2 Eyeing Philadelphia Mayor's Office Defend Not Filing Candidacy Paperwork for 2014
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Nobody likes paperwork, but for two prospective candidates for mayor of Philadelphia, trying to get around it may have gotten them in trouble with the city's Board of Elections.
Elections supervisor Timothy Dowling says frequent Philadelphia candidate T. Milton Street and former PGW vice-president Doug Oliver both missed Monday's deadline for filing a 2014 campaign finance report.
Both men are expected to announce their candidacies soon.
Dowling says that furthermore, Oliver failed to register his campaign committee and authorize it to spend money on behalf of his candidacy -- violations of state law that Dowling maintains could be referred to the district attorney to investigate.
Both campaigns say they were following the law to the best of their understanding.
Street's campaign acknowledged they were mistaken about what they had to file. But Oliver says that in his case, "Mr. Dowling is the one who doesn't know what he's talking about." Oliver says he was not a candidate in 2014 and so had nothing to register or file.
Dowling differs, saying the web site DO2015.com was set up in the fall and is specifically linked to Oliver.
"The cost of the setup for that web site is an expenditure under state law," Dowling says. "Because of that, the candidate, Doug Oliver, was required to authorize any committee -- specifically DO2015 -- to raise or expend funds on his behalf. That did not occur. The committee had twenty days from the first $250 they raised to register," Dowling adds. "They have not registered the committee either."
Oliver says DO2015 was an "exploratory" committee when it was established, not a campaign committee. He says that under the Philadelphia city charter, he had to resign his job to run for mayor and thus could not have been a candidate because he didn't resign until January 9th.
"There was nothing about the DO2015 initiative that triggered candidacy," Oliver says. "We were not required by law as a non-candidate to file with the Board of Ethics or the Board of Elections. However, since I left PGW our activities have become more like that of a candidate, so we know for the next filing period, governing what's happened in 2015, we would have to file."
Oliver says he has, in fact, already filed with the city Board of Ethics "out of an abundance of caution," and says he plans to file with the Board of Elections.
He has scheduled an announcement about his candidacy for Saturday.
Milton Street registered a campaign committee last fall, but his son told KYW Newsradio yesterday that it raised no money in 2014 so it did not file a campaign finance report.
Dowling says a one-page statement must be filed even if the committee "raised $0 and spent $0."
Street campaign spokeswoman Angela Griffin declined to comment on any previous statements about the report but said the campaign plans to file the report this Monday, February 9th.
