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Also this issue: Wheels To Go The Bell Curve Onward Christian St. Soldiers New Trial for Dying Con The New Russian Front? |
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June 6-12, 2002
hall monitor
Eight days after his bill to reduce the wage tax on the working poor passed out of the Committee of the Whole 11 to 3, Councilman David Cohen abruptly stopped his bill from being voted on for final passage. Cohen got word midway through the council session that a number of his fellow legislators had gotten what one staffer called “weak knees” about passing the measure over the mayor’s objections.
By holding the bill Cohen retains control over the measure and can bring it up again at his discretion. The councilman feared that had he asked for a vote, opponents could have tabled the bill, making it impossible for Cohen to get a vote on the measure without the support of a majority of council.
Why did support evaporate? Cohen blames a stealthy Street lobbying effort which includes a letter from the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority (PICA) to council members urging them to reject the bill. Cohen points out that the letter arrived the day before the vote and that PICA Executive Director Joseph Vignola is a Street appointee.
Administration spokesman Frank Keel says it isn't so: "I wouldn't infer that this was any sort of supreme lobbying effort by the mayor. PICA is an independent watchdog organization."
Keel says council members just came to their senses. "Everybody, including council, probably finds it difficult to appear to not be supporting this bill. Who could be against wage-tax cuts for people below the poverty line?" But Keel adds that that council members realized that there's a "harsh [fiscal] reality that the city would face if it would ultimately go through with this."
Cohen says he'll take his argument to the streets, getting constituents to push their representatives to do the right thing.
"Bills don't pass in a vacuum," he says.
Councilman Angel Ortiz pushed through a resolution Thursday urging the mayor and police commissioner to oppose Attorney General John Ashcroft’s plan to make city police departments enforce immigration regulations. Ortiz said that having police ask crime victims about their immigration status would make illegal immigrants less likely to report crimes.
Councilman James Kenney, who gave an impassioned speech in favor of the measure, pointed out that the Philadelphia police had such a policy only a few years ago until former Commissioner John Timoney, himself an immigrant, overturned it.
The Ortiz resolution passed 11-5 with council's three Republican members joined by Rick Mariano and Joan Krajewski, both near Northeast Democrats.
Following council session, Mariano said, "Angel did this out of the goodness of his heart [but he] isn't the attorney general of the United States. We're at war." Mariano said that Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson has not yet made his views clear on the issue.
Asked whether it made sense for him to vote against the resolution when he represents a district with a large Latino presence, Mariano responded, "Puerto Ricans are American citizens."
Councilman Kenney, a long-time champion of bringing more immigrants to Philadelphia said the initial post-Sept. 11 backlash against immigrants was "understandable but you have to fight off the urge to put everyone in one basket."
Kenney had stern words for his colleagues who voted against the resolution: "The [no] votes were made out of ignorance, they were made out of fear."
As a rule of thumb, district city council members are the lords and ladies of their domain. When a city councilperson says something is good for his or her neighborhood, few officials dare disagree. But last week the city zoning board sided with a West Philadelphia neighborhood group against the McDonald’s Corporation and Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell. The zoning board ordered McDonald’s to stop cleaning up a polluted site at 43rd and Market where they plan to open a restaurant using what is known as the vapor extraction method. The zoning board feared the process might be polluting the air. All this, despite Blackwell’s on-the-record letter of support for the Golden Arches.
Blackwell said the ruling "really set a different kind of precedent on ... contamination in our city." Nonetheless, Blackwell feels the site can still be safely cleaned up and turned into a McDonald's. She says neighbors' concerns about air pollution are legitimate, but their opposition to McDonald's in general is not.
Rev. Larry Falcon, leader of the community group Neighbors Against McPenntrification, says there is "total neighborhood opposition" to the fast food restaurant which is planned to be built only 12 feet from area rowhomes. Aside from polluting the neighborhood, creating garbage and late-night noise, Falcon says the restaurant is unnecessary. He points out that his section of West Philadelphia already has a McDonald's just a few blocks away at 40th and Walnut.
Members of the local Jewish and Arab communities gathered in the City Hall caucus room Tuesday to sign a joint declaration for peace. The signing was organized by the Arab-Jewish Coalition of Philadelphia, a group of progressive Arab-Americans and American Jews that was founded in January. After Cantor George Mordecai chanted the Jewish prayer for the dead and Imam Abdur-Razzak Miller chanted verses from the Quran, including a passage condemning suicide, a representative of each community ceremonially signed the declaration. The document, which is still available for signing, has already garnered about 250 signatures.
The declaration calls for the creation of two states, one Arab, one Jewish, each with its capital in Jerusalem. The document demands an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian areas and settlements, and calls on the Palestinians to end suicide bombings and to commit to a secure Israel.
Councilman David Cohen, who was thanked for reserving space in the ornate caucus chamber, spoke briefly, praising the group for coming together to urge peace "even though there may still be some differences" on specifics. Cohen did not stay for the full meeting.
While the Arab-Jewish Coalition is unified, its compromise position puts it at odds with many national Arab and Jewish groups. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee would not endorse the declaration because the statement does not specifically recognize the right of Palestinian refugees to return to ancestral lands within Israel. The declaration only calls for a "just and equitable resolution to the Palestinian refugee issue."
Among Jewish groups, the coalition has support from the Progressive Zionist Alliance, which is urging dialogue and peace in addition to the pulling together expressed in the large pro-Israel demonstrations in Washington and in front of Philadelphia's City Hall in the spring.
Only hours after the Arab-Jewish Coalition meeting, a suicide bomber killed more than a dozen Israelis, prompting tanks to roll into the West Bank town of Jenin. Organizers of the Arab-Jewish Coalition of Philadelphia were saddened by the news, but said they thought it underscored the importance of reaching an equitable and peaceful solution to the dispute.
Jewish coalition member Billy Yalowitz said that the violence is part of a "cycle that needs to be stopped."
"It's not encouraging," admitted Sally Baraka, an Arab-American coalition member who said the new bloodshed makes clear that "the healing process needs to begin."
