Pay to Play

Just to fill you all in on what's happening in Philadelphia and Bucks County politics...

Tonight I watched the debate between incumbent Philadelphia mayor John Street and his Republican challenger, Sam Katz. The big topic was what has become euphemistically known as the "Federal Investigation." Two weeks ago, a listening device was discovered in the mayor's office. The Mayor's campaign at first complained to the Katz campaign, demanding to know what they knew about it. The local FBI office piped up and said, "Uh, we planted that bug." Mayor Street, it seems, is the subject of an investigation. He has turned over computers, his bank records, and those of his wife and his son. Previously, there have been scandals (keep in mind the guy has only been in office for three and a half years) involving contracts to serve the sports stadium that went to his brother, millions of dollars in forgiven parking tickets, and a few other irregularities.

Bad news for any candidate, right?

Not in Philadelphia. Mayor Street is stronger in the polls.

Because sympathy akin to the popular reaction to the OJ Simpson verdict is way too depressing to comtemplate, I have another theory.

Sam Katz, who seems to be a very decent man, is doing his best to turn this election into a referendum on the Pay or Play culture of Philadelphia politics. In this town, if you want anything done, you've got to pay off the right person, making the right contribution to whoever's campaign warchest, that kind of thing. It's really all pervasive. Want your street plowed in the winter? Does your city council member have you listed as a donor? It's really that pervasive.

And I think that's what's going wrong for Sam Katz. The good people of Philadelphia are probably wondering, "What guarantee will I have that my street will be plowed this winter?" I mean sure, Pay or Play is whatchamightcall corrupt, but things get done that way. Why make life more complicated with all that good government stuff?

And here in Bucks County there are other interesting things happening in a hot County Commissioner race. Each county in Pennsylvania is run by three commissioners, two from one party, and one from the other party. In Bucks County, we've had two Republican commissioners and one Democrat commissioner for a long, long time. With the exception of 1983, when Democrats managed to squeak out a victory by making hay about the construction of a controversial pumping station on the Delaware River. (Abbie Hoffman died in Bucks County while working against the construction of said pumping station.)

This was, in my mind, absolutely deplorable. The pumping station was totally a non-issue. A few local whackos spent a lot of time fear-mongering, conjuring images of our beautiful river resembling the Gobi desert. And, the county commissioners were pretty much out of the picture. There wasn't a lot they could do either way. But the Democrats used it as an issue to get a few people who wouldn't normally go to the polls in an off year to do so, and managed to get four years of power. The pumping station was out, and they were out after one term.

And now, they're trying to do it again. The issue this time is the construction of an annex to our courthouse in Doylestown. The Bucks County Courthouse is actually a pretty magnificent building, constructed in the '60s. It's an elegant, round building sitting in the middle of town, departing from the 18th and 18th Century architecture that surrounds it, but fitting right in all the same. Alas, there's not enough space, so there's been talk of a 'new courthouse.' At first, I was horrified that they were going to raze the current courthouse and build some dumbed down kitchy thing in it's place. But no, they're building an annex. The plan is to raze some of those lovely Victorians to build the annex. An alternate site has been proposed, where a now defunct building that housed a Mrs. Paul's Fishsticks factory used to stand. But, the lawyers and judges would have to walk three blocks up hill to get from the Mrs. Paul's site to the current courthouse, and they'd rather not do that. The place where the Victorian mansions now stand would probably cost two or three times the price of the Mrs. Paul's land.

You get the picture.

The Republican commissioners say we need a new courthouse, a site has been selected, there will be a tax increase to pay for it amounting to about $2.00 per person per year, end of story. But the Democrats... ...are making a coherent argument about historical preservation and broader community planning in the site selection? Well, no. They're attempting to get a referendum on the ballot asking essentially whether the good people of Bucks County will allow the money to be levied to build the thing.

Say what?

Exactly. No one argues with the fact that we need a courthouse. And no one disagrees that it's gonna cost money to build. But the Democrats are arguing that the Republican majority are trying to 'shut out the voice of the people' because they're opposed to having a referendum.

Who knows how this is going to turn out. (They don't exactly do a lot of polling in county commissioner races.) But either way, it's kind of a bust, no?

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