Committee Hearing, April 12, 2010

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Monday, April 12, 2010 10:30 a.m. - - - PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT ANNA C. VERNA COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL COUNCILMAN DARRELL L. CLARKE COUNCILMAN FRANK DiCICCO COUNCILMAN W. WILSON GOODE, JR. COUNCILMAN BILL GREEN COUNCILMAN WILLIAM GREENLEE COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR. COUNCILWOMAN MARIA QUINONES-SANCHEZ COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILWOMAN BLONDELL REYNOLDS BROWN COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN B. TASCO BILLS 100115, 100116, 100117, 100118, 100131 and RESOLUTION 100141 - - - 2

Good morning, everyone. This is a continued public hearing of the Committee of the Whole. The first department we will hear from today will be Parks and Recreation. Good morning. Please approach the witness table, kindly identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony. (Witnesses approached witness table.) COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Good morning, Council President Verna and members of City Council. I am Mike DiBerardinis, Commissioner of Parks and Recreation, and with me today are Susan Slawson, Recreation Commissioner, and Mark Focht, Executive Director of Fairmount Park.

Good morning. ) COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: We would like to start our testimony by 3 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. thanking Councilwoman Reynolds Brown and Councilman Clarke for their vision and leadership around the Parks and Recreation merger. We would also like to thank this Council for their support of the new department, and we'd also like to thank Mayor Nutter and the Commission on Parks and Recreation for their continued support, work and leadership. I would especially like to thank our dedicated women and men from the Department. Their work every day ensures safe, clean and ready-to-use facilities throughout the City. As we plan for an exciting future, our Parks and Recreation staff continues to live up to their historical mission of quality recreation and quality parkland management. I appear before you today to present our proposed Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2011, which includes a General Fund obligation of $49,828,904 and Grants Revenue of $10,260,164. The 4 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Class 100 request of $39,078,562 sustains the merged departments' authorized level of 689 General Fund full-time positions. The balance of $10,750,342 is contained in Classes 200, 300, 400 and 500. 6 million and Class 200 of $710,705 compared to our FY10 budget, which will go to support the operations of the Robin Hood Dell and implementation of the Department's strategic initiatives, including increased tree plantings. The Department of Parks and Recreation is committed to supporting the Administration's goal of minority, women and disabled-owned business participation in City contracting. Based on the available contracting opportunities, the Department's FY11 participation goal is 12 percent. With its hundreds of recreation facilities and over 11,000 acres of 5 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. parkland woven throughout the City of Philadelphia, Fairmount Park and the Recreation Department are community resources that serve preschoolers to senior citizens every day and in every neighborhood. Once Fairmount Park and the Recreation Department are merged to form the new Department of Parks and Recreation, approximately percent of 12 the land in the City of Philadelphia will 13 fall under our care. Given this importance, the process to form the new department has been thoughtful, deliberate and, most importantly, public. As Commissioner, I am pleased to provide you with an update on where we stand. Since my appointment in April of 2009, thousands of individuals have been engaged in discussions about the formation of the Department, along with the development of our vision, mission, goals and strategic objectives. 6 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Our shared vision to become the nation's premier parks and recreation system is ambitious, and we believe that together we can achieve this goal. Our mission to offer beautiful natural landscapes, historic resources, environmental programs, along with high-quality recreation centers and programs holds true to the guiding principles of Fairmount Park and the Recreation Department. Our goals and strategic objectives are the measurable steps and investments we need to make in order to reach our ambitious vision. Over the course of 17 community and partner meetings held throughout the City, many attended by City Council members and staff, in addition to staff meetings, surveys, e-mails and correspondence, we have heard a lot of excitement and support around the new department and its vision and strategic objectives. 7 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. But we have also heard that if we strive towards these lofty goals, we need to continue to focus on our day-to-day responsibilities. This includes maintaining parks and recreation facilities which are safe, clean, attractive, fully functional and accessible while caring for the environment and promoting programs for all Philadelphians.

Our FY11 budget presents not only a newly formed Department of Parks and Recreation, it also details how our new department will be in service of our mission, vision and strategic objectives and the high priority we place on maintaining a unified Parks and Recreation system that is safe, clean and ready to use for all Philadelphians. Once adopted, the merged departmental budget will allow us to continue the implementation phase of the merger. As Commissioner, I have already announced appointments to lead positions 8 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. in each one of the new department's major divisions. To further inform and guide our efforts towards integrating the new department's daily operations, we have developed an 18-month implementation plan, and this plan is already in use. The schedule will include numerous opportunities for staff, stakeholder, partnership and City Council engagement and feedback, and we look forward to sharing this proposed plan and schedule this summer. Regarding other merger benchmarks, the map of the new department's geographic management regions has already been shared with staff, stakeholders, partners and City Council. The process of populating the new departmental organizational chart is also underway, and we expect this work to be completed over the next few months. We take this responsibility seriously and will continue to proceed with the advice of the Office of Human Resources, the 9 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Office of Labor Relations, relevant labor organizations, our staff and our various stakeholders. This approach and timeline towards our own merger effort has been validated and confirmed by best practices, research, discussions with merger experts and visits to other major cities, which include New York, Baltimore and Chicago. Even as we engage in the enormous task of merging these two departments, we are able to celebrate numerous successes and accomplishments which we hope clearly show the increased value of the new department. Building off the early success of the Mayor's Splash and Summer Fund and with the support of numerous community and business partners, the Mayor and the Department have made a commitment to our community to open all operational City pools for this summer season, and that's 69 out of 70 pools, three -- 10 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. ) COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Thank you. Three of which are either being converted to spray grounds or are just in need of significant capital investment. The Department of Parks and Recreation is partnering with the Philadelphia Phillies and Major League Baseball to create the Philadelphia Urban Youth Academy, which is set to launch this summer. This partnership will utilize renovated fields and facilities at both Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park and Marian Anderson Recreation Center to help inner-city youth reach their fullest potential on and off the field by providing quality instruction, training and education assistance through year-round programs. The Department has also partnered with the Ed Snider Foundation to make significant investments in each City ice rink facility. In 2010, the 11 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Department will commit to running a seven-day-a-week operation at all our ice rinks. This represents an additional full day of public programming at all our ice rinks. ) COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Which is approximately a 50 percent increase in our public skate time. In support of Greenworks Philadelphia, the Department is working collaboratively to support the very ambitious Greenworks' target of planting 300,000 new trees by 2015. ) COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: The Department is working closely with our longstanding partner, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, to develop new approaches in which the City aligns and engages external partners and citizens to meet this ambitious target. We have been actively working with the Parks and Recreation 12 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

Commission's Land Use Committee around the issue of land use and preservation. We have heard this is a priority for many people as we've had our public process, and we fully support this work. The Land Use Committee has prepared a draft of a proposed ordinance related to Parks and Recreation land and facilities use. Over this summer, the Committee will further review this draft language with the full Parks and Recreation Commission, members of the Administration and City Council. The Department is committed to ensuring our children and youth are safe, connected to their communities and ready to learn. The Department will provide leadership in developing uniform standards and evaluation measures to increase the quality of programs, but also as a strategy for building a coherent youth development system to support, coordinate and sustain out-of-school-time programs throughout the City of Philadelphia. This proposed 13 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. ) COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: -- to support a wide variety of programs and initiatives, including our traditional sports and cultural programs as well as outdoor recreational activities for children, youth, teens and families. ) COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: In closing, we have made tremendous progress to date, but our work is not over. We will continue to engage the community, our staff and City Council in this ongoing process. Should any Councilmember wish to engage in further discussions around any of these matters, particularly as it relates to the merger, my staff and I are happy to meet at your convenience. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss these important matters with you today, and we look forward to your 14 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. questions.

Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Thank you. (Standing ovation.)

I must say you're the first Commissioner that's come before us that has gotten a standing ovation. Congratulations. Commissioner, on of your budget, you indicate that your Class 100 budget is increasing by $2.5 million for increased tree planting. How many employees will you be hiring? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Well, the increase will, in a significant way, support our efforts to maintain and further increase the number of trees we plant annually. Another very significant portion will also be dedicated to the Greenworks objectives and to improving our safety, cleanliness of our facilities. So it's about a 50/50 mix. 15 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. But to the detail of the question, I'll give this to Mark in terms of detail of those positions.

Good morning.

Good morning.

The additional two and a half million dollars will support 43 new full-time, permanent staff positions. (Applause.)

What is your planned hiring schedule for these positions?

To date, we've not developed a hiring schedule until we are assured we have a budget and the funding is actually there, and it also works into the overall work we're doing at looking at all of our staffing and how the staff fits in with the merged Department structure.

Thank you. 16 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Commissioner, how many temporary and seasonal workers will you be hiring this summer? And at the same time, I'd like to know what the hiring process will be and when it will start. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Well, I could talk about -- the number, I'm going to ask Susan to try to find the exact number, but that process has begun already. So we have to begin right now to recruit and train lifeguards for the hundreds and hundreds of jobs that -- I know this: Given our Summer Splash Fund campaign and opening 69 pools, we will hire about 800 seasonal employees just around the pool operation. So that includes lifeguards, watch people, seasonal maintenance attendants. So that number is about 800 just for the pools. I don't know about the remaining --

And the process will be the same as it has been in the past -- COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: 17 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Yes.

-- or has that changed? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: No. 6 COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Good morning, Madam President.

Good morning. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: That has not changed, and our approximate number of hire this summer for seasonal as well as pools is 1,700.

Point of information.

The Chair recognizes Councilman Green for a point of information.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Is the Department working with the Philadelphia Youth Network, which has a huge surplus of money, for summer hiring that it likely cannot spend and will lose this year if it's not spent in 18 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. terms of having them provide employees at the pools and elsewhere rather than using Class 100 funds? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Good morning, Councilman. The Department is working with Work Ready to use some of their staff that they've been giving the Department of Recreation for years to work in our facilities.

Right. But they have a large additional funding. Can we use that to hire this summer -- COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: We are working with them now to see how much additional staff we can get. That number hasn't been finalized yet, but we are trying to get additional staff.

And that should save us Class 100 funding; is that correct? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Well, you want to --

Why can't we 19 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. get them to hire the people that we would otherwise pay? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: We could, depending on how many positions we eventually get and then do we stay flat with the decreased services that we're providing over the last few years at our summer camps or -- we can stay flat or we can increase the number of camps and the number of children we support.

Absolutely. And you could increase and get some supplantation of our Class 100 funding, because they have money they're not going to be able to spend. It has to be spent. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: That's a possibility. We are working with them over the last couple of weeks where we've understood they have this -- I'm not quite sure how that works from their side, although they have indicated that they have additional money. We're trying to figure out how much of that will we get, how will we utilize it and 20 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. what the positive impact that will be.

I just want us to be asking as part of that how much we can get for what we are otherwise paying Class 100. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: You got it.

Even with increased services. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner, on of your testimony, it states, quote, "The high priority we place on maintaining a unified Parks and Recreation system which is safe, clean and ready to use for all Philadelphians," end of quote. Does your proposed 2011 budget allow you to meet this objective? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Well, in part, yes, and I will talk a little bit about that. What has been a significant development has been the $5 21 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. million increase in the capital budget, which we've worked very well with all the District Councilpeople to leverage the City's investment. So that $5 million investment that we have had in the Department, working with Council's capital dollars, is about -- and outside investment is about $12 million. So we have this year moving forward $12 million in capital money, which is a significant increase towards the infrastructure of our system, and these dollars are, to the best that we can, are targeted towards safe and ready to use. The additional operating dollars helps us move toward standards, and I think this is a really important feature of the merger, that a lot of the big cities have a set of operational standards around the cleanliness and fully functional -- meeting fully functional operations. So we're in the process in the merger of creating those standards, and New York City is kind of 22 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. the model for this, and then managing our resources towards that standard. Once we create the standard, I suspect that there'll be a gap between what the standards are and how much money we have, but if you don't have the standards, you're never going to get there and you'll never have a way to judge the quality of your workforce, the use of public dollars and you won't have as many non-governmental investors, whether they're institutions, corporations, state government, investing in you. So I think it's to our benefit to create those standards and then to begin to use our existing dollars to move towards them and to show progress. I think we have to show progress in the next year or two around those standards. So it's ambitious. I suspect in the end we won't have everything we need, but we can make a good stab at it.

Thank 23 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. you. Can you tell us why it will take months to develop a merger plan 5 for the Recreation Department and the 6 Fairmount Park? 7 COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: 8 Well, the plan is all but complete, and 9 we're moving into the early 10 implementation phases, but until we have 11 an operating budget that is combined, 12 it's a little hard to do. But we're 13 still moving in the implementation phase. 14 So we have our top management 15 in place. We have our flowchart 16 developed. We're now -- we're developing 17 the details of the flowchart, each 18 position, and then we will place people in those positions. And then as of July 1st, we will begin to over this year really do the knitting to get this as a -- to build us as a unified department, unified management districts, unified maintenance, operations, physically as well as structurally, and a unified 24 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. program division that will merge the hefty program division in the Recreation Department and the smaller program elements of the Park together. You know, Madam President, we studied mergers, public and private mergers, and we're actually moving faster than most big organizations. We know we have to get most of this done within the year. I mean, to have all the nuts and bolts done, and we think we will. But we will have the structure in place, our top structure in place, and then move all the moving parts within the combined budget beginning July 1st.

Can you tell us what savings and efficiencies you will achieve in FY2011 as a result of the merger? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Well, that's a good question. We are looking at those efficiencies right now, and, in fact, we're holding off on a few hires that we might have made because we 25 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. think we'll have duplicative functions when we begin to move in the near future some of the divisions together. So there's actually a couple of positions. So we're looking at where those efficiencies might be as we build this new -- populate this new flowchart. So we think we'll begin to see those efficiencies in the next quarter. The other -- I'm reviewing every hire based on its relationship to our new flowchart. So we're just not going to hire a position because it's been a position in either one or the other departments. So we're looking at each one of those positions to see if it fits into the unified agency and is it redundant or not. And then, finally, over the next four years, we will have about 200 to 250 either retirements, people who leave for new jobs or people who leave work because -- the work with the Department because of illness. So all of 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. those jobs will also be reviewed for their relevance to and efficiency to the goals and objectives and efficient operations of the combined department. So we think we have set ourselves up to do a pretty good job around that. It won't happen immediately, but over time, beginning now and over time, we will be able to find some efficiencies, redirect resources, save a few dollars and actually improve the service to the citizens.

Very well. Thank you. I have full confidence that you're going to see your vision -- COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Thank you.

-- come to. I have several other questions I'd like to ask, but I don't want to dominate the hearing. I see just about every Councilmember has his or her light on. So at this point in time, I'd like 27 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. to recognize Councilman Jones.

Thank you, Madam President. Often this body gets mischaracterized as being overly critical. I don't know how that ever started, but I want to state for the record thank you, and I want to start my comments and questions with that. I'm going to thank you for your leadership in coming on to a difficult process and a lot of skepticism about how this merger would work, and I, quite frankly, didn't know how a three-headed Hydra would work, but it is working well. I want to thank Commissioner Slawson for the Dell and the prospect that we will open on time. See, I'm giving the compliment early to commit you to that fact, and thank my colleagues, particularly all of them that put up their rec money to make that possible - Councilman Clarke, Councilwoman Miller, Tasco, Blackwell, Quinones-Sanchez and 28 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. myself - for putting up the extra money, but thank you for getting it done in spite of several snowstorms and the like. I want to thank you, Commissioner Focht, for, first of all, the tour Saturday up on River Road where you tactfully dealt with some of my constituents about improvements you're going to make to their living condition and having to deal with some of the slings and arrows and barbs that you got. But, most importantly, I want to thank you for a picture that I saw in our audience, and this is Centennial Lake. This was, better yet, Centennial Lake, and it was one of the first lakes ever to be concreted and paved over in the history of this country, and it was a dump site in my district. It was where people dumped all kinds of things, and in spite of that, the red-bellied turtle managed to exist there. Today, to give you a sense of how that has turned around, it is the 29 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. site of a national organization that has adopted it as a reclamation project that they want to -- I think it's the Garden Club of America is going to have their national celebration at that lake, citing your accomplishments. So I want to thank you publicly for that. (Applause.)

So now that I've got the compliments out of the way, let's get to the good stuff. I would like to follow up with that to find out exactly what else is going to happen with the lake and how soon we can anticipate the other work that needs to be done there. Now, I'm going to ask another question while you figure that out. One of the things with capital projects in general is that we spend a lot of money on our aging facilities, and you do not have enough money for that. I'm going to put that out on the record. But one of the things that I think that we missed 30 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. the boat -- and Councilman Clarke has been real laser-beam focused about stimulus money -- that we have the opportunity internally to stimulate a lot of neighborhoods with that work, and I want to know if we've done an analysis -- and I've asked this of the Public Property folk -- that if we were to be our own GM on some of these smaller projects, converting restrooms and things like that that we tend to bid out -- and I don't know what the threshold is, but if we were to look at it and see if there was a local component of hiring, that we could hire a crew ourselves and put some of these able-bodied men and women in our communities to work and stimulate our own local economies through our own work product, and I wanted to know if we could -- has there been any thought, analysis given to that prospect?

Commissioner, before you answer, to the best of my knowledge and memory, you did 31 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. that when you were Recreation Commissioner. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Here's what we did, though: We didn't hire outside. What we did is, we organized our own existing skilled trade staff around these smaller -- that would normally go to capital, but we had the supply contract and the skill base in the Department to do major renovations. Now, you have to be careful with that, in that you could mess up your work order system, which is already pretty demanding on the skilled trades functions in both departments. But if you manage your existing load, you have enough supply -- materials and supply contracts to support it and enough overtime and straight time to do it, you in your own department can do a pretty good job on middle level and less -- what would be middle level and less capital projects. Hiring outside -- you know, 32 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. this other idea of contracting or sort of doing community-based stuff, I'm interested in that. I just don't know -- to be honest with you, I just don't know how to do it.

Well, in light -- COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Either one of these --

In light of the fact that the Obama Administration has a jobs plan, that the only challenge for us in the 5,000 jobs that we may get is a thing called supervision. I'm not talking about skilled trades. I'm not talking about things like that, but general maintenance stuff that every day I get calls about, that this fence needs to be painted and that this site needs a clean-up. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: True.

Those are the kinds of things that are, from the 33 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. old CEDA program design, are designed to give people work experience that matriculates into, hopefully, God please, a permanent job. Some people that were hired under the CEDA program are retiring from City jobs today. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: No. 9 I understand your question. I'm sorry. I misunderstood the complete intent. But we right now are working with the Workforce Development Corporation, in addition to the -- on the youth side, the adult side to begin this summer to systematically be a partner with them in workforce development. So we're doing that, and in part of our journey towards standards, at least to help us even create the standards or figure out what it takes to get to them, create them and figure out what it takes to get to those standards, we will be doing this summer with TANF-eligible adults. So, yeah, we're there and we're expanding that work. 34 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

The idea here is you between your department, Public Property, Recreation, Fairmount Park, if we work together, we probably could come up with a model that was similar to the CEDA program, without violating any workplace rules with our collective bargaining unit, but cover some areas that right now are being missed. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Right.

And you could probably use some of the Friends of the Park groups as strategic partners with that. I'm going to challenge you, the Public Property Commissioner to kind of look at that and analyze whether we can save a couple of dollars as taxpayers in the process. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Well, could I just respond to his final point?

You 35 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. can respond, but, Councilman, your time is up. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Mark, Susan and I went to New York and spent a day with their leadership of their department, and we learned -- and I heard about it and our staff knew about their operational standards, which are pretty incredible, but we also learned that they've been part of the TANF program since the mid '90s, late '90s and, in fact, have at their highest point of the year have 3,300 TANF employees working for them, and they also do the job placement. So they do training, recruitment training, and placement, and they build a lot of their adherence to their standards around that training from those workers, and they have a pretty good placement rate. So I think -- I don't know if we're going to mimic that, but we're certainly interested in understanding how that would work and help us improve the 36 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. quality of our service, as well as help people move on to permanent, productive jobs.

Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Green.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, everyone. I'm looking in particular at a newly created division called Forestry and Environmental Resource Management, and there are positions within that new division that exist in every other division. So you've got Tree Maintenance Crew Chief there in this new division, which I guess is citywide, and you've got one in the Northeast and you've got one in each section. Same thing with District Park Managers you've got under that division and you've got District 37 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Park Managers elsewhere throughout the Parks budget, and it seems to me -- first, could you describe the mission of this department and what it's going to do that is not currently being achieved? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Mark has the detail, and I think we should give you that, but in general, approximately 5,700, 5,600 or 5,700 acres of the park, Fairmount Park, is natural lands. Our ability to manage probably one of the most spectacular urban forests in the country, our ability to manage that at the highest level does require some technical skills, which we don't have. We want to create a sustainable management standard that is the highest in the country. And so part of this is about the preservation and the longevity of our urban forest. That's part of it. The second part of this thinking here is that we're 13 percent of the City's land mass, Parks and Recreation. We also have responsibility 38 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. for East Park, West Park, hundreds of neighborhood parks around the City. So that environment and the tree cover there are essential ingredients to not only the environment but the quality of life of our citizens, the maintenance and management of those facilities. We also want to extend this idea of land management and forest management and tree cover to institutions, like the University of Pennsylvania, like the School District, like Nazareth Hospital. So we want to build the institutional connection to this, which expands its impact and its coverage. And then ultimately we want to engage citizens in working with us to maintain the tree cover in the City, not just as Tree Tenders, which is a very important role for citizens in the City, but also they can plant a tree in their yard, in their park, in their front yard, in their side yard and be part of the citizens' greening effort of the City. 39 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. So when you look at this, you cannot look at it as a single like, okay, we're going to plant a few trees along the Wissahickon or we're going to put a few street trees in the ground. This represents an effort to not only better maintain that, and Mark has the detail about that, but also to really involve all citizens of the City, give them an opportunity no matter what neighborhood they live in, no matter where they work, no matter what institution or park is around them, to be part of the greening and maintaining the ecosystem in the City. So that's the cover. (Applause.) COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: And Mark will give you the detail.

Of course, those are all laudable goals and we're doing much of that today. Part of your answer confuses me because we have in the capital budget a ton of money for tree planting, which I thought was going to be 40 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. the tree planting program for the City, and the capital budget testimony says that that is going to allow us to achieve our tree planting goals. So I'm not sure why we're using operating dollars in addition to that, given that the Administration's testimony in the capital budget is that we're going to meet our tree planting goals with capital dollars. We're talking about operating dollars. And I recognize we're talking about managing that process with operating dollars, but it's my understanding that that's mostly done by outside service providers. So with that, Mr. Focht.

Certainly, Councilman. The two go hand in hand. The two and a half million that we have in capital monies for planting trees is literally for the purchase and installation of the trees through contractors. As you know, that money cannot fund any staff positions. We 41 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. cannot possibly get to the goal of increasing our tree canopy as envisioned in Greenworks and as the Commissioner just referenced with the money only to plant the trees. We are fully appreciative of that increase, but what we need is the staff to manage the civic engagements. Every tree that's planted as a street tree needs to be inspected by a Fairmount Park arborist. So some of the additional positions we're including in the two and a half million dollar Class 100 increase is staff positions to support the work of getting the trees in the ground. (Applause.)

I did want to reference you. Currently, all tree planting work, urban forestry work rests within Fairmount Park's Division of Operations, Operations and Landscape Management. In the restructuring of the new department, we're pulling that out of 42 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Operations, raising it up because of the robust goal and creating this new Division of Urban Forestry and Environmental Resource Management. For the last years, we've had a Division 7 of Environmental Resource Management. I 8 started my career at the Park as the 9 Natural Lands Restoration Manager in 10 1997. So we've been doing that work for 11 the last 13, 14 years as Environmental 12 Resource Management. Actually, our largest environmental resource in the City of Philadelphia -- we have beautiful streams and wetlands and meadows, but our largest environmental resource is the forest. So it made sense to us to pull street tree work out and urban forest management work out and combine it with the other environmental resource management work we're doing.

Except that you haven't pulled positions from other places and put them in this department, because positions are not going down 43 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. elsewhere to fill these positions. So you can't draw a line from moving somebody, say, from Northeast Division to this division, because that didn't happen.

Not geographic divisions, because if someone is working in the Northeast today as an arborist, they may still be working as an arborist in the Northeast, but they won't be working in the Operations group. They're working in the Urban Forest and Environmental Resource Management group.

Right. I'll have to come back to this line of questioning. Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Clarke.

Thank you, Madam President. Good morning. 44 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. (Good morning.)

A couple of quick questions. Are any members of the Commission here today?

Yes. (Some members of the Commission raising their hands.)

Hey, guys. This is a new process, because traditionally Commission members are actually where you were. Well, not necessarily at that table, but -- the reason I ask that question, because during the course of the merger, there was some concern that the, quote/unquote, elimination of the Commission as it relates to the Park side would relegate them to second-class status or an advisory group and they really had no 21 significant involvement into the Parks and Recs, newly formed Parks and Recs, and I guess it was a very sensitive issue relating to our ability to get that change ultimately, and I guess that the 45 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. first time out, the preference would be to send the right signal so it would be beneficial. And I'm not suggesting that they come sit, at a minimum, up to these chairs on the inside of the rail, but I am very adamant about ensuring that the Commission be a real part of the operation of the Parks and Recs, not simply an advisory group. (Applause.)

So I'm a little disappointed that they're -- I don't want to call them the cheap seats, but I think that they should -- we're trying to send a signal that they're -- we actually have a nice draft that they've done. I want to commend them on working on the draft on the disposition and acquisition policy. So it would be helpful as we move forward in this merger that every signal is sent that they're really a part of this process. The other quick question -- 46 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. that was actually more of a statement than a question. Swimming pools. Is the opening of the swimming pools contingent on the Council passing the budget as proposed? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Well, we made -- look, we took -- yeah. Yes, in a way. We assumed -- the assumption was the City would request the same amount of last year's budget, which is 1.7 million, and then we'd raise the rest. So we got to the base, last year's base, said -- I talked to the Mayor and said if you can just propose what you sent over last year to the Council, which is roughly 1.7, then we'll raise the remaining money to get to beyond 45, up to every pool we could possibly run that's operational. So --

So the belief is that the external fundraising process -- COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Will make the difference. 47 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

-- will be dramatically more? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Yeah. We have to raise $600,000, which Susan is leading that work, and we're doing well in the community. It's amazing the response from all of the advisory councils and support organizations. They're raising money every day. We have a whole -- this fundraising plan that's been developed by Susan and Leo Dignam, the Deputy Commissioner, is pretty powerful and we think we're going to raise the 600,000. I'm not nervous about that. We'll do it.

All right. I just want to make it clear, if the City Council appropriates the same amount as we did last year, then we will have all of those pools open, 69 out of 72 open? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: That's right.

Okay. Getting back to the Commission 48 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. and operations -- and I want to thank the Commission again for their work on the disposition/acquisition draft ordinance. Another part of the process that we thought was very important as related to our ability to reach the goal of the first-class Parks and Rec system is our ability to have external fundraising capacity. Both internally within the government and as it relates to the Commission, has there been a process set up to work on that strategy to solicit funds from federal, State, foundations? I'm saying that and I'm trying to focus on this budget issue, because, I mean, it's not sure that the Mayor's proposals will pass as presented, so we need to have contingency plans to make sure that we get the necessary funding for these different departments. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: In the merger process, we are looking very seriously at how do we support existing fundraising efforts like the Fairmount 49 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Park Conservancy and how do we help them expand the amount of money they raise in support of the Parks and Recreation Department. We're also looking to build a much more aggressive approach to State and federal funding, and from my experience in Harrisburg, there's opportunities that we can explore that maybe we have not explored in the past. So we need to get more serious and focused on federal and State funding. We need to raise our own foundation and corporation dollars through partnerships, which I think with the tree work, just to give you an example, the tree work -- if we do this straight, if we just take two and a half million dollars and do contract planting, we'll plant about between 5,800 and 6,000 trees. It's not enough. It's not enough trees. We need to bounce that two and a half million to about 12,000 to 15,000 trees. We have to leverage that money to make a difference, to really make a difference. So if we 50 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. only plant 5,800 trees, I shouldn't have this job. Somebody else should have it. We need to do more with that money, if it shows up. And then we need to figure out how in the Parks and Recreation system do we generate revenue on a continual basis through the appropriate use of the assets, the Park and Recreation assets. So that's another big feature and one that I think offers a lot of promise. And Mark can talk a little more about that, but like concession contracts, special events and things like that. So we know that this asset -- this department has an immense set of assets that we have to explore for revenue generation and fundraising, and we're good at it, but we got to get better.

Real quick follow-up, because I know my time is up. Can you tell me if not today, at some point through the Chair, forward a 51 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. document, because I agree with everything you said, but we've kind of been talking about this for a while, a detailed strategy on how to achieve that. Because it's relatively easy to talk about some of the things in terms of what we need to do, but I'd really like to know who is responsible, some combination of the Commission and the department heads and whomever is responsible for putting that strategy together. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: We'd be happy to do that, and we can show you real progress already.

All right. Okay. Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Sanchez.

Thank you, Madam President. Good morning. I first want to 52 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. say that I want to congratulate you folks in the fact that this is one of those departments that helps us as a city generate incredible goodwill, and it has become abundantly clear -- (Applause.)

-- abundantly clear that we cannot run this Park service and this Recreation Department without the volunteers and -- (Applause.)

From the Parks Alliance. There is a real distinction between a rec center full of life and volunteers and rec centers that continue to be challenging and our ability to run programming there. So I want to thank the volunteers and thank your staff, because managing volunteers is a hard job sometimes, because they want everything, and they should get everything, because they're paying for it. But it is an incredible feat, so I have learned to 53 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. appreciate that and want to continue to work with department heads to continue that goodwill and take the Department to another level. I want to focus this round of questioning on maintenance, though. I want to talk a little bit about last year when we were looking at the appropriations and after the re-budgeting, one of the units that took a tremendous hit was the maintenance. How does this budget for this year deal with our maintenance and the jobs that were unfilled last year? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Well, first of all, a good portion of the money dedicated to trees is tree maintenance. So that's one big -- particularly the increase. A good portion of that will go into tree maintenance. In addition to that, we've given ourselves a little room on some of the positions, in the 43 potential new 54 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. positions, that we have given ourselves room in the general definition of those positions that we'll hopefully have some wiggle room to adjust as the merger moves forward. So we think that we'll have some meaningful ability to plug in some either skilled trades or custodial functions. We can't settle all the issues with a relative handful of positions, but we can make a dent.

How many vacant maintenance positions do we currently have? Because I know last year we were battling over the 67 positions that had been in the budget for years but never filled. So I want to know how close are we to filling them. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: We have 18 in the Maintenance Division out of -- that's a whole department -- out of about 650, 700 jobs, which isn't bad, and we're in the process, of our total vacancies, of filling 14. So we're 55 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. moving jobs that are in -- 14 vacancies are moving across the -- being hired. So we have 18 vacancies in the Maintenance Division. Of our total vacancies, we're moving about 14 jobs forward right now. So the number is 18. (Councilwoman Tasco talking without microphone.) COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: They're vacancies. So that funding has been authorized and appropriated, 689 full time, but all those positions --

How many? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: No, no. That's for the total Parks and Recreation Department. My apologies. That 600 number is the total department. We have 18 vacancies right now in the Maintenance Division for Parks and Recreation.

In that job classification, you talked earlier about ensuring that the job descriptions allow you the flexibility. Are these 56 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. people that are currently on a Civil Service list or are we doing any new testing, any new job descriptions? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: There will be some new positions in the combined department, but we will not -- custodians, custodial workers, ground maintenance, the skilled trades are essentially going to stay the same. But there may be -- like, for instance, like in the Urban Forestry, that's a new position. There may be some new positions, the development positions, around trying to track down federal, State dollars, move more -- get more resources from the outside coming in. There may be a few new positions there to support that new structure we're putting in place, but that base operational stuff will fundamentally stay the same --

You know, one of my -- COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: -- in terms of job descriptions and 57 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. functions.

One of my goals, particular in those jobs going back to how do we make sure Philadelphians and particularly diverse communities have access to those jobs, I'd be looking at how are we going to ensure that particular neighborhoods where language access is an issue that we do the best we can to try to bring in folks that reflect the neighborhoods that they're working. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Well, I'm telling you, right now -- I will own this -- we're not that good at it.

I know you're not. That's why I'm asking you. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: You know it. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. And, again, what we want to do in this process -- see, these problems take years to create. They do. I mean, the system -- you have a system 58 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. that -- right now I'll give you the numbers, and I'm going to own this. Out of the 685 total positions, we have 5 Latino and three Pacific Islander or 6 whatever the correct -- Pacific Rim. I 7 don't know what the right word is around 8 this sort of Asian population. 9 So that's not acceptable. We 10 need to -- and we can't hope that this 11 changes. We can't hope that Central 12 Personnel does it for us. We have to do 13 it. What does that mean? We have to recruit vigorously for exams. We cannot just assume that people are going to get themselves to the exams.

Well, I think -- COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: So we have to work really hard at this.

You are now treading new waters in that you have a combined unit, and you now have the opportunity to write new job descriptions and update the ones we have that cause us 59 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. to have a department where out of 685, I have Latinos, let alone the Asian 4 community, the Russian community and all 5 those other communities that are now part 6 of the City. We have to make this 7 better. 8 I am going to always be the 9 strongest advocate for Parks and 10 Recreation. You know how strongly I feel 11 about this in my neighborhoods. 12 (Applause.) 13

But this is my third budget and I have not seen us get better on this issue, and I want to make sure that as I struggle with our Council budget and our discussions about what goes into this department, that the Department in return does a better job in this. And so I hope that next year with all of these positions that you're filling, that those numbers improve. I think it's too important for our ability to get -- on the next round we'll go on to the program side, but on this 60 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. maintenance side, because those are low-skill jobs and so we have to figure it out and get it better. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: And I'll make this commitment to you that next year you'll see progress on this front from us.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco.

Thank you very much. First, let me just add to the comments made by the Tree Tenders. I want to express my appreciation to them for the hard work they're doing, particularly in my East Oak Lane and the Rising Sun area. I was there on Saturday and saw a number of trees that had been planted by the Tree Tenders. So they do 61 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. provide a worthwhile service. (Applause.)

I have so many questions here. I want to go back to your maintenance level. You said out of 685 employees, only are for -- 8 COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: 9 They're vacant. I'm sorry. They were 10 vacancies I was referring to. 11

Then how 12 many maintenance workers do you have? 13 COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: So 14 we have in the proposed FY11 93 skilled 15 trades, 159 grounds maintenance around 16 the facilities, the caretakers, 17 custodians, 90 in the tree care, tree 18 division, and special events contracts, planning, 80. So that's the total complement to a total of 423.

How many do you have just for the maintenance of the buildings? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: That's 93. 62 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

So you have to be a skilled person to do mopping? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Okay. In skilled trades, that's 93. That would be electricians, plumbers, carpenters.

What about the -- COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: And then the custodians, that's 159 total.

So you have 159. How many centers do you have? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: One hundred fifty plus facilities.

So do you have one maintenance worker per facility? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: We do not.

Custodial. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: We do not have one maintenance person, custodian person per facility, no. Some of our custodians are actually covering 63 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. multiple facilities. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: So the strategy is, at least as it currently exists, is to have the big facilities, the A centers, which there's over 50 of them, and then there's a handful of B facilities that are pretty hefty, to have a permanent custodian placed at the facility. That's about 60 total, 60, 65. The remaining facilities are cleaned and bathrooms, floors, they're done by crews. So we'll separate a portion of the custodial staff and put them in crews, and then they clean on a regular basis the remaining facilities where we cannot have a permanent custodian placed, because we just don't have the numbers. Occasionally -- and we're working on a new approach to this -- that the full-time custodians placed at the A centers could be called -- could be pulled out of there to support the crews a couple days a month, so to build up the amount of capacity we have in the crews. 64 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. It takes some work to do it just right, to use the available resource to get us to the highest product, but that's our approach. So we don't have enough people for every facility, but when we don't, we create the crew system that would do regular cleaning at the smaller centers.

Who monitors the cleaning? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: There's -- well, we're into an interesting question here. We're just now as part of the merger, the custodians were managed historically -- or not historically, for maybe the last 15 or 20 years, they were managed by the crew chief, who would sort of manage part of a district or a whole district. In the merger, we're flipping that over to the rec leader now will be the manager. So it's an on-site, operations-based, program-based responsibility. So the custodian will report to the rec leader. 65 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. We think that makes the most sense. That's a pretty big change. The other way has been in place a long time. We're taking a lot of care to do it in the right way, but we think we'll get -- in my view, if you're running the facility and you're running the programs, then the maintenance has to be built around supporting the programs. Who knows that best? The rec leader. That's my view, and I've insisted on this in the merger. So we're going to have the maintenance guys now, who used to report up the line to the Maintenance Division, reporting over to the rec leader.

So that hasn't started yet? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: That will begin sometime this summer or early fall.

Okay. I have lots more questions. I'll come back.

I 66 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. know, but your time is up.

I know.

The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.

Thank you, Madam President. Good morning, everyone. (Good morning.)

Let me underscore the remarks shared by all of my colleagues and capture it and acknowledging how you are managing a transformational process when it comes to the merging of those two departments. So we are paying attention and are pleased with the progress to date, knowing it is no easy undertaking. I have a lot of questions too, and I'm going to jump around. Let me try to do a quick follow-up first. Well, I have here a note to also commend you on the partnerships you're enjoying with others, particularly City Year, in trying to clean up or improve the appearance of 67 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. many of our centers. Partnerships like that are tough to undertake, and when they work, it's a good thing. Let's go to the first page of your testimony, fifth paragraph down where you speak and say that the Department of Parks and Recreation's participation goal was percent. What 10 was the actual goals established by OEO? 11 COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: 12 That is in fact the same.

Forgive me. What did you say? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: The OEO goal and our goal are the same.

So you met your goal? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Yes.

Did you? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: We think so, yes.

All right. We would want to know the real hard 68 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. number for that. We're asking all City departments to tell us what the actual goal is and then how far you came to reaching that goal or not.

Councilwoman, I can briefly address that for you.

Please.

In the current fiscal year, as we're still two separate operating departments, Fairmount Park and Recreation, if you look at our current projected or anticipated by the end of Fiscal Year 2010, it will be about 15 percent participation in the combined contracts of both departments.

Okay. I need to think about that. Let me go to another item related to the same issue. On of your testimony, last paragraph, you stipulate that the Department of Parks and Recreation is working closely with our longstanding partner, the Philadelphia Horticultural Society, around Greenworks. So what does 69 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. that mean? Just tell me what that means. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Well, they organize and train the Tree Tenders. I think it's about 2,300 citizens in the City who go through a pretty serious training, and then once the Department plants street trees and trees in some of our parks, they take care of them. And the first year or two of a newly planted tree are the most vulnerable for it not to make it. So if you don't do it right, you have a pretty high mortality rate, so the money you invest, kind of you lose it.

Okay. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: So that end of it, they operate and manage, and that supports and helps us do what we would otherwise have to do to make sure that we have a success in our street tree planting. So that's a very big deal. Beyond that, we're looking for them to sort of work with a lot of institutional partners, corporate 70 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. entities where they would sort of help generate dollars towards a tree goal that we couldn't otherwise do. So they would raise money through foundation and corporate sources that we would not have access to. In fact, they're applying for Pennvest money from the State that last --

Are those Recovery dollars? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: I think they are, yeah. And they applied and they got, I think, about a million eight. I think I'm close to the amount of the grant, which supports our goal. So they apply for the money, get the money and put the trees in the ground. That supports our goal. And, in fact, they coordinate with the Water Department as well around the storm water management and to help them sort of meet their storm water management goals as well in this process.

And that 71 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. 2,300 number that you mentioned are Philadelphia residents? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: I think if not all of them are, the high -- like 90, 98 percent are Philly residents. They're neighborhood folks.

Okay. That's what I'm getting to. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Yeah, all over the place.

People who live and work in our neighborhoods are getting the opportunity and access to that -- COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Training.

Yes, to that training. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Yes.

Back to the contract piece. Could you please provide to the Chair a listing of all contracts that the Department has let 72 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. over the past year? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Yes.

Yes.

And my principal concern is, I pay attention in the City with who is planting our trees and where the license plates are and the name of the company on the trucks, and when I see trucks that are not local Philadelphia companies, my antenna go up. So for me, it raises the question, are Philadelphia taxpayers getting access and opportunity to plant trees in our City, landscaping opportunities, et cetera. So if you could provide that information to the Chair, that would be helpful. And I'll continue with the next round of questioning. Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Miller. 73 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Good morning, Parks and Recreation. (Good morning.)

I too want to just add that I appreciate what you do, and I know you guys work hard and I know that all the advisory council folks and all the volunteers are there for our rec centers, and it's really a dedicated group of people. So I just want to start by saying thank you. I have some questions. I did ask a question early on in our budget hearing regarding the Robin Hood Dell. Before I do that, though, I'd like to add that Councilman Jones did note that there were several Councilmembers that added and appropriated funds for the renovation of Fairmount Park and he actually left out that Councilman Clarke and myself also were those that got the call from Slawson and decided to help her out. 74 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. But I want to know a little bit more about the actual project. I know that you're doing seats and some renovations to the physical appearance and structure of the Dell. What about the restrooms, particularly the ones in the back near the stage? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Just to give some background, the original scope of the project was the replacement of the failed storm water drains and piping, rebuild the concrete paving ramps and stairs and replace all the seating. And we are actually in the process of replacing the seating now. All the concrete, the storm water, that's already been addressed. As far as the bathrooms in the back, that was not a part of the initial scope of the work, but the maintenance staff and the skills trades for the Department of Recreation, they are going to actually do some work on the bathrooms. 75 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

Good. Because they really need it. I know the ladies' room does. I don't know about the men's room. Is it still on point to open this season? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yes, it is on point to open this season. We actually will be closing the bid today, the RFPs, today at 5:00 p.m. for people to bring in actual acts. So July the 12th should be our first concert at the Dell.

That will be great. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: July the 12th. July the 12th. (Applause.)

That's great. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: And let me, if I can, Councilman Jones actually stole my thunder, because I wanted to thank all of you personally myself, 76 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. because I did approach some of the Councilmembers - Councilman Jones, Councilwoman Blackwell, you Councilwoman Miller, Councilman Clarke and Councilwoman Tasco. I asked for a significant amount of funding, $250,000 per person, and it was needed for us to complete this project, and you all willingly appropriated the funding that I needed. So I wanted to say thank you personally to all of you.

Well, you're very welcome. (Applause.)

You know, the Dell is the place that people enjoy going to. I don't go that often myself, but there are many people that that's like one of their primary sources of recreation for the summer. So we're glad that it's there and I'm glad that it's going to open. It's been closed, what, two years? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: The last 77 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. season was 2007.

Okay. That will be great. I did see something in the paper that you were recruiting acts. Was that just for the opening show, local acts, local talent for the opening show or for every show? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Our plan is to have eight shows for this season, and that's for every show. And so the RFP is out and people still have time and opportunity to put in for that. That's for all eight shows.

That's great. Philadelphia does have a lot of talent. One other question about summer employment. Are you doing summer employment? See, last year I thought you weren't doing summer employment for young people. Not Work Ready or Youth Works or whatever it's called, but directly through the Rec Department. Are you 78 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. doing that this year? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yes, we are. We are doing our summer programming. One of the things I just wanted to mention as we had the conversation earlier with Councilman Green is that we lost a significant amount of seasonal staff when we had the initial cuts. We lost 815 seasonal staff positions. And so we're talking about whether or not we'll be able to make some cuts. Some of this we will just be recouping, and some of the positions that we cut were not the positions that we're bringing in with TANF. Those are all teens. Some of the positions that we will be using this summer in our facilities are recreation specialty instructors, and they're adults. They're not young people from 14 to 17 years old. And so I just wanted to make sure I mention the fact that although we'll be getting these additional young 79 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. people to work, they won't be taking the place of our recreational seasonal instructors that we use to program our facilities. And so we will be hiring this summer. We will be hiring young people. They can go to the facilities, as they've done in the past. And the good thing is, we expect to have additional positions for teenagers because of this additional TANF funding.

Okay.

Councilwoman, your time is up. I'm sorry.

Just a tiny little question. The age cuts off at 17? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: For the TANF?

For the young people. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Well, no. There are other positions that we'll 80 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. be hiring throughout the summer as well, but we have that large number that we try to make sure we have for our young people to keep them off the streets and also to introduce them to the workforce.

Thank you.

The Chair recognizes Councilman Green.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just for the sake of time, if you can answer a question yes or no, please do so. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Was that for me?

It's to everybody. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: I think it was to me.

I just wanted to clarify some things. When we're talking about some of the questions that Councilwoman 81 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Sanchez was talking about, the positions that would be used to help recreation centers maintain maintenance are different than what you call necessarily maintenance positions. So there is a plan to now hire, I believe, Building Maintenance Superintendent I; one electrician; painter; Painting Group Leader; carpenter position; cement finisher position; plumbing, heating and maintenance worker position; a roofer position; Labor Crew Chief position; Recreation District Caretaker Supervisor position; two Recreation Facilities Caretaker positions; six Recreation Facility Caretaker II positions. All of those positions are in this year's budget. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yes.

And have not been hired. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Some have been.

Well, we 82 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. have a chart from the Administration. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Okay. That's the November. But the answer to your question is yes.

That's a lot of people to spread among the A and B centers that we have that we provide people for, and we're currently running those facilities without those people. So it's your commitment that if we appropriate the funds for those positions for the recreation centers this year, that you will hire those people? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Yes. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yes.

Yes.

And of the 14 people that you said were maintenance positions, how many applied to rec centers and how many applied to the parks that you're currently hiring? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Can we get back to you on that? I'm sorry. 83 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

Sure. But what I want to make clear is that this is part of the funding that was appropriated last year that you're telling Councilman Clarke that is appropriated this year, and essentially this funding is remaining constant. Without having filled these positions or with having filled these positions, the pools will be open? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Correct.

Yes. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yes. Yes.

Okay. Perfect. So the Forestry and Environmental Resource Management Division is not at all related to pool openings? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Correct.

Correct.

Okay. I ask 84 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. you to say yes. You have to say correct, right? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: We're rebels.

So back to that division. It is $1.7 million. What I don't understand about it, as briefly as possible, there are already Park District Managers, District Coordinators, there are already Ground Maintenance Crew Chiefs, Tree Maintenance Crew Workers, et cetera. They're already -- basically every position that's in here is elsewhere in the Department. Rather than using the current governance structure where you have a District Manager for an area of the park, you have a District Manager, rather than sliding these people up under them, because they already supervise tree plantings, they already do the maintenance that we're talking about, this creates a whole new bureaucracy.

No. 25

Well, 85 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. there's new District Managers. These are all new positions. It does, it creates an entirely new bureaucracy rather than using the current management structure to try to manage the lands that we're currently managing under that management structure.

Certainly, Councilman. Actually, it uses the same management structure but in a different way. The additional positions that you've identified are truly titles that already exist in Fairmount Park and are partially filled. The Commissioner referenced in his opening comments the operational structure of the new department will be divided into eight geographic districts. We currently only operate in five geographic districts in Fairmount Park, managing far fewer assets than when you pull in 150-plus rec centers and 70 swimming pools. So we jointly as a senior management team have made a decision to operate in eight 86 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. geographic districts. What we want to do with the additional positions is adequately staff each of the eight geographic districts so that we can serve the public, and in the case of your questions about trees, get trees in the grounds. So we currently have four District Managers at Fairmount Park. In these additional 43 positions, there's four additional District Managers. So we have one District Manager in each of the operating districts to manage that work.

It's additional bureaucracy because you're creating new district areas.

Well, we need to because of the volume of work. We're simply not going to get the number of trees in the ground we need to get in the ground.

What you're saying is the current managers are not capable of having people under them and 87 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. delegating. We have to have new top-level people paid by the Department. Nobody is against putting in maintenance workers or people who are going to take care of it, but we've created new bureaucracies, which requires new Administrative Specialist II's, which requires new Data Services Support Clerks, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and it just -- this additional bureaucracy is part of what is so expensive about this new division rather than trying to work within the existing structure. What I would suggest is, if we fill the vacant positions that are in 18 this year's budget that we talked about, 19 the roofers, the painters, the 20 maintenance workers, the Recreation 21 Center Caretaker I and II positions, et 22 cetera, if we fill those, we will be so 23 much better off this year than we were 24 last year that it will be a significant 25 improvement without the creation of an 88 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. entirely new division and bureaucracy. Can you argue with that?

Well, I would offer -- first of all, I would just like to go on the record to say that I and we have the highest regard for the men and women that currently serve Fairmount Park as District Managers. They do extraordinary work, oftentimes seven days a week, for little thanks. So I would just like to put on the record that I'm extraordinarily proud of the men and women that work for Fairmount Park. That being said, I do believe that in order to reach the Mayor's goal of planting 300,000 trees by 2015, maintaining the forest -- we have 2.5 million trees in the 13 percent of land that we need to maintain. We have 140-some-thousand street trees, and we're not doing -- we're doing a very good job given the resources we have. We've been charged through Greenworks and the Mayor to really be a 89 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. leading example of how to maintain our urban forest, and to do that, we simply need more tree maintenance workers, crew chiefs, arborists. Those are the men and women --

Okay.

During the snowstorm in February --

So I see --

If I may, please. During the snowstorm in February, the second of the two snowstorms, we had over 400 tree emergencies, 400 tree emergencies. These are just street trees. These are trees down on cars, on homes, damaging property. The men and women that work for Fairmount Park were out 24-hour shifts addressing that work, taking care of that work. As we grow our urban forest -- (Applause.)

-- we simply do not have enough staff to maintain the urban forest. 90 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

But you'll never have enough staff for snow emergencies when there's tons of snow on trees, Mark. The point is, that's an extraordinary situation where you could have used a hundred extra tree people that day. So --

Our budget is not built around a snowstorm, Councilman. I didn't mean to imply that.

Right. Well --

Our budget is built around the day-to-day demand --

But you're trying to use that as an example.

I apologize. Probably an inappropriate example.

Right. So the point is that are there any unfilled maintenance positions today that aren't part of this division?

Excuse me. Say it again. I'm sorry. 91 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

Are there any unfilled tree maintenance positions or Tree Crew Chief positions today that are not part of this new division?

No. 7

So if we were to appropriate enough money for you to have some additional -- and, by the way, I note that even though you gave that example, the new division only has two Tree Maintenance Crew Chiefs and one Tree Maintenance Worker.

That's to augment the existing staff so each of the ten districts -- excuse me; each of the eight operating districts will have a fully staffed tree crew of a Crew Chief, a Tree Crew Chief, and two Tree Maintenance Workers.

If we had five districts, we'd only need five Crew Chiefs and we'd have additional workers.

No. It's not -- no. It's not based upon the number of 92 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. operating districts. It's based upon the number of trees.

Councilman, I'm sorry. I don't want to be accused of being partial, but --

Yes, Madam President.

-- your --

I understand. I will finish with this one statement. You focused your testimony with respect to this department on trees. The total amount that we're talking about for Crew Chiefs or maintenance workers is $110,000. If I give you that, we need to -- those are the people out there doing the work. So there's a lot of bureaucracy in this division, and we need to talk about how to get rid of some of that bureaucracy as part of this budget conversation. 93 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Thank you, Madam Chair.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Clarke.

Thank you, Madam President. One not budget related, but an issue with respect to, I guess -- Mr. DiBerardinis, during the course of the -- actually, after you were selected, you and I had a conversation, I think, along with Councilwoman Brown up in the office and we talked about a way of engagement as it related to people beyond the members of the Commission, and you said you had some sense of how we were going to include those 300-something plus people or other members of the various groups. Have you worked out a scenario? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: I can give you some of the current specifics, and we're not into the detail, but there's enough to talk about. 94 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. The Commission has smartly created committees. So there's a set of committees on the Commission that's chaired by Nancy Goldenberg, and those folks who were part of those 300 applicants, that committee process has been open up to them to serve on. So within the structure of the Commission, the existing Commissioners have created a committee structure that allows interested citizens, particularly those who competed for the Commission slots, to be part of that. So that's an exciting and a very important role for them. And I think when you look at the work that they've done already on use and disposition of parkland, revenue generation and sort of general support of the work of the Department, the combined Department right now, I think it's working. It's still in its early stages. Beyond that, I think if we're really going to succeed -- and, again, I 95 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. will say this with some qualifications, but if we're going to be a premier Parks and Recreation Department, best practices, great deal of success, help build the economy, relate to neighborhoods, connect kids to nature, run top-quality out-of-school-time programs, if we're going to do all those things, we cannot do it alone and I would say there's not enough money. There's not enough money anywhere for us to do it alone. So what we have to do is invest in the people who invest in us. Invest in the people -- (Applause.) COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: -- who we serve. So that process -- and, again, I mean, Councilman Green may call this bureaucracy, but we got to build people into the system who help do that, who help build capacity of local organizations, who help fundraise with 96 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. local organizations. People expect neighborhood organizations to exist without any help. Well, what company, what government exists without capacity? So we need -- if we're really going to get a serious relationship and a serious accountability between this government and this department in particular and the citizens who care about it, we have to invest in them. So the next stage is, besides the structural piece that's within the Commission, we need to invest more in our friends groups, we need to invest more in our recreation advisory councils. If we want them to do more, we got to invest more -- (Applause.) COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: -- about their capacity and their ability to help us, and that capacity takes time. It takes time. It takes energy. It takes resources. So we're committed to that, and 97 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. that's the phase that we're moving into now, and we will have a structure in place, the new department, that's dedicated to those relationships. And it's not that we haven't done a good job, but that's where we're heading.

Point of information.

The Chair recognizes Councilman Green.

Thank you. I just want to -- I would prefer to characterize myself what I consider to be bureaucracy and not obviously people working with groups of the area of the park where I was in this weekend on Saturday and Sunday. Like the Friends of the Wissahickon and other things, I would fully support. I don't consider that bureaucracy. Frankly, I'm not sure I can tell from your budget where this vision that you're talking about is reflected and what's going to be allocated, other than the Volunteer 98 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Services Assistant positions, four of which are created, and if you could demonstrate a business plan on how that's going to help drive revenue and resources into the friends groups, who maybe ought to get additional resources, and do a lot of this work with volunteers perhaps if they had resources to have more staff at their level, et cetera. So I'm against bureaucracy in City government. I fully support the people who are doing great work in our park system. Thank you. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Thank you.

The Chair recognizes Councilman Clarke.

Thank you. I'm glad to hear that -- I know you gave your commitment, and I always believe you when you give your commitment. So I'm glad to see that that process is starting to take place, and whenever you're prepared in a more 99 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. formalized way to lay out -- that's great, because that was very important to a lot of the people involved, particularly those people that came down and expressed an interest. And I know Councilwoman Brown and I had a conversation. Actually, I think we introduced an ordinance at some point, so now I can just take that off the Calendar. Somewhat budget related, in the last Administration there was an attempt, when we started having fiscal problems, to take some of these operational responsibilities of some rec centers offline as it related to the City running those facilities. I don't think you were there. Mike, you definitely were not there. The question is -- and then maybe somebody can respond -- I know that there were a number of centers, and I don't know exactly where throughout the entire City, I know in my district there were one or two, where we basically, the City, 100 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. said we are contracting out or leasing those facilities to private non-profit groups to actually run the facilities with their money, and I know in some cases there were legislators or other entities that had the ability to come up with revenue to run those centers. Is there anybody here that can speak to that? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: I just --

The reason I ask the question is, one, was it successful, and if it was, maybe we want to look at expanding that. Two, if it was not successful, maybe we want to take them back into the system. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Councilman Clarke, I was not a part of that Administration, but I did look back at Deputy Commissioner Leo Dignam and he's not familiar with us actually leasing out any of our buildings during that time period. 101 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

Point of information.

The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Sanchez for a point of information.

Thank you. I think Councilman Clarke is talking about where we've done partnerships with the Boys and Girls Clubs and with PAL; for instance, 4800 Whitaker.

No. 15

Well, because these were rec facilities, City facilities, that we turned over to non-profits, who now run. So I have a couple in my district, so that's why I want to -- so there was in addition to like, what is it, PAL centers that run 22 in City facilities, there were other 23 non-profits who came in and started 24 returning programming. 25 So was that a deliberate 102 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. campaign? That's what he's asking.

Well, the one in my district that comes to mind was an actual lease arrangement with -- it happened to have an elected official involved, where they took over the responsibility of the operation of that facility, along with that non-profit. So we don't have any government staffing in that building. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Well, that's -- we're not involved, at least to my knowledge, in any negotiations or actual new --

Well, they were already done in the last Administration. So my question is, has there been some follow-up to determine the success rate or failure rate or whatever? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Just kind of commenting to Councilwoman Sanchez's comment, I do know that when the past Commissioner was here, 103 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Commissioner Vic Richards, he did propose to the Police Athletic League an opportunity to take over a couple of facilities. We did not take over Rivera, but we've been housed in Rivera for over 15-plus years. We did take over Ford, which is at 6th and Snyder, and so the Police Athletic League has been running and maintaining and doing all of the operational and maintenance of that facility. But other than that, I don't think -- he's still shaking his head no. 14 I'm looking at Leo just to make sure I'm speaking correctly. I am familiar with what you're talking about, Councilwoman, but I'm not familiar with what you're talking about, Councilman Clarke.

I'll tell you the rec center afterward. I mean, I know this to be a fact. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: I don't doubt that. I'm just not familiar with it, sir. 104 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

Okay. I'll keep going if the Council President is going to let me. One last question, Madam President?

Yes, please.

The procurement process for contracts, and I know this is somewhat related to capital, but I wanted to get a sense because of the merger. I know traditionally capital goes to various departments and requests the needs or assessments of facilities within the various departments, and as a result of the proposed merger, is there a process that the capital assets of the Parks and the capital assets of Recreation are also being consolidated in terms of the recommendations to capital? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Yes. Again, we're right in the middle of that trying to figure out how do we effectively unify the capital program. 105 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. So right now there still is money that's segregated for the Park capital use and money segregated for Recreation. What we want to do is get ahead of that for next year and sort of work out with the Administration, Finance and Budget, Capital Office and then eventually this body how we would construct that to have a single budget with a single strategy and an approach that supports the Parks and Recreation Department and its system. So we're not there yet, but it's clearly a very important part of our merger discussion right now.

And in addition to which -- and, Madam President, I'll stop talking after this. I know you're looking at me. In the event, which has been proven in other instances, where there's internal workforce, as was discussed earlier by a number of Councilmembers, where you have skilled tradespersons, do 106 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. you think if you were in a position well now you have the assets and resources of Parks and the assets and resources of Rec that you can have a stronger internal workforce to do a lot of this work? Because I know a lot of our rec centers have things that are in Parks and vice versa. So are you also looking at that? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Yeah. We would hope that the combined Operations Unit, maintenance skilled trades, could have some higher level capacity. Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Madam President.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Sanchez.

Thank you, Madam President. Commissioner DiBerardinis, you spoke earlier around the rec centers and 107 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. the classifications. I know there was a discussion last year around the reclassification of rec centers, particularly where we close pools and converted to spray parks. Where are we with that? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Well, the reclassification of centers or the transition of some pools to spray grounds, or both?

The reclassifications. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Well, again, within the merger, what we're right now thinking is to do regional or district-based budgets and have the budgeting, which is new, have the budgeting go down to the field and then have the deployment of staff not be based on classifications, but be based on volume and specific needs of the facilities and give the managers on the ground the ability to respond to the demands. 108 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. So, again, that's the thinking right now. So the classifications would maybe still be there, but they'd have less importance. So if you have a very busy B center, which gets less staff than an A center, the manager would have the ability to deploy additional staff to the B center, given its volume and its complexity of its programs.

Well, my concern around the classifications is around, I think -- going to some of the points of Councilman Green, one of the things that concerns me about this budget is that it is rather top heavy. So for me, I agree with you. I want to see -- because I thought the reclassification gave us an opportunity to have more staff, but not necessarily supervisory staff. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Well, yes, and we would agree and -- let me just go back to these 40 positions, because I don't think they're completely 109 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. reflective of what we'll eventually do, although they do -- they are indicative in a way. So they're not -- we had to get some stuff in with the budget. We think this is broadly reflective of the direction we're going in, broadly reflective of our interest in and the importance of the work that maintenance and tree planting, which we think is important, but some of these other positions are not set in stone, but they're indicators. So we want to be smart and want to, and I agree, want to thin out some of the bureaucracy and some of the managers and have the money in the field, have the money on the ground. That's not a foreign thought. And, in fact, a lot of the sort of work around the flowchart, which we can share with you guys, is particularly focused on trying to move -- obviously we want all the money we can get, of course, but it's obviously about moving the money down to the operations 110 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. side. So we're not perfect at it. In fact, we're imperfect, but that's sort of one of the driving principles of the merger process.

It's going to be important, because, again, as we get to making the hard choices, I look at budgeting in government as the people who generate revenue and the people who provide critical services, and it's always that middle that we start kind of discussing how many we need to have. So it would be important, and hopefully for next year's budget, we start moving in that direction. I'm concerned about not budgeting more maintenance positions, and I say this because -- and I want to start asking about our older adult centers -- that we don't have maintenance staff at some of these places. So I guess my question is, are the 18 vacant maintenance positions going to be enough 111 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. for us to get weekly or I know in some cases we do twice a week maintenance? I'm concerned about that in our maintenance at that level. Is it enough? Where does it take us to? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: It will make us better and I would -- I don't want to say exactly where that will -- particularly with your interest at the older adults center in your district, but it will get better. And we hope that sort of what we're doing with the merger relative to the appropriate use of the custodial and grounds maintenance staff, we will be better and we'll get higher quality cleaning across the system. I wish I could be more detailed, but...

So where are we as it relates to the skilled side of that in terms of work orders? What's our backlog? How have we improved this year and where is it that this budget 112 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. takes us to? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Well, actually, the backlog, I want to say that for the past months, we've actually 6 cleared our backlog more than 50 percent. 7 If I could just go back one 8 second to the staff you're talking about 9 at the older adult facility, are we 10 talking one location? 11

No. I'm 12 just talking about where -- because it 13 really -- again, I don't want to talk 14 about one center. It's about how we want 15 to do general maintenance in those areas 16 where we have floaters. Are we going to 17 be setting standards to say twice a week, 18 three times a week? I think the fact that we haven't had the staff creates this unreliability of when they come and when they don't come. So I'm just concerned that I don't see enough maintenance in this budget to help us get to -- and I don't know what the goal is. Is it twice a 113 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. week, three times a week -- in some of those facilities. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Okay. Well, the number that we're talking about for maintenance, number one, of course, we don't and won't have enough. We're trying to, of course, increase those numbers to ensure that our facilities are clean. One of the things that the Commissioner has instructed us to do when we start talking about pulling for various crews, we're coming up with a plan, a schedule. Your point is -- I don't know when they're being pulled. We don't know when they're showing up. Part of the plan is to ensure that we have specific days that we're going to pull, specific days that we're going to assign them. Since we have to rotate staff, we're making a plan for our maintenance crew that, you know, at four of your locations, they'll be there Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday as opposed to they show up whenever they want to. That's a 114 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. part of this process that we're putting together currently right now. As far as -- what was your other question? I'm sorry.

Again, I don't -- I want to make sure that we get to that point, and I just want to make sure that in your budget, you've requested enough for maintenance, because given my experience with the maintenance on the ground, I'm not sure that that's enough. I don't know what your standards are going to be. I mean, the Commissioner has talked about how we establish standards, and so I guess once we establish the standards, then we can see. In what I'm looking at, it's not enough to get us to at least a biweekly schedule of clean-ups. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: One of the things that we heard a lot about -- and the Commissioner addressed it earlier in his conversation -- was that the community members were really challenging 115 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. us to ensure that our facilities were clean, ready to use, and so we have to consider making sure. Now, do we have enough to cover all of our facilities? No. And to your point, will this cover all of our 8 facilities as far as custodians? No. 9

Okay. I 10 guess -- 11

12 Councilwoman, I'm sorry. 13

All 14 right. 15

The 16 Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco. 17

Thank you 18 very much. I just want to give my support to the concerns raised by Councilwoman Sanchez relative to the maintenance, and I'm talking about custodial maintenance and not so much into the skilled trades, because it's the custodial maintenance that provides the real work that needs to 116 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. be done to keep these centers clean. And I would say that area is sorely lacking, and if we want our young people and citizens to use the facilities, they have to feel comfortable going there and that the facility is clean and inviting to be there. Let me just ask you a couple of questions real quick. Camp William Penn, we no longer run that, right? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Correct.

What took the place of Camp William Penn? What kind of camp services are you providing? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yeah. What took the place of Camp William Penn, Councilwoman Tasco, is Outward Bound and Salvation Army. What happened when it was decided that Camp William Penn would no longer run, we ensured that there was funding in the budget for these camps. They could do either overnight or daily trips that include them in being 117 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. environmental programs.

So our young people are referred to Outward Bound and Salvation Army? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: That's correct.

And we provide financial services? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: And we support the funding, yes, ma'am.

All right. Thank you. The other one is, what involvement -- you talked about recruiting and recruitment for employees in the Recreation Department. What role does your office play in establishing the guidelines and the test that's given to individuals who apply? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: The tests are, at least as far as I know -- I'm trying to reintroduce myself to this, but the Central HR creates the test for Leader I, grounds maintenance. Some of 118 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. them are citywide, some of them are very specific to the Department. So that's all done within the City government. Then they're posted and they're advertised. But I think what I was trying to make the point earlier is that unless we make a special effort beyond that, our general makeup will stay the same. We have to change -- we, the Department, has to more aggressively recruit people to apply and to take the test.

The question I have is, do you review what test, the kind of tests that are being given and are you giving a high-level skills test for someone who is going to do custodial work and they can't pass the test? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Councilwoman, no, we're not -- they're not high-level skill tests for the Recreational Facility Caretakers, which are our custodial staff. They're not 119 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. high-level skill tests.

Go ahead.

Councilwoman, if I may add, Parks and Recreation staff works with Central Personnel, HR, to develop the actual tests, so we work -- we kind of provide the content for the tests. They formulate and administer the test. So each test, whether it's a ground maintenance worker, custodial worker, tree worker, we help with the content of what that test is, and the content is geared to the appropriate level for that position.

And Rec does the same thing? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: That's correct.

Okay. Let me just look at the organizational chart for a moment. I'm looking at the Commissioner of Parks and Recs. Then offline would be the Recreation Deputy Commissioner and the Parks Deputy 120 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Commissioner. All of the programs - Development, Operations, Administration - come under the Commissioner's purview? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: I'm sorry. I was trying to get a look at the chart. I'm sorry.

Look at it. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: So the question again is? I looked at it.

All of these departments under Programs - Development, Operations and Administration - all of those people report directly to you? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: No. 18 In fact, this is not correct. The Programs would report directly to Commissioner Slawson, and the Operations would report to what will be something like Deputy Commissioner Focht.

You're going to redo this chart? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: 121 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Yes. This is not where we currently are in the process. This is a dated chart. So my apologies for you guys having that. We will update that very quickly for you.

Thank you very much. Did the roof get fixed at Finley? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: They're working on that roof, ma'am, yes.

All right. Programs on the weekends at the rec centers, do you have programs on the weekends? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: We do Saturdays. We have programs on Saturdays. Some of the facilities are from 9:00 until 5:00, some of them are 11:00 to 2:00. It depends on what the need of the community is, but the answer is yes. We don't have programming on Sundays.

I need to talk to you about that. 122 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Okay.

I'm not sure that's being followed. I think they're my questions that I have, but I need to talk to you about it. Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.

Thank you, Madam President. Quick follow-up to Councilwoman Tasco's question regarding Camp William Penn. Is the Camp William Penn land still in the City's inventory? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Camp William Penn, the settlement date is supposed to be May the 31st.

Settlement between who? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: The State and the City of Philadelphia. 123 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

Provide some context briefly.

Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: I wear two hats here. But this is the State of Pennsylvania, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has purchased that parcel of land from the City of Philadelphia. The transaction will be finalized at the end of May where I think it's roughly 700-plus acres will then become part of the State forest in that -- that surrounds it. Now, I don't know what the current situation is with them, but as I was transitioning out of Harrisburg, we were trying to figure out how do we continue the recreation programs there, and I'll be honest with you, I'm not sure where that discussion is with non-profit organizations in the region to try to continue it, but I can find out pretty 124 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. quickly and let you know.

All right, then. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: There would be continuing programs, at least on a portion of that land, for Philadelphia or Philadelphia area children.

Okay. And so we met goal with regards to the identification, recruitment and enrollment of Philadelphia young people in the summer program last year? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yes, we did.

We did meet goal? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: We did.

Let's move back to a continuing interest of many Councilmembers around inclusion and the Office of Equal Opportunity. Who created the 12 percent goal? How did you arrive at that number and who were the partners 125 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. in the discussion of the identification of that goal? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: OEO comes up with the percentage that we have to meet.

So OEO determined percent to be the goal? 9 COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: That's 10 correct. 11

What 12 contracts were actually released? You're going to submit that to President Verna, correct? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yes, we will.

How soon can I get that? Just give me a window, because so often we ask for information during budget and we look up and it's June, budget is over and it's lost its relevance. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: We could have that to you, ma'am, by Friday.

Okay. So 126 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. if OEO identified percent as the goal, what should one assume by that? Did they also determine the capacity based on their knowledge base of MBE, WBEs and the contract areas you have? What information did you provide to them to help them arrive at that goal?

Councilwoman, I 10 think OEO evolved or arrived at that goal 11 in conversations with both Commissioner 12 Slawson and I and our senior staffs looking at the historical contracts that we have in place. We have many multi-year contracts in place, like turf management, tree work, a number of other programs. Those goals are already set and they're carrying over from prior contracts, and then every year we're letting new contracts. So I would assume in our conversations with OEO that they developed that by taking all the contractual information that we provided to them and that they have in their 127 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. system and which we will provide to you and then evolved to developing that through conversation with us.

Okay. Councilman Goode.

Point of information.

Madam President?

The Chair recognizes Councilman Goode.

Thank you, Madam President. Excuse me, Councilwoman Brown. The first statement was that OEO set the goal. The second statement was that there was a conversation between OEO and the departments. The third statement was that the goal was set based upon historical contracts and that you, quote/unquote, assume that OEO did their due diligence. I guess my simple question as I've asked other departments, if you know 128 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. what products and services you're trying to procure, don't you have a responsibility to know what disadvantaged businesses exist in those fields and contract areas and go out and do your own due diligence? In other words, if OEO is setting a fake goal or has not really tried to push any harder or doesn't know what they're doing in terms of goal-setting within your department, OEO doesn't do any contracting. There are goods and services you need to provide to get your job done, and you have a responsibility to take on that job yourself and to go out and do outreach in terms of disadvantaged firms to see whether they can better participate. So what you're saying is, first, it was OEO, it wasn't me. Then, but we did discuss it with them. But then third, no, it was just based upon what's been historically, which means that you're not going to do anything differently than what you did before. 129 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.

Yes. Do you have a response, reaction, comment, please?

Sure. Thank you, Councilwoman and Councilman. Perhaps my description of the process didn't capture the entire process, because indeed, again, speaking for my role as Director of Fairmount Park, we in fact do work with local businessmen, organizations, identify them. For example, on our turf mowing contract, we've worked very closely with a company actually called Minority Services -- that's the name of the company -- to get them into our four-year turf contract, and they actually -- specifically just to our turf mowing contract, currently 51 percent of that contract is minority participation 130 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. for that one contract. We've done similar work with tree care companies and we have historically done that, and we will continue to do that.

It will be very useful in the information you submit to President Verna that you stipulate the contracts and the breakdown --

Sure.

-- MBE, WBE, DBE opportunities. Who makes the decision around multiple-year contracts and is that a standard operating procedure? Speak to the background on that.

Councilwoman, you mean the choice of whether or not we let a multi-year contract?

Yes.

Generally with our -- again, I'll speak -- our two biggest contracts at Fairmount Park are turf maintenance and tree maintenance. 131 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. They have historically been let as multi-year contracts because the learning curve for a contractor to understand exactly where to cut the grass in East Park or exactly the pruning of trees, we have traditionally found that letting one-year contracts with two or three one-year extensions really builds the learning curve and actually builds in to our operating budget savings over time, because you're not bringing in a new contractor -- potentially bringing in a new contractor every year. And also that way, we can build in the participation standard. Again, on that turf maintenance contract at 51 percent, you can build in a fairly high participation rate over multiple years.

Okay. I'm not going to violate the clock, but I do have follow-up questions on this issue. Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. 132 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. The Chair recognizes Councilman Green.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just briefly back to tree maintenance. There appears to have been two unfilled Tree Maintenance positions as of the November run and one Crew Chief unfilled.

Those are both filled since the November run.

And the Crew Chief?

The Tree Maintenance Worker position was filled and -- one moment, please.

There were two of those positions.

Yes. Excuse me; positions all have been filled, Tree Maintenance Worker positions. And I'm sorry, Councilman, the second position you mentioned?

Crew Chief, 133 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Tree Maintenance Crew Chief.

Crew Chief also filled.

So when were they filled? Early this year, late last year?

I don't have the exact date. I apologize. I would assume since the first of the year.

So you have three more tree maintenance people on your staff now than you did most of last year.

Correct.

And we're increasing capacity that way. So I think where we may be with the budget, at least with respect to what I hear driving new divisions and things, are goals set by the Administration and Greenworks, which obviously we have to have reached goals as a city and other things, but the Department is not able to demonstrably prove that they could 134 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. achieve those goals even with the resources we have, and I also think that citizens have not expressed a willingness to pay for, say, 300,000 trees planted versus trash pick-up or police or fire service or other things. So governing is choosing between competing ideas for good with limited resources, and that's what this budget process is about. And I understand why you're in here advocating for your position, but we've asked a question that we don't have answered yet, which is how many trees were you able to plant with the $300,000 of capital budget last year. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: We can tell you that. It's three hundred grand. I think 678. I'm close, I think. Mark is nervous. We'll get you the number. But, you know, Councilman, again -- give him the number.

Councilman, last year with the normal run of $300,000 in 135 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. capital, about 634 trees.

So with two and a half million dollars, we're going to plant what kind of multiple of that? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: If we do it the conventional way, 5,800. See, but that's the point. This money is not going to get us to 300,000, and you can't appropriate enough money to get us to 300,000. The point is that if we want to go to the citizens of this city, if we want to go to the corporations and the foundations and the big institutions and say, Can you help us do something good -- now, if you don't think 300,000 is a good goal, then we got an argument. I mean --

Well, 250, 300 -- COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: -- if you don't think it's a worthy --

It's a discussion you haven't had with Council. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: The point is, if someone doesn't think this 136 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. is a worthy goal, then this discussion doesn't matter. But if you think it is a worthy goal, then this city can't think it's going to plant 250,000 or 300,000 trees without putting any money on the table that brings others to the room, that shows the citizens that we care, that shows the Tree Tenders we care, that shows University of Pennsylvania we care, that shows -- (Applause.) COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: -- Blue Cross and Blue Shield that we care, and that we, our obligation, is to leverage that money and not to plant -- if we plant 6,000 trees with two and a half million dollars, fire me next year when I come in here, because it ain't enough.

Mike -- COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: It's not enough.

-- nobody wants to fire you. We're all glad you're 137 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. in your position, but based on what the Department has demonstrated it can achieve, you're not going to plant more than 6,000 trees next year, so I want to say I will not take you up on that offer. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: How much do you want to put on that? How much you got in your pocket?

I will not take you up on that offer. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: I'm sorry. But, no, it's a different -- look, it's the way you look at this. It's the way you look at how the public sector behaves. If the public sector says it's going to cost us $425 to dig a hole and put a tree in, we're going to get 6,000 trees.

I'm out of time. You've given your speech. You got the applause. One more question before the bell. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: That's not the point. I'm having a real 138 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. debate.

Here we go: So how many of the positions in the Forestry and Environmental Resource Management position new divisions have been through the Civil Service process, there's a Civil Service exam ready for them, et cetera?

Well, the existing staff that will be moved into that division have all been through the Civil Service process, because they're existing employees. Of the new positions we're creating, we have exams ready for almost all of the positions.

You're not eliminating positions elsewhere, so it's not clear that there's any existing staff being moved into this division. If that's true, please provide the Chair with a chart that describes who is moving where and then where that leaves vacancies elsewhere. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: 139 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. We'll do that.

Fine.

Also, there's positions in here, I think we can agree, that aren't necessary, Public Relations Officer, $70,000 a year. The Mayor has six people who do public relations in his office. Maybe we can share one of those positions, et cetera. And as a practical matter, this is a year's worth of funding for 43 positions. How many positions -- if we were to appropriate all of this, how many of these positions would actually be hired on July 1st and have a full year's worth of salary? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: I don't know, to be honest with you. So, I mean, maybe these guys know, but I don't know the answer to that question.

Will half the positions be filled by six months from the end of the fiscal year? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: 140 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Here's what I would say: We could tell you in a very short order if -- first of all, I just want to talk -- there's some good points here about how we structured these jobs. So I think we could do a better job in using the additional money and creating the best product for the dollars. That was well articulated here in this body during this hearing, and we will reconsider the way we've put some of these -- the way we've created some of these positions. I think there's some very good points here. But I agree that we need to -- you need to know what the process would look like and what would the sequence be and when would these positions be in place. That's a legitimate question. We owe you an answer.

And I would suggest that it's going to be half the number that's here in terms of being able to hire people throughout an entire year, 43 new people in your department. We've 141 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. seen how long it takes to hire people in government. There's positions we 4 authorized last year that are 5 maintenance/custodial positions that we 6 haven't hired. So as a practical matter, 7 you're asking for money that you're not 8 going to spend, and given that -- 9 COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: I'm 10 not sure of that, but as I say, we will 11 let you know -- I'm not sure that's true, 12 but we will be clear with you on the 13 sequence. 14

15 Commissioner, I think you have company. 16 COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: 17 Pardon? 18

You have company joining you who would love to respond to the question. (Witness approached witness table.)

Good afternoon --

Hi, 142 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Steve.

-- Steve Agostini, Budget Director. Councilmember, I think it's important to remember context. Last year we were going through a very significant cash problem where we were holding payments to vendors for sometimes months. There was a very significant review of all the positions that was taking place that I did on a weekly, if not daily basis. It was our intent to try and slow that process so that we could generate savings so that wouldn't turn into layoffs that were unnecessary. I think in this context, given what I've heard from Councilmember Quinones-Sanchez and from others here with respect to the positions and the maintenance concerns here, I think it would be incumbent for us to be sure that those are positions that are moved as quickly as possible through this process so that they get filled. 143 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

So when within the budget year will all 43 people be hired?

I think to the Commissioner's point, we will get back to you and let you know. I think --

You would agree if they're not all hired on July 1st, that you don't need all the money that you're asking us to appropriate?

But we account for that in salary savings in all the budgets. We already do that.

I don't understand what that means.

Well, you and I have had this conversation a number of times. Each of the budgets has an assumption of some vacancies. It's the natural turnover. People will leave, people will get hired.

These are 43 new positions.

You're going to 144 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. see the salary savings number. There will be a deduction for the assumption that all positions are not going to be filled. It's just the natural friction, if you will, of people leaving, people being hired and not having a hundred percent of all positions filled a hundred percent of the time all year long.

These are 43 new positions, though. So how quickly can we actually hire these 43 people?

I think I'll leave that to the folks who have to manage that to get that to me so that I can then move that quickly and be sure that HR moves it quickly.

Okay. So there are some savings here if we don't fill them all by July 1st; is that right, Commissioner? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Look, we're going to go as fast as we can. You'll know how fast as we can, and then you figure it out. 145 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

Thank you. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: We'll give it to you. We'll give the truth.

You can provide that to the Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Greenlee.

Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon, everybody. I think I have just a real basic question here. I don't think it's been asked yet. Street tree trimmings, I think you're averaging -- Mark, I guess you're the best one to ask. About how many -- like how many years does it usually take to do a given block, on average?

Councilman, we were working -- in the past when you and I have spoken about this, we were working 146 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. to try and get on a seven-year pruning cycle. We're unfortunately nowhere near that. We're probably more at a 10- to 11-year pruning cycle, because funding keeps decreasing.

I understand. And who does that work? Are they Fairmount Park employees, contractors or some of both?

They're contractors managed by Fairmount Park arborists.

And I think you kind of answered this, but in your -- in the perfect world, you would like to see seven years?

Correct. Good arboricultural standards would have us pruning the whole street tree inventory in the City on a seven-year cycle.

Because I know that often is something we get complaints about. And it does add to other things, safety and all.

Absolutely. 147 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam President.

The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Sanchez.

Thank you. I'm going to go back and forth with this around maintenance. Commissioner, every year the Department creates a list of outstanding maintenance issues by building, kind of your capital plan. Have you guys updated that recently? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yeah. We actually -- I actually meet monthly to update that.

It would be important if you can submit to the Chair the listing of your building maintenance needs or capital improvement needs, because I think as part of this discussion as we discuss this budget and potentially moving things around, I want 148 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. us and my Council colleagues in particular to see kind of the backlog that's created around some of this maintenance stuff that we -- oh, look, Councilwoman Tasco has her list. But I think it would be important so that we can have it in the context of this budget discussion. And then Councilman Greenlee talked about the trees. I also think it would be important for us as part of this budget discussion to look at the backlog as it relates to dead trees, because that's an issue, those of us who are District Councilpeople, get every day, and I want to make sure that we keep that in the context of this discussion around the budget.

Councilwoman, certainly the Parks' current backlog for dead and dangerous tree removals is 1,672 as of the middle or so of last week. That's in part again to the decreasing in funds. I'll just give you a bit of 149 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. context for that. In Fiscal Year 2006, we had $1.7 million for tree removal. So we were doing about 2,500 trees that year. This year we're down to $554,000 in tree removal money. So we're down around that 630 number.

Again, I would strongly encourage you, particularly as again you revisit some of the positions that Councilman Green had talked about, that these are some of the areas -- because I believe this is your Class 200 allocation.

Correct.

I don't think your Class 200 allocation kind of addresses some of the issues with the backlog. Those are the issues that are important to many of us, because I think that -- again, I understand the need to create an infrastructure. If you look at us and you compare us nationally with other parks, we could be putting more 150 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. money in there. And, again, we will -- I will commit again to be a strong advocate, but I do want to make sure that we're allocating money in areas that impact folks the most and I'd like to see us put more money into that Class 200 classification. I don't think this budget reflects what we hear every day. And then there was one more issue, and I guess you could submit this to the Chair. I'd like to get a listing, because I couldn't find it in your budget as it's reflected and other budgets in terms of your grants revenue, what of the grants revenue we get that is leveraged with our general operating. I think, again, this is one of the departments that when you look at the budget, we don't see the leveraging, because this budget presentation doesn't allow you to do it, but it would be important for you to show my Council colleagues where that grants revenue is leveraged. It has to be leveraged with our general operating 151 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. budget. I think that's important, particularly as it relates, for instance, to our older adult centers and how we leverage PCA money with our General Fund money. And in our programming with our Youth Works piece with the teen centers, I think, again, that's not -- there's no 9 opportunity for you to show that here, and I think it's important that Council understand that it's our teen center and then in particularly some of the work that's been done around our ice rinks and the money that's leveraged there. Again, this budget does not allow you to appropriately reflect. And I think where you can tie in some of these positions to the leveraging of that money, I think it would be important in the conversation of this budget. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: We'll be happy to do that. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: We'll make sure we get you that information.

People 152 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. agree that this budget does not allow you sometimes -- it limits it, but I think it's important, again, if we're going to talk about any reclassifications in these budgets, I think there's a lot of areas where we need to put more. Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco.

Thank you. We're going to talk about my favorite subject, and that's the Dell. It's going to operate this summer? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yes. And actually Councilwoman Miller actually mentioned it, and I thanked you, but you had stepped out for a second, for your appropriation, your commitment to the Dell. The season will begin July the 12th. That will be our first concert. We're planning to have eight shows this season. We're excited. We're looking 153 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. forward to it, and it was a result of the commitment to quite a few of the Councilmembers here. Councilwoman Blackwell wasn't here either when I thanked you for your commitment to the Robin Hood Dell East. And so I think you're going to have a wonderful concert season. They're in the process now of actually putting the seats in. It's going to look like a new amphitheater when you see it.

Great. Sounds great. Who is going to manage the Dell? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Well, I am. I have some assistance, some staff members that have been with the Department for years and that have been a part of the process. And our process also allows us to hire various people that have worked with the Dell for years to come in to do promotion, to do advertising. And so the RFPs are actually out right now in order for us to 154 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. bring those people in to work along with me to make sure we have the right acts and we're running smoothly.

That sounds real good. I think that is my last question. I couldn't remember. I said how could I not ask about the Dell. Madam President, I think that's it for me.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Goode.

Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome.

Commissioner DiBerardinis, I made the statement a few minutes ago that it appears that you want to give the contract to the same people, after which Mr. Focht pretty much confirmed that statement. Is that what 155 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. you heard? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: I don't think that's what I heard, but can I comment generally on the question? I do think we have a responsibility. I mean, I think to your point earlier about our responsibility --

I heard Mr. Focht say that you can't change over contractors too quickly or too often, and so that says to me that he's planning on using the same old contractors. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Can I, Councilman Goode, give you an example of something that the Department of Recreation has been doing for quite a few years and I believe that --

Commissioner, if it's related to the question of whether you plan on using the same old contractors or not, because that's the question. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: It's relating to that, sir. 156 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

Go ahead. COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: And so the Department of Recreation -- I may be throwing myself under the bus here, but just to comment to what you're saying, the Department of Recreation has been using a contractor for 20-some-odd plus years, and the contract was just signed when I started in June of '08, and it's a contract -- it's a pretty hefty contract. But what we do have the ability to do and I found out because we made some changes to one of our turf contracts last year, and by making those changes to the turf contracts, we bumped out a minority participant. And so to your comment, we do have some responsibility and we can give some input when it comes around to these contracts. Because of our input, I bumped someone out. We asked for some additional work to be done around the curb sites, around the weeding and work that wasn't being done, and because of 157 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. that, the job was a little larger than the minority contractor was used to, so they didn't get the contract. And so if I'm able to put language in the contract to bump someone out, I'm also able to put language in the contract to make sure that there's some inclusiveness as well.

But you can't do that and Mr. Focht can't do that and Commissioner DiBerardinis can't do that if you claim that they are multi-year contracts, which by law are not legal. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: By law are?

I guess my next question is, you claim that there are multi-year contracts up to four years, Mr. Focht, is that true?

Councilman, I said the contract is a one-year contract with renewals.

That's not 158 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. what you said, but that's what I understood. So it's not a four-year contract?

No. 6

It's a one-year contract that has a contract term that begins at the beginning of the fiscal year, ends at the end of the fiscal year, which means that you're not locked in to that contractor for two years or three years or four years?

Correct.

So if it is your plan to try to build capacity of disadvantaged businesses, if it's your plan that you're going to be able to increase participation by showing people the work that needs to be done over several years, you can start that next year. And so is that goal of 12 percent, which is still not clear who actually set it, a low number or not? And my guess is that it is, but even if it's not a low number for Fiscal Year '11, my question 159 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. is, if we're going to take you at your word that you're actually trying to build the capacity of disadvantaged businesses to participate but you claim you can't do it right away because you have to actually rotate them in and it's a question about whether you're going to begin to rotate them in, then tell me what your long-term plan is. If it actually is percent for next year, 12 what is it the following year and what's the year after that, and do you actually have a real plan to increase participation? I think not. I think my statement is still true. For the most part, your plan -- and it may just be Mr. Focht -- you plan on using the same contractors year in and year out.

On the specifics of that contract, Councilman, I apologize if I said something that misled you. That's certainly not our intent. The contracts are one-year contracts with the option for renewal, and the specific contract I 160 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. was referring to has a 51 percent minority participation.

You said all that already. So the question I'm asking is this: You made the statement -- you used the term "four years," did you not? Did I just hear that or did you use the term "four years"?

It's a one-year contract with three one-year extensions.

Did you use the term "four years" or not?

I may have said four years, Councilman.

Okay. You used the term "four years." You can't be honest about that. You used the term "four years" because you believed that you were going to give this person a one-year contract and then renew it three times. That's just the truth.

Correct. That's the truth on a contract that I was referencing that has 51 percent minority 161 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. participation.

I'm done. He's not even telling the truth. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Let me try to talk as sort of my responsibility for both departments, and so let me try to put a little light on this. Number one is that I know this was a big issue in Council, this whole question. I would say that we want to be more serious. We do have a responsibility. So we can't say Procurement, it's them. We can't point any fingers to anybody. We have to do as much as we can within the bounds that are set up. And if somebody asked me what are those -- where's that barrier there, I'm not sure, but we're going to find out, and that we will do everything in our power and within the authority which we can do to increase women and minority participation in the Department's contracts. It makes sense. It's the 162 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. right thing. So we're going to do it. I wish -- again, I'll talk for me. I'm not talking for either of these guys. I'm talking for me. This is sort of my first budget year, real budget year. We have to do better. That number is not enough. So my expectation is, we will do more. My expectation is, we will do more. And we have to look at this, we have to look at recruitment and we have to look at sort of how people move up in our system. So there's three areas that I think if we don't pay attention to, they get away from you. They'll get away from you. No matter how good-intentioned you are, if you don't pay attention on a regular basis to those three things, women and minority contractors, recruitment of high-quality diverse employee workforce and the track of those folks into leadership, if you don't pay attention to it, you won't succeed. It's that simple. 163 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. As we build this new department, we're going to be dedicated to those three things and build the management structure, that we pay attention to them every day and that the leadership in the Department is on it every day. That's the way we'll succeed. Short of that, we won't succeed.

Thank you.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.

Thank you, Madam President. Let me go on record by saying we appreciate a department head making it clear that you're taking this seriously and you're not relying purely on OEO to do the due diligence, when really, as Councilman Goode has said repeatedly for the past ten years, ultimately you know what your needs are, you know what type of contractors you use for your 164 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. department, so, therefore, you have to have the responsibility to move the needle. Simply move the needle. So for you to be forthright about that is encouraging, and we would like to hear that type of commitment across City department heads. We don't have that yet. (Applause.)

Does your department have a contract with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: No. 15

Do not? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Do not.

Have you had a chance to give any thinking to linking up Class A rec centers with schools that have no physical facilities that allow for physical fitness activities at all? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Not that particular item, but we have 165 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. recently begun a series of meetings with the School District to look at both sort of where the connective tissue between the two institutions or departments and -- that institution and our department, and how do we explore sort of what we do out of school that supports their curriculum. I think that's the trick, finding -- if we're really going to work with the School District, how do we help kids be better ready to learn. I think that's the thing we have to move towards.

Okay. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: So how do we do that, we're under discussion with them around that. We're also under discussion around partnering with them, in addition to the programming side, to the physical side and how do we help them green up their facilities and how do we help them become part of this big discussion about trees, be part of that campaign that could help the City green 166 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. up and help us leverage our dollars to support them to be more green and plant more trees on their campuses. So we're on a couple of levels.

In the exploration stage, at best? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Right. We're early in that discussion.

Will your department benefit at all from the tobacco dollars that are coming to the Health Department specifically around obesity-related initiatives? COMMISSIONER SLAWSON: Yes, we are benefiting. We were allotted one staff person that will be running a health and nutrition program throughout 100 of our facilities via the Health Department's grant.

Okay. Switch gears. Urban gardening, just give us an update on where that is within the Department. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: We 167 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. are partnering with any number of non-profits to -- particularly with the rec centers on fallow, underutilized land. So like recently at the Carousel House, Teens 4 Good. And the Department partnered up with ShopRite, Brown ShopRite, a bunch of groups that now there's a series of agricultural plazas that not only provide food for the supermarket but also help the kids sort of get sort of vocationally oriented and have some good, high-quality programming. We want to do more of that through the system. Some of the existing farmland in the Park, we're going to convert some of that to commercial, small commercial plots. So we're trying to move us up not only around food and nutrition, not only around local production, but also around youth development as well. So we're trying to hit two or three or four big policy questions with this single approach.

So that 168 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. currently is a pilot program? COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Yeah, but we hope to do more. We're in three or four -- East Poplar, Carousel House, the Manatawna, Awbury Park. So there's four or five, but we're slowly building it out. We expect this year to be a banner year in terms of how do we connect around quality food access, nutrition, education and youth development.

Keep us updated, if you will. Next year report back on what the yield is in your conversations and discussions with the School District. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Okay.

I think that is it for me. Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. Are there any other questions 169 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. from members of the Committee? (No response.)

Seeing no one, thank you all so very much. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Thank you. (Applause.)

This Committee will stand in recess until 1:45. Thank you. (Luncheon recess.)

Good afternoon. The Committee of the Whole is now back in session. Our next group to testify? MR. McPHERSON: Is the Atwater Kent Museum. (Witness approached witness table.)

Good afternoon. Kindly identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony. 170 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

Council President Verna and members of City Council, I'm Viki Sand, Executive Director of the Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent. I am here to present testimony in support of the Philadelphia History Museum budget of $248,630. This represents no change in Class 100 funds appropriated in Fiscal Year 2010, and funds support the following positions: Executive Director, Curator, Registrar and Municipal Guard. The budget continues to include $50,000 in Class 500 funds for the consolidated, long-term collection storage facility. I also want to recognize that the Museum receives essential administrative services from the Recreation Department, and I would like to thank Commissioner Susan Slawson and Michael DiBerardinis. The Museum has been assisted in achieving its major goals of collection storage as well as renovation to the 171 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Museum building by the Department of Public Property, Commissioner Joan Schlotterbeck. Everyone associated with the Philadelphia History Museum applauds the commitment of the Mayor and Council to support Philadelphia's cultural community, and we appreciate that there are no cuts to the Museum in this year's budget, and I appreciate that. We all appreciate it. I would like to recognize the support of Councilman Frank DiCicco in whose district the Museum is located, Councilmember Bill Greenlee, who is the Council's representative on the Museum Board and has been one of our strongest advocates for re-branding the Museum as the Philadelphia History Museum, and he has been a strong voice for our public outreach efforts. I'd also like to thank Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown, the Chair of the Arts and Culture Committee, whose knowledge of education and opportunities for cultural collaboration 172 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. has strengthened our community programming. I will dispense with much of my testimony since it's there, but I do want to draw attention to our four major objectives that we have listed for Council and the work that we've been doing over the past year. In June, I am delighted to report that our $5.8 million renovation to the Museum building is on schedule and will be complete. Approximately 70 percent of that building, of that effort, relates to increased infrastructure capacity, including environmental, safety and accessibility requirements, but for the first time in recent memory, there will be a media-driven, interactive, must-see overview of Philadelphia history and a Philadelphia Voices gallery curated by outside individuals and community groups, two new galleries, a behind-the-scenes collection study facility or area so that people can have 173 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. up close and personal looks at the collection and collection objects. We have everything in this collection from the wampum belt received by the Lenape tribe to the uniform that Jimmy Rollins gave the Museum from the 2008 championship season, and as I brought two years ago, Mike Schmidt's jersey to show City Council members. I am delighted that in this, we have Jimmy Rollins' batting glove and we also have his jersey. (Applause.)

My point in sharing that is that we are not just about 17th and 18th century history. We are about up-to-the-minute history. And on Opening Day, it feels particularly appropriate. This is also -- let me just say one thing about the renovation. It's important to know that the Museum building was limiting every opportunity that the Museum had to build sustainable programs in the 21st century. 174 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. The building was not accessible for those with mobility disabilities. It was not possible to have both public hours and have school groups visit the Museum. Limited space meant that we could no 7 longer do and participate in a major professional development program with the School District of Philadelphia. We had no way to regulate heat, cooling and humidification of the environment in the building to preserve Philadelphia's iconic objects, and we did not have electrical capacity or IT capacity to meet the needs of a contemporary office, let alone the kinds of interactivity that are expected of family audiences. This year we also occupied the Collection Research Center, and for the first time in a very, very long time, the Museum -- it was able to care for the hundred thousand items that are in its collection. Not only the Historical Society of Pennsylvania collection that added to the Museum 300 -- to fill out 175 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. the full 300 years of Philadelphia history, but also the Balch Institute, also the Insurance Company of North America. So we are now able to link together the histories from William Penn and George Washington to immigrant trunks, remnants of industrial history and the sporting life of the City. We have continued during this renovation program, with greatly reduced staff, to work with middle and high school students as part of the National History Day Collaborative. We worked closely during this time with over 200 children to help them, in an intensive way, really develop their thinking skills, their research skills and all of the thought processes that better prepare them to be good students, but also to meet their personal goals as adults. This year over a thousand students participated at the National Constitution Center in March. And I would like to also then 176 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. address the fourth point, having to do with the re-branding of the Philadelphia History Museum. This is -- while we continue to honor the Museum's founder, we believe that this new name better conveys to diverse audiences the Museum's purpose. We also believe that the grid included in the logo draws upon the City's earliest day and suggests the continuing need to review and renew the values essential for an engaged citizenry and a dynamic, vibrant environment where all people have the opportunity for social justice, economic opportunity and an understanding of a shared heritage as Philadelphians. Last year, along with others, the Philadelphia History Museum absorbed up to 30 percent cuts in the City budget. We applaud the Administration and the Council efforts to look creatively for opportunities to generate revenue rather than to make additional cuts. In the coming year, improvements in the 177 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. operating systems to the museums will add significantly to our operating budget, and we are looking at a full range of sources to support this new effort. And we would say straightforwardly that further cuts in City-supported staff and operations at the City History Museum at this time would seriously undermine our efforts to preserve core services, as the Museum is working to make the collection accessible as never before and to reopen the building to a significantly increased attendance and program participation.

Let me speak to an issue that I know many Council -- the Council is very concerned about and has raised issues, and, that is, the Administration's goal of percent minority, women and 20 disabled-owned business participation in 21 City contracting. In 2009 as part of its 22 preparation to receive City capital grant 23 funds of $250,000 toward the building 24 renovation, we met with the compliance 25 officers of the Minority Business 178 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Enterprise Council and filed an equal opportunity plan that was accepted at 4 percent MBE, ten percent WBE and two 5 percent DSBE and 60 percent utilization 6 of Philadelphia-based contractors. 7 Because of the specialized nature of the 8 renovation, it was agreed that this would 9 be somewhat lower than what the City's 10 goals were, and as of February, I've 11 listed where we are on this. We have 17 12 percent MBE, ten percent WBE and zero 13 percent DBE. It's our aspiration to meet 14 the City's goals and other aspects of the 15 renovation, and we are working with the 16 Museum's construction manager towards 17 that end. It's important that I state 18 toward this purpose that the Museum's 19 agent for the project is a minority-owned 20 business and we are working to expand our pool of professional counsel, and a woman who is one of our key people in terms of our conservation effort is an African American woman. I think that the issues of 179 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. staffing the Museum I think is critically important, and we are laying in place as we increase the staff both particularly for our visitor services positions as well as our professional staff to improve what has been the makeup of the Museum staff, and it is something that is very much central to our thinking about the future. Before concluding my testimony, I want to express my appreciation to members of City Council with whom I have had the pleasure of working over the past eight years. Your personal kindness and commitment to help the City History Museum serve all Philadelphians has been important to our success, and I hope that you too take a good deal of satisfaction in our achievement. This concludes my testimony and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you very much. 180 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. The Chair recognizes Councilman Greenlee.

Thank you, Madam President. I more have a statement than a question, but I'll be brief. As Ms. Sand said, I've been on the Board either representing Councilman Cohen for a number of years or on my own, and I've seen a tremendous improvement in what is now, I'm happy to call, the Philadelphia History Museum. And with the hope that I'm not embarrassing Viki, I think a lot of people may know she's moving on. She's going to be leaving the Museum to pursue other goals, and I can really say the improvements I've seen over the years -- and there's been a lot of people involved with it, and I think once it opens up, it's going to not be a hidden treasure anymore, but a real treasure for the City. But I think if we had to wrap that up in two words about why it worked, the two words are "Viki Sand," because 181 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. she just did a tremendous job in just building up the Museum and making it an important feature of Philadelphia. So I was going to put a resolution in barring her from leaving, but I guess we can't do that, so I'll just say thank you for everything you did, both for the Museum and just for the City of Philadelphia generally. Thank you, Viki.

Thank you, Councilman.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you. (Applause.)

We certainly want to thank you for all of your years of service and hard work and want to wish you the very best for your future endeavors. Ms. Sand, has the grand reopening date been set for the Museum? 182 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. If so, when?

The target date is March 2011 for the public opening. The building renovation itself will be completed -- we expect to move back into the building in July. There are a number of environmental systems that need to be balanced out over the next two or three months before we bring objects -- after it opens before we bring objects back into the building, and it is our intention in the fall of 2010 to do a series of tours, special tours, programs and activities, but the official public opening is scheduled for March 2011.

Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.

Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon. Just one question, and then I would like to echo 183 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. the remarks of my colleagues. On of your testimony, speaking to the Administration's commitment and strategic plan around OEO and inclusion, you stipulate that because of the specialized nature of the renovation, we are somewhat behind our goal. So speak to what that specialization is and provide detail. You mention that you're having difficulty finding someone with that particular area of expertise, so state what that is and then tell us what your efforts have been.

The specific issues are that -- and the reason why we were granted a somewhat reduced level in terms of the goal was because of the environmental controls. So much of the work of the building deals with specialized HVAC systems, and it was recognized that there are not so many people who provide that kind of work. So that's the essential. And I'd be happy to provide you with detail of specifically who the companies are and 184 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. what was done to meet that goal.

We would appreciate that. And that is customary that we're asking across City government.

Right.

So then let me echo Councilman Greenlee's remarks. I had a chance to visit with the Museum shortly upon your arrival and then learned of and saw your vision, and here it is eight years later and you've achieved that and more. So know that we appreciate what I call stick-to-itiveness, because it was no 16 easy undertaking, and deeply appreciate all that you have done to grow the awareness of the Philadelphia History Museum and bid you well with the next chapter of your life. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman.

Thank you, Madam President. 185 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Blackwell.

Thank you, Madam President. I don't have questions. I likewise want to certainly say thank you, Viki, for all that you are and the leadership you've provided and for making us excited about that Museum. It's become such a major point of Philadelphia history, and we're excited about changing the name, and whenever I describe it, I talk about you can stand on your street, and people are always excited. And it's just been that and all that is above it. It's just been wonderful. You've made it come alive for us, and we say thank you for all your years of service.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. 186 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Any other questions or comments from members of the Committee? (No response.)

Seeing none, again, thank you so very much and good luck to you.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity. I must say that there's nothing that pleases me more than when Philadelphians walk into the Museum and see something of their own lives and start to smile. The Council has been an essential partner, and I really appreciate all of the courtesies that I've received.

Thank you. Our next department? MR. McPHERSON: The Free Library of Philadelphia. (Witnesses approached witness table.)

Good afternoon. Welcome. Kindly identify 187 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.

Council President, I'm Robert Heim, Chair of the Board of Trustees.

I'm Siobhan Reardon, President and Director of the Free Library of Philadelphia. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: And I'm Mike DiBerardinis, Commissioner of Parks and Recreation and special advisor to the Mayor on the Free Library.

I think we've seen you before. COMMISSIONER DiBERARDINIS: Yes.

Please proceed.

Council President Verna and members of Council, as I said, I'm Robert Heim, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Free Library, and I'm pleased to appear again this year and very much appreciate the opportunity to 188 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. speak briefly on behalf of the trustees, which, as you know, is an independent Board under our City Charter and the governing body of the Library. Joining me this afternoon are a number of trustees who wanted to be here for the testimony. Sherry Swirsky, who is Vice Chair of the Board, is here; Stephanie Naidoff; Shelly Yanoff, all trustees are attending, as is Alla Kera (ph), former Chair of the Board of Trustees and now a member of the Foundation Board. And I'm also pleased to see that Amy Dougherty, who is the Director of the Friends of the Free Library, is here, as well as Sherrie Cohen, who is a very important member of the Friends and, of course, the daughter of our cherished longtime but unfortunately deceased former Councilmember, David Cohen. So on behalf of the 22 members of the Board of Trustees, I first want to extend my thanks to City Council and to the Mayor and to the gentleman to my 189 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. right, Michael DiBerardinis, the Deputy Mayor, for all of the support that they have extended to the Library, that all of you have extended to the Library over the course of the last year, support that has helped us keep the libraries operating and providing materials and programs to City residents. We know that you have heard from your constituents about the importance of these services, and despite budget cuts, we have worked hard to continue to deliver them. At the same time, the Board of Trustees is committed to success in new areas. We are an active body, providing not only oversight of the policies and operations of the Free Library, but also essential advocacy for the Library and engagement in a wide range of hands-on services. And we want you to know that in these difficult economic times, the Board of Trustees has not just sat on its hands and waited for government to come to it. For the first time, we held a legislative 190 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. breakfast in Harrisburg, and our goal was to inform state legislators of the range of services that the Free Library provides and to let them know how much our customers and our constituents value their investment in our work, as well as the investment of City Council and the City and the Mayor. I am pleased to report that attendance at this legislative breakfast was substantial. It exceeded our expectations, even if it was at 8 o'clock in the morning. And we had legislators, I think some 30, 35 legislators attended from different counties, such as Blair, Centre and Lehigh and, of course, some of our own legislators attended. We talked about how important libraries are generally across the State, but we emphasized, of course, our own library and what we do here for the citizens of Philadelphia. But the interest in libraries on the part of the state legislators who attended the breakfast 191 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. was high. They appreciated that we came. They appreciated that we asked them to hold our funding and not to cut it any further, and they got the message. And we intend to continue giving them the message over and over again, emphasizing the importance of libraries to the people of Philadelphia and to the people of this Commonwealth. Another way that we're raising the profile of the Library is getting the word out about important areas of concentration.

In addition to providing reading assistance, literacy services, which are so very important to our population, and after-school homework help for our children, we are targeting five key audiences: job seekers; small businesses; new Americans, new citizens, new Americans; pre-kindergarten children and the digitally savvy, which I must say are mostly young people, but there are a few of us who are kind of catching on. The success of each of these groups is 192 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. integral to the City's economic recovery and ongoing prosperity, an effort we are committed to help lead. Board members have joined the working groups devoted to enhancing services to each of these populations. So each one of these core groups has trustees who are working with the staff to provide ideas, to provide input and to make sure that we're staying on target, and we are excited about this new direction, and Siobhan Reardon will talk about it a little more in her comments. I want to say -- and I think all of you know -- that a valuable way to learn about our libraries is to look to actually go out and tour them, something that the trustees have paid particular attention to in these last few years. So before or in conjunction with each trustees' meetings and sometimes in between, we get a small van and the trustees who are able to make it come out and they get in the van and we travel 193 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. around to three or four libraries, and we meet with the library staff, and it is a fascinating experience. It's very insightful. I particularly like talking to the security guards, because they have such a detached but informed and interesting observations about the operations of the Library. And so we go and we visit as many branches as we can in the morning, and we encourage any City Council member who might be interested in attending one of our van trips, we offer you the opportunity and we'd love to have you with us. As you know, each one of our 54 branches serves a distinct neighborhood and confronts different issues, and the better informed the trustees are, the better we can do our jobs. I should mention that the trustees work hand in glove with the Free Library Foundation Board of Directors, which are charged with securing private funds to support the work of the Library. 194 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. These private funds, these dollars, allow us to launch program initiatives that we just wouldn't be able to do without their help. The Free Library Festival is one. The highly successful lecture series in which we bring authors in from all around the country to speak to audiences is another. And, of course, the Foundation has been charged with raising the funds to build a much-needed expansion to the Parkway Central Library, which we believe can be a centerpiece for learning and knowledge transfer for adults and children, I guess children of all ages. So we've raised over a hundred million dollars in that regard. We're moving aggressively to seek the necessary funds for groundbreaking, and we hope to be able to do that within the next 12 months. So we look forward to continuing to work with City Council in the next year to ensure that all Philadelphians have access to the Library 195 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. services that they so clearly value. And, once again, thank you, each and every one of you, for all that you do for the Library.

Thank you very much.

Council President Verna and members of the Council, I am Siobhan Reardon, President and Director of the Free Library of Philadelphia. I am delighted to be here this afternoon to report to you that the operations of the Free Library remain strong. While this past year has been challenging, I want to commend the employees of the Free Library, the Board of Trustees, the Foundation Board of Directors and all whom have risen to the challenges to continue to deliver outstanding service to the people of Philadelphia. I want to publicly thank each and every one of them, all of you here in the Chamber and the Mayor and for everybody's efforts on behalf of the Free Library. 196 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. The Free Library of Philadelphia has a wealth of resources in materials, programs, spaces and staff. We are committed to employing these and other assets to help lead the City to economic recovery and ongoing prosperity. We have pursued this goal in a number of ways over the past years and have ambitious plans to enhance this work in the future. To this end, we are seeking nearly $33 million in City funds for Fiscal Year 2011. The Free Library's most noteworthy accomplishments over the past year has been the level of service that we have been able to deliver to our customers. Through a thoughtful redesign of the branch schedule and redeployment of staff, we have been able to provide library services across six days a week throughout the City. Nearby branches are paired, such as our Queen Memorial Library at 23rd and Federal and South Philadelphia at Broad and Morris, with 197 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. one open Monday through Friday and the other open Tuesday through Saturday. This schedule maximizes our resources and attempts to limit the inconvenience to our customers. As we do every summer, all branch locations will be open Monday through Friday beginning June 7th, 2010. Regional libraries will continue to open Tuesday through Saturdays, and our library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped is always open Monday through Friday 9:00 to 5:00 year round. One of the challenges in ensuring a stable schedule has been staffing, due largely to the number of positions lost in the Fiscal Year 2009 budget, along with normal resignations and attrition. A particular challenge is the availability of municipal guards, who are responsible not only for security but for the custodial tasks and general maintenance of the building. After an unfortunate delay, we expect to have eight full-time and six seasonal guards 198 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. on board by the end of the month. We are optimistic that this will help to ease the number of unexpected closings. m. four days a week. This is a real boon to working families and others who are not able to get to the library during the day and keeps us in compliance with State standards. We have managed this extra evening by keeping individual departments staffed when usage is heaviest and consolidating operations in other departments when they are less so. For the first time this year, the Library will offer seven-day service during the summer by keeping the Central Library open Sundays from 1:00 to 5:00. Youth and family programming will be added in order to make the library a destination and to continue to offer new entertainment options for the people using the Parkway. 199 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. Over the past year, we have made a number of capital improvements to our branches, many of which are over a hundred years old. There are new heating systems at both the Nicetown-Tioga and Eastwick branches, a new transformer at our Overbrook Park Library, and Kingsessing has been spruced up with fresh plaster, paint and lighting. There will be new doors and a more welcoming entrance at our McPherson Square shortly. The Central Music Department has been renovated. The net effect, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, is a brighter, more highly functioning library.

All of these improvements have been critical for the safety and comfort of our staff and users. To better serve a growing population of older adults, the Free Library has opened a dedicated space for seniors. Central Senior Services provides state-of-the-art information resources on health, the arts and 200 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. business, five laptop computers, an Access Technology workstation, and materials that cater to an older clientele. We are also proud of the support we have provided to the high school and post-secondary students. The number of federal work study students has nearly doubled to 55, allowing us to place one in every single library. Additionally, each one of the last year's Teen Leadership Assistants, high school students who work in the LEAP After School Program, graduated on time, and over 95 percent went on to study at a post-secondary institution. The Free Library continues to maximize its usage of the federal e-rate program, a program that reimburses schools and libraries for their technology improvements. With this incentive, the Free Library has built a high-speed broadband fiber network for the entire library system and improved Internet service speed by 450 percent. 201 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. We have spent nearly three and a half million dollars on these and other accomplishments, 90 percent of which has been returned to the City. The Free Library has embarked on the development of a new strategic plan, which will guide our work in the coming years. While this process is underway, we have begun to refine our work in order to more effectively meet our commitment to lead the City to economic prosperity. We are focusing our work on enhancing our services to five targeted audiences that Bob discussed just a minute ago: jobseekers, small businesses and start-up entrepreneurs, pre-kindergarten children, new Americans and the digitally savvy. Each is critical to the City's ability to recover and to grow, and the Library has a meaningful role to play in meeting their standards. I'm going to skip through each of the individual areas, as it's in my 202 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. testimony. You can read through that. I'm going to skip over to the section 4 called Other Initiatives. Literacy underpins our work in all of the five targeted areas, as well as every other part of our -- and all of the work that we do, and the Free Library is reaffirming its role and commitment to its preeminence in all that we do. We have just received funding to train 60 teens to be literacy coaches this summer. They will then be prepared to work with the children in our LEAP program as the program transitions to a literacy-focused, year-round, out-of-school-time program. Our work with adults is critical as well, with estimates of the City's illiteracy rate ranging from nearly 20 percent of the City's working age population being below the most basic levels to as many as 50 percent lacking in the skills necessary to advance their careers. Numerous studies have also demonstrated the link 203 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. between low literacy and truancy, dropping out of school and even incarceration. Working hand in hand with the Mayor, the Free Library is reinvigorating the Mayor's Commission on Literacy and is conducting a national search to recruit and hire an Executive Director to lead this effort. The expansion of the Parkway Central Library will enable us to pursue these goals even more creatively and aggressively. A significantly larger children's department, discrete space for small business and entrepreneurs, a new auditorium and many more public commuters are just a few of the improvements that are being planned for the expanded campus. We appreciate the City's support of this project and are optimistic that we will be able to raise the additional remaining funds to get to groundbreaking this year.

I thank you for your time and attention, and I'm happy to answer any 204 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. questions that you have.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Goode.

Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon, Ms. Reardon.

Good afternoon.

Let's deal with participation goals for disadvantaged businesses. First, who set the goal of five percent?

We did it with the Office of Opportunity.

You recommended that goal to them or they recommended that goal to you?

We recommended the goal to them.

And you recommended that goal to them based upon what?

Just past 205 4/12/10 - WHOLE - BILL 100115, etc. history.