City Council debates over who gets to protest zoning decisions.
Councilman Frank DiCicco has apparently come up with an innovative scheme for funding Philadelphia’s little league teams.
Under his plan, there’s no need for the cash-strapped city to spend money on summer baseball for kids. DiCicco’s strategy is simple, and it’s already operating in his own council district. Here’s how it works: The councilman — along with community groups — agrees to support outdoor advertisers looking to erect billboards in his district. In exchange for this support, the billboard companies contribute thousands of dollars toward neighborhood little league teams.
DiCicco boasted about the deal during a heated City Council hearing May 30. In fact, DiCicco used this creative funding stream for little league as justification for a bill he’s co-sponsoring, along with Councilwoman Joan Krajewski, that would make it difficult for citywide advocacy groups to challenge zoning waivers in Commonwealth Court. Bill 629 would amend existing law to allow only neighborhood residents, local groups and "aggrieved taxpayers" to appeal decisions made by the Zoning Board of Adjustment — whose members are political appointees chosen by the mayor.
Council’s Rules Committee approved Bill 629 by a vote of 5-3 last week. Committee members James Kenney, Thacher Longstreth, Brian O’Neill and Anna Verna joined DiCicco in support of the measure. Committee members Darrell Clarke, Michael Nutter and David Cohen voted against it. The full council will vote June 14.
Joanne Phillips, a real estate attorney on leave from power-firm Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll to serve as "special assistant" to Managing Director Joe Martz, testified for the Street administration in favor of the bill.
The May 30 hearing was rife with irony.
Although DiCicco insists Bill 629 is not aimed at the anti-billboard group SCRUB (Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight), he was unable to describe a single situation where another outside group challenged a zoning waiver. And the proposed measure comes on the heels of 18 successful appeals by SCRUB that prevented signs on restricted property, including four rulings that are considered "precedent setting."
DiCicco asserted that billboard developers can financially benefit local areas. After "extensive meetings" with a community group, DiCicco said, he decided to support a billboard near Front and Snyder Streets.
"[T]he billboard company said, ‘For your support, we’re going to invest $30,000 into your civic association and a thousand dollars a month to the rec center for the next 12 months.’ [That’s] a grand total of $42,000 that you can put into your rec centers, into your libraries, or buying uniforms for little league teams. Then SCRUB came along and said, ‘We’re opposed to this billboard because we don’t like billboards.’"
SCRUB’s attorney, Sam Stretton, argued from the witness table that the sign in question violated at least five provisions of Philadelphia’s billboard ordinance — a law originally passed by City Council. Stretton told DiCicco that if he believes the billboard ordinance is too restrictive, he should attempt to amend that law, not the entire zoning appeals process.
DiCicco was visibly upset when he learned SCRUB struck a much sweeter deal with a billboard company.
Under intense pressure from DiCicco, Stretton acknowledged that SCRUB accepted a whopping $500,000 from Interstate Outdoor Advertising, one of the companies SCRUB is fighting.
"A half-million dollars?" DiCicco repeated in disbelief. "I probably could have taken care of just about every little league team in my district and had money left over."
And to think he settled for a mere $42,000.
Stretton testified that Interstate offered SCRUB a "one-time donation" on the condition that the group drop a handful of legal challenges against billboards the company planned to erect near the Food Distribution Center and the First Union Center. Other than that, "there were no strings attached," Stretton insisted. (SCRUB currently has a suit pending against Interstate in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, as well as three others in Commonwealth Court.)
Earlier in the hearing, before Stretton acknowledged how much SCRUB took from Interstate, DiCicco demanded, "You are a 501(c)3. Are you not required to report your financial information?"
An interesting question coming from DiCicco, given that a South Philly civic group he co-founded with State Sen. Vince Fumo in 1991 — Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods — reported $5.6 million in anonymous contributions during 1999, according to a recent federal tax form. DiCicco resigned as president of Citizens Alliance in August 1999, and has refused to answer City Paper’s repeated inquiries about these generous donors on the grounds that he no longer heads the group. Citizens Alliance’s current spokesperson has also refused to divulge donors’ names.
DiCicco said he has received "the lump sum" of $1,500 from outdoor advertisers over the past six years. But how much money in Citizens Alliance’s bank account came from billboard companies?
One last irony from the May 30 hearing should be noted.
Several times, DiCicco pointed out that Stretton currently lives in the suburbs, as if to imply that a non-city resident shouldn’t be commenting on a Philadelphia policy.
Moments later, Nutter asked Phillips — the attorney representing the Street administration — if her own community association was among the 47 neighborhood groups publicly opposed to Bill 629.
"I don’t live in the city," Phillips said. "That’s why I’m a consultant to the city."
If politics is a game, why should little league be excluded?