Cleanup couple claim dirty work
Haile Johnston and his wife have been praised for revitalizing vacant lots. They lost a contract. They say politics was the reason.
By Virginia A. Smith
Inquirer Staff Writer
Haile Johnston and his wife have been honored for their "greening" efforts in Strawberry Mansion by no less than the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and Mayor Street.
Lately, those honors haven't counted for much.
Johnston says he recently lost a $70,000-a-year city contract after Councilman Darrell Clarke intervened with the city to change the way contracts are given out, in effect punishing him for running against Clarke in the May Democratic primary.
In an interview, Clarke acknowledged he'd done "opposition research" on his erstwhile opponent during the campaign. But he denied taking any action to retaliate against him later.
"Haile is a person who ran for political office, so you need to treat him as such," the councilman said, "meaning that . . . he lost, and now he's making allegations that have no substance.
"He's not telling the truth," Clarke said.
A political newcomer, Johnston never came close to unseating the Fifth District incumbent, who was first elected in 1999, succeeding John Street when he became mayor. But soon after this year's primary, Johnston said, he learned that the city, not the horticultural society, would be awarding contracts in the future - and that while nine other neighborhood nonprofits had been given the option of having their pacts "continued," he was out of luck.
No reason was given. And no replacement has been named, which means that many of the lots Johnston's group used to maintain are overgrown and filling up with trash and construction debris.
"Darrell got what he wanted," Johnston said, "and now the community is worse off."
The contracts carry out the greening and maintenance part of Mayor Street's signature anti-blight program, the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI). They require nonprofits to hire neighborhood folks to take care of vacant lots that are targeted by the city for future development.
East Park Revitalization Alliance, the nonprofit that Johnston and his wife, Tatiana Garcia-Granados, founded, had the Strawberry Mansion contract for three years - to raves from the horticultural society and the city.
"We were surprised at what happened to Haile's contract," said Lisa Stephano, marketing and public relations director for the society, which was told in early June that "Joyce Wilkerson [Mayor Street's chief of staff] has this new criterion for awarding contracts."
"They have that right. We don't," Stephano said, "but we did acknowledge the fact that Haile's group did good work. There's no denying that."
Mayoral spokesman Joe Grace said the contract process was, indeed, being revamped because Clarke "raised concerns" that another group in his district wanted a piece of the action and was having difficulty with the application process.
"We need to have a process that's equal for everybody," Grace said.
Johnston and his wife, both University of Pennsylvania graduates, moved to Strawberry Mansion from Center City in 2002. Since then, they've been singled out repeatedly by the horticultural society as role models and champions of greening. In addition to their cleanup work, they've planted more than 400 trees in the neighborhood and started an after-school program and summer camp for children.
In an interview last year, horticultural society officials said the couple regularly went over and above their contract requirements by cleaning 250 to 275 vacant lots a month. The contract, which likely will be competitively bid in the future, called for 200.
According to the City Controller's Office, the society has received about $19 million from NTI since 2002 for the vacant-lot program.
Clarke said he was prompted to call the society to inquire about the contract process during the primary, after "community people" complained that Johnston's work crews were campaigning for him while cleaning lots in the neighborhood - something Johnston denies.
The councilman said he knew that Friends of East Park, also in Strawberry Mansion, was interested in competing for the contract Johnston had.
"I simply asked people to follow the process. I had nothing to do with Haile not getting a contract, if that's what happened," Clarke said.
Anthony Langford, president of the Friends of East Park and a longtime Democratic committeeman and political ally of Clarke's, said his group has been dormant for about three years and is down to four members. But he hopes to be up and running again soon, with new members, and is confident the group could handle a city contract.
"I'm a supporter of Councilman Clarke. We have a relationship going back many years," Langford said, "but I don't have any personal vendetta against Haile or his wife. We need people like that."
Others agree.
In May 2005, Johnston and Garcia-Granados attended a ceremony at World Cafe Live with Mayor Street and Patricia Smith, the former NTI director who now works for the Reinvestment Fund.
Dubbed "NTI Ambassadors," the couple - with others - were praised as "the heart and soul of neighborhood transformation." Johnston and his wife had their picture taken with the mayor.
In an interview this week, Smith said NTI ambassadors were people "who'd shown outstanding leadership in their community and were interested in helping to improve it."
Last year and again in March, Johnston and Garcia-Granados also were celebrated at a Philadelphia Flower Show brunch for their efforts to "green up" the neighborhood. The 2007 certificate says they have made "extraordinary contributions . . . in creating clean and safe neighborhoods and making Philadelphia a better place to live, work and play."
Kate Houstoun, deputy director for community affairs for Ready, Willing & Able, a neighborhood nonprofit whose horticultural-society contract was recently continued, declined to comment on Johnston's situation.
"We sort of want to stay clear of anything that even looks remotely like messy politics," she said.
Messy is a word Dottie Smith is using lately to describe the lots in Strawberry Mansion formerly kept clean by Johnston's work crews.
"It's terrible," said the 50-year resident and 15-year block captain on the 3200 block of Clifford Street. "There's weeds and debris and trash everywhere, like a dumping ground. Everyone is unhappy."
Like several others in the neighborhood, Smith's son was on Johnston's payroll. "Haile got a lot of fellows off the corner by putting them to work. Plus, the neighborhood looked nice," Smith said. "I really think they should bring Haile back."
Johnston still has two horticultural society/NTI contracts, which he won through competitive bidding. Despite his experience with the third, he still believes in the mayor's blight initiative, calling it "a visionary program."
He still supports the horticultural society and continues as a board member of its Philadelphia Green program. "They really went to bat for us, but in the end, the city and Darrell Clarke won," he said.
Johnston said he and Garcia-Granados are still maintaining some of the lots they used to get paid to keep up, especially those near schools. "We need to keep our community clean," he said.
As for whether he'd consider another run for City Council, Johnston said he remains hopeful that "things can happen better, be done differently and more inclusively in this district.
"I will absolutely run again in four years," he said.
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09-28-2007, 01:09 PM
Haile Johnston in the inky
