PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — There was heart-wrenching testimony
today in City Council as the parents of one of the victims of the Market Street
building collapse testified about the need for improvements at the city’s
Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I).
Testifying was Nancy Winkler, the city treasurer, and her
husband, structural engineer Jay Bryan.
Their daughter Anne and five others died in the Salvation Army Thrift
Shop last June when a neighboring demolition went awry.
“Who could ever have expected their 24-year-old child to
leave the house one bright, sunny, June morning and then be killed under the
rubble of a collapsed store?” Winkler
asked.
Winkler and Bryan made clear that they view the failings of
L&I to stop the demolition as part of the tragedy.
“This was not a freak accident,” Winkler said. “It was strictly a case of when that wall was
going to come crashing down. Not
if. It was a case of who would be
killed, not if anyone would be killed.”
Bryan said that standards should be imposed on the position
of L&I commissioner:
“Just as the police commissioner is a law enforcement
professional and the fire commissioner a firefighting professional, the L&I
commissioner should be a construction professional in order to insure an
intimate knowledge of the industry he is responsible for policing.”
The testimony came as the councilmembers, voting at the
committee level, approved the fourth of five measures that stem from their
probe of the city’s demolition process.
Three were approved last week.
This measure codifies many of the actions that Mayor Nutter took by
executive action shortly after the collapse.
The fifth bill is hung up over a proposal that all
demolition workers obtain a city-issued photo ID, which some lawmakers
oppose. That measure will be debated
Thursday afternoon.
Source: CBS
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