City Controller investigating L&I's electric vehicle set-up as Parker admin deals with infrastructure

Mayor Cherelle Parker's goal to make Philly the safest, cleanest and greenest city in America has already hit a snag when it comes to being green.

Parker not only inherited dozens of municipal electric vehicle chargers lacking permits and inspections but she will also now have to respond to a Licenses and Inspections audit that looks at the department's loss of productivity as a result of its EV charging policy.

Léelo en español aquí

City Controller Christy Brady launched an audit into L&I earlier this year and quickly realized the department's use of public fast chargers is an issue.

"I wasn't even thinking I was going to look in this direction...the lack of infrastructure in the city being a problem for the inspectors to do their jobs," Brady said in an interview.

But when she kept hearing from inspectors about how they spend up to 20% of their working hours charging their vehicles, she said she had to look into it.

The NBC10 Investigators heard and saw the same.

Our investigation found none of L&I's buildings are equipped with EV chargers. Yet, L&I has more than 100 cars of the city's electric vehicle fleet assigned to its inspectors.

That's the most of any department.

So, inspectors have to drive to certain public fast charging stations during their workday to charge.

Those stations sometimes get backed up with people waiting and Brady said inspectors have raised public safety concerns.

"Inspectors have come forth talking about safety issues with people cutting lines and then having altercations at these charging stations," she said.

L&I's audit could take a year to complete, Brady said.

She said "it's a shame" for the city to buy EVs and then not have proper infrastructure.

"It's a great initiative to be greener and cleaner. But, not having the infrastructure in places is definitely a problem," she said.

The city does have chargers placed at buildings and parking lots for other departments with EVs, such as the Free Library, Water and Health departments.

However, the NBC10 Investigators found that none of those chargers were installed with the required permits and inspections.

Following our reporting in December, L&I issued violations to the city's 54 EV charger sites.

According to an L&I spokesperson, each violation comes with a $300 fine which is not much considering the city's more than $6 billion budget.

But, it is something the city's new Managing Director Adam Thiel says will now be addressed by the Parker administration.

We're looking into it, dealing with it," Thiel said following a news conference this week announcing a pilot program to train people in EV supplies and infrastructure. "I think going forward we want to make sure that any of those installations are done 100% properly according to all the rules, regulations and codes."

L&I records show that the city's EV chargers failed a second round of inspections in late January.

Thiel says the administration has not yet determined who installed the city chargers.

"We have not gotten to the bottom of it. Like I said, this is day 40-whatever. We're dealing with a whole range of issues," he said.

The city currently has 107 charges installed - with more to come.

Records obtained by the NBC10 Investigators through a public record request show that the city purchased 170 EV chargers.

Thiel said the city doesn't have a date yet for when more chargers will be put into service.

"We need to have more qualified workers to install this type of infrastructure," according to Thiel.