by KYW’s Mike Dunn
Philadelphia’s political watchdog group says with two vacancies now on City Council, special elections to fill those seats should come no later than November.
Rick Mariano is now a former city councilman, and that leaves two open seats in the 17-member city council. David Cohen died last year. Zack Stalberg, head of the watchdog group Committee of 70, has now sent a letter to Council President Anna Verna urging her to fill those seats ASAP:
“The fact that there are two vacancies now begins to make it much more difficult for Council to do its business. So in order to avoid all of Council from being a lame duck, and in order to avoid disenfranchising citizens, we’d like to see that election held in November.”
Verna says she has not made up her mind whether to call special elections for the seats this November or wait until 2007.
The latter choice would leave the seats vacant until January of 2008.
Stalberg says the vacancies hamper the work of Council:
“You need 9 votes to pass anything, and 12 votes to pass certain key matters. If two seats are empty that becomes difficult. If Councilman Nutter resigns at some point to run for Mayor, then you have three vacancies.”
If there are special elections, ward leaders will decide the nominees for the two major parties. Stalberg guesses that Verna is already hearing loudly from ward leaders, and he hopes she doesn’t make the easier choice of simply waiting until next year.
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