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Ward leader files challenge to kick Rizzo off ballot
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Ward leader files challenge to kick Rizzo off ballot
Councilman-at-Large Frank Rizzo has seen better days.
Not only has Rizzo lost the backing of his own party, but Republican ward leader Matt Wolfe has officially filed a petition challenge to try to kick Rizzo off the primary ballot. He's arguing that because Rizzo is enrolled in the city's politically-poisonous Deferred Option Retirement Plan (DROP), he is ineligible to serve.
A legal loophole has allowed Rizzo and other officials to remain working while enrolled by collecting a lump sum of cash from DROP, "retiring" for a day and then running again.
Heard in the Hall first reported on Wolfe's intention to file the suit, but Wolfe hadn't done so until today. Wolfe says he originally intended to file the challenge on Wednesday, but ran into "logistical problems" with the City Commissioners' office.
According to Wolfe, he tried to obtain copies of petitions from the office on Wednesday, but he says they told him they only had so many copy machines and thus couldn't get him the documents until Thursday afternoon. Then, he asked if the office could scan them, and he says they said no: Apparently, the office doesn't have a scanner. "When I got them on Thursday, they were on legal-sized paper, printed on both sides and the back of each petition was upside down," he said. "Each of these things makes it more difficult to scan them into the PDF document needed for electronic filing."
Wolfe further mused over the phone, "Nevermind that scanning them would be cheaper for the city," and then gave a plug for his candidate of choice: "All this will change when Al Schmidt becomes Commissioner."
The challenge's hearing is scheduled for March 30.
