The Dude — who, if you hadn’t noticed, is really busy these days — had a press conference yesterday announcing (once again) that corruption is bad, costs the city money, and (new for this year) here comes the calvary! This time, instead of getting his office bugged, the Mayor of Philadelphia is working in collaboration with the U.S. Attorney and the FBI.

After the election, Nutter brought in Amy Kurland from the U.S. Attorney’s office to serve as the city’s inspector general, and root around in our dark, smelly closets — of which there are many. As we all know from watching The Wire, state and municipal corruption (and the global war on terrorism) are all that the Feds know from and care about. There’s some expertise and hunger there, hopefully. So who’s going down?

First up: Brenda Wilkins with the Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation. According to the FBI, she was all, fuck a $100,000 house, I’m selling a place to my daughter for a buck.

Second: Dorena Kearney, who was paid over $65,000 a year as the executive director of COLOURS. She allegedly stole in the low six figures to pay for dog grooming, etc. Some of that was federal money, oops.

We like the effort, but our appetite is whetted. Fishies are fine, but Ms. Kurland, please give us some whales. You’re an outsider, and less beholden to our thick, sclerotic political machine. Help deliver it from itself.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 at 12:24 pm.