Is that a tad overwhelming at some level, to have to deal with 75 different vendors on communications?
Well, we have used them over the years for specific needs that we have and, as you will see, we have been very busy on the communications front --
-- and doing a wide range of outreach and education activities and so different vendors meet different needs. It is quite a bit. I agree with that. And certainly it is -- it has been a priority for us to get out in the public and as I mentioned earlier our reports of abuse and neglect are up by 12 percent and I firmly believe that while my agenda is to reduce the number of abuse and neglect cases in the City, we can't reduce it unless we know about it and so part of -- that's just one example of why this investment is 177 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole important because clearly people were underreporting in the City because we were not doing outreach. So, yes, it is a lot to manage.
I want to talk about one last item. The data comes from Attachment E. For 2001 Fund for Philadelphia the administrative fees were $30,108.39. Now, please explain this to me. You pay the Fund for Philadelphia an administrative fee for what?
4 percent of the funding that they administer for administrative and fiscal support services and just the management of the funding and the maintenance of records and the production of records for the department.
In that same fiscal year Harmaline Media, the cost was $106,290.75. This was for a radio ad campaign to recruit staff?
Well, the ads were informing the public that there were job 178 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole opportunities available at the Department of Human Services for social workers and for youth detention counselors because at the point I became commissioner we were really in a crisis with understaffing and we're understaffed now, but we are much better than we were before. We have hired over 300 social workers since I became commissioner with a net gain of 70 over the level that we had when I became commissioner. High turnover is a problem of crisis proportion nationally in child welfare systems and it was really a very targeted ad campaign that was put through a lot of minority media, community newspaper, radio, et cetera, to get people to apply for the jobs. And we have been so successful that central personnel closed the test last month because they had 400 applications they were not able to process, but right now we have no 19 list because we basically hired everybody off of the list. It's a really tough situation and the reason why, Councilman, I made the decision to make this investment, even though I think it's a lot of money and I think it is too much money, that's what it costs, is because central personnel does not have 179 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole the capacity or the financial resources in their budget to do it the way that DHS needs it done so had I not invested from our federal, state and local resources, it would not have happened. And we had no choice really. At this point, as you will see, we have shifted -- or I don't know if it is reflected here. This year we shifted our targeted campaign to youth detention counselors because that's where we had an even bigger crisis, so we are reducing overtime by bringing in the right staff in addition to other strategies. There's a very high turnover rate in the Department of Human Services because of the nature of the work.
I understand. It's very tough work. Why is that? Why do you have such a high turnover rate?
Well, because staff make life-and-death decisions, because the workloads are intense and the caseloads are high, even though we have been bringing them down, because there is a huge amount of pressure constantly from the clients, from the public, from the courts, and because they can find work that pays equal or maybe even a little 180 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole less but still is less stressful out in the community. However, however, I believe it's also because the department had not done the kinds of things that needed to be done to make staff feel supported and noted. For example, we got phones for all of our social workers. When I became commissioner, social workers shared phone lines even in our new building. That's not acceptable. So it is also about investing in our staff and we are doing that and our retention is going up because we are lowering caseloads investing in our staff and bringing in more bodies to carry the load.
It's always tough with these averages, but what's the average salary of a caseworker?
From the top of my head I think -- well, the starting salaries are 27 and 28 for Social Worker I and II and I believe $34,000 -- no, for Trainee and I 27 and 28,0000; for Social Worker II the starting salary is $34,000. And the other thing we have done is reopen the test for Social Worker IIs which allows us to bring in people with experience and master's degrees. That was not 181 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole open when I became commissioner. I believe many of our social workers are making around 45, $50,000. That's what I remember off the top of my head because we have a fair amount of people that have stayed there a long time. I might also add we have close to 600 social workers at any point in time working in the department so it's natural that there is going to be movement. It is a big organization.
I understand. In the same fiscal year, 2001, the department, according to Attachment E, paid Keel Communications $401,006.23 for a variety of services. Is that about ten social workers?
Maybe a little less with benefits. You know, councilman, I believe that it might be something, that amount of money might be a number of social workers, and I'm not sure if it was ten or it might be less. It might be less.
I totally understand the point, but I also -- I understand the point and I accept the point, but I also want to be very clear that we don't do communications investments for 182 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole social purposes or for publicity purposes. We did it because we believe that an investment in outreach and an investment in recruitment of staff and an investment in changing the image of the Department of Human Services so that people trust us and come to us and accept us as the primary entity in the City that is responsible for this work was a good investment and I truly believe that over time we will be able to minimize our communications investment because we won't have as great a need to build trust like we did initially. In fact, for next year we are projecting a budget that is significantly lower than the budget we had this year because we believe we can now begin to shift that money into other expenses and also because the economy is bad and that's where we are going to -- that is a priority area to cut.
Are you anticipating bringing any of these services inhouse?
Well, we are definitely committed to using our internal resources as much as possible and based on the questions that I have received, quite frankly, I am going to personally get more involved in finding out what kind of 183 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole infrastructure we can access internally in the City because sometimes, Councilman, the issue for me is speed. It doesn't mean that I can't get the work done. It is that there would be tremendous delays for me to get it done inhouse because there is a backlog and so perhaps there are ways that I can work with procurement and printing and maybe invest some resources in building their capacity so that they can serve the department better. And so, yes, we will make a commitment to reduce costs as much as possible with that strategy as part of our plan.
Let's talk about 2002 and 2003 quickly. The Fund for Philadelphia, $51,000 in administrative fees; Harmaline Media, $10,000 for radio ads for the juvenile justice conference; Keel Communications, $391,788.72. For 2003, Fund for Philadelphia, $36,801; Harmaline Media, 114,525 and Keel Communications $273,236.78. The total for the three fiscal years is the Fund for Philadelphia you have paid in administrative fees $117,964.90; Harmaline Media, $231,498.50 and Keel Communications is $1,660,031.73 for various services. 184 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole First, why does the administrative fee seem to fluctuate at least over that three-year period with the Fund for Philadelphia?
My understanding would be that it's dependent on the amount of money that was administered through the Fund for Philadelphia. It is 4 percent of whatever money is administered.
Commissioner, you were here earlier and actually you were at the table. We had a somewhat painful, slightly agitated, at least on my side, discussion about a teen center in West Philadelphia which I don't have because we need 100 to $125,000 to open a teen center in West Philadelphia, but over the last three years we have spent over a million dollars to a communications person. I'm not commenting on the quality of work. I have actually never seen any of the work. It could be wonderful for all I know, although I have been around for the last three years and I'm not sure that any of it has kind of penetrated my mind. I don't understand why I don't have a teen center versus a million dollars in communications. I would like to communicate with the teens out in West Philadelphia and I can do it a 185 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole lot cheaper, for about $125,000.
I did hear your comments about that, Councilman, and, as I said before, I will be part of any kind of planning that the managing director pulls together to look at how we can give you a response as quickly as possible. I will say that under my administration of the Department of Human Services we have invested a significant amount of money, many millions of dollars, in new and re-engineered programs and that I believe that a million dollars in communications, while it is a significant amount of money, relates to the fact that our department had absolutely no 15 infrastructure to communicate with the public, to recruit staff, to give people information about our hotline, to build a customer service line, which we did not have, and I accept your comment and I can just tell you that from where I was sitting at the time as commissioner, that had I not invested in building a communications infrastructure, I could not have done my job. I accept the questions. I think that they are important questions and I will answer to the best of my ability, but we are aware of where 186 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole every single one of those dollars went and what we got for it. And I am accountable for that expenditure, but I am very committed to investing money in programs and that has been my priority, in programs, services, and not only programs and services, but quality programs and services. So I'm not going to -- I can't use -- I accept your comments and I just am simply saying that our communications strategy has to do with improving the quality of services that DHS does and many questions have been raised which will allow me to help me think about this more carefully in the future.
Where do you anticipate these same three categories or cost centers to be in FY '04?
We are planning for a significant reduction in communications because we are planning for a potential reduction in funding overall in the Department of Human Services, so we are expecting to reduce it to at least $700,000, if not more if we have to, again over a department that has $600 million in funding overall and that has a responsibility to do the kind of things we have to do. 187 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole
Look, I believe in as much communication as the next person, but I also believe even stronger in providing service and you just have to have a greater sense of appreciation from the earlier discussion to now this discussion about some of these dollars. The pot is not unlimited and while we are out communicating in a certain way with people, we also need to be providing services. So I'm not saying that your department or agency should be fully responsible for the funding of the teen center, although I understand the agency is involved in that particular program, but these are some pretty hefty figures. As a regular citizen who -- I mean I watch a little TV, I listen to the radio every now and then, and I'm sure people are paying attention to this and they are responding and they are hearing and they are seeing and they are doing, but, quite frankly, that's not doing anything for us getting closer to providing direct services in an environment where dollars are shrinking and you are telling me you are reducing that particular budget.
Councilman, let me just say this: The communications budget will be reduced 188 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole next year and some of the figures that you quoted have been going down, as you yourself noted, but let me just say this: If the department spends 350 -- I mean the situation I came into is that the Department of Human Services was spending at that time I guess around $300 million in programs and services that the community often did not know about. My own staff did not know the kinds of things that DHS had available for our families. It was a crisis situation, and I think that clearly the priority for us in expenditures has to be direct service. It has to be. There is no question about it. And I'm as uncomfortable as you are with the notion that we spend any money on any administrative costs. However, if we have services and people don't know how to access those services when they need them, then the services are not effective and it is as good as if they were not there. One of the issues we confront in the City is that we fund things and then they get underutilized. My position is that our communications investment has to be conservative, it has to be cost efficient and it has to be strategically used and I will account for that to 189 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole Council on a continuing basis and any time I can cut, I will cut.
I appreciate that. Last question. Do you know what the size of either of the two firms may be, Harmaline Media or Keel Communications? Do you know how many people work there?
I would not know the exact number. I don't believe they are particularly large firms. I believe they are small firms, but I don't know an exact number and we will find that out for you.
Yes. One comment you made earlier was that the personnel department did not have the capability to recruit as you might have wanted them to and that you found it necessary to do your own recruitment and you found dollars in your budget to do that. The use of those dollars, were you supposed to use those dollars for recruitment processes, or were they dollars supposed to be used for services? 190 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole
Were they categorized -- yes. How were they categorized, the funds that you used?
If you used federal dollars, what federal dollars did you use? If you used state dollars, what dollars did you use? If you used local dollars, what dollars did you use?
I'm asking our finance director, John Senier, to join me in explaining the funding streams that were used for this purpose.
Good afternoon, Councilwoman. The funding for this is 34 percent is federal Title 40 dollars, around 40 percent is Act 148 dollars -- I'm sorry. It is more than that. It is around 45 percent, and around 12 cents of a dollar for City dollars.
Where did those dollars come from? They came from the state but what did you apply for those dollars for?
They were part of the mix 191 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole of the department's needs-based budget request. The department makes a needs-based budget request to the state and it has the expenditure items listed of what we intend to spend and it also provides the funding sources and under that allocation we were able to do these communications.
When you applied for the money, did you cite in your application that you were going to use the money for communications or recruitment?
Specifically, no, at that time, but we can reallocate funds with the approval from the state and we subsequently reallocated our categorical funding to the state to include that and which they approved.
Councilwoman, I would also like to add that we meet with the state on a very regular basis, more than once per month. They know what we are doing, and if they have a problem with anything we are doing, they let us know. Recruitment of staff is something that they will cite us on and we can lose our license for having too high caseloads, so it is like they don't exactly tell us how to do our job, but they will tell us if 192 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole your caseloads hit above 30 to 1 cases per social worker, then they put our license at risk, and so that's why they give us the flexibility to just solve our problems in the ways we want it and we would use our administrative dollars for this kind of expense, not direct service dollars. No direct services were cut to do this and I also want to say that DHS, before I became commissioner, always returned money to the state. There was always a significant amount of underspending at DHS that was returned to the state, so I really did not have to take away from anything. In fact, I brought money into the City with a lot of help and so this money was not ever taken away from any direct service.
Thank you very much. Are there any other questions from Members of Council? Thank you very much.
Good afternoon. Thank you for your patience. Please identify yourself for the record. 193 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole
I'm Fay Moore, SEPTA's general manager, and joining me is Frances Jones, AGM of government affairs.
Thank you, Madam President. Good afternoon, Miss Moore. Would you please update me on my request for detailed information about what public transportation infrastructure is owned by the City and not SEPTA?
I don't remember receiving it and I think I would have taken particular note to it. Can you check with the Council President's office and/or re-send a copy to my office?
We sent 20 copies to the Council President's office as a part of our response.
I have been waiting 194 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole for it.
The original response with that information on the lease leaseback was sent over in a timely manner and that was the first package that was sent over, the full package, and then there was another attachment that was sent over also.
Did you also send copies of the actual lease leaseback agreement?
In previous testimony, I believe you testified on March 11, did you reference a need for service cuts and fare increases on that date?
No, I just said, like everybody else, we would have to do some tightening of the budget and just give a heads-up that we were looking at some deficit situations.
Why did you not reference it if the fiscal situation is that severe? My understanding is that what happened with relation to the state is a difference of $15 million, but it obviously was already a $40 million problem, so why 195 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole would you not reference the need for fare increases and/or drastic service cuts at that point?
Because at that point in time we did not know what mechanism we were going to take. We alluded to the fact that, like other agencies, we had a deficit and a budget situation, but we did not know exactly which direction we were going to take.
Miss Moore, in the package you just recently sent to I believe all Members of Council -- I don't believe I was the only one to receive it -- there is actually a schedule in here for how you release your budget. It says "release budget outlook to public week of March 31, 2003," so if it was going to be released on the week of March 31, at what point was it developed? Was it not being developed by March 11?
It was underway, but, again, it had not been finalized. We were trying desperately to avoid fare increases. We were looking at other mechanisms that we could do to try to handle it internally, but the size of it was just so big we could not manage it internally.
You don't think it 196 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole would have been appropriate to give this Council any indication that there would be drastic service cuts or fare increases?
We didn't know there were going to be drastic fare increases. We realized --
At that point you said we will try to live within our means like everyone else. From that point it went from being a $40 million deficit to a $55 million deficit. I won't say that million additional dollars is not 12 drastic, but I would say if you already were dealing 13 with a $40 million deficit, why would you not inform 14 the Council that you were looking at drastic service 15 cuts and/or fare increases, particularly fare increases?
Because at that point in time, sir, we were not. The dollar amounts had not been finalized to come up with our deficit. By the time we finished Council hearings, we were then hovering around the $40 million mark. You add it with the $15 million that we didn't receive from the state, it became 55 million and it was just way too big for us to handle internally, but we did not know the dollar amounts were 40 million when we were 197 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole sitting here on March 11.
Miss Moore, in preparation for coming to Council to receive what is about a $60 million subsidy -- I believe it is $57, $58 million -- were you aware of Council's timetable in terms of this budget process?
No, sir. I knew my schedule, but I didn't know your schedule. I'm not sure I'm answering your question. I knew we were going to make a presentation to you mid-March. I also knew that my normal process --
Because I can tell you that the last time there was a fare increase by SEPTA two years ago, SEPTA did exactly the same thing. Regardless of who was specifically responsible for it, they came in to Council, said nothing about a fare increase, dealt with their own budget process and timetable, did not inform this Council of what was a drastic fare increase at that time and then turned around a week or so after we 198 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole finished our budget process and told the City of Philadelphia that they were raising fares, and of course at which time members of the community, taxpayers, want to know why would Council pass a budget and have no knowledge that there were going to be fare increases and, in this case, drastic service cuts and fare increases.
Again, Councilman, I didn't know -- we had not finalized the magnitude of our own internal problem when I was before you previously. We finalized that afterwards and it was compounded with the additional $15 million reduction from the state.
Let's talk about it now then. What do you hope to generate in terms of additional revenues by raising tokens by ten cents?
I didn't have it broken down in that type of category. We had one big dollar amount. We can give you some idea, but I looked at total dollar amounts and the total dollar amounts we needed from the fare increase was 15 --
So you don't know how much money you are supposed to get from raising tokens by 10 percent? 199 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole
The numbers, no, I don't have it with me, but we can get it for you.
But now I'm the general manager, so I don't have the detail per each of the line items. We have that information and we can provide it.
Do you view the ten cents that you are trying to raise on the tokens as being a cost to the School District or a cost to the school children?
As general manager, who do you view it as being a cost to, the School District or the school children?
It depends on how the School District handles it. Currently if they continue their pattern -- I don't know how they handle it. There will be increase cost to tokens.
And they are subsidized by the same people you are subsidized by and so you are passing it on --
Overall it is subsidized by the state. Is that what you are saying?
That is exactly what I'm saying. So you get a cut from the state and you decide to pass on some of the cost to the School District, which is also subsidized by the state.
The riding public. We still have individuals who buy a great deal of tokens. The School District might be the biggest concentrated user of tokens, but there is the general public that still uses tokens. We did not target the School District specifically in raising the token price. 201 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole
Can you forward through the Chair the amount of money you hope to generate from adding a cost to the tokens on school children and how much impact that will have on the actual School District? Because we might want to take that out of your subsidy.
Thank you. Lastly, just dealing with the issue of utilization of disadvantaged contractors, a question I didn't get a chance to ask several weeks ago. Are those decisions actually made at the staff level or the board level and to what extent are they made at the staff level versus board level? Could you explain that process? It is not really an either/or type of question. I would like to understand where the decisions in terms of contract and utilization of disadvantaged contractors is actually made.
Let me start with a piece of additional information. All of our contracts are formally advertised. Primes then respond via a request for bid or a request for proposal, whichever way we send it out. The prime response to us -- as part of that package, he or she would list the subs 202 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole that would be involved in that particular contract. The award is made, voted on by the board, but it is made to the prime. So at that point in time the subs are listed.
In terms of the utilization of -- I understand the contracts are approved for the prime, but in terms of the utilization, when you are talking about a figure, a percentage in terms of within that contract, who ultimately makes that decision, or not just ultimately makes that decision. In terms of process how is that decision made? Is that a staff level decision or a board level decision in terms of the awarding of contracts that denote how much minority participation is going to be?
The internal calculation is done initially by staff in establishing a goal. It is done for every contract. It is based on the scope of services and the DVEs or firms associated in our database that can do the work.
So if the board wanted to raise it, the board could raise it?
No. It has to be based on the availability of DVEs for that particular scope 203 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole of services.
We went through that question before in terms of you said from year to year that availability does not change.
No, the availability changes per contract. The availability on an overall basis --
I know it should be based upon availability, but could you tell me it actually is based upon availability?
So your numbers in terms of minority participation vary greatly from year to year?
The last three preceding years it was about 18 percent overall goal DVE. 204 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole This year is 15 percent. So you have in two years or in four years a variance of 3 percent. I don't know whether you consider that great or not, but there has been a variance.
What is the highest level of participation since you've been there not just as general manager, as affiliation period?
I know we have had 10 percent. I think one year was 21 percent. The 11 highest we reached was about 21 percent. 12
But your response is 16 that is actually a staff decision that is based upon 17 availability of disadvantaged contractors? 18
Contract by contract. From a global DVE, we do it, we submit it to the federal transportation authority. They review it, review the processes and then approve a goal, so the goal is developed by staff.
I'm just trying to clarify whether you believe it is a staff decision in the end or a board decision. 205 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole
Who actually makes the decision in terms of coming up with the goals?
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco.
I wanted to refer back to Councilman Goode's question about the lack of knowledge and information this Council received on the budget on the fare increase. Two years ago who prepared the numbers to determine whether or not there should be a fare increase?
The finance department is responsible for finalizing the budgets. That would also include looking at the projected revenues and expenses for the next year.
Are the same people 206 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole there this year that were there two years ago?
So the question becomes are they politically savvy to understand and to send you over here without giving you some information that there might be a fare increase and we did not know two years ago and you come over here and you get chewed out because you don't tell us that there may be a fare increase?
They are competent individuals. They were compiling information and doing the forecast during the time frame we were here. We also had to have information prepared and ready for a board discussion which met March or 17 27, so they were formalizing information. The only 18 thing I mention here is that our financial outlook 19 looked as bad as the state's, but at that point I 20 did not have specific details. We were formalizing 21 the degree of the deficit. 22
Did you call the 23 President and tell her there might be the 24 possibility of a fare increase? 25
Do you think you all have learned your lesson for this next year?
I think there would be a process that we would handle it differently. I'm not so sure how much information I will have specifically for you at that junction, but I think we would handle the process just a bit differently.
So hopefully you all got the message. I just heard a rumor and I don't see it in any of your documentation that there might be a discontinuation of Line C up Broad Street. Is that a rumor?
It is not a rumor. It is in the information that we sent over, yes.
The primary justification is it runs parallel with Broad Street.
So it is duplicating 208 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole services. If we are looking at services to eliminate, part of what we looked at would be services that were duplicated in another form.
I have not been on a subway in a long time, but is it handicapped accessible?
If I'm at Broad Street and I'm handicapped and I need to get on a bus. I can't access the subway. What do I do?
I'm sorry. Repeat that. I think I understood you, but I just want to make sure.
I'm in a location and I am handicapped. I need a bus. I need assistance in accessing transportation. The nearest location of the subway is not handicapped accessible. Do I have to spend my time to find a subway site that is handicapped accessible to accommodate me?
If you wanted to do it the fastest way, you could call our travel information center. 209 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole
I'm on Broad Street and I don't have a phone nearby and I need to get on the subway. I need transportation up Broad Street. Where do I go to get on a bus, or how do I access the subway? Are you going to spend money to make all of the stops along Broad Street handicapped accessible, and if you don't, you all need to rethink the thought about changing and discontinuing the line because you have senior citizens who don't want to go -- and a large portion of your ridership are senior citizens. So there has to be a little more than numbers. It seems to me from the testimony we get from you guys it is just all numbers. There is no sensitivity to anything whether it is about people, riders or minority contractors. Well, you know, maybe it is just a cavalier attitude. So I think you need to rethink that Line C because it goes from South Philadelphia and certainly goes to my district, which is at the end of Broad Street, actually over to Cheltenham Avenue. There is no subway stop beyond Fernrock. Once you get there, you need a bus. So you are going to have a bus on that line to get people north and we have a large ridership. 210 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole
Thank you. I think that's my question, Council President.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Clarke.
Thank you, Madam President. I actually want to follow up on the Route C question issue. I was actually going to ask that question about Route C. Isn't that one of the most utilized routes particularly during peak hour and did you take that into account or did you just look at duplicative service as it relates to a corridor?
I will tell you the four or five factors that we considered and it was definitely not done just by numbers. Duplicate service was one aspect. The service standards that were adopted would have been another aspect. Availability of other services, ease of connections, et cetera, would have been another factor and there were a couple of other factors, so it wasn't just by the numbers. 211 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole
You rolled it out together and you sort of looked at it, so it was not one factor, but multiple factors that we looked at in coming up with the list.
So when we talked about Route 121, my favorite route that's no longer in operation during a particular time, when we talked about the fact that it was all about the ridership and that word was used over and over again when the decision was made to opt to go to 30th Street, all of those other factors weren't taken into account? Did the rules change?
No, the rules have not changed. The ridership is a key component when we are looking at some of the service standards. It is also some information we have gathered from community that would have requested X versus Y in terms of changing a route.
Any type of community. We get tons of requests, say, for more transportation 212 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole to 30th Street.
I'm asking about 121. The only community that came in to speak about 121 at the public meeting were the senior citizens from the Presbyterian Homes and they were all in favor of maintaining the 121, so I'm trying to get a sense of what exactly you were looking at, since you are now saying that ridership is not necessarily the end all.
Not by itself. It is a critical component because we adopted service standards and the service standards tell us if it is not giving us certain ridership, we should really consider eliminating it. Ridership is one component and a critical component because, again, the service standard is there in such a way that we can spread the maximum amount of services to the most people. The community I was referring to, the 121, the community at large, not one specific community. We had gotten a lot of requests to provide more service towards 30th Street.
Since you bring that up, did you provide the committee with the information that we requested at the last hearing? 213 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole
Yes, I did, and I guess I'm a little perplexed because we sent or copies 4 over and it sounds like you didn't get copies. 5
I didn't get that. 6 I got the information on the locations, the Broad 7 Street intersections, but I didn't get that. Did 8 you send it to -- 9
Yes, we sent it to the 10 President's office in a box and we have a signoff on 11 the person who received it. 12
That's not it. We sent a 15 package over to the budget office first and they 16 made some changes and then we sent 20 copies over to 17 the President's office in a box. 18
That would 19 have been distributed if we received it. We are 20 calling down to see if we received it.
We just called the office. We are told that there were three sets that came up. They are rather large.
No. Those were the initial sets. There was a box with copies in it and in 7 that box was the one set of the specs. 8
We have 9 someone coming up from the fourth floor because I 10 don't know. 11
In the meantime you can have 12 mine. I'm reading from what I'm going to now hand 13 to you. We are actually talking Routes 44 and the 14 121 and subsequent to establishing service to 30th 15 Street 25 of the passengers continued to use the 16 Route 121. It dropped to under ten when we 17 eliminated midday and weekend service. Some of the 18 passengers went to Route 48 and the changes gave us 19 approximately 500 additional passengers serviced 20 through 30th Street.
It would be more helpful if I had a copy of that. Thank you. I will read it after I ask the question. Going back to the C, you indicated there were a number of factors associated with the 215 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole elimination of that and I'm assuming that there was an analysis done in writing on the C route. Could you provide us with that analysis indicating all of the various categories and compare that with the analysis that we are doing on the 121 by category? Because I'm assuming you used the same methodology associated with the elimination of the 121 and the recommendation for the elimination of the C?
Route 27, what is the recommendation on the closure? What is that based on?
I don't have the details in front of me so we will have to send you that one, the 27 as well.
And a similar analysis in terms of the recommendation per category?
I would like to thank you for providing a response with respect to 216 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole the transit stops on Broad Street. I just wanted to ask you a particular question about the North Philadelphia station, which is pretty much the Germantown/Lehigh/Glenwood station. Early on in the planning process when you were doing your outreach there was a community organization involved in that program, I believe the Neighborhood Action Bureau, and they held a number of or hosted a number of meetings for SEPTA and the relationship was discontinued, but now it appears that there is some movement, some additional movement, as relates to the restoration at that particular location and I'm asking will there continue to be community outreach to ensure that the information is disseminated among the community in a timely way using, if not that community organization, a similar community organization?
And also as we proceed on the various capital projects down at the north corridor, if there, in fact, can be some relationship with the various community organizations up and down that corridor, because I see you have them out until year 2012. I'm assuming 217 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole that those community organizations will be in place. I asked for that commitment because I'm not sure I will still be a councilperson, so if I can get that commitment at a minimum to work with those organizations.
I can't guarantee that I will be there in 2012, but it is generally a process to do outreach.
Your commitment is on behalf of SEPTA and they will still be there in some way, shape or form. I had one question with respect to Miss Jones. I needed to ask that question of her, and it was a particular rail line bridge along the 9th Street corridor, the new rail line that was constructed a few years ago and it runs adjacent to a playground at 8th and Poplar and one of the questions was lighting under that bridge that ran the span of the playground like a block long and it actually divides the Richard Allen, the new Richard Allen development, from the playground and it is extremely dark under there in the evening hours and there was a request both verbally and in writing from the communities to get some lighting under that 218 4/7/03 - Committee of the Whole bridge because we have a lot of children going to and from that playground and families and it is extremely dark and relatively dangerous and we will hopefully get that lighting under that bridge.
It think it's Amtrak. According to our investigation, it's Amtrak, but it is not owned by SEPTA.