"This Was No Accident"

Philly mag has an excellent story out, "This Was No Accident," about the building collapse on Market Street that killed seven people.

The story focuses on L&I, the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections, that allows tragedies like this to happen every few years as the "hidden cost" of doing business in the city. The corruption at L&I, and the politicians who have enabled it, have been a hot topic on this blog:

"I Came Here To Speak For Dead People"-- former L&I Commissioner Bennett Levin takes City Council on a 20-year journey through a trail of dead bodies and entirely preventable catastrophes that began with the Merdian fire.

Contractors Run Amok While L&I Promotes Commerce -- more lack of accountability and scandal at the city's worst agency.

L&I Snoozes While Demolition Site Across The Street From A City High School Becomes A Land Fill; Then A Bloody Crime Scene -- A 19-year-old is murdered at a notorious neighborhood dumping ground.

0

City Council Demolition Report Gives Nutter And L&I A Pass But A "Johnny Doc-umentary" Nails 'Em

A Star Is Born

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

The City Council should have hired Johnny Doc to turn its special report on demolition practices into another "Johnny Doc-umentary."

After holding five public hearings on the fatal Market Street building collapse, the City Council on Sept. 26th released a 69-page report on how to reform the city's demolition practices to prevent future tragedies.

If you didn't read it, I'll save you the trouble. It's a real snore that only bureaucrats and government wonks would appreciate; dense and filled with jargon. Worse, the report fails to hold accountable Mayor Nutter and the Department of Licenses and Inspections for their lax approach to public safety that was amply exposed during the public hearings.

Fortunately, the Philadelphia Building Trades Union has released a 19-minute documentary, "Deconstructing Post Brothers: Exposing the Truth Behind the Cheap Facade." The film, which stars "Johnny Doc" Dougherty, business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, had its world premiere Oct. 1 at the electricians headquarters on Spring Garden Street.

The union film targets the Post Brothers non-union construction job at the Goldtex Apartments on 12th Street with predictable venom. But along the way, it's everything the City Council report isn't -- fast-paced, easy to understand, and hard-hitting. Best of all, it features a cast of characters blasting our incompetent mayor and the drones at L&I for failing to protect us.

3

Contractors Run Amok While L&I Promotes Commerce

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

What the hell is going on at City Hall?

In the fifth and final City Council public hearing today on the June 5th building collapse on Market Street, the public finally got a chance to speak. Witnesses testified about a city where unscrupulous contractors run amok, and an administration where public safety has taken a back seat to politics and commerce, with deadly results.

Jim Foster, editor of the Northwest Independent, talked about how the public hearings have only been the beginning "of the process that tells the truth about how a city unraveled its own codes, played politics with due diligence, let down the citizenry, and now we have seven dead and many maimed." Foster was speaking about the building collapse that killed six, injured 14, and prompted the suicide of a L&I building inspector.

The editor said the responsibility for the building collapse rests at the top. "The cavalier attitude of the mayor and staff cannot be justified," Foster said. "No issue has brought more citizen outrage back to me as editor than this wall collapse and the deaths."

It was another bad day for Mayor Nutter, who previously had tried to mute the City Council's public hearings on the building collapse by barring current city officials from testifying.

The heaviest damage political damage to Nutter and his inept former L&I commissioner -- Fran Burns, now CEO of the city school district -- came from a trio of heavyweight plumbers who testified about the city's willful lack of oversight over their trade.

7

Bennett Levin Says Mayor Nutter Violates City Charter While De-Emphasizing Life Safety At L&I

Bennett Levin

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

Former L&I Commissioner Bennett Levin charges that Mayor Nutter is in the process of "tearing down" his former department. Along the way, Levin says, Nutter has de-emphasized public safety, as well as violated the city charter.

"During your campaign for mayor, you often expressed your disdain for the department," Levin wrote in an open letter to the mayor today that was circulated to the media. "In my humble but experienced opinion, the problem is not solved by tearing down the department, by slashing its workforce by 25 percent, or by providing it with a commissioner who, from all appearances, knew absolutely nothing about its core and basic public safety responsibility ..."

The City Council has been holding public hearings on the June 5th building collapse on Market Street that killed six people, injured 14, and prompted an L&I inspector to commit suicide. At an Aug. 1 hearing, City Councilwoman Cindy Bass asked Fran Burns, former L&I commissioner under Nutter, why the focus at L&I had switched from life safety to economic development. Burns, L&I commissioner from 2008 to 2012, claimed it wasn't true in testimony that underwhelmed council members and spectators.

The mayor's press office did not respond to repeated requests for comment on Levin's charges. Apparently, they only respond to the newspaper owned by the Democratic party.

1

"I Came Here To Speak For Dead People"

Bennett Levin (Clem Murray for the Inquirer)

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

Former L&I Commissioner Bennett Levin returned to City Hall Thursday to testify about the incompetence and corruption of local government, and how it was responsible for a series of catastrophes and a trail of dead bodies dating back more than 20 years.

"I came here to speak for dead people," Levin told City Council members. He said the city can no longer allow L&I to be "a political backwater where money talks and people die."

It was 90 minutes of straight talk in a place unaccustomed to hearing it. Levin, L&I commissioner from 1992 to 1995, named names, told inside stories, and settled some old scores. He also ripped the press, although you won't read about it in the Inquirer. 

The reaction in Mayor Michael Nutter's button-down, bureaucratic City Hall was astonishment. One City Council member, Bobby Henon, gushed over Levin's "career of speaking truth to power." Another Council member, Curtis Jones Jr., appeared starstruck. "I don't know whether to call you Commissioner or Professor at this point," Jones said. "Because we've been in class."

When it was over, one municipal employee congratulated Levin on his ability to stick his foot so far up the posteriors of some former city officials that surgery might be required from a proctologist.

3