Yes. That includes what we 50 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 call the "seamless digital parcel base map." As you know, one of the things we need to do in the City is to move our land title registry maps from paper to digital form. These registry maps date back to 1995 and will be updated, and it will resolve any conflicts in information and assign a unified identifier to each parcel. And this seamless digital parcel base map, if I may, is sort of like the foundation on which the City's GIS system is rooted in. And in order for us to go to the next step in beginning to implement or designing a vacant property tracking system, this is sort of like, you know, foundation work. And then a small portion of the money will be used -- and I don't have extra copies of this, just a little description. There's the University of Pennsylvania Neighborhood Information System. The University of Pennsylvania has asked the City to match a grant that it receives so that it continues to support that system. It enables community-based organizations and CDCs to access data about vacant properties. I believe Council is also a part of that system as well as City 51 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 agencies. So we can look up information on vacant properties.
On the document that you just handed us, the acquisition pipeline February 2002, could you update this document and forward it to the Chair to indicate how the $4.1 million will actually be matched against these various projects?
Some of them we're in the process of developing the acquisition budget for we can give an estimated number, but the Authority usually bases its acquisition budgets, I believe, on, you know, going out and looking at the fair market appraisal, so it will be an estimated number. And they don't do that work until they have a contract that says it's going to be funded
Okay. Well, then how do you know you need $4.1 million?
It's what we're estimating based on -- as I said, it's an estimated number.
Okay. So why don't we 52 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 put the estimates with the --
Okay, thank you. Lastly, Commissioner McLaughlin, has there been any interruption in the Department's ability to do demolition work? Over the past year or so, I know there have been a number of transfer ordinance, a couple million dollars here, $8 million dollars there. Are you able to do what you need to do both for imminently dangerous buildings and other work that needs to be done out in the street? COMMISSIONER MCLAUGHLIN: Absolutely.
Okay. And has there been any slow-down or stoppage in the work because of any funding problems? COMMISSIONER MCLAUGHLIN: None whatsoever.
Thank you. And what do you estimate from a demolition standpoint the City will do in terms of the number of buildings, primarily residential structures?
I think in my last number, I had -- we had about 1,000 that we completed thus far this fiscal year, and I think we'll probably 53 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 keep pace with our historic number, which is about 1300, I believe, or 1200 a year. So this should enable us to keep --
For this year. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good morning. I have a question as it relates to the demolition and demolition-related activities. This $6 million is not part of the NTI money; this is outside of NTI activities or NTI funding for demolition activities. Is that correct?
It includes both. It would include funding, for example, of what we've been calling "the demonstration NTI," where we focus on geographic area to prototype areas. It also includes the regular demolition activities that L&I needs money to carry out. It includes some resources for commercial buildings, large buildings which we tend to do at the end of the year. So that's what we -- as well as things like insurance costs and things like that. 54 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39
Okay. You have three developments, three major demos planned, and I can't remember all three. It's Strawberry Mansion. What are the others -- somewhere in West Philadelphia? Um...
For this year, we have two prototype demolition projects. One was -- we targeted the Strawberry Mansion area. I believe that's going to be in the area of about 120 properties within a defined geographic area. And then we have a second prototype bid package, which will be smaller in number, somewhere around 15 and properties, which is more of a scattered site, 19 and we targeted an area in and around, I think, 20 Frankford and Oxford to do the smaller bid package. That's what we're calling "the prototype." And the purpose of the prototype demolitions is to test out some of our operating functions, field survey work, how long it actually takes to do it, the size of the bid package that we 55 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 can reasonably manage, that sort of thing.
Okay, because -- so once you find out how the prototype works, will you be developing other geographic --
-- scattered site -- I mean, 'cause in my district, we don't have a large area that needs to all come down at once, but we certainly have many, many scattered sites, particularly in the North Philadelphia part of my district. And so originally, my question was going to be, could the 66 million be used -- if it wasn't going to be used for NTI demos, the prototype that you're talking about, could it be used for -- in Council districts that are not a part of this prototype Year 1, I guess, demonstration project?
Yes. And the regular demolition activities will be handled in a way that L&I has traditionally worked with the Council District persons. A lot of this goes to curbside emergency-type situations, my understanding, as well as some commercial property demolitions which are slated. 56 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39
Okay, so things will be going on business as usual --
In addition to the two prototypes, and this is just to the end of this fiscal year.
Yes, Madam Chair. Thank you. Good morning. I just want to ask a brief question with respects to demolition and encapsulation to a degree, and I probably should have asked this question last Friday. What's the mechanism that triggers an acquisition strategy?
For the encapsulated properties? 57 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39
Right. For encapsulated properties, what we said in the NTI framework is that any property we encapsulate we're going to initiate acquisition of that property, because the intent of the encapsulation work is to stabilize so we can get it back into private hands.
That's a hundred percent sure when you encapsulate, there's automatically an acquisition strategy --
For demolition, that's something that we would talk with each District Councilperson about. For example, do we want to immediately acquire a property where we're taking down a building or do we want to do more strategic acquisition in the area? And we really envision that as part of the planning when we sit down and put the master schedule together, you know, which of the demolished properties immediately should be acquired and which ones should not, which ones, you know, because, you know, there may be strategic 58 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 acquisitions we want to do within a Council District.
And that's done -- and you anticipate doing all of those under Act 94?
What about certifying properties for sheriff's sale? One of the things I never understood is, why don't properties immediately get certified for sheriff's sale regardless of as to whether or not the City has a strategy to acquire them? Why don't we just -- I mean, why don't we immediately put that property on the jurisdictional sales list
My understanding is that historically, the City has not just taken in or initiated a sheriff's sale on vacant property when there was a concern about the ownership. That's the concept of land banking where even if we don't -- where we only did it in those instance where we knew we had an immediate end-user in mind or identified. So that's been kind of like the general policy. We do belive that the policy needs to be reversed. 59 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 We also need to be a little bit cognizant of the fact of where -- to be quite frank, we've got a large backlog now. In our data and IT and MIS systems, unfortunately, it's hard for us to track even what we own now. And so I would be a little cautious since we're just beginning to take in a lot of property when we don't have the appropriate information to track it over time.
I mean initiate the sheriff's sale and then being able to track it, because not everything that goes up for sheriff's sale will end up in private ownership. You know, the City can bid up its equity liens. And right now, we don't have a lot of the infrastructure in place to kind of track what's happening to these properties. The Act 94 eminent domain, I think, process is a little bit more defined, and we're in a better position to kind of track that information.
I'm fine with that. I'm just trying to understand -- I call the 60 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 commissioner or the deputy, I need a property knocked down -- I'm thinking about one in particular across from Strawberry Mansion that I know that's on the list hopefully soon, Strawberry Mansion High School. That property gets demolished, there's immediately a 6, $7,000 lien, and the vacant lot just sits there with this lien forever, sometimes ten years.
Why isn't that property put on the judicial sales list?
And then we don't discover it until maybe five, six, seven years down the line when we decide that we want to build something in that area and we find out that the property is substantially delinquent. I mean, what is -- I'm just trying to get a sense of how we dispose of all of these vacant properties, 'cause most of the vacant property in the City of Philadelphia is, in fact, not publicly owned.
That's correct. 61 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39
And I don't see a mechanism that gets us in a position where we can dispose of these properties if somehow we decide that as a part of some strategic initiative or development plan, we in fact would like to acquire it when we have the wherewithal to bid it at sheriff's ourselves, but we don't bother to list these properties at all, and they just sit there with substantial municipal liens and we don't do anything. I just don't understand why we don't aggressively do that.
As I said, that's been the policy. What we've said with this administration is that we are going to begin to proactively, you know, initiate or acquire the vacant properties, even when we don't have an immediate development purpose, you know, lined up for it. My understanding is that historically, we only went after a property when we knew we had like, for example, an end-user in hand or if an individual comes in and initiates the sheriff's sale. So that's been -- we recognize it's been the past policy, but we don't think it's an appropriate policy, and we do believe that getting the property 62 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 into public ownership is the first step. And right now, we've been focusing on using the Act 94 urban renewal taking process.
All right. And beyond that, I just want to know a simple question and --
Okay, I want clarity. Are you telling me now that when we demolish a property, the policy will be now to immediately list that property for judicial sale?
Yes. We can make that the policy, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will get into public ownership.
I don't want it to get into public ownership. I think you're missing me. Miss Smith.
These properties are delinquent, you know, and I want them on the list. Do you understand what I'm saying? I'm just trying to -- I mean, is there going to be a policy now that when there's a municipal lien, a substantial municipal lien, placed on a property as a result of a demolition, can that property immediately get 63 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 certified for sheriff's sale and get listed on a sheriff's sale list and go to the judicial list in process? That's what I'm just trying to understand.
Yes. I will discuss that with the Revenue Commissioner, 'cause they generally initiate that. So I will --
Can you, please, 'cause I need to -- that needs to happen. I just don't understand why we do this, and we don't ever put 'em on the list. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Excuse me, Pat, what is your title, Director of?
Okay. I just want to put a suggestion out here just so it will be on record, and that is that we need to have a session 64 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 that helps Councilpeople and their offices understand how NTI can work for us.
So we can ask all of the questions, because there is still just lots of questions and information that we need, and we probably need to have a joint session, not separately, because maybe I could benefit from Councilman Nutter's or Councilwoman Krajewski's questions, and maybe they can benefit from mine. But we've been talking about this now for so long and it's really time for us to completely understand what's going on or what can happen, and also to bring in Hill International, 'cause many of us have not met the individuals from Hill, and we need to figure out how we'll work together on getting out there and do the outreach to the stakeholders.
Any other questions? 65 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 (No further questions.)
Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER MCLAUGHLIN: Thank you. Mr. Dubow, we can go into our other bills.
Mr. Dubow, let's talk about -- we've got the Law Department here for $3.4 million for outside legal counsel, which I thought that we had dealt with the outside legal counsel issue the last time we were here on a transfer ordinance.
Okay. And we've got the Recreation Department with higher insurance costs and costs due to prevailing-wage rate causes, which I actually don't know what that means. 66 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39
That's for their contracts, the prevailing-wage rates. We're paying the prevailing-wage rates on our contracts now, so it's a higher rate for contractors so the cost of our contracts are up.
For -- I'd actually have to ask someone from Rec. to come up and give you specific contracts, but I mean security contracts at the Vet.
I think the security contracts at the Vet and maintenance contracts at the Vet. The cost per hour for the contractors went up, and they passed those costs along to us.
And then we have these overtime costs related to the conversion of Veterans Stadium, baseball to football. Is this the August 13th debacle?
The City employees did 67 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 them or outside people did them? Is there anybody here from Recreation?
It's a combination, it's a combination of City and outside. I thought there was someone from Rec. coming up, actually.
They weren't exactly rushing to the table. (Witnesses come forward.)
Good morning. Would you please state your name for the record.
Good morning. I'm Mary Platt-Coles, Deputy Commissioner for the Department of Recreation. To my left is Joanne Mangano, Administrative Services Director for the Department.
Okay. Did you hear the earlier question with regards to your $413,698 on your higher insurance costs and contract costs relating to prevailing-wage rate clauses and the $73,197 on the conversion issues? 68 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39
Yes. The conversions were for four conversions, and they were performed by the maintenance employees of the Department of Recreation at overtime costs.
Because of the timing of the games. If there's baseball games on Fridays or Saturdays, and then a football game on Sunday, it would be at an overtime rate.
Did we anticipate those things in the FY -- this is for FY '02, right?
That is correct, but due to some of the turf issues, there was increased amounts needed, increased personnel needed, and it took longer to do the conversions.
Okay. Well, I mean, I 69 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 know everyone was obviously significantly sensitized by the August 13th event, so did you just add in extra people just to make sure that it went quickly or we didn't have the same problem, or did we have extra people with extra duct tape? I mean, why did you have the extra folks out there?
Due to the nature of the turf problems, it took more people. As I said, it took more staff to perform the conversions and a longer time period.
I have no questions on the stadium other than Scott Rolen is not signing the contract and I'm concerned about the Phillies season and how we're going to be able to overcome the Mets and the Braves without him, so I have no 20 questions of the Recreation Department. In terms of the $7 million for Fire Department and bioterrorist overtime, could we have some details on that? This expenditure came up after the September 11th, I imagine, and I'd like to see any detail as to what occurred and what 70 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 transpired and how we came up to $7 million expenditures on that.
Yeah, we can give you that. It's a combination, though, of that plus the costs from the arbitration award, the full cost of the arbitration award. So it's not just the response to the bioterrorism threat. So I will get you that.
The arbitration award in relating to hepatitis C, is that it part of it?
No. Just the entire cost of the arbitration award wasn't fully -- at the time we did the '02 budget, the whole arbitration award issued hadn't been resolved, so the full costs of it weren't in there.
And in the Law Department expenditure, that goes from -- you spoke about the '01 expenditure for outside counsel; is this added on to that expenditure? And what has been the expenditure for outside counsel up to this time?
I'm going to ask someone from the Law Department to come up and answer that. The answer to the first part is yes, it's 71 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 for a separate year.
So the '01 was a distinct cost and then this is the '02 costs, so --
Right. So what happened to the '02 costs up to this point, and why are we adding $3 million? What have we taken on that needs close to $3.5 million more?
Someone from the Law Department's coming up. (Witness comes forward.)
Good morning. Donna Mouzayck for the Law Department. There were a number of unanticipated expenses that account for the $3.6 million. The first category of expense I would attribute to a case called "the Miller case." I know that those of you who have worked on recent L&I issues are probably familiar with that. Under Miller, we're required now to give notice to anyone who has an interest in the property which requires additional title searches. 72 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 So a number of those expenses for title certificates are put as over budget; and in fact, I think it comes up to like $230,000. There are a number of other areas as well. I think that there were significant litigation activities or matters that were unanticipated last year. Certainly the biggest of those would have been the Parking Authority and the School District. I think if you took those two expenses together, that probably accounts for over 30 percent of the additional money that we're asking for in the transfer.
The money that you're asking for is going to pay for the litigation on the Parking Authority and the School District most of it?
Councilman, if I can -- 73 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39
What firms were involved in those two particular matters.
Councilman, Nelson Diaz, for the record. In addition to Councilman Ortiz's question, there were a number of legal services totally involved with regard to this, but the two major firms, as I recall, in the School District case was the Ballard firm, and the Aronchick Hangley firm were two major firms in the representation of the School District cases. And in the --
Was it out of that activity that the 65-page memo was developed?
That's correct. But as I saw also the contracting area there were -- there was a considerable amount of payment also with regard to the stadium deals.
I'm sorry, Solicitor, I don't mean to interrupt you. So, I mean, the conclusion of that is, which I guess we didn't know at the time, is that we actually paid for that.
Yes, we did. 74 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 I'm sorry, the other film that also we paid for was the Dilworth firm on the School District case, but the Dilworth firm was more involved in the litigation end of it, and the Aronchick Hangley and the Ballard firm were more involved in the strategy issues that you question about --
Okay. So, I mean, we now subsequently learn that we actually paid for that.
What about the Parking Authority litigation; what was that firm?
Correct, it's still in litigation, but right now, there's a stay pending a jurisdictional issue before the Supreme Court. 75 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 Until the Supreme Court decides the jurisdictional issue, we have no idea of whether to proceed forward. The jurisdictional issue relates to whether or not it should have been filed in the Commonwealth Court or the Common Pleas Court.
So we're asking the Supreme Court to decide which court it should go to?
You said the Dilworth firm did the litigation on the school issue?
The Dilworth firm prepared all of the documents for preparation for the litigation, but the litigation was never filed.
Yeah. The agreement entered and the partnership then entered into by the Mayor gave us the response not to proceed with the litigation so, therefore, that litigation and that part of the engagement is over.
Has that agreement, by the way, I'm just kind of wondering. Has the 76 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 agreement that we entered into with the State, has that been drawn up and which firm is in charge of drawing that up?
I prepared -- I asked my corporate department area to give me a framework of developing an agreement, of taking the development of that agreement and giving it to Debra Kahn and asking Debra Kahn to fill in the blanks between her negotiations and the negotiations that they're having in the State, and then to give it back to us so we can refine it to make sure that it complies with all of the requirements of City Council, the City Charter, and all of the --
So how long is it going to take Miss Kahn to fill in the blanks?
The last e-mail that I saw between her and Richie Feder was that they're making progress, and they have certain areas that they've agreed to and some minor areas that they have to get the signoff, I guess, from the Commissioner or the Secretary of Education.
Just an aside, Mr. Solicitor. I thought we had an agreement and it seems like we're negotiating an agreement. 77 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39
I think we're trying to codify the agreement that they entered into, and it's been my recommendation that it be codified and not one that is in principle only. And that's why I believe that we are attempting to get it in the writing.
So that accounts for 30 percent of that, of the new money that is --
No, I think it's the -- there's the Testa case, do you remember the Testa litigation at the airport?
And that litigation is continuing. And also the Aronchick firm is involved in that case on behalf of the Mayor, and Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz, in that case, on behalf of Franklin-Suber. The PGW and the issues of the PGW with regard to the questions that have arisen recently in addition to whether or not is going to be a proposed reform of that agency, has been part of the cost. There is one small item --
So this new $3.5 million is -- 78 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39
-- that's being requested is going towards that litigation and parking and schools and ...
Yeah. The outline essentially shows that the collections support and defense work, the stadiums, the Testa case, PGW, the RNC litigation, the Parking Authority litigation. Costs for the Police Disciplinary Task Force was also borne through this expense. And the School District litigation and some small amount of NTI implementation --
Excuse me, Mr. Solicitor. Have we hired counsel for each and every one of these litigations already?
Counsel has already been engaged in everything that I've outlined for you.
Could you send that to the Chairperson of the committee?
Thank you very much. I have no further questions for the City Solicitor.
Councilman 79 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 Nutter.
Thank you, Madam Chair. No other questions for the Solicitor on this particular point, but you'll give us the detailed list of all that you've shared with us this morning?
Let me go through these real quick. The Mayor's Office of Community Services, you've goat the Director of Finance doing a formal assessment of the City's benefit plan, Community Court, and $12 million is now available through Director of Finance - Employee Benefits because you 80 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 have fewer employees than you had included in the budget. Let's talk about those items. One, the Empowerment Zone had been fully funded through a grant?
Yeah, it had been fully funded through federal funds through the middle of this year. The grant money ran out. We had -- when we put the budget together, we were going to look at other ways to try to get that funded; nothing else emerged, and so now we need General Fund support to continue that funding.
So is everyone from the Empowerment Zone being moved over into General Fund-supported staff? (Witness comes forward.)
Good morning. My name is Eva Gladstein. I'm the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Empowerment Zone. We've always had some matching funds from the City's community services block grant. That funding has diminished over time, but it still remains to this day. So we have, in addition to the General Fund, $250,000 of community services block grant. That's to support staff and the 81 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 administrative costs.
I'm sorry, are you talking about a community development block grant or is this a different block grant?
This is a different block grant, the funds from the Department of Health and Human Services.
Hmm, okay. I'd probably like to know a little more about that; we can talk about that later. Any new source of funds is always of great interest. Mr. Dubow, what is this assessment that's being done of the City's benefits plan and the $300,000 to go with it? What's that about?
Ladies and gentlemen, you may want to notify friends and loved ones. (Laughter.)
You may wish to order 82 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 out for lunch now and anticipate what your dinner plans will be. (Laughter.)
With Miss Berkowitz at the table, we will be here a while. Miss Berkowitz, tell us about the formal assessment of the City's plan.
I'm Linda Berkowitz, Deputy Secretary of Financial Oversight. The term "formal assessment of the benefit plan" is somewhat of a misnomer.
Are we going to start with a definition of terms and disclaimers? Is this the way this is going to go? Go ahead.
As I discussed before the Committee on Law and Government during the late summer, the former personnel director for the City had pretty much negotiated the medical coverage portion of the City-administered health plan by herself, and given the fact that that is the most costly piece of the City's health plan, we decided to hire an expert consultant to help us do a number of things, including put together an RFP. There 83 2/19/02 APPROPRIATIONS - BILLS 020037, 38, 39 had not been an RFP for the medical portion of the plan in a number of years, and given the volatility in the health-care marketplace, we believed that it was prudent to invest in doing an RFP. We contracted with Brokerage Concepts Incorporated to assist us with the RFP process, the evaluation of the various proposals, and also to help us look, during the course of this fiscal year, at potential cost containment measures that we can use. As most of you know, because you're covered by the City-administered plan, our costs have risen dramatically.
Yeah. It's been a joy. So have you already spent the $300,000?
Right. And so what are they going to do? And who is Brokerage Concepts, where are they located, and who are the principals?