Germantown Deserves Better

The Daily News has an interesting but sad story about the Central Germantown Council, a three-person community development agency that has spent $1.4 million in City funds since 2000 to enhance the business district on Chelten Avenue. Critics - including some CGC board members – contend that the CGC has little (or nothing) to show for the money, that it operates under a shroud of secrecy, and that the City (via the Commerce Department) should conduct a performance audit to find out what’s really going on. On a related note, the CGC’s former president (Steve Vaughn, former aide to City Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller and most recently of “Federal Probe” fame) is doing time for unrelated federal corruption charges.

I live in East Falls, right next door to G’town; I’ve been on Chelten Avenue in the business district and you can get a palpable sense of the grandeur and resplendence of what “Downtown Germantown” used to be like. The residents and business of Germantown deserve so much better than what they’re getting from the CGC. Want to take some positive action? Please e-mail Stephanie Naidoff – the City’s Commerce Director at stephanie.naidoff@phila.gov and ask her to conduct a full scale audit of the CGC’s operations and finances so that we can find out where the money went and how it can be spent more effectively and efficiently in the future.