It¹s Our City is grateful to the WHYY interns who helped out during the budget workshops. They included Monica Sellecchia from Temple University, Claire Gunner from Swarthmore College, and Jason Kleinman from Rutgers University. Because of his training and background, I wondered what Jason’s take would be on the workshops. He¹s working on his master’s in public policy at Rutgers and has spent a summer as an intern at the Center for American Progress think tank. He also was a legislative assistant for the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. So, here are the thoughts of our It’s Our City intern.

By Jason Kleinman

I was excited about attending the second budget workshop, held on February 18 at the Mastery Charter School in Germantown. I have worked in politics and am currently studying public policy, but admittedly have not been very active in civic engagement, so I didn’t know what to expect. Would anybody actually come to this kind of event? Would it be useful? Did it even matter?

I was immediately surprised by how many people showed up to discuss the budget on a cold, rainy Wednesday night. By the time the event started, it was standing room only, with over 500 residents in attendance. I was shocked. The room represented the area’s diversity, with people of all races and ethnicities ready to share their opinions about the current budget gap. There was a sense of excitement in the room.

The energy level deflated a bit as the event began. Moderator Tom Ferrick, a former Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, and a contributing writer for It’s Our City, led an informative discussion about the budget shortfall, which included what appeared to be a staged Q&A session with a panel of city officials, including the mayor’s chief of staff. I was glad (and surprised) that these city leaders took such an active role in the event, but I also was disappointed that the conversation was limited to the moderator’s questions. Several times, audience members shouted out their own comments and concerns, only to be ignored by the panel. I understand that there was a schedule and opening the floor to questions may have led to anarchy, but at a civic engagement event, it may have been a nice touch to allow the participants to ask questions.

After the introduction, participants split up into break-out groups to play sim government. Each person was given a brief list of budget cut scenarios and then the group as a whole was charged with cutting $2 million from the next fiscal year’s budget in 90 minutes. I wandered around from group to group during this time to get a sense of the how the activity was going.

Overall, I was very impressed. Sure there were some complaints about missing or incomplete information, but that is to be expected. The groups that did not get weighed down in the details were able to engage in serious, and sometimes heated, dialogue about the budget. And from my perspective, at least, this was the point of the workshop. Participants may be naïve to expect the mayor’s staff to read through every comment made in every group in each of the four workshops, but maybe that’s not the goal.
Everyone who attended these workshops left with a better understanding of the budget crisis and the knowledge that cutting $2 million is no easy feat. While we can all agree that the mayor will not simply implement any plan that reached 100 points, that does not mean that the suggestions will fall on deaf ears. There were clear themes that came out of all four workshops, and they were certainly heard by the city officials who sat in the different groups and took notes throughout the night.

One of my favorite parts of the workshop was the video diary rooms. These rooms, which reminded me of The Real World’s confessional room, allowed participants to film a two-minute message to the mayor. Some of these videos are pretty remarkable, and I urge you to check them out. Residents opened up and shared their first-hand experiences with different city services. It became clear that all of these — from health clinics to arts programs to parks — are a vital part of the city and that cutting any of them will have detrimental effects. These videos provide a small glimpse of the people who depend on city services every day. Watching these testimonials made the whole situation more real to me and reminded me that we really are in the midst of a crisis.

It is often tough times that draw people closer together, and this is very true of the people of Philadelphia. It was encouraging to see an auditorium filled with concerned residents and attentive city officials who were all trying to figure out a way to endure massive budget cuts. It is impossible to know what effect these workshops will have on the mayor’s final decision, but participants should feel proud about taking an active role in their city. Few cities are able to pull off such an event, let alone four within two weeks. Philadelphia and its residents should feel proud … but maybe we should wait to congratulate ourselves until after the mayor presents his budget.

If this was your first civic engagement experience, what did you think of the workshop? Did you have any expectations? If so, were they met? Do you think the mayor or his staff will take your suggestions into consideration?