Great Expectations Civic Leader Forum I

I was asked to blog about another Great Expectations forum, this time up in the Northeast and with a few other bloggers in attendance: Marisa, Bill from PhillyFoodGuys and Barbara who will post somewhere in the ether that is the internet. About 70 leaders from across the city made the trek (some further than others) to the John M. Perzel Community Center in Mayfair. And for full disclosure, I worked on Tim Kearney's campaign to oust Perzel from his PA House seat. The old saying goes that if you can't say anything nice about someone, don't say anything at all - I normally don't follow that rule - but this time, I'll say this, he's built one gorgeous community center. For a little back story on how this came to be, check out Chris's post.

What do you get when you mix 70 leaders - of civic associations, neighborhood action committees, citywide agencies among others - gathered in a room on a Saturday morning in October? Surprisingly, a lot of cooperation and good listening. I went into this meeting fearing the worst and hoping for the best. I feared that it would be an overwhelmingly white crowd. I feared that leaders wouldn't listen to other leaders. I feared that the lunch would taste like cardboard. What I found was a semi diverse crowd of male and female and black and white, with not much else. I think I was one of two Asians in the room. What can be done to reach out into the Asian communities in Philadelphia to get more involved in the political process is beyond me and not really the topic here so I'll save that for another day and maybe talk to Andy Toy and Skip Voluntad first. I will say just this though, I haven't been doing my part so I'm part of the problem. The leaders, at lest in my breakout session and larger discussion groups, listened to each other and intently. Breakfast and lunch were filling.

One of the main goals of this gathering was to highlight the greatness of all of the work neighborhoods have accomplished and to try to further break down the insular nature of the neighborhoods. I thought the location in the Northeast, a section of town I had never been to in my 36+ months in Philly, was a good choice. I've been told my many that the Northeast is it's own entity and the further upriver you go, you discover new pseudo-English languages where there are no "Ls" and "Os" are sucked through black holes becoming nearly unrecognizable. I've also been told that the Northeast gets things done on it's own. Perfect.

The Inquirer's Chris Satullo kicked things off by touting the success of the Yo, Mike! Yo, Al! series with 700+ responses. He also touched on an issue which was brought up time and time again: neighborhood civic associations were spending too much time doing the little things (which need to be done) that the City should be doing, and not enough time on bigger things which could improve their neighborhoods on a larger scale.

UPenn's Harris Sokoloff sketched out the three goals of the forum:

1. Define the issues of a New Deal between neighborhood groups and the City
2. What would a New Deal look like?
3. How do we approve a New Deal and how can it be maintained?

It was the job of pre-selected moderators at each of about a dozen tables to keep the conversation going throughout several quick brainstorming sessions with changing groups. A herculean task given the time constraints and breadth of knowledge each participant brought to the table. I don't think the box of Crayons at each table helped, but it was a nice touch nevertheless.

My first group didn't get past the introduction phase of things as introductions lead to questions which lead tangentially to more questions. The final person at the roundtable barely got a few words in before the ringmasters had everyone get up and switch. So the issues of a New Deal weren't defined in front of me, but it seemed as those around our table fared better.

Round 2 was lead by an Apple MacBook toting consultant for Penn who had been with the Great Expectations project for 18 months now. Things were about to get efficient. Jose described the findings of his fist group: trying to reach people in City Hall for help was a complete crapshoot; documentation to hold the status quo accountable was mandatory; community groups are doing things that the City should be doing and without compensation. So what would a successful New Deal look like compared to that? Dave said that with appointed officials having the final say in many matters, even powerful elected officials had no power and that had to change. Rob from Logan Square noted the creation of a zoning committee to handle issues as the City hasn't been doing it's job - zoning was a major issue brought up constantly through the day as volunteer groups with little expertise to go around on such an annoying as hell subject was near impossible to tackle. Ann from a city wide immigrant services group suggested a large-scale sharing of best practices between groups as each group need not reinvent the wheel. Transparency and technology: pay to play and who you know has to stop; service request ticketing (like Baltimore's CitiStat) need to be implemented and complemented with citizens taking simple cell phone photos of things that need to be fixed around neighborhoods as evidence.

So what do community groups need to stop doing to maximize their positive output? Dave suggested a serious overhaul of the city's zoning codes to give the groups some more solid footing to stand on. Others in the group liked the case by case power they had and didn't want the city deciding things in too general a manner. And what are community groups doing well and need to get better at? Tim wanted to deal with fewer pothole requests. Penny [pictured above] wanted brick and mortar issues to tackle and not petty problems. Dave brought up a point that many didn't know existed: there are community groups whose boundaries cross political ones. This results in requests falling on deaf ears at the Council level as the segmented group does not matter as much as groups whose boundaries lie solely within political boundaries.

So there's a start. Part II coming soon.

Part I | Part II | Part III