Nutter announces campaign finance, ethics task force
Mayor Nutter yesterday announced the creation of a task force that will study fixes to be made to the city's five-year-old campaign-finance law, and review city ethics policies as well.
Mayor Nutter yesterday announced the creation of a task force that will study fixes to be made to the city's five-year-old campaign-finance law, and review city ethics policies as well.
"I campaigned on a promise to clean up city government and to restore citizens' faith in City Hall - this is one more fulfillment of that promise," Nutter said in a statement.
Even so, hours later the city's leading government watchdog group, the Committee of Seventy, expressed disappointment that the task force's work would not likely be completed in time to affect two significant races - for city controller and district attorney in November 2009.
Under the schedule Nutter presented, the task force is expected to submit a report to the mayor and City Council by Feb. 1. Any changes would most likely require Council approval, which could take months.
"We were hoping for a panel that would get together quickly and do its work quickly," said Zack Stalberg, Committee of Seventy president.
Nutter ordered the task force, which will be appointed in the next two weeks, to hold at least one public hearing.
The panel will consist of nine members, each to be appointed by one of the following: Nutter; Stalberg; Council President Anna C. Verna; AFL-CIO Philadelphia Council president Pat Eiding; University of Pennsylvania Law School dean Michael Fitts; Philadelphia League of Women Voters president Kelly Green; NAACP Philadelphia Branch president J. Whyatt Mondesire; Philadelphia Bar Association Board of Governors chancellor Michael Pratt; and Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce president Mark Schweiker.
