COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Thursday, November 21, 2024 6:10 p.m. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILWOMAN NINA AHMAD COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS COUNCILWOMAN KENDRA BROOKS COUNCILMAN MICHAEL DRISCOLL COUNCILWOMAN JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILWOMAN KATHERINE GILMORE RICHARDSON COUNCILMAN JIM HARRITY COUNCILMAN CURTIS J. JONES, JR. COUNCILWOMAN RUE LANDAU COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA COUNCILMAN NICOLAS O'ROURKE COUNCILMAN ANTHONY PHILLIPS COUNCILMAN MARK SQUILLA COUNCILMAN ISAIAH THOMAS COUNCILMAN JEFFREY YOUNG, JR. BILLS: 240966, 240967, 240968, 240969, 240970, 240971, 240972, 240973 - - -
This is the public hearing of the Committee of the Whole regarding Bill Nos. 240966, 240967, 240968, 240969, 240970, 240971, 240972 and 240973. I want to thank all of you for being here with us this evening. Before we call the roll, I would like to announce that we have translation services available for anyone present at today's hearing. If needed, please go to the table to my left. Services are offered in Mandarin and Cantonese. Mr. Christmas, will you please call the roll to take attendance.
Present. Thank you. A quorum of this Committee is present and this hearing is now called to order. Mr. Christmas, will you please read the titles of the bills.
Bill No. P. (the "76ers"), or another entity affiliated with the 76ers, under which ArenaCo or other 76ers related entity would sublease the Arena Site and cause an arena to be constructed on it, including a multi-purpose sports and entertainment facility and ancillary, accessory, and related amenities, improvements, and infrastructure (the "Arena") and agree to other related conditions; (5) upon the expiration or termination of the Sublease or other circumstances set forth in the Sublease, convey fee simple title to the Arena Site to PAID for disposition to ArenaCo; (6) grant, accept, amend, relocate and extinguish easements, agreements, conditions, covenants and restrictions encumbering or benefiting the Arena Site and any City owned property adjacent to the Arena Site for the benefit of the Arena Site to facilitate construction and operation of the Arena; (7) enter into a direct operating covenants agreement among the 76ers, PAID and the City, under which the 76ers agree to play substantially all of their regular season and playoff home games in the Arena; and (8) take all actions necessary and appropriate to accomplish the intent and purpose of this Ordinance; all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 240967, authorizing and approving the execution and delivery of a Service Agreement between the City of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development relating to the provision by the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development of certain project-related services to promote, among other things, the growth and expansion of business, commerce and tourism within the City of Philadelphia in connection with the development of a multi-purpose sports and entertainment facility, including an arena to accommodate National Basketball Association games, and family entertainment, community, retail and other uses; authorizing and approving the obligation of the City of Philadelphia to pay in full when due the Service Fee and other amounts payable under the Service Agreement and covenanting to make necessary appropriations for such purposes; and authorizing City officials to take necessary or appropriate actions to accomplish the intent and purpose of the ordinance, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 240968, authorizing the revision of lines and grades on a portion of City Plan No. 307 by striking from the City Plan and vacating Filbert Street from 10th Street to 11th Street, under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 240969, authorizing the revision of lines and grades on a portion of City Plan No. 307 by striking from the City Plan and vacating certain aerial portions of 10th Street between Market Street and Filbert Street, under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 240970, authorizing CBL Arena, LLC. and its successor(s) in interest to construct, own, and maintain various right of way encroachments in the vicinity of 1001-19 Market Street, 1025 Market Street and 1001-25 Filbert Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107, under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 240971, amending Title 14 of the Philadelphia Code, entitled Zoning and Planning, by amending certain definitions relating to signs; creating an "Arena Area" within the "/CTR, Center City Overlay District" overlay; and making related changes, including a master plan requirement and changes to accessory sign controls; all in connection with zoning rules for a proposed arena in Center City; and approving a master plan for the Arena Area; all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 240972, amending Title of the Philadelphia Code, 7 entitled "Zoning and Planning," by 8 revising certain provisions of 9 section 14-906, entitled "Market 10 Street East Sign Regulations," all 11 under certain terms and conditions. 12 Bill No.
240973, 13 approving the amendment of a 14 neighborhood improvement district in the area generally bounded by, and including, 11th Street to the West, Filbert Street to the North, 8th Street to the East and Market Street to the South, with the exception of certain condominium units at 801 Market Street Condominium not included in the District, known as the Gallery Neighborhood Improvement District, to remove certain portions of such property generally bounded by Filbert Street on the north, 10th Street on the east, 11th Street on the west, and Market Street on the south from such District in accordance with the provisions of the Community and Economic Improvement Act, and under certain terms and conditions.
Thank you very much. Mr. Christmas, will you please read the name of our first speaker.
Would Kelly Sheard and Calvin Williams please come forward. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Also, would Justin Dula and Emilio Weber also please come forward.
The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier.
I also want to acknowledge the presence of Councilmember Rue Landau. I also want to recognize the presence of Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke. And I'd also like to recognize the presence of Councilman Isaiah Thomas.
Kelly Sheard, Calvin Williams, Justin Dula and Emilio Weber, please come forward. You will each have two minutes to speak.
And also for the record I'd like to recognize the presence of Councilmember Mark Squilla. (Councilman Phillips.)
This is why on time means something. Chair recognizes Councilmember Anthony Phillips. Is anybody else here? Councilmember O'Neill? (No response.)
Let's rock and roll. Gotta have a good heart. We're working today. We're working. Please state your name an please begin your testimony.
Kelly Sheard. My name is Kelly Sheard. I'm a West Philly resident and a single mother of a child in Philadelphia public schools. I live in the 4th District and have been following along with the proposal for the arena and want to register my grave concerns. As a resident that takes public transportation, I'm deeply concerned that SEPTA, already operating on a shoestring budget, a wing and a prayer, has already indicated that they cannot assume the cost for the infrastructure changes required to accommodate Sixers fans in this new arena. Who is going to pay for this. I'm deeply concerned that the proposed deal once again allows a major institution significant tax breaks that effectively siphon tax revenue from our School District, which is also operating on a shoestring budget, a wing and a prayer. The entire premise of payments in lieu of taxes and the promise of jobs, though those jobs aren't the ones paying the family- sustaining wages we need, is insulting at best and exploitative at a base level. Finally, as a Black woman I am deeply concerned that opposition to this rushed-business- as-usual plan is framed as the concern of a fringe group of Chinatown NIMBYs who are against progress for the city. My Black West Philadelphia self stands before you as clear-headed and engaged as ever and I stand in solidarity against any half-baked plan for any of us that continues to take from us more than it could ever give. Given the incoming federal administration, we need our local government to prioritize the safety and well-being of its residents and not fall for the okey-doke. Thank you. (Applause.)
Please state your name for the record and please begin.
Okay. My name is Justin Dula and I'm a resident of the 1st District in the Gayborhood, and I'm here to speak on all of the Arena bills with a particular focus on 240966, 240969 and 240971. In addition to being a resident, I'm a certified planner through the American Institute of Certified Planners and currently serve as the Chair of the American Planning Association's LGBTQ Planning Division. Developers often come around like the monorail salesman from The Simpsons with an exciting flash (inaudible) limited offer. I know it's a dated reference. If folks don't recognize it, you can look it up sort of after the hearing as a way to unwind. But the system is often the same. The development proposal of the arena fits that standard proposal mold for requiring immediate action or else the project will be moved to another town. Developers label those residents who dare to question the project NIMBY obstructionists opposed to change, while the developers claim a silent majority of residents do want the development. I would counter that the majority of Philadelphia's residents opinions are captured through proactive community engagement planning already conducted by the City's award-winning multi-year Philadelphia 2035 plan. That comprehensive planning effort documents agreed-upon long-term vision for the City created through extensive public input with residents and allows independent elected officials such as you to fulfill a community vision for the city. Philadelphia 2035, particularly the Central District plan, calls for development and exact contradiction to the proposal with a focus on restoring pedestrian connections, reintroducing streets, encouraging appropriately scaled urban (inaudible) development, introducing a variety of parcel sizes and frontages, restoring street walls and urban enclosures, encouraging street level activity and ground floor uses and focusing on places instead of project-based redevelopment. So I call on City Council to serve as the voice of Philadelphia's residents that have called for redevelopment of Market Street that's very much different than that proposed by the developers. Thank you. (Applause.)
Please state your name for the record and please begin your testimony.
Good evening, Councilmembers. My name is Emilio Weber. I'm a District 5 resident. Thank you for being here and listening to all of our comments. I'm sure you'll hear some of the same things but I hope you really do listen. My public comment is in opposition to the arena deal and associated bills. If you vote yes, you are choosing the side of billionaires against the will of the people here. Now, I know you have all been here for many hours and we'll hear many of the same talking points, but really listen. Take stock of who's in the room tonight. Take stock of the energy. This is about lives, not just jobs. If you vote yes, can you in good conscience ever say you again work for the people of Philadelphia. Be clear in your political advertisements and campaign speeches. And still some of you look ready to ignore the voices of the majority of the city who are against this development. And, At-large Councilmembers, don't forget your vote when election time comes up again. I know we won't. Developing downtown arenas are not the boon for development that people claim they are. You've heard economics experts in researchers come in and testify on the false promises of downtown stadium developments. As a graduate student in urban studies, I learned about the toll stadiums take on those same downtowns. The No Arena in Chinatown Solidarity group has thoroughly researched the impact studies, legislation and reporting on this agreement. Make no mistake it's a bad deal for the city of Philadelphia as a whole. 76 DevCo is evading hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. I know some of you members are making sense of some of the facts and I thank you for that. Thank you to my Councilmember Young for standing with the people on this issue and make sure to listen to some of those people at home in our district too. Now, I know we want development and we certainly want good jobs. I was a proud union member and union organizer to the Building Trades unions. It doesn't have to be this project. Labor needs to be the way forward to a better world for all of us. Let's work together and take down this billionaire class. The facts clearly indicating the terrible deal are only piling up. There's no saving this. Let's come together and find a better site in our city to give the Sixers their next home. There's time. SEPTA's report indicated that just the staggering burden that will be placed on them to the tune of $20 to $25 million annually, and that is with the agency at a fiscal cliff, the Sixers agreed to more meetings. Why haven't they agreed to more money if they want this to go through? Why did Mayor Parker not negotiate better? Why are you all okay to go along with it? It's irresponsible and irreprehensible to vote for an arena with this deal. Vote against this deal. Listen to the people of this city and don't succumb to the dreams of billionaires. (Applause.)
Would Jenny Chen, Ann Dixon, Kali Thomas and Kareem Boyd please come forward. Again, that's Jenny Chen, Anne Dixon, Kali Thomas and Kareem Boyd please. You will each have two minutes to speak. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Hello. State your name for the record and please begin.
Anne Dixon. I am grateful for building trades. Building and repairing are major skills. We definitely need new buildings and houses to be built and we need old buildings to be repaired. We do not need an arena in Chinatown. As a lifelong Democrat, I am so disillusioned with the party. Over the years it has moved more and more to the right. As others share my disillusionment, Trump won because so many Dems didn't vote. In the last mayoral election only, 30 percent of eligible voters participated. The fact that this billionaire vanity project is being shoved down our throats by Democrats while our schools suffer is a punch in the gut. Thank you, Councilmembers Kendra Brooks and Nicolas O'Rourke, for standing with the people of the city to oppose the arena. Thank you, Councilmembers Jamie Gauthier, Rue Landau, Jeffrey Young for questioning the process. I am grateful that they and Katherine Gilmore Richardson, Nina Ahmad and Cindy Bass asked good questions in the hearings. There are so many questions that the impact study hasn't answered. Who will pay for needed extra police during game days? Where will tailgaters park? Who will pay for any needed changes to traffic lights? How will the arena affect traffic in Old City how will it affect Vision Zero? How will a realtor be chosen to assess the properties that need to be bought out for the arena? Who knows? City Council, this project is so unpopular. No 7 registered neighborhood organizations support it. I urge you to bravely band together and go against Councilmanic prerogative and defeat this disaster. (Applause.)
My name is Jenny Chen. I live in the 3rd Council District and I'm here tonight to speak on behalf of Bill 23 240966. I want to ask you all to take a moment to imagine your favorite neighborhood, the place where you feel comfortable being yourself, where you and your family feel safe, where you feel proud of your culture and where you can celebrate your traditions. For me that neighborhood is Chinatown. Growing up, Chinatown was the one place in the entire Philadelphia region where my first generation immigrant parents felt comfortable spending time, talking with people and buying groceries and other basic supplies. Today Chinatown is the primary reason I go to Center City. It's where I meet friends, celebrate holidays and build community. In the future I hope Chinatown can provide all these same important resources for my son, who is now a little over a year old and is here tonight. However, this proposed arena is an existential threat to Chinatown and the City more broadly. The City's own studies show that a majority of Chinatown businesses will be harmed, effectively destroying the key resources so many people rely on and potentially costing Philadelphia more than $1 billion in lost tax revenue. This disastrous project is being rushed through City Council without a full understanding of its environmental impacts, public health effects and true economic costs. I urge our leaders to take a step back and provide an opportunity for us as a city to conduct a true comprehensive planning process to determine how to address the challenges in Market East so that we can benefit all Philadelphians, not just a few out-of-town billionaires. I want to close by thanking my own District Councilmember Jamie Gauthier as well as Councilmembers O'Rourke, Brooks, Landau, Young for standing with the majority of Philadelphians who oppose this project. I hope our other Councilmembers find the empathy and courage to do the same. Thank you. (Applause.)
Thank you. My name is Kareem Boyd, West Philadelphia, born and raised. Thank you to the City Council Committee of the Whole for allowing me to testify and allowing this community to testify. During the 76 Arena legislation process, my name is Kareem Boyd and I serve as the business agent for the International Alliance of Theatrical Staging Employees, Philadelphia Local 8. First, I want to express my gratitude for the thoughtful deliberation and integrity demonstrated by this Committee. Your role in evaluating the potential impact of future developments despite the uncertainty they bring is not an easy task. Yet like the successful committees before you, you face this challenge with sound judgment. As I left work today at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, I reflected on the committees that once decided to transform the old railroad terminal into what is now the Convention Center and Reading Terminal Market. Could they have foreseen that in 2023 the project would generate 360 million economic dollars to impact this city, along with 18.5 million in local tax revenue and 20 million in state tax revenue? Could they have predicted that their decisions would sustain more than 187,000 hospitality- related jobs in our region? While I didn't have the privilege to thank them then, I feel obligated to do so now, recognizing the long-term benefits their foresight has delivered. Today I speak not for myself but for future generations of Philadelphians who stand to benefit from the gainful employment and entrepreneurial opportunities that this Arena project could provide. Approving this legislation would integrate the 76ers Arena into the vibrant downtown life of Philadelphia, creating pathways for sustainable careers. The Building Trades unions are already recruiting. They're already training and shaping the workforce of tomorrow. The 76ers partnership with (inaudible) locally are helping to transition students into the hospitality industry. We are not mere shareholders. We are stakeholders invested in the future of this city. When addressing the valid concerns of this community, I urge the Council to focus on the potential of positive impact over the fears of the unknown. This decision is not just about today. It's about creating a thriving Philadelphia for years to come. Thank you. (Applause.)
Please state your name for the record and please begin.
My name is Kali Thomas, and I am here in opposition to the development of the proposed arena and in support of the Chinatown community. I have been a resident of Philadelphia for four years and live in Brewerytown. I'm a grad student at Thomas Jefferson University pursuing a Master's in couple and family therapy. I take SEPTA daily which ultimately gets me to my destination. However, I am often frustrated by its inconsistency, lack of communication and outdatedness. I take the 48 bus to commute to school and get on at the Arch and 11th stop in Chinatown to head home. The construction of the arena would cause my commute to be unbearably slow due to gridlock, which would require me to take an indirect route instead. The proposed arena is going to add an immense amount of stress to a public transportation system that is underfunded and needs a large amount of resources to improve it. It is nonsensical that SEPTA is in a financial deficit and that the arena would add an unnecessary financial burden of $25 million. It is unclear how the arena is going to be funded and it is inevitable that taxpayers will be paying for it. Instead of my taxes being used for a project that will benefit a few wealthy people, I would like my taxes to benefit the whole community and be utilized for improving public transportation, education, housing, social services, almost anything else other than this arena. As a mental health professional, it is important to acknowledge that the displacement of individuals and businesses in Chinatown will negatively impact people's mental health. Being displaced causes people to lose connections with their community and sends the message that the government does not care about them or value their contributions, which puts them at risk of depression and other mental health challenges. City Council, I am asking that you do your duty of serving the people of Philadelphia by not approving this arena. If not, you will be sending a message to the community that you are a leader who makes decisions based on your own interests and those of the wealthy. Thank you. (Applause.)
Will Dylan O'Donoghue, Britney Whitley, Asantewaa Nkrumeh-Ture and Steven Michael Buller, please come forward. Again, Dylan O'Donoghue, Britney Whitley, Ansetewaa Nkrumeh-Ture and Steven Michael Buller, please come forward. You'll each have two minutes to speak. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Please state your name for the record and please begin.
All right. I am Britney Whitley. I am a resident of Chinatown and a member of the queer community, and also I work as a teacher who take public transportation to work every day. I am currently -- given the time I have tonight, I am currently going to speak on the issue of public transportation even though the arena, if built, would impact many aspects of my life. I would like to thank Councilmembers Brooks, O'Rourke, Young, Landau and Gauthier for speaking out against this arena and how this process has been rushed and has gone against -- has ignored the will of the many, many Philadelphians who do not want this arena built. And speaking as somebody who takes the Broad Ridge Spur to work every day, looking at the cuts that SEPTA is likely going to have to make come January, I am deeply concerned that my route to work is about to become a lot more inconvenient. And if this arena was to be built, SEPTA simply would -- I'm concerned that SEPTA would have to cut even more simply because they aren't going to have the money to provide the service needed to support the game, the games. And SEPTA on their website today estimated the service for arena is going to cost them the additional $20 million to $25 million per year. And with them already struggling, we do not have an answer as to where the money to pay for that extra service is going to come from. We don't think -- we already heard that it's likely the 76ers owners aren't going to pay, it is unlikely the City will pay. So again, where is that money going to come from to avoid the downtown gridlock during games to prevent traffic from choking out neighborhoods like Chinatown, like the Gayborhood and Jefferson Hospital. All right. Again, thank you again for listen -- for inviting me, for allowing me to testify to this. And just please consid -- I ask you again please deeply consider all the unanswered questions, especially in light of the fiscal crisis that SEPTA is facing going into this upcoming year. Thank you. (Applause.)
Please state your name for the record. Please begin your testimony.
I'm Stephen Michael Buller, resident of the 2nd District. I was a former teacher in Philadelphia. Thank you for allowing us to do this tonight. This is the first time taking part in a public process like this so this is kind of exciting. Sorry. I'm usually used to just talking without a mic so this is weird to me. I'm usually in a gymnasium, but tonight I'm here standing in opposition to the arena as somebody that is not a natural- born citizen of Philadelphia. I'm from Lancaster County. I've seen how rural communities and working- class communities are impacted by corporations and billionaires, and I think we need to take really serious consideration that this is a strong moment for us as a city to signal to the country that we're here to do something a little different. We're here for the working-class people. We want to do better for people and I think that starts with this Council. So I would appreciate your serious consideration and thank you for this moment. (Applause.)
Good evening, everyone. Reverend Nicolas, you better pray for me. All right. Good evening, everyone. My name is Asantewaa Nkumerah-Ture. I'm an organizer with the Philadelphia Tenants Union which is a member of the Save Chinatown Coalition. I am also an organizer with the Justice for Angel Davis Now Campaign, also Black Philly for Chinatown, and the only pronoun I'm using this evening is co-conspirator with the people of Chinatown. Our beloved Chinatown has a proud history of over 150 years. Thus, we will organize and defend it every step of the way. From the brilliant minds of our research team, just want to share a few things with you. First of all, is this a sweetheart deal for the billionaires or any other supporters of this land grab? Why should these billionaires only pay $5 million per year in taxes to the City and School District and then every 10 years the amount would only increase by 10 percent? 76ers co-owner David Blitzer is Global Head of Tactical Opportunities for Blackstone, a private equity firm that is this country's largest landlord, owning 350,000 units of rental housing. Given our city's current housing crisis, please let's keep this in mind. Looking at Bill 240966, a measly $50 million is an insult to this city and regarding community benefits agreements, who holds developers accountable if they try to sneak out of such agreements? These are some questions that we have. Now, some people have talked about priorities for the city. I think this arena should not be a priority but instead let's make a priority our public schools. Let's make them safer and let's remove asbestos. Let's do that instead. As a priority, let's remember Angel Davis and Latese Bethea, who were shot last year doing an LTO eviction. They've been living on GoFundMe for over a year and a half. Now, the holidays are coming and they have repeatedly applied for Social Security benefits and they have been denied. Let's make them and their children a priority. With respect to SEPTA Transport Workers Union 234, District Council 33 and SMART Local 1594, let's make them a priority. Let's pay them a raise that keeps up with inflation. Let's lobby Harrisburg for fair funding and let's make sure they get a minimum three-year contract. These and other things this city needs should be our priorities. Now, in closing I just want to say -- Reverend, pray for me. I'm a very confident and the brilliant minds and courageous organizers we have as part of the Save Chinatown Coalition. Thus, I say humbly but unapologetically this arena will not be built. You heard what I said. You heard what I said. This arena will not be -- this arena will not be built. We will defend Chinatown with our hearts and like David against Goliath, we will strike a final blow and run these billionaires out of this city. And when this campaign is over, and that will be soon. When this campaign is over, we will have a victory party. We're going to have it at 10th and Arch streets and I'm going to be the DJ, and we're going to dance the night away to one of my favorite tunes from the 1970s, Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na, Hey-ey Goodbye. Thank you. (Applause.)
Will William King, M.D., Jeffrey Linden, Brian Wallace and Kenny Chiu, please come forward. Again, that's William King, M.D., Jeffrey Linden, Brian Wallace and Kenny Chiu, please come forward. You will each have two minutes to speak. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Good evening. My name is Jeff Linden. I'm an academic advisor and instructor at Temple University. I live in Philadelphia's District 1 and I'm here tonight as a concerned citizen to voice my opposition to the proposed 76ers Arena. I echo my neighbors' concerns about the existential threat it poses to Chinatown and the public health risks brought on by the increased congestion close to Jefferson Health -- feel like you're going to speak to that better than I am -- but according to this impact study to avoid gridlock around this new arena, the 75 percent of fans that currently drive to games at Wells Fargo would need to drop to only 40 percent taking cars to this arena, requiring a massive increase in fans taking public transportation. You've already heard that SEPTA has said they couldn't afford the necessary increases in rail service. The billionaire owners could afford to pay for this but they just don't want to, so presumably this is another cost that will be passed along to us either in the form of tax hikes, fare increases or the very gridlock that we are seeking to prevent. This is evidently of little concern to the team owners who regularly fly to games in helicopters, but it is a concern to my neighbors, my colleagues and my students who make up your voters. Those are the people who are going to have to live in this arena's shadow, go to work in its shadow and for those unlucky enough to be in an ambulance on a game day it is not hyperbole to say that they may die in its shadow. And if this gets forced through against public sentiment, we will not rejoice at the revenue it brings in because we will not share in it. We will look at that number and learn the dollar amount at which our elected officials stopped representing us and started representing someone else. I thank those of you who have been standing up for our interests and I call on any Councilmembers still uncertain to join them. Thank you for your time. (Applause.)
State your name for the record and please begin, sir.
Yeah. I'm Dr. Bill King. I'm a pediatrician here in the city of Philadelphia for the past 30 years. I work in West Philadelphia. I've taken care of all the Black babies in West Philadelphia. If I haven't taken care of you, that means you haven't come to West Philadelphia. I also have taken care of almost all the Black babies that Al Gaskins didn't take care of in Germantown. What I'm saying is --
Point of information. Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, was this your pediatrician when you was a baby?
Not yet. Jannie Blackwell will tell you, yes, I am their -- but she's coming, she's coming to us. I'm here to warn the City Council. I'm a pediatrician. I talk to babies all day, and the fact is every good or bad idea is simple. It can be explained simply. This is simply a bad idea and there's one reason, gridlock. You can't fix the gridlock. It is a bad, bad problem. I getting over here took minutes just to drive 6 on the Vine and try to come in, just 7 to see what it would be like to 8 drive on the Vine and come in during 9 normal rush hour which we do all the 10 time, 25 minutes or so. 11 It's a tough commute when 12 you're going in and out of the city. 13 This is a different problem. This 14 is event gridlock. Now, when you're 15 going to create event gridlock in 16 the center of a city, that is 17 probably the plan of a super 18 villain. I think this is 19 potentially the plan of a super 20 villain. 21 Why would someone take an 22 arena from an area like South 23 Philadelphia where you have two 24 bridges, three freeways and four different ways of egress and you have convenience for everybody, all the fans in the Delaware Valley, to play football, basketball and any other sport. You can play hockey there. You can play, right. The only thing you don't play there is soccer and that's along the freeway as well along the riverfront. You know what's a great place to put an arena along the riverfront. You know what's a terrible place to put an arena? In the center of a city. You know who would do that? You know who would do that, only a super villain. And you know how much they would have to pay you to do something that terrible, a billion dollars. They would have to pay you a billion dollars to do something that stupid. Let me explain why. We have three trauma centers. We have Temple. That's north. Everything north of Girard or so comes to Temple, northeast all the way out. Everything west, the Schuylkill and west, that's Penn Presbyterian. The only and third trauma center in the Delaware Valley is Jefferson. Jefferson is two to three blocks from 10th and Market. I know you're not going to put a giant 18,000-person expeller that throws 18,000 people out into the middle of the street and blocks traffic for two hours. Now, these people are not going to go to Chinatown and eat the delicious food because they just ate in the arena. But what they're going to do is be angry and mull around looking for their cars, their 5,000 cars. Why would we want 5,000 more cars between Broad and my trauma center? This is a bad idea. The Vine -- if we here are shot, which we will not be because the Sergeant-at-Arms is excellent, we're not going to be hurt here, but if we are, we will go to Jefferson. But what we don't need is for a Sixers game to let out if we're trying to go to Jefferson because that will take the 5 minutes, lights and sirens, and turn it into 25 minutes. It is exhausting. Jimmy Lo will show you that it is exhausting when you try to do CPR more than five minutes in the back of an ambulance. You can do it in the hospital. In the ambulance after 5 minutes we are fried. If you make it 25, people die. If we don't get there for their strokes, people die. If we can't get the tourniquets on, people die. We can do stuff on site. We can do stuff in the hospital. We can't do stuff in the ambulance, and you are blocking the egress of my ambulance when my patients are trying to go everywhere from Girard to the Walt Whitman from river to river, every single patient that needs to go anywhere has to go to Jefferson and you are blocking the egress of my patients. This is unacceptable and you have to change your mind about the gridlock you have now inevitably created for the city and there's no good reason for it. (Applause.)
Please state your name for the record and begin --
My name is Kenny Chiu. I'm a lifelong constituent of Mr. Squilla, but I'm now a student at Penn so I'm a constituent of Ms. Gauthier. I was born and raised in Philadelphia Chinatown to two working-class immigrant parents. My mom pushed hot dim sum carts at Ocean Harbor Restaurant. My dad worked construction in Chinatown with other Chinese immigrants and my grandmother worked at the Convention Center and the Eagles games as an Aramark employee. I grew up in Hing Wah Yuen, a senior affordable housing complex built in Philadelphia Chinatown right next to the Vine Street Expressway that cleared several blocks of Chinatown's businesses and housing. Before Hing Wah Yuen was built, the Federal Bureau of Prisons proposed a 750-bed detention center in the footprint of what would become the affordable housing complex that I grew up in. I come here today to voice my opposition to 76 Place. If you're a District Councilmember that needs revitalization, specifically an arena next to a hospital, a fire station and an ethnic working-class community, please ask the Sixers to build in your District and leave Chinatown alone. For years Chinatown's youth have listened to paternalistic representatives tell us what is best for our community. It has not fazed us from marching in the streets, speaking up at town halls or calling our City Councilmembers to oppose the arena. Councilmembers, I hope you have heard us over these years. If you have children yourselves, they will see that the youth standing up to protect their communities will win with the power of the people or lose to billionaires who don't have to fight like we do. I may still be young, but I understand that dark money, lobbying, secret meetings and political donations exist. I understand those are the reasons why billionaire owners have not felt the need to talk to our community once have the courage to govern for your constituents, not for human rights abusers. I'm not naive to corruption, but I hope that we will win. Our aunties, uncles, grandmas, grandpas and our children, we never ask for anything. We keep our heads down. We work hard hoping to pass down our earnings and our community of Chinatown to the next generation. We've taken one for the for team of Philadelphia. We've actually taken many. We've lost hundreds of homes and businesses through the Vine Street Expressway, Convention Center, Communal Rail Tunnel and more. It's time for Team Philadelphia to stand up for Chinatown. (Applause.)
Hi. Good evening. My name is Brian Wallace and I'm a (inaudible) museum curator in the city of Philadelphia and around the city and now is an elementary school teacher. Couple of quick points: First, the rhetoric used to justify the dislocation this arena would cause reminds me of so-called urban renewal quite apart from the generally poor outcomes from that historical approach to maintaining the health of our cities and, yes, there are exceptions to this poor record. This part of the city doesn't need renewal, per se. It needs some subtle, nuanced context- specific improvements, commercial and public, that are in keeping with the texture of this neighborhood and that represent realistic and also aspirational goals for its future. This neighborhood absolutely does not need a money-making physical structure with event-driven traffic rhythms that just happen to correspond with the profit motives of a small number of outsiders. My next point is best summarized -- and I swear this is a coincidence. My next point is best summarized by reference to the Hippocratic Oath that has guided doctors for millennia. First, do no 11 harm. In the arena case, instead of expensive treatments that turn out to benefit the hospital more than the patient, we have a corporate entity that can easily afford the tax giveaways and other so-called community benefits meant to act like bandages and painkillers for this deal. Does anybody here really think these represent a true sacrifice? I can imagine a city planner 10 years from now emerging from a meeting about the future of some future Chinatown badly harmed by this project, looking like a downcast doctor with bloody gloves and saying, we did everything we could but ultimately we had to kill the neighborhood in order to save it. Final point, somehow someone at some point has decided that tourists visiting Philadelphia are going to walk all the way from Old City to Center City and back and that Chinatown is the only impediment to this otherwise blissful and history-steeped stroll. Solution, more retail, let's shop our way all the way from 1704 to 2016. That's Elfreth's Alley to og LOVE Park, right. This is the contemptuous vision the arena developers have created on our behalf, but it's really on their own behalf or on behalf of their property holdings and their branding exercises and their invested financial entities. Let's get real, a slab-sided arena chopping two-thirds of two blocks off of Chinatown won't help tourists or any of the rest of us ignore all the parking lots like missing teeth in this part of the city. These lots, while admittedly convenient for the future sports fan, are profoundly off-putting to the pedestrian, then are essentially generational wealth set to tip the scales on the next big property development debate, right. And neither retail nor an arena will afford the working people -- and neither retail nor an arena will afford the working people of this city any significant pleasure or relief from their toil. Unless they're working low-wage jobs with no health care, they'll forever be on the outside looking in. And one more point just because the doctor got an awful lot of time I'm going to just stick my or in on his behalf. When I worked at Moore College I had an epileptic seizure and was whisked at high speed in the ambulance through the city streets, as I thought about it, right across the property that we're now talking to you to get to the hospital. So you can keep me in mind as well when you make your vote. Thank you.
Will Tommy Ly, Lily Cavanagh, Carla Steine and Sam Sam, please come forward. Again, Tommy Ly, Lily Cavanagh, Carla Steine and Sam Sam, please come forward. You will each have two minutes to speak. Thank you. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Please state your name for the record and proceed. My name is Tommy Lee. I go to Roman Catholic High School as a senior and Chinatown has always felt like a second home to me. Growing up I've been deeply shaped by the vibrant community, traditions and people here. It's where I've learned about my culture, found lifelong friendships and developed the strong sense of belonging. I'm a youth basketball player and lion dancer with the Philadelphia Suns, a community organization that's been a cornerstone in Chinatown for decades through this -- decades. Through the Suns I have many privileges of performing lion dances during Lunar New Year, which is one of my favorite times of the year. The streets of Chinatown come alive with the sounds of drums, the crackling of firecrackers and the brilliant colors of the lion dance. It's a time of joy, unity and celebration, a perfect reflection of what Chinatown means to so many of us. The Suns led by Harry Leong have been more than just a team to me. They've been a family teaching me the values of hard work, teamwork and cultural pride through basketball and lion dance. I've learned to embrace my identity and contribute to preserving the rich history of Chinatown. This is why I'm strongly opposed to the proposed arena. Chinatown is more than just a place. It's a home, a cultural hub in a safe place for families like mine and many others. An arena would disrupt everything that makes this community special. It threatens the small businesses, the traditions and the sense of belonging that Chinatown provides for me and so many others. Chinatown is irreplaceable and we must protect it for future generations. Thank you. (Applause.)
Hi. My name is Lily Cavanagh. I'm a 3rd grade teacher at FACTS Charter School in Chinatown. I'm nervous in front of a microphone, but I'm imagining all 56 of my 3rd graders standing behind me. My triplet kindergarten students also attends FACTS Charter School and they love school. Every day they come home telling me great stories about all their teachers and all their classmates. Last night I saw Angela Davis speak and she said something that's been sitting with me really deeply. She spoke about the necessity of revolutionary patience. She spoke about how it takes a long time to build the world that you want to see in your community. Two weeks ago I attended a meeting with my Councilmember Councilwoman Gauthier at Sayre Rec Center where she was talking about finally having funding to open up one of the I think three indoor city pools that's been closed for almost 10 years, and I feel like that is an example of revolutionary patience. Our community has been waiting almost a decade to get this pool reopened that has shaped the community so many people at this meeting were talking about, like how important this pool was and this rec center is to their community, and that is the example of things that we need to have in our city, more indoor pools, more rec centers, more avenues for our community to be stronger. I asked my students instead of choice time if they would like to send a message to City Council and these are all of the postcards that they sent and I have picked a few to read. So here we go, from 3rd graders. They want to speak to you: Even though I cannot vote Chinatown is my home -- she lives on Arch Street -- and you're not going to take it away from me because a good mayor listens to the citizens big or small and I am small, but I can say no arena in the heart of our city. (Applause.)
No arena in Chinatown because I need education, I need school. I do not want the arena because I do not want businesses to close here. People live here, people eat here and people learn here. No arena in Chinatown. I do not want an arena in Chinatown because the school is in Chinatown and I learn there. No arena in Chinatown please. This is not what we need. We need homes and food please. I don't want the arena because Chinatown means a lot to me. My grandma and grandpa live in Chinatown so I don't want them to move away. And one more last thing, when it is hot I love to go to Mr. Wish and get a nice cold drink. Don't build the arena in Chinatown. People care about Chinatown. They live in Chinatown. People will be sad because Chinatown is the only place that feels like home and it keeps getting smaller. Why can't the 76ers just take the land that was offered to them or they can't stay where they are, at least the Flyers shares the space with them so you don't have to go around knocking down precious buildings. I don't want the arena in Chinatown because my mom and many other people work very hard to earn money there and be successful. If the arena is built there, many people and my mom might lose their jobs and might not be successful. If you want Philadelphia to be strong, you should not build an arena in Chinatown. If the arena is built in Chinatown, it will not feel the same. I don't want the 76ers because Chinatown is special to me.
Ma'am, please summarize your testimony, but I would ask if you could share the 3x5 cards with the Sergeant-at-Arms for dissemination for members of Council to read.
People need their beauty sleep and it will be loud. You shouldn't let them build because everyone in our classroom loves the Fashion District and you don't have to make it in Philly like Pa isn't the only place in the world. Make our world a better place please. Okay. (Applause.)
Hi. My name is Carla Steine and I live in Councilman Squilla's District. I also am a tour guide and over the last few months, I've spoken to a number of tour guides who provide tours around the city. I have not found any who are in favor of the arena. Here are a few specific concerns we have: First, there is a natural corridor between the Historic District and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a number of sites sit along this route including Chinatown and Reading Terminal Market. Tour buses, tourists using public transportation, tourists paying for rides as well as pedestrian tourists will all struggle to navigate around the construction area during the six-year construction phase and later during games and other events at the arena. Reading Terminal Market gets 17,000 visitors every single day. In 2026 we will be celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Philadelphia that year will also be host to six World Cup games. According to Marianne Ruane, President of the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides, 99 percent of World Cup travelers return to the host City if they've had a good experience. Philadelphia expects to host over half a million visitors for the six games at Lincoln Financial Field. The matches are expected to have an economic impact of over $500 million on the area, including 262 million in direct spending. Each match is expected to generate around 26,000 hotel bookings. That is a lot of potential for future visits if the World Cup guests are not subjected to impossible traffic congestion, public transportation delays and unsightly construction in progress. Second, you've heard from Philadelphians and those in Chinatown, but what about the broader impact on how Philly will be perceived by the million visitors who visit Philadelphia every year. Recently there was one German tourist whose perception was that the city is racist when he discovered that an ethnic enclave would be destroyed, one that is an essential aspect of Philadelphia's cultural landscape. This proposal has pushed Chinatown onto the National Trust of Historic Preservation's list of 11 most endangered historic places in America. Would you be willing to destroy the core identity of the Italian Market, Rittenhouse Square or Old City? These areas like Chinatown make Philadelphia unique. Stop to think what we'd be missing if I-95 had successfully erased Elfreth's Alley or if Independence Hall had been demolished as it almost was in 1812. Ensuring a smooth, hassle-free visit to Philadelphia is going to guarantee Philadelphia economic benefits for years and years to come not only from the World Cup fans revisiting but also from other events choosing Philadelphia as their go-to hub. It's absolutely crucial to keep the historic district and tourist corridor to Center City clean, safe and green through 2026. An arena elsewhere in the city is a win for everyone. (Applause.)
Hi all Councilmen. My name is Sam Sam. I'm own a restaurant in Chinatown over 40 years and work in Chinatown. Yesterday the first time in my life somebody died in front of me, car accident on 10th and Spring Street, right. It's a very, very bad feeling. I feel bad for until now. I think the safety, the community safety I think (inaudible) should more attention to neighborhood say the living, not for the billionaire, right. First thing I give my background here. Okay. I come from -- I'm refugee from Vietnam. I've been born and raised in Vietnam. During the war time we got no lifetime, no nothing, no 12 childhood time, no -- right. In 1968 my home burned down because the war coming in. Bodies laying around all over my neighborhood. So I escaped my country 1979 come to this country. Why I chose this country because I thought it's a Democrat country and freedom spirit. That's why I choose to come this country. And now, why China so important to me this is my home here. I never have home since I was 10 years old. Everyone around the war time. That's why, right. Now, you try to build arena in my town here. We destroy a town, a community. Chinatown can't be replaced, never can be replaced. The building can make some money somewhere else, not in Chinatown. The building not going to die without building in Chinatown. If you build, it will destroy us. Okay. All right. The site is not -- I against the site, not the arena. The city can still have taxes to build somewhere. How about the 30th Street Station over there, the Amtrak station a lot of wide open spot there, right. That's my suggestion. And another suggestion here, right. I'm still here in Philadelphia for a long time. My daughter born here. I hope my culture will be forever in Chinatown. Okay. And here another thing. Okay. Why we spend all the time here to debate for billionaire. Why don't we all spend time to attend to the community, the neighborhood for safety and living, good living. Okay. I back you here. I back all you elected officers and Mayor. And let put in the ballot, don't vote for now. Put in the ballot, put the ballot. Let people make a decision. Let the Democrat rise. Okay. Let people make a voice, make a decision. Okay. Thank you. (Applause.)
Will Helene Barchock, Mercedes Bonilla, Katie DiSanto and Sharon Tyson, please come forward. Again, Helene Barchock, Mercedes Bonilla, Katie DiSanto and Sharon Tyson, please come forward. Okay. You will each have two minutes to speak. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Hello. My name is Helene Barchock. I moved here 35 years ago from a fairly small town, basically White. I really enjoyed the inclusiveness of Philadelphia, how everyone is made welcome. I work in West Philadelphia. I'm a working-class person. I work in a bookstore, a used bookstore. Everybody up there, you know, we have Asians, Black people, anybody you could think of, trans people, whatever, everyone's included and I always thought about Philadelphia this way. It's a city but it's a small town. I always felt at home here. I've lived all over the city and I'm appalled by this. I feel it's mostly like the Chinatown people are being discriminated and also it verges on the Gayborhood too, the LGBTQ people, they are also impacted on about with this. And it's two people that are very vulnerable. They have no say. I mean, you notice they're not putting the stadium over in Rittenhouse Square. No, it's there. And also, I used SEPTA my whole life. I've traveled on SEPTA and just the inconvenience this summer when they were doing something on Chestnut and Walnut. It took forever for the buses to get through and I can't even imagine what it's going to be like with this horror show with the building of the arena and the hospital too. The hospital people are going to die and the communities destroyed, people's homes, people's lives, people's livelihoods all for the sake of greed. It's just like what's happened in Washington and it makes me sick. Thank you. ) MS. DiSANTO: All right. My name's Katie. Hi, how's everybody doing. A lot of the remarks that I had prepared to say today were actually meant to be heard by the peanut gallery of building people who were here yesterday and the fact that they are not here I guess shows how weak their dog is in this fight and all of us anti-arena people are here showing up to speak our minds, but that's okay. I'll be back. I'll get them next time. So I work at an arts and cultural institution that's been in Chinatown since 1952. I think that most of the people in this room 20 today weren't even alive in 1952. One person who was alive in 1952 was my dad and he's watching this on the live stream. So hi, Dad. We are a one-of-a-kind artistic hub for the city. And after 72 years we're one of the hundreds of locally-owned and independently-operated small businesses that the city's own studies project would not survive six years of arena construction. Can you look me in my face today and tell me it's worth bulldozing and choking out my job and the jobs of my neighbors, jobs that don't just support families but also support the irreplaceable fabric of our shared culture and heritage just to, what, give a few temporary jobs to other people, jobs that can be done somewhere else? You would steal from Peter to pay Paul? To be clear, I am also completely 100 percent pro-union and I believe that the path to prosperity is through blue-collar jobs, like the blue-collar jobs that I and my neighbors already have. I don't think I mentioned I work at 9th and Arch Street so I walk by the arena site every single day. It's not only my job. It's the job of the people who work in the Fashion District and the people that I see walking back and forth every single day in this supposedly desolate Chinatown that was mentioned yesterday. The greatest cities in the world are built brick-by-brick by the people who live in those cities and who believe in those cities. Not once in human history has been a -- excuse me. Never once in human history has letting a cabal of outside billionaires running rough shot over your constituents and colonizing city land for their own private club that most of us couldn't even afford to get into ever resulted in anything other than the evisceration of spirit and the slow death of what a great city once was. It certainly won't provide the revitalization that they're claiming it will.
Market East does need help and we know this, but a redundant arena on a rushed and confusing timeline with incomplete facts and data is the antithesis of what any of us need. That would move us backwards. Where is the city investment in the people who already live and work in Chinatown and Center City? Where is our $400 million tax break? We, the people, the unions and City Council should be working together to build a Philly by us and for us. 76 DevCorp, these sheisty, snake-oil salesmen, with shiny dollar bills have come in and pelted us with false promises, lies, threats and misdirection convincing one neighbor to push out another in pursuit of a quick dollar. This is not who we are as a city. For two years, Council, you have received tens of thousands of voices of protest, phone calls, handwritten postcards, marches in the rain -- okay, I will. I'm almost done, but also two people didn't show up in my group so I got a second. You've also seen me and many of my cohorts in your offices speaking with your staff and you will see us again. How are you not ashamed, Councilmembers, that despite hundreds of experts in dozens of fields telling you that this is a bad idea your constituents have had to come before you in these chambers telling personal stories about traumatic birth experiences and chronic illnesses, as we heard about yesterday, to finally get you to understand what's at stake. What is stopping you from learning from the past mistakes of this city and dropping your support for this bill. We know you're only human --
Ma'am, ma'am, please conclude your testimony. MS. DiSANTO: I am. I'm on like the last two lines. I just want to let you know that we can forgive you for backing this proposal before you knew the facts, for your profound lapses in judgment up to this point, maybe being swayed by previous allegiances before you saw the full picture and we could even respect you for admitting that you've finally seen the light. But what we cannot forgive you for is ignoring us and if you do not land on the right side of history by voting down this proposal, the city and its citizens will certainly never forget. Thank you. (Applause.)
Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. As a reminder, we want to be respectful of all of the witnesses that we have on the witness list this evening, so we are asking that you please respect the other public commenters who have come here this evening and please summarize your testimony. Thank you very much.
Would Ken Avalon, Lillian Austin, Sim Loh and Keith Baldwin, please come forward. Ken Avalon, Lillian Austin, Sim Loh, Keith Baldwin, please come forward. You will each have two minutes to speak. Would Adam Shellhorse please come forward. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Thank you. I'm a very different representative here. I'm from the suburbs. I can't vote for any of you unfortunately, but I work in the city. I've been working in the city forever. Pay a lot of taxes here, spend a lot of money here, spend a lot of time in town and we love coming into town. We love going to sporting events. From where I live to get to South Philly we take SEPTA all the time. It's about an hour for us to get there, and we just -- we don't go a lot. We go to afternoon games. Evening games are just harder. It takes me an hour to get home. If there's an event here in town, it's minutes for me to get home. So it's the type of thing where if there's a sporting event in town, if there's a concert in town, us from the suburbs it's much more convenient for us to come into town. I hear a lot of talk about money. Obviously there's money throughout all this. There's 2 million people who live in the suburbs. There's a lot of suburban dollars out there. A month ago we were down here, a bunch of us, they met at our house, took SEPTA into town, went to a show and we're walking through the -- I still call it the Gallery. I know it's not the Gallery anymore, walking through the Fashion District. It's beautiful. It's inviting and it was empty. There was nobody there. It's a gorgeous Saturday afternoon. I couldn't figure out why. It was appealing. There's plenty of stores there. With this project separate from the Sixers arena itself and the games, there's a lot of other -- amenities are going to be there and you see it all. It's all over the different websites, but it's the type of thing where we would come into town. We take that 25-minute ride and we come into a vibrant kind of exciting destination as opposed to you walk through, as I said, the Fashion District and it's actually disappointing. So I don't represent any group. You can look at me as the suburban guy, but there's millions of us out there. We love spending our money in town and something like this is a real draw to people from outside the city. Thank you.
Thank you. Please state your name for the record and begin with your testimony.
Hi, good evening. My name is Sim Loh. I live in Councilman Squilla's District and work in Council President Johnson's District. I'm a public policy specialist focused on early education and child care. Prior to this, I spent years 10 supporting underprivileged children and families from across the city of Philadelphia as a family services coordinator and a home visitor. I'm here today because I'm deeply concerned about the devastating impact that this proposal could have not just on child care program but on the working families who rely on them and our economy. And I ask you to vote no to this proposal. Within the immediate impact zones of this proposed arena, there are approximately 20 child care programs serving nearly 1,700 children and families. To take into account the scale of this project, let's expand five blocks each in each directions, that number rises to over 70 programs with the capacity to serve more than 6,300 children and families. That is about 5 percent of our city's child care capacity at risk. 69 percent of these programs have an agreement with the state to serve families using the child care work subsidy. These are essential workers like teachers, bus drivers, City employees, hospitality workers, construction workers as earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty income guideline annually who rely on child care as their lifeline to keep the city running. Construction, congestion and business displacements and resident displacements will pose immense challenges for this program to survive. Across the city of Philadelphia we are in the midst of a child care crisis. Our system is only serving 42 percent of eligible children under 5, leaving 58 percent children unserved. This proposed arena will exacerbate this crisis. This is also an economic crisis waiting to unfold. When parents can't work because there's no child care, businesses lose their workforce, productivity drops and our economy will suffer. In Pennsylvania alone our economy is suffering a staggering $6.65 billion loss because of this crisis. This proposal will only deepen those losses. To those speaking about being brave for both opportunity, I agree. As an immigrant, as an educator of color I'm all for opportunities and job creations and that's why I moved to this land of opportunity called the United States of America. But being bold doesn't mean being reckless. I can't help but thinking some of the families who I work with who rely on the child care in the area. So let's ask ourselves what good is a high-paying job if parents can't find child care to work, what good is an arena if traffic gridlock prevents access to trauma center and what good is this so-called progress if it displaces the very communities it meant to uplift? Real people who try to make it happen make it work for the next generations. Real future, your constituents' lifelines is at stake. For that I ask you, our City Council, the people's City Council, to vote no. Thank you. And I welcome any questions about child care. Thank you. (Applause.)
Hello. Okay. My name is Adam Joseph Shellhorse, Council District 1, and I am speaking on Resolution 240966, esteemed Councilmembers, Mayor Parker and fellow Philadelphians. Philadelphia is all about diversity. It's a brother and sisterhood of countless diverse peoples. Yet the Arena proposal in question this evening introduced by Councilmember Squilla is nothing less than shameful. Betraying our city's great fraternal project, it is shameful and it betrays the great fraternal project of this wonderful city. It presents in effect a shortsighted, racist, gentrifying, existential threat to the Philadelphia Chinese community, to all Philadelphians and all tourists who adore Philly and to our beloved Chinatown. It is moreover a predatory land grab, nothing short of it. It will uproot the neighbors, the Philadelphia Chinese and Chinese American community and will cause gentrification effectively destroying one of the most vibrant culturally-relevant treasured areas in the city. And I would like to give props to my Temple colleague. I'm a professor at Temple University. And what he said about killing people because of this gridlock at Jefferson, we need to pay attention to that because people are going to die on the watch of this city and it's going to be a mess for six years in Center City and I cannot denounce it strong enough because I love Chinatown. I love my Chinese neighbors and I am sick and tired of this kind of land-grabbing, gentri -- you know at Temple they're always wanting to build a stadium but the people push back. They always push it back, but here we are, here we are. The Chinese immigrants, you know, maybe they have some trouble with English. It's racist. It's shameful and they've been trying to dump stuff on Chinatown forever. Chinatown is the magnificent, diverse home and cultural hub of over 3,000 residents and numerous shops and businesses, a national treasure. It has been under constant attack for decades, fighting back against baseball stadiums, casinos and the like. My wife, friends and colleagues we all go to Chinatown all the time. We have spoken extensively with neighbors and no 24 one wants the arena there, no one in Chinatown. And the fact is the 76ers, and this is a very important point, the Sixers won't stay there long. They will leave. Following national trends -- hold it, I'm finishing. Following national trends as with the case of the Washington Wizards in Washington, D.C., the 76ers will want another stadium and move again. So much demolition, so much destruction for such a shortsighted vision and this is going to lead to the destruction of an ethnically, diverse community in the name of racist-driven profits. I'd like to quote a recent article from the Daily Pennsylvania. It exactly quotes what happened in Washington D.C. recently --
Sir, sir -- MR. SHELLHORSE -- the story of Philadelphia's Chinatown mirrors other Chinatowns across the nation --
Okay. Well, I've included this -- let me finish here. Okay. So again, what I wanted to say is that in D.C. this happened, right. It devastated the D.C. China -- you go to D.C. and Chinatown is non-existent. We love Chinatown and you're going to destroy it with this terrible proposal. I wish these Councilmembers would stop looking at their cell phones and start paying attention to the people because I'm telling you what, I'm getting pissed off about people uprooting my people. Okay. I've got Chinese family, and this really, really pisses me off. So please, Councilmembers, do the right thing, save Chinatown for the people. (Applause.)
Will Mary Stumpf, Peter Janosick, Jason Massey and Reverend Dr. Sharon Avant, please come forward. Mary Stumpf, Peter Janosick, Jason Massey, Reverend Dr. Sharon Avant, please come forward. You will each have two minutes to speak. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Please state your name for the record and please begin your testimony.
Hello. My name is Mary Stumpf. To City Council and Council President, my name is Mary Stump. I live in District 1. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. The Sixers Arena proposal for Chinatown is the wrong choice for Market Street for many reasons. Firstly, why jeopardize the two assets that border this proposed development, that of Jefferson Hospital directly to the south and Chinatown directly to the north. These are valuable assets to the city. Anything that creates traffic gridlock and transportation delays for people trying to access Jefferson Hospital services is doing a disservice to this large tax-producing employer. Chinatown, which has been in existence since 1851, should be regarded and protected as the historic, unique treasure it is. The ZBA wisely acknowledged that there are special zoning considerations that arenas, stadiums, ballparks and other large entertainment venues bring to the community and legislated the Stadium District zoned for this very purpose. It's exciting to be at the sports complex because of the vibe created by the Stadium District zoning. If one looks back at the two former proposals that were considered for Chinatown, the Live Casino and the Major League Baseball Stadium, both are doing phenomenally in the Stadium District. In 2021, Live Casino was named the best overall gaming resort in Pennsylvania, and that is because it is appropriately situated at the Stadium District. Citizens Bank Ballpark is an acclaimed gem with spectacular views of the City skyline because of its appropriate placement in the Stadium District. There's no need to spot zone another entertainment district that Philadelphia taxpayers can ill-afford and do not need. As stewards of the public trust, Council should listen to the voices of the majority of Philadelphians who do not want a Center City arena. Council should deny the arena from being shoehorned into the unforgiving colonial era street grid of one-way Center City streets and should encourage the Sixers to find their own unique niche in the Stadium District. That placement can allow it the space to be what it is, a now and then car-centric Mega entertainment venue specifically catered to fans coming to see a game. The mass transit infrastructure is in place and has been successfully tested for decades. Other valuable assets worthy of consideration are the trifecta of anchor institutions providing economic stability known as eds, meds and feds. Of these I counted at least federal agencies located just east of this proposed arena site, which Council should factor in when making their decision. Again, I urge Council to stop the rush, to approve the arena, to do your due diligence and stand with the hard-paying, the hardworking taxpayers of the city. We cannot afford this foolish gamble. Again, thank you for this opportunity to speak. (Applause.)
My name is Peter Janosick. I am a resident of the area -- I'm a resident of the area where this stadium, this arena is supposed to be built in my past life. I'm retired. I worked for the New York City Council Land Use Division where I was the senior project manager, where my projects included the new Yankee Stadium, City Field for the Mets, the Minor League stadiums for the Yankees and the Mets and also United States Tennis Association and I did a little work on Barclays also. I'm just going to specifically look at the traffic study on this thing. It's to say the least lacking. There is no way that the number of cars that are going to be coming in for this considering what it is already. You're dealing with total gridlock. Just like what the doctor had said before, you won't be able to move and the amount of pollution that you're going to be pumping into the air will destroy anything that the Federal Clean Air Act has ever seen. So just under that alone legally you cannot approve this, just based upon the traffic study which is inadequate. That's all I really have to say. (Applause.)
Please state your name for the record and please begin your testimony. REV.
Reverend Dr. Sharon Avant. I am clergy person and committee person also. I sit here and strongly opposed to the 76ers Place being built here in our Center City. We have City Hall at one end, our City of Philadelphia's seat of power where our legislators work on our behalf. We have federal court at the other end on the other side and we have District Court across the Street. I am opposed to this huge sports arena structure being built in our Center City, in our seat of power. The development of this structure will be a hazard to our legislators, people living here, people visiting or just walking through our Center City area. Traffic gridlock is already very challenging. I can't get to Will's Eye Hospital for an appointment without being stuck on 8th Street just waiting to get through traffic. We can imagine what would happen if an ambulance was trying to get through and that's today. It will be amazingly difficult to experience the negative impact that this structure will have on us if it should be built. Center City is already congested and the impact will be negative. We also have Independence Hall, the birthplace of American democracy, Constitution Hall, the Liberty Bell and Chinatown. But we have a rich history to protect. Presidential debates are held here. However, with this structure that will seat 18,500 people, let alone the concession space and thoroughfares. They may not find it feasible to come here for debates because of lack of ability to secure public health safety. And it will be a considerably excessive amount of time for them to sweep this building in the event of an emergency. These are other things that I think that we should think about. Law enforcement, ambulances and other necessary manpower just trying to get through the building they will not -- to the building, they will not be able to get through traffic to the buildings for necessary assistance. We have hospitals which ambulances may need to travel through on emergency basis to Will's Eye and Thomas Jefferson. Chinatown and other businesses will suffer tremendously. They may have to close because during development these fencing and street closures will deter people from supporting these businesses. They think that $3 million is enough to give people something that they can't purchase quality of life, dignity, financial security, notwithstanding the development's answer to not having parking to accommodate the arena is to ask City Council to waive ordinances and to ask 40 percent of the people to just not drive to the arena. This development hopes that these businesses don't survive because they will look forward to making an opportunity of their unfortunate circumstances and turn it into a cash cow for themselves. So I say in closing this arena should not be built in our downtown Center City. They must choose a different location not in our seat of power, not in our Center City Business District and not in the Chinatown community. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. (Applause.)
Please state your name for the record and please begin.
My name is Jason Massey, he/him. I live in Nicetown, 8th Councilmanic District and if I named all of the groups, I will use all my time so I'll be brief. This proposed arena is not just the building. It's a whole district being built. Things don't just happen in the vacuum. There will be new construction to go on with this project, and SEPTA is not going to expand service for this construction. So today's Chinatown will become tomorrow's parking lots because out-of-town Sixers ticketholders will demand it. This proposal demands a no. Speaking of real estate, the fact that this City has no plan for Market East beyond this arena is a serious issue. It makes it seem like the City is giving downtown to the billionaires. We should be using urban planning for corridors like Market East and all over Philly. We need plans for our neighborhoods and streets and those plans need to say no to a Chinatown arena. I knocked on doors before the election in Council President Johnson's District, and residents in South Philly complained to me about the sorry state of West Snyder Avenue, trash, loitering, drug use. I'm right be -- you're confused. Right between 18th and 20th. And we should be planning what businesses make sense in our neighborhoods and shouldn't the neighbors be involved in that process. When I wanted to talk to folks in South Philly, I knocked on their doors. Our elected officials and out-of-town real estate Robert Baron should do the same. This proposal has been floating around for two years in an effort to engage with the almost 70 percent of Philadelphians against this project about the $900 million tax breaks for this pipe dream has been woefully inadequate. Caution, voters that aren't engaged don't show up. I'm going to say it again. Voters that aren't engaged don't show up. November's election has showed us this. City Council vote no to this arena and also do more to get real honest feedback from your constituents. Remember, your constituents vote for you, not for Councilmanic prerogative. Thank you. (Applause.)
Please state your name for the record and please begin.
Good evening, Councilmembers and everyone who spoke before me. Thank you for your speech. My name is Yingxian Chen Shellhorse, Council District 1, speaking on Resolution No. 240966. I'm a scientist and I have lived in Philadelphia for nine years. I strongly oppose the proposal for 76ers Arena in downtown Philly near Chinatown. I love Chinatown and the community. It's beautiful. It's one of the best parts in the city. Building the arena there will destroy and displace the community. It's hurtful to see Philadelphia Chinatown to share the same fate as D.C. Chinatown, and I deeply share the same concerns on our public transportation system and a huge cost incurred on SEPTA. And on top of that, the heavy traffic in Center City caused by this arena will affect ambulance and fire truck, and this means supporting arena will -- that means you are putting billionaires' interest over patients lives. And fourth, I'm also concerned about public funding taken away from public school and other priorities in the city. And this is a proposal for -- this is not a proposal for working-class people and ordinary residents in Philly. Instead it's one for the billionaires and a bad idea. And I strongly urge you to vote against this disastrous proposal and voting no to arena and saying yes to Save Chinatown Philly. And don't let Philly's Chinatown becomes D.C. Chinatown. Mark my words, the 76ers will leave the site in less than years forever ruining it and you will have destroyed a beautiful, cultural hub and national treasure, not to mention jeopardize and if not decimate the health and livelihood of countless people. Imagine the utter desolation and blandness of downtown Philly without Chinatown. Thank you. (Applause.)
Will Joseph 14 Pietty, Ronald Williams, Layla 15 Barchock and Felicia Dutch, please 16 come forward. Again, that's Joseph 17 Pietty, Ronald Williams, Layla 18 Barchock and Felicia Dutch, please 19 come forward. You will each have 20 two minutes to speak. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Please state your name for the record and please begin your testimony.
My name is Joe Piety. I'm a retired postal worker and I'm still a NALC member. I live in Curtis Jones' District. I want to speak on why union members should oppose the arena. I've walked picket lines to demand higher wages and benefits and workers' rights at the post office many times over the last 30 years when I worked for the post office. But I also joined picket lines where NFL, National Football League, players went on strike back in 1987. I joined picket lines with workers at the stadiums just a couple months ago for a fair contract. I not only joined the picket line during the last SEPTA strike, I worked to build community support for transit workers' rights and benefits when Black and Brown and women workers complained that construction crews at Temple University projects didn't look like the population of North Philly. I helped organize picket lines, petitions and meetings with Temple demanding fair hiring. We didn't demonize the unions. We pressured Temple to require fair hiring standards and won an increase from 9 percent to 39 percent in "minority hiring at Temple." But I cannot support the construction unions this time. Solidarity is not limited to only those beside you on the job. Solidarity means a common struggle of all workers against the rich and powerful. When the vast majority of workers in Chinatown oppose a project that threatens their community, worker solidarity requires the construction trades to question why the 76ers project. When study after study points out how sports arenas harm surrounding communities, construction trade should try to get the developers to locate their project in an area where it will do less harm. Construction workers will have jobs wherever the new arena is built. We live in a city, state and country where billionaires have undue influence in government decisions. Worker organizations have to sometimes make hard decisions for which side they're on, that of the billionaires or on the people's side. As a labor activist for over 50 years, I say solidarity requires us today to stand with the Chinatown community, not with the billionaires. If all our communities and worker organizations acted together in solidarity, we could win affordable housing, mass transit, schools and so much more that could provide many more jobs than this billionaires boondoggle. No arena in the center of the city. Thank you. (Applause.)
State your name for the record and please begin.
Hi. My name is Layla Barchock. I am from District 4, Curtis Jones District, and I strongly oppose the arena. I have a very long list of reasons of why I oppose the arena, many of them have been stated tonight, but just to go over, its construction would be a disruption to Philadelphia with six years of construction. And once the active games, concerts and whatever else is going to happen, this is going to be such a disruption to the city of Philadelphia. It's going to be a huge traffic clog. This would be threatening the lives of those who are trying to get access to Jefferson Hospital, whether they're in an ambulance or anything. It would also threaten the lives of those who have made their home in Chinatown as well as work in the Gayborhood. It's going to cost the City millions of dollars as well as the taxpayers, and I really don't feel like paying for a billionaire's little side project once again. It would make SEPTA much more difficult to take than it already is. I was born in Philadelphia. I've lived here all years of my life. I 21 have a love-hate relationship with 22 SEPTA. I am an avid taker of the 9. 23 I have a cat that -- well, I had a 24 cat that was born on the 9, just to say that. I have such a love-hate with this. It is so difficult to get to work every day. I work at the University of Pennsylvania at the Perelman School of Medicine. The arena will directly affect my commute and how difficult it is to get home. I already work more than eight hours a day. I am tired. And just to finish, I think that all the Councilmen here that are going to be up for reelection soon should strongly consider opposing the arena if they wish to be elected again. Please look around the room. We have only had two people testify in favor of the arena tonight and 50-something who are in opposition. It is the working class who gets you elected, not a billionaire. (Applause.)
Please state your name for the record and please begin.
Hi, everyone. My name is Felicia Duke. Nice to meet you. Going off script for a second, but in a time of such divisive nation right now I'd love if we could start in a fashion I start my group as an occupational therapist with a power clap. So this might take two tries. But if you guys just rub your hands together, all right, and then we're going to count 3, 2, 1 and all clap together because wherever you stand, we are all still one city, right. I know this is lame but it's also very cool. All right. 3, 2, 1. See, isn't that awesome.
Let's get started now. Everyone's awake. All right. So as I said, my name is Felicia Duke. I am a resident within Philadelphia's District 1. As a health care worker, efficient access to the health care system is vital to patient survival. Philadelphia has several incredible hospitals that shine in helping people of the community. And between foot traffic and vehicle traffic near the projected arena location, due to construction then congestion before and after each game, it's reasonable to anticipate that accessing local health care will become more difficult during the regular season that extends from October to April. On average there's at least 41 home games per team and that means that there's a minimum of 41 opportunities for challenges that are intense in accessing the health care system. As a supporter of Philadelphia's Chinatown, I can't imagine risking losing 50 percent of our businesses there that are community-based and well-loved. Can you imagine if the stadium was built in the Italian market and it affected sports fans from getting Angelo's pizza? S. and in the world. And my last point, as a Philadelphia sports fan there's a lot of joy in attending a game in South Philly, home of the Phillies, Flyers, Sixers and Wings, plus the local venues if you can't catch the game live all in the same place. And I remember I got a preseason ticket and the Sixers won at Wells Fargo stadium and then we walked across the street to Xfinity Live to watch the Phillies play in the playoffs, you know, trying to get to the World Series, and we won't talk about the rest of that, but so many fans that could support both teams in one area it was incredible and special and not to mention, convenient. So in these three identities, I believe a new stadium in Chinatown and Center City, Philadelphia would not only risk resident safety but would also bring disruption and challenge instead of unity and joy. After all, sports are supposed to bring our city together and not bring it apart. Thank you. ) UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Good evening, Council President and Curtis Jones, I saw him two days ago in West Philadelphia on Parkside Avenue with the Arts. Jamie, thank you to see you again. Jamie came to visit us in Upper Darby in April. I'm the commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post at 5212 Race Street, Philadelphia. About three weeks ago I went in South Philadelphia and saw what President Johnson's work had been done on the Post at the Lincoln Post and they totally revived and that's a beautiful job we did on that there. We're fixing up our Post in West Philadelphia so it can better accommodate community and meeting rooms as well as the kitchens and restrooms. In addition, in cooperation with the community, education and development Centers, a social service, vocational training and community development corporation, we want to plan, construct and maintain a Veterans and First Responders Theme Park Memorial Museum Sports and Entertainment Complex in Philadelphia. We're trying to lure the Sixers to build in the Naval Yard where we'll be placing our museum and our memorial. It would display memorials to the veterans and first responders who have risked their lives in serving the citizens of this nation in all of the foreign wars and domestic emergencies from the Revolutionary to the Gulf Wars and urban and rural emergencies, including fires, pandemics and riots. It would also detail the history, sacrifices and tributes to the veterans, police, fire, emergency workers and teachers who risk their lives keeping the peace while educating and protecting and serving our communities. This complex would include conference centers, sports venues, shops, restaurants and banquet facilities. These facilities could be leased or rented with proceeds going to the scholarship, building and maintenance funds. We will also offer engraved bricks and plaques to be displayed along with the individual stories, units and service of deceased or living heroes.
We will be contacting the Disney Entertainment Corporation, which I did today. The 76ers and Live Nation, who does so many sporting events and concerts, and the major sports teams, we're going to contact the major sports teams to get them to build a dome stadium so we could have when 2026 comes Philadelphia can be the highlight. It can be a showcase of the world to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of Democracy and everything which started right here, and we'll bring everybody from the world and it would be a great asset to have the basketball venue, concert venues right in that area. It's in South Philly. I was born in South Philly in the shipyard homes and South Philly was always home for me. So this is the last pitch. The veterans and first responders, we are honoring and serving by the reconstruction of this museum when faced with national and domestic challenges, did not step out, drop out, call out, fall out, call out or roll out, ease out or opt out. They put out and risked their lives and continually risked their lives for the people of Philadelphia and hopefully we can find an alternative spot. And the alternative spot, we can still keep the team in Philadelphia but it would be in South Philadelphia and all the bells and whistles and everybody can join in and we'll be happy there other than Chinatown. )
Will Evette Young, Sam Rise, Pat Sanford, Brendan Maddox and Issa Shahid, please come forward. Again, Evette Young, Sam Rise, Pat Stanford, Brendan Maddox and Isa Shahid, please come forward. You will each have two minutes to speak. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Ma'am, please state your name for the record and begin with your testimony.
Good evening, esteemed Council President and my beloved Councilmembers. My name is Pat Sanford. I'm the president of Alexander Perry, Inc., a proud Philadelphia-based business. I've been in business for 32 years. I have seen a lot in Philadelphia. I'm deeply invested in this city. I grew up here. I attended schools here, including Alain Locke Elementary where I began my education in kindergarten, and I built my career here as an architectural designer. I actually was privileged to be able to go back to Alain Locke as a construction manager and put in new heating, cooling and ventilation for the Philadelphia School District for eight schools there. My firm and I have had the privilege of working on meaningful projects for the Philadelphia School District, contributing to the growth of our local community. Building a billion dollar arena in Center City I am in full support of. In addition to leading Alexander Perry, Inc., I also serve as member of Chambers of Commerce, African American Chamber of Commerce, WBENC Women of Color, Women Elevating Women and I was a big contributor of the Mayor's Office of ADA, Mayor Kenney, and I served under Mayor Street and Mayor Nutter in the capacity as an Art commissioner, so I have seen a lot of projects come into the city. I've seen developers come in and build. Now, we can build buildings bigger than City Hall. I am here today to express my strong support for the proposed Philadelphia 76ers basketball arena. I did have a lot more to say. And if there's still time, I'll say it. But what I really want to enforce is that Philadelphia has been known as a high poverty city. And for 32 years, I am tired of hearing that. And I really believe that this arena will make a difference. We can still have the arena, still have our neighbors in Chinatown and I support all the bills that the Council and the Mayor has approved at this time. Thank you.
Good evening. My name is Evette Young. The City has surrendered the revenue streams that funded our city like Veterans Stadium, which through events and concerts used to bring hundreds of millions of dollars to our City coffers. The contract with Lincoln Financial Field made Jeffrey Lurie a billionaire within a few years instead of funding our neighborhoods. Please do not surrender to the American oligarchs, like Jeffrey Yass, Jeffrey Lurie, Josh Harris and the like. Sacrificing the health and welfare of Philadelphia neighborhoods and the people that make up those communities is just not right. Leon Sullivan, Melvin Floyd, Cecil B. Moore and others showed us how to get our children out of the cycle of violence and trauma that they are trapped in. But instead of putting in the work, our elected officials too often cave into the lobbyists and special interests. How in good conscience can you prioritize the destruction of a neighborhood and the newly constructed gallery to relocate a sports stadium instead of prioritizing schools which have lead and asbestos and eliminating food deserts? We've already lost skybox, parking and events revenue from Veterans Stadium being lost. We lost our Parking Authority money. No other municipality in the state gives their parking revenue money away. And sadly, many Pennsylvania State Representatives are biting the hand of this beautiful historic city that generates revenue for all 67 counties. When will you prioritize renovating and building new schools? When will you prioritize getting asbestos out of our schools? When will you prioritize getting lead pipes out of our schools and our homes? When will you prioritize testing our children for lead poisoning to ensure bad behavior is not coming from being poisoned by the very schools that they are attending? When will you prioritize solving murders in Philadelphia? Our murder clearance or solve rate has dropped significantly leaving a minority of criminals to terrorize the majority. Will it be for the people by the people or will it be the sole decision of the Mayor and City Council? The answer lies in your actions. Please listen to your constituents. Thank you. (Applause.)
Please state your name for the record and please begin.
My name is Samantha Rise. I'm a constituent of Jamie Gauthier's. I'm an arts professional and according to some, a professional agitator but I've never seen a check. And as we're talking about closing schools and as we're talking about SEPTA failing and 14,000 laborers striking in Philadelphia, you know that nothing on paper in this deal makes sense for anybody in this room or anyone outside this room. Chinatown is the beating heart of Market East. Its cadence guides the steps of an intergenerational coalition that puts the champions of 76 Place to shame. They literally can't show their faces in this room. But you cannot revive or resuscitate any arterial area without the inevitable living organism that keeps it alive. When plan after plan delivered by rich men interested in extracting our resources have eaten communities alive, Chinatown has only ever fed Philadelphia, holding so many more communities than their own. This type of large-scale predatory development is a trend by billionaires to eviscerate vulnerable communities. They are planning many moves ahead for the inevitable erasure and displacement that 76 Place will bring. To make it a playground for bored suburbanites like the only one of two people who testified tonight in favor, including the 7 and 77-year-olds who has testified tonight. They want to step over their literal bodies in pursuit of our resources promised to billionaires behind closed doors, and that's only if the Sixers win and it's only if they stay. No one is more fickle than a dissatisfied billionaire except for maybe that bored suburbanite, and we all know where this ends up. My neighbors, my students, my peers and my kin are sick to death of the City's elected officials wooing wealth into the city that betrays us time and time again rather than letting us guide the conversations and decisions that will shape our future. I grieve for the hardworking people of Philadelphia like this person who just testified who have been duped into thinking that this deal has any semblance of long vision, let alone vested interest. The insult and egregious violence of suggesting that the kind of jobs that will come from not only building this stadium but continuing to keep it going in constant labor, seasonal labor that benefits our community is laughable. We in this room here for Chinatown are also here for labor. We're also here for Black Philly and the Mayor and the billionaires and anyone who would manipulate Black labor against Chinatown organizers do so at their own risk. Black power and yellow peril united will never be defeated. SEPTA can't afford it. The School District can't afford it. Chinatown can't afford it. Black labor in Philly can't afford it, and I have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with elders who have many more years behind them than ahead of them whose commitment to the protection of Chinatown is not for their personal enrichment, far from it -- I'm going to finish up. And I appreciate that so much. I'm reclaiming my time for all the Black people who have been silenced in spaces like this. They lend our elders, lend their wisdom, their experience, their profound love, their energy and their capacity to a coalition that outlast them, and I'm asking our Councilmembers to do the same. That is the floor, not the ceiling. The longevity of our city is bound to our ability collectively and your ability right now to imagine, implement and protect a city that prioritizes its most vulnerable citizens, again, from age 7 to 77 and all of our needs. So please build with us not over us, right. Follow Chinatown's lead into the future because if you do not, you will regret it and will we will not forget. Thanks for giving me my time. I appreciate you. (Applause.)
Thank you. Please state your name for the record and you can begin.
Brendan Maddox, resident of the 1st District. I've resided at North 9th Street for the last year and I intend to do so for many years to come. I'm also the proud descendant of immigrants whose first home was Philadelphia. You've already heard a lot of terrific testimony this evening about the systemic impacts that this project is going to have. I am joining these voices in opposing the Arena project and the transaction ordinance. I live one block east of the proposed arena site. I have followed the project since I moved to the neighborhood and I found the impact study concerningly vague. The report indicates that any failure to meet the 40 percent baseline for public transit ridership to Sixers games will result in gridlock at critical intersections. SEPTA indicated this week that meeting that baseline will be impossible. The redesign of Jefferson Station will be extremely difficult and likely fail to yield the results required to digest an arena-sized crowd, making it more likely that that gridlock is going to occur. I have selfish reasons for coming tonight. My building abuts the 800 block of Filbert Street, which is a proposed rideshare zone under the plan. The front of our building is an open parking lot where myself and many of the other tenants park our cars. On a regular basis, we already have to deal with break-ins, non-residents parking in the lot jamming up space and passersby urinating between the cars. This is without a couple hundred drunk irritated fans arguing over who took whose Uber. For the peace of residents at 9 North 9th Street and the peace of residents in all of Chinatown and the Gayborhood as well as the health of the Chinese American and immigrant communities in Chinatown, I ask you to oppose this bill. Thank you. (Applause.)
Please state your name for the record. Please begin.
My name is Mercedes Bonilla. Good evening all to all members of Council. There have been community leaders, residents and businesses of Chinatown and vicinity that are opposing the proposed community benefits agreement. A community benefits agreement must be negotiated with the impacted community. The proposed CBA has not fully included the concerns of majority of the residents, businesses and civic associations whose lives and livelihoods will be directly impacted for a lifetime, not a moment, not decades, but a lifetime. The inclusion from this process is unacceptable. The proposed CBA fails to address the following core issues: Less than 7 percent of the 50 million within the 8 CBA will go toward Chinatown despite 9 it being the most impacted 10 community. This money is less than half of 1 percent of the value of the project, an amount that is inadequate for the anticipated rise in rent and housing costs, small business displacement and job losses, traffic and construction nightmares and impact on Chinatown's basic livelihood. No money is allocated for housing and rent relief and no money for housing and rent relief is directed towards Chinatown and impacted businesses in the area effectively. A community impact study reported that more than half of the 600 businesses in Chinatown would suffer as a result of the arena. Only 1.6 million is allocated for small businesses impacted during construction. That math works out to 37 per month in assistance per business during six years of construction nightmares. The CBA allocates 3 million in a lending program that is proposed to start in 2032. This amounts to 166 per business year. Most of the funds won't start for years and proposed protections for Chinatown or any other neighborhood if the Sixers fail to live up to their agreement or turn out to be poor managers of the project. The Mayor's Administration refused multiple requests for meetings throughout the 2024 calendar year, failing to provide basic updates for concerned Chinatown residents and community leaders that have asked the Administration in writing. Community residents of impacted areas deserve a fair and inclusive process. I ask Council to respect your city and respect the majority of the community that will be impacted the most. (Applause.)
My name is Taylor Tai and I'm a teacher in Northwest Philly and I oppose the arena. I want to start with just two points of information because I feel the arena was deeply misrepresented at Mayor Parker's emergency meeting last month. It sounds so different to listen to this group who has come here today than it did to listen to the hand-selected speakers who spoke to us at that meeting. First, the promised jobs one speaker mentioned tonight are largely temporary and seasonal. Two, only about half of the revenue the billionaires claim would come to Philly from this arena would be new. The rest would be displaced from other businesses and jobs according to their own impact study. However, I'm frankly quite tired of hearing debates about traffic and how we're going to deal with parking and pollution. Since I first moved to Philly in 2012, Chinatown has been the single most important hub for me to go to feel at home and connected to my family. I'm Taiwanese. Chinatown is not just a home for people who are Chinese. It serves the entire Asian community here. My Asian kindergarten and preschool students go to Chinatown to celebrate Lunar New Year and Harvest Festival, carrying on their family traditions from overseas. They know who they are because they're learning it from their elders, shopkeepers, restaurant owners and so on who live and work in Chinatown. Chinatown makes Philly home to myself and so many others. If you don't know that, you do not know your city and you do not represent us. So you cannot negotiate, not about parking, not about traffic or any other detail of this project. You cannot negotiate your way into any version of this development that will make gentrification and displacement acceptable to Philadelphia. We are here to protect the irreplaceable -- you keep hearing that word irreplaceable -- cultural treasure 100-plus years in the making that is Chinatown. We said no to the arena so many months ago and no flimsy CBA from lying billionaires is going to change that. Please stop wasting our time and just say no so that we can get back to building a better Philadelphia, not just opposing something horrible. (Applause.)
That completes our witness list for today. I want to thank everybody for taking time out of their schedule for being here on this Thursday evening. This concludes the business before the Committee of the Whole. I recognize Councilmember Mark Squilla for a motion to recess the public hearing, which we will follow up on this issue in a proposal before us today until Tuesday, November 26, 2024 at 10:00 a.m.
It has been moved and properly seconded that the Committee of the Whole will be recessed until Tuesday, November 26, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. All those in favor will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The motion carries and the Committee of the Whole stands in recess until Tuesday, November 26th at 10:00 a.m. Everyone have a great evening and a safe trip home. (Committee of the Whole concluded at 9:25 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. __________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL