Candidates trade accusations of corruption, scandal

Probes. Raids. Listening devices. Pay to play.

These are just some of the newest buzzwords in what has become a long history of governmental corruption in Philadelphia.

Coming into the final week of the mayoral election, corruption, and how to fix it, has become a central campaign issue.

Even before the Federal Bureau of Investigation's probe of Democratic Mayor John Street was discovered three weeks ago, a number of other incidents -- including a massive no-bid contract awarded to Street's brother Milton Street, the fixing of city officials' tickets and an accusation that Republican mayoral challenger Sam Katz embezzled funds from his former business -- had brought the problem to the foreground.

To fix the problem, Katz has developed a plan to make the government more open. Some of his new initiatives would be to pass an anti-nepotism bill, "revive the City's Code of Ethics and jump-start the City's Board of Ethics," he said in a statement on July 10.

In contrast, Street has not developed a plan to alter the city's government in any way.

"I won't [say] that the mayor has taken some steps that have stopped something that I don't think is going on," Street spokesman Mark Nevins said.

He said that any anti-corruption plan "presumes that there is something going on. I won't grant... that presumption."

However, "the mayor is going to continue to lead by example," Nevins said.

But some analysts feel differently.

"Philly is one of the few cities anymore that has very soft reporting requirements for campaign contributions," said David Thornburgh, the Pennsylvania Economy League's executive director. "And it is one of the few that has no limits" on contributions.

He also said that the "pay to play" culture has been pervasive in Philadelphia politics.

Pay to play refers to businesses contributing to a campaign and then getting preferential treatment -- such as more government contracts -- when the official gets elected.

But Thornburgh noted that pay to play has been around a lot longer than Street.

Political Science Professor Jack Nagel said that the billboard explosion along Pennsylvania's highways was because Governor Ed Rendell "didn't enforce" existing laws, which he said was evidence of "pretty flagrant influence of campaign contributions."

"This didn't magically appear under Street four years ago, we've been nurturing and growing that, for literally 100 or 150 years," Thornburgh added.

But that doesn't excuse the practice, which he contends has been hurting the city's economy even more than the trust of its voters.

"I think it is absolutely true that cities that have a more transparent process for getting access for doing business with the city, are going to do better than those with a murky, politically sensitive, pay to play environment," he said.

"Pay to play doesn't work as a business development tool. It drives business away. It's a tax."

Nagel said that it "certainly does... give advantages to people who contribute," often at the expense of everyone else.

This sentiment has been consistently reiterated by the Katz camp.

"This city's budget mess has been made worse because this city is not being run well and money is wasted taking care of political insiders and family," Katz said in a statement made June 19. "Because of political favoritism and mismanagement, real and qualified minority businesses are losing out."

But Street rejected the notion that he was paying off his friends. During last week's debate, he said that "we've never hired an unqualified person, we've never paid too much for a service and we've never paid for a service we didn't need."

But while some remain skeptical that Street is squeaky clean, Katz is not without his share of scandal.

A number of his former business associates accused him of embezzlement. Katz has ordered the documents to the court case sealed, despite Street's calls for full disclosure.

However, the documents were released yesterday after a Delaware judge ruled they be unsealed. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, they did not contain sufficient information to link Katz to the charges. Other evidence involved in the case has not been released by attorneys, though.

The question of whether or not the documents would remain sealed was a point of contention at last week's debate, when Street called Katz "hypocritical" and challenged him to open the documents for scrutiny.

Katz defended himself by saying he was the subject of a "frivolous lawsuit" by a disgruntled ex-employee.

He added that he "will have [his] day in court," and will be proven innocent.

And he shot back with his own corruption barbs during the debate, calling the latest FBI investigation "an exclamation point on 100 years of a city corrupted."

He also has plans to create an executive order regarding ethical standards if he is elected.

"My administration will implement a 'one strike and you're out' code of conduct for all city employees," Katz's statement said.

Other points in Katz's plan include making all contracts open-bid, and making government more available to Philadelphia citizens through better communication, including a designated 311 phone number that people could use to register complaints.

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