'Shredder Gate' in City Hall

I wasn’t sure if I should title this post ‘SCANDAL in City Hall’ or ‘SHREDDER GATE in City Hall’. 

Since Scandal conjures up an image of Olivia Pope in a pant suit, I opted for SHREDDER GATE instead.

• Councilman Nafis Nichols accused the former Republican administration of shredding financial documents before leaving office in 2011.
• Nichols claimed employees also were instructed to transfer financial data onto flash drives that were never given to the Dems.
• Nichols promptly held up a trash bag filled with shredded documents and dropped it onto the floor.
• Nichols said he was unaware exactly what shredded documents were inside the bag he held up, but said the Democrats discovered various bags of shredded documents when they took office in 2012.
• “Why would you pull a prop out like that and know it’s not evidence?” former Councilman and current candidate trying to return to Council, Shep Garner asked. “That’s not right.”
• Garner also said his department was expected to give a flash drive containing financial data to the incoming Democratic administration; Nichols said he never received it.
• “We never put it out there because we try to rise above the issues,” Nichols said. “We didn’t pout about it because we knew that we had a job (to do). We had to hit the ground running and we had to move forward to get everything back in order.

I think the new administration is having a hard time with this budget stuff. Maybe the old administration was unwilling to help them during the transition period where budget knowledge is usually transferred. Or, maybe the new administration didn’t ask for help because they saw things so out of order that they felt they needed to get to work right away to fix things. 

Maybe it’s just going to take some time for them to understand the exact state of the city finances. But, at some point, they’re going to have to own up to what they have to work with and move forward.

Carrying around old bags of shredded trash is not the way to build credibility. 

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From the October 9-15 issue of the C/C Spirit paper we read these statements pertaining to Shredder Gate from the candidates for City Council:

The $5 million dollars 

West: Nearly $5 million the Republicans left was restricted money that couldn’t be used for payroll and daily operations.

Garner: Showed bank statements amounting to $4.9 million in all account. The only restricted account was the capital improvement account ($653,000).

The Firefighter’s contract

West: Money problems continued when the new administration approved the firefighters contract. 

Garner: Claims the arbitration award was about $700,000 less than what West’s claims.

Overtime Abuse

West: The Republicans permitted massive overtime. 

Garner:  Three of the eight people West says received massive overtime where in Linder’s and West’s departments. And, the Democrats increased their own pay by $6,000 for  a car allowance. 

PPL Park agreement not on the books

Jacobs: The auditors were not able to rely on balances that go back to 2009 because payments of $12 million under a contribution agreement were misstated. 

West: The land that PPL Park sits on was sold to Delaware County at a bargain price. Chester will never collect any property taxes. 

Garner: Owners of PPL Park agreed to a Payment in Lieu of Taxes to Chester. ($500,000 2010-2014 and $150,000 from 2015-2040). They also pay earned income tax from employees of the park and the Philadelphia Union players.