Mt. Airy civics to form schools committee

East Mount Airy Neighbors and West Mount Airy Neighbors are teaming up to form an education-focused committee. 

EMAN’s Executive Director Elayne Bender shared the news during her organization’s monthly meeting last Tuesday.

With the assistance of MAUSA, the Mt. Airy schools committee, a resurrection of a past effort, will be looking into establishing an Education Improvement Tax Credit program (EITC), in which corporations can contribute taxes to a 501c(3) fund.

The contributions will be used to support special projects in neighborhood schools. Gupta said the impetus of the EITC plan came out of a realization that “if the public schools in the section of the city are not improved, our impact will only go so far.”

A new Nuissance Task Force

During the meeting, Bender also said that EMAN, together with representatives from the city’s District Attorney’s Office, 14th District Philadelphia Police, WMAN and the Mt. Airy Business Improvement District (BID), have informally restarted a Nuisance Task Force.

An invitation was also extended to MAUSA to join the quarterly meetings.

MAUSA and EMAN board members are also considering holding quarterly leadership breakfasts in order to better enable the neighborhood associations to work together. The association would like to include representatives from BID, WMAN and the offices of Councilwoman Cindy Bass and State Representative Cherelle Parker at the periodic morning meetings.

Check back on Thursday for our story on Mt. Airy USA’s strategic plan for the next three years. MAUSA Executive Director Anuj Gupta gave the overview during EMAN’s monthly meeting.