This whole episode among Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, Mayor John Street, the Housing Trust Fund Administrative Board, the rest of City Council and, ultimately, the homeless and those in jeopardy of being homeless, can also be an example in what we need out of our elected leadership, especially the next mayor.
For background on the issue, check out these stories in the Daily News, Inquirer and Philadelphia Weekly. For a little more detail about the Housing Trust Fund, Mark McDonald from the Daily News has this. Now that you've gotten the serious side of it, Tom Ferrick gives us Mayor Street's perspective as taken from his diary.
In Philadelphia, we have what is known as a strong mayor/weak council type of government. In theory, this way of organizing municipal government gives the mayor a lot of power to set the city's agenda through the budgeting process and by being able to suggest legislation which can then be proposed by council members.
In practice, council members wield great power especially over development projects in their home districts. The mayor can outline a vision for the entire city but then has to sell that vision and its implications for different council districts to each of the 10 district council members. If any of them disagree with the mayor for whatever reason - principle, personality, opinions of constituents - he or she can effectively halt progress. Proponents of this arrangement says it keeps City Hall from steamrolling over the interests of the locals in their own neighborhoods while critics claim that it concentrates too much power in council members that may not have the most pure of motivations when using that power.
In this case, Councilwoman Blackwell is using the Housing Trust Fund, which she herself was instrumental in creating, to affect the mayor's decision making in reorganizing the alphabet soup of housing agencies known as OHCD, RDA and PHDC. Blackwell offers her reasons for her actions and people can feel free to agree or disagree with those reasons or speculate about her true motivations (in fact, feel free to comment about that). The point is that the next mayor will be required to work with the next 17 most powerful people in city government, each with different personalities and elected by very different constituencies.
While the Charter provides for a strong mayor, our next mayor will be well served to remember that "Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength."
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