Green, market fight over documents
The Reading Terminal Market cheesesteak war raged on yesterday in City Council even as long-time sandwich maker Rick Olivieri prepares to move on.
The Reading Terminal Market cheesesteak war raged on yesterday in City Council even as long-time sandwich maker Rick Olivieri prepares to move on.
Councilman Bill Green in March proposed a resolution that his colleagues later approved to have the Committee on Commerce and Economic Development examine the workings of "economic development departments, authorities and agencies."
He included the Reading Terminal Market Corp. in a list of 43 entities to be examined by Council.
Green is a childhood friend of Rick Olivieri, whose family has run Rick's Philly Steaks in the Terminal for 25 years. Olivieri settled a long legal battle with the market in June and must move out by the end of this month.
Green, in a letter to the Daily News after the settlement, complained that people entrusted with protecting public assets like the market were really trying to help friends and associates.
That prompted an angry response from Councilman Frank DiCicco, who sits on the market's board of directors, and accused Green of "political naivete" and grandstanding for publicity.
Yesterday, in a committee hearing, Green complained that he had asked the market six weeks ago for documents covering 34 areas of interest but received only a fraction of them.
Olivieri watched the hearing from the audience, but his name never came up in the debate.
Paul Steinke, the market's general manager, questioned whether the committee had the authority to demand the documents. Steinke said that the market's four-person staff would be burdened by the request for thousands of pages of documents.
"We were reluctant to delve into that and take everyone away from their jobs," Steinke said.
Lewis Rosman, a senior attorney in the city Law Department, testified that Council has the authority to examine the market's operations and to subpoena documents if necessary.
Green, noting that the market had spent $700,000 in legal fees fighting Olivieri, said that it would be "unfortunate" if more money was needed to deal with subpoenas. *
