What’s hard about this?

It’s been two weeks since I identified 29 candidates for Philadelphia City Council who hadn’t provided legally-required information to the city Board of Ethics.

I’m happy to say some of you got the message and got legal.

But 15 candidates, including three incumbents, somehow haven’t managed to meet this basic requirement of running for office in the city.

The three sitting Council members who can’t be bothered are Jannie Blackwell, Curtis Jones and Darrell Clarke (UPDATE: the Curtis Jones campaign got its stuff in Friday, April 8.). Among the delinquent challengers is Al Taubenberger, who was the Republican candidate for mayor four years ago. The full list is provided below.

(UPDATE:  NewsWorks heard word from Curtis Jones’ campaign manager that he has submitted his information to the ethics board.)

Okay folks, let’s go over this: When you become a candidate for office, it’s your responsibility to contact the Ethics Board and provide:

1. The name and street address of your campaign committee.

2. The name and telephone number of the committee treasurer, as well as the treasurer’s email address, if there is one.

3. The name of the bank the committee uses.

Pretty simple. Should take about five minutes.

If you’re on City Council and you can’t meet this requirement which was enacted by Council last year, I don’t know what to say.

If you’re a challenger, and you can’t manage this simple clerical task a month after the filing deadline, we should all wonder whether you’re up to the responsibilities of the office you seek.

The Ethics Board needs this information because they’re charged with enforcing the city’s campaign finance rules. They haven’t raised a public fuss or sued anybody yet, and I had to make a public records request just to get the filings by candidates so far.

But providing this information is a building block of public integrity.

So do it. If you get the info to the board and send me a copy, I’ll update this post to reflect your compliance.

Coming up, I’ll check on candidates for sheriff and city commissioner.

 

City Council candidates who haven’t supplied required information to the Ethics Board (D & R denote Democrats and Republicans):

Incumbents:

Jannie Blackwell – D

Curtis Jones – D  (UPDATE:  Jones’ has complied with the Board of Ethics rules)

Darrell Clarke – D

Challengers (District races):

Ivan Cohen (2nd – R)

Suzanne Carn (5th – D)

Robin Tasco (8th – D)

Bobby Curry (9th- D)

Lamont Thomas (9th- D)

Challengers (at large):

Lawrence Clark – D

Michael Jones – D

Janis E. Manson – D

Humberto Perez – D

Alexander Wilson – D

Malcolm Lazin – R (UPDATE: Lazin complied on Friday, April 8)

Al Taubenberger – R