How great are the costs of corruption in Philadelphia? I once got into a debate with a friend at Young Philly Politics about this. My friend argued that corruption really doesn’t cost us a great deal. My view, contained in this revised version of my response to him, is that there are all kinds of corruption in the city. Some of them just cost us money, although I suspect the amount is much larger than my friend realizes. Other kinds of corruption systematically undermine the way the city operates. The cost of that corruption is very serious.
The Financial Costs of Corruption
We do have some indication of the financial costs of pay to play, for example. Joe Hoeffel pointed out last year that when he was a commissioner in Montgomery County, the County started to bid out most legal work such as bond work. And their legal bills dropped by more thn half.
If someone had the time and energy, they could pore over the transcripts of the recent corruption trials and start quantifying the costs of the scandals associate with Ron White. White’s girlfriend had a printing “business” that owned no presses. It basically served as a contractor to the airport and hired other companies that actually did the printing. And then she padded the printing bills by about 50% over what she was charged by the real printer. That might have cost the airport a few hundred thousand dollars over the course of the year.
The Deeper Problems of Arbitrary Government
This is serious money. And we certainly could use the money. But I suspect that the deeper problem in the city is not that money is wasted but that city agencies are unresponsive to the public and regularly act in arbitrary and an unfair ways.
Here are some examples:
L&I doesn’t always come when called; it doesn’t follow up on cases it opens; and it doesn’t seem to enforce the law fairly. To get action, it very much helps to have a ward leader or council member make a call for you. And those same calls often protect business owners from enforcement. I know of an egregious example, a used car dealership in Roxborough that has had totally illegal, brightly lit signs for the last five years. For some reason not understood by community groups, L&I has not been able to get removed.
The zoning process is also thoroughly politicized. District Council members and, sometimes, ward leaders, have a tremendous influence on which variances are granted and which are not. And since our crazy-quilt zoning code almost makes a variance mandatory before anything gets built, they control zoning decisions and those decisions are made in ways that are highly arbitrary.
Philadelphia has a very progressive billboard law. However that law has never been enforced by the city properly. And, when private groups have sought to challenge illegal billboards, and their owners have sought variances, the Zoning Board of Adjustment has regularly violated the zoning code and the law and granted variances with not justification. The anti-billboard group SCRUB, in alliance with neighborhood associations, often overturns these decisions in court. But now, Act 193, which was enacted in another middle of the night job by the General Assembly, has limited the rights of community groups to appeal zoning decisions to the Courts. And, as if this weren’t enough, City Solicitor has recently reached an agreement with the billboard companies that “legitimizes” many billboards that, by law, are illegal.
The process for getting licenses to open a new business is another example. Smart and well-off businessmen hire “expediters” and “consultants” to grease the machinery of the city. Those who are not so smart or well-off are sent from one end of the city to another the proper approvals, which can take weeks.
The process by which vacant land is made available to potential developers is another example. There is no one place to find out what land the city owns. Getting the complete information usually requires political connections. And political considerations largely determine why one potential developer rather than another gets site control over city owned properties. There is rarely any bidding process.
Why a Dysfunctional System Survives
Whenever a political system is in place that is unfair, dysfunctional and annoying to many citizens we need to ask ourselves why it has not been changed. Why has every mayoral candidate in the last twenty years said that he would fix the regulatory process and nothing has happened?
My view is that the way this city works is functional, for Council members and some ward leaders. Whether we are individuals, homeowners, businessmen, or community groups, getting what we need from the city requires us to make a special deal with a member of Council or a ward leader. We thus become dependent on them. And some of us vote for them, or give them campaign contributions, because of the special deals we get.
And I use the word “us” deliberately. As a leader of a community organization, I have played my role in this system. So has every other effective community activist in the city. Those of us who want to improve our neighborhoods are enablers of this system and not just because we provide tacit or active support for the Council members who help us.
We also take on much of the role that an effective government would be providing: we police the streets in town watches; we report on potholes; we represent neighborhood interests in zoning and development disputes and so forth. It is a good thing that we play this role. A good municipal government should involve its citizens in the administration of public policy. The problem, however, is that we play this role not primarily by interacting with apolitical administrative agencies that should be encouraging citizen involvement. Instead we work through Council members and the party. And that means we get further enmeshed with them.
I have been calling this system a politics of fear, because it leaves us dependent on, and fearful of our political leaders.
It is a very bad system.
Why is it bad?
First, it is unfair to individuals and neighborhoods. Individuals and neighborhoods that have political connections or know how to create them do well. Those who don’t, suffer. And class and race play a large role in determining which neighborhoods do well and which suffer. As I have been traveling around the city, I have seen that some neighborhoods have to put up with things—the lack of enforcement of city laws; unwanted development shoved down their throat—that I would never tolerate when I was president of West Mt. Airy Neighbors.
Second, it balkanizes the city. Our attachment to our neighborhoods is one of the best things about Philadelphia. But in politics, it keep us focused too much on serving our narrow interests and in making sure we get a larger share of some limited resource, like police protection, than some other neighborhood. We should be thinking more about how we can improve the city—and create more resources—for everyone.
And, third, it enables our political leaders to get reelected even though most of them are not trying to find innovative public policies that would benefit all of us. The politics of fear is the main reason that Philadelphia is twenty to fifty years behind other cities in the country and the world in so many public policy areas, from crime to transportation to economic development to affordable housing to zoning and development to taxation
We have to end this politics of fear. We have to create a politics of hope. We have to encourage our citizens to believe that real change is possible, to think that there are solutions to the problems that afflict every neighborhood, and to demand that their political officials offer such solutions.
People tend to care more about the problems that affect their lives, more than they care about issues of good government. But I have discovered in recent months that people in this city understand the connection between the politics of fear and the lack of good government. They are angry about it. And they want to believe that politics in Philadelphia can be better. They really want a politics of hope.
We will find out whether this message can generate a movement for political change and can elect candidates for office that want to change our politics.
I’m betting the next four months of my life that is can