December 21–28, 2000

cover story|what happened next

The Ghosts of Meridian

Cover story, Sept. 28

The story: Acting on a resident’s complaint, Capt. Thomas R. Donovan of the Fire Department set off alarms at City Hall when he discovered that a 13-story high-rise at 235 S. 15th St. didn’t have a Class I standpipe system, as required by the city fire code. Standpipes are the vertical piping that supply water to fight fires on every floor of a high-rise. The city passed a law to require standpipes after the 1991 Meridian Plaza fire that burned out of control for nearly 19 hours and killed three firefighters. Donovan found out that the property owner, Philadelphia Management, had been cited for the violation, but that the violation had been dismissed by Deputy Commissioner Dominic Verdi of the Department of Licenses and Inspections, without any explanation, and contrary to the department’s usual procedures. City Paper subsequently discovered that L&I officials had similarly dismissed as many as 100 fire code violations at 15 high rises and apartment buildings owned or managed by Philadelphia Management, and that the president of the company, Ronald Caplan, had a personal relationship with L&I Commissioner Edward McLaughlin. (McLaughlin told about 50 L&I employees that he and Caplan were friends, that he had once lived in a Caplan property for three months and that he had once asked Caplan to give his son a job, which he did.) The mayor’s spokesperson said in early September that the Inspector General would investigate the dismissal of the 100 fire code violations, as well as McLaughlin’s relationship with Caplan.

What happened next: Not much. Four months later, there is still no word on the Inspector General’s report. A mayoral spokesman told City Paper last month that the Inspector General would be releasing a report, but a spokesman for the Inspector General said the report was not finished, and that the report may never be publicly issued. Caplan has refused comment for months. McLaughlin and Verdi have also declined comment on the investigation, although they have privately told several people in city government that they had been exonerated by the Inspector General. Luz Cardenas, the mayor’s spokesman, did not return a City Paper phone call. Meanwhile, Deputy L&I Commissioner Robert Solvibile was asked last month by the mayor’s office to handle questions from the press and City Council about the mayor’s $250 million anti-blight program during an all-day hearing of the council committee that oversees L&I. McLaughlin was nowhere in sight. As for Capt. Donovan, he no longer gives interviews. Sources in the Fire Department say they were told that anyone who speaks to City Paper would be fired, a charge the city denies. As for the high-rise at 235 S. 15th St., the building still doesn’t have a Class I standpipe. The violation was reinstated, and Philadelphia Management filed an appeal for a variance with the city Board of Safety and Fire Prevention. According to the city’s fire code, the property owner would be required to install two new standpipes. A hearing is scheduled for February.

—Ralph Cipriano