Did you know that the Allentown Mayor and Council are exempt from following any city travel rules just because they are elected? They do not need to follow the ethics laws, the PA State rules, or the Public Purpose Doctrine that is a constitutional rule that limits how government — including municipalities — may spend public money.
Ethics, conflicts of interest, and financial disclosure laws are state level laws, and they state that the Mayor and Council are not above the rules of the municipality, and they are not able to be exempted from the State ethics laws.
One of the interesting items that were uncovered from the Human Resources Committee meeting tonight was that our mayor seems to have violated the State Ethics laws may times by accepting travel from vendors who the city has contracts with. Hmmm?
.jpg)
Frank Kane let that one drop when he said that there is no need to report travel paid by a vendor or outside agency. Are these people for real? I thought I would help you.
They are so inept that they don’t even know they are exposing their own corruption. The PA State Ethics Act states the following:
What Travel Is Not Allowed?
Travel paid by vendors, developers, contractors, or regulated entities
● If the city regulates them, contracts with them, or they seek approval from the city, officials cannot accept travel from them.
Travel paid by lobbyists or principals
● Lobbyists and principals are categorically prohibited from providing travel benefits.
Travel that creates a conflict of interest
● Any travel that could reasonably be seen as influencing official action violates §1103(a) and §1103(b).
The mayor has accepted travel from contractors. As an example, the city has routinely partnered with Bloomberg and Harvard, and they have paid the mayor’s travel – a clear violation of the ethics laws. #PhiladelphiaFBI
So tonight your clueless council accepted the ruling of the city's solicitors that the mayor is exempt from the rules, yet they were unable to cite where that exemption is coming from, other than a 2001 memo from a prior Solicitor. That tells me that no investigation was carried out, and the clueless legal department once again took the easy path and protected their mayor. The legal department is embarrassing enough but the council accepting that they aren’t able to do anything is worse. The Mayor is not above any of the rules of the city, the code, manuals, policies, etc. The council controls what policies (i.e. the PPM and financial policies) become law.
The council needs to stop believing the bullshit that this administration is presenting them and start working for the people of this city. Then again, Mota was the sponsor of this bill tonight, and she didn’t even show up. It is a slap in the face time and time again with these people.
Lastly, why is Mario the HR Director answering a policy that is clearly another Bina Patel area? Is it because Bina never has answers, so they put the HR Director up there? Well, he didn’t seem to know anything and babbled on about nothing related to the issue.
He probably should not speak again.
4 comments:
Great post!!! Why are these people so corrupt? I hope the FBI storms city hall.
AEDC LVED as well as many hare today gone 2morrow LLC'$ have been doing this for years. It's called in kind gifts and is a criminal offense even when paying other contractors to do work for officials.
Frank Kane sitting in front of the dias and telling the full council (less Mota) that we can be collaborative and cooperative or we can have a “more adversarial relationship” is a joke. It is a joke that he thinks he can talk like that to the legislative body and it is a bigger joke council sat there and didn’t call him out.
This man really is an embarrassment to the city, a perfect representation of the Tuerk administration, but an embarrassment to Allentown. Josh Siegel and I actually agree on one thing - he is to be put out for trash collection.
Lucky for Frank the city screwed up the trash contract too and Matt was able to grab him.
This really is an interesting revelation. Sounds almost like the many reported “contributions” to the old Pawlowski regime. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the rotten Morning Call to further look into this matter. Even if they would, they tend to hide anything negative about any radical Democrat cause or bad actors.
Willful blindness by most corporate media is what’s killing America.
Post a Comment