When these rare moments of transparency occur, optimists - we misguided few - dare to believe that reform can come to this ossified, arthritic culture.
And then you remember City Council.
"People had a meeting, and they disagreed," Marian Tasco said. "Folks fight for their point of view. What's wrong with that?"
Tasco views herself as a reformer who yearns to be Council president, an ally of Michael Nutter, who's playing the Gary Cooper role in this civics version of High Noon.
"I think having this out in the public right now without any law enforcement agency doing due diligence is a disservice," said Jim Kenney, adding, "Dwight deserves the benefit of the doubt until law enforcement looks at this."
Chief Integrity Officer Joan Markman, the report's author, spent 20 years in the U.S. Attorney's Office working on several high-profile government cases, including the Corey Kemp-Ron White fiasco that embroiled the last mayor but didn't impede his reelection because, after all, this is Philadelphia. Evans, in his exquisite hubris, refused to meet with Markman.
We get the politics. But there's something deeply disturbing with thwarting a legitimate, community-based process, upending the SRC's decision and, when these efforts fail, strong-arming a legitimate school operator.
"Sometimes the most powerful survive," mused Philadelphia philosopher Frank Rizzo, Part II. "That's what politics is all about. Powerful people have the ability to deliver projects. . . . Dwight used that power to be helpful to a legitimate organization. There's nothing wrong with that."
There's nothing wrong with that. Should be Council's motto.
