The Sheriff’s Office is broken. Will Philadelphia’s next mayor help fix it? | Editorial

Sheriffs in Philadelphia have two principal responsibilities. One is transporting incarcerated people and providing security for the city’s courts. The other, which tends to be where sheriffs get into trouble, is conducting auctions of foreclosed and tax-delinquent properties.

Time and time again, the unfettered access to valuable real estate revenues, along with lax oversight, has led sheriffs into wrongdoing. It seems no matter who’s in charge, allegations of misconduct persist.

Although she ran as a reformer, Sheriff Rochelle Bilal has proven to be a standard bearer for the status quo at the scandal-plagued office.

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Even before being sworn in, Bilal threw a going-away party for former Sheriff John Green, with generous donations requested. Why was Green going away? He was sentenced to five years for abusing the office for personal financial gain.

Bilal’s first chief financial officer, anti-corruption activist and former city controller candidate Brett Mandel, was removed from his post after just five weeks in office. Mandel says he was fired for refusing to approve inappropriate off-budget expenditures. Bilal didn’t deny Mandel’s claims.

Mandel may have been the first staffer to accuse Bilal of retaliation, but he certainly was not the last. Two other senior staffers also filed whistle-blower lawsuits against the office. That’s not the only alleged misconduct, either. A sheriff’s deputy was arrested by the FBI for attempting to sell weapons that were used in the Roxborough football shooting. Bilal’s top legal adviser has been illegally moonlighting as a defense attorney. The sheriff has refused to answer questions about a party that was paid for with taxpayer dollars.

Philadelphians are sadly used to not only putting up with the dysfunction but also to footing the bill. The city paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle accusations of sexual harassment against Bilal’s immediate predecessor, Jewell Williams.

Given the importance of reforming this vital yet persistently broken office, The Inquirer Editorial Board asked each of the Philadelphia mayoral candidates whether they support changing or outright abolishing the office. The latter is a position supported by good-governance groups such as the Committee of Seventy and the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, and also this board.

Many of the answers were disheartening.

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Jeff Brown, despite styling himself as an outsider and reformer, declined to support any changes to the office. It is hard to see how Brown will repair the many broken parts of our city if he’s not willing to fix one clearly flawed agency. Likewise, former Judge James M. DeLeon declined to support eliminating the Sheriff’s Office.

Helen Gym, who has long held a reputation as an uncompromising truth-teller, also declined to support abolishing the Sheriff’s Office, saying that is beyond the power of the mayor. She did express some openness to structural changes and a commitment to rooting out corruption but did not comment on Bilal specifically. This is a far cry from Gym’s earlier claim that she enters a room and “systems of oppression fall and new systems of opportunity come up.”

As city controller, Rebecca Rhynhart found that the Sheriff’s Office couldn’t account for hundreds of firearms that should be in its possession. Rhynhart told us that while she agreed that an overhaul was needed, she would not explicitly support abolishing the office.

Cherelle L. Parker, Maria Quiñones-Sánchez, Derek Green, and Amen Brown failed to respond to our questions at all. Considering their campaigns have lagged behind their competitors in contributions and in polls, their lack of engagement is disappointing.

Allan Domb, on the other hand, was clear. He told us that he supports abolishing the office. Domb framed its elimination as a necessary part of getting everyone involved in public safety on the same page. Out of the nine campaigns we contacted, Domb’s was the only one to unequivocally condemn specific instances of misconduct or clearly endorse abolishing the Sheriff’s Office.

If any of Domb’s fellow candidates plan to govern in the same style as their campaigns, it is hard to see how they can make good on any of the grandiose promises they’ve made. If you are afraid to challenge Bilal, why would anyone believe that you can take on more daunting tasks, such as reforming the Philadelphia Police Department, reducing homicides, fixing the Streets Department, or adequately staffing schools and libraries?

Philadelphia desperately needs leadership that is willing to do the right thing, even when there’s a political cost. As former City Councilmember Frank DiCicco said of the last major effort to eliminate the Sheriff’s Office in 2011, “Nobody has the political will to do it.”

Voters should demand that whoever wants to be mayor needs to have the fortitude to act.