Jethro Heiko responds to Councilman DiCicco

Yesterday, through his attorney, Councilman DiCicco sent me a letter
claiming that I defamed him by posting on YPP that the Councilman has
engaged in corruptionto the detriment of our waterfront and city
planning. The letter demands an immediate retraction and apology.
Rather than respond to his attorney I will post my response here. I
will not retract my post nor will I apologize.

I am, however, happy to explain in greater detail what I meant when
I referred (and will continue to refer) to the Councilman as a
politician who engages in corruption. But let' get real about the term
– it means lacking in integrity, virtue and moral principle; it means a
deviation from what is right; it means failing to represent the public
interest. It does not mean that the official took a bribe and I have
never used it that way. I should be able to use the term when I think
the shoe fits. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope you support my
right to voice my opinion.

In my post, I said that our Delaware waterfront is in a sorry state
due to his and his mentor' corruption.I think this is a obvious and
unremarkable assertion. Our waterfront is an embarrassing joke. The
control over its development is largely a function of local zoning and
land use laws; and the Councilman has been in charge of zoning in the
First District for some time now. The gated towers of Waterfront
Square, the wholly inappropriate solid walls of the garage at the Hyatt
Hotel, the overloading of the southern end and the resulting traffic, I
could go on and on and on. We all could.

Our Delaware River Waterfront is one of the City' greatest assets
and its development history and current status is horrendous. Some
would even say, rhetorically, that it' a sin and a crime. Why hasn’t
the Councilman changed the zoning on the waterfront in the many years
that he has been the district councilperson? Why? And, finally, when we
have a fantastic planning effort led by thousands of citizens, guided
by Penn Praxis in an open and transparent manner – that gave us the
Civic Vision – the Councilman drafts, sponsors and passes a new Zoning
Overlay that fails to adopt all the recommendations of the Civic Vision
and worse yet, drafts zoning for casinos that exempts them and their
satellite parking from that zoning overlay. Sure, he passed some of the
recommendations but not the key one about the width of the waterfront
setback. Why can’t the Councilman just do what the people want? Why is
it so hard? All of that is evidence (on top of what we can see – or not
see – when we walk on Delaware Avenue) that his conduct was and is
lacking in integrity, virtue and moral principle, that it deviated from
what is right and that it is not in the public interest. It gets worse
when he claims that he will protect one constituency and neighborhood
at the expense of others and attempts, with some success, to divide and
conquer. In my view, that is corruption.

And when crafting the zoning legislation which allows Sugarhouse
satellite parking, exempting surface parking lots from the new zoning
overlay for the Waterfront he opens the door for more corruption at the
newly named Delaware River Waterfront Corporation, formerly the Penn'
Landing Corporation. Rather than advancing the civic vision in a
transparent way we have an agency, City Council, and Mayor whose vision
for the riverfront mirrors that of Neil Bluhm, developer of the
proposed Sugarhouse casino, rather than that of the thousands of
citizens who spent tens of thousands of hours developing the civic
vision.

I think it was wrong for the Councilman to accuse me of defamation.
YPP is a place for people to have discussion and debate in a public
forum. Yes, when I wrote my post I was mad (and I still am). If the
Councilman wants to rebut my statements, if he wants to claim that his
stewardship over the development of the waterfront was based on
integrity, virtue and moral principle, then he should post a response
online. He is a public person and he stands up and takes praise
wherever he can get it. But Councilmanic prerogative has to work both
ways – it means that the Councilmember is responsible and should be
held accountable for the zoning laws in his or her district, especially
when there has been as much tinkering in the First District; and
especially when he has presided over so many failures and lost
opportunities at our waterfront.