Probing the Probe

Government watchdogs say the media's doing a good job covering the federal indictments.

by Deborah Bolling

Philadelphians have had just seven weeks to digest the impact of the two indictments that have so far resulted from a two-year federal probe into possible corruption in City Hall. However, with no designated local government watchdog agency to oversee the veracity of the information, whose job is it to guarantee that the probe itself is being properly scrutinized?

Ed Schwartz, the executive director of the Institute for the Study of Civic Values and a former councilman at large, says he believes Philadelphia needs an independent operation dedicated to overseeing the day-to-day issues confronting the city, such as ethics, bidding processes and campaign finances.

"There is no agency in town — including ours — that's looking at the administrative procedure of government in a systematic way," he says. "No group in town has defined its role as fighting for any kind of government reform, and I think that would be very helpful."

Most voters are familiar with the services of the Committee of Seventy, the venerable organization that has rigorously monitored city elections for a century. But since the June 3 indictments handed down by the U.S. Attorney's Office probe, the agency has played no role in, or offered any analysis of, what many see as the largest municipal scandal to hit this town since the Abscam fiasco two decades ago.

According to its Web site, the Committee of Seventy, created in 1904, is "a not-for-profit, non-partisan political watchdog dedicated to advancing good government for the city of Philadelphia." According to its IRS filing, the organization is particularly focused on "promoting good government … through voter education, monitoring elections, and publishing documents on issues relevant to the city charter."

While, on occasion, the Committee of Seventy has weighed in on a variety of ethics issues, by and large, it is not their primary task to monitor these matters. Last December, Mayor John Street organized the 21st Century Review Forum, a collective of experts who examined the way Philadelphia city government was performing and helped develop ways to address any deficiencies. Fred Voigt, the executive director of the Committee of Seventy and a lawyer by profession, was named to the ethics committee. Schwartz says that while it was a good start, the effort did not go far enough.

"These things come and go with the different administrations," Schwartz says. "There is, though, no major movement anywhere."

Voigt, who has been with the Committee of Seventy for 30 years, was unavailable for comment this week, but someone familiar with the organization said that while it's issued no reports about the probe or the indictments, the group is actively monitoring the situation. In line with its more traditional role, however, it is intensely focused on the upcoming presidential election, which it views as the biggest one in "30 or 40 years."

"The Committee of Seventy was basically formed to watch over the elections, and they do a very good job at that," Schwartz says. In his view, the media is most responsible for keeping citizens informed.

"The daily papers have given us the in-depth analyses and interesting feature stories [about the probe and the indictments]. They're covering the arrests as they happen and they're not publishing rumors. I think the press is doing a pretty good job."

In 2001, Ed Goppelt founded hallwatch.org, an independent Web site that keeps a watchful eye on city government, regularly providing articles about city agencies and City Council. Often, Goppelt's Web site will scoop the daily papers, and it has become a must-read for many of the city's political junkies. To date, though, only one item about the probe or the 18 people who were indicted as a result have been posted.

"I'm a one-man band and I'm stretched pretty thin," Goppelt says. "The daily papers are much better equipped to handle this kind of story. Actually, I think the Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer have done a very good job of getting that information to the public. I think that's more their job than anyone else's."

Lance Haver, the city's consumer advocate and a proponent of good governance, says he thinks both the probe and city government should be viewed more analytically.

"The whole system is broken," Haver says. "But instead of focusing on the broken system, the FBI is holding a few people up for scrutiny. They're misleading and misguiding the public. The Justice Department is doing the whole city a disservice by not focusing on the real fact that if you want to be a serious candidate for any office, it costs. It is suggesting that there is nothing wrong with the system, just a few so-called bad African-Americans who've benefited from it."

Haver says, however, that the federal probe and ensuing indictments should serve as a civics lesson.

"It should be illustrative of the overall problem … and how difficult it is to raise money and be a candidate," he says. "This allegation shows that the whole system needs to be changed, but I don't think it would be appropriate to use city government to guide people to that way of thinking. That's the job of the Fourth Estate. They have the greatest voice with the greatest resources."