COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON PARKS, RECREATION AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Monday, May 11, 2026 10:20 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCILMAN ANTHONY PHILLIPS, CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS, VICE-CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN RUE LANDAU COUNCILMAN ISAIAH THOMAS COUNCILMAN JEFFREY YOUNG, JR. RESOLUTION: 260346 - - -
Good morning. I now note that the hour has come. Clerk, will you please call the roll to take attendance. Members that are in attendance, will you please indicate that you are present when your name is called.
Thank you. A quorum of the committee is present and the hearing is now called to order. This is the public hearing of the Committee on Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs regarding Resolution No. 260346. The purpose of this public hearing is to hear testimony regarding applicants seeking nomination to serve on a Commission on Parks and Recreation. Before we begin the testimony, are there any opening remarks from our colleagues? (No response.)
Seeing none, we will proceed. Clerk, will you please read the title of the resolution.
Resolution 6 No. 260346, authorizing Council's Committee on Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs to hold public hearings for applicants seeking nomination to serve on the Commission on Parks and Recreation, and further authorizing the committee to recommend for Council's consideration nominations to be forwarded to the Mayor.
Before we begin, I want to acknowledge the strong pool of applicants that we've had today. We received a number of submissions from individuals across the city who are deeply committed to our parks, recreation centers and public spaces. I want to thank our Vice-Chair Councilwoman Cindy Bass for working closely with me on this as well as Council President Kenyatta Johnson. And we want to thank all of you for your diversity of experiences, your background and your passion for parks and recs in the city. We really appreciate it and thank you for showing up. That means a lot. Optional sometimes is really not optional, but people make it optional, I don't know, but y'all came. We appreciate you all. All right. Clerk, will you please call the first panel we have to testify on Resolution No. 18 260346.
Elaine Smith Holton, Elizabeth Class-Maldonado, Jim Marino, Kamiyah Gibson. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Okay. Well, thank you so much. If you could for the individuals that are here today who want to be -- we're going to go either right to left or left to right. Whoever wants to go first, if you could just state your name for the record, what part of the city you are from and why do you want to serve on the Parks and Recreation Commission, and what makes you qualified and prepared to serve. And if you could do that within 90 seconds or so. We're going to just start right here.
Good morning. My name is Kamiyah Gibson. I'm from the Olney section 19 of Philadelphia. I teach 5th Grade at Longstreth Elementary in Southwest. And I applied for this position because I'm from 10th and Olney and Cherashore Playground was literally right in my backyard. It was like the back of my house; the alleyway and then the park. And I'm so grateful and thankful that Cherashore is finally getting the upgrade that it so desperately needs. But Parks & Rec has been a community, a home, a family in my life. I grew up at a playground and I just pray that I can be the vessel that it was to me.
Awesome. And what is one issue you think the Commission should focus on?
Okay. All right. Thank you so much for your testimony.
Good morning. My name is Elaine Smith Holton. I'm the founder and Artistic Director and teaching artist at Phonk!Philly. It's an arts and culture organization that I founded in 2020. We celebrate and we highlight parade culture in the African diaspora. Why I would like to be on this board is that I have successfully partnered with the Hawthorne Cultural Center, which is in South Philly. Oh, I'm from Germantown, by the way. So our organization has really utilized Parks & Rec and the Hawthorne Cultural Center to provide free programming to youth and adults in the city of Philadelphia. And for me, what has been so invaluable and what I think the city is missing is these opportunities to work with organizations like myself who do not have the funding for an infrastructure. And my partnership with the Hawthorne Cultural Center, we have this relationship where I offer free programming to the city where whoever can participate and that it also benefits me because I'm able to run my organization through the building and that infrastructure. I also feel like where we could do a better job with the city is really kind of finding out who are these organizations that need this type of support. I don't feel like you have to necessarily live in the neighborhood to really benefit from the parks and recs and the cultural centers in the city. I think also there should be what I think is like a match day, like an opportunity for supervisors or managers of Parks & Rec to meet organizations in a setting similarly to this where they could be useful. I also feel like there isn't enough communication between Parks & Rec, that I know I've brought in Afro- Brazilian master teachers to the Hawthorne Cultural Center for free programming, but yet no one else in the neighborhood was aware of that. And I just feel we lose these really great opportunities. So thank you for being here. I hope I answered your questions.
Good morning. My name is Elisa Maldonado. I am the Pennsylvania State Director at Trust for Public Land. I live in Germantown. I am originally from Puerto Rico and moved to Philadelphia 11 years ago. And now I call this city my home. My organization, our mission is to connect everyone to the outdoors and we do that in many different ways. We build parks, schoolyards, trails and we try to protect land for everyone to have access to these spaces. For me, it's really important because I had the opportunity to grow up in a neighborhood that we have access to parks and we have beautiful spaces to connect as a community. And now that I live in Germantown and I have a kid, I love the way that we are connected as a community and we use our public spaces as a way to gather, to know each other and build stronger communities that we care and maintain our spaces. And I think I would advocate for that care and maintaining of spaces and working with friend groups and other organizations that are already activating all of our public spaces just to bring those resources to each one of the communities. Thank you.
Thank you. Just a reminder, please state your name for the record and what part of the city you're from, why do you want to serve on a Parks and Rec Commission and what makes you qualified to prepare to serve.
Yes. Hi. My name is Jim Marino. I currently reside in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia. However, I grew up in North Philadelphia, originally Allegheny until 1993. I'm honored today to be given the opportunity to attend this hearing and to answer any questions you may have today. I am hopeful that after you review my resume and application, along with my answers today, that you'll favorably recommend my name to be added to the Parks and Rec Commission. My extensive background as a former Parks and Recreation employee, volunteer, community fundraiser and organizer, and a relationship builder I feel will serve the Commission well. And if I am appointed, I look forward to serving the city I love once again in this capacity. Growing up in East Falls, the lower end, I was given the opportunity to become a playground rat. As a kid that's known as, you know, person that would come to the playground, just basically live there and rely on the leaders and the rec staff to guide me along the way. It developed into my career, lifelong passion. And I worked in numerous recreation centers and playgrounds throughout the city during my first 21 years, and then I went on to become the Assistant Athletic Program Coordinator, which was only a title. I was still considered a Recreation Leader III, but I also became the Race Director of the Blue Cross Broad Street Run for 6 years. I served on numerous 7 citywide committees for the Parks 8 and Rec Department, helping to 9 organize various programs 10 throughout the athletic programs. 11 One of the main things that I had 12 done was the golf camps which are 13 non-existent at this point, from 14 what I understand. 15 We had five different 16 weeks where we would go to the 17 local driving ranges and golf 18 courses to teach youngsters how to 19 golf. And we also expanded the 20 program under my supervision to go 21 to approximately 40 rec centers in North and West Philadelphia to introduce the game of golf to playgrounds and day campers that never saw a golf club. And during that period of time, it was the Tiger Woods era so there was a major emphasis on golf with his support. And obviously, it's grown in the fruition of what's happened to Cobbs Creek. And because of the Tiger's backing and things like that, the community in West Philadelphia and the City of Philadelphia has an extremely beneficial program now where kids can learn the game of golf. Adults can be a part of the community. It could be a learning center and things like that. So I feel like way back when, when we were kicking things around with the playground golf, that we might have spurred an interest in the Tiger's Foundation because he did support us even way back when. My other involvement, obviously my background led into other programs. I became the Emergency Preparedness Coordinator for the Parks & Rec Department working with the Office of Emergency Management for years 7 or 12 years. I was the Assistant 8 Director of the Mummers for ten 9 years. I was also the liaison for 10 the Army Navy game back in the 100th anniversary. And then the year right after 2001, right after 9/11, my job was basically I was given the keys to Veterans Stadium to tour Secret Service and to set up all the logistics for both events. And so, my background there is, you know, I also got security information. Special event programming has been my forte for the past 20-something years, as I mentioned the parades and things like that. But I've also worked in the community, giving back as a volunteer and teaching and teaching other people how to put on fundraisers through racing or through cow chip bingo for the blind and things like that. I've worked with numerous charities and volunteer groups. My resume will show you. I feel like I'm uniquely qualified being a former employee because I know the department extremely well. And it's not just the playgrounds or Parks & Rec or the recreation side. It's the cultural side.
It's the parts of the park where I've been involved in the Belmont Plateau, restoration of the cross-country courses. I've been friends, groups worked with the Friends Group at Gorgas Park. I worked the Friends Group of Riverward. I've worked in various capacities of volunteer in the neighborhood with the ball fields and the local youth organizations and helped them along the way, raised money, helped them beautify the community and make them understand the green space. The most recent involvement I had was about two years ago, and this is a hot topic, was that I worked with kids from the Lankenau School in our community, and they served as interns for two days a week at the local ball fields with me. And I got to know those kids inside and out. And they were such a tremendous asset to the facilities, to the neighborhood. And I introduced them to a lot of the community association people, and it was a wonderful work experience for those kids as part of their schooling. And it was very fulfilling for me to be a part of their lives too. And, you know, what they gave back to the neighborhood and what I was able to dictate with them was a tremendous feeling of accomplishment. So that's some of my background. Obviously there's a lot more things that I can talk about, but I'll save you the time. But my general idea is to get the public more involved in pushing the federal government and state government for funding. I mean, we know funding in the City of Philadelphia, the Parks & Rec Department does not meet the standards of a lot of other big cities. And because of that, we have so many assets that are not being fully utilized. We have so many staff people that we can be pushing more for and having them become engrossed in, in the world of teaching young people and being a part of senior centers and being part of the handicapped facilities and all the other special needs programs that we have. Like I said, I mentioned at one point I was the Chairman of the Bingo for the Blind program. If you want to see a group of people have such a wonderful evening, go to a bingo for the blind at one of our facilities.
Well, I want to thank you so much for sharing. You certainly have a passion for the rec centers, and that's really, really important, Jim. I really appreciate your preparation for this. Are there any further questions from anyone else on the committee? (No response.)
Are there any comments, anything else additional that other panelists would like to share about themselves and their experiences and desire to be on this commission that they did not say? (No response.)
Okay. Well, I want to thank you so much for coming out today and thank you for your work as a previous Parks & Rec employee. And so, thank you so much for testifying and not making it optional.
So much appreciate it. All right. Clerk, will you please call the next panel we have to testify on Resolution No. 23 260346.
Khalil Salaam, Melissa Young, Olivia Scanlon, Quentin Ellison -- excuse me. Shannon Wink, not Quentin Ellison. Sorry. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Thank you. Approaching the rostrum, can you please state your name for the record, what part of the city you're from, why do you want to serve on the Parks and Recreation Commission, what makes you qualified and prepared to serve, and what is one issue that you really want to tackle on the Commission hopefully. All right. So over here, state your name for the record and everything else.
Sure. Good morning, Councilmembers, and thank you for having me. My name is Melissa Young. I grew up in West Philadelphia, 63rd and Master and spent most of my years in between West Philadelphia and Roxborough. Parks and recreation, like many of the previous panelists said, were the tapestry of me growing up, from learning t-ball in West Philly local playgrounds to spending family reunions and birthday parties and celebrations on Cobbs Creek to learning how to swim at Kendrick Recreation Center in Roxborough, then to being a big dog and becoming a counselor in training at one of the rec summer camps. You couldn't tell me anything, like that was the cr me de la cr me to growing up and being a part of a Philadelphia summer. Fast-forward, now I own a communications agency, Mash Strategies, where we support organizations like Penn Medicine, Gift of Life, at one point WURD Radio. We support talent like Philadelphia Freeway and others. And seeing the impact that parks have, it never leaves me. Right now I'm a Delaware County resident living about five stoplights away from Philadelphia now. And I also see the stark contrast that we have and the ability to create a pickleball park down the street from my house without it being a four-year project, holding our larger organizations that are employers in our neighborhoods accountable to invest in our youth, in our generation. So I think now I have a unique perspective growing up in Philadelphia, but being right down the street and seeing some of those benefits that we have. And I want to bring that to the children that look like me and grew up. I think that having an agency, I've worked with organizations like Police Athletic League, they need our parks and recreation centers. They need our green spaces to know what it looks like. They need to have that pride. When we go in the summertime and we go visit our aunts that may live in a totally different neighborhood and you get to experience Germantown for the first time or you get to go and see your family up in the Northeast, we take pride in those parks and those green spaces. So I would like to bring to the Commission, that investment, that perspective of what I know it feels like to have a beautiful parks and recreation space and hold our capital organizations accountable for that.
Melissa Young, gotcha. I was taking some notes. I want to make sure I had your right last name there. All right. Perfect. Now, thank you so much. You can please state your name for the record and share your testimony. Thanks for being here.
Yes, hello. Thank you, Councilmembers. I greatly appreciate your time. My name is John Scanlon. I am not on the ballot. My wife Olivia Scanlon is. She unfortunately is away on work, so I wanted to come in and represent her because she's -- this is her Mother's Day present. I'm very happy to be here. I just have a few quick remarks on my wife. With over 15 years of fundraising experience in the political, government and nonprofit sectors, she has proven in her professional career to be a coalition builder and staunch proponent of her causes. She has spent time in the Mayor's Office under the Kenney Administration, raising funds for the census and the COVID-19 City Fund, giving her a deep understanding of the complexities and nuances of city governance. As a mother to our daughter and resident in District 2, she sees the immense value and benefits our public spaces bring to both young and old, and will be an exceptional advocate for the city's parks. She understands that the city's streets may be the heart of our city, but the parks are our lungs. I believe that she will do her best to continue the dream of William Penn, to ensure that we have a truly green country town by being a cheerleader and fundraiser for Parks & Rec. My personal experience, I also would say that things tend to end up better when Olivia is involved. So I thank you all for your time and consideration. I greatly appreciate it.
Thank you so much for being a great husband, and it seems like your wife has a great amount of experience around fundraising. We appreciate that, which is really important for our rec centers. Can you please state your name for the record.
Thank you. Good morning. My name is Shannon Wink. I grew up in Northeast Philadelphia and I've lived in Fishtown for about the last 15 or so years, and that's where we are raising our family. I have a background in journalism PR and communications, and I am also a lifelong Parks & Rec user. And I can say unequivocally, we could not raise our children in this city without the resources and the programs that Parks & Rec provides. I know that there are challenges to providing those services equitably. I know that also some of those challenges are just a communications challenge. And sometimes it's about getting the word out and making sure that people know what's there and what's available to them. So I believe that my both professional experience and my personal experience growing up here, using the facilities, raising my family here is a really nice combination to help the Commission achieve its goals. Thank you.
And is there one -- I didn't hear this part. Is there one issue you think the Commission should focus on and what would you contribute if you were --
More resources for afterschool programming and summer camp. We quite literally won the afterschool care lottery at our rec center. I would like to make it so that that is not a game that everyone has to play. We did not win the summer camp lottery. I went in person to five different rec centers to complete five totally different paper applications with different fees at all of those rec centers. I think there's a better, easier way to do that for Parks & Rec and for families.
Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Good morning. My name is Khalil Salaam. I am the Imam and President of Masjid in West Philly, in the neighborhood in which I was born and raised right off of 61st and Webster. I am a business owner. I run a construction management firm here in the City of Philadelphia. And prior to doing that, I had a corporate career for years 16 working for Coca-Cola, Pepsi, 17 Keurig, Dr. Pepper and multiple 18 sales and operational roles before 19 I transitioning into my 20 construction realm. From a personal perspective and why I'm here is, of course I was basically born and raised in the parks of West Philly and Fairmount Park. I grew up riding my bike through the trails of Cobbs Creek into Fairmount Park and in the rec centers. I played basketball here in high school and in college. I played for John Bartram High School. So that was my younger years. And as I've evolved out of sports, I transitioned more into outdoor stuff. So I oversee a young men's youth scouting program and we teach the youth outdoorsman. We teach them archery, intro to hunting, camping and horsemanship. And so, that's where my desire comes from to support this Commission. One of the things that I think is missing or one of the things that I would like to bring to the Commission is connecting the resources to the right individuals, the inner city folks that are normally not introduced or connected to the outdoors, right. So I run archery classes. I'm a certified archery instructor. I do intro to hunting and camping. It's so many of our youth that have never been in the trails that live in the city that are just totally oblivious to the outdoors and what it will bring. And I know what it has done for me from a mental capacity, stress- related and so forth. And I just think that's something that not only the youth, but our whole community needs to have. I do see that there's a gap with the resources that are available because the resources are there, but for the people that need them, it's connecting the dots. So when you talk about the various rec centers that's around, and I'm noticing it's a beautiful job with all of them getting renovated now as well as some of the city-owned property with the neighborhood barns, but some of the other mission-driven organizations don't seem to be connected to those resources. And I feel like if we can try to bridge those gaps, it could be a good thing for the community to benefit from the resources that's available.
Thank you. And I just wanted to quickly clarify. You currently work for what organization now?
So currently I own a construction management firm independently, myself. I'm also the President of Masjid Mujahideen, so I'm the Imam that's in West Philly. And I'm also the Chair of Jawala Scout Outdoors Boys program as well.
Thank you so much for your passion about finding ways to connect young people to the outdoors. I also want to say the Chair recognizes Councilmember Jeffrey J. Young, who is here with us too on our committee. Are there any questions from the members of the committee? Any further questions? (No response.)
Are there any other items that members of this panel would like to share with us that we did not bring up or you just wanted to say that there would be (inaudible)?
Yeah. So I just came across this opportunity within a day before that the application was in and it just struck me, so I applied and so forth. But just a simple question, is this a new commission and if it is, what birthed it?
So this commission has existed in the past, but it's going to be a new body of commissioners. It hasn't existed in many, many years now. And so, they're trying to reinstate it so that we can have an advisory board for our Parks & Rec.
All right. Thank you so much. I appreciate your testimony. Thank you all for your passion. Just so you know, you can stay in here for the rest of the folks or you can leave if you like. We're going to do a recess and we're going to deliberate on who we would like to recommend to the Mayor for appointment. And then the Mayor ultimately makes the appointment of the final individuals. We're only appointing a handful -- we're going to make a recommendation for a handful and she makes the final appointment. Is that okay? All right. Thank y'all being here. It means a lot.
All right. Clerk, can you please call the next panel we have to testify on Resolution No. 260346.
Thank you so much. If you can please state your -- you're our last panel, unless there's anyone else that we did not call here today that has applied. Okay. Please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony. Just as a reminder, the questions that we have include why are you interested in being a member of the Parks & Rec Commission, what neighborhood you're from. Also, if you could just state more briefly about what you would like to contribute to the Parks & Rec Commission as well.
Okay. First of all, I want to thank you guys for considering me for this position with the commission. My name is --
All right. So my name is Eritrea Abdulhadi. I am born and raised in West Philadelphia. I am a founder and non-profit owner of an organization that founded on STEAF, which is Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Financial Literacy. I have been in the Mastery ?? of schools and also rec centers over the years gaining this information and organizations to the youth and their families. I also am a mother of five and a grandmother of three in West Philadelphia, use the recreational centers that we lack of. I am here today to speak on that because the recreational centers in West Philadelphia and Southwest, we have maybe one. And I would love to leverage financial literacy for that very matter and bring that to the communities that are underserved. The reason why I would be a best fit is because I network in my communities. I'm a block captain from 52nd and Spruce. I'm in the heart of the city and YMCA is where I grew up at. That was a part of a rec center that we would call -- I learned gymnastics and so on and so forth. And then when I grew up having my children, I put them in the YMCA to learn how to swim and learn things that we don't have in our underserved communities. I want to bring authority. I want to bring my knowledge and education to the communities and this commission's state and be able to give you guys all the education and knowledge and the disconnect that I see in our communities, and the rec center does play a huge part in our communities for that. And I want to make sure that I can get that out to our communities and to you guys and the Councilmembers that I'm reaching out to as well, if that makes sense.
Yeah, I believe so. I want to say thank you so much for your testimony. Thank you for being here today. Can you please state your name and proceed with your testimony. MR. McKAY: My name is John Hakeem McKay. I am an operations manager with Eritrea's Care and Ibrahim Youth Scholars. And I just want as a new hire for transparency in the past 30 days, I myself have been boots on the ground working in rec centers. I've been working with Work Ready since 2015 through University of Penn. Many of the Councilmembers know me from Security for Philly grassroots, and I've worked with a variety of organizations. And I'm not just saying this because we're connected, but I just wanted to testify that I have not worked with anyone that has picked up and moved out on programming overnight like Eritrea. We connected about three weeks ago, I made a call to action, just an Instagram video. Hey, I need 12 CEOs that want to open up a 24-hour content creation center. She responded, we talked about that. She's opening up a school in Montgomery County. This school, she has a partnership with Montgomery County Community College that is going to allow students to get nine credits through this apprenticeship. We have apprenticeship through Philadelphia Works that she didn't mention, but the biggest thing I wanted to shout out is her systems, her ability. A lot of entrepreneurs and people in management, they don't know how to manage their teams. They don't have the systems in place, the communication systems, the onboarding systems, the proactive outreach. And even being here, I mean, I'm sure it sounds like -- I heard the other brother say he heard about it, you know, last minute and moved out and showed up. So I just want to attest to her ability to manage systems, to bring systems. That's what she's an expert in. And as a person that has worked with the rec centers, having those systems is that thing that we do --
I just want to clarify. So you didn't apply for the Parks and -- MR. McKAY: No, I'm just a witness here.
Okay. Thank you so much. I appreciate what you do for the City of Philadelphia. And what neighborhood do you live in?
And I'm the block captain here as well. And so, I need to get my word out is what it is. And this is a good position for me to do that. And thank you so much for sharing what I wasn't able to share for myself and what I do. And I'm really humbled at what I do.
Aww. All right. Are there any questions from members of the committee? (No response.)
Is there anything that you wanted to share that you didn't get a chance to share that you just thought about?
No. Jon got it for me. I appreciate it and I appreciate my team. And I also have been seeing you guys in budget meetings. And also, I've been meeting you guys there as far as education and so on and so forth. And my house -- I'm sorry. This is something I want to mention. I apologize. I have a home that I own free and clear and I want to turn it into a resource center within there and it'll be in conjunction with the Recs Commission. So this position does place me in a place to just put it out there.
I'm creating that -- I'm turning my home into a resource center.
Yes, I need the funding. I need the commitments from you guys. And that's why I show up at these places that I do. And because I'm so humble, it leads me to not project what I need to project. And that's why I'm grateful for my partner here.
Yeah. 42nd and Spruce, I think your Councilmember is Gauthier.
She's extremely helpful. She could be able to support you and look into ways in which she can be resourceful to you.
I'm actually reading all these resumes again as you as you all speak, so I want to say thank you.
Thank you all. Do you guys have any questions for me, because I know I didn't give as much as I needed to? But do you guys have any questions for me?
Clerk, are there any other panels for this committee?
To testify on Resolution No. 260346. Okay. So there being no further witnesses listed today, I will ask if there is anyone else in chambers to testify on Resolution 260346 whose name has not yet been called? (No response.)
You just -- you did that. Seeing a few hands up -- Clerk, will you please -- sorry about that. With that being said, this concludes the testimony on Resolution No. 260346. We will now go into an executive session to consider the applications submitted. However, we're going to recess until -- hold on one second. All right. So we will now recess until 12:40, and we will then make a public recommendation of the members that we're recommending to the committee, all right, the Commission. Thank you so much. (Brief recess.)
The hour has come that we are back in Committee session from recess. Clerk will you please call the roll to take attendance. Members that are in attendance, please indicate you are present when your name is called.
Thank you. A quorum of the committee is present and this hearing is now called back to order. I would like to make a motion for this to be recessed until May 26th at 12:00 p.m. Can I have a second? (Duly seconded.)
The ayes have it and the motion will be resumed on May 26th at 12:00 p.m. Thank you. (Committee on Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs concluded at 12:59 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. _______________________________ TANEHA CARROLL