I attended the first At-Large City Council candidates forum last week and was struck by a) the amazing progressive energy and potential for improving the city we will have this spring, and b) the lack of female representation from the candidates.
I had been thinking about this recently because of discussions I've had with friends about the lack of outspoken, powerful women in politics here. There are some outstanding examples, but it is 2006 already and we should be doing a lot better in terms of diversity.
It is more than a numbers game, but 1 of 15 at-large candidates (so far), is pretty bad. And a quick look around: 7 of 17 councilpersons, 1/3rd of "connectors, 3 out of 10 'most powerful', shows it is not an aberration.
For the folks my age (under 40) it is a sunnier outlook. I think there are as many or more active and outspoken women in the networks I frequent than men. But is this true? Or just my white-male perception. So two questions for any and all:
1) Is the young, progressive community more diverse than old philly politics? If not what can we do?
2) Why isn't there more diversity in the philly elected? Is it still an old-boys network?
Personally, as a white male, I'm not sure what my part in all of this is. And to answer my own question I think we have a ways to go.
There is a lot of talk about 'reform' and progressive change right now. But as progressives if this isn't a diverse movement then I think we need to go back to the drawing board.
AMEN ... we need more diversity on City Council!
You raise a good point.
Also, 4 of the 7 at-large positions are held by White males (in addition to 3 district seats).
But, in addition to electing more women at-large, although 60% of council districts are represented by women ( 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th - including the President, Majority Leader, and Majority Whip) - did you realize that only 2 of 17 members are Black men?
Hmmm... only 2 of 17?
WWGjr
definitely
I meant my observation about male to female ratio as a starting point to talk about all diverstiy, but not only on council but also in what we consider a progressive movement.
For clarity though
two of the 7 At-Large members are required to be of the Republican Party. They tend to be white males. If this requirement did not exist, they would not be there. There is usually a 50k vote falloff from the 5th democrat and the first republican in the municipal general election.
At-Large Republicans and Diversity on Council
I included the Republicans in my post because there was at least one at the NN At-Large Forum - David Oh.
David Oh, an Asian Republican, was a good candidate in 2003, as was David Hardy, a Black Republican - in fact, both the Daily News and Inquirer endorsed Hardy over David Cohen in the general election.
Joan Specter was also an At-Large Republican who served in Council - and, of course, a woman.
It's a 17-member body - and all 3 Republicans are White males- but of the 14 Democrats, only 2 are Black men and only 2 are White women with the other seats equally split between White men and Black women.
There is a reason for that.
WWGjr
If you think about it
why should the city charter hold 2 at-large seats open for the R's? Have they done that for the D's over the years in Harrisburg or Washington?
With the great fallout in votes between the 5th D and the 1st R, do they even have a right them? Hmmm.
Green Skin and Purple Breath
If you compare City Council to most other organizations in the city--businesses, non-profits organizations, arts groups--you will see that it is far more demographically representative than all the others.
The real problem with Council is that it does not represent the interests of Philadelphians.
This week two neighborhoods got casinos shoved down their throats. And do did the rest of us because these two casinos will harm the port and block much better development that could open the riverfront to all of us.
Where was Council in this fight?
Nowhere.
A few council members talked a lot about the casinos and did little. One quietly supported a casino against the opposition of neighborhood close to his own. Most of them hid under their desks.
Every neighborhood in this city should be quaking in its boots. Development project are coming all over the city. Gentrification is taking off. Some of this development is good, or could be good if guided by good regulations. Some of it is very bad.
Council has shown little interest in distinguishing between good and bad development. It has shown no willingness to stand up to rich and powerful political and economic interests when they threaten the good of neighborhoods or the city as a whole.
(The next development to fear is New River City. And don’t say that Clarke’s height restriction bill will stop it. The bill only covers half the site. And it came so late that a lawsuit might overturn it.)
When Miles Davis hired Lee Konitz to play in the band that recorded The Birth of the Cool, some black friends criticized him for hiring a white musician.
Miles responded by saying, “If I can find someone who can play alto better than Lee, I’ll hire him even if he has green skin and purple breath.”
I’ve been visiting and walking the streets in neighborhoods in every section of this city. And I can tell you this: if people can show they are willing to stand up for the citizens of the city, they will find support, even if they have green skin and purple breath.
It's funny
Marc, you have publicly complimented me about my work on city council and have privately e-mailed me in the same fashion. Now, I am under my desk?
Being a candidate for office can change you if you allow yourself to become hyperbolic. During my 4 city wide races and preparing for my 5th, my advice is avoid these blanket statements and speak about issues that a city council member can actually have some influence over. That's just my advice.
The Hunger for Leadership in the City
Jim,
I have complimented you both publicly and privately—and I guess I just learned from your post that nothing I write is private anymore—for some of the thing you have done on city council. And, in the post to which you are replying, I say some folks on Council have spoken out and done a little on the issue. I'm trying not to personalize this campaign so I didn't say who I meant---you and Frank DiCicco--mostly because I didn't want to say who has been supporting a casino close to their own neighborhood--my old friend Wilson Goode (who will probably respond now by telling me exactly how far he lives from the site.)
But I don't think any of you on Council have done what you might have.
The city has zoning control over the casino sites, thanks to the work you did on the inside and a group of activists which I helped lead did on the outside.
Why didn't you use that power? I know the answer, because I’ve heard it from Council members. (The Council members spoke to me privately, so I won't reveal their names.) They have said that, if Council tried to use the zoning power to control the site of the casinos, the General Assembly, lead by Senator Fumo, would take the zoning power away from us again.
That might be true. But it also might be that if the zoning issue were to come to the General Assembly again, we could create so massive outcry on the part of Philadelphians that, together with the other opponents of gambling in the legislature, we could save zoning control once again.
And if that didn’t work, the Council could use its power to create a year long moratorium on building permits in Commercial Entertainment Districts to block the casinos while our fight continues.
Again, there is an answer supplied to me by a Council member: it is not clear that council would vote for such an ordinance.
That might be true, too. But, so what? At least Council members would have been on record about the casinos. Instead most of them are, as I said, under their desks.
When we are facing disaster and our government is not responsive to us, we need leadership that mobilizes people and creates so powerful a movement that our public officials cannot withstand it. And we have to keep fighting, again and again and again, until we win.
Those movements would be far more powerful if we had one or two politicians who would lead them.
I keep asking myself what David Cohen in his prime--or even in his eighties--would have done about the casinos. He would not have just said, "it is a decision of the state and there is nothing we can do about it." He would have been leading and building this movement, not standing on the sidelines watching it and occasionally saying he supports.
So, yes, I am grateful to you and Frank for supporting the anti-casino movement, for helping restore our zoning rights, and for other things you have done. The two of you have done far more than any other members of council.
But there is a tremendous hunger in this city for much more aggressive leadership, for politicians who engage with all the critical issues before us and who work closely with the incredible activists we have in the city not just on casinos, but on issue after issue from affordable housing to property tax reform to education to crime and so on.
If we had that kind of leadership, citizens would regain their hope in government. And they would provide the pressure we need to force the rest of the government to respond and enact policies that would make this a much better city.
That leadership is missing at all levels of government. And nothing reveals its absence so much as the casino issue.
Happy Holidays,
Marc
What I Wanted from City Council
Was some VISION on the casino issue, specifically a vision of HOW and especially WHERE casinos could best benefit the city.
From the moment in 2004 when two casinos were scheduled here, it was the job of local government to find the best way to deal with the state's mandate. Two positions seemed most likely:
1) outright opposition to casinos
2) choose and develop the best sites and projects
The position council chose instead was to bend over and take whatever the state was giving.
Sure, when Harrisburg grabbed zoning rights, danders were raised, and we all applauded when locals wrestled them back. But as shadows of a Foxwoods disaster loom, along with a lost waterfront and plummeting quality of life, we all know how inadequate that victory was.
If (1) seemed too hard, why didn't someone on council say, okay let's ask some city planners WHERE these things should go and HOW they should be run?
More specifically, if Inga Saffron, a host of experts, and anyone with common sense (or knowledge of New Orleans Harrah's) say the already-expanding Convention Center area is the best place for an urban casino, why isn't one going there?
Why not the stadium complex?
Why didn't someone on council find a site and develop a project we could--if not be proud of--at least live with more happily?
To do so required ingenuity and vision, and that vision was missing. Council chose to do what insufficient government often does, act reactively rather than pro-actively.
I respect Jim, I've voted for him, and he certainly has "vision" on other issues, particularly those concerning new immigrants and promoting the city. I'm not singling him out.
I also make no bones about hoping Vern Anastasio runs and beats Frank DiCicco for the First District Council seat. If someone should be held responsible for vision negligence on the casino issue, the guy whose constituents got screwed seems the most likely candidate. I think Vern possesses a better vision of how the city becomes a better place.
Overall, I think Marc's right. The casino problems are sympomatic of larger problems with our present City Council.
It's a VISION thing.
With all due respect,
I cannot find the link between a vision on this gaming issue and the city government's ability to guide the issue or make changes to the state's legislatively mandated process.
People have opined on here that former councilmembers, like David Cohen, would have screamed and yelled and so on. They also point to the trash-to-steam proposal as an example of what could be done to derail a bad project. One big difference though, the TTS Proposal was a city initiative, not a state one. The city council had to approve the plan, the site and the funding. Not so for gaming. We were and are very much captives in this process and reduced to reacting to what the gaming commission does. I have been in city council a while now and am not aware of any other legislative options we have than the ones already employed.
What I really do not get is that the real villians in this situation are the members of the state legislature. They gave you gaming, voted to take away your zoning rights and they get a free pass. What is really annoying about the debate over gaming somehow falling in the lap of city council, is that these people have real power to change the situation.
They could help repeal Act 71, ammend the act to make it more city centric and less intrusive for the neighborhoods they are supposed to be representing. Why is Frank DiCicco the focus of complaint when all he has done is try to effectively legislate protections for his district?
Keller, Taylor, O'Brien and yes, Fumo are the people responsible for this and you focus on DiCicco. Why are not the anti-casino folks camped out at their offices demanding relief from abad process that will hurt their own districts.
And beside vision, please tell me what CITY COUNCIL can actually DO that has not been done or is in the process now.
I have heard this argument
I have heard this argument again and again--but, for the most part, I agree with Councilman Kenney. Act 71 was shoved down our throats--so all we could ever do is react. And that means all of us. Surely, Councilmembers could have done a number of things differently, including being pro-active or riverfront development 10 years ago, but in 2006 the problem is almost entirely a state creation.
As much as I love a good villian, in this instance--we need to focus on the real villans, those in the State House. I know many will disagree, but this is my completely objective analysis of the situation.
Sorry for the error
I accidentally posted something twice and am eliminating this copy.
Politics as Usual Is Not Enough
Jim,
First, I do not blame you or Frank DiCicco for the casinos. You—and Gaetano and Larry— are absolutely right that the State Legislature passed Act 71 and that those State Representatives who are now complaining about the casinos voted for them and ought to be preparing to try to repeal Act 71 in January. They deserve a great deal of the blame for the fix we are in now.
Second, I have pointed out more than once that you and Frank have been the only two members of Council to say or do anything about the casinos. The other members of Council—including the 6 other at-large members— have been totally AWOL.
So why do many people at YPP, including me, think that all Council members could have done more? I think the problem here is that we have different ideas about the nature of political leadership.
You, like most politicians in Philadelphia, work almost entirely within the political system, trying to use your formal power in Council to change what you can. You have been reasonably effective in doing so because you actually come up with some interesting policy ideas now and again. But you look at the casinos from that inside perspective and, from that point of view, you conclude that you really don’t have a lot of formal powers you can use to stop the juggernaut that long ago decided to bring casinos to the waterfront.
I have a very different perspective. For the last eight years, I have been a community activist, with no formal political power at all. Yet the coalitions which I have helped organize and work for—the Pennsylvania Transit Coalition and the Minimum Wage Coalition, to name two—have made a big difference. Two years ago we secured funding to save SEPTA, which was the only major transit agency in the country that did not raise fares that year. This year we raised the minimum wage in the state which everyone said could not be done when the Republicans controlled the legislature.
Without any formal power at all we have changed public policy. We have mobilized thousands of people and, by effective lobbying that brought pressure to bear at the right spots, pushed the General Assembly to do things it otherwise would not have done.
Now think how effective a political movement—and in particular the movement against casinos—could be if a citizen army of the kind I have helped create more than once had energetic, and dedicated political officials willing to work with it and even lead it.
Here is one example. We both have taken credit for restoring zoning rights over the casinos. You claim you did it by convincing your mentor, Senator Fumo. I claim I did it by working with Ed Goppelt, Anne Dicker, Jethro Heiko, Rene Goodwin and others to mobilize a thousand people to do a letter, fax, and phone campaign to every State Representative in the city. That campaign led almost all of our legislators to vote against SB 862 in order to save our zoning rights.
The truth is that, without our public effort, I very much doubt that your private effort to convince Senator Fumo to back down on the zoning issue would have been effective. And without your private effort, I doubt that our public effort would have been enough.
It is this kind of inside-outside strategy that we need to continue to bring to bear on the casinos. City Council’s formal powers are limited. But, thanks to our efforts, Council does have the zoning power and can use it to keep casinos from residential areas. Or Council can use zoning to ban parking garages from the waterfront and try to force the casinos to support a public transit solution that would put parking off-site. Council has the power to declare a moratorium on building permits in Commercial Entertainment Districts. It might not even be too late to acquire the Foxwoods and Sugar House sites by eminent domain. Or Council can create exorbitant fees for providing water, sewer, and other services to new, entertainment facilities over a certain size.
I don’t know whether any of these maneuvers, by themselves, will stop the casinos. We all know that the state might act to take away the zoning power if we “misuse” it. I don’t even know if you can get any of these ideas through City Council. But that is not really the point. The point is to use these tactics to delay the casinos and to build a public movement against them. For while Council is considering and, I hope, passing some of this legislation, Council members could be doing what I’m doing right now, going around the city and talking about the appalling picture of our state legislature forcing casinos on neighborhoods that do not want them.
Everyone in this city understands why that is wrong. Every one understands that their neighborhood could be the next one with its head on the chopping block. And everyone could be mobilized to pressure our Governor and the General Assembly to back off on the casinos
(Of course, as Gaetano has pointed out more than once, it would have been even better if all this happened a year ago, long before the 2006 primaries and general election.)
The outside political strategy is what we need to give people hope that politics can be effective in protecting and serving them. And, if they have this hope, they will be active in bringing the pressure to bear on politicians that is needed to make insiders more effective.
I know that this kind of public, outside strategy is uncomfortable for Council members. It might anger your colleagues if, for example, you introduced an ordinance to put a year long moratorium on issuing building permits in CEDs. None of them, and especially none of the at-large members, really want to take a stand on casinos in an election year. And you might well lose in Council and no one likes to lose anything. (And some Council members have the utterly inane idea that the test of whether they are effective is how many bills with their name on it pass, when the real test is how whether really important legislation gets enacted by means of their efforts, no matter whose name is on the bill.)
But you know David Cohen at his best was effective because he cared more about the impact of what he did on the city as a whole, than he cared about what his colleagues thought of him. And he cared more about the long term consequences of his political actions than he cared about one small victory or defeat.
I’m not saying you should be David Cohen. (I don’t intend to replicate his political style, either. For one thing, I write long essays but my speeches are almost always short.) There is a long way between his style and the more usual style of doing politics in Philadelphia.
All I am saying is that politics as usual, the inside game most pols play in this city, is not enough any more.
It is not enough to stop the casinos.
It is not enough to fix the Department of Licenses and Inspections.
It is not enough to fix the zoning and development process.
It is not enough to give us a good public transit system.
It is not enough to deal aggressively with crime.
It is not enough to find the right combination of tax reform and economic development initiatives to revive our economy.
It is not enough to allow the city to benefit from gentrification while enabling the people who have lived in bad times in their neighborhoods to stick around for the good times.
We need a new style of political leadership that is willing to engage citizens and activists early so as to create the political movements that can pressure Council and the Mayor to enact the public policies we so desperately need to make this city what it should be.
Marc
Some are using the issue for political gain.
Marc,
I think it is disingenuous for the Anastasio Campaing to use an issue like gaming as the centerpiece of their campaign against Frank when they know quite well his options are limited and the possibility of not pleasing everyone is high.
I will not go on again about those reponsible, but the political focus on Frank is calculated to try to create a red herring campaign issue in a city council election that clearly belongs in a state house or senate race.
Political activism is great, but should I deem your efforts a failure because gaming was approved by the state legislature? I think not.
So, Frank's tenure is not a failure because of the passage of state law that he could do nothing to prevent. I think the war in Iraq is insane. I did not send the troops and am not voting to pay for it in congress, but should a person run against me because I did not do enough to change George Bush's mind?
I am sure that you can understand the frustration of being accused of ineffectiveness on an issue that you did not create and are ernestly trying to mitigate.
Thanks for the Tip
Jim,
It never occurred to me to campaign against the at-large incumbents on the Iraq War issue. I’ll have to run this by my campaign manager. Thanks for the tip. ;)
I do think we anti-casino activists were slow in getting organized and in broadening our movement beyond the immediately affected neighborhoods. In part this was because Act 71 was another one of those middle of the night jobs. It was enacted with very little public discussion of the process by which casinos would be sited.
In part the problem was that building a political movement is long, hard process and it is difficult for volunteers to do it. One thing I hope to do as a Councilman is make my staff available to issue and community activists to help them with their work, as Dave Cohen often did.
And, the other part of the problem is that our political officials should be acting like early warning signals, to tell us when a tsunami like the casinos may hit. Council members have some responsibility here. But you won’t get an argument from me if you say that State Representatives and Senators deserve much of the blame.
Why our and how state legislature works in the way it does is another topic to which progressives need to give a lot of attention.
Marc
Honestly,
Honestly, everyone--activists and political officials are at fault here. The early warning signals were evident in the 1990s when Rendell was Mayor with casino gambling and the very lucrative options casino firms were collecting on riverfront land. Can someone who has lived in this town for more than 10 years honestly say we didn't expect this. I was in high school at the time, and I still remember reading about how River Boat gambling would be the savior of the city. Rendell, Fumo and company only suceeded this time by wrapping it up as tax relief.
That being said, the current incarnation of Act 71 was a bit of a suprise. Marc admits, organization was slow in regards to Act 71--as it was a middle of the night bill. To the extent City Council could have done anything related specifically to Act 71, I really cannot see any clear indication of what that should have been. Honestly, no one is presenting a difference in what they would have actually done, substantively and procedurally if they were in City Council to change the passage of Act 71. Why?
Because we had a state legislature intent on giving people "tax relief" and providing for additional revenue in a no-slow growth state economy that they could not and cannot figure out how to revive. I pose there is nothing a City Council person, township commissioner or anyone could have done to proactively stop what the General Assembly saw fit.
Now we are left with two options: (1) the legal process, which we are already in; and (2) the political process, which we need to focus on those responsible for Act 71. We failed in this regard so far, in my mind particularly with Rendell. But, we need to look to 2008, particularly in the Riverwards, to make some strong challenges.
I do not support DiCicco, in fact it is the opposite. But, this town has so many other problems--like crime, like education, like development, like population loss, like job growth (or lack of), like city services, like budget issues, etc., that, in my humble opinion, so much energy is focused on gaming in these races, I think it is becoming a red herring. Without question, it is vitally important. But, for real results, see the numbers 1 and 2 above. Otherwise, I think we are barking up the wrong tree.
I have always liked Councilman Kenney. In fact, it was just months ago that he was kind enough to talk with me about politics. I think he is by far one of the best people in Council and have long hoped he would take the jump and run for mayor. He, along with Councilman Goode are not people I want to alienate from this community. While I pray that Marc Stier is a collegue of theirs come 2007, I think gaming is bad for Philadelphia. But, I also think failing to place the legislative authority of City Council in its proper perspective is dangerous.
Sam Just Some Thoughts
Sam, I agree with you about City Council lagging behind on some matters. They are not perfect and I guess that is expected. But on gaming, why haven't we heard from our elected state officials on this subject? It bothers me that our state reps have yet to weigh in and explain why they voted Yes in 2004. If we are going to make any real progress here, it must start with our state officials making legislative proposals next week. Now, in all honesty, our state officials knew how we felt about the casinos so why didn't they propose legislation to halt the process? Even if they thought it would not pass, why not try and take some action. It seems to me they "punted" on this issue (2x)- once in 2004 and in the last seesion of 2005.
Sam, I share your frustration and your anger on this and I agree with you-action was and is needed. Only a few weeks ago, I attended the "Save Hawthorne Park" Rally, and blogged about it here on YPP. During that rally, one of our state reps took the microphone and made a big speech about how developers are taking over our neighborhoods without concern for our families, our children and our future. Well, guess what-our neighborhoods, our children and our families are about to be overrun by the very casinos which this rep, along with all the other Philadelphia officials, said Yes to in 2004. We need representatives and state officials who will work with our city council. All our state elected officials knew this day would come. In fact, in the May Primary, the Inquirer posed 2 questions about gaming in its candidate questionaire. One in particualr addressed the adequacy of controls over gaming and expansion of gaming in the near future. In my responses, I called for the return of local control and was clearly against the expansion of gaming over the next several years. Some of us who ran in the Primary tried hard to make this a central issue and I know you were right out there talking about with Anne's campaign. The problem is that incumbents did not want to face it because it was a loser for them. Thats politics.
But now, we must realize that politics is not going to solve this problem. We need our legislatures to take action next week. To win or just make progress, this fight must be fought on 2 fronts-in Harrisburg and in Philadelphia.
Yes, it is about Vision. But to be fair, the vision must be SHARED both our state and local officials. Did our state elected officials share our vision in July of 2004? I don't think so and thats were the problem started.
Maybe the ball was dropped by everyone on this issue. But, again, the ball started in our state officials' court and they have not done much to advance the ball over the last 2 years.
The difference between vision-deficiency and villainy
Is the crux of the argument here.
City government, in my estimation, lacked VISION in defending the waterfront and its citizens from a destructive plan years in the making. They were not VILLAINS in the casinos saga. That was state government, they who forced projects we didn't want in places we didn't want them.
As far as I can tell, they were led by an arch-villain, Vince Fumo. I do not mean to oversimplify, but the state senator represents, most powerfully, all who will suffer from Foxwoods and SugarHouse. Yet he is Act 71's generally-acknowleged architect and engine, that which strips his own constituents of rights and probably quality of life. Forget for the moment any possible ties between his friends and winning casino projects, and the very real hypocrisy of his anti-NIMBY arguments (in wake of his actions against a Center City ballpark planned for his neighborhood), and simply consider how deeply dysfunctional our Philadelphia polity remains when the very guy who screwed us in Harrisburg is the guy who represents us there.
It seems a sad reminder of Philadelphia's low expectations for its politicians that few now dare call for his head. In a democracy, we must never live in fear of our representatives. Such episodes encapsulate my problem with machine politics.
Jim, Gaetano, and Larry, you're all right. In 2008, we must hold responsible all who really created the casinos mess, the real villains. That starts with Senator Fumo and includes all who aided him, and failed us, in Harrisburg.
But 2007 faces us directly. I agree, more essential issues should define municipal races: crime, jobs, education, and taxes.
But I remain convinced we will overcome low political expectations only by demanding creative, pro-active solutions, and yes VISION from our representatives in city government. The failure of a hero to step up and stop casinos where we don't want them--or promote sites/projects where we might--seems to me a palpable example of such vision deficiency.
In 2005, we needed a hero with vision. Act 71 was six months old, sites were to be announced in December, all knew the waterfront was vulnerable. Penn Praxis was a great idea then.
In 2005, a councilperson with vision could champion the best sites and shepherd the best projects. Later the Gaming Board's public hearings were opportunities to join civic groups to lobby for those projects. It's not unfair to say activists lacked vision too.
But I believe we should expect VISION and timely LEADERSHIP from our representatives. Maybe that's too much from Philadelphia politicians. I hope not.
Jim, you're a great guy for participating here as you do. You extend a warm hand of democracy like a true Philadelphian. You're a good councilperson and a good friend to Frank DiCicco for your eloquent defense of him. As an English professor, I admire your prose!
And you're right, Councilman DiCicco is not a villain in this story.
I simply think he did not prove the visionary hero we needed--and I believe DESERVE--when we needed one the most.
Politician's casino ownership
I have a legitimate question to anyone......Is the 5% ownership in the casinos for elected officials still in effect?? If so, does anyone know who among our elected officials have ownership in the two casinos that passed last week? Also, how many of our elected officials can say that they're not silent partners in the ownership deal or do not have family members or close friends ready to set up casino related business' (linens,trash,valet parking, etc). This should be transparent.
Explain to me
what city council could have done and what you would have done as a member to change one thing regarding the passage of Act 71 or the ultimate decision to site the slot parlors. Remembering that any affirmative action we would have taken would have quickly been preempted. Also, the Commercial Entertainment District is a creation of DiCicco and he was ridiculed for it by some anti-casino activists.
I will also tell you, I know exactly how we got our zoning power back. Both Frank and I used our relationship with Fumo and our relentless lobbying of him to get that power back.
I know that you have respect for us and like some of the things we have done and are trying to do, but you do personalize the campaign when you say that there is no leadership in city council. You are speaking about me and my tenure and in many ways denegrating my career. How could I take it other than personal.
Look, I do not want to expand this tone of discussion and I am looking forward to having positive discussions during the campaign as we have had here. You can understand, I hope, that in just one Christmas Eve, I have been told that I am both ineffectual and corrupt. I know that I am neither, but will defend myself. If you or Hannah or anyone else want to throw out blanket assertions and accusations, I should be able to respond and to defend a collegue.
That being said, Merry Christmas, sincerely.
Peculiarities of the At-large Race
One of the peculiarities of running at-large as a challenger is that you are not running against individuals but against five incumbents and thus, really, against the record of City Council as a whole.
I intend to do exactly that, because I think the record of City Council in the last four years is unimpressive, at best.
But in some ways, it is a little unfair when it comes to individuals. No one Council member is responsible for this unimpressive record. And no one can lead on every issue. There are 17 members of Council. And, beyond that, these 17 members are part of a political system that, for all its good features (which I’m going to write about next week), is pretty stultifying when it comes to developing new ideas to improve the city or bringing connecting council members to their constituents.
That is why I don’t want to personalize the campaign and pick on any particular at-large incumbent, especially those who have done some good things under difficult circumstances. And, I hope you won’t take my criticisms of Council and Philadelphia politics in general personally. You are not personally responsible for all that Council does not do. And, four years from now, I won’t want to be held responsible for all the things I could not get Council to do.
Instead, I’m going to set forth an agenda for the future. Much of that agenda is consists of public policies that I think can make this city better for everyone, and especially for those left out of the growth and development in the city. But as important to my agenda is a new vision of how politics is done in Philadelphia and how council members should work with the activists and community groups.
As for the casinos, in my last post I suggested a couple of things that Council members might have done both legislatively and in terms of helping create a broad movement against the proposed location for the casinos. Another thing that Council members can still do is to work aggressively to bring public transit to the waterfront to mitigate the traffic problems that the casinos will create. (I’ll write about that soon.) There are other actions that might have been possible if we had political leadership early in the fight. But the anti-casino movement was slow to get rolling—and that is the fault of activists as well as politicians. (But we activists are not the ones who get paid and have staff members to work on the behalf of citizens.)
Merry Christmas
Marc
PS I don’t know if you know that we have a few mutual friends. They tell me that the only person more frustrated by the way politics works in this city than I am is you. In fact, I’m told that in private you express that frustration in more colorful ways than I do. It would be great for the city, and, maybe for you too, if you would let everyone see that side of you more often. We progressives are looking for allies anywhere we can find them, including inside City Council. And you probably know more than I do about how politics is broken in Philadelphia.
Merry Christmas!
Even Marc gets a "pass" today.
Go EAGLES!
WWGjr
Pass
Wilson,
Could you make a wish for a special Christmas "pass" for LJ, Reggie and Donte?
Merry Christmas to you and your family.
That's the way to start a new year.
Merry Christmas, Wilson and Jim and everyone else at YPP.
Now, if I can get the remote control out of the hands of my daughter in the next hour, I'll join you and the rest of the city in watching the Eagles move on to the playoffs!