November 23–30, 2000

hall monitor

In the Rick of Time?

City Councilman Rick Mariano says he’s "immensely bothered" by recent City Paper stories that have raised questions about how life safety issues are being handled by the Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I).

Mariano, chairman of a Council committee that oversees L&I, says that earlier this month, he introduced a bill that would require developers to have proper standpipes as a condition for obtaining a certificate of occupancy.

Some Fire Department officials say the Mariano bill is unnecessary because current law already requires a developer to meet all provisions of the fire and building codes before he can obtain a certificate of occupancy. Mariano’s staff, however, says that the Councilman’s bill is needed because it corrects a "gray area" of the law. The bill has not yet been put to a vote.

Standpipes are the vertical piping that supply water to individual floors in a high rise. A City Paper story in September reported that a top L&I official had dismissed violations for not having a sufficient standpipe system in a 13-story building at 235 S. 15th St. The city’s inspector general is investigating that incident, as well as the dismissal of a total of 100 fire code violations at 15 high rises or apartment buildings owned or managed by Philadelphia Management Corp.

Mariano, an electrician, says he was concerned about the safety of firefighters and residents. He says he also plans to introduce a bill that would require sprinklers in all high-rises. "I’m a building trades person," he says. "Some of my best friends are sprinkler fitters." It was a "gross mistake," Mariano added, that current city codes do not require sprinklers in all buildings over 75 feet tall.

Mariano defends L&I Commissioner Edward J. McLaughlin, saying he is "a real straight, decent guy." McLaughlin and other top officials at L&I have been criticized for allegedly doing favors for developers like Philadelphia Management, such as dismissing fire code violations and issuing a temporary certificate of occupancy for a 17-story college dormitory at Broad and Chestnut that had open elevator shafts and combustible trash throughout the building.

Mariano says McLaughlin was "just trying to work everything out" himself. "I guess he thinks he can help this situation by having a hands-on approach," Mariano says.

The Councilman was speaking after a Wednesday hearing where former L&I Commissioner Bennett Levin was invited to speak about L&I’s approach to blight and collapsing houses.

Levin, in prepared remarks, said it was "manifestly apparent that the department is overextended and lacks the management skills" to handle blight. Levin also said he was upset that more than $400,000 of taxpayers’ money had been "quietly spent over Fourth Amendment claims." He was referring to what the city spent last year to settle two civil rights cases in federal court. The first case involved what a federal judge said was an unconstitutional search of a former convent by L&I officials; the second case involved the improper shut down of an adult entertainment center.

Levin said the money would have been better spent to demolish abandoned buildings in the city’s neighborhoods.

—Ralph Cipriano

Index of previous stories in the L&I Files saga located here.