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DROP
On Wednesday's debate between 8th Council District candidates, there were a few notable disagreements — over term limits, how to deal with the Martin Luther King Jr. High School scandal, and which Councilperson to support for president.
But more frequent, it seemed, was consensus among candidates. Most advocated for more transparency in the position, involving the community in development decisions, using education to wrestle with gun problems, and fighting for the city to take back control of the Philadelphia School District.
So how are candidates separating themselves from the crowd?
Some, it seems, are using personality to do that trick — which is something often better conveyed in video than in words. See above for a short clip of the debate, organized by NewsWorks and the Committee of Seventy, in which candidates respond to moderator Chris Satullo's call to prove that they won't be beholden to the political machine or big donors. (Satullo, WHYY's executive director of news and civic dialogue, pulled his questions from a series of forums that NewsWorks held with local voters throughout the past several weeks.)
The first candidate to respond is Robin Tasco, then Howard Treatman, Verna Tyner, Cindy Bass, William Durham, Andrew Lofton and Greg Paulmier.
Throughout the debate, Tasco, as one person closely watching the race put it, came off as the person you'd want in a fight — she's visibly pissed about Bass' campaign allegedly threatening her. Bass is cool and confident — perhaps because of all the endorsements she's racked up. Paulmier is talkative, happy, a grassroots developer. Durham is the no-nosense State Democratic Committee representative. Treatman is the cerebral developer. Lofton is the passionate underdog. And Tyner is part calm and collected, part fighter (when speaking out against DROP, she stood up to boldly make her point and called on the crowd to voice their opinion about the program).
Read more about Wednesday's debate — and all the subtle jabs made at Bass by her opponents — here.
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Last night's 8th Council District debate could have been fiery — given candidate Robin Tasco's allegation that she was threatened by opponent Cindy Bass' campaign, candidate Verna Tyner's unabashed criticism of Bass for not saying whether or not she'd vote for Councilwoman Marian Tasco for president, and plenty of other juicy issues that've been brewing.
Overall, though, there was very little mud-slinging.
The debate between the seven candidates for the 8th District — which stretches from Nicetown up to Chestnut Hill — centered around DROP, the Martin Luther King Jr. High School scandal, economic development, and current 8th District Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller. All seven candidates — Robin Tasco, Bass, Tyner, Greg Paulmier, Howard Treatman, Andrew Lofton and William Durham — attended the debate.
But there were some subtle jabs at each other. For instance, Treatman said he wouldn't hire anyone with a "history of political corruption." (Bass' campaign has been critized for employing Steven Vaughn, a former Miller aide who pleaded guilty in a pay-to-play scandal.)
Tyner, meanwhile, strongly voiced her opposition to voting for a Council president who's enrolled in DROP (aka Marian Tasco). All the candidates were in agreement over this, except for Bass. Bass has maintained that it's too soon to make her decision about a Council president.
Tyner seemed to use this to her advantage, standing up to make her point and even calling on the crowd to voice their opinion about DROP.
Also, when Bass called for an investigation of the Martin Luther King Jr. High School scandal to "see what the facts are," rather than jumping to conclusions, Durham seized the topic. He said there are many facts already known: The community wanted one thing, he says, and public officials decided "it does not deserve that."
In fact, most of the subtle disses seemed to be directed toward Bass, who has earned the endorsement of Mayor Michael Nutter, District Attorney Seth Williams and other public officials, and is seen as a front-runner.
There were a few other surprises throughout the night: Tyner, a staff member for City Council for 16 years, said she supported term limits. Some people closely watching the race saw this as an affront to the late at-large Councilman David Cohen, who served for decades, and for whom Tyner worked.
Treatman, Lofton and Tasco also favored term limits, while Bass, Paulmier and Durham didn't.
Another interesting turn: Moderator Chris Satullo, WHYY's executive director of news and civic dialogue, asked candidates how they would foster transparency in their office — something that Miller has been criticized as lacking.
Most agreed that an office in the district was needed, as well as regular meetings or newsletters for the community.
Check back later today for videos of the event, which capture candidates responding to Satullo's tough call to prove that they won't be beholden to the political machine or big donors, among other things.
Oh, and did we mention that last night's debate at Germantown's First Presbyterian Church was packed to the gills? Yet another reason y'all should get interested in the election, if you're not already: Everyone else is doing it! Peer pressure!
UPDATE: Two things worth noting that weren't noted before: The debate was organized by NewsWorks. Also, moderator Satullo's questions came from a series of forums that NewsWorks held with local voters throughout the past several weeks.
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Today, Republican at-large candidate Malcolm Lazin is protesting outside of the School District's headquarters — marking his third protest in two months. He's calling for Superintendent Arlene Ackerman to resign.
For those following the race, you know this isn't the first time Lazin has staged a protest. In March, he protested outside of Councilman Frank Rizzo's office to rally for him to release his DROP application. This month, Lazin protested outside of Rizzo's office again, this time to call on District Attorney Seth Williams to investigate Rizzo's DROP application.
DROP and Ackerman have been widely critized during this election season — by both Republicans and Democrats, City Commissioner and at-large candidates, and hopefuls in the 1st, 2nd and 8th Council Districts, and elsewhere. So what makes Lazin different?
Not too much, really. But by making a very visible statement about these issues, Lazin has positioned himself as the most extreme at-large candidate against DROP and Ackerman — even if his views aren't all that extreme by themselves. Interestingly, this tactic has been used elsewhere — in a recent forum featuring 1st Council District candidates, Vern Anastasio said he was the only candidate to organize against SugarHouse as an activist — and the only one truly against DROP (except for police and firefighters).
His opponents, however, disagreed.
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Today, attorney Joseph Doherty filed an appeal in the two DROP lawsuits against Councilwoman Marian Tasco and City Commissioner Marge Tartaglione in the Commonwealth Court, on behalf of his clients.
Doherty argues that because Tartaglione and Tasco are enrolled in the Deferred Option Retirement Plan (DROP), they're ineligible to run for office.
A so-called legal loophole has allowed public officials to remain working while enrolled by collecting a lump sum of cash from DROP, "retiring" for a day and then running again.
Last week, Common Pleas Court Judge James Lynn ruled in favor of the candidates.
Doherty says that in the Rizzo case, the court issued an order today declaring that there wouldn't be an oral argument for the appeal. He expects the same decision will be made for the DROP cases against Tartaglione and Tasco. But now that all three are filed, Doherty added, "The court may change its mind."
Doherty's clients in these cases include, among others, Stan Shapiro, the former chief staff attorney for City Council, and Antoine and Leta Thomas, relatives of one of Tasco's opponents in the upcoming primary, Lamont Thomas.
Matt Wolfe has already filed an appeal in his DROP lawsuit against Councilman Frank Rizzo, which makes the same argument.
This article is part of our new, expanded coverage of this year's exciting election season. Grab this link for more "ElectionEar" pieces and look for the new column in our print edition.
Previously:
Committee of Seventy files amicus brief in DROP cases
DROP candidates can stay on the ballot
DROP lawsuit will be filed to kick Tartaglione off the ballot
Ward leader files challenge to kick Rizzo off ballot
The Committee of 70 has filed an amicus brief in support of the three lawsuits trying to kick Councilman Frank Rizzo, Councilwoman Marian Tasco and City Commissioner Marge Tartaglione off the ballot because they are enrolled in the Deferred Option Retirement Plan (DROP).
Last week, Common Pleas Court Judge James Lynn ruled in favor of the candidates. Matt Wolfe, who filed the lawsuit regarding Rizzo, appealed to the Commonwealth Court.
Ellen Kaplan, vice president of Committee of 70, said that she expects that the lawsuits against Tasco and Tartaglione will be appealed tomorrow.
Check out the PDF of the amicus brief here.
Previously:
DROP candidates can stay on the ballot
DROP lawsuit will be filed to kick Tartaglione off the ballot
Ward leader files challenge to kick Rizzo off ballot
This article is part of our new, expanded coverage of this year's exciting election season. Grab this link for more "ElectionEar" pieces and look for the new column in our print edition.
Gloria Gilman, the chair of Neighborhood Networks, tells City Paper that she's filing a lawsuit tomorrow against City Commissioner Marge Tartaglione to kick her off the ballot. She argues that because Tartaglione is enrolled in the Deferred Option Retirement Plan (DROP), she's ineligible to run for office.
A legal loophole has allowed Tartaglione and other public officials to remain working while enrolled by collecting a lump sum of cash from DROP, "retiring" for a day and then running again.
Republican attorney Matt Wolfe filed a similar lawsuit on Friday challenging Councilman-at-Large Frank Rizzo, as CP reported, which argues that Rizzo can't run because he's enrolled in DROP. And Councilwoman Marian Tasco is now facing a suit that makes the same argument.
Gilman says Stan Shapiro, who was chief staff attorney for City Council for more than 20 years, is also joining her as one of the suit's plaintiffs. Their attorney is Joseph Doherty, from Spector Gadon & Rosen, who is also representing the two people filing suit against Tasco.
These suits mark the first time that city solicitors have been challenged in court over their opinion that elected officials can be enrolled in DROP and run for reelection.
"The city solictor has come up with a tortured argument that you can somewhow fully retire by leaving for a day and then coming back," says Doherty. "I'm fully confident the court will see it [our] way."
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.
No, CP and Ralph Cipriano don't really get the fawning mad props and bouquet of flowers we think we deserved in Radio Times' piece on the DROP program this morning, but hey, we're glad people are still talking about it (and confident knowing that until we dropped Cipriano's "Billion Dollar Boondoggle" in April, nobody was even thinking about talking about it). Guest host Tracey Matisak had the Inky's Jeff Shields and Miriam Hill and Committe of 70's Sean Scully on this morning to discuss the political hot potato in the wake of Boston College's long-awaited DROP study (read it here). Particularly entertaining is the Scully's response to Council's call for more studies: "How much more do we [study] this?" Speaking of studies, Cipriano will have a piece in tomorrow's paper (on the site later today) in which he fills in the gap between BC's $258 million price tag and his $1 billion.
I would suggest that someone take a closer look at Ralph's piece, which ran earlier this week in the Inquirer. He doesn't quite get DROP and his math is wrong.
"until we dropped Cipriano's "Billion Dollar Boondoggle" in April, nobody was even thinking about talking about it"? I'll give credit where credit is due - and Cipriano's piece was excellent - but DROP was all over the papers this spring, well before the piece came out. March 3: http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq_ed_board/86274017.html March 8: http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/86796652.html March 9: http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/cityhall/87112287.html Heck, even Byko wrote a DROP column on March 4: http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/86312297.html
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| Neal Santos |
Brett Mandel, the onetime city controller candidate/good-government advocate, is the last person we'd expect to stand up for the city's Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP). But in his latest blog entry, Mandel argues that Mayor Nutter's recent announcement to get rid of DROP may be rash:
DROP has once again landed on the front pages with the release of a city-commissioned report from a consultant that claims the program has increased city pension costs by $258 million over a decade. While that number sounds extreme, considering our pension fund is underfunded by billions, it is literally a DROP in the bucket of a much larger problem. The impact of DROP on the city's annual budget is much more complicated and unsettled. Predictably, there are calls from the Mayor to do away with the program, but such a reactionary response betrays a lack of managerial skill and a lack of a reformer's will. Used correctly, the tool of DROP could save the city millions and allow the city to best configure its workforce to respond to the challenges that confront us.
He goes on to say that rather than drop DROP altogether (OK, we swear we we're never gonna say that again), the city should make three changes to the program:
First, rather than a guaranteed return of 4.5 percent, DROP participants should earn a much-smaller guaranteed return of, say, 1.0 percent plus a variable rate of return tied to the performance of the pension fund. This way, the pension fund is not devastated during slow-growth periods and DROP participants can share in the benefit when the investments perform well.
Second, the city must shut, lock, and bolt the door after employees enter DROP and ultimately leave city service. No more retiring and rehiring. No more post-DROP consulting arrangements. No more wink-and-nod shenanigans. Every time the program is misused, it becomes harder and harder to justify its proper use.
Finally, and most important, the city must use the tool of DROP much more effectively. Informed with the certainty created by the DROP participants' timetable for retirement, the city should reassess workforce planning to best manage our organizational approach toward fulfilling agency missions. We should use the tool of DROP to ensure that we have a lean management structure overseeing a workforce that is deployed effectively to meet the needs of the citizenry.
Thoughts, Cloggers and Cloggettes?
finally someone who gets it!!!!!!!!!!!!
You've probably heard by now that the city released its Deferred Retirement Option Plan report, done by Boston College for $79,989. In case you're interested in reading it in full, here y'are.
Have fun trying to figure out that formula on the fourth page.
Very interesting report, but a little confusing.
[...] to discuss the political hot potato in the wake of Boston College's long-awaited DROP study (read it here). Particularly entertaining is the Scully's response to Council's call for more studies: "How much [...]
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