Citizen blogger Bill Rowland takes a look at the May 13, 2008, neighborhood forum focusing on city services. (Bill's own blog can be read at http://phillyfoodguys.com/).
He writes:
Arriving at the Lutheran Seminary on Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia’s Mount Airy neighborhood, I was really looking forward to the evening’s proceedings. I’ve been to several Great Expectations events, and I’ve always walked away energized by the collaboration and teamwork by seemingly diverse people. Tuesday night in Mount Airy was no exception…
The evening began with dinner followed by a few obligatory remarks by Tom Ferrick Jr., who summarized the evening’s agenda and quickly made it clear that establishing Customer Service Standards for Philadelphia was our “theme of the evening.” Attendees would participate in one of five breakout sessions to provide input on how to measure customer service. Using several budgetary reports as background, the floor was quickly turned over to Budget Director Steve Agostini and his staff who clarified the somewhat cryptic data using a variety of reports, including: A PowerPoint Presentation; the 2009 Budget-in-Brief; the 2009 Operating Budget; and the City’s Five Year Plan. I think that attendees were impressed at how clearly this seemingly complex information was conveyed. Furthermore, I appreciated the pragmatic manner in which the mayor’s staff seems to be approaching the challenges that face the city – without blaming prior administrations, in a business-like fashion.
Full of the basics and a few sandwiches, attendees were then dispatched to breakout sessions covering each of the administration’s strategic goals: Public Safety, Education, Jobs and Economic Development, Healthy and Sustainable Neighborhoods, and Ethics. I chose Ethics because I feel that they are the cornerstone of an effective government.
Taking up temporary residence in the Heineken Room, the Ethics Breakout Session was made up of neighbors from the surrounding areas of Germantown, Mount Airy, Chestnut Hill and points beyond. Interestingly, there were several former city and federal government employees that offered a perspective on city government that most don’t see. In addition, three members of the mayor’s staff were in attendance, suggesting that ethics are important to the administration. Concluding introductions, I prepared myself for the inevitable flurry of frustrations that notoriously take groups off on tangents, but thankfully this was minimized and actually led to the topic at hand: Ethics.
Since “Customer Service Standards” was the theme of the evening, our moderator focused the group’s attention on answering three questions:
1. What does “ethics” mean to you?
2. How would you measure success?
3. What level of customer service do you expect from the city?
Without a blow-by-blow description, here are a few key ideas with an accompanying brief explanation on each:
What does “ethics” mean to you?
- A Level Playing Field for Everyone
- Honesty, Fairness, Courtesy and Equal Access for All
- Transparency
Unfortunately, many residents have experienced inconsistencies in service for a variety of reasons – geographic location, political favors, etc… City departments should apply the Golden Rule when dealing with the public; residents from every part of the city should receive the same quality of service, regardless of economic condition or location. Lastly, transparency in the form of free and open access to laws, regulations and legislative processes will improve the understanding of how decisions are made and gives the ordinary citizen the power to more easily identify unethical behavior. Our “definition” might not be complete, but everyone was encouraged that we seem to be on the same page…
How would you measure success?
- Increased Number of Ethics Complaints
- A Timely Response to Complaints
- Decreasing the Number of No Bid Contracts
Obviously, it’s easier to measure unethical behavior, so the number of Ethics complaints is a natural metric. To start, increasing complaints would indicate a level of comfort on the part of citizens and city employees to report lapses; later, a decrease (ideally) would indicate improvement. A timely response to a complaint would confirm receipt of the complaint and tailor expectations. Decreasing the number of No Bid contracts would also reduce the potential for abuse. Metrics for measuring ethical behavior were difficult to pin down, and we could have spent all night on this one.
What levels of customer service do you expect from the city?
- No Bribes
- Knowledgeable Staff
- Solicitation and Use of Feedback
It’s sad to say that bribery occurs in Philadelphia – it’s not common, but it does happen and shouldn’t. City employees that are less knowledgeable about the operation of their department should interact with the public in a limited capacity (if at all). City departments should use the experiences of the public to improve their level of service. Everyone here agreed that beyond basic customer service, more communication would also help manage resident expectations.
As the evening concluded, attendees reassembled in the main meeting room for closing comments and remarks from the mayor’s staff. I was hoping for a bit more substance, such as a brief summary of what each group found, but as I looked at the wall covered in long lists of suggestions, I realized that wasn’t going to happen.
By all measure, the evening’s community forum appeared to be a resounding success. The approximate 120 attendees were engaged and relatively focused on defining the customer-service metrics for each of the five strategic goals. If success can be measured based on attendee input, then the event was very successful. Most people seem optimistic about the future and the new administration - the phrase “Nutter Love-Fest” came to mind a few times.
I’m optimistic, too, but I can’t help but be realistic. First, we’re still in the “honeymoon” phase with the Nutter administration and the true test will be overcoming adversity over time, for both residents and the mayor. Will currently optimistic residents still be supportive when a difficult decision is made that negatively impacts them? Can Mayor Nutter weather the inevitable storm of criticism resulting from making tough decisions? I hope so. Secondly, as one attendee put it, the City of Philadelphia is like a large ocean liner, it takes time to change course. It’s taken many years to get where we are, and we need to be patient as we reverse negative trends. With the city’s history, can we do it? I think we can, and I hope that by measuring progress toward the mayor’s five strategic goals, we are taking the first of many steps toward turning our “Love Boat” around and making Philadelphia The Next Great City.
Comments (4)
I also attended the Germantown meeting. The presentations by the Mayor's representatives were an insult to the intelligence of the people in the room. They argued that the Mayor's goal is to make the Philadelphia educational system the best in the nation. Is this a joke?
The day after that meeting my next door neighbor, who is a Philadelphia teacher, informed me that her job, and the jobs of several of her co-teachers is being eliminated. Michael Nutter has already voted to cut back on art, music, and physical education while he was in City Council. He also voted to approve an education budget which represents 40% of the funding per student as they have on the other side of City Line Avenue.
In the past 30 years many skyscrapers have been built in this city bringing in billions of dollars. At the same time as these skyscrapers have been constructed, Philadelphia became the poorest city of its size in the nation. Yet, during these same years Michael Nutter voted to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on sports stadiums and the Convention Center. He also supports Hillary Clinton who voted to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the war.
What is the Mayor's specific proposal to deal with this reality. He, in effect has argued that we need to follow in the footsteps of former mayor Frank Rizzo and engage in a policy of "Stop and Frisk."
Life is becomming more difficult for working people in this country. The Mayor has made it crystal clear that it will be business as usual in City Hall. The problem is that the government works to enrich the affluent while everyone else sees our standard of living deteriorate.
Only the Socialist Workers Party believes that we need to advance the needs of working people at the expense of the super-rich. Only this kind of strategy has any chance of making life for working people better than it is today.
Posted by Steve | May 19, 2008 5:22 PM
Posted on May 19, 2008 17:22
Hate to burst your bubble, Steve. I for one am not a member of the SWP but am a supporter of shifting support from the rich to the people.
There are MANY who feel this way. And there are many ways toward this end, key among them being progressive tax policies, use of public monies to increase the capabilities of the underemployed to get and keep good jobs (e.g. public transit, quality public education, etc.) and even as incentives to get biz to create jobs without fostering overpaid private executive salaries and profits, especially profits that go to out of town or out of country corporate wallets.
NB: the on-rushing disaster of global warming is going to hit the low-income far more than the rich, as usually happens when strife occurs in the world. In this never-before situation human being will find ourselves engulfed by forces of global scale, penetrating every corner of geography, culture, economy, politics, etc.
To develop a responsive state of mind, the green jobs movement is helping to re-define conventional economy into a framework of eco-economic principles. Such principles are widely embraced across the board by thousands of institutions, organizations, governmental agencies and emergent businesses & economics organizations. See yesmagazine dotcom or wiserearth dot org, for example.
Let's get Philly going that way, deeply green & deeply just!
Steve wrote, in part:
Only the Socialist Workers Party believes that we need to advance the needs of working people at the expense of the super-rich. Only this kind of strategy has any chance of making life for working people better than it is today.
Posted by Bill Marston | May 20, 2008 12:50 PM
Posted on May 20, 2008 12:50
Message to Socialist:
Just so you know, the Philadelphia City government does not have direct control over the School District of Philadelphia - so we are told.
Has anyone ever heard the expression "power of the purse strings?"
- Down in the Basement
Posted by Down in the Basement | May 21, 2008 12:00 PM
Posted on May 21, 2008 12:00
Have to say that down in the basement is correct... Philadelphia's problem and continues to be is.. that it is not the next great city, not the next Manhattan, not even a peer of the top ten cities in the states, but in fact a peer of cities such as Baltimore,DC,Atlanta,Detroit,St.Louis,Newark,Cleveland,Kansas City, Oakland and Philadelphia makes 10. Why does Philadlephia continue to compare itself to cities like Boston and NY is beyond me, unless they are talking about Philadelphia before 1964.
Boston with 600k people has 65 murders per year, NY which is on pace to have the lowest murder rate in its history, less then 500 this year. Example in case, in 1990, NYC had 30 per 100,000 murders per year which translated to 2900 per year. Last year it was at 6 per 100,000. Philadlephia on the other hand,currentally has 26 per 100,000 in 2007 and once again the killing fields are active again. I could go on for pages, fact is who cares?
Philadelphia brings nothing to the table.. End of story.
Alf Cooper
Posted by Cooper | May 21, 2008 1:00 PM
Posted on May 21, 2008 13:00