Category: Accountability

Sixers’ Second Bad Call on East Market Street

This time last year, the billionaire owners of the Sixers were going hard for a new basketball arena on East Market Street. 76 Place was a public transit-oriented project hitched to a beleaguered public transit agency. Then as now, SEPTA is facing a fiscal cliff. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is threatening to push the mismanaged agency over the cliff.

Market East has been in decline for decades. Empty storefronts line the once thriving shopping district. The Sixers and their new bestie, Comcast, plan to demolish buildings and build, well, nothing. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported:

The companies that own the 76ers and Flyers earlier this year made a high-profile commitment to help transform the long-distressed East Market Street corridor.

The first development to come out of that promise? Perhaps a mini-soccer pitch. Or a pop-up beer garden.

The teams recently hired a contractor to demolish buildings they own on the 1000-block of the beleaguered thoroughfare with the goal of eventually erecting a major development that could help revitalize the area.

But, until then, City Councilmember Mark Squilla said Friday the teams and city leaders hope to “activate” the lots slated for demolition with “pop-up” opportunities related to the FIFA World Cup and the nation’s 250th birthday being hosted in Philadelphia next summer.

The Sixers and Comcast’s development plan to shoot first and aim later was shot down by the Design Advocacy Group:

In the meantime, the sports teams that now own many buildings on the 900 and 1000 blocks of Market Street are already planning to begin tearing them down with nothing more in mind than a “pop up” beer garden or miniature soccer field.

If popups are wanted by FIFA and the 250th, Market Street already has large demolition sites—the surface parking lot at 13th and Market and the gigantic “Disney Hole” at 8th and Market. Not far away is the gaping void on Jewelers Row, a cautionary tale about premature demolition. These places remind us of past failures where rushed demolition yielded no replacement.

Of course, Market Street needs dressing up in time for the flood of visitors we look forward to in 2026. And pop-ups on existing empty sites should be part of that. But it makes no sense to stage such impulsive demolition on Market Street to create spaces we don’t need now for the not yet planned projects that may come next.

UPDATE: The Philadelphia Inquirer Architecture Critic Inga Saffron doesn’t trust the Sixers and Comcast’s process:

The long-awaited effort to reinvent Market East began in the same bombshell manner as the Sixers’ arena proposal did three years ago — with no transparency and no planning.

First, the two new BFFs of the Philadelphia sports world — the Sixers and Comcast — blindsided Mayor Cherelle L. Parker (and the rest of us) by announcing that they intended to raze several buildings on the 1000 block of Market Street, an area covering half the block. As for what they would put in their place, well, they’ll get back to us on that.

This has to be the worst idea for fixing Market Street’s woes since the last bad idea: the Sixers basketball arena.

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SEPTA Officials Deleted 76 Place Records

Although SEPTA is in a transit death spiral, the agency is wasting money on outside counsel fighting release of records related to the Philadelphia 76ers’ proposal to build an arena atop Jefferson Station.

I submitted a Right-To-Know Law request on August 1, 2023 for records related to 76 Place for the timeframe of April 1, 2022 to July 31, 2023. After losing before the Office of Open Records and the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, SEPTA now claims more than seven gigabytes of data were deleted. Former CEO Leslie Richards and current CEO Scott Sauer deleted records related to the most controversial proposal in the transit agency’s history.

Richards left the cash-strapped agency in November 2024 but she’s still collecting a check from SEPTA.

It is said that those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. Fittingly, Richards is now teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. Penn recently announced that Richards received the 2025 Government Service Award from the Philadelphia chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

In deleting 76 Place records, Richards did a disservice to the public. We have the right to know how SEPTA could have been stuck paying tens of millions of dollars for the Sixers billionaire owners’ now-abandoned vanity project.

SEPTA is Exhibit 1 as to why the Pennsylvania House of Representatives should pass Senate Bill 686, sponsored by Pennsylvania Senate State Government Committee Chairman Sen. Cris Dush. The legislation makes the intentional destruction or alteration of Right-To-Know Law records a third-degree felony.

Following passage of SB686, Sen. Dush said:

I find it deeply troubling that Pennsylvania’s long-standing RTK law mentions no criminal offense for destroying or altering records subject to a RTK request. Not surprisingly, the rule of law is entirely thwarted whenever government officials or their staff intentionally dispose or suppress records that have been requested under RTK provisions, and which the public has every right to examine.

Those who cannot handle the truth should not get away with criminally suppressing the truth. In short, the punishment for violating our Commonwealth’s RTK law must fit the crime. It’s well past time in Pennsylvania to balance the scales of justice against this preposterous ‘get-out-of-jail-free-card’ for the flagrant destruction of RTK records with a maximum third-degree felony conviction.

It is deeply troubling officials destroyed records knowing that if SEPTA approved 76 Place, lawsuits would fly.

What Are SEPTA and City of Philadelphia Hiding?

The Philadelphia 76ers abandoned their plan to build an arena atop SEPTA’s Jefferson Station. But SEPTA is still playing games to block disclosure of communications with the Sixers’ billionaire owners and their representatives.

SEPTA lost their appeal of the Office of Open Records’ Final Determination to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. The beleaguered transit agency was directed to conduct a good faith search for records responsive to my Right-To-Know Law request for, among other things, invoices, reports, feasibility studies, traffic impact studies, architectural designs and cost estimates.

In a sworn statement, Allison DeMatteo, SEPTA’s Manager of Records and Information, claimed her search using the keywords “76 Place” and “76 Devcorp” returned 7.60 gigabytes of data, including 5.71 gigabytes of email.

According to ChatGPT, one gigabyte of email data is roughly 100,000 pages. As of this writing, SEPTA has produced 30 records.

Meanwhile, the City of Philadelphia has petitioned the OOR to reconsider its final determination, dated May 30, 2025. The OOR should tell the City: We said what we said. “[T]he appeal is granted in part and denied in part, and the City is required to provide unredacted responsive records, as designated in this Final Determination, to the Requester within thirty days.”

UPDATE: Office of Open Records Deputy Chief Counsel Kathleen A. Higgins to the City of Philadelphia: The Petition is DENIED:

Therefore, after a review of the complete appeal file, including the Final Determination Upon Remand and the arguments set forth in the Petition, the record indicates that all evidence and submissions before the OOR were considered and given proper weight, and as a result, I cannot conclude that the Appeals Officer committed an error of law or an abuse of discretion. Accordingly, the Petition is DENIED.

In other words, the City of Philadelphia got to give it up.

SEPTA Ordered to Give Up 76 Place Documents — Again

On August 1, 2023, I filed a Right-To-Know Law request for records related to the Sixers’ now-abandoned proposal to build a basketball arena atop Jefferson Station. SEPTA denied the request, claiming the entirety of my Request was “insufficiently specific.”

I appealed the denial to the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records. The OOR determined that several Items were sufficiently specific and ordered SEPTA to conduct a good faith search for the records on December 20, 2023.

Rather than comply with the OOR’s final determination, the cash-strapped public transit agency paid outside counsel to appeal the order to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.

On May 1, 2025, the Commonwealth Court affirmed the OOR’s findings, stating that my Request was sufficiently specific, in part. SEPTA was, again, directed to conduct a good faith search for records responsive to my Request for, among other things, invoices, reports, feasibility studies, traffic impact studies, architectural designs and cost estimates.

​The Commonwealth Court effectively said game over. Like the 76ers playing in the second round of the NBA playoffs, SEPTA blew its chance to assert any exemptions from disclosure. SEPTA must give up 76 Place records.

Black History Under Attack

While still a British colony, South Carolina passed the first law that denied enslaved Africans the right to learn. The Negro Act of 1740 outlawed teaching enslaved people to read. President Trump threatens to withhold federal funding from schools that teach uncomfortable truths about American history.

Across the country, churches, civil rights organizations, activists and concerned citizens are speaking up and resisting efforts to erase Black history. We have come too far to go back.

The Freedom to Learn Network, convened by the African American Policy Forum, has launched the National Week of Action to resist Trump’s attempt to erase Black history, and defend our freedom and right to learn.

The activations include a #HandsOffOurHistory gathering in DC on Saturday, May 3, 2025.

To register for the DC gathering, go here.

Resisting DOGE at National Park Service

It’s Sunshine Week but there’s nothing but clouds in Washington, where President Trump and Elon Musk are spreading chaos and sowing fear. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has illegally fired tens of thousands of federal employees, including 1,000 National Park Service workers.

Judge William Alsup ordered the immediate reinstatement of unlawfully terminated employees:

It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that is a lie.

A group of NPS rangers is fighting back. The Resistance Rangers said in a statement:

Resistance Rangers will not see this ruling as a win until illegally terminated employees from all agencies outlined in the court’s rulings are reinstated in their roles, with back pay and their records cleared. As Judge Alsup noted, it is critical that these employees have the false accusation of “poor performance” removed from their records.

The unlawful terminations impact more than NPS rangers who work at national parks. Park rangers are stewards of national monuments and historic sites, including the African Burial Ground, Statute of Liberty, Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the President’s House, Independence Hall and the Portrait Gallery in the Second Bank.

The Portrait Gallery has been closed due to a staff shortage since 2024. NPS terminations include two employees at Independence National Historic Park.

The Portrait Gallery is one of the few places where the story of Moses Williams is in public memory. I have nominated Williams for a Pennsylvania historical marker.

Enslaved by “Artist of the Revolution” Charles Willson Peale, Williams was a master silhouette artist who operated a physiognotrace (face tracing machine) at Peale’s Museum which was located in the building now known as Independence Hall.

A NPS ranger demonstrates the physiognotrace at the Portrait Gallery.

I will submit a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of the Interior for records related to the unlawful termination of Independence National Historic Park workers, the President’s House, Independence Hall, and the Portrait Gallery in the Second Bank.

Sunshine Week 2025

March 16-22, 2025 is Sunshine Week, a time to celebrate transparency, and the public’s right to know what government officials are doing and saying behind closed doors. PHL Watchdog is a Sunshine Week partner.

For more than a year, the City of Philadelphia and SEPTA have fought release of communications with the Philadelphia 76ers related to their now abandoned plan to build an arena atop Jefferson Station. While the Save Chinatown Coalition has given up the fight to obtain records from SEPTA, giving up is not in my DNA. The City and SEPTA eventually will have to give it up and produce the records.

On March 17, the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records will host a panel discussion, Getting to Know Pennsylvania’s Transparency Laws, moderated by Paula Knudsen Burke, senior supervising attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Knudsen Burke represents me on the City’s and SEPTA’s appeals. The event is free and open to the public. Go here to register to attend in person or virtually.

A list of Sunshine Week activities is available here.

Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work

On his second day back in the White House, President Trump signed an executive order that rolled back federal civil rights protections claiming discrimination against white men:

Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system. Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex.

The executive order encouraged “the private sector to end illegal DEI discrimination and preferences.”

Before the ink was dry on the executive order, corporations from Amazon to Zoom began to dismantle their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

DeShuna Spencer, creator of kweliTV, launched DEI Watch “to create a space that keeps consumers informed and holds corporations accountable for the promises they’ve made.” DEI Watch will use publicly available data to track companies that have ended or scaled back DEI efforts, as well as companies that continue to actively support and implement DEI initiatives.

In a statement, Spencer said:

DEI isn’t about lowering standards—it’s about leveling the playing field. Qualified Black professionals and other underrepresented groups have long been shut out—not because of a lack of talent, but due to systemic barriers that limit access to opportunities. DEI doesn’t push merit aside for equity; it ensures that talent and hard work—not bias or exclusion—are what truly open doors for all.

Harkening back to the “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” movement during the Great Depression, the NAACP has launched the Black Consumer Advisory. NAACP President & CEO Derrick Johnson said:

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – diversity is better for the bottom line. The NAACP stands firm in our belief that, in a global economy, those who reject the multicultural nature of consumerism and business will be left in the past they are living in. That’s why we’re proud to launch the Black Consumer Advisory, reminding our community that in addition to voting on our principles, we have the power to choose where we spend our money. I am confident that this framework will support our community as we make difficult decisions on where to spend our hard-earned money. If corporations want our dollars, they better be ready to do the right thing.

To sign the Black Consumer Pledge, go here.