Going Hardball

Former allies are frustrated with Councilwoman Quiñones-Sánchez.

by Isaiah Thompson

Neal Santos LAND GRABBING: WCRP members Sarita Broadnax, Alex Nopper and Marcus Persley (pictured left to right) stand in one of the vacant lots they want the city to turn over to a nonprofit land trust.

[ kiss and make up ]

Two weeks ago, some 150 members of the Eastern North Philadelphia Coalition (ENPC) — a nonprofit representing the neighborhood bounded by Front and 10th streets to the east and west and Girard Avenue and Diamond Street to the south and north — crammed The Temple Presbyterian Church at Seventh and Thompson streets, filling its pews and turning the church, already hot, into a sauna.

"We didn't know if you'd be bringing enough heat with you," joked the Rev. Valeria Harvell, who presided over the gathering. "So we turned the heat up ourselves."

Jokes aside, it was, in fact, exactly what the meeting's organizers are hoping to do: Turn up the heat —maybe even light a fire —under 7th District Councilwoman Maria Quiñones-Sánchez.

The councilwoman, ENPC leaders charge, has brushed them aside and failed to deliver on a promise to help the coalition achieve its dream of obtaining vacant lots and turning them into a community-based "land trust" — a nonprofit that would own community land and give residents a say in development in the neighborhood, which has started to see gentrification in recent years, despite its dozens of trash-strewn, vacant lots. The area is surprisingly diverse — economically, racially, religiously — and rarely unified: The meeting's attendees were black, Hispanic, Arab-American and — a newer, younger demographic — white. Land and potential, residents feel, are abundant, and they want to capitalize.

The Women's Community Revitalization Project (WCRP), a member of ENPC, which has a long record of building rental units specifically for the low-income and poor, would be a potential developer. The coalition has already identified five parcels of vacant land for either housing or green space — now they want Quiñones-Sánchez to commit to the project.

So they organized this meeting and put Sanchez's name on the flier, effectively daring her not to show up. It was a showdown.

For an hour, speakers rallied the crowd, alternately preaching the need for a land trust and taking swipes at the councilwoman. "In us we trust!" shouted the crowd. "Why doesn't Maria?"

But the councilwoman took her own swipe: She didn't show.

Instead, she sent aide Justin DiBerardinis, who, after apologizing for (but not quite explaining) his boss's absence, began to delve into the details of land acquisition, to the nonsatisfaction of the crowd. They asked if Sanchez would commit to meeting with them within 30 days,but DiBerardinis would make no such commitment.

The showdown had ended, for now, in a draw. But both parties are keeping their holsters on. "The truth is that if Maria wanted to give us the land, she could," WCRP executive director Nora Lichtash told City Paper after the meeting. "Why won't she meet with us?"

Quiñones-Sánchez, for her part, will have none of it: "I meet with the group every three months and had asked them to wait until May or June," she says. "They took it upon themselves to put my name on their flier because they figured they could force me there."

This was only the latest in what appears to be an escalating feud between the councilwoman and the ENPC —although they both purport to want vacant land for community nonprofit projects. So what's the beef? The answer seems to be a combination of politics, personality and ego. But there wasn't always bad blood. When they first met, Quiñones-Sánchez and ENPC seemed like a match made in heaven.

It was spring 2007, and then-candidate Quiñones-Sánchez was facing a tight primary race for the 7th District seat; ENPC, looking for a way to move forward in establishing a community-owned land trust, hosted a voters forum where they quizzed candidates on the group's goal. Coalition members say Quiñones-Sánchez shined on the land-trust issue. That September, Democratic nominee Quiñones-Sánchez wrote a letter supporting ENPC's application for a grant to help start the land trust. When, in late 2008, ENPC began an in-depth land-use planning process, Quiñones-Sánchez attended the kickoff celebration; her aide, DiBerardinis, served on the plan's steering committee.

The trouble started last year. ENPC leaders charge that, starting in early 2009, their councilwoman began to grow increasingly distant, rescheduling meetings and failing to give updates on the land acquisition. Quiñones-Sánchez says she worked with them throughout. Whatever the case, by mid-2009 ENPC members felt sufficiently frustrated to try a new tactic: They had members collect postcards to send to her office requesting a meeting. It marked a turning point: The councilwoman found out. Relations began to sour rapidly.

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

"We pissed her off. We really did," says Felicia Coward, executive director of the Friends Neighborhood Guild, an ENPC member. "There were a couple of us who initially wanted to be conciliatory. ... It wasn't until after she continued turning her back to us that it became unanimous that we just have to go hardball here."

Coalition leaders describe Quiñones-Sánchez as remote, negative and unwilling to give straight answers or commitments.

"Her tactics are to always keep you waiting," says Lichtash, of the WCRP, the only housing developer in the coalition. "Why can't she tell us that yes, these five acres or some other five acres can be used this way?"

Quiñones-Sánchez points out that her office is already working with the WCRP on two other projects in the district, and accuses coalition leaders of using political theatrics to brush over competing claims to the lots they've selected, including plans by the Asociación of Puertorriqueños en Marcha (APM), a powerhouse developer of affordable housing. "They wanted to show the public they were doing something, but it was at my expense," she says.

But then, there's the chance that both parties will lose if they don't patch up. Without the councilwoman's help, the ENPC isn't likely to get its hands on some of the approximately $4 million in Neighborhood Transformation Initiative funding for the district. Without the WCRP, the district might not get the kind of low-income rental housing the group specializes in.

So far, neither side shows signs of backing down. "I am committed to their long-term goals but I will NOT be threatened by a group I meet with quarterly and that had NO reason to go down this road," Quiñones-Sánchez said in an e-mail to City Paper.

"We could lose, there's no question," says Lichtash. "But we can't back off when we've gone so far down the road. ... There are no permanent enemies. And no permanent allies."

(isaiah.thompson@citypaper.net)