Monday afternoon a man walked into The Spirit’s office in Fishtown with a manila envelope. Our editor, Max Pulcini, was in the office, and got up to greet the visitor at the door. “This is for you,” the Latino thirty-something said, handing Pulcini the envelope. It had nothing written on it, except for an address in the upper right corner: 1427 E. Susquehanna. The Spirit’s address is 1428 E. Susquehanna Avenue. Before our editor could look up and tell the stranger, who had not given his name, that he had the wrong place, he had left the building and was out of sight.

A quick inspection of the clasped-but-not-sealed envelope’s contents revealed that The Spirit was indeed the intended recipient. The anonymously-dropped package concerned Tomas Stephen Sanchez, husband of Maria Quiñones-Sanchez, and was clearly aimed at our recent coverage of the 7th City Council District primary race, between incumbent Quiñones-Sanchez and relative unknown Manny Morales.

SPOILER ALERT: the documents delivered by the unnecessarily mysterious courier are pretty boring. The manila envelope held a sort of “dossier,” an open source political intelligence report of sorts prepared by Washington, DC’s “Blue Searchlight.” It contained no incriminating photographs of the Councilwoman or her husband, or any other information that was not already publicly available.

Blue Searchlight describes itself on its website as a “political research firm that helps get Democrats and progressive-minded candidates elected.” We spoke to Robert in DC Tuesday morning. Robert gave no last name, and from what we could tell from our brief conversation Robert was the firm. The business is registered in DC to a Robert Wimberly.

The Spirit asked him what exactly his firm did, and if this was the sort of thing that he expected to be done with his product.

“I’m an opposition research firm, which means that candidates may hire me to look at press briefings on themselves or another candidate,” said Robert. He said he could tell us that he was not presently nor had he ever worked on a report about a City Council candidate in Philadelphia

We said that this made sense because the documents were actually about Tomas Sanchez as a candidate in State Senate 2nd Legislative District in 2014, and Robert said that the name “sounded familiar.” When we asked him to confirm that he prepared the report on Mr. Sanchez, he said “I didn’t say I prepared the report, I said the name sounded familiar.”

No more answers to be had from Robert, The Spirit called the office of State Senator Christine Tartaglione. Tartaglione was the incumbent Democrat against whom Sanchez ran in the 2014 Primary, the most likely beneficiary of such information. We briefly explained the man with the envelope and the report inside the mysterious package to the woman who answered the phone at Tartaglione’s office. The immediate and final comment from the Senator’s office was “we don’t know about any report.” The office we called is at 127 W. Susquehanna Ave., an easy walk from The Spirit.

Blue Searchlight is not on Tartaglione’s PAC’s campaign finance reports for 2014, but that does not mean they were not solicited in her interest by an independent committee for the purpose of the 2014 Primary.

Robert would not tell us the price he charged for his services, but several state politicians have reported expenditures to his firm, including Daylin Lynch’s DAYPAC. US Congressman Cartwright paid around $3,500 for Robert to collect and summarize news reports about someone in 2014, or two people (he made two payments).

Convinced no mere citizen fact-enthusiast shelled-out the at least $1,200 to Blue Searchlight and was compelled from civic duty to bring it to our attention like some kind of election-season vigilante secret agent, we went down the list of possible likelier suspects.

Quiñones-Sanchez opponent Manny Morales’s communication manager Michael Blackie said that he knew nothing about the package or documents, and that his campaign would not handle things so dramatically. He said he felt transparency was best. Mr. Blackie has always been open with us in discussing the campaign.

Mr. Blackie also sent us an email, stating: “WE at the Manny Morales Campaign have NO Knowledge of the whereabouts of this report [the manilla folder], or how it reached this reporter’s news outlet.”

He continued, “WE GAVE BACK THE ENDORSEMENT….CHAIRMAN BRADY DID NOT ASK MANNY TO ‘STEP DOWN’…only ‘Judge’ Nelson Diaz for Mayor did, prematurely.”

For the record, we did not inform Mr. Blackie that he could “vett” any of the documents before publication of this piece, but rather that we could provide the documents once we had time.

Representative Cruz, of the 197th House legislative district, denied any knowledge of the report. Cruz called from Harrisburg where the Assembly is in session. He has backed the Morales campaign since before his endorsement, and says he still backs Morales in spite of his loss of the Democratic Party nod. Someone with close knowledge of Representative Cruz’s PAC, who asked not be named, said the Rep’s committee had never to his knowledge spent money on any such thing

Everyone we spoke with on background close to the Maria Quiñones-Sanchez campaign felt sure it was either the Senator Tartaglione or Representative Cruz.

The campaign sent a statement via email in response to…call it the 1427 E. Susquehanna Affair, placing the blame on Morales:

“We deal in facts…. Instead of focusing on producing opposition research, Manny Morales could have spent his time conducting the investigation he’s promised of his Facebook activities. I am proud of the work my husband and I have done to improve our community and city. The fact is that I have dedicated my life to helping improve my community and am running on my record of fighting every day for my constituents.”

As the subject of the “dossier,” Tomas Stephen Sanchez, is not an elected official, and since it is not The Spirit’s job to broadcast clandestinely-delivered information to the public on behalf of parties not willing to give their names, we have little interest in airing the documents in our pages. Nothing in the report produced by Blue Searchlight’s is revelatory, and what was given to us was clearly not meant to be for public consumption. It’s more a selection of talking points allowing candidates to snipe at their opponents, based on a body of information that’s at times not much better than an internet “people search” site. Which is to say, not very accurate (Sanchez does have children, contrary to Blue Searchlight’s findings).

We encourage both candidates in the race to actively engage the public in a dialog about real issues, those that they will vote on in Chambers if elected/re-elected to City Council.

Parthian shot: If the access to Morales’s Facebook was not unauthorized, as he claimed in order to deny offensive postings, then he is flatly lying to the press and public. He can ask Facebook and law enforcement to look into unlawful access of his account, issue a press release, and clear the matter up quickly. We’re less concerned with his posts than with how willing he is to shamelessly lie, right out of the gate.

Stay tuned for more election coverage in The Spirit as the primary nears. The Declaration is an alternative news source for Philadelphia, seeking to highlight city politics, art, culture and activism.