- And this blank page where my fingers move
- Pennsylvania Hunger Games Diet: Cash for Corporations, Cuts for Kids
- The Incredible Shrinking Mayor
- Multi-tasking with the 1% … killing the schools AND making the poor pay for their funeral.
- Council Can Give the SRC the Money to NOT Privatize the System
- Predatory Payday Lending Bill Flies Out of Cramped PA House Committee
- Let the Games Begin: PA Senate Announces Details of Budget Proposal
- Good News on PA Revenue But Don’t Count Your Blessings Just Yet
- Defeat Corbett
- Set off without a Paddle: Unpacking the School District’s Disaster Capitalism
Nutter Doesn't Have to Follow the Law says Seventy
Submitted by Ray Murphy on Tue, 01/06/2009 - 5:26pm.
Check out these excerpts from a Committee of 70 press release today:
PHILADELPHIA – January 6, 2008 – The Committee of Seventy today announced its support for Mayor Nutter’s appeal of Common Pleas Court Judge Idee Fox’s decision barring him from closing 11 branches of the Free Library of Philadelphia without the approval of City Council.
...
The organization was instrumental in drafting the 1951 Charter that purposely created a strong mayor form of government for Philadelphia. “We firmly believe that this is the best model for this city and that the erosion of this principle can lead to chaos,” Stalberg said.
Stalberg added that, while the Charter places some very specific limitations on a mayor’s power to cut the budget – for instance, City Council’s budget can’t be slashed – it does not restrict his or her ability to close library branches or swimming pools.
“Some people may not like the Mayor’s choices or how they’ve been communicated,” Stalberg said. “But the Charter unquestionably gives him the right and obligation to act.”
OK, so leaving aside long-term Charter arguments, isn't there in fact a law on the books that requires the Mayor to seek Council approval before closing pubic facilities? Is 70 really implying that it's ok for the Mayor to ignore laws he does not like?
Um, that seems kind of like a crazy thing for a watchdog group to be saying.
Who is the Committee of 70 anyway? Although the 70 board is large, its members are almost entirely made up of representatives from corporations or large private law firms. According to their website:
A small Executive Committee oversees the management and policy decisions of the Committee of Seventy. Several very prominent business and community leaders will soon join the Executive Committee in order to show their commitment to clean government and to improve funding and results.
Well listen up prominent business and civic leaders. It's very important that we have a group devoted to government oversight and accountability. But if that is 70's role, it's not cool to support the Mayor breaking the law.
It's possible the Mayor will win on appeal, but it's not like the Mayor took himself to court. He ignored the current law and only because he was called on out it are we where we are today. Seems to me like you guys might want to back away from this one or at least slap the Mayor on the wrists some before you issue a press release supporting his larger powers.
Perhaps more importantly, there are two hugely important transparency and ethics questions at hand that 70 has NOT addressed in the library debate and larger budget deficit issue:
1. We really have no idea how much trouble we're in. Council, the judiciary and the citizens of Philadelphia are all relying on budget projections for the current budget and the one to come that come from the Mayor only. If 70 really wants to be helpful, maybe you all could hire an auditor or work with Council, PICA or the Controller's office to get some independent analysis of the scope of the "crisis" we face.
2. Patronage and government waste still exist. Assuming there is some level of budget crisis--at the very least in next year's budget--shouldn't 70's focus be on trimming the fat in government? A thorough independent study of government waste would be super helpful. If 70 got started on one right now, I am sure they could come up with a plan to recover at least 10 or 20 million dollars for next year's budget from patronage jobs.
Speaking of patronage jobs...Zack I'd like to personally remind you of a meeting we had in 2006 where we went over a list of ideas to improve turnout and participation in municipal elections. I believe you said then that you would present some of those ideas to the City Commissioners and work to implement them. I can dig up the follow-up letter I sent to you afterwards, but either way, as much as I appreciate your role as a government watchdog, I hope to retain your leadership on election reform even more.
Ridiculous: Paging A Certain Electrician
Lets go through a scenario here, for my friends at 70:
Lets say there is a random union leader. I dunno, just for giggles, lets call him Don Jougherty. Let's imagine that Don doesn't think that the Philadelphia campaign finance law is constitutional. So, the Committe of Seventy's position is, by this logic, that Don shouldn't follow the law, right? Or else, how come Seventy didn't call on the Mayor, when he was violating it, to agree to follow the law until a judge ruled on it.
Again, the Mayor was enjoined for one specific reason: he was violating a City law. That Seventy, fresh off telling us that we need tax cuts, is now saying this, is beyond ridiculous.
Up and down budget projections
The City Paper's year-end quiz was pretty funny. My favorite question:
You can click through to their site to see the right answer.
And have we ever seen the economic projections on which
any of these numbers are based?
Two Things
1. The transparency issue. You write:
The charter already provides for just such a person - the Controller. The point has been repeatededly made on this website that we ought to be provided with some independent evidence to back up the Mayor's claims that the libraries must be closed. The Controller's office has the power and should be acting as the "auditor or work with Council to get some independent analysis of the scope of the "crisis" we face." Sadly, the present guy is MIA.
I'm just as guilty as the next person for not ever talking about the issue. But this library controversy along with previous discussions about the functioning of the City Commissioner's office have made me realize that the Controller's Office could be a huge boon to the Progressive/Reform constituencies.
The position is up for election this year. Perhaps we ought to start to think about how we can affect that race.
2. The Mayor's Duty to Obey the Law. Just as the President swears an oath to uphold the Constitution above all else, the Mayor similary is obligated to obey the Charter. If a law is patently unconsitutional, then the President or any other elected official has no duty to obey it as it would conflict with his or her higher duty to obey the Constitution. Same goes for the Mayor's obligations regarding the Charter.
All of which begs the question that is now before the court - whether the law violates the Charter.
Yes, but then as Ray says,
Yes, but then as Ray says, why doesn't 70 mention that the Mayor was actually going to violate the law? Where were they about 2 weeks ago when Nutter was simply going to violate a law cause he didn't like it?
I don't know how to solve
I don't know how to solve this problem.
On the one hand, you've got the risk that City Council could take this power, combine it with its "Councilmatic Perogative" and we end up with a budget process that ends up having Janie Blackwell specifying how many librarians are going to be at the Kingsessing branch. On the other hand, you get the whole Bush-Cheney situation whereby their reading of the Constitution justifies their decision to pick and choose whatever laws they want to obey and effectively rendered Congress a purely advisory body.
The whole thing is a mess and the fact that the Mayor has pretty much triggered Philadelphia's equivalent of a Consitutional crisis over the saving of somewhere between $4-8M speaks to just how poorly thought out his strategy was to being with.
Thats the point that can't be underlined enough
Even if for the sake of argument and I was willing to take the Mayor's position 100% - that he has the absolute authority to override City Council's authority to pass the budget as laid out in the Home Rule Charter and close whatever city-owned facility whenever he decides to call an XYZ "crisis" - why potentially derail mayoral authority over something so comparatively small in terms of the budget? Especially when as of a couple of days ago you at least claim you want to find sincere alternatives for keeping something close to branch libraries open in the neighborhoods with the help of non-profit foundations. We can debate whether any incarnation of something like that is the best plan, but ultimately if you sincerely want neighborhood based foundations to work they take years not days to work up, they need transparent bylaws and processes and they need local champions - including City Councilmembers.
If the Mayor actually wanted what he says he wants, he would relish the opportunity to work with Council to develop plans for these "knowledge centers" that were long term and self-sustaining. He would be eager to bring Council and real, already existing (not merely hypothetical for sake of legal arguments) community groups into the process. The fact that he doesn't seem to want to wait a mere couple of weeks to do the work of rebuilding trust and building sustainable institutions for these "knowledge centers" should be a flashing red light to anyone who wants to give the Mayor the benefit of the doubt on this.
Sincere alternatives that actually had a chance of working into the future would actually require a more public process, one that includes City Council. It doesn't mean wasting public funds on legal pissing matches fighting law suits that can stretch into years of legal battles when the next budget begins in a matter of weeks.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
Controller
The shocks keep coming: I agree with you DeWitt. And I mention the Controller in my post.
Guess how many press releases 70 put out in 2008? Seven. And not one of them calls on the Controller to provide an audit. That's a missed opportunity. Seventy also did not support the Freshman 15 plan to eliminate waste--at least not with a press release...maybe there is a quote I missed.
So many of the arguments on
So many of the arguments on this boil down to whether or not someone trusts the source of the underlying numbers. The Controller is supposed to be that independent verification that allows voters to understand how elected officials are spending money.
For whatever reason, the office has in recent years failed completely at this task.
Sadly, it looks like Butkowitz is going to be unchallenged. And we'll be stuck with him for another 4 years.
I know there was a lot of talk about how it was frustrating during the City Council races that so many Progressives ran for an at-large seat thereby diluting the chance that any specific canididate would get enough votes. With the Controller, perhaps there is an opportunity to get everyone on the same page.
Maybe
I am not sure I would be quite so hard on Butkovitz just yet. I mean he really needs to come out with numbers before the next budget round, but he has shown some gumption in his first term, like with the Parking Authority.
I do think that the form of "strong mayor" government that 70 wants to protect has created a culture where most folks--Council, Controller, and media alike--are all a bit nervous to question the Mayor too aggressively on any topic. Because he wields so much power.
Perhaps a topic for another day, but a "City Charter convention" to talk through the function of the Charter some 50 plus years after its writing is necessary.
Correction on Butkovitz and the Parking Authority
Butkovitz has failed to do a comprehensive desk and performance audit of the PPA more than a year after saying he would. His initial cursory look at the agency reported that there were no violations that he could find.
Caution On City Charter Convention
The business community has been trying for decades to get City Council to create a charter revision commission--similar to a constitutional convention--appointed by the mayor to review City Charter provisions. They have endless ideas on how to eliminate obstacles to an all-powerful mayoralty, from abolishing council members at large to abolishing any Council role in confirmation of the City Solicitor.
This is a national position. Anyone who wants to see the scope of business lobbying for strong mayors around the country merely has to google search "strong mayors" and find many, many examples.
One of the most important things my father did in City Council in his first term as Councilman at Large was to kill a charter revision commission appointed by the Mayor empowered to rewrite the Charter, with a vote on the entire package presented directly to the people. One can safely assume that there would be a massively expensive vote yes campaign funded by the business community for such a package.
City Council has shown it can pass many amendments to the Charter one by one without a Charter Revision Commission. This way the amendments are carefully scrutinized by both the Council and the voters. The voters, as recently as May, 2007, rejected, as they had done twice previously, a charter amendment repealing the requirement that city workers have to resign to run for an office different from the one they hold.
I look at City Council with eyes wide open. The members are, whatever one may think of their policies or alliances at any given time, the people more responsive to community concerns and I therefore favor increases in their role, and not decreases.
The current system of single amendment charter revision works far better for community interests than does a comprehensive package in which rotten fish will be mixed in with bits of gourmet food.
Yep
this statement does not seem compelled by their mission, or all that consistent with it. I agree with Ray that areas like transparency and waste--both of which are implicated in the decisions that led to the current injunction and appeal--would be better served by Seventy's focus.
The law is the law is the law is the law
Not just the one's you agree with or find inconvenient in one particular instance. Its laughable to have to explain this basic idea to our local "good government" group. Have to remember to remind them of that next time they come asking for vollunteers or donations.
And for the umpteenth time, we are in the second week of January, FY '09 budget discussions start in Feb. What the hell is wrong with making your case for cuts in front of City Council? If the facts on your side, show them to Council and to us, the citizens. "Because I said so" just isn't cutting it.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
What about the new 'because I said so',
"You don't get everything until you go to heaven"? That should satisfy you, right?
This has always been the Committee of Seventy Position
On City Council staff, I fought this nonsense for over 20 years, and during all that time, it was accepted "good government" policy. Council was demonized by the mainstream press over and over for its occasionally evidenced populist tendencies. But the powers that be always knew that they could control Mayors. So they transformed the autocratic notion of a "Strong Mayor form of Government" into a widely shared mindframe of a dike holding back the barbarian hordes. That line was always faithfully promoted by Seventy.
Thankfully the veil is now off. Seventy will continue to work on traditional ethics issues that we will support. But on economic and governance issues, Zack is simply a loyal employee carrying out his employer's primary mission: keep the business power elite in control.
Yeah
I was about three years old when the ordinance was passed, but I've talked to a couple of reporters who go back that far and their take is basically the same as Stan's. Committee of Seventy has always looked to empower the Mayor over City Council. That was the original idea in reforming the City Charter and has carried through all of these years.
That said, a lot of people seem surprised by Seventy's decision to weigh in at this time. For people new to local politics, it's somewhat shocking to have the so-called "good government" group take sides against keeping libraries open.
---
Check out "It's Our Money"
Ok, with all due respect to Stan and Mark
whom I know will have a different perspective on this, but in a nutshell, the modern "good government = strong executive, bad government = strong legislature" idea in Philly dates from the mid-to-late 1980s, specifically to the end of the first and especially to the whole of the second Wilson Goode administration.
After the MOVE incident of May 1985, the mayor himself was politically weakened and so, even though he was reelected in 1987 (beating Ed Rendell in the primary, and then a newly Republican Frank Rizzo in the general) he had a hard time getting budgets and legislation passed; so that to a greater and greater degree council was seen by many as running city government.
During that time the city began running record deficits and, to many, operating in a mismanaged grab-what-you-can manner that left the city with the famous $250 million deficit that Ed Rendell inherited in 1991.
I don't think there were any substantive changes
in the Mayor's powers between the Mayoralty of Good and that of Rendell. There was definitely a change in the political skill of and public support received by the Mayor.
That might be a good lesson for Mayor Nutter. If he really cares about his power, he should be worrying a lot more about his reputation for competency and honesty and a lot less about whether he has the right to close city facilities without Council approval.
Times of economic troubles are hard on Mayors and they need a great deal of skill and popular support to manage them well. They need to be careful not to alienate the citizens of the city, starting with those who were their biggest suppoters. Ed Rendell was able to make hard times work for him politically and that example is clearly something is Nutter has in the back of his mind. I'd also, however, keep in mind the experience of Mayor Bill Green who didn't handle the challenges of economic hard times well and wound up as a one term Mayor.
Actually strong mayorism began under Mayor Green
I joined Council staff in 1982 and the "strong mayor" totem was already in full sway. Bill Green would lambaste Council regularly because it was a highly populist body during his administration, pissing off the power elite constantly. It was under Green that Council passed a modest plant closing law barring businesses from closing without giving employees 60 days notice. For that heresy, Green infamously lambasted Council as the "worst legislative body in the free world." It was Green's City Solicitor who began issuing legal opinion after legal opinion declaring Council legislation to be beyond Council's powers. By doing that he -- and Goode after him -- managed to stifle such horrible measures as one requiring the Mayor to submit an economic development plan to the public and Council every year, and one mandating a decent level of service at City health centers. Both of these were ignored as if never passed.
Whoever told you that strong mayorism started under Goode is engaging in false historical revisionism. And even were it true, Goode's failures wouldn't justify the conclusion that having a real legislative body automatically results in catastrophe. That's a bit of a leap. It seems to me that most of the world's man-made catastrophes have been caused by overly empowered executives. The truth is that giving too much power to any one of the legislative, executive or judicial branches is what's really dangerous. That's why the genius of the American system is to have a tripartite goverment of separate but equal powers. That idea actually started in Philadelphia. We ought to give it a try.
Not just catastrophe Stan
Zack said we would have CHAOS.
It goes back further
As both ideology and as a form of government, the idea of having strong mayors goes back at least to the progressive era in the US. That is the era in city government that gave us some genuinely good ideas like honesty and transparency and efficiency in government as well as some bad ones like making it harder for working people to vote and keeping muncipal employees from unionizing.(Sound familiar?)
Strong Mayors (like at large Council members) were thought to be less likely than district council members to have a parochial view that would lead them to serve one district (or all the districts) as opposed to the good of the whole city. In practice, strong Mayor forms of government has also made upper classes more powerful because it takes far more resources to run city wide than in small districts and it is hard for people running against powerful business interests to raise money for these campaigns (as I found out when I tried to raise money from law firms as an anti-casino candidate for Council at large.)
In Philadelphia, the strong Mayor theory is embedded in the Home Rule Charter that went into effect, I think, in 1951. The powers of the Mayor are substantially unchanged from that time while the ideology is trotted out from time to time in various permutations and forms as it has been by the Committee of Seventy this week.
Since strong Mayor government, at large council members, and large council districts has not given us the transparency and openess we want, while it has weakened the power of neighborhoods to, I believe, the detriment of the city, maybe we should be thinking about some really fundamental different ways of organizing the city to get what we do want while avoding what we do not want.
The philosophy is embedded in the 1951 Charter
as you say, Marc. But it grew into a gross parody of itself in the early 1980's. The '51 Charter, as it still reads, actually does recognize that the City has a legislative branch with real power, although limited in some specific areas. But it was under Green that Solicitors began exercising a "superveto," taking on judicial powers, and encouraging mayors to simply ignore Council legislation. And it was then that the idea took hold that, essentially, unless the Charter expressly gives Council a power -- such as approving annual budgets -- then that power belongs to the Mayor. Thus we have the current outrage over the notion that Council would legislatively compel the Mayor to follow a policy -- any policy. Policy decisions are all to be made by the Mayor, so the theory has been developed, because if Council imposes any policy on any part of the government then Council is requiring the Mayor to spend money. The Charter doesn't say in so many words that Council can compel the mayor to spend money. Therefore, ipso facto, Council can't legislatively compel the government to do anything.
And that's how the strong mayor form of government became the all-powerful mayoral form of government.
Now I see what you mean
and that history makes sense.
Ironic, isn't it, that Bill Green is today challenging a Mayor whose expansive notion of his own power goes back to...Bill Green.
And I suppose it is also ironic that the other executives who proposed very expansive views of their own power, far beyond what is found in the letter of the Constitution, were Richard Nixon and George W. Bush.
Which again strongly suggests that we in Philadelphia may be ripe for a reappraisal of this theory and a return to something closer to the traditional view which has its roots in our own city.
That's not to say there aren't problems with the form of government found here before the 1951 charter. We should explore the problems the 51 charter were meant to solve and see whether there are better ways of solving them than a the royalist theory of mayoral power.
sources of expansive
What about a weak mayor system?
I seem to remember from the best practices trip to Chicago run by the Economy League (formerly PEL) that Chicago actually has a weak mayor form of government on paper. The prevailing opinion from the Chicagoans that I talked to - government, business and non-profit leaders - was that, in practice, it was anything but. Would there be any interest among this forum of switching to a weak mayor - strong council form of government but eliminating term limits for the mayor? (or, conversely, instituting term limits for City Council...)
Weak mayor strong party in Chicago
It is the strong party machine that, I believe, makes Chicago politics work, When the Mayor is also party leader, he or she has the ability to to adopt policies that serve the whole city even when burdens are imposed on districts; and he or she can also break established pattersn and adopt innovative policies. It also keeps the level of corruption more or less under control.
But while being both Cook County Democratic Chair and Mayor made both Daley's very powerful, they were by no means all powerful. Political machines are never wholly top down and the leaders of machines have to be responsible to those who ultimately elect them leader, the ward leaders who are often also alderman that is members of their legislative body.
That's how Chicago creates a balance between leadership and responsibility to the people and between the good of the whole and the good of neighborhoods.
Our problem is that we have had a highly factionalized party that is fighting for position, power, patronage and contracts. Divisions in the party leads to divisions in Council. That makes it hard for Council to come together to pass innovative policies. (There are other reasons for this as well, including Council's weakness that creates a inclination to focus on small rather than large matters.)
Our strong Mayor is the unifying force that makes up for those divisions. But our Mayors are so strong that it is harder to hold them responsible to other political actors, and especially Council.
From time to time,a council majority forms that opposes the Mayor and that can act in opposition to him. I believe this happend during the period when John Street and David Cohen were allies on council. But that isn't easy in Philadelphia both because the Mayor is so strong and can threaten district Council members where they live and because the Council is divided by their factional allegiences.
I'm not sure what the solution is. I've written in other comments that there is something to be said for giving council more authority vis a vis the Mayor. But if that means that there is no force for building centralized power that can actually innovate, we might suffer.
At the moment, I don't have a solution except to say this: all these problems are found in the federal government where we have a Congress that has a great deal of power and that also finds it difficult to build a consensus for real change, especially when significant interest groups stand in the way of change. What makes the federal government work is the power of the presidency. But that power is based not so much on the President's formal powers (which are great in foreign affairs but not nearly as great in domestic affairs) but rather on the president's ability to hold the attention of the people and build popular support for his oe hwe policy ideas.
The best account of how this works is a great book by James Sterling Young called The Washington Community. It tells the story of how the Federal government fell into division and, to some extent, impotence between the presidency of Jefferson and that of Jackson. YOung's argument is that with the eleciton of Jackson on the back of a strong popular movement, the presidency gained a great deal of moral authority and that is what makes our federal government function.
Young points out, however, that the authority of the President depends on his continued efforts to keep the public behind him. A President that lose the public loses his authority.
On the local level, that would mean that a Mayor who comes to office on the back of a strong majority committed to certain ideals and policies would have a great deal of authority beyond his formal power and could bring even a strong Council along with him.
But that moral authority has to be sustained by cultivating the public. And it can be squandered if a Mayor tries to impose policy ideas that are rejected by large parts of the public or if he governs in a way that calls into question his own probity.
My fear that Mayor Nutter is squandering a good deal of the good will and moral authority with which he came into office over a piddling amount of money is one reason I find the library issue so distressing. As I've pointed out before, Mayor Nutter and all of us would be much better off if he focused on leading the public and building a consenus for his solutions to the fiscal crisis instead of focusing so much attention on maintaining his (inflated) view of the formal power of the Mayor.
Why don't we just try a balanced system
like they thought of in Philadelphia in 1789? And, as suggested by Marc, let all the key actors (and I use the term advisedly) compete for public support knowing that with it they can actually get things done.
If we lose in court, let's change the damn charter
I think we are going to win in court. As I pointed out in a quick hit, the charter pretty explicitly empowers Council to pass the ordinance on which the law suit was based.
But should we lose, it will be time to do a charter change petition. And while we are giving Council the explicit power to block closures of city facilities, I suggest it is time to take away the Mayor's power to cut spending unilaterly.
I've never understood the royalism built into our charter except as a reflection of the trust that authors of the charter had for Dilworth and Clark. Royalism as the position of good government types should have gone out the window, especially in Philadelphia, in 1776.
If the Mayor wants to change a budget approved by Council by more than, say 2% in a line item, let him come back to council to approve the changes.
That change will have a few salutary effects: it will place a check on the arbitrary power of the Mayor; it will take away the Mayor's power to intimdate Council members by threatening cutbacks in their districts; and it will take away Council's excuse for inaction during budget crises.
And in having these effects, this change in our charter might help create what I caled a public sphere (http://youngphillypolitics.com/nutter_administration_and_us_crossroads) in Philadelphia politics, in which real debates happen in council and in the public and the words our political leaders utter actually mean something.
Just caught this thread
This is disappointing - as not having Stan's insight into 70, I have come to look at them as a very positive force in city politics.
This notion that "chaos" will result if Mayor being accountable to City Council - for a decision that is relevant to a tiny proportion of his responsibilities - is absurd. It seems there's got to be some mutual back-scratching going on here for them to make that kind of a statement. Not good, for a watchdog organization.
Do you have the link to their press release, Ray?
Here:
Here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgp83fv4_205fhntw5cr
Let me tell one of my 70 stories
I did poll watching in South Philly (the 113) during the primary. The judge of elections there broke every law regarding the conduct of a polling place I am aware of. (The assistant judge - his dad - had a pocket full of sample ballots and handed them to the voters as he opened the door for them. Etc.) The Obama boiler room was too overwhelmed to do anything about it. A team of lawyers from 70 came by and I told them about what was going on. They shrugged and got me to sign a waiver so they could take pictures of me with them for the annual report. That's 70 in action.
That is why campaigns have
That is why campaigns have to have their own election protection organization.
Even in our under funded and out-manned primary campaign, we had 8 lawyers in the district and 2 lawyers in court. All of these lawyers donated their valuable time.
70 is there to observe and make a report, which is good for the purposes of documenting election abuses. Sometimes they will litigate the most egregious of issues.
But, if you're "in it to win it" a campaign needs its own lawyers in the field. Period.
The Committee of 70 election
The Committee of 70 election observers are pointless. They are just young attorneys looking to fill their pro bono requirements. They pretty much have no clue whatsoever about what they should be looking for.
DeWitt Speaks From Experience
As a member of our election day team, DeWitt has first hand experience.
However, I often say that Committee of 70 is useful in that is maybe limits the number of folks doing bad things, which I suppose is good for any campaign.
Where do the 70 live?
Nobody on the Committee of 70 isn't directly affected by this situation. Talk about corporate influence in politics!
Catherine
What does the strong mayor system have to do with good govt?
What does the strong mayor system have to do with good govt?
Seems like it's the opposite. Autocratic centralization of power is to me the definition of bad government.
The city has changed a lot since 1951, in case anyone hasn't noticed.
...and the Committee of
...and the Committee of Seventy just lost a LOT of its fans.
Eureka, I found it
Committee of 70's willingness to be used as fodder for defending specific bad budget process decisions, to be turned into a mouthpiece for the Mayor's decision to fight over the libraries even if it would be easier and cheaper for tax payers just to comply with Council's wishes and make the closings discussion part of the FY'09 budget process, has a basis.
Apparently, they have been awarded the contract to do oversight on police brutality, at least according to the city's new 311 system.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/cityhall/3-1-1_On_Police_Complaints_Y...
Maybe Zach was so excited about his new job responsibilities, he's decided to get more serious about agreeing knee-jerkedly with Nutter's every policy decision, founded or unfounded. ; )
The real deal is $4-8 million is small potatoes in terms of the overall budget. Even if the mayor does have absolute authority to permanantly shut city-owned facilities willy-nilly, that doesn't mean he should be wasting our tax dollars to prove it when Council made its desire perfectly clear with a 17-5 vote that they want final decisions to be part of the FY'09 full-blown budget process.
Even if you sincerely believe Judge Fox's decision to be bad law, its supremely unstrategic to insist on challenging it this late in the budget year and this early in the Mayor's term in office.
Part of being "good government" in my book is also learning to work pragmatically with the ballance of power between branches of city government. Nutter's actions and Stalberg's parroting of an extremely questionable interpretation of the Home Rule Charter are profoundly anti-"good government" in that sense.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
The real deal is $4-8
Do we know how much of the budget is discretionary? I imagine it is at least 1/3 of the total budget with the rest being mandates, health and welfare payments and state and federal funds that are already committed.
I am wondering how much of the budget is really in play right now (before any negotiations with municipal unions).
Stan, do you happen to know?
More than half of the shortfall is pension commitments and like
and hence non-negotiable right now its true. Stan may break it down more.
Even so the legal question is whether the mayor has the ability to permanently close or sell city facilities, not reduce hours or service or move money from one department to the other. If the a Mayor has absolute power to permanently eliminate facilities from one neighborhood and leave them in another whenever he see fit (there is no objective definition of what constitutes a "fiscal crisis") whats to stop a "strong Mayor" from arbitrarily punishing politcal factions or neighborhoods that don't support him or her?
"Well Mr. Councilperson, I did not appreciate your last vote so I've decided to eliminate the rec centers in your district. But you see I can say I had to because I declared it a 'budget crisis' - it just so happens its more of a crisis in your district than the rest of them"
According to the Committee of 70's position that action would be perfectly legal. That's wrong.
And I'm not being dramatic. My library, Kingsessing, is 12th from the bottom in circulation and 29th from the bottom in terms of turnstile numbers. Apparently folks in my neighborhood need more internet access and LEAP program access proportionally than other neighborhoods but regardless, we aren't by any measure in the bottom 11. And along with Fishtown and Cohen/Ogontz we are dramatically trending up in circulation over the last two years, more than doubling in circulation over that period.
Why are we on the list? According to the City Paper's Isiah Thompson there is at least a possibility that the reason Kingsessing was chosen to get the axe instead of the neighboring Blanche Nixon/Cobb's Creek branch despite having better numbers by every metric is that Michael Nutter went Cobbs Creek as a kid and has an emotional attachment.
I'm not saying that's definitely why we got picked and not Cobbs Creek or that Cobbs Creek has any less of a right to a full and transparent process in front of City Council. I'm just saying absolute budgetary discretion on closings smells a lot like a small form of "absolute power" and we all know the old saw about what absolute power does.
Permanent closings of facilities deserve the kind of open debate that City Council hearings imply whether the Home Rule Charter allows the law currently requiring them or not. Its a reasonable law.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
The Mayor says that 57% is non-discretionary
That's from the "Rebalancing Plan" he issued on November 6 and that may be right, depending on how you define the term "non-discretionary." The Mayor's definition includes such vague items as "Basic Operations," and "Other Fixed Costs". He also includes "Contractually Required Costs" and "Leased Debt". Contracts, as you know, can be renegotiated, especially service contracts that weren't bid out. Some of those providers with eyes on future contracts might well want to negotiate, if asked. It would be interesting to find out what kinds of service contracts the City has, with whom, for how much, and for how long.
The item for "Leased Debt" is where you find things like debt service for the Eagles, Phillies and possibly the Convention Center. The first two items could also be renegotiated, and should be, because they're for obscene amounts, $30 million a year for 30 year to be precise. If the Eagles and Phillies just agreed to pick up 25% of the debt service for their own stadiums for one year, this crisis would be over, at least for now.
But beyond that, the actual numbers, as Sean says, are irrelevant at this stage. Let the Mayor take the issue back to Council and make his case. Let there be a public hearing at which the public can listen in, and testify. And then let the Council, subject to Mayoral veto, decide.