Great Expectations

This thread is to receive your comments about the second installment of the Citizens Agenda for Philadelphia's Future, which was published in The Inquirer today (Monday) and is available in expanded version on the project Web site www.greatexpectations07.com

A few words about the Taxes/Budget section:

The No. 1 Priority listed there, continuing aggressive wage and business tax cuts, is one of a few instances where the Agenda actually goes contrary to the input of many of the citizens who attended forums. (Wage tax cuts were mostly popular, but business tax cuts were not. The abatement for new construction was widely regarded as unfair, as unearned candy for developers.)

Click the link to read a little explanation for our decision. Or, if you prefer, skip it and just write in your own comments:

Citizen blogger Albert Yee brings us the final report from our "Presenting the Agenda" neighborhood forums. He writes:

My final Great Expectations agenda forum was in District 7 - the home turf of freshman Councilwoman Maria Quiñones-Sánchez. The forum was held in Holy Innocents Church in Junianta. Along with about six staffers were about 40 participants. Councilwoman Sánchez and Councilman Bill Green made it out to hear their constituents discuss the agenda.

I sat down with the breakout group that discussed Budget & Taxes, Leadership & Reform, Transportation and City Services more in depth. This group was definitely the most subdued out of the four I've sat down with in the past month or so, but still had some lively conversation on some points. The discussion started with transportation. Duane wanted to see incentives for not taking cars into Center City like in some other large cities. Adan, a church leader from Norris Square, wanted to see how the city could become greener and address the issue of clogged streets in one fell swoop. James, a PhillyCarShare advocate, wanted to try new ideas and see if the worked out. He wanted smaller vehicles to run late at night instead of the large double-length buses, which run up and down Broad Street with single-digit passengers. John was worried about privatizing I-80. He definitely wanted more money to fund mass transit, but thought that this option would bust the unions and lead to crony appointments.

Citizen blogger Susan Zalenski returns to the Great Expectations blog to filed her report from the final neighborhood forum. The District 9 session focused on the final version of the Citizens Agenda for Philadelphia's Future. She writes:

The original City Council District 9 meeting was rescheduled due to “weather.” (It had snowed the day before the meeting.) A group of 50 or so citizens, civic leaders and City Year volunteers showed up at Albert Einstein Memorial Hospital to review the finalized Citizens Agenda for Philadelphia’s Future on Tuesday evening, March 25th.

Some background: District 9 covers Chestnut Hill, East Germantown, East Mount Airy , Glenwood , Hunting Park, Logan, Morton, Nicetown, Ogontz, Penn Knox, Rising Sun - Tioga, Southwest Germantown, West Central, West Mount Airy, Westside and Wister neighborhoods. District 9’s City Council Person is Marian Tasco, who joined the meeting later for the Q&A.