In the Terminator movie franchise, the government develops a software system called Skynet. The purpose of Skynet is to prevent human error in starting a nuclear holocaust. Instead, Skynet becomes self-aware and when programmers try to shut it down it perceives the human race a threat and tries to exterminate us and then it creates a bad-ass cyborg that looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger to help do that.
Registered Community Organization (RCO’s) are like Skynet less cyborgs and actual intelligence (artificial or otherwise). Like Skynet, the government (Philly City Council) created RCO’s for altruistic purposes. However, rather than preventing nuclear war, RCO’s were created to prevent real estate developers from developing projects inconsistent with the character of the surrounding neighborhood (which, ironically, many RCO’s often treat like a nuclear apocalypse). Just like Skynet, the originally well intended RCO’s have taken on a life of their own and often terminate many job creating construction projects.
The out of control nature of RCO’s was recently on full display at a community meeting in Point Breeze where members of the RCO hurled anti-Semitic remarks towards developers proposing a project in the neighborhood. In response, Councilman Kenyatta Johnson, whose district covers Point Breeze, contacted the Human Relations Commission (which is a public body that handles complaints related to discrimination in housing and employment but who the Councilman — perhaps not surprisingly — thinks are the thought and speech police). He also said he would be introducing a bill establishing an RCO “code of conduct.”
Councilman Johnson’s decision to reign in RCO’s is ironic because he has been a chief antagonistic in stoking the anti-gentrification flames through the RCO’s. Only now, those same RCO’s have gotten out of control and threaten to kill their creators. In fact, he recently joined with the very RCO he is now chastising, Concerned Citizens of Point Breeze, in appealing a project located in Point Breeze. Essentially, he wants to kill the monster he has created.
Irony aside, real estate developers should cheer Councilman Johnson’s bill, however probably not for the reasons he thinks. Apparently, the Councilman has now gone on record that RCO’s “have an official relationship with the City of Philadelphia, so we must ensure that they operate with a level of decency and order.” This is good to know because as state actors or agents of the government both the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions would apply to them and so do fun things like procedural and substantive due process rights (to name a few). (I note that if the Councilman reported a group for making anti-Semitic remarks to a Commonwealth agency, I doubt he spends much time thinking about the Constitution). When those two minor documents apply, RCO’s can then be sued and held liable for violating the rights contained in those documents.
Alas, the Councilman’s bill might not get too far. The problem – ironically – the pesky Constitution. The same document that provides for procedural due process rights also prevents the government from regulating the speech related conduct of organizations like RCO’s. Unless of course Councilman Johnson’s bill wants to clarify that RCO’s are indeed official government organizations. In that case, regulate away.
Wally Zimolong
Wally represents contractors (and subcontractors) and developers. His clients build and develop residential, commercial, and industrial properties nationwide. Wally enjoys working with the owners of the businesses he represents because they tend to be entrepreneurs and all around interesting people.
