Great Expectations

John (at left) started off the Leadership & Reform discussion with a blood-roiling demand for his area to be un-gerrymandered. His neighborhood (now part of Councilman Darrell Clarke's 5th) is the one of the worst gerrymandered districts in the nation. John claimed Clarke gerrymandered the district to protect currently jailed former councilman Rick Mariano to prevent the 7th from being won by anyone looking like Ms. Sánchez (but she persevered!). Duane asked who the people were who planned the district boundaries in the first place. Duane also wanted to see the public financing of elections to agreement by several in the group. But John disagreed, saying that would simply make offices even easier to buy by the wealthy.

Epi (above) had a personal story about his experience with City Services. Around where he lives, in the 7th, there is an abandoned building with lots of squatters; people have been living there with no running water or electricity for months. He says that whenever he calls the police, they come down, get the people to leave and then those people just come back the next day and the police don't come back. He wanted to know whom to call to get a better response. A perfect segue to the proposed 311 and CityStat systems. John was very much in favor of such a system so he wouldn't have to be worried about making non-emergency calls to 911 and tying up the lines. A 311 system would allow those non-emergency issues to be addressed. David asked how to get people to like what they do for a living, how to motivate the trash collectors to do a better job. He said that if trash collection were to be privatized, efficient routes would be able to get bonuses and that would provide the incentive to do a better job.

On the issue of taxes, James (above) asked the most prudent question: when to conduct the reassessment of real estate throughout Philadelphia. With 135 square miles to cover, some houses could be assessed at a time when the value of their home is high while others when the value is low. Everyone in the group wanted to reduce the gross receipts tax.

First up for the Q&A session with the council members was John from my group. He asked about what got him so riled up: gerrymandering. Councilwoman Sánchez acknowledged that it was rated the 3rd worst gerrymandered district in the nation and that it was all about incumbency. She said that she's already started talks with Councilman Clarke about re-districting and that it would take place in 2011.

Sister Elaine asked about a program that might actually go into effect as a result of this forum. The question from her group was to see if unused office space could be donated to new business and be written off as a donation by the owners of the properties. Councilman Green said that this was something to definitely pursue. (AWESOME.) He noted that in Center City, there was approximately 90% occupation, but that 10% was still a considerable amount of square footage sitting empty. He wasn't sure if it was possible under federal code to be able to write off the space as a donation for tax purposes, but promised that he'd look into the issue. Councilwoman Sánchez agreed that it was something well worth the research and that it would be a good way to attract more new business.

Delores wanted to know what Council would do to fight for city schools and warned the council members to not use the state control of schools as a cop out. Councilwoman Sánchez said that she and Councilman Green were the only ones on Council with school-age children and that made it that much more difficult to push schools to the front of the agenda. But Mayor Nutter has promised to be the education mayor (and he's got a star pupil himself), but he'll have to back up his words with action. She was excited to announce, with Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell's permission (as Chair of the Education committee), that Council will be taking the show on the road and holding sessions in schools all around the city. She also stressed the need to redraw the school district lines as the Northeast is booming with new residents and growing school-age kids. The number of kids being bused far away for school has to be reduced.

Councilman Green said that the problem wasn't just the school districts. He noted that 37% of school kids are living in poverty; 25% of Philadelphia is living in poverty. The 45% drop-out rate is partly a result of kids in school not seeing the value of an education; they don't see jobs for educated people in the city they live in, so why bother, Green said. He wants to expand the REACH program in Harrisburg to give kids hope. He said this expansion would be paid for by a cigarette tax (didn't specify if it would be a new tax or part of the existing one) and state lottery money. He stressed that kids must see hope and parents must see possibilities. The next question piggy-backed on the education theme and wanted to hear the council members' thoughts on vouchers: both were against vouchers at this point, but they were also looking more into the voucher programs.

A questioner called for a citywide CLIP (Community Live Improvement Program), currently a Northeast neighborhood improvement program stressing neighborhood parks. Councilwoman Sánchez said that there are already plans for a better CLIP plan with 7 "zones" in her district using the CLIP model. She added that Council must figure out what's working best in the parks right now and to see what's not working. Councilman Green noted that during the primaries, he, Councilwoman Sánchez and Councilman Curtis Jones met to discuss matters relating to city clean up. He cited a figure of 1,200 current sanitation workers while there used to be 2,500 not too long ago. (I believe under Mayor Rizzo.) Councilwoman Sánchez reminded Councilman Green that the three of them agreed to go on a trash run with sanitation workers to see the routes and look at the problems firsthand.

So that ends my round of reporting from four corners of the city. I urge everyone to take a look through the agenda to see what you like and what you'd like to see addressed more efficiently. Find out who your representative on City Council is and don't forget, there are seven at-large members who are beholden to you as well. If you call, their staff will listen. Call the Mayor's Office and tell them how they're doing so far; give them a progress report, Mayor Nutter, after all, did ask for a report card in January of 2009. So go ahead, step up to the mic; it won't bite.

A flickr set of the photos above a little bigger and a few that didn't make it into the post.