Dear Lisa Deeley, We’re Sorry

Dear Lisa Deeley, We're Sorry

Our petition to eliminate the City Commissioners could put y'all out of a job

Feb. 24, 2016

Lisa Deeley, y'all've had a tough become of it in 2016.

Y'all worked hard all of your life to get where you are. You lot played the game. Y'all worked in (and worked) the Democratic political automobile. You lot paid your dues, yous waited your turn. Finally, in 2015, with City Commissioner Stephanie Singer veering off the rails, The Party decided that it was your plow. You helped bump Vocalist off the ballot, routed all comers, and won your start election. Fair and square. In Jan of this yr, yous were inaugurated to exist one of the three chieftains of Philadelphia'southward elections, a  (seemingly) of import and honorable mail service.

And it was going to get even meliorate! Incumbent Democrat Anthony Clark, who won a second term every bit City Commissioner concluding year, well… let's just say he isn't really interested in things like "doing any work." Or fifty-fifty showing upwards to work . Or even making a pretense that he's showing up to work. Or voting . Or abiding past election laws . That was not bad for you though! His indifference meant that you lot'd be a shoe-in to become Chairwoman, the highest rank for your office. After all, he'due south a Democrat as well, and would want to see a fellow Democrat actually running the articulation. One time there, you'd get to work with Al Schmidt, a Republican with a progressive, reformer streak, to make a difference in Philadelphia elections.

Then information technology all went to hell.

Clark and Schmidt double-crossed you without fifty-fifty a courtesy telephone call. Clark took a pay raise, Schmidt took the ability, and you got left belongings the bag.

And now these jerks over at The Philadelphia Citizen have started a petition to eliminate your office entirely.

In your defense, Ms. Deeley, y'all're not going down without a fight. Although your style is, to say the least, peculiar. Despite being in part for less than two months, you've already tried to pass two measures directly aimed at screwing over Clark and Schmidt. Starting time, you tried to accept your fellow commissioners' pay docked if they didn't come to the office enough. Then, when that didn't work, yous tried to take their emails audited to see if they were actually responding to citizen's requests. Both of those efforts were glaring reminders of but how pathetic things have gotten. But they were also doomed to fail because in order for them to pass you needed at least one vote from either—wait for it—Clark or Schmidt. Anthony Clark is never going to punch a time clock, and Al Schmidt is never going to let you audit his email.

Yous had to know this going in, right? If not, it would be difficult to conclude anything other than that y'all're another beginning-time politician who doesn't know how to play the game well enough to actually get results. Given your fourth dimension working for Councilman Bobby Henon and Controller Alan Butkovitz, information technology's hard to believe that you'd exist such a novice. Only your actions wait and experience a lot like the rookie mistakes that Daylin Leach copped to making when he was first elected.

A savvy, cynical politician, one might recollect, would try to work with Clark and Schmidt to benefit all three of you in some way. Give us the appearance of reform without really making Clark exercise a damn bit of work or making Schmidt relinquish his newfound authority. We're Philadelphians! We're trained to have exactly that type of shenanigans!

Then again, the more I call back about it, the more I call up you might just exist a savvier politician than you get credit for. Here'due south how I see it: once Clark and Schmidt screwed you over, you had two options. Pick ane was to keep your head down, try to make minor reforms and improvements, and promise against promise that in four years you proceed your seat and Clark or Schmidt go voted out. Not very likely, though, and it would require four long years of waiting. Not merely that, you'd be probable to exist painted with the aforementioned wide brush every bit Clark and Schmidt, making you an easy target when information technology'due south time for re-election.

Option 2 was to ask yourself: What would Frank Underwood do? Destroy both of them. Your public attempts at reform, though doomed to fail, take accomplished 1 major goal: keeping the story in the media. Anybody from the austere Philadelphia Inquirer to the normally-mild-mannered Commission of Seventy wants to pile on. People are pissed, and you lot helped them go that way.

Clark and Schmidt knew they'd grab hell from you. Only they didn't count on us. They didn't count on the people of Philadelphia standing up and proverb "enough is enough" with the unabridged sham of the City Commissioners' function. They didn't await a Citizen petition to have over 900 supporters already, with more to come. Your problem is that, if we throw them out, we'd be throwing you out, besides.

I promise, for your sake, that yous have an exit strategy. Even if you were the best person for the task, at this signal I'yard more than willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater, because the bathwater is toxic. I'm not sure what your side by side play will be, merely I'm certainly interested to meet how this whole thing plays out.

Simply what I actually hope is that, at the end of the day, the city of Philadelphia gets to have people in accuse of their elections who bear witness upward to work, do the piece of work, vote, and generally give a damn nearly running our elections.

---

Like what you're reading? Stay updated on all our coverage. Hither's how:

• Like the states on Facebook
• Follow us on Twitter
• Follow us on Instagram

benitezseemn1985.blogspot.com

Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/lisa-deeley/

Share this post