Well, Mayor Nutter seems to be settling into City Hall well. And our new council members have been thoroughly briefed and readied for governance (check out this story here). Councilwoman Tasco is our new majority leader and Councilman Clarke is the new majority whip.
Yea! It's a new day!
Now we have to wait a couple more weeks for Mayor Nutter's first budget before things can really get going. In the meantime, I'd hope Council could take care of some house-keeping matters, and pass a few bills on lingering issues from the Street administration.
So, off the top of my head...ready, set go:
- City health centers--Street promised money for more staff so that there could be extended hours. But he didn't do anything about it,. While the new Mayor is getting next year's budget ready, can Council spend the health center money from last year? (this is a Philly for Change concern too.)
- Housing units for people in emergency shelter. Again, Street promised this, money should be there, can Council help spend it? (another PFC issue.)
- Recycling. Let's go. Single-stream. I believe Councilwoman Blondelle Reynolds-Brown already put together a bill, or at least some info on using Recycle Bank so that the city could make money off recycling. This is such a no-brainer, and it's embarrassing and annoying that we can't all recycle at home, or in public places. If Council can pass that a bill that makes us money or at least comes close to breaking even on expanded recycling programs, I'd imagine Mayor Nutter would be ok with signing a bill even before the budget address. (Don't forget Christine Knapp from PennFuture's great recycling 411 post here.
All three could be possibly be done without waiting for a new budget, create jobs, address pressing needs, and contribute to the city's sustainability. Other housekeeping matters you think Council should address?
- [oh one more, we have not written about this much, but the DRPA and PATCO have been talking a lot about building a light-rail line on the waterfront with new service in NJ as well. Big deal, really smart, great for the city.
- While Council is waiting for a budget, maybe they could set up a hearing on this?
- It'd be great to get more info--especially the economic development benefits. Hearings are mostly cost-free and a hearing on this matter would help jazz up the Guv, the state and federal congressional delegations, and local civic and business leaders--all of whom need to be bought in it's really gonna happen. Any volunteers on Council?]
recycling...what about plastics?
While my household contributes our plastics to the NLNA recycling program (as well as ALL our paper, not just a subset), I'd certainly like to see plastic recycling go citywide. What is the status on that?
Also, this city needs a 311 system to relieve 911 of non-emergency calls.
Second on 311
I like all of Ray's suggestions but I really want to hammer down on 311.
The new Managing Director Camille Barnett recently called not just for a 311 non-emergency line but for a full CitiStat style system for tracking performance and delivery of city services as Vern posted here.
In Dan U-A's discussion of the poor response times for EMS ambulances, 311 came up again because the clogging of non-emergency calls to 911 slowing at least in part response times (also a straight up lack of ambulances). New Police Commish wants a 311-line again to increase his ability to respond to real emergency calls on 911. It's time for 311 and CitiStat in Philly.
One issue that plays into a Council's involvement in how CitiStat/311 plays out (as well as specifically to Vern and I's discussion of CitiStat in the other thread) is how CitiStat information gets made accessible to council and to the public. Beyond being a tremendous tool to get "more bang for your buck" in terms of being strategic in terms of delivery of city services, I see CitiStat as having the potential to actually shift the whole dynamic of local politics.
CitiStat has the potential to give neighborhood organizations a powerful tool for going to council and the mayor and saying "Look we've been calling and calling about this abandoned house needing a clean and seal, this rec center in a shambles, this lot is overflowing with short haul dumping, etc. and nothing has happened". In fact public access to CitiStat info gives them the power to hold the selective failure of city services to deliver to pretty rigorous geographic and statistical analysis. No more punitive games from the district council office, no more city government works when and if the district council office says it will.
I think you can see why not just making sure that CitiStat/311 happens but making sure it happens in a way with public access to the data built right into process is very, very important. Information is power, but not if it sits on the mayor's desk unread and unaccessible to the public.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
but remember the criteria here
i could be wrong, but won't CitiStat take new $? If not ignore this comment, but if so I think we have to wait till the budget process starts with Mayor Nutter's presentation in a couple weeks. In the meantime, what can Council do?
As a management system,
As a management system, CitiStat costs money yes. The CitiStat software is not terribly expensive but a 311 call system with tracking for documenting non-emergency calls obviously takes money to set up and operate. On the other hand, it saves money -a lot of it- by getting better efficiaency out of our 911 emergency call system and by dramatically improving accounatiblity in the city's agencies.
In Baltimore . . .
Nutter and Co want CitiStat regardless of what Council wants. My point was more about making sure Council makes sure CitiStat info is available to neighborhood groups. If neighborhood groups have access to the info, democracy takes care of itself and neighborhoods that often get neglected have something to make sure they are getting adequate and fairly apportioned services. Catch my drift?
Public access to the stats in a digestible format is key to empowering neighborhood activists. Thats where a progressive agenda for City Council kicks in.
Edit: On second reading, I better get what you are saying, Ray. Yes clearly Council can't introduce bills on 311/CitiStat prior to the budget coming out but they can get the jump on making sure they are educated to how it works and more importantly how they can make it sure it works at a neighborhood level for people in every community in this city. It has huge potential to empower communities but there is a lot of education that happens first for people at a neighborhood level to tap into that potential. Council also has the ability to excercise a lot of influence on the public accesiblity of CitiStat info.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
L&I - particularly permitting - also
This one also touches on two recent victories - or they should be victories depending on how they play out. One is the work agreement issue at the Convention Center and plans for building greater minority inclusion in the building trades unions and the other is the inclusive housing bill. Its no good having more inclusive unions if we aren't also expanding jobs and its no good having inclusive housing if we aren't building and rehabbing more.
One of the huge stumbling blocks to building new housing at the moderate and affordable end of the scale is the Kafkaesque permiting process. It hurts positive inclusive investment in non-Center City neighborhoods. It hurts job growth. It hurts overall availability of quality affordable housing.
The inclusionary housing bill has by design the potential to provide a market incentive for builders to take a serious look at building for the middle and low-income bracket. Its in our interest to make sure that we don't sabotage those incentives by not fixing our often disfunctional permiting process. A broken system doesn't stop hi-end development. If every unit is going for $500K plus, paying for an "expiditer" is not that much of a stumbling block but for more affordable housing those bureaucratic barriers can be the difference that makes the project a non-starter.
To be clear, the Street administration made at least some headway on this, for example making it possible to download building permit forms on the web. But we still need real improvement here.
Luckily, Maria Quinones Sanchez is the new chair of the committee overseeing this on Council so we have a friend with talent to push for changes.
For background I strongly urge everyone to look at the BIA's study "If We Fix It, They Will Come" which is a remarkably clearly laid out argument for why fixing permiting can help us create affordable housing, jobs and how exactly it can be accomplished. I would call it required reading for looking at how we can really reap the potnetial benefits of inclusionary housing.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
Nutter can do the Health Center thing
Ray, Council can't spend any money, but the Mayor already has the money he needs to hire up a bunch of people at the District Health Centers now. He released a paper on Health Care just before the election in which he said he would spend that money. I'm hoping we hear some sort of announcement along those lines.
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This Too Will Pass, treating grave matters lightly and light matters gravely, since 2001.