Another vote for reform

Anthony Clark heads a city agency, yet he rarely shows up for work. He is in charge of ensuring that Philadelphians can vote, yet he doesn't seem to value voting much because he barely does so himself.

He did find time, however, to bully his subordinates into giving his brother, Alex Clark, a $4,700 raise. For that, the city Board of Ethics last week fined Clark, the chairman of the City Commissioners, $4,000. But it's a pittance compared with Clark's ill-deserved $134,000 salary.

Though Clark is elected, voters have little alternative. The feckless Democratic machine put him on the ballot and keeps him there.

Clark's run-in with ethics officials is the latest reminder that Mayor Nutter and City Council need to begin the process of changing the City Charter to professionalize this office and remove it from the grip of self-serving politics. It should be folded into the administration and headed by a qualified executive versed in the nuances of elections. That would limit the opportunities for incompetence and corruption. Cities such as San Diego and Boston have shown the way by eliminating elected boards in favor of professional administrators to run elections.

Clark is a creation of a flawed and antiquated system. His predecessor, Marge Tartaglione, also used the agency to enrich her family, appointing her daughter Renee as her deputy. The younger Tartaglione resigned in 2010 after an ethics board investigation forced her to admit violating restrictions on government employees' political activities.

The Tartagliones lost control of the City Commissioners not because voters were outraged at their behavior, but because they fell out of favor with the Democratic machine. Marge Tartaglione was replaced by newcomer Stephanie Singer, a self-styled reformer who has been a disappointment in office, unable even to muster enough legitimate signatures to get on the ballot for reelection.

Her colleague Al Schmidt has his job because the City Charter guarantees a seat for a member of the minority party, in this case the Republicans. Though he is the most competent and reform-minded commissioner, it was Schmidt who engineered Clark's ascension to the chairmanship amid squabbling with Singer. It was an act of political pragmatism that has allowed Schmidt to rule the roost.

Schmidt does so with some success, but the pitfalls of the accommodation are obvious. Without wholesale reform, the City Commissioners' latest embarrassment won't be the last.