March 9–16, 2000

city beat

Not Very Frank

	"I don’t discuss Citizens Alliance in this office": Councilman Frank DiCicco.

by Noel Weyrich

A nonprofit group founded and presided over by City Councilman Frank DiCicco received more than $1 million in private donations during the 1998 tax year, but the councilman won’t say where any of the money came from.

According to the most recent tax filing by the Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, the organization received $650,000 in government grants in 1998 and an additional $1,002,776 in "direct public support," a phrase that covers non-governmental contributions from businesses, individuals or other charities. A year earlier, by contrast, Citizens Alliance had reported a mere $500 in such contributions.

"When you see those kinds of variances in funding, it certainly is just cause to ask some questions. Why now? Why that much?" says Barry Kauffman, head of Common Cause, the Harrisburg-based good government group. "The secondary questions, which are not less important, are ‘Are there tradeoffs or paybacks for these contributions?’ These are some very valid questions which I think deserve some answers."

According to the Citizens Alliance 1998 tax filing, two members of State Sen. Vince Fumo’s South Philadelphia district office staff, Ruth Arnao and Charlie Hoffman, served as the Citizens Alliance secretary and treasurer, respectively. DiCicco, a longtime Fumo ally, founded the organization and served as its president until at least last year. He now says he has quit the board presidency, but is unable to say who replaced him.

In an audiotaped interview on the floor of City Council two weeks ago, DiCicco seemed eager to disclose the source of Citizens Alliance’s sudden million-dollar windfall in contributions. Asked to name the sources of the money, he said, "I don’t know off the top of my head. I’ll have to look that up. I don’t want to be misquoted. I’m not sure where that came from." He promised to check with Ruth Arnao, saying, "Why don’t you give me a call and I’ll find out what’s going on." He added with a smile, "That’s why I wanted out of this thing. There’s too much to deal with."

But subsequent phone calls went unreturned. Then, earlier this week, when approached in his City Hall office, DiCicco simply said, "I have no time for you and Citizens Alliance. I don’t discuss Citizens Alliance in this office. I told you that before."

Citizens Alliance is primarily a trash-removal and street-cleaning operation, based in the Italian Market area where DiCicco serves as a district council member. In the past several years, the group has accumulated a small army of trucks, vans and street sweepers, storing them in a Wharton Street garage the group bought with cash. More recently, Citizens Alliance has paid cash to buy other properties, including Sen. Fumo’s legislative district office at 1208 Tasker St. Two weeks ago, City Paper reported that Citizens Alliance had recently come under a cloud in Harrisburg. The group has yet to file the required audits for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of state grants, prompting the state Department of Community and Economic Development to withhold payment on a new grant that was approved last May.

In past years, none of the three board members had ever taken a salary from Citizens Alliance. But the 1998 tax filing reports that Arnao was paid $18,000 in salary (in addition to her full-time salary in Fumo’s office. Arnao’s state salary last year was $69,035.) In the tax filing, which Arnao signed, she did not fill out a requested estimate of her average weekly hours devoted to Citizens Alliance business, but instead claimed to work on an "as-needed" basis. As a result, her rate of pay with the organization can’t be determined. Arnao did not return calls for comment.

Internal Revenue Service regulations are clear that while a charity must list the names of its major donors in its tax return, this information is exempt from the charity’s public disclosure obligations. Under the regulations, charity donors can remain anonymous to the public forever.

But when a charity is run by elected officials and their paid staff, says Common Cause’s Kauffman, "There are potential dangers there. Indirect relationships always can potentially exist, and I’m not sure how you deal with that."

A spokesman in Fumo’s office referred inquiries about Citizens Alliance to Ruth Arnao.