- Council Committee Passed the Freeze
- Carol Campbell Passes Away
- My first trip to the public library
- Fight digital exclusion
- What if half of Philadelphia didn't have roads?
- You know, let's not even worry about the City Commissioners office messing up voter registration processing
- Bold ideas to fix the budget
- Mayor Nutter's Town Hall Meeting Schedule
- City Releases Library Information to City Council
- Size of Philadelphia government?
A Record of Reform - From Ellen Green-Ceisler
Submitted by Ellen Green-Ceisler on Thu, 04/19/2007 - 8:09pm.
Hello again, Young Philly Politics! I am Ellen Green-Ceisler and I am running for the Court of Common Pleas.
One of the reasons that I am excited about the upcoming election is because government reform has become a major issue. Organizations like ReformBallot.org and the Committee of Seventy have done a wonderful job educating the public. I have fought for reform long before it became fashionable. Over the years, I’ve worked in various ways to reduce corruption and mismanagement.
Here are a few of the ways:
-I worked as an investigative reporter for WCAU-TV (CBS) in mid-1990s. During that time, I broke numerous stories that exposed municipal mismanagement and waste.
-A few years later, I became Director of the Integrity & Accountability Office for the Philadelphia Police Department. In that capacity, I audited department performance and made recommendations to reduce corruption and improve the effectiveness of operations.
- Finally, in 2005, I became the Director of the Special Investigations and Fraud Unit of for the Philadelphia City Controller's Office. While there, I supervised and participated in investigations into governmental waste, mismanagement, and fraud to insure proper expenditure of taxpayer dollars and effective delivery of city services.
As you can see, I have a long history of working for reform. I believe these issues are incredibly important. We must have ethical and transparent government to effectively govern.
Remember to vote on May 15th! If you’d like to learn more about my campaign, please visit my website: http://greenceisler07.com.
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Only people planning to vote
Only people planning to vote for Bob Brady should vote on the 16th. If they are going to vote for you, it would probably be best for them to do it on the 15th, no?
Looking good though.
Oops!
Thanks for catching that!
Court Reforms and Family Court
Ellen-
Welcome to Young Philly Politics.
Can you talk about what what reforms you see needed, specifically in Family Court, and if that is a Court you would be willing to and/or would want to serve on?
Court Reforms and Family Court
I did pro-bono work as a child advocate in the Family Courts representing abused and neglected children who had been removed from the custody of their parents. I found that the system worked against me despite my best efforts. I want to be assigned to Family Court (if I win!) and I am particularly interested in the Dependency Courts, because I want to work with "at-risk" children and parents. The biggest problem I encountered was the lack of coordination between the various agencies. This resulted in repeated continuances which were devastating for the children I represented since they were being bounced around in foster care(some of the placements were terrible).
I know some judges who created a "Model Court" to handle these complex cases. Everyone assigned to the cases in this Court worked closely as a team - all services and plans were carefully integrated and coordinated. There was rigorous follow-up. Parents were held striclty accountable or they faced termination of parental rights. It was very effective - but funding became a real problem.
We need judges who WANT to be in these courts and are willing to take the time to educate themseleves about the best programs, services, placements etc available. I think I could do alot of good in this position.
Court Reforms and Family Court
Having spent this morning (and several others) at 1801 Vine, I for one welcome Ellen's enthusiasm for working with these at-risk cases. I spend more time on the delinquency side, and what frustrates me more than anything is the adversarial nature of the judicial system. It's "prosecute and adjudicate" with very little effort by the courts to establish a sense of restorative justice. Similarly, our youth are taught basically that if you do the crime, you do the time, then return to the street. There is little to motivate them to reassess their own value system to change their environment and behavior. In dependency court, families treat open cases as a consequence with its own hoops to jump through with very little emphasis on shifting their "family values." So many provider agencies rely on the threat of "telling the judge" in order to gain even superficial compliance by families.
Supporting Dwight Evans - A Safer Philadelphia - Block by Block