By Albert Yee

Watching 400+ seemingly impatient Philadelphians stand in silence for a minute honoring recently killed in the line of duty Office John Pawlowski was humbling. I didn’t think the niceties would last long, but they did, for the entire evening. In a stark change from the first two events (the first of which you can read about here and here and the second here and my take), the South Philly crowd gathered in St. Monica’s was tame.

The Catholic school was filled to the brim with people handing out literature. From within inches of the front door shielding people from the frigid temperatures outside right into the auditorium, Philly activist Marc Stier (pictured above) among them. Councilman Bill Green (D At-Large) was there, as usual, handing out and collecting surveys in addition to the regular private citizens doing their part for the evening.

Once everyone was settled in, The Penn Project for Civic Engagement’s Harris Sokoloff took the mic center stage to lay the foundation for the evening to come. Scanning the room, I noticed that this was the youngest crowd I’d seen at one of these PPCE forums in quite a while, perhaps ever. This area of South Philly has been a spot where many 20-something scenesters have been flocking to for several years now and many of them are taking a part in their community instead of many in other parts of the city who simply see their neighborhoods as places to crash for the night before heading out to work or party. Sokoloff told the diverse crowd that after the conclusion of the 4 forums, Mayor Nutter would be going on Radio Times (10am - 12pm, WHYY 91FM)with Marty Moss-Coane Tuesday March 3 to discuss the forums. Not only will he state the City’s reaction to the input from the forums, the phone lines will be open for all to call in.

Once the big group broke up for smaller workshops, I headed down the hall and into an open classroom and took a seat next to City representative Andrew Stober. Moderators Rochelle Krombolz and Onaje Mujid immediately had the 17 split into groups of 5 or 6 to discuss the 26 points on the worksheet [.pdf].

Once back together, the group immediately went for 16 VEHICLE FLEET

ACTION: Reduce budget by 20%

IMPACT: 800 fewer vehicles. Sharply reduce maintenance and vehicle replacement. Lose 29 jobs.

 

With this action, all specialty equipment wouldn’t be touched eg. patrol cars, trash compactors and the like. Sharon didn’t care how city employees got to their job sites except for those working in Human Services. Members of the group cited the reduction of fleet by the city’s usage of the non-profit company PhillyCarShare vehicles. Being a former PhillyCarShare employee, I know firsthand how effective the program was. But PhillyCarShare is no longer the carsharing provider of the City, it is now for-profit Zipcar’s contract as a result of a winning bid on a 2007 RFP put out by the City.

Mira, pictured above, suggested 3 DROP PROGRAM; she noted that no jobs would be lost and the amount of money saved is quite high on paper.

ACTION: End program that offers early pension payments to city employees still working.

IMPACT: By one disputed estimate, would save $7M/yr. Might discourage high-paid workers form retiring.

 

A younger participant chimed in with a retort - a 2-year veteran of the Rec Department, she said that she got her job when many longtime employees were getting out by opting for the DROP Program. It enabled low-level spots to be freed up and people like her to come in and have the city save several pay grades. Alternatively, the well publicized “retirement” of Councilwoman Joan Krajewski (D District 6) which was done with the blessing of the City Solicitor’s office. Dropping DROP entirely instead of simply amending DROP to bar elected officials from signing up for DROP (did that bill pass?) seems drastic.

The group moved around the worksheet and ended the initial round of actions with 25 WAGE/RESIDENT with Julie bringing out the now infamous orange worksheet [.pdf] handed out by The Coalition for Essential Services designed to increase revenue while cutting no essential city services. WHYY’s new executive newsman for TV, internet and radio Chris Satullo responded to my friend Pat Cobbs‘ post on this same forum. In short, none of the items on the CES worksheet would bring in any money for FY2010 and the City needs short term solutions first because it cannot operate with a deficit budget. Hopefully down the line, the actions can be implemented for long term revenue streams. The group voted short of the full proposed tax hike of 0.6% and only got up to a 0.4%.

With all the agreement and little to no disagreement within the group, I was shocked to not see the Free Library make it on any list. When put up to vote, only 8 of 15 (the group lost 2 members) voted to not cut the libraries. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to discuss this heated topic. There was, however, more mighty majority behind the Fire Department and Police Department with both being placed on the No Way, No How list to not be cut. All in all, according to the Group 6 moderator report, the group came up with 68 points, placing them in the upper half of the 15 groups.

The larger group of 400+ produced 80+ messages on the Wailing Wall along with many video testimonies.

Now, I eagerly anticipate going through some more of the video testimonies and reading through all of the Wailing Wall comments which the It’s Our City staff has been sifting through. I know that Mayor Nutter has his work cut out for him processing all the information and going on Radio Times on Tuesday. I’ll unfortunately be at work without a radio or computer close by to listen in. Lucky for you and me, it’ll be archived here for easy access after the fact.

Here’s a flickr set of more photos from the forum.

Read Albert Yee’s blog