Philadelphia City Council asserted itself during its regular voting session this week.
By Denise Clay-Murray
While attending this week’s Philadelphia City Council meeting, one of my sources walked up to me and said he was pleased with the relationship between Council and Mayor Cherelle Parker.
My guess is that he’s not alone in that.
Over the last few weeks, Parker has asserted the control of the Second Floor to get some of the things she’s wanted. For example, Joyce Wilkerson remains on the school board because the mayor went over the head of a Council which refused to entertain Wilkerson’s administration.
A couple of weeks ago, the Parker administration announced it would be increasing the number of beds at the former Philadelphia Nursing Home at 2100 W. Girard Ave. to accommodate 75 people seeking help with substance abuse. The city’s Office of Homeless Services has been using the building to help the city’s unhoused. However, the use of the building for people battling substance abuse had never been discussed with the community or Councilmember Jeffery Young, whose district includes the nursing home, before the administration did it.
This week, members of District Council 47 found out that as of July 15, all city employees were expected to come to work in person. While 80% of the city’s 25,000-member workforce has already returned to full-time, in-person work, the 5,000 union members that had been following a hybrid model — working both in the office and at home — were not amused. Considering the union is working on a one-year contract, negotiations have just gotten more interesting.
Now to my source, this is good. The mayor should be able to do exactly what he or she wants, and those that it’s being done to should get over it.
But to the Councilmembers who are still negotiating a budget with the Parker administration, and, most importantly, have constituents who are looking at things like the nursing home and the return-to-work edict, getting over it isn’t something they’re interested in. They’re a co-equal branch of government that feels it deserves to be treated as such.
On Thursday, they decided to assert themselves, something my source didn’t believe Council would, or could, do.
Last week, Young introduced a resolution that called for hearings on the administration’s intentions for the former Philadelphia Nursing Home. When a community meeting was held last week, the administration officials who came had very few answers and no plan to present to community members.
This resolution calls for the use of subpoenas to get administration officials and their plan for the space in front of the people expected to pay for it, Young said.
Issuing a subpoena to the mayor isn’t something Young wants to do, but his Fifth District community needs some answers, he said.
“I think it’s necessary,” Young said. “There needs to be transparency.”
Councilmember Jim Harrity introduced a resolution calling for the Labor and Civil Services Committee to hold hearings on the effect that bringing in the hybrid workers will have on the city’s workforce.
There are no dates set for either group of hearings, but they will be interesting. And they might also make the administration look before they leap.
Now, a resolution naming the Philadelphia Free Library’s West Oak Lane branch after U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans is among the resolutions coming up for final passage during next week.
On Thursday, Evans’s office released a statement from the Congressman to let his constituents know that he was recovering from a minor stroke. He’s currently in an in-patient recovery facility and hopes to be back on Capitol Hill and working for the residents of the Third Congressional District in six weeks. We here at Hanging In The Hall hope the Congressman gets well soon.
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