Check out Saidel's manifesto, "The Saidel plan to reform Philadelphia's government and political system."
Thoughts?
ETA: I spent more time with this document tonight. It's very interesting. There are several sections in which the ideas are common-sense or somewhat familiar (which is not a slight; everyone knows we should reopen the issue of who's a candidate and when they can raise money, for example, but it's still something worth listing in a manifesto).
The best stuff is on government accountability and efficiency. He's got some good points about contracts, from political influence that weighs upon them to the lack of decent documentation. There's a good point about the speed of city government action. And he says he believes Philadelphia should have a 311 line, as do New York and other cities, so city residents could request or report problems with city services.
Some of the other points of interest:
*A suggestion to move City Council races to a year that's not a mayoral race, so council gets the attention it deserves. (Personally, I found this idea interesting. As committed as I am to covering the mayor's race, I am concerned that council will get lost in the frenzy.)
*A common-sense recommendation that campaigns, not just donors, be responsible for adhering to donation limits.
*Instituting performance-based budgeting, which means that city departments would have to set clear goals and be measured on how well they meet them.
*Copying the Baltimore program called CitiStat, which monitors government performance regularly -- instead of just once a year, at an audit.
*Random audits of entities that get government funding.
*Detailed invoices for contractors. (I know, I have a detailed invoice for the guy who is doing the renovation in my basement, but according to former City Controller Saidel, in city government things are different. "[O]utside contractors are not necessarily required to submit detailed explanation of the work performed and how it meets the requirements of their contract along with their invoices," he writes. Good grief.)
*Coordinating purchasing across government.
*And this, which I will simply quote: "Because government frequently requires approval of major projects, the process can drag on, drastically increasing the costs of doing business in Philadelphia. To remedy that, there should be a 45 day limit on government action once an application is complete."
45 days? That would be quite a change.
Comments (5)
Ooo ooo! Let me go first!
First:
"But if we are going to make the difficult choices that must be made in Philadelphia -- to balance our budget, to improve education, to reduce crime, to cut job crushing taxes, to rebuild every neighborhood -- the people of Philadelphia must have
confidence that elected officials are doing what is in the best interests of the city." (page 2)
"Job crushing taxes..." hmmm, that term sounds familiar.
Second:
"Use city stadium tickets to generate revenue for the city, reward employees or
other public purposes. Currently, the City has access to tickets at almost every event in one of our four stadiums – the Spectrum, Lincoln Financial Field, the Wachovia and Citizens Bank Park. These tickets should be made available for use by the public and civil service employees in government. The tickets can either be bought or given away and an acceptable use includes as a fundraising tool for non-profits. Furthermore, a list of which tickets were used and by whom should be available for public inspection in the office of the Mayor." (page 10)
I haven't read Saidel's book in a while so this very well may be in that book. If not, I would remind people that this is a suggestion that came up, almost word for word, during the 2003 campaign. I only point this out because I really like the idea. I'd definitely be in favor of giving these tickets out to worthy non-profits, charities, everyday heroes, kids, etc. My only change would be to make the list of tickets available for public inspection on the web, not just in the office of the Mayor.
Third (for now):
"Increase citywide planning. Currently, too many agencies in government do not coordinate their activities, limiting the impact any single one of them can have.
We should increase the coordination across agencies and across government to ensure that when we bring resources to bear that it does not address a symptom
of a problem, but rather solve the substance of it. For example, public works
should be coordinated with police and with public housing. That way in a problem neighborhood, problems are not addressed in a piecemeal manner."
This point is absolutely HUGE. It addresses perhaps one of the biggest things that keeps government from being efficient. Think about all the times that the Streets Department has torn up and repaved a street only to have the Water Department come in 6 months later and do the same thing while doing routine maintenance on a water main. The kind of coordination suggested by Saidel, like making city service district maps have coterminous borders, is sooo important. Yet, here it only gets a 7 line bullet on page 11. I'd like to hear more about this.
I'll have more later. For now, I'll put a check mark in the "Has ideas" column next to Saidel. Whether they're all his ideas or the work of people who work for him is irrelevant. That doesn't matter so long as he can convince people that he can accomplish these ideas. We'll see how he plans to do that.
Posted by Dan | November 15, 2006 5:41 PM
Smart guy. Too bad he squandered 16 years as Controller, was a party hack, and played it safe. He just doesn't deserve it.
Posted by Philly Phantom | November 15, 2006 7:00 PM
I pretty much agree with the comments so far. There are some good ideas in the document, but much of the wording is also reminiscent of many of Brett Mandell's Philadelphia Forward emails (and reports issued by the Controller's office while Mandell was on the payroll).
If Saidel earnestly works on getting this stuff done while in office, he'd likely make a good mayor. The question is whether you trust him to do so.
Posted by Dave | November 17, 2006 12:14 PM
Regardless of who you think it "sounds" like, it's his idea...
Plus, it's his book...so he gets credit.
I have to trust him to do it as much as I trust any of the other pols running.
Posted by Anonymous | November 17, 2006 2:55 PM
I finally have time to make some specific comments on the document that aren't included in the previous pots:
- The document makes multiple references to the city's new independent Board of Ethics. Page 2 of the document makes reference to "the Street Administration['s ...] appointments to the independent Board of Ethics." However, the document fails to give Michael Nutter credit for sponsoring the legislation that resulted in the creation of this board. I believe it was city council bill #051024:
http://webapps.phila.gov/council/detailreport/?key=5672
See page 5 for penalties the board is allowed to apply to ethics violators (page 6 of Saidel's document calls for penalties to be stated for campaign finance violations, but I'm not sure that's necessary, unless he's advocating more stringent penalties than those the Ethics Board already has the authority to levy).
- He also mentions Michael Nutter's no-bid contract reform legislation on page 4, and later criticizes it for potentially excluding the lowest bidder from getting a contract because of having made large campaign contributions. While I see the point, I'm not sure that I agree with it since these organizations wouldn't be totally barred from contributing (they'd still be able to give up to $10k) and I don't see why people doing city work should expect to be able to significantly influence the outcome of elections. That's an ability I think should be forfeited by anyone who chooses to bid for a city contract.
- On page 5, the document makes a convincing argument for the inherent flaws contained in the campign contribution limit legislation sponsored by Wilson Goode Jr that limits contribution limits to $2,500 from individuals and $10,000 from organizations. He also appears to call himself "disingenuous" in the second paragraph of that page.
- Page 7: I really like the idea of having mayoral and council elections on different years. I get the impression that Philadelphians don't pay nearly as much attention to city council as they should, considering it's basically Philadelphia's version of the U.S. congress and, as such, is responsible for the laws that the mayor signs into law (or vetoes).
- Also on page 7, the document argues against term limits for elected officials based on the merits afforded by experience. While it's a good point, I would argue that, if there aren't term limits, something needs to be done about the fact that taxpayers foot the bill for a full time staff for each city council member, that they basically use as campaign staff during election time. This gives a huge advantage to incumbents (this is partially addressed on page 12 in the "Ban fundraising by council staff" section). Furthermore, it would seem like 8 years is enough time to get the needed experience to be effective. The vast majority of candidates should have had ample time by the end of their second term to pass whatever imaginative legislation they were elected for championing (the fact that they won't face re-election after their second term would also give them an incentive to take chances, rather than playing it safe and avoiding making voters mad).
- I like the idea on page 12 of requiring legislation to be posted on the internet, along with the way city council voted on it. However, as I demonstrated with the link I posted earlier, this is already at least partially the case. When I inquired about reporting on how council votes, I was told that adding that functionality to the website is currently being worked on. Here's the website, for anyone interested in tracking city council legislation:
http://legislation.phila.gov/mattersearch/home.aspx
The city could work on making tools like this more accessible to voters (I'm not sure I could find it anymore if I hadn't bookmarked it when I first found out about it).
- Page 8 of the document advocates implementing the CitiStat program, already being used in Baltimore. I don't really have much to say on the issue, but thought I would direct people to a proposal by Vern Anastasio (who is running against Councilman DiCicco in the 1st district) on the same issue:
http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/showthread.php?t=20896
Posted by Dave | November 18, 2006 6:06 PM