I visited City Council chambers yesterday as members held a hearing that would determine the creation of a special committee to look into not only the situation at the Hard Rock but for other purposes too, including looking into the Office of Safety and Permits. A couple things came out of that meeting that I thought were productive and positive.
Jason Williams spoke of having communicated with officials in Philadelphia, where a building collapsed and within two weeks, their council was having hearings looking internally at their processes they use to deal with safety and permit issues, and examine any possible deficiencies there.
Interestingly, one thing we learned is that Mayor Cantrell had already hired a law firm from Philadelphia to assist in an internal investigation into Safety and Permits. It has been reported that the FBI and the city's Inspector General are investigating the Safety and Permits Department. The mayor states that a city council investigation would be an impediment to the investigation by legitimate investigative authorities; however, the mayor's hiring of a Philadelphia law firm to conduct an internal investigation would not be considered an impediment.
Why would it not be revealed to the council that the mayor has in fact hired a Philadelphia law firm? I doubt very seriously there was a request for qualification, or RFQ - it would seem she unilaterally decided to pick this particular firm. But are they playing the role of the lawyer, or the role of investigator? It will be interesting to see if there’s a willingness to reveal the engagement of this firm. All of this came out because, in political circles, we wouldn’t want the council to be the beneficiaries of asking any questions and compelling people to answer, right? I think we’re already reaping benefits from the council setting up a committee. It seems all too curious that this may be so far reaching that we have to engage a law firm from Philadelphia to do this internal investigation without sharing it with the council. Any time the city contracts with a third party, the council has oversight.This has everything to do with the tug-of-war, back-and-forth, this reluctance to be open and transparent about this process and to make these allegations that the council would be an impediment, but a third party law firm would not.
Last I checked, the public elected the council - not a Philadelphia law firm. The mayor’s actions seem to be incredibly disingenuous and sound ego-driven. Nobody knows yet how much the firm is getting paid for this work, we’ll see if there’s a spirit of transparency in that regard. The mayor did say that Polite’s firm is not investigating the collapse and had in fact been hired prior to that event - but here we are four months after the collapse and we’re just finding all this out.
The public has every right to be afforded an opportunity to opine on this issue. Sitting in chambers yesterday, you could feel the sense of relief as people got the chance to speak out to authority. There is a desire in this community to try harder and be better. It’s hard to argue with that. The council passed the resolution without opposition, and now move on to the next level. What will they find next? We don’t know, but I’m glad they have the chance.
