City launches new website to track progress made on Parker campaign promises

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Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration has launched a new tool designed to demonstrate progress made on some key promises she made while on the campaign trail.

Categories for Philly Stat 360 are broken down into safer, cleaner, greener, economic opportunity and core services, echoing Parker’s mantra of a “safer, cleaner, greener city with economic opportunity for all.”

“We’re going to tell you about our progress, and some things we will be doing well, some things we need to do better at and some things we may not be doing well at all,” Parker said. “But we need to empower the tool of transparency.”

Parker said fellow mayors were spending a lot of money hiring outside consultants to do the job, while the city of Philadelphia hired its own experts to save money and still have quality control over the site.

Kristin Bray heads Philly Stat 360. She believes the website is easy for anyone to navigate. Parker herself admits she’s not much of a computer wiz, calling herself a “dinosaur” when it comes to technology.

“Philly Stat 360 will make all city services more interactive, more transparent and more accessible to all Philadelphians, giving them a government that they can see, touch and feel,” Bray said. “This is a major step forward in connecting Philadelphians with their government in a meaningful and direct way.”

The site has already been recognized by the Biden administration for its effort to promote transparency in the delivery of government services.

Parker said it is a way of “demystifying government” and eliminating what she called “hook-up culture,” where people need inside connections to access free city services on a priority basis.

“You usually have to know somebody, who knows somebody, who knows somebody to get connected to these services that are free and readily open and available to the public,” she said. “So, this effort helps to demystify government and it tells the public what we want to do, why we do it, how we do it and how they can be a part of it.”

Parker added the goal is to show people the good and the bad of city government and keep departments accountable.