On the 10th, I went to a 1st District Council forum put on by the Washington Square West Civic Association, the very civic association serving my neighborhood. In attendance were twenty or so neighbors and three candidates. Incumbent Frank DiCicco (D), primary challenger Vern Anastasio (D) and a Republican unopposed in the primary, Mike Saidenberg. The forum was basically a free for all with such a small audience. After some not so brief opening statements from each of the candidates, the floor was open, no time limits were placed no rebuttal structure was decided upon. President of the WSWCA, Judith Kaplow Applebaum, saw hands up in the air and called on them to ask the candidates a question.
(Above l-r Saidenberg, Anastasio, Applebaum, DiCicco).
First up for opening statements was Saidenberg. He aid that the priority in his term as District Councilman would be casinos and that we need our waterfront. He's been a realtor for the last 4-5 years and before that, he was in the hotel and restaurant business. He did not discuss any political qualifications, but hey, who needs that. Brady was a carpenter, Fumo was an electrician, W was a, uh, what the fuck was he?
Anastasio was up next. He quickly went into his stump of being a lifelong Philadelphian. He said that as a child, he was given a great city by the preceding generation with a lot of hope and he wants to give his children a better city, but that's going to be very hard. He grew up in the Italian Market area, unloading produce off the trucks was an early job. He listed some other local work which can be found on his Accomplishments page on his site. He cited one of his crowning achievements as changing how real estate is disposed of. I emailed him to explain a bit what he meant. He said that the old way of disposing city owned or controlled real estate within councilmanic districts was to hand pick who got each parcel of land to develop. This was/is obviously an easy way to deliver payback for favors. Anastasio approached the Redevelopment Authority to change this and as a result, any property worth more than $100k must be opened up to bidding.
DiCicco went straight for the accomplishments. His eleven years in office have resulted in a lot of things for his communities. He stated the obvious in that he's not doing it for the money; the 14-hour days 7 days a week is not exactly the most luxurious of lifestyles. He touted his fight to keep the district's firehouses open. He said that the mayor (Street or Rendell, I'm not sure) was going to cut 15 firehouses, 11 of them in the First District, but DiCicco fought for them. and a result, the firehouses at Broad/Fitzwater and 4/Arch among others were kept open. He asked the audience what Old City would look like now after the fire at the Five Spot without those 11 firehouses still open. He cited his push for then Councilman Nutter's smoking ban, that without his support, the bill would have continued to stall. He admitted that he was a smoker as well.
The first question was rambling, but I think I got the gist of it - why do communities have to pay developers large sums of money (the questioner put it at $100k) to sit down and talk about projects (does that sound right?). Anastasio said that he would mandate transparency. A development impact fee would have to be paid to communities. Communities would get a percentage of big developments and put that money right into the community. He said that the 6th police district covers a huge area with an ever increasing population and that the 6th police district should be split into two districts [perhaps sub districts to keep the same numbering system]. Anastasio put out a number of $90M that development impact fees could've collected in the last x years which would have been enough money to fund a split district and the founding of two separate districts.
DiCicco, picking up on the comments about the 6th police district said that while the actual numbers of officers in the district was confidential, the number had increased since he's been in office [1995], but that we need more, Anastasio nodded in agreement. He informed the audience that the corner of 13th and Locust Sts would be fitted with a surveillance camera which got several sighs of relief from the crowd.
Question two was from a lady who told of her own run ins with crime in the neighborhood. She said that she was recently mugged and that she was scared to live in Philadelphia. She asked how can the situation be improved? Anastasio went first. He cited some numbers: Under Mayor Rizzo, the city had 24k employees and 8k police officers. During the terms of Mayor Rendell and Mayor Street, the number of city employees has stayed the same, but within that number, the amount of police officers decreased to 7500 and now 6k. He said that the 2k loss in police officers was a 2k gain in administrative jobs; he said we need another 1k cops on the streets. His excellence in government proposal would use technology to improve the city. The CitiStat system of tracking numbers for each individual complaint and a 311 system (which he commended Councilman At-Large Jim Kenney for introducing a bill on) would greatly benefit Philadelphia. He said education is the best way to fight crime and more well lit zones and mini police stations would deter crime. Anastasio called out Operation Safe Streets as Operation Move the Crime.
Saidenberg truly showed how green he was starting with this question. He said he was shocked to hear someone being mugged in this area. I guess he doesn't read the papers. It happens. It's not an everyday occurrence, but chroist, this is a big city and crime happens, even in his very own stomping grounds. His ignorance to that fact is troubling. He said that the police department isn't focused on crime prevention and that a councilperson should be able to hold the police accountable.
DiCicco said that everything takes money to implement and that he helped bring 100 more cops to the streets. He noted that while there were more cops on the streets under Rizzo (whom he repeatedly said he was not a fan of) Philadelphia experienced its highest murder rate ever. he said that it would take an additional $50M - $100M for 1k more officers to be put on the streets and that money must be taken from another part of the budget and the question is always where will money be sacrificed. But even when/if the money is found, the Mayor can just sit on it and not distribute the funds for a council approved measure. Anastasio noted that he saw boarded up homes which is a part of the broken window theory [of which he seems to be a believer], but DiCicco said that he didn't see boarded up homes, but rather, lots of construction. He said the boarded up homes didn't really start until the Kensington area of town on this side of Broad St. He said that we need officers present at the start and end of school days, but that's a decision the Mayor must make and tell the police commissioner to order; he went a step further to say that Commissioner Sylvester Johnson was a good guy, but just not a good commissioner.
And then it was time for my question. I was building mine on the comment DiCicco made on budget cuts. What part of the budget would you cut to make funds available for other more important projects like education, crime...? Saidenberg took his greenness a step further when he couldn't name a single portion of the budget he could think of cutting. He went back to his hotel management experience and said that when he had to cut corners, he noted that people didn't mind so much when the phone at the front desk rang a few extra times as long as patrons were getting their demands met. I asked him again, relating his hotel experience to the question - where in the budget would you "cut corners" like you would as a manager of a hotel? He didn't have an answer.
DiCicco said he didn't know specifically, but that there is wasted money in the government and that would be a start. He said he put forth a bill for single stream, once a week collected, recycling for the city. It would cost $4.5M to start up, but will save money down the line as Philadelphia would have its own recycling plants and would not need to need to pay to have trash sent out of the state [I wanted to ask a follow up question on expanding the Recycle Bank program, but there wasn't enough time]. He noted some $500M in uncollected real estate taxes which need to be collected; he pointed out that it was an issue with the Mayor's office and them ordering to get that money. He described a prototype trash pickup program. Trash cans would be fitted with a trash compactor and a sensor indicating how filled the can was. It would ping a central command station telling it when it was full enough to be collected and trucks would know, via GPS, which can was ready to be emptied. This, he said, would help cut down on the needless emptying of not even half full trash cans all over the city. It would reduce traffic backups with less stops and increase efficiency.
Building on what DiCicco said, a follow up question was asked by someone in the audience - How about the possibility of privatizing trash collection and cleaning services? DiCicco said that some places do have their own private trash collection [most high rise buildings do] and that the city's unions were too strong to have such a program be completely privatized.
Anastasio paraphrased former Republican mayoral candidate Sam Katz's saying that [and I'm sure I'm butchering this] if a candidate couldn't help make the city 2% smarter, it's not worth running which, I guess means doing the little things right helps more than striking out on bigger plans. He said that mayoral consultants could be cut, the mayor's security detail could be cut, upper management's free cars (which come with free gas and insurance) could be cut. Agencies could be consolidated; he noted that there were currently three separate agencies on reducing school violence. The city needs to grow its revenue and lift taxes off of the backs of homeowners and shift some of the burden to speculators.
DiCicco noted that 3 or 4 years ago, he gave up his free city car. An audience member [not me :) ] said that the city should use more PhillyCarShare. DiCicco didn't miss a beat and capitalized in saying he was one of the people who provided some of the initial money that made the program possible in the first place [true]. He added that the city's fleet is moving to hybrid vehicles. He noted the size of the district, stretching from Oregon Ave to Oxford Circle including some 20 rec centers. He noted the lighting projects he's been a part of. With each block costing ~$150k to light, he's made 4 blocks in the neighborhood brighter. He's worked with Thomas Jefferson University to have them buy some lights and PECO as well. He noted that police captains receive two, two!, cars: one marked and one unmarked and that the unmarked car usually goes home with the captain at the end of the day. Eliminating that extra vehicle would cut costs as well.
The fourth and final question of the night was on housing and taxes. A gentleman bought a house 13 years ago and 3 years ago, property tax went up 160%. He asked each of the candidates what they'd do in the next year to improve the dire situation of increasing property taxation. DiCicco said that full value reassessment won't happen next year. He said he'd increase the millage.
Saidenberg, stepping up to the plate with real world experience, said that the issue isn't only affecting people who bought over a decade ago and that people who moved and bought more recently were hardest hit as their property tax shot through the roof without the benefit of built up equity. He said that annual reassessments would help get rid of the problem of random hikes. He noted that shifting taxes from those who cannot pay to those who have the money to pay is not reform.
Anastasio said that massive reassessment will happen and soon. He also said that the millage should be reduced - the the lowest possible. He restated that the homeowner is paying too much compared to the speculator. He said that in terms of taxation, an everyday homeowner was paying $1.50/square foot in taxes while a commercial speculator was paying 50¢/square foot - three times less. He said that he's a supporter of the 10-year tax abatement, he's 5 years into one himself for a small plot of land in a South Philly neighborhood. But that people were taking advantage of the abatements and over developing. He said that the city doesn't need to end the abatement, but manage growth. Change the abatement plan to allow the 10-years to be at the back end. Adapt the abatement to encourage green/sustainable building.
It was an informative night for me. I learned quite a bit about what Anastasio and DiCicco had to offer and what each of them had done in the past. I'm glad I got the chance to see them live in a forum setting.
Above is one of the oddest pieces of campaign giveaways I've ever seen. It was a mini trashbag. Weird. And take a close look at the artist's rendering of Billy Penn. Where's the boner?!
