Aye. The ayes are 16; the nays are zero. A majority of all members having Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING voted in the affirmative, the bill passes. Mr. Decker, please read the title of Bill No. 210917-A.
An ordinance adding a new Chapter 9-5700, entitled "Leasing of Commercial Property," to require commercial lessors to provide certain disclosures before entering lease agreements and to provide related protections to tenants.
This bill having been read on two different days, the question now is shall the bill pass finally. Mr. Decker, call the roll.
Aye. Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING
Councilwoman Parker. Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING
Aye. And, Mr. President, for the record, Councilmember Sanchez is having audio challenges right now for the record, but she is trying to -- she had to go out. She's trying to get back in, Mr. President.
Mr. Decker, I'm sorry. I apologize. I was having a good conversation with myself without understanding that both my screen and my microphone was off. Sorry about that. Please read the title of Bill No. 210669. Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING
We're not done with the disposition of 210917-A, Mr. President. You were the last vote to be called.
Oh, I'm sorry. I was having a little issue over here. I thought I read that. Aye. The ayes are 16; the nays are zero. A majority of all members having voted in the affirmative, the bill passes. And now, Mr. Decker, can you please read the title of Bill No. 210669-A.
An ordinance providing for the submission to the qualified electors of the City of Philadelphia of the proposal set forth in a Resolution approved by Council proposing an amendment to the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter to revise the composition of the Zoning Board of Adjustment, by increasing the number of Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING appointees, providing for confirmation by Council of appointees, and specifying qualifications that appointees must possess; and authorizing the appropriate officers to publish notice and to make arrangements for the special election.
This bill having been read on two different days, the question now is shall the bill pass finally. Mr. Decker, call the roll.
Councilwoman Gilmore Richardson. Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING
Councilman Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING Squilla.
Aye. The ayes are 17; the nays are zero. Councilwoman Quinones-Sanchez, there were a number of, I think three, maybe four, bills and resolutions that we moved while you were interrupted. Do you want to cast your vote now on those bills and resolutions?
Thank you, Council President. Yes. I was disconnected for an expired password, but I want to be recorded as voting aye on all bills and resolutions. Thank you.
Thank you, Councilwoman. Let the record reflect the Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING votes are now 17; zero as opposed to 16; zero. Okay. Mr. Decker, please read the title of Bill No. 210923.
Mr. President, we got a last-minute request to hold that bill from a member.
We have Bill No. 210920, Mr. President, that was removed from the Consent Agenda.
Yeah. For the inclusion of 210920 on the Consent Agenda, it is now on the regular Second Reading and Final Passage. So, Mr. Decker, can you please read --
Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING Excuse me, Mr. President. Councilmember Oh, you need to go on mute.
I'm sorry. Thank you very much. I'm looking for these things. Thanks.
Yes, Mr. President. An ordinance amending Chapter 9-800 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Landlord and Tenant," to provide for an eviction diversion program, to make associated changes related to the landlord and tenant relationship, and making certain technical changes.
Thank you. This bill having been read on two different days, the question now is shall the bill pass finally.
Mr. President, a member wants to make a statement prior to Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING the vote.
Councilwoman Gym, did you want to make a statement prior?
Just a little bit. I wasn't expecting to speak today, but, you know, I especially want to thank the co-sponsors of this bill, Councilmember Thomas, Gauthier, Brooks, members of the Housing Committee, and certainly all members of City Council who in last month signed on to a letter to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court urging an extension of Philadelphia's historic eviction diversion program. You know, Philadelphia's eviction diversion program was created in an emergency and crisis. It happened before we had hundreds of millions of dollars in rent assist coming through. Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING It happened before we knew how long the COVID crisis would last, but I think what this Council body ultimately understood was that COVID exposed existing breaks and crises within a system. It didn't just create them. And one of the crises that we have in Philadelphia, the poorest large city in the country, is that poverty is a lived experience, and one of the lived experiences comes through evictions. Philadelphia was the fourth highest evicting city in the nation pre-pandemic. Almost 22,000 evictions were processed and filed annually every single year. Since the pandemic, we have -- this Council body has been dedicated to putting in place new protections. I want to thank the Council President for helping establish a tenant legal defense fund, for this Council body for funding and supporting the Philadelphia Eviction Prevention Project, Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING which this body has supported the funding of through 2024. I want to thank this body for approving right to counsel, which guarantees legal representation in Landlord-Tenant Court for low-income tenants so that they are not denied a landlord when facing complicated issues that could result in the loss of their home. And of course I want to thank this Council body and especially my colleagues on Council who helped pass through the Emergency Housing Protections Act. At that time, it included an eviction moratorium that was temporary, the eviction diversion program, mandatory payment plans, and the curtailing of late payment fees. Together combined, for two years in a row, Philadelphia, the poorest large city in America, has reduced the number of evictions by 75 percent, from 22,000 evictions in 2019. We did less than 4,500 in 2020. We'll be around 6,000 or a little bit more than that in Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING 2021. There are alternatives to what has often been one of the worst days of some people's lives, which is having everything that you own thrown out with not even advanced notification. There can be solutions that result in helping us distribute rent assistance. Almost $230 million in rent assistance has gone to almost nearly 40,000 Philadelphia households to keep them housing stable and to ensure that landlords are paid in the process. And it's made sure that we have due process in our courts. Prior to the pandemic, there was an almost 90-day wait in Municipal Court when filing for an eviction. That wait is now 30 days. There's due process. There are options for exiting situations, and there is this eviction diversion program, which has had a 93 percent success rate for all participants, which has included several Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING thousand individuals. My hope is is that this program will continue to evolve and grow and that our Council body and our city will continue to evolve and grow in our responses to a complicated, complicated situation, but one that has been devastating to a number of -- to thousands of Philadelphians. And, again, I want to thank this Council body for being dedicated. Again, I want to thank every single person on this City Council who signed off on that letter to the Supreme Court.
As you heard from one of the testifiers today from the SeniorLAW Center, the Supreme Court's emergency extension expires at the end of this month, and so this bill allows for local authorization. The program will continue to evolve. We will have our landlord and/or renter advocates at the table as we look forward to a new era that takes us out of an emergency and into a permanent Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING approach towards seeing evictions as a course of last resort and not the first and default option that landlords and tenants have to see through. I want to thank everybody for that, and I look forward to the vote. Thank you very much, Council President.
Thank you, Councilwoman. This bill having been read on two different days, the question now is shall the bill pass finally. Mr. Decker, call the roll.
Councilman Domb. Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING
Councilwoman Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING Parker.
Aye. The ayes are 16; the nays are zero. A majority of all members having voted in the affirmative, the bill passes. Mr. Decker, do you have any additional resolutions?
A resolution calling on Mayor James F. Kenney and his administration to work collaboratively with City Council in the creation of a Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING Local Job Placement Task Force, introduced by Councilwoman Parker on behalf of Council President Clarke.
Thank you, Mr. President. On your behalf, I move for the adoption of the resolution. (Duly seconded.)
Thank you. It's been moved and properly seconded. All in favor indicate by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it, and that resolution is adopted.
A resolution calling on the Pennsylvania General Assembly to reject House Bills 412, 1332, Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING 1642, and any other legislative initiatives that decrease funding for public schools and further inequities in our educational systems, introduced by Councilwoman Gilmore Richardson.
The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you, Mr. President. I move the adoption of the resolution. (Duly seconded.)
It's been moved and properly seconded. All in favor indicate by saying aye. (Aye.)
Squilla, I'm going to lunch. Go on mute. Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING
The ayes have it, and that resolution is adopted.
A resolution urging the Biden Administration and the United States Department of Justice to finalize a proposed rule that would close a regulatory loophole and require 'ghost gun' kit makers to include serial numbers in firearm kits and require federally licensed firearms dealers to conduct background checks prior to the sale of these firearm kits, introduced by Councilman Johnson on behalf of Council President Clarke.
Council President, I enthusiastically adopt this resolution -- move for the adoption of Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING this resolution. (Duly seconded.)
It's been moved and properly seconded. All in favor indicate by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it, and that resolution is adopted.
A resolution authorizing the Special Committee on Gun Violence Prevention to conduct hearings to examine our national youth mental health crisis and its role in the ongoing epidemic of gun violence, introduced by Councilman Johnson.
Council President, I move for the adoption of the Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING resolution. (Duly seconded.)
It's been moved and properly seconded. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it, and that resolution is adopted.
And a resolution honoring the Inner City Warriors Youth Football Team for winning the National United Youth Football League 2021 Championship in Plant City, Florida, introduced by Councilman Johnson.
I know, Council Prez, you led the way a couple Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING years ago with a youth football team national title in Florida. So the Second District now has one, and so I enthusiastically move for the adoption of the resolution. (Duly seconded.)
Thank you. It's been moved and enthusiastically seconded. All in favor say aye. (Aye.)
And the championship has moved south, and the resolution is approved.
And a resolution authorizing the Philadelphia City Council Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless to conduct public hearings to explore the crisis of expiring affordable housing subsidies, the impact of these expirations on the Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING availability of affordable housing in the City of Philadelphia, and the use of the scattered site model to increase the number of available affordable units, introduced by Councilwoman Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. I move for the adoption of the resolution. (Duly seconded.)
It's been moved and properly seconded. All in favor indicate by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it, and that resolution is adopted. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Bass. I think she was -- Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 12/16/21 - STATED - 2ND READING
Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. I was having some challenges with technology, so I wanted to be registered as aye on eviction diversion.
Let the record reflect that Councilwoman Bass is voting aye on 210920. That vote is now 17; zero.
There are no other resolutions on the Final Passage Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 Calendar, Mr. President.
Okay. With that, we will move towards our speeches, and prior to recognizing members regarding those speeches, I will note for the record at this time 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 particular purpose. With that said, speeches on behalf of the minority? The Chair recognizes Councilman Oh.
Thank you very much, Council President. Yesterday the Council's Committee on Education held a very substantive and lengthy hearing on a relevant, important, and sometimes complicated topic, and that has to do with criteria-based schools and the Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 in summary, at least from what I understand -- and I invite the public to look at the video of the hearing. I will warn you it's about four and a half hours. However, you can skip around, and you will see a lot of very impressive learned people as well as excellent representatives providing expert testimony and important testimony, but what I believe is revealed is that the Philadelphia Board of Education has already implemented -- they're not planning to implement this. They already have implemented -- a new admissions process for these criteria-based schools, and some of us know them as magnet schools. It is fundamentally a system where you have to get past the first phase. The first phase is that you have to have A's and B's, but A's and B's are not distinguished. So someone with all A's and someone with all B's are equal. Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 there, you have to take an essay, a 90-minute essay, that is graded by the computer program that cannot evaluate content, cannot distinguish humor, insight, determination, aspiration. It basically will flag for a teacher sentence structure, grammar, and spelling. Once a student gets past this first phase, they are then in a lottery system. The lottery system, however, the School District has selected six, to my knowledge, six zip codes where a weight is given to any applicant within that zip code. The zip codes, as far as I know, you know -- I'm not sure the point of the selection, but that's, I think, in controversy. Depending on how you look at, I believe the official count of zip codes in Philadelphia is 87, but some of those are just buildings, government buildings, and so perhaps the zip codes as we know it, neighborhoods, is 47, and entire Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 absent from this weighted zip code. Some of the poorest, most crime-ridden neighborhoods are not included. There is no standardized test and there is no, from what I can tell, evaluation based on letters of recommendation. And the computer program specifically says it is not to be used for grading and certainly not for high-stakes evaluation. Also, this new process was announced the day before the process of admissions, which was very disturbing and shocking to a lot of people, especially those who wanted to get in. And now there is also the issue of middle schools where parents and students understood that because these were selective schools and many of them awarded for their diversity and inclusion, that there would be a preference for the children who attended schools like Carver and SLA Beeber and Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 like that. So there is that confusion. I do think that, as many of my colleagues have stated, that whatever the good intentions, that this process was not well thought out, was not available to the public, was not inclusive, and part of the problems also raise legal issues. For example, the process of selection is extremely detrimental to children with intellectual and emotional disabilities. It is extremely detrimental to children who have certain physical disabilities. It is detrimental to children who are immigrants, who grow up in a household that English is not the language spoken, to children from poor neighborhoods that have underperforming schools where English is not, when it comes to grammar, spelling, and sentence structure, something that is really emphasized.
And I think it also Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 students, but particularly I think those who are trying, those who are smart, those who are gifted but are poor, because they cannot go to a tuition-based school. And what we're really talking about, I believe, is the Constitution. The Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Pennsylvania guarantee as a right, not a privilege, a quality education, quality education, not separate and unequal and unfair education, a quality education that is as good as anyone else's education based on its public stature. It doesn't matter you're a citizen, a non-citizen. Whatever your physical or intellectual situation, your race, your gender, you know, all of those things, you are guaranteed a right to a quality education. Philadelphia is ranked 597th out of 707 school districts in the state. Children can simply go to school in a Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 in which is wealthy. They have an excellent school. They don't need to compete for it. They don't need to take tests. They don't need to write essays. They just go to their neighborhood school. Other kids cannot go there because they don't live there. They don't have the money to live there. They can't afford to live there. And so one of the things that I really urge the School District to consider is the message that it is sending, and I think the message that it's sending is where you live matters. Where you live matters, because you do not have a good school. You do not have an equal school. And now if you try as hard as you might to get out of that situation to go to a magnet school, even that now seems blocked, because you are now subject to a lottery and you don't have the money. What are the choices for these Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 families? One is to move out of the City, you know, if you can, and if you can't, what do you do? I am very concerned and I believe many people are. We've had excellent witnesses, like the Chair of our Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, our colleague from our colleague State Representative Donna Bullock, Archbishop Mary Floyd Palmer, civic activist and radio show host Solomon Jones, as well as many academic experts and other persons. And the quandary is, what happens now? I am circulating a letter. I'm just letting people know. And I appreciate the Councilmembers that are aware of it that are signing on, and for those who don't know, I will circulate it, just laying out what happened, what was made evidence, and urging the School District to take a pause in terms of working with City Council to see if there is a way to address this situation. Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 done. The process is in play, but if we don't do anything, are we just allowing this to continue? I really believe that at heart is the failure to deliver a constitutionally guaranteed right to a good quality, free public education right where you live, and this is a challenging situation. I will circulate that letter and I hope that good will come of this, and I appreciate everyone who participated and everyone's concern. Thank you. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you, Councilman. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brooks.
Dec 16, 2021 Stated Meeting December 16, 2021 Councilwoman, we can't hear you.
All right. Go off camera. All right. I'm working from home today. Can you hear me now?