2. And under GP-2, there are a number of things that are going on, including a work that we're doing in connection with the airport around direct flights between Philadelphia and foreign locations. The first one of these projects to be focused on is establishing charter flights to China from Philadelphia that would go to Fujian province and to our sister city, Tianjin. And this is important because it's through these charter flights that we will be able to establish whether or 233 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. not there is sufficient demand for regular direct flights to that location. Since we've begun this work, we have also a strong interest from people who want to look at this problem or this issue in connection with India as well as with Australia. Another subcommittee in GP-2 is working on the dredging issue. They will be holding a press conference early next month to weigh in on the question of what can be done to move the dredging of the Delaware River, and this is being carried out by some of the strongest users of our port. That would be Australia, Chile and Canada. And, also, the Councilwoman will remember that we did a trade mission to Korea in '01, at which time we visited a train production company. And it has taken five years, but, finally, that company has won the bid to build the SEPTA trains, and that work will be done at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and the 234 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. company already has space there for the assembly operations, as well as office space now at the Navy Yard. We feel very, very encouraged that there will be a lot of this kind of activity. I did a ribbon-cutting recently for a Swedish company that is located in our new Cira Building here, and we think that we would like to be able to work in bringing more companies into Philadelphia, and we think that there's a great potential for doing that. These are just some of the efforts that we have been underway with the -- in mentioning the Mayor's Commission on African and Caribbean Immigrant Affairs, the work that we're doing right now is to take on the problem that a lot of these businesses are faced with, being new to doing business in the City. We are getting ready to conduct a big workshop, as you know, that will help them with L&I and Health Department issues, get them more familiar with the 235 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. incentives that are involved in a number of the City's programs, as well as helping them with financing and tax issues. So the workshop that's being planned in connection with that will be held on April the 24th, and we think that this will go a long way to help solve some of the problems that that community is faced with.
It absolutely will. Having many of the immigrants in my district, in Southwest Philadelphia, and having our citizens feel that they're inundated by people who complain to L&I and always call because they're strangers and they feel that they're being harassed is a big concern and has been for several years, and we believe that the conference you're planning on the 24th will go a long way to give them the confidence they need and equip them with information they need from the inside out so that they don't 236 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. have to feel -- that they'll be able to respond to people who complain, as well as us responding, contacting agencies to say that these people are being unfairly targeted. But we thank you for all of that. Her final question is how much is the international trade budget?
We have a budget of $160,000 for Fiscal Year '07, except that we are not certain at this time whether or not that funding will be made available.
And I suppose that's why she asked the question. And we who asked the Mayor to establish the Mayor's Commission on African and Caribbean Immigrant Affairs hope that the Mayor will consider that we need some funding as well. Everything costs money, and we certainly need it for this important work that links us around the globe, and certainly we hope that the City will be able to -- the 237 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Administration will consider giving us a little funds. We try to do what we can to raise it, but we need the City to contribute as well. Thank you, Mr. Traylor. Mr. Jones, SEPTA, my favorite subject, the subject I love to hate. We are really concerned. As you know, SEPTA is saying they will complete the Market Street Elevated Project in December '08. Because they know it won't be December '08, that will take them into '09 and then they can say they can't finish it. But we mention every year our concern for programs, not only to try to fund businesses -- and we thank Congressman Fattah for his work in trying to help us, as well as the Administration for the little bit of money we try to find, which we still need. We have businesses who write us every day for a stipend, a thousand dollar stipend. But what I want to bring to attention again and ask if there are 238 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. plans afoot yet with regard to facade. I mention this every year because we really, really -- and we try to involve the university, the University of Pennsylvania in this effort, their design class, but we really want to work to create not only a facade program, we're going to deal with vending, we'll finally do vending carts and all of that and regulation, size and space. We'll have to deal with all of that once this project is completed, because, as you know, we can't do anything now because they keep going over the same area, and people are moved in and out and businesses open and close. That's the issue. But we wanted to know if you've been involved at this point in any plans with regard to the whole Market Street project in terms of facade, in terms of streets, in terms of any of that that is in fact affected by the SEPTA project.
Absolutely. And I 239 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. want to thank you for your past and present commitment to some of those small merchants, family-owned businesses, that have suffered out in West Philadelphia. As you are well aware, we have lost upwards of 30 businesses since the construction has started. There have been numerous efforts that have involved a number of elected officials and appointed officials from this Administration. You indeed were responsible for closing in on a million dollars with relief, small bites, to those companies and facilitated it through the Commerce Department and PCDC. Congressman Fattah, along with Senator Hughes, have also stepped up to the plate and put up $1.2 million in funding. Now, that's the good news. The bad news is that we're waiting for the federal government to actually write us a check. We're waiting for the state to actually release funds. So what we've done thus far is rely on certain lines of 240 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. credit that we have to put some funds out to the most needy. We have received a number of requests, and we are categorizing them. We are processing them. And the second batch of checks should go out before the new fiscal year. So we're talking about within the next couple of weeks, actually, so we can issue some more relief. In reference to capital improvements along that corridor, Market Street, 46th Street, 52nd Street, 56th Street and 63rd Street, I had a conversation with Eva Gladstein of NTI, and she's well aware of all of the corridor situations but, in particular, those. Eventually, believe it or not, and I know it's hard for some people to believe, that construction will indeed end, and at that point, it will be a joyous occasion, but what we have to do is be prepared, for those businesses that have managed to struggle through it, to 241 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. create a nice, neat corridor for people to work and shop. So we're looking hard at 52nd Street in particular, the second and third floors, who have not received a painting and a fix-up since the last time we did it, which was over closing in on a dozen years ago. So we're looking at that. We've been working with Ms. Snead, who has now left City government and gone out into the non-profit world and is working with them, to design some things for 60th Street. In a prior Council hearing, and it was in reference to Councilman Clarke's camera component, we've tried to implement a number of things on the corridor. We're talking about the possibility of a demonstration project, particularly on 60th Street to do security cameras, those kind of cameras that are crime prevention and we like to 242 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. call it safe corridor components. In addition to that, we're talking about a grant that we received for customized bus shelters, similar to the ones that were constructed for the Republican Convention some years ago, stained glass, nice use of metal, aesthetically pleasing but also germane to the communities that they live in. So that means if we're talking about Mill Creek or Cobbs Creek, we're talking about areas that have a historical relevance and that may have a symbol that kind of represents their community group and incorporating that into the design of those shelters. So what we're talking about is facade treatments, we're talking about security cameras, and we're talking about bus shelters, two of which we have procured some money for. And we're working on working out the details of what the proceeds of some of the corridor assistance that you've heard about from 243 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Mr. Bumb and how that will be applied to what corridors. So we are engaged in conversations about that.
Yes. I knew we were. I wanted to make sure that, as always, we maintain our linkage, because we're always dealing with the universities and others to assist us in what we try to do for -- we believe it's time. Lucien Blackwell was involved in the corridor as it looks now on 52nd Street, but it's time, since everything will be new, for a new look, and I envision sidewalks that have cut-ins or cut-outs, however they're described, for buses and that we do everything since it will finally end that we have the opportunity to have a whole new corridor and hopefully attract businesses. And as you say -- I have people coming to me now who still want to open businesses and who are looking for areas in West Philadelphia, because they're excited about the development they see, 244 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. but whenever it comes to SEPTA, we're really afraid to encourage anybody to go there, because this project continues to be pushed out years and years and years. So we're really afraid when we deal with SEPTA to ask people to invest in businesses. But it's been a real, real nightmare and a real hardship. But we're hoping that in short order -- we're already in '06. We'll be in '07 shortly. And certainly I assume that in '09, we will be able to begin working on new businesses, new facades, new streets, new curbs and everything that will finally bring this area back. And we are just praying that we don't lose more businesses. It's devastating when somebody 75 comes to you and says, I have to go find a job and work for someone else because I can't sustain myself in my business. So it's very, very frustrating and painful to watch people suffer and be victims of work that they didn't ask for. 245 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. And I've said many times, and I'll say it again, if I had it to do again, I'd never support a whole new elevated system as it was organized. It's been the worst project of my 30-year career. Having said that, we'll move forward. We look forward to continuing the partnership that we share with you, all the elected officials. As you know, we've had all the members of Congress, the State House, we've had everybody involved in this when we've had issues to try to move forward. So we will continue to hang in there. We thank you. We thank you, Mr. Traylor. And at this time, I will ask if there are more questions. (No response.)
Seeing none, this Committee will be recessed until tomorrow at 2:30 where we will hear public testimony on the operating budget. Thank you very much. (Committee of the Whole 246 3/28/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. adjourned at 3:45 p.m.) - - - 247 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on March 28, 2006, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)