Aye. The ayes are 16, the nays are 0. A majority of all Members of Council having voted in the affirmative, the bill passes. The Clerk will please read the title of Bill No. 030007.
An Ordinance authorizing transfers in appropriation for Fiscal Year 2003 from the General Fund certain or all City offices, departments, boards and commissions, and from the Grants Revenue Fund, Director of Finance provision for other grants and from the Community Development Fund, the Director of Finance Community Development 2/27/03 - STATED - 2ND READING AND FINAL PASSAGE Block Grant to be allocated to the General Fund, certain or all City offices, departments, boards, and commissions.
This bill having been read on two different days, the question now is shall the bill pass finally? The Clerk will please call the roll.
Aye. The ayes are 16, the nays are 0. A majority of all Members of Council having voted in the affirmative, the bill passes. That concludes the Calendar. Are there any speeches on the part of the minority? The Chair recognizes Councilman O'Neill.
Thank you, Madam President. I'd like to talk briefly on two issues and the aftermath that I don't think have been discussed very much and I think deserve the attention of this Council and government. One is there are at least three ladies whose average age is about 85, homeowners that live on Byberry Road and Verree Road, two very main thoroughfares with very little parking or space for parking, who either shoveled or had people shovel their sidewalks in a very good time after the snowfall. And then when plows came by, I believe by private operators, really doing that extra measure of getting all of the snow out of the parking lane when no one parks, piled the snow back on their sidewalk. These people had been hit with $25 fines under what is, if handled properly a pretty good program under NTI, the Neighborhood Service Unit of the Police Department where neighbors snitch on other neighbors central office who haven't shoveled their sidewalks, and it works very effectively. I don't mind that. If somebody doesn't shovel their sidewalk and it's five days after the snowstorm, they should get fined. But common sense, first of all, tells us that if the snow is deeper on the during the snowstorm that maybe we should knock on the door or contact someone in the City to contact that company that did the snow removal and not hit people in their 80s, who were doing everything right, with citations, basically tickets, $25 fines, that they would have to come downtown to fight. And once they're aye in, there's no pulling them back. It's got to be done at the administrative hearing, it's got to be handled there. So first you need a little sensitivity training on people being sent from American Street with different districts around the City to say if it's clearly not the homeowners fault. You can tell after five days whether it's some sidewalk that wasn't shoveled or whether it's the other case I mentioned where it's been piled back on. And there should be a fine in all of these contracts with the private contractors that if their operators of that equipment are going to pile back on sidewalks, whether it's a City-owned sidewalk in front of a City property or a private property, that they get fined and get fined a lot more than $25 for doing it and have to come in with smaller equipment and take care of it. And I don't think that exists in not sure other than large big snowstorms like we had last week and get every years few years that this whole thing applies. But when it applies, it is a big deal and we should be on top of it, not talking about just how many side streets we got covered when we've got injustices like this going on both on the private sector side getting away with it and on the City side hammering elderly people with fines who can't keep going out and getting sidewalk shoveled that came from the street. The second part of that is, this Neighborhood Services Unit that we all can call, most of the sidewalks in the City that were not done within a few days, many of which still have not been do to this day are government-owned sidewalks. There are miles of those sidewalks in the City that people have been shloshing through, falling down on, because no one takes any responsibility for them. Port Richmond Library, right around the corner from my brother's house, grew up there. It's a city block. One end of the block is the library. Well, all around the library, it's shoveled. The rest of it is the park, two-thirds of the block. Those somebody else's responsibility, but it's the City's. Thomas Home School on Academy Road and Willis, right off I-95, where the school is on about a quarter of the block, it's all shoveled.
The other three quarters of the block is a playground that is effectively shut down with all that snow on it, the outdoor part of the playground, snow is as high as you can imagine. That goes on and on. Vine Street, people are coming off that Vine Street subway stop to go to either work or have business at the courthouse or the library, they have blocks that never get shoveled. The crossovers over Vine Street, don't they belong to anybody? When you call, who gets fined when they're not done? Because they never get done. And that goes on -- it's not all City property. Some of it must me State property or Conrail or Amtrak or somebody. But if we were as good with mapping out these sidewalks where the kids have to walk to school, where the elderly have to go and wait for buses, we'd have much more to brag about in terms of snow removal. So I would ask when we're doing our GIS and all this other technology laying out where we're we look at the human element where people have to walk and whose responsible and who gets fined when it isn't done. 5 million would be a lot higher if we were fining ourselves. Thank you.
Thank you. Are there any other speeches on the part of the minority. (No response.)
Seeing none, are there speeches on the part of the majority? The Chair recognizes Councilman DiCicco.
Thank you, Madam President. I'd like to take this time to thank my colleagues in particular for their support on the bill that the Mayor signed that will extend the 1 percent discount date to 60 days after the BRT renders its final decision on any appeals. And as you know, Council President Verna, and I'm sure the other Councilmembers know, up until yesterday we were still receiving numerous calls from people wanting to know whether or not they had to pay their tax bill by tomorrow even though they filed the appeal. So the message is clear, the Mayor signed folks out there who have filed an appeal, it is not necessary for them to pay their tax until they've exhausted their appeals and get a final bill from the BRT. I would also like to thank the Department of Revenue as well as the Mayor's Office for cooperating with me to get this legislation which we think is very important and is a fair bill for all the citizens in this City. The other thing I'd like to announce is that for those of you who are thinking of attending tomorrow the ground-breaking for the Jefferson Square Housing Development in my district in South Philadelphia, because of the impending snowstorm, we have decided to cancel that to a further date. We're not certain as to what the date is yet. But we will advise you in the next few days as to that new date. So thank you.
Thank you, Madam President. Three brief items. First, the Daily News is still advertising predatory loan business. I hope one day make a good announcement saying they've discontinued, but they have not yet. And I think it's shameful that they haven't. I also want them to know that publishing letters suggesting I retire will in no way intimidate me from continuing to raise this issue. Second, Judith Rodin, the President of the University of Pennsylvania was quoted yesterday in a way that makes everybody understand that she is, in fact, the head of the largest private employer both in the City and in the State, but she spoke not as a head, really, of an educational institution because she went way back into the Middle Ages to justify an argument as to why people should not join unions. The graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania are waging with the support of this City Council an heroic battle. The election was yesterday and today to determine whether or not they have a right to be treated in a dignified way and have their complaints treated in a justified way and get a contract which guarantees them certain rights. Judith Rodin spoke as if she were the head of Enron or the head of General Motors or some major corporation. She forgot that as a university in the area she has a public responsibility and she ought to be in the forefront of respecting the rights of working people to organize in order to get fair treatment at the bargaining table. Last item, Sam Evans, the one man in government older than I am, as least it seems as if he's in government, we celebrated his 100th birthday just a couple weeks ago in a Council Session is making special requests for financial support for AFNA, that's the great organization he's headed for many years that has resulted in the higher education of many African American lawyers and doctors and other professionals. I think as we go into the budget process, all of us ought to be giving thought to how the City of Philadelphia can better support and aid Mr. Evans in continuing his fine work. Thank you very much very, very much, everyone. (Applause.)
Thank you. Are there anymore speeches on the part of the majority? (No response.)
Seeing none, the Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco.
Madam President, I move that Council stand adjourned until Thursday, March 6 at 10:00 a.m. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded Council stand adjourned until Thursday 6, 2003. All in favor will please say aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. Council will be adjourned until March the 6th. (Council adjourned at 11:22 a.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of February 27, 2003, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. RE: STATED MEETING ___________________________ Lisa C. Bradley, RPR and Notary Public