COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON FINANCE Remote location using Microsoft® Teams Wednesday, October 25, 2023 10:10 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCILMAN MARK SQUILLA, CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS, VICE-CHAIR COUNCILMAN KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR.
Good morning, everyone. Sorry for the delay. This is the Committee on Finance, Wednesday, October 25, 2023. Before we begin the public hearing, I would like to make the following announcement: Due to the continuing threat of public health from COVID-19, City Council Committees are currently meeting remotely. We're using Microsoft Teams to make these remote hearings possible. Instructions for how the public may view and offer public testimony in public hearings of Council Committees are included in the public hearing notices that are published in the Daily News, Inquirer and Legal Intelligencer prior to the hearing and can also be found on PHLCouncil.com. I now note that the hour has come. Mr. McMonagle, could you please call the roll to take attendance from Members who will be in attendance. Please indicate that you are present. Thank you.
Thank you, colleagues. Thank you all for your attendance. A quorum of the Committee is present and the hearing is now called to order. This is the public hearing of the Committee on Finance regarding Bill No. 230654. Mr. McMonagle, can you please read the title of the bill.
Bill No. 230654, an ordinance approving a substantial amendment to the Consolidated Plan 2022-2026 and Annual Action Plan 2022-2023 to add $163,204,000 in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery, CDBG-DR, funding, all under certain terms and conditions.
Thank you. Before we begin the hearing or testimony from the witnesses we have for today, everyone who has been invited to the meeting to testify should be aware that this public hearing is being recorded. Because the hearing is public, participants and viewers have no reasonable expectations of privacy. By continuing to be in the meeting, you are continuing to being recorded. Additionally, prior to recognizing Members for the questions or comments they have for witnesses, I will note for the record at this time that we will use the chat feature available in Microsoft Teams to allow Members to signify that they wish to be recognized. In order to comply with the Sunshine Act, the chat feature must only be used for this purpose. Mr. McMonagle, can you please call the panel we have to testify this morning for this bill.
Thank you, Sean. Good morning, Chair Squilla and members of the Finance Committee. My name is Pat Clark. I'm the City's Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Project Director in the Office of Director of Finance. I'm joined by my colleagues from the Division of Housing and Community Development in the Department of Planning and Development as well as the Department of Commerce. Bill No. 230654 is a substantial amendment to the City's Consolidated Plan 2022 through 2026 and the City's Annual Action Plan 2022 to 2023. This bill allocates approximately $163 million in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funds, commonly referred to as CDBG-DR from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. These funds were allocated for the City to advance on the disaster and recovery caused by Hurricane Ida. The CDBG-DR funds will specifically help address unmet recovery needs tied to housing, infrastructure, economic revitalization and the implementation of mitigation strategies to reduce the risk of future national hazards. The CDBG-DR Action Plan, which was submitted to HUD for review in August, outlines the City's proposed uses of funds. The CDBG-DR Action Plan was approved by HUD on October 19th. The City's permitted to amend the action plan and revise recovery programs to better address unmet needs. We will continue to assess the needs and available resources in collaboration with stakeholders, such as residents, community organizations and City Council throughout the six-year life cycle of the grant. Thank you for your consideration and the opportunity to testify. CDBG-DR funds are critical to (inaudible) long-term recovery from Hurricane Ida while advancing climate resilience efforts throughout Philadelphia. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have at this time. To permit timely processing of the grant agreement with HUD, suspension of the rules to permit first reading at the next City Council session is requested. Thank you.
Thank you. Are there any questions from anyone on the Committee? Councilmember Jones.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am in the 4th District and in definite concern, need for this grant. There is a thing as you know called the 100-year storm. And the cause of global warming it seems that storm comes every two years now. Fast-forwarding to our communities, there are about four communities that I know get hit every time it happens. Main Street is definitely one all the way down to East Falls and Manayunk. Eastwick is downstream from that, and I believe parts of Delaware Avenue in the Chairman's District. It happens every two years. It is a disaster that on Main Street alone impacted 53 businesses, some minor things like roof leaks and flooding of businesses, but it was major to places at the lower end of Main Street where they were decimated. After the flooding, came the mud. We had the Streets Department, shout-out to them. We had bulldozers and front-end lifters to remove that mud. The Fire Department had to spray that mud before it caked into concrete, and it disrupted businesses, impacted inventory, impacted sales because people were not allowed in that area to shop. In addition, people were delayed for work. We walked across a bridge. It took us an hour to go a block just to get to Main Street from the Belmont entrance through the County. What I want to ask you is how does this grant, particularly in the infrastructure area of the grant, have the potential to impact my District and others?
Thanks for your question, Councilmember. I think first off there's this unmet needs assessment portion of the action plan, and that captures a lot of the unmet need that was identified through various data sources, including FEMA, as well as local data sources through the City, and that helped identify different needs across infrastructure, housing, economic revitalization, and we also got feedback from the public as well as community organizations as well as many development corporations, East Falls as well, in addition to the Eastwick community, and that's consistent with the feedback we received. That unmet needs assessment helps inform how we program CDBG-DR dollars. And you'll notice in the action plan there are different buckets of funding. There's infrastructure, housing, economic revitalization, there's also mitigation as well. The action plan outlines pretty high-level parameters on how that funding can be used. And once we get our full approval from HUD and get the grant agreement signed, we'll be able to move forward with the selected projects based on that criteria. So there are a lot of different ways projects could be implemented through CDBG-DR, and we're looking forward to working with Council as well as community members to identify specific projects as soon as we get the grant agreement in place with HUD.
One particular project that comes to mind. There's a dam in Blue Marsh near Reading. Whenever there is a rain event, significant rain event, they release the dam that flows down the Schuylkill. That floods Main Street and part south. I do not think there is an advanced warning system in place. We know by Emergency Management that if that water advances being above a certain height, we know we're going to get it. But it would be nice if we had low-tech phone calls or high-tech kind of alerts that would allow better predictions of when they're going to release that water so that businesses can make preparations, move inventory to higher ground, apartment buildings can evacuate people who are in the path of that floodplain. It just seems as though we don't have a good neighbor system with that township that works with our Emergency Management to predict and prevent some of this stuff. And so, whatever project that we can glean from this grant that can give us early warning would be welcomed.
Understood, and we'll make note of that. And that's also consistent with feedback received from the public, better coordination planning in preparation for future emergency in advance of disasters, so that's also noted. So we're looking forward to working on that through the lifetime of the grant.
Just one other thing and I don't know whether this applies. Because of the frequency of the flooding, there are businesses at the lower end that cannot get private market insurance. They've had to self-insure. They've had to eat the losses. And I don't know working with our state partners is there a way to create a high-risk pool that these -- otherwise, they can't sustain these losses every other year. So I don't know if that's within the scope of the grant or within the study that could be done within that plan to figure that out because, you know, there are some businesses that just don't come back. And we need to try to keep that -- they've been through the pandemic, survived it. But Mother Nature as they say is undefeated. She wins every time. So whatever we can do infrastructure-wise to help them, I would appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Jones. And thank you, Patrick. And also too, I don't know if it's possible if we could share. I know there was a zip code list of affected areas where some of the challenges were. That's something you can share with the Committee so we can give it to Members so they can see exactly where the -- at least the large impacted areas are.
Yes, absolutely. I think one thing I just want to note on any data, I think it's a really helpful tool but doesn't always show the complete picture. And it's going to be FEMA individual assistance data, so we're happy to provide that. It's part of how we inform the analysis. So I just want to make sure that's noted when you look at a map. It's not the full picture, but it is helpful information.
Yeah, I know. When I first saw it too, I was looking and said, how come my District wasn't impacted, what are the challenges there. So I get it, and I think the goal is to get it to the people who really need it and to be able to address the concerns hopefully in the future. But are there any other questions from members of Council? (No response.)
Seeing none, no further questions from members, this is the only panel testifying. Mr. McMonagle, is there any people who will be testifying for public comment?
Okay. Seeing that there's none for public comment, is there any additional comments or questions from the Committee? (No response.)
There being no further questions from members of the Committee, no 20 witnesses to testify, I will ask if there's anyone present in the hearing whose name we have failed to call the witness to offer testimony on the bill being considered today? (No response.)
Hearing none, I want to thank all the panels and witnesses for participation today. Thank you, Patrick. We value your input. I now invite all panels and witnesses to disconnect from the meeting before we go into our public meeting. We will now pause the proceedings briefly as participants leave. This concludes the public hearing of the Committee. We will now go into the public meeting to consider the actions to be taken on the bills today. Councilmember -- I mean, Mr. McMonagle, can you please call the roll.
Sean, did you hear me say present? I'm sorry. This is Councilwoman Bass.
Councilmember Bass, do you have the script? (No response.)
We're entering the public meeting on Bill 17 No. 230654. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Bass for a motion on Bill No. 230654.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that Bill No. 230654 be reported from this Committee with a favorable recommendation and further move that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at the next session of Council.
Chair notes for the record that Councilmember Jones seconds the motion. It has been moved and properly seconded that Bill No. 11 230654 be approved. All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the motion carries. Bill 20 No. 230654 be reported from this Committee with a favorable recommendation and further move that the rules of Council be suspended as to permit the first reading of this bill at the next session of Council.
That will conclude the meeting. This concludes the business before the Committee on Finance. Thank you all very much for your attendance. Everybody have a great day.
Sorry for the delay. (Hearing concluded at 10:29 a.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. __________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL