Councilman Darell Clark argues why a single council person should retain the right to deny a project, and to be able to extort money, or other personal favors from teh developer. He claims, "We offer our opinions and our suggestions, but we will vote on the proposal only after the district Council member has exhaustively evaluated it in a transparent process that includes public hearings and meetings with community advocates." Yet this is very often the exact opposite of what happens.
Often there is no public discussion, there is no transparency, and quite often, the councilpersons demands are unrelated to the project in discussion.
For example, in 1997, in west phila, Jannie Blackwell refused to discuss allowing the new childrens court to move to her district, without first recieving $11,000 worth of unrelated district improvements as, "a conversation starter".
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