| November
17, 2005 Section: LOCAL Edition: 4STAR Page: 20 DAVE DAVIES daviesd @phillynews.com A broad package of ethics-reform bills sailed through a City Council committee yesterday and could be approved by the full Council as soon as Dec. 1. The legislation's sponsor, Councilman Michael Nutter, said the package complements changes that voters approved Nov. 8 limiting campaign contributions and disclosing lobbyists for people seeking no-bid city contracts. |
| "Everyone who does
business with the city now has to make a decision," Nutter said. "You
either want to do business with the city and play by the same rules
everybody else plays by, or you don't want to do business with the city
and you want to make massive campaign contributions. But you're not
going to be able to do both."
The bills got support in yesterday's hearing from the Chamber of Commerce, the Pennsylvania Economy League, the Committee of Seventy, Philadelphia Forward and Neighborhood Networks. Mayor Street's chief of staff, Joyce Wilkerson, supported some of the initiatives and expressed reservations about others, but they were all approved by Council's Law and Government Committee.Nutter made several amendments in response to Wilkerson's concerns. Among the changes embodied in the Council bills:_ Limits on campaign contributions and lobbyist-disclosure requirements will extend to anyone receiving city financial assistance, such as developers, and to firms, like contractors or suppliers of goods, seeking competitively-bid contracts. Earlier legislation applied only to no-bid contracts. _ Candidates for city offices must file electronic reports, which will quickly be made available on the Internet. Street, who supported this proposal, said he hopes to make all city contracts available on the city Web site within a year._ An independent Board of Ethics will be created, appointed by the mayor and approved by Council. The board will have guaranteed funding and protection from removal, except for just cause. This requires a city charter change, which would have to be approved by voters in a May referendum.There has been considerable resistance among Council members to the creation of an ethics board, and Nutter hopes he has defused some resistance by excluding any mention of nepotism or restrictions on outside employment. Nutter said that existing conflict-of-interest laws and the ethics board's own deliberations can deal with those issues.Wilkerson said Street has considerable reservations about extending the contribution limits and disclosure requirements to competitive bids and city financial assistance. "We will begin rejecting the lowest responsible bidder selected through a sealed-bid process simply because he or she made campaign contributions," Wilkerson said.Nutter noted that past contributions won't affect future bids, and he thinks most businesses that want city work will welcome the chance to compete for work without the worry or cost of making political contributions. * |