Did anyone else attend last night's meet and greet of the candidates for the three vacant City Council seats? I made my way to the way-less-functional-than-it-sounds Lucy's Hat Shop in Old City to see what these crusaders for democracy had to offer. Unfortunately, the answer is... not much. Click on "Continue Reading" to see why I was disappointed.
Oh, and here is WHYY's Susan Phillips's piece about the outsider candidates (it even includes a Neil Oxman sound bite!).
(edited to add) Here's actual coverage of the event by someone who is much better than I am at explaining what actually happened.
The common theme running through all of their speeches, which were thankfully capped at about 3 minutes for everyone except, it seems, 88-year old Florence Cohen, was "I want to be on City Council because I deserve it." None of them really stood out as visionary. None really grabbed my attention or imagination. Even Maria Quinones-Sanchez, candidate for Mariano's vacated seat and fan favorite, who has undoubtedly done a lot of good work in her district, failed to reach me. Maybe I'm just expecting too much out of what is essentially, to some, a constituency services office.
There's 4 or 5 out of 17 who introduce most of the real, useful, progressive legislation. The rest seem to sit back and vote, using the answer to the question, "Is this something the mayor wants?" as a guide. If they're a mayoral ally, they vote yes. If not, no. And that's not say that it's entirely the fault of the councilmembers. They're doing the job that we as voters have come to expect of them. In fact, when they do step up and offer progressive, new ideas, we always just assume it's because they want to run for mayor and then it becomes "just politics."
On that note, it seems that many candidates for City Council - challengers and incumbents - emphasize the role of a council memeber as the person who bridges the gap between a city department and the constituent who calls them up because that department isn't doing their job. It would be much more productive in the long run to concentrate on working with the mayor to reform the way city government works so that ANYONE who calls L&I or Streets or Health with a request, question or complaint, receives the same response that an elected member of council gets. Yeah, that may take away their major raison d'etre but then they could concentrate on "the vision thing."
Comments (28)
I agree. There's no reason for constituent services of the type you metion to be such an integral part of council members' jobs. Other cities seem to work so much more efficiently that councilmembers are allowed to have full time jobs and legislate part-time, which I think might increase the quality of our council members since they wouldn't all have to be career politicians. I think we have some very talented professionals in our city who might run for office if it didn't mean they had to quit their jobs.
As far as the meeting, Mark Stier (council at-large candidate) was the only speaker who struck me as having any kind of well thought-out vision. It's hard to fully evaluate candidates based on 3 minute speeches, though.
Posted by Dave | September 7, 2006 5:53 PM
Dear The Next Mayor,
We the people from Roxborough, Andorra, Manayunk, Wissahickon and East Falls are extremely upset with the Democratic Party for them even considering appointing Carol Campbell to replace Michael Nutter as our councilperson. We are accustomed of having one of the most trust worthy Councilpersons in the city and to replace him with Carol Campbell who has been convicted of two criminal offences does not make sense. Chairman of the Democratic City Committee, Congressman Robert Brady has very close ties to Carol Campbell and is attempting to position her to his own political advantage.
We are even more shocked that Michael Nutter, Ward Leader of the 52nd Ward would vote for her, leaving his voting base with a councilperson who has a history of actions which are questionable and illegal. This will not be a good political move on his part. I think that many voters from the 4th Council District will not FORGET or FORGIVE him for voting for Carol Campbell to take over this seat.
Congressman Robert Brady is selling out this part of Philadelphia to expand his voting base, if and when he decides to run for Mayor. This will be a major mistake and will alienate loyal Democrats from North West Philadelphia.
Could you distribute this article to your community groups membership for us? We need to show our displeasure with this farce and corruption. We have all the Ward Leaders names and telephone numbers. These people will ultimately make the decision who will be the Interim Council Person representing us. Please have everyone call these telephone numbers and email the Party Chair, Robert Brady and City Council President, Anna Verna.
ｷ 4th Ward - Carol Campbell 215-471-0511 (home)
ｷ 21st Ward Louis Agre 215-487-0939 (home) 215-732-2530 (office)
ｷ 34th Ward - Robert Brady 215-241-7804 (office) 215-472-4488 (office) Robert.A.Brady@mail.house.gov (email)
ｷ 38th Ward Ralph Wynder 215-223-1312 (home) 215-686-6267 (office)
ｷ 52nd Ward Michael Nutter 215-477-2132 (home)
President of City Council Anna Verna 215-686-3412 (office) 215-686-3413 (office) Anna.Verna@phila.gov (email)
What in the world are these people thinking about with putting someone in any Council District who is corrupt. As a city, I thought we were trying to clean up City Hall, not bring in more criminals. Bob Brady and Michael Nutter should be ashamed of themselves if they decide to leave us in this position.
David Morris
Philadelphia, PA 19128
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