COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON PARKS, RECREATION AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS Remote location using Microsoft® Teams Friday, December 1, 2023 1:00 p.m. PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS, CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN JAMIE GAUTHIER, VICE-CHAIR COUNCILMAN JIM HARRITY COUNCILMAN KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR.
Good afternoon. Before we begin the public hearing, I will make the following announcement: City Council Committees are currently meeting remotely. We are using Microsoft Teams to make these remote hearings possible. Instructions for how the public may view and offer public testimony at public hearings of Council Committees are included in the public hearing notices that are published in the Daily News, Inquirer and Legal Intelligencer prior to the hearing and can also be found on PHLCouncil.com. I now note that the hour has come. And, Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll to take attendance. Members that are in attendance will please indicate that you are present when your name is called. Also, please say a few brief words when responding so that your image will be displayed on screen when you speak. Madam Chair.
Thank you, Madam Chair, Members, viewing public. I am present.
Thank you. A quorum of the Committee is present and this hearing is now called to order. This is the public hearing of the Committee on Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs regarding Bill Nos. 230837 and 230838. Madam Clerk, will you please read the titles of the bills that are being considered today.
Bill No. 21 230837, an ordinance authorizing the Commissioner of Parks & Recreation on behalf of the City of Philadelphia to enter into a multi- year agreement with Galaxy Restaurants Catering Group, Limited Partnership d/b/a Constellation Culinary Group, for the management and operation of event planning and catering at the Fairmount Park Horticultural Center, all under certain terms and conditions. And Bill No. 230838, an ordinance renaming and designating the area of land bounded by Parkside Avenue and Belmont Avenue as "The Miller Parker Philadelphia Stars Negro League Memorial Park."
Before we begin hearing testimony from the witnesses we have for today, everyone who has been invited to the meeting to testify should be aware that this public hearing is being recorded. Because the hearing is public, participants and viewers have no reasonable expectation of privacy. By consenting to being in the meeting, you are consenting to being recorded. Additionally, prior to recognizing Members for the questions or comments they have for the witnesses, I will note for the record at this time that we will use the chat feature available in Microsoft Teams to allow Members to signify that they wish to be recognized. In order to comply with the Sunshine Act, the chat feature must only be used for this purpose. Before I call the Clerk to call on the first panel, would any of my colleagues like to make any opening statements?
On the particular issue of renaming the Negro League Park located in my District on Parkside Avenue, if you've ever gone down Belmont Avenue, you've seen that beautiful representation honoring the Negro League that was a part of Philadelphia's sports history. But the renaming of it as the Miller Parker Memorial is -- first of all, Miller Parker loved that park, helped raise the money to have it established, understood the history of the Negro League and took it to heart. But his contribution in that area -- and he passed away approximately three weeks ago. You will hear it's represented by the Parkside Business Association and other members of the community, but his untimely death does not show his impact in that neighborhood.
Parkside, if you ever from the '70s and '80s ran through there, and I literally say ran through there because it was not a place where you wanted to stay long and that bad things did happen --
-- and he along with his wife, along with the Business Association, along with that Business and Technology Center were the first anchor to begin the change of that neighborhood. After his involvement, their involvement, working with the Parkside Association, you got the Shoprite which was one of the largest grossing Shoprites in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, you got Lowes who came there, and Miller was a driving force behind that. So it's not just the park and his love for it, but his love for the community at large that makes him worthy of this designation. If you've never met him, the only way I would describe him is if Frederick Douglas and Ed Bradley had a little brother, it would be Miller Park, statuesque communicator and advocator. He was very conservative in his business approach, did not like taxation. I had to apologize to him often because of it, but he had a great sense of humor about life. So with that said, we tend to do a lot of these renamings. I don't think any of them in my mind was more meritorious than this one. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you, Councilman, for giving us that history and that perspective. It's very, very important. Any additional colleagues that would like to make a comment, please feel free to do so at this time. (No response.)
And hearing none, Clerk, will you please call the first witness to testify this afternoon for Bill 10 No. 230838.
Orlando Rendon. COMMISSIONER RENDON: Good afternoon, Chair Bass and members of the Committee on Parks, Recreation & Cultural Affairs. I am Orlando Rendon, Commissioner of Philadelphia Parks & Recreation. I'm here today to testify in support of Bill No. 230838 introduced by -- oops, I'm sorry -- no, I got the right one, sorry, which will designate the Miller Park Stars Negro League Memorial Park. Today this Committee considers dual and entirely appropriate honors. First, Bill No. 230838 would officially designate the park at Belmont and Parkside Avenues to the legacy of the Philadelphia Stars Baseball team. In their first year, the Stars rocked to the 1934 championship of the Negro League and continued to be an exemplary member throughout its existence in the mid-20th century. This legislation would also honor one of the (inaudible) members of the Business Association of West Parkside, which built and maintained the existing memorial there, its President and Treasurer, the late Miller Parker. Mr. Parker was the fierce champion of the West Parkside community which also included his work with the Philadelphia Business and Technology Center. Parks & Recreation will miss the energy and enthusiasm of Mr. Parker, particularly as it relates to ongoing work to enhance the Stars memorial. The City continues to work with the Business Association of West Parkside on improvements that will reflect the legacy of this public space just as this ordinance renaming does. Because Bill No. 230838 will honor the intertwined histories of service, achievement and excellence, we ask for a fair recommendation of Bill No. 230838 and that the rules of Council be suspended to allow first reading at the next session of City Council. Thank you for your time. My colleagues and I will be able to answer any questions from Members. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Any questions from our colleagues? (No response.)
I know we had that statement from Councilman Jones earlier. Any questions at all? (No response.)
Okay. Seeing none, Madam Clerk, are there additional witnesses to testify today?
Mr. Lee, please state your name for the record and begin your testimony.
There you go. They must have knew that I had a long speech. Dennis Lee, President of the Business Association of West Parkside. Madam Chair, to the distinguished members of Council, to the hardworking other members of this Committee, it's very humbling and honorable to be able to be before you today to talk about the legacy, the true meaning of dedication that Miller Parker showed not only to the park but to the West Parkside community. He was probably the linchpin that really started the renovation of that park. If you had seen that park prior to him and his wife Marjorie Ogilvie getting involved -- at the time I was at Senator Vincent Hughes' office when that started. Got an opportunity to work with Miller. He became my mentor on the business side, so we would be honored. Everything that the Commissioner said earlier I don't have to repeat that. Know that he is a pillar of this community. Know that the renovation, the previous renovation was over $300,000 that they raised on their own at that time. We currently are in a campaign to raise funds to continue the renovation and we were granted $1 million from the state that we have to match. So this is a tremendous honor, and I urge this Committee and Councilmembers to support this bill. And thank you for your time and thank you for already voting for this to happen. Thank you.
And thank you, Dennis Lee. We appreciate your testimony as always and your insight and input. Is there -- Madam Clerk, are there additional folks to testify?
Okay. If there is no one else here to testify and no folks in public comment who would like to make a statement, Clerk, please call the first witness we have to testify this afternoon for Bill No. 230837.
Mm-hmm. My apologies earlier, Commissioner. Commissioner of the Philadelphia Parks & Recreation Department, Orlando Rendon. COMMISSIONER RENDON: Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Bass and members of the Committee on Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs. I am Orlando Rendon, Commissioner of Parks & Recreation. I'm here to testify in support of Bill No. 230837 introduced by Councilmember Jones, which would extend the ongoing concession agreement between the City and Constellation Culinary Group at the Horticulture Center at Fairmount Park. While Parks & Recreation is proud of the work we do as far as Philadelphia, especially developing our children and youth, we also have the responsibility to maintain and utilize City buildings and other assets, which we are the custodians. As Members know well, some of those assets pose unique opportunities and raise particular challenges for programming and maintenance. (Inaudible) proceed is with an outside party. The Horticulture Center in Fairmount Park built in 1979 is one of these. Our existing concessionaire Constellation Culinary Group has done a phenomenal job managing it best. Under their stewardship, The Hort has been the venue for scores of beautiful weddings, private celebrations and corporate events each year. The City receives a portion of the revenue as well as an annual capital contribution which are invested in programming and maintenance of The Hort. And with feedback from this body, Parks & Recreation has worked diligently to ensure that the public has plenty of access to The Hort. This includes affordable non-catered private events like wedding ceremonies as well as free public ones, including their premier winter event, Get Away at the Greenhouse scheduled for February. Bill No. 230837 will not only extend the agreement but also continue programming and allow for significant improvements in the Greenhouse where Constellation has agreed to install an air-conditioning system for the facility as well as additional capital contribution all totaling approximately $300,000. That investment will make the center available all year-round. For these reasons, we ask for a favorable recommendation of Bill No. 230837 and that the rules of Council be suspended to allow first reading at the next session of City Council. Thank you for your time and I will be happy to answer any questions from the members of this Committee.
Thank you. Any additional folks here to testify from Parks & Recreation?
Okay. Well, let me start with my questions and concerns. And, Commissioner, these concerns predate your arrival as Commissioner, but this bill was presented to me to be introduced and we declined to introduce it some time ago based on several factors. And I was surprised to see this bill come up. We just took note of it today that this was the same bill that was offered by Parks & Recreation, and we had some very pointed questions and very serious concerns about this particular arrangement that the City of Philadelphia had. And I will speak just briefly on some of those concerns. One of them is the fact that Philadelphia Parks & Rec is essentially using a vendor or someone that they have a contract to provide services with to provide the maintenance, the level of maintenance that's required to maintain our own buildings. And because we have done this with this particular entity, we are unable to have any other sort of relationship or, you know, the smaller guys I guess is what I want to say, the smaller guys, the smaller potential vendors, caterers and so forth would not be able to compete on this level with this huge catering company to be able to provide services. And essentially, that blocks out neighborhood groups, other individuals, folks who want to have a nice event at the Horticultural Center but who may not be able to afford the considerable price tag that comes with using these larger companies. And so, because we feel very strongly about the fact that this is something that's going to lock people out of using the Horticultural Center versus inviting them in and because we've had this conversation over quite some time with Parks & Recreation, with then Commissioner Kathryn Ott Lovell who was very well aware of it and members of her team, it is my recommendation that we're not going to be able to proceed until there's some further conversation on this piece of legislation and regarding the process in which this contract was landed. Again, this is very last minute that we're aware that this contract was -- that this piece of legislation was coming forward. If we had been given a heads-up, then we would have certainly been able to have you all much more informed and go back and review our notes because it's been some time since we've had these conversations. But I am absolutely clear and committed that community use is a priority and also minority participation is a priority and that this contract did not satisfy on any level either of those items. So with that being said, we're going to hold this particular bill in Committee until the call of the Chair. COMMISSIONER RENDON: Understood and --
No. 6 I'm sorry. Go ahead, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER RENDON: Understood, and I look forward to setting up a time and a date that we can sit down and try to address your concern on this matter.
And same here, and thank you so much for your willingness to do that, Commissioner. I greatly appreciate it. And again, I really do want to underscore that this was not on your watch and that this happened prior to your arrival. And so, that being said if there's no one else to make a statement or public testimony or public comment, then we're going to go into our public meeting. Is there any --
Yes, sir. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, sir. Chair recognizes Councilman Jones.
I'm going to yield to your concerns that that was the bill that I introduced. I would be willing to hold it so that you can further go back into a question-and-answer response.
But I do have a question for the Commissioner. How much revenue does this concession generate for the City of Philadelphia? COMMISSIONER RENDON: In my notes, I believe since they received their RFP in 2016 they've generated $1.5 million for the department, which will help to maintain and sustain much-needed repairs and maintenance to the facility.
In addition, how many events have they had there? COMMISSIONER RENDON: I'm going to call upon our Director of Activation and Events, Ms. Bahiya Jones, who can give you more detail in terms of number of events. Bahiya.
Hi. So if you're speaking about Constellation, the wedding events; is that what you're speaking of?
So I'm going to ask to yield that back to Robert Allen, who is the Director of Property and Concessions.
Hi. Good afternoon. I'm Bob Allen, Director of Property and Concessions Management for Parks & Recreation. On average there are about 60 Constellation events each year at the Horticultural Center.
In that regard to this concession, does that give them an exclusive which prohibits other smaller caterers to the concern of the Chair Lady? Do they get an exclusive?
They have an exclusive license to cater at the Horticulture Center, but we also have a number of events that are excluded. So we can do up to 10 events at the Horticulture Center using other caterers and we do that and more. They have not held us to that 10. But I also would point out that Bahiya has done a great job because she set up a program to allow others to hold wedding events at the Horticulture Center and for relatively a small fee a couple can book the Horticulture Center for two hours, it's not open to the public, and hold their wedding ceremony there. And I believe the prior year we did about of 5 those. It looks like we're 6 scheduled to do more this year. 7 And I would also add, 8 Councilwoman Bass, that we 9 definitely took to heart what you 10 explained to us about this contract 11 and we have worked diligently to 12 find ways to make sure the 13 Horticulture Center is eligible to 14 the public at large. And I have to 15 commend Bahiya in particular for 16 working hard at that and making a 17 tremendous amount of progress at 18 that. We use the concession 19 revenue that we receive from 20 Constellation to make sure that those events are free and they're accessible to the public. So, you know --
If I could, do we have the ability to amend this offer to Constellation that might be more inclusive based on what the Chairwoman's concerns are?
I think we have the ability to amend the concession agreement to allow more exception events, so we could increase the number of exception events. I think it --
I'm willing to hold this to allow per the dialogue between the Chair Lady and you to address her concerns so that we can figure this out. So I would like to hold this piece of legislation, Madam Chair.
Absolutely. So we can certainly have additional conversations, but and I also do want to underscore, Councilman, that they, Parks & Recreation, under a different administration did bring this legislation to me and we again shot it down on a number of different levels around minority participation, community participation. One of the things that I heard Bob Allen mention is about the weddings and I remember we did discuss that as well. But what wasn't discussed is that you have two hours to have your wedding and then you have to leave. It's not as if you can have your wedding and reception there unless you can afford Constellation's in, my opinion, exorbitant price to be able to hold your affair there. Many, many moons ago I was married and had my wedding reception at the Horticulture Center, fun fact. But I remember that we were only able to have it there at such a wonderful occasion because at that time the City of Philadelphia did not rely on exclusive contracts. We were able to bring in the caterer of our choice, which made it a beautiful affair and very much affordable for someone who is of a modest means. And so, when I think about folks who would like to have an event there and the fact that they can't afford the catering cost because we are relying on a vendor to provide an air-conditioning system, something is wrong with that. We're locking out our very own people. And so, I just really wanted to state that, but I'm always open for conversation. It would have been nice to have heard from Parks & Recreation, that they were bringing this matter back to the table. But nonetheless, I'm certainly open to additional conversations.
You're very welcome. And I appreciate everyone's willingness to work on this matter further. Unless there's any additional comments or questions? (No response.)
And there being no further questions from members of the Committee, no 17 other witnesses to testify on these bills, I will ask if there is anyone else present in this hearing whose name we have failed to call and that wishes to offer testimony on the bills being considered today? (No response.)
Hearing none, I want to thank all the panels and witnesses for their participation on the legislation today. I want to remind the public that we will be moving to a public meeting to vote on Bill No. 230838. And we're going to hold 230837, both of which were heard by this Committee today. So we will now recess the hearing and go into a public meeting to consider the action to be taken on the bills before this Committee today. Okay. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll to take attendance. Members that are in attendance, please indicate that you are present when your name is called and also please say a few brief words when responding so that your image will be displayed on screen when you speak. Madam Clerk.
Thank you. Okay. Now that we have met quorum, I want to recognize Councilman Thomas for a motion on Bill No. 230838.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I -- give me one second. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that Bill No. 230837 be reported from this Committee with a favorable recommendation and further move that the rules of Council be suspended to permit the first reading of this bill at the next session.
Can we pause. That's the incorrect Bill 23 No. I'm sorry. It's 230838. I think you said 230837. Councilmember Thomas.
Okay. Yeah, I have -- so you want me to do 2 -- I have 230837, but you want me to do 230838?
I move that Bill No. 230838 be reported from this Committee with a favorable recommendation and further move that the rules of Council be suspended to permit the first reading of this bill at the next Council session.
The Chair notes for the record that Councilmember Jones seconds the motion. And it has been moved and properly seconded that Bill 1 No. 230838 be reported from the Committee with a favorable recommendation and further move that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at the next session of Council. All of those in favor of this motion will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The 16 ayes have it and the motion 17 carries. 18 And this concludes the 19 hearing of the Committee on Parks 20 and Recreation and Cultural 21 Affairs. I want to thank everyone 22 for their participation in today's 23 hearing, and I look forward to 24 additional conversation about our 25 bill which is being held today. Thank you so much everyone and have a great weekend. Thank you.
Thank you. (Hearing concluded at 1:32 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