On Nov. 8, voters will go to the polls to elect a new city controller. That current controller, Jonathon Saidel, is not running for re-election has made this race a lot more interesting. Both candidates for the open seat, Democrat Alan Butkovitz and Republican Hillel Levinson, have made ethics a major campaign issue. But are they implying that the current officeholder has had ethical lapses?

Neither Butkovitz or Levinson would comment directly on Saidel's performance, but clean behavior has become a hot topic since the City Hall probe.

"Everyone," says Butkovitz, "is talking about ethics now."

An important development was the introduction in City Council, by Councilman Michael Nutter, of an ethics reform bill.

Levinson said he changed his registration from Democrat to run as a Republican because he believes the controller should not be of the same party as the mayor to avoid coziness. Butkovitz has laid out a 15-point agenda to codify ethics in the controller's office. Reforms range from new procedures on no-bid contracts to establishing new standards for bond counsel.

The major part of the city controller's job, according to the Home Rule Charter, is to audit city departments to assure taxpayers that the city is not misspending their money. The controller has the authority to conduct special audits on any department, board, commission or agency.

To ensure that he can look at any aspect of municipal government, the controller is independently elected and functions independently of the mayor and City Council.

So, as the overseer of the city's affairs, why didn't Saidel notice anything suspicious about the way Ron White was obtaining business as the bond counsel appointed by Mayor John Street?

The controller's office says that despite the fact that Saidel sits on the Bond Committee (along with the mayor and the finance director), he doesn't have any control over the bond counsel. According to the office, White was paid by the bank, not the city, so the controller's office had no say over what goes on at the bond transaction's closing — at which the counsel is paid.

Last week, this reporter met with officials from Saidel's office: David Volpe, former first deputy city controller, now a consultant to the controller's office; Anthony Radwanski, deputy city controller; John Foulkes, director of legal and financial affairs; and Anthony Di Martino, assistant city controller. They maintained that the controller's office does not have as much power as it should have, and the mayor holds the cards. They also say that they would push for less of a "cloak of secrecy" and do not approve of the way bond deals go down.

"We would love the opportunity for bond counsel to not be paid at the table," said Di Martino.

They recalled that there was never a problem with White's bond-counsel work or the work of Gerald Mayfield, an attorney in White's office who worked with him on the bond deals. What they were paid was not out of line.

What could raise any flag was the frequency that White's firm was used for these deals. The officials stand by the office's performance.

The controller's office, itself, is subject to an audit. The charter states that City Council must conduct an audit of the controller's office every three years, but no one at the meeting remembered council having ordered the audit within the last decade. Saidel himself orders an audit of his office periodically by the CPA firm Mitchell & Titus, according to deputy city controller Albert Scaperotto.

Radwanski pointed out that Saidel publicly criticized former Mayor W. Wilson Goode in the early 1990s for the way he handled bond work.

Volpe said that the controller's office has never audited the Bond Committee because it is ad hoc and doesn't meet regularly.

This March, while the corruption trials were already under way, Saidel wrote a letter to Mayor Street. Under the subject of "Bond Transaction Professional Appointments and Costs," Saidel wrote that he wanted to understand the process better. He continued that he was "concerned about the number of professionals the city uses on bond issues, as well as the process the city uses to select those professionals. "I have no role in selection and do not seek a role. I am merely attempting to gain a better understanding of the process by which firms are selected," Saidel wrote.

If the office disagreed so much with Street, it could have made its displeasure public. Which leaves the issue of politics. Since the controller is elected, he must rely on support from members of his party. When Street was under the gun after the federal probe was announced — shortly before the 2003 general election — Saidel, a fellow Democrat, went to bat for him.

Did Saidel think it wise to criticize those he depends on politically? It's no secret Saidel is interested in running for mayor himself.

"How can you be a reformer and public official at the same time?" asks Ed Goppelt, Web master of Hallwatch.org.