City ethics board fines, fires two Council employees for political work

Two Philadelphia City Council staff members will lose their jobs and pay fines after city Ethics Board investigators caught them doing political work in their city offices last May.

The ethics board announced settlement agreements with the employees, Michael Moore and Kacy Nickens Monday.

Both are employed by Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, who did not run for re-election this year.

Days before the May primary, ethics board investigators served a subpoena on Miller’s office and found the employees with political fliers informing voters of the 59th ward which candidate Miller was backing.

“The office photocopier was printing hundreds more copies of this flier, and so we literaly shut off the copier and seized all the hundreds of samples of this flier that were literally in piles throughout the office,” Creamer said.

It was illegal for those employees to produce those fliers on city time in city offices. Nickens will a $300 fine, and Moore will pay $3800. Both will be barred from city employment for a year.

Creamer was asked whether Councilwoman Miller, whose endorsement was the subject of the flier and whose employees did the work, had any role herself.

“I won’t answer that directly but I will note that elected officials are not subject to the political activity restrictions in the charter,” Creamer said.

Neither Miller nor the employees could be reached for comment.