If you will point those out to the Revenue Commissioner, I'm sure she will look that up.
The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco. 614 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005
Just in time. You thought you were going to get away.
I just have a couple of questions if I can find them here. You're familiar with the Logan area, the sinking home area.
Is there any possible way that your department could help us identify -- let me just first say, there are a number of -- all of that land there at one time there was a house on the land.
A number of the people who were there, some of them have left and some were settled, others were not. Is there any way that the Board of Revision of Taxes can help us identify who might have been --
This would go to '86. 615 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005
Oh, yes, I think we can help you that. I think we may have some of that in our records as they exist; if not, we can certainly using our staff go to the Department of Records and get you that information, we'd be happy to do that.
I guess the best thing in order for us to help you if you would just send us a list of those properties.
I'll have someone -- they do have a staff person. I'll have the staff person from Logan contact you. They can better decide which way you can help.
Thank you, gentlemen. And again, thank you for your patience.
Oh, I'm 616 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 sorry, Councilwoman Brown's light just went on. Councilwoman Brown.
Thank you, Madam President. As a new Councilmember I will be looking and paying close attention to children, youth, education; education, children, and youth. That's what I care about. In reading the testimony I look to see how numbers impact that community. So to that end, I see that the School District received a total of 427 million in the year 2000. Is that the fiscal year or the program year?
What's the history, if you will, as well as the projection of the future real-estate tax revenues?
The history as well as the projection of the future of real 617 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 estate tax revenues? And if this forum or this opportunity is not long enough, can you provide that information to Madam Chair?
Add to that, when you provide that information, what have we collected in the last few years and what do you project revenues to be in the upcoming, I guess, 48 months.
What you're asking us is a history of what we -- our values would project out as real property tax collections for the School District in the City?
Okay, I will work with the Department of Revenue to get that and I will also do the same thing with any projection that you ask. Basically, we have done some projections for the five-year plan. I don't know if you want us to just give you that or give you something more comprehensive.
I think that's a 618 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 beginning, yes. Thank you.
Thank you. Any other questions from members of the committee? (No further questions.)
Managing Director's Office is next. (Managing Director's witness come forward.)
Good afternoon, President Verna and members of Council. I am Joseph Martz Managing Director of City of Philadelphia. Joining me Estelle Richman, City's Director of Social Services. Today we're here to present testimony on the proposed Managing Director's operating budget for Fiscal Year 2001 and to answer any 619 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 questions you may have. 3 million in grants funds. The Fiscal Year 2001 General Fund budget request represents an increase of $107,000 from Fiscal Year 2000 estimated obligations. This increase is entirely in Class 100 to support negotiated wage increases. The budget in the Grants Fund contains an increase of approximately $825,000 from Fiscal Year 2000 estimated obligations. The majority of this increase is the result of increased grants funding for hazardous materials removal programs, alternative fields programs, and other environmental and solar energy initiatives. 7 million to fund the administration division to perform both administrative and management functions such as fiscal personnel and grants administration and management analysis as well as neighbor-based functions such as management of the 620 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 municipal service centers in Northeast Philadelphia. $392,000 for the Office of Emergency Management and the Emergency Operations Center which is responsible for coordinating the City's response to crisis situations such as environmental incidents, natural and man-made disasters, and weather emergencies. 1 million for the targeted assistance program to provide employment-related social services primarily to refugees and entrants recently arrived from eastern Europe, Africa, southeast Asian. And translation services for members of the refugee community in routine matters as well as in police contact. 2 million for the Criminal Justice Coordinating Office to ensure that the prison population is managed to continue to seek appropriate alternatives to incarceration for non-violent criminals. The offices also serves as Mayor's coordinating arm for drug control policy. $2 million for the Municipal Energy Office, which is responsible for optimizing energy use in City facilities, reducing city government's 621 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 energy-related expenditures, fostering the development and implementation of energy efficient technologies and protecting the environment. And 390,000 for the Police Advisory Commission which advises the Managing Director and the Police Commissioner on policies and actions of the Police Department in order to improve the ability of police personnel to carry out their duties and improve the relations between the Police Department and the community. Traditionally, the Managing Director's office provided oversight, support, and assistance to the 13 operating departments that it directly supervises. Too often this assistance was delivered on a departmental basis with little coordination on cross-cutting issues. Complex urban problems including blight, graffiti, crime, homelessness, and the loss to both jobs and residents to the suburbs have demanded that comprehensive coordinated initiatives be developed to target a variety of special needs. In the last few years the Managing Director's Office has broadened its mission in order to assume responsibility for organizing, coordinating, and 622 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 supervising major inter-departmental programs. This approach has yielded some impressive results. The Partners for Progress initiative which coordinates personnel from the Streets, Water, Police, L&I, Public Health, and Human Services departments as well the office of Fleet Management and the Mayor's Office Community Services is just one example of benefit of this approach.
The success of Partners for Progress helped paved the way for Operation Sunrise which combines the blight removal resources City's department with a strong police presence in the West Kensington section of the City. Moving forward, the Managing Director's Office will continue this approach by expanding successful programs such as Partners for Progress, Operation Sunrise, Town Watch, and Anti-graffiti Campaign while helping to coordinate new initiatives such as an expansion of the City's abandoned vehicle program and the Mayor's saving neighborhoods campaign to eradicate blight. The MDO through the Director of Social Services will also help coordinate the Mayor's KIDS involved in developing skills initiative to help expand 623 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 after-school programs throughout the City. Further, to help improve coordination of municipal service delivery, the MDO has begun the progress of reorganization its administrative division so that oversight of the City's operating departments and offices will fall into three different areas, public services, social services, and City services. The public services area will encompass the services provided by police, fire, streets, and Records Departments, the Department of Licenses and Inspections, and Fairmount Park. The social services area which is headed by Estelle Richman will include the Departments of Health, Human Services, Recreation, the Philadelphia Prison System, and the Office of Emergency Shelter and Services. The City services area will oversee the services provided by the Office of Fleet Management, the Department of Public Property, the Capital Program Office, and the Mayor's Office of Information Services, and the Municipal Energy Office. In addition, at the direction of Mayor 624 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 Street, the MDO has begun working with the Streets Department and the Office of Fleet Management to experiment with different types of snow-fighting equipment that will be better able to maneuver down some of the City's smaller streets. Among the options currently under review are purchasing new equipment, outfitting smaller vehicles in the City's existing fleet with snow fighting equipment or building a reserve snow-fighting fleet from older City vehicles. I would also like to note that the MDO will play key logistical role in planning and coordinating the delivery of all City services required for the Republican National Convention. I'm personally excited by this challenge and am looking forward to coordinating all departmental workers involved with the convention to help ensure that the City puts its best face in front of the nation. Finally, I'd like to take a moment to commend the excellent work of the City's Emergency Services personnel during last week's construction accident at the Regional Performing Arts Center. The quick response of City workers in the fire, 625 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 police, and Licenses and Inspections Department helped ensure what we all hope to will be a speedy recovery for all injured workers. As I was reminded during the recent snow emergency, City employees in every department work tirelessly when needed most performing the otherwise thankless task of keeping City and its residents safe, and I would publicly like to thank them. This concludes my testimony. Thank you for your time. Estelle and I are available to answer questions.
I would like to thank you personally for doing such a wonderful job during that snowfall.
I have a couple questions. I know you have indicated the role that the Managing Director's Office will play as far as the organizational. Could we have a chart of the functions so that we could refer to it in the future?
I will provide that for you. 626 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005
What role will the Manager Director's Office have in the Abandoned Vehicle Program, the Blight Program and the KIDS Initiative?
Let me start with the Abandoned Vehicle Program. We are actually coordinating the activities for the Abandoned Vehicle Program. We're working cooperatively with the Office of Fleet Management, the Procurement Current Department, and most importantly the Philadelphia Police Department. I believe in the next three weeks that the Mayor will be holding an announcement and will more than likely brief you ahead of time on what the overall program's going to be. As far as the Blight Initiative is concerned, I think right now we're actually waiting for the Neighborhood Revitalization Committee of the Mayor's Transition Task Force to complete its report and provide that to Joyce Wilkerson, the Secretary for Strategic Initiatives. Our role likely will be one of just what it would be for abandoned vehicles, which is a coordinating function. A number of our agencies 627 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 will be involved in the Blight Initiative and we will act as coordinating arm. As far as the KIDS Initiative is concerned, I'll let Estelle talk a little bit about that.
I'm Estelle Richman, Director of Social Services. We are looking at all services for children, including after-school programs and formulation of children's budget to coordinating all of the departments that have any activity with children in this area. At this point in time I'm meeting with all of the key commissioners, the Commissioner of Public Health, Human Services, Recreation, Homeless, all in some way have children in their program and have to arrange for after-school programs, child care programs, and health care programs. There are those children, and what the Managing Director's Office will do now is coordinate.
KIDS Initiative, what the age for the children who participate in any of the programs?
As we formulate the Office of Child Care, we'll be looking at children 628 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 who are preschool which means children as young as could be or whose parents need child care in order to return to and we'll be working up to the age of 18, although we certain work with young adults who for other reasons may need some type of care because of a disability or a handicap, so we'll be looking at the full range of childhood.
Thank you. Mr. Martz, you indicate that your office will oversee the Mayor's Office of Information Services. Will that office be reporting to your office and who will set the priorities?
The office as it stands right now, yes, the office will be reporting to me. And I hope to work cooperatively with the head of the Mayor's Office of Information Services in establishing policy, but as it stands right now, that person is it technologist and like the professionals we find in the specific fields I like to work cooperatively with those commissioners that work with me, for me. I don't see that being any different with the Chief Information Officer of the City of Philadelphia. 629 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005
What changes, if any, should we expect to see as a result of the change?
Hopefully, a little better coordination maybe between all of the affected departments. I mean, there are obviously a lot of IT initiatives that take place around the City right now affecting, for most of part, most the departments and agencies that report to the Managing Director's Office.
What is the City's current prison population, and what steps is your office taking to keep the prison population level at an acceptable level?
Dianne Granlund is here just to answer that question for you, Madam President.
Good afternoon. Please identify yourself for the record.
Dianne Granlund, Deputy Managing Director for Criminal Justice Population 630 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 Management. Good afternoon, Madam President and members of Council. This morning's population was roughly 6500 in-house. We are continuing to develop alternative to incarceration for non-violent offenders who are evaluated for whatever kind of program is deemed necessary to hopefully reintroduce them to the law-abiding life and make them taxpayers which we need desperately. We have over the last several years gone from having roughly 250 people in active treatment at any given time to the present number today is over a thousand people who otherwise would have been in jail.
Tell us about the programs, the alternative programs, please just for the record, if you will.
Thank you. I write this down so I don't have to remember it. We have -- and it would depend on the point at which the offender is in the criminal 631 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 justice system. For example, he might be pretrial, he might be posttrial, he might be sentenced, he might be out on parole. So these programs address offenders at every single stage of the process. The first program that we developed back in 1993 was called the Forensic Intensive Recovery Program, F-I-R, we call it FIR, that is an early parole program for offenders who are presently incarcerated in the Philadelphia prison system. As of December 31, we had 447 people active in that program. These folks are evaluated by a clinical evaluation unit to determine level of care and length of stay. The Department of Public Health through its office of drug and alcohol programs closely monitors these programs. We offer housing and parole supervision through the court system, electronic monitoring if it's necessary. And these people are followed up for roughly 12 to 18 months during their parole period with constant supervision and constant treatment. Funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania through the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency is the Restrictive 632 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 Intermediate Punishment Program through which people who are perhaps in jail pretrial but perhaps not in jail pretrial, but who if convicted would be in jail in our local facilities are directly sentenced to treatment in lieu of incarceration. And again, it's the same kind of clinical evaluation and follow-up and after-care and constant monitoring by the parties that are involved in the process. We had 222 active people in the Intermediate Punishment Program on December 31, 1999. The Female Offenders Comprehensive and Integrated Services Network, FOCIS for short, is funded by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment which IS a federal program. It has been in operation since September of 1995. It IS directed, obviously, to women offenders at any stage in the criminal justice process, whether they have children or they don't have children, and it's a fully -- as the title suggests it's a comprehensive service to women. It's culturally relevant and gender specific. We have a Philadelphia Treatment Court which was the first treatment court in the 633 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is judicially supervised treatment where an offender who is jail-bound if he's convicted reports periodically to the court and is supervised directly by the court and treatment coordinators within the court system. Judge Louis Pesenza as a the presiding judge of this court. And as of December 31, there were 264 active people. We have new directions for women which is not a treatment program, but we are using as a housing program for women who will get drug treatment in another location, And they have capacity for women. 15
Thank you 16 very much for your very informative response. You 17 are well prepared. You must have known that 18 question was going to be asked. 19 (Laughter.) 20
Mr. Martz, on 23 of the detail, it indicates that your 24 office will spend $1.5 million on anti-drug and 25 Town Watch initiatives. Would you please provide 634 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 us with a breakdown of the various groups that will be funded?
Could you send that to me and I'd be more than happy to circulate that. The Chair recognizes Councilman Kenney.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Martz, I want to echo something that you said earlier and also complement you. The efforts of the City employees and your office in coordinating snow removal in this past storm was phenomenal.
I know you were here back in '96 when we got dumped on probably two times or more what we received in January, but I remember your efforts back then which were phenomenal. As a matter of fact, I think I remember you driving by my house one evening with a front loader yourself.
So I mean, you talk about hands-on, we have it. I think what the responsibility of the City is generally is kind of getting those main arteries open, the snow emergency routes, getting the buses running, getting people back to work. I guess the question that I'm moving towards is the issue of snow removal on little streets. I think in '96 our former mayor, no matter how much we may have loved him, probably presented the case in such a poor way that upset a lot of people when he, and I will paraphrase him, kind of get a shovel and start digging yourself out, which is probably not the appropriate way to put it. And I think that this mayor to his credit is attempting to go approach this problem in a more sensitive and understanding way to those people who have lived on -- I don't live on a small street now, but I did for 32 years -- what people go through living on small street in 15-inch or more snowstorm. In addition to looking for appropriate equipment to kind of move the snow around, because we do one of two things often with the snow, we 636 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 either pick it up and take it somewhere or we move it around, kind of just push it around. In '96 I think we got special permission to kind pick some stuff up and put it in the River over the first 6 or 48 hours. I think EPA allowed us to do certain 7 thing which let us get kind of ahead of the curb a 8 little bit. I called your office and I'm sure 9 Councilpeople did many times both this snow and in 10 '96 when came to people who needed to get out for 11 dialysis, children who needed to get out to 12 school, really kind of accommodating special 13 circumstance on little streets. 14 Considering the number of small streets 15 there are in the City and how difficult it is to 16 move it around and you can't really pick it up, 17 how realistic are we being in raising the bar of 18 expectation that somehow the next snowstorm or 19 snowstorm afterwards the person living on Cantrell 20 Street is somehow within a reasonable length of 21 time is going to have a clean street that they can 22 drive their car out of? 23
That's a great question. 24 If you think back to 1996 a little bit, we spent $23 million to move the snow out of the City of 637 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 Philadelphia that year, and that included us dumping, I don't even remember how many metric tons of it into the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers, but $23 million. At the end of that process, we would determined it would cost us between 40 and $70 million to have the properly equipped fleet to deal with snow removal in the City of Philadelphia. That's a tremendous amount of money that comes out of the General Fund that essentially isn't used for any other services if we decide if we're going to approach snow-fighting the way they do in Buffalo and places like that. So absent that, what else can we do and what could we do a little bit better, and what new techniques have developed since then? And interestingly enough, one of the things that did come out of '96 storm was that our Office of Fleet Management began to change out some of the equipment that we had in the City of Philadelphia. We have a number of four-by-four pickup trucks in the City of Philadelphia which we didn't have in 1996. And as a result of that we can put plows and salt spreaders on to those vehicles. We didn't necessarily have the equipment, the necessary 638 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 plows and salt spreaders at this time, but we certainly had the equipment to at least get through the snow. So my expectation is we'll be able to do more of that kind of thing. Now, are there other techniques that are available? Interesting enough, we were down at the airport a week after the snowstorm. They now, because they have limited space down at the airport, melt snow. They don't just go stack it up somewhere, they actually melt it. It's extremely expensive equipment at this point because it is fairly new still. But could we use this kind of equipment? They're the kind of things that we're looking at. Could we bring snow out of the neighborhood possibly and into, for the very small streets and say, for example, South Philadelphia and put it in Veterans Stadium parking lot, put salt melter there and begin the process of melting it? The possibility is there. The cost of that is something that we'll have to collectively decide. We'll come back here and say, "Look, these are the ideas that we have. This is what it's going to cost us to do it. Do we want to go it that far?" I think we can do a better job of 639 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 pushing the snow around right now, something that we aren't doing well enough at this point. But I don't know at what point we have to determine whether the cost is too high to either take it somewhere else or melt it. I mean if we have to make $20 million decisions every time we have a 15-inch snowfall around here, that definitely has an impact on the other things that we want to do the rest of the fiscal year.
I think some of the problem that we face is where we're located in our snow incidents. Again, you mentioned Buffalo and places like Erie, places in Minnesota where their government is geared to dealing with snow probably from November to April. We may have a major snow incident once every three, four, or five years, and I think what happens is -- I think part of the problem is our people themselves, and as a citizen of Philadelphia for my lifetime I think I can say this. I think times changed where 20, 25, 30 years ago, neighborhoods shovelled each other out. They didn't throw the snow from their pavement into the middle of their small street. One of the things I found a problem in South Philadelphia, 640 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 for example, is instead of kind of shovelling their snow to the end of the curb, they had this fascination with getting every ounce of snow off every square inch of their pavement, wind up throwing it in the middle of the street creating snow mountain that doesn't leave till May. And I think part of it is education, part of it is levels of expectation and what people really expect the government to do and what they're responsible for doing. I think we have -- if you're young enough and healthy enough, you have a responsibility to take care of the pavements of the older people on your street, something that I was raised to go -- my mother's would say, "Here's a shovel, go shovel Mrs. O'Malley's pavement because she can't get out." I mean, that was something you grew being told to do. Again, times have changed. Nothing is like it used to be. I just don't want to be in a position where we at some point in time allow people to expect in two or three snow storms from now that somehow the Cat in the Hat -- I have a little kid so . . . The Cat in the Hat Comes Back is where the cat takes off his hat, waves his wand 641 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 and all the snow goes into his hat. We're never going to be in that situation, and I do admire thinking of the box, trying to maybe move the snow from the end of each street so that the storm drains work better and do things that kind of make it easier or less cumbersome on people when it snows. It is a natural event and it happens and eventually it goes away as we just saw this weekend.
It's interesting. I should probably take a little bit of the blame for what happened to the Mayor Rendell in '96 because he actually asked me, "What did you do when you were younger?" I said, "Well, we dug out our street." (Laughter.)
So he gets on TV and actually talked about it. But you're right, it cost an awful lot of money to move snow. And this was an unprecedented cold spell we went through. Rarely do we have a four week stint where we don't get warm weather somewhere in the midst of it all.
I just want to have some discussion with you, and again, thank you for 642 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 the good work you guys did.
Managing Director Martz, I have a question about 1996 when you claim we spent $23 million on snow removal. Today, if had another snow incident like that, an event like that, are all these contracts in place? You said something very interesting that how do you we know how many tons of snow we're paying to remove from the streets of the City. $23 million when there's an emergency doesn't sound like a lot of money, but in July it does. Do we have all these contract in place, and how pay for snow removal? How are all these contracts assembled that when you push the button and say "Get out there and start removing snow," that there's an accounting process that adds up to $23 million?
We actually have a -- we decide our own overtime costs associated with moving snow, and we can obviously verify that pretty easily. We pay, if bring contractor equipment in to do something, we pay by the hour 643 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 for that equipment, and it's depending on type of equipment we use. It has an hourly rate associated with it. So we actually can control how long or how short we use the equipment. If we bring it on for a snowstorm, we generally have to keep it on for eight hours. But anything over eight hours, we can say at the ninth hour, "you're cut loose and go," and we know how pieces we ordered and how much pay an hour for it.
Do your Streets Department supervisors have supervision over those contracts for productivity purposes? Do we know we're getting eight hours of --
Yes. We have supervisors on the street. We have district highway engineers and then we have supervisors on the street that supervise the contractors as well as our own City employees. We bring people in from the bridge division and other things just to oversee the actual removal of snow.
So an example, a contractor's frontend loader breaks after one hour of use, we don't wind up paying for eight hours?
That's theoretically, 644 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 correct, yes.
Theoretically correct? So that's all down in black and white?
What I wanted to know is whether or not we've explored any opportunities of dealing with prison space, perhaps renting it, so to speak, from other counties throughout the Commonwealth, throughout the region, or exploring opportunities for privately-built and run prisons similar to what they've done in Delaware County with the Wackethut 645 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 Company (ph), what we're doing about that?
We are renting space from Delaware County, in fact, for prisoners.
We have approximately 260 people there, and we are continuing to look for other space for prisoners. We haven't investigated at this point a private contractor to do that, but it's something that we could take under advisement and begin to look at. But we are trying to first control some of our population factors in the City as opposed to moving. But moving puts so much out of it because there's certainly limitations upon transportation, monitoring, and other factors when we have people out of the City.
From my perspective, that's an economic development issue. If we can secure someone who is terrorizing a community in a facility and they're in the community again at least until their trial or even after, certainly that's something that's going to make our neighborhoods a lot better to live in. 646 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005
I just wanted to add, if you don't mind, and you might want to talk to the commissioner about this a little bit, but interestingly enough, a lot of times when we do find capacity somewhere else, they want to select the type of people that we send to them. They're not really anxious to have some criminals.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Goode.
Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon, Mr. Martz and Miss Richman. Under organizational chart for the Street administration previously released, the Mayor's Office of Community Services is placed under the jurisdiction of the social services area under the Managing Office's Office. Is that still the case?
Would MOCS still retain oversight of the Empowerment Zone Program.
While the Empowerment Zone falls under the Empowerment Zone, they really 647 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 operate two separate programs and so there is not a reporting relationship between the Empowerment Zone director and the MOCS director. I know that the budget are combined, but there's not a reporting relationship there. It's a budget oversight.
There is fiscal oversight, and that will probably fall, as it will for many of the departments falling under Social Services, much of that physical oversight will be done by my office and the Managing Director to make sure there's integration and that there is some coordination between all of the services as opposed to seeing them operate totally independent of the each other.
So you will now have fiscal oversight over the Empowerment Zone Program?
Councilwoman 648 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 Blackwell.
Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon. In your testimony on , you indicated that the Administration provides neighborhood-based services such as the management of municipal service centers in North Philadelphia, Northeast. Do you anticipate locating additional service centers in other areas, for example, West Philadelphia?
What can we -- nothing on -- what do we need to do to get a little bit of something on a modified scale? Can we talk about it?
You might include South Philadelphia in that, too, please.
Anybody else 649 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 want to be included? (Laughter.)
Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, we still have the five-minute limit? I'm going to ask all of my questions at once and hopefully extend my time. Mr. Martz, in your testimony, it talked about Partners for Progress, and I don't know, the Police Department may want to follow up a little later on, particularly Operation Sunrise. One of the problems that I've had in the eastern part of my district is that my understanding is that the crime-related activity, the drug-selling, the abandoned vehicles are fining their way into other parts of the area. Essentially, you're running them from Stage and Stage to Stage 4, which happens to be my district. And my question is, what are we going to do to respond to that? And this has been going on for about a year now, and 650 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 I've really been getting beat over the head with this inundation into crime and drug selling and things of that nature. The second part, because I want to extend my time. The question of accessibility compliance, I've had difficulty getting some responses on this. On a lot of these intersections, we ask for the handicapped ramps for the sidewalks. Have been unable to get a lot of those done. Is this a process or is there any sort of strategic plan as to where those are done? I mean, it seems to be kind of haphazardly. I've actually got one corner where three of the corners are done and the fourth one is not and I can't seem to get an answer to that. I actually have a question -- can you give me some specifics on the targeted assistance program, on employment related social services. And if you can, maybe you're not the appropriate person to answer that. Do we have a similar initiative for people who happen to have been born in the City of Philadelphia?
I'll actually bring the director of the program up to speak about that. 651 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005
We are in actually Stage now, so the goal is to move into Stage as soon as we complete Stage 3 of Operation Sunrise. And the Mayor has also charged us with the responsibility of looking to ways to expand the program, so we're in discussion. If I wasn't in the midst of a couple of snowfalls and then the incident last week, I might have been able to answer that question a little bit better, but one of the charges is to try to find a way of expanding the overall Operation Sunrise program. So you and I will have to talk a little bit more about the problem separately.
Before you go to the next one, with respect to that, because what's going to end up happening is they're going to run them over to Councilwoman Miller's district. Have you gotten a sense of a pattern developing as a result of the 1, 2, 3 stages whereas possibly you 652 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 can be in a position to deal with those individuals before they actually get there so when you go Stage 4 you'll have a sense of we are they're going to go based on three prior stages and essentially be there to shut down shop before they open it up?
Let me just stop right now because somebody got up and sat back down back there, so I'm going to ask Commissioner Johnson to come on up here. You can't hide from me Commissioner. We're going to ask you to answer that question.
Let me just real quickly while we're waiting talk about the handicapped ramps. My understanding was that we actually had completed the ramp program. There were only, I thought, a few left around the City that require some special care. But if you have a specific ramp, we came up with a program for replacing all the ramps. I believe the City of Philadelphia's done actually an excellent job of handicapped ramps around the City.
But if you have some 653 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 specifics that, for whatever reason, weren't completed, please, just provide them to us and I'll have Debbie Russo look into it right away for you, okay?
Deputy Commissioner Johnson, Operation Philadelphia Police. With Operation Sunrise, there were four phases. Phase 1 we began in March of 1998 -- well, in June of 1998. We stayed in that phase and it was from Trenton over to Kensington Avenue for approximately seven weeks, and we stayed there until we felt as though that the neighborhood was stabilized, not by the amount of arrests we made but whether the neighborhood was stable. Stabilization meant to us is that kids can come out and play, their parents can come out and do things. The reason we went there first was because we have more community involvement at that particular location. We left there in August to Phase 2. We stayed in Phase 2 for approximately seven months, and we felt that was stabilized. We 654 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 left there, I'm not sure exactly, but I think it was August. We've been in Phase 3 for a little over to close to a year right now. We feel at this point that it's not stabilized. And one of the good things about Operation Sunrise, at least in my opinion, that there was no time limit, we would stay there as long as it possibly could take. As we went from east to west, the drugs were more intense and they're fighting back. But one of the main things also is that in the Operation Sunrise area between January of 1998 until the present, the homicides rate went down 42 percent. We will probably move into Phase 4, although we have people in Phase 4 at this point still making those kinds of arrests even though we're not in that whole phase right there. There's still narcotics people there working along with the District Attorney's Office, working along with the DEA, working along with the FBI. So I guess maybe in approximately three or four weeks when we feel as though it's time to move on, we will move into Phase 4. But as we go into Phase 4, we may be there well over a year, a year and a half because the drugs are so intense there. So, 655 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 again, I'm not sure how long it's going to take, but it's the commitment to the City government and to the Police Commissioner that we will stay there as long as it will possibly take to stabilize this area. At this point, just in the Sunrise area we've made approximately -- just the Narcotics Bureau alone has made approximately 8,000 arrests. We don't go by the amount of arrests we've made not because it's not really that important at this point, but we also taken down something like that 17, major organizations which is our main goal 13 right now. The Narcotics Bureau is now going 14 after organizations which we didn't do in the 15 past. Between 1992 and 1998 we made 54,000 drug 16 arrests in the City of Philadelphia. And as our 17 arrest rate went up, our crime rate went up 18 because I think we were locking up the wrong people. Not so much the wrong people, we were locking up the sellers. That is no longer the case; we're going after organizations. So again, question is how long we will in Operation Sunrise, we will be there for a while. The other thing, we have a plan and 656 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 can't fragment that plan. If we fragment that plan, it starts taking over the whole city we're going to lose it. But what the commissioner did approximately a month, a month and a half ago, we sent or 34 more people to narcotics, so we now 7 have narcotics traveling team. They go to certain 8 areas of the City as a group. So in addition to 9 the people in the Sunrise area, we now have a 10 narcotics strike force that now travel through all 11 parts of the City. 12
Deputy, thank you. 13 I hear what you're saying about having a plan, but 14 the reality is that people in a particularly area 15 of my district have been suffering as a result of 16 that plan. I call it the 37th Ward. I don't know 17 in the police terms. I've got to get those people 18 some relief and I can't just tell them that 19 there's a plan and you can't deviate from that. I 20 mean, earlier on when we talked about Partners for 21 Progress part of it, I was told that Partners for 22 Progress would still be available to put out those 23 hot spots. I found that not to be true. And 24 essentially, the bulk of Sunrise was going to stay 25 in those particular locations and those various 657 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 stages. Right now in Stage the last year and a half now, those people are crying out for help and I can't just go back to them and tell them, well, they may have to wait another year because you have a specific plan in place. And I'm not asking you to divulge the strategy as it relates to how you can deal with that issue about people moving, nor would you want to give me that response. My question was is there a pattern developing that you see these people moving in a particular way that will now give you a clear sense of how you need to address the outlying areas? I know you can't answer that because if you give that, somebody hear it and the criminals will just adjust their thinking.
I don't have a problem answering it because we were actually in Phase 4. We have our undercover people in Phase 4 and we have our strike force in Phase 4. Phase 4 is from Fifth Street over to Germantown Avenue after we've gone over to Broad Street. We also extended to Tioga Avenue. So this summer, we went to Phase 4 full-time for approximately two months when they took down the houses on the 3000 block of, I 658 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 think, Ninth Street and another area. The whole Operation of Sunrise went into Phase for 4 approximately two months until we felt as though that we made some significant progress there. When I say that Sunrise is in one particular area, it does not mean that there's no 8 other narcotics people working in Phase 4 because they are. There's undercover people working there, there's uniformed people working there, there's strike force people working there, but the main focus of Sunrise is still in that area. But in all parts of City we have narcotics people. We went from -- 1997 we had approximately 200 people in narcotics. Today we have 440 people assigned to the Narcotics Bureau. In addition to that, prior to this administration because of the 39th district scandal, the District was not allowed to be involved in narcotics, but that is no longer the case. Under Commissioner Timoney, every single district in the City now has a narcotic enforcement team, a net team, which consists of a sergeant six officers. So they can respond to street-corner drug sales, which if you add that to 23 districts, that's an additional 136 people that 659 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 are involved in narcotics enforcement that wasn't involved before. Although they're assigned to the net team, they still handle the robberies, the burglaries, the thefts and other crime. But if get call in particular districts about a narcotics problem on the corner, they can respond to that. The main focus of the Narcotics Bureau at this point is going after the organization. In addition to that, for the first time approximately 30 people detectives assigned to the Narcotics Bureau and every persona arrested debriefed. During those debriefings, we get a lot information, not just on drugs, but on robberies, on burglaries, on homicides. What I can tell you, Mr. Clarke, is that the area of Phase 4 is not being neglected. Except the drugs are so intense there and it's going to take a period of time for us to go there. And the other thing is that we finally decided or realized at least in the last couple years that we will never do it by ourself. The committee has been very supportive of us. Other parts of City has been very supportive of us. When Partners in Progress did moved on to Phase 4, we went over 660 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 there to help them and to assist them and we stayed there for approximately two months, but they're not being neglected.
Councilman, I just want to add about the Partners program, We do -- Operation Sunrise has really dominated a lot of resources of Partners for Progress program to the point where we're really down to two days a week doing the Partners program. If you do have hot spots, I'd be interested in knowing what they are. And one of the things, I believe, about mayor's Blight Initiative is that it's going to give us an opportunity to decide what additional resources we might need to expands the overall notion of Partners for Progress. Do we need more people? Maybe I need to dedicate resources five a week strictly to Operation Sunrise and I still need a whole 'nother group of people to just do Partners for Progress. So in the last six weeks those are some of the discussions that are going on inside of our office right now.
Actually, I have Executive 661 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 Director of the Targeted Assistance Program right now, Councilman, for your third question, okay?
Good afternoon. My name is Donna Wolf and I'm the Director of Targeted Assistance Program. Your question, Councilman, pretty much related to whether or not the refugees received services?
The first part is, what specifically is that program? And second part is, do we have a similar program for people who are born in the City of Philadelphia?
The Targeted Assistance Program is a hundred percent federally funded --
The Targeted Assistance Program is a hundred percent federally funded program to supply support services specifically in employment to persons who have been resettled here through State Department activities, a recipient arm of the State Department. And the Targeted Assistance Program works primarily with individuals in the employment setting who are on public assistance, and we work as a 662 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 welfare-to-work component almost in the same fashion to get people employed as quickly as possible so that they don't maintain long-term assistance. And actually, we'd be a very small subset of welfare-to-work which is a large amount of grants are going into at this point in time for other than refugee populations. The particular program component that we work with is the public safety and we supply some small amount of funds to a variety of refugee community groups themselves to form and join in with regular Town Watch activities. So there's actually nothing special that's offered. It's something that actually -- our goal is always to get people mainstreamed into their communities.
So those individuals have to be on welfare to participate?
The employment, for the most part, yeah. And for the wider community activity of funding the small Town Watch activities, no. 22 We like to improve relations between neighbors in the City neighborhoods so...
Councilman, 663 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 are you finished?
And Estelle, congratulations on your positions and nice to see all old friends and old faces back again. Just for the record, I really would like you and Estelle to explain structure of the MDO and what her function is, your function, Estelle, in terms of social service secretary and how that is going to work and. . .
Councilman, I think that Mr. Martz did indicate that and I have asked him to send us an organizational chart so that we would be able to have that in our offices for future reference.
Very good. Well, if that's been asked, that's fine. But I really -- and individuals within your departments that are going to be very pertinent for us to be 664 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 contacting, so that we know who to call.
I'm going to just say because you know what the responsibility of the Managing Director is, so why don't I just let Estelle talk a little bit about what her role is going to be as one of the three chief deputies in the department.
But you are going to send us an organizational chart?
Part of what I'm trying to do is begin to coordinate and integrate those areas of social services that have traditionally fallen within the Managing Director's Office. I think they've been listed, but let me review them real quickly: The Department of Health, the Department of Human Services, Recreation, the Office of Emergency Shelter, Prisons, the Anti-graffiti Network, and the Mayor's Office on Community Services. All of these offices share a lot of initiatives together. Previously they have worked very independently in terms even though there's been major overlap in what their goals and missions have been. Part of what we're looking at 665 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 now is to identify those policy and planning-related ideas and begin to coordinate them both from budget perspective, quality management, and any activity that pertains to how the operations part works and how the policy and planning pieces work. For example, one of the first initiatives we're working on is the after-school program in the Office of Child Care. One of the people that will be working within the Managing Director's Office and reporting directly to me is a child policy person to begin to look at policy as it overlaps the seven departments.
That person has been identified but has not started as of this point. My hope is that they will start sometime this mid-March. We'll also be looking at budgets for all of these departments. There's a great deal of overlap, and I think intuitively we've known that, but we've done little to use that knowledge to direct, to drive operations and to drive policy. 666 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 One of the ones I think Dianne Granlund referred to a lot. There's an awful lot of overlap between the activities within our drug and alcohol program and the prisons. We have a lot drug and alcohol programs behind the walls within the prison and after-care when people leave. We need to ascertain whether these programs work. Are we putting a lot of money into programs that are giving us a little return and what else can we do to make sure we're, quote, getting money's worth for what doing.
Will the after-school programs be centralized in one area then from all the different departments?
Their policy and their operations and quality of management will be centralized, but the programs may not be all in Recreation Department. Some may be in Recreation, some may be in the Department of Human Services, some are some are already existing in the libraries, some may be in the Mural Arts Programs. What we're after is making sure we understand the policy that's driving it, we're getting what we're paying for, and we're and able to track and 667 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 demonstrate that.
Your welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Krajewski.
Actually, my questions will be for Dianne Granlund. I also want to compliment the Managing Director and congratulate Estelle for their positions.
I received many calls from my constituents saying what an excellent job the City did on the snow removal.
Thank you, Councilwoman. That means a lot.. 668 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005
My question to you is, put it in way, when someone is put out on bail and cannot afford the bail and they're sent to prison, I understand -- I don't know how true it is but I'm being told -- they are released without paying that bail. Is that true?
Well, there is several answers to that question. If they don't make bail initially and are incarcerated pretrial, they are looked at again by the court system, by Pretrial Services. They may be allowed to sign their own bail with certain restrictions, and there are various levels of restrictions including active electronic monitoring. If they don't get released at that point, they would be reviewed again by my office, and if eligible, be put on a special release list where, again, they don't have to post the money, they are permitted to do sign their own bail but restrictions, again, are put on them and they are supervised by pretrial services. And then the Jackson Court, the state action on prison conditions, Jackson versus Hendrick, they have their own review process and they review more 669 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 serious offenders than my office reviews. And again, the same kind of review goes on.
I'm being told the ones that are not paying their bail, that they're free to go out and commit the same crime again.
In terms of my own program, if they have been released through special release and they go and they commit another crime, they are not looked at again. Now I cannot speak, obviously, for what the court system does.
How do choose which ones would be permitted to --
In cooperation with the First Judicial District and the District Attorney's Office and other court agencies, over a period of several months we develop the criteria that would be acceptable for people to be considered for special release. These are non-violent offenders.
Well, among other 670 2/15/00, Operating Budget, Bill 000005 things, they are nonviolent, which means they may have a simple possession or a simple assault as opposed to an aggravated assault.
Usually when they're put on bail, it's for a reason.
Oh, absolutely. We look at people who may have had bail put on them but who under ordinance circumstances would fall within non-bail guidelines and for some reason the trial commissioner maybe doesn't have enough information and has a bad feeling about the guy and says, "I think I'll put bail on you."
Would you mind submitting that to our Council President?