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Friday, November 6, 2009
Making it up as they go
The city solicitor found the deal Mayor Nutter reached with the BRT to be in violation of the state Sunshine Act.

Talk about a gang that can’t shoot straight.
 

The Board of Revision of Taxes can’t even go out of business without breaking the law. Turns out the BRT violated the state Sunshine Act last month when it voted to turn over its main function to the Nutter administration.
 

The BRT board met in secret to vote on a closed-door deal reached with Mayor Nutter to allow the city Finance Department to take over the setting of property values. The meeting wasn’t advertised, and no one from the public was in attendance.
 

“Under these facts, a violation of the \[Sunshine\] Act clearly occurred,” City Solicitor Shelley R. Smith wrote in a legal opinion.
City Councilman Bill Green requested the legal opinion after Nutter announced the surprise deal last month. Fortunately, someone is trying to follow the proper procedures at City Hall.


When the deal was announced, Nutter dismissed questions about the legality of the closed-door session, which unilaterally shifted control of the BRT’s assessment function to the mayor’s office without public input. Recall that when Nutter ran for mayor he promised to run an open and transparent government.
 

Nutter’s spokesman said the BRT will now take steps to advertise and conduct a meeting in public. Such a session will likely be nothing more than a rubber stamp, given that the deal was already signed in secret.
 

But at least it will give the public a chance to ask questions and voice concerns about the move. For example, in reaching the deal, were any BRT board members promised a job once the agency is revamped?


Shifting the BRT’s main function to the mayor’s office is hardly an inconsequential move; determining property values impacts every home and business owner in the city.


Given that the BRT is so incompetent and politicized, any attempt to fix the agency should be done in the open so as not to repeat or compound past mistakes. But operating in the open — as required by law — isn’t how the BRT has operated over the years.


Indeed, The Inquirer series that prompted the recent reform efforts detailed how the BRT was driven by politics, patronage, and secrecy.


In some instances, the longtime former chairman, David Glancey, a onetime Democratic Party chief, would essentially determine assessments for well-connected property owners on a cocktail napkin. As a result, property assessments are uneven and in disarray.


The BRT board is populated with political hacks who work part time for $70,000 a year. Dozens of agency employees are patronage hires who got their jobs because of who — not what — they know. Many are Democratic ward leaders and committeemen whose main job is to get out the vote on Election Day and secure political favors the rest of the year under the guise of “constituent services.”


Operating in secret in violation of the state Sunshine Act is no way for Nutter and the BRT to try to restore faith in the broken agency.
 

Posted by Inquirer editorial board @ 2:00 AM  Permalink | Post a comment
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About The Inquirer Editorial Board
Harold Jackson, a winner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing, grew up in Birmingham, Ala., during the civil rights movement. He graduated from Baker University in Baldwin, Kan., in 1975, with a degree in journalism/political science. He has also worked at the Birmingham Post-Herald, United Press International, the Birmingham News, and the Baltimore Sun. He was at The Inquirer in the mid-1980s, returned in 1999, and became editorial page editor in 2007.

Paul Davies is the deputy editor of the Editorial Page. His newspaper career has spanned more than 20 years and includes stints at The Wall Street Journal and the Philadelphia Daily News. He graduated from the University of Delaware and received a masters in journalism from Columbia University, where he was also a Knight-Bagehot Fellow. He was born in Philadelphia and still lives in the city.

Tony Auth began drawing while bedridden for a year and a half at the age of five. He graduated from UCLA in 1965 and worked for six years as a medical illustrator while doing three cartoons a week for various college newspapers. Tony has been happily ensconced as The Inquirer’s editorial cartoonist since 1971. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976, and has won numerous other awards, including five Overseas Press Club Awards, the Sigma Delta Chi award for distinguished service in Journalism, and the Herblock and Thomas Nast Prizes. Tony is married to Eliza Drake Auth, a painter of realistic landscapes and portraits.

Trudy Rubin is the foreign affairs columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a member of The Inquirer’s editorial board. Her column appears twice weekly in The Inquirer and runs regularly in many other newspapers around the United States. She is the author of Willful Blindness: The Bush Administration and Iraq.

Kevin Ferris is an assistant editor on the Editorial Board who oversees the Sunday Currents section and writes a weekly column on a wide range of issues. In his 15 years on the board, he’s handled letters to the editor and the Community Voices pages and has been Commentary Page editor. He started with The Inquirer in 1986, and his assignments have ranged from the copy and news desks to the Chester County bureau and the national/foreign desk.

As an editorial writer for The Inquirer for the past two decades, Russell Cooke has written on a wide range of topics covering government, legal, civic and social issues. Before joining the Editorial Board, he was a reporter in the Inquirer’s City Hall bureau.

Editorial writer Dave Boyer joined The Inquirer in 2002. He writes about politics, government, the economy, sports and many other subjects, but draws the line at writing about "Jon & Kate Plus Eight." He has won journalism awards and insists bribery was not involved. A native of Allentown, Boyer graduated from Penn State. He and his wife reside in Center City, where they enjoy strolling and paying the wage tax.

Melanie Burney joined the editorial board in January 2008 after covering education at the Inquirer for eight years. She previously worked at the Associated Press in Philadelphia and southern New Jersey. She is a graduate of Glassboro State College, now Rowan University, and a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Josh Gohlke has been The Inquirer’s op-ed editor since last year, editing the daily commentary page and writing occasional editorials. He came to the Inquirer after eight years at The Record of Bergen County, N.J., first as a reporter covering local and state politics and government and ultimately as the deputy editorial page editor. He also worked as a reporter for several smaller papers in New Jersey and California. Josh was born and raised in Los Angeles and graduated from Stanford University. He lives in Philadelphia.

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