Verna postpones Nutter's SEPTA appointees

Philadelphia may not have much say in SEPTA's affairs as the transit agency prepares a new $1.13 billion budget and proceeds with ambitious construction plans.

The 15-member SEPTA board said goodbye last month to Philadelphia's two representatives, Jettie Newkirk and Christian DiCicco, with a formal farewell resolution and a round of applause.

But as the board prepares to meet today, Mayor Nutter's appointments to replace Newkirk and DiCicco are bottled up in City Council, apparently held hostage in a dispute between President Anna C. Verna and Nutter.

Nutter sent Council the names of his nominees, city transportation chief Rina Cutler and community activist Beverly Coleman, on Feb. 26. The nomination resolution was referred to the Committee of the Whole, which Verna chairs.

The committee conducted a hearing March 23, then held the appointments subject "to the call of the chair," which means until Verna decides to take them up again.

Newkirk and DiCicco haven't formally resigned and could return to their seats today if they wanted to, SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said yesterday.

Neither could be reached yesterday for comment.

Newkirk gave her farewell address to the board at last month's meeting. DiCicco did not attend; the son of City Councilman Frank DiCicco and a former aide to ex-State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, he is enmeshed in some of the fallout from Fumo's federal corruption conviction.

At Fumo's trial, prosecutor Robert Zauzmer described Christian DiCicco as part of "a group that is committing a fraud" with the senator. And on April 7, the state Attorney General's Office named him in a lawsuit seeking to shut down the South Philadelphia nonprofit Citizens' Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, of which DiCicco was executive director.

DiCicco resigned last week from the board of the East Passyunk Avenue Business Improvement District, citing a heavy work schedule.

There has been friction between Nutter and Verna over several issues, including his call for Council members to give up their city-owned cars and his criticism of members' lucrative enrollment in the contentious Deferred Retirement Option Plan.

Anne Kelly King, chief operations officer for Verna, said of Nutter's nomination resolution, "Several Council members requested that it be postponed." She wouldn't say who or why. King added, "We were under the impression that the current mayoral appointees would continue serving until new appointees were named."

Nutter's press secretary, Douglas Oliver, said: "We're looking forward to getting our people on there. Obviously, these are very important positions to be filled." Oliver said he did not know what considerations might be holding up the nominations.

SEPTA's board must approve the agency's $1.13 billion operating budget and its $418 million capital budget before the end of the fiscal year June 30.

The suburb-dominated board is made up of two representatives from each of the five Southeastern Pennsylvania counties served by SEPTA plus five others appointed by the governor and the minority and majority leaders of the state House and Senate.

The city representatives have a unique power because of Philadelphia's importance to SEPTA: They have a veto power over board actions that can be overridden only by a three-fourths majority of the board.