Rendell halts involvement of city in suit

Requested that Goode wait The City of Philadelphia was preparing early last month to join a local law center's class-action lawsuit against the University, when incoming Mayor Edward Rendell requested that then-Mayor Wilson Goode hold off on the move. In a letter dated January 6, Goode assured Rendell that he would let the new mayor decide whether to add the city as a plaintiff in the suit, which claims the University provides needy Philadelphia high school students with only one-quarter of the Mayor's Scholarships that a city ordinance requires. "If I had not received your request I would have filed the Motion [to intervene]," Goode wrote to Rendell. "Accordingly, I do urge you to file the [motion] once your City Solicitor has had a chance to review this matter." Last week, Judith Harris, Rendell's acting city solicitor, agreed with the University's stance on the controversial scholarship program, concluding that the lawsuit challenging the University is unfounded. And David Cohen, Rendell's chief of staff, wrote in a cover letter attached to Harris' opinion that, based on the solicitor's finding, the city would not join the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia in its suit against the University. Neither Harris nor Cohen could be reached for comment yesterday. Thomas Wamser, a former deputy city solicitor who drafted Goode's motion to intervene, suggested yesterday that the Goode and Rendell administrations reached opposite decisions on whether to join the suit because the "roles were different" for Wamser and Rendell's Harris. He said he simply decided at Goode's request that the city could intervene in the suit and defend its position reasonably well. Harris, by contrast, did not receive "directions from above" and based her opinion solely on whether the city should intervene for legal reasons, Wamser said. Although the city's intervention clearly would have bolstered PILCOP's case, Goode said yesterday that he had not taken sides in the case and wanted the city to intervene only "to get to the facts in the case." "My interest is to find out precisely what the truth is," Goode said. "I'm not reaching any conclusions as to what the facts are, but I think it's very, very important that the city be a participant in the overall process -- not to take sides but to let the facts come out." Goode added that his decision was not politically motivated, saying, "No one pressured me at all and no one called me at all." But Wamser said that Goode did take PILCOP's side and told him last fall he would like the city to join the suit "if at all possible." "The mayor's concern was that local high school students get everything they are entitled to under the law," Wamser said. "Having the city in the suit as plaintiff would help PILCOP because then the court would have both sides of the agreement there and we would be on PILCOP's side." The city's participation also probably would have damaged the University's argument that the plaintiffs' suit lacks standing because there was never any intent to give third parties the right to enforce the agreement between the city and the University. "As none of the plaintiffs to this action are parties to the contract between the City and the University, the interests of the City are not adequately protected by the current parties," Goode's unfiled motion reads. But Wamser said he had "some reservations" about recommending that the city join the suit because previous city administrations and Handsel Minyard, a former solicitor under Goode, had determined in the past that the University was in compliance with the ordinance. Minyard did not return a phone call placed at his home last night. The suit alleges that a 1977 city ordinance requires the University to provide 125 new four-year scholarships each year, for a total of 500 at any one time. The University maintains that the ordinance calls for a total of 125 scholarships at any one time.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.