Thank you, Council President. I move the adoption of the resolution. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that the resolution be adopted. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
Those opposed? (No response.) 3/26/26 - STATED - 2ND READING
The ayes have it. The resolution is adopted. Chief Clerk, please read the title of the next resolution.
A privileged resolution honoring the Philadelphia Children's Alliance (PCA) and the Department of Human Services (DHS) for their collaboration in preventing child abuse and supporting Philadelphia children and families during Child Abuse Prevention Month in the City of Philadelphia. Introduced by Councilmember Lozada.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Quetcy Lozada for a motion on the resolution.
Thank you, Council President. I move for the adoption 3/26/26 - STATED - 2ND READING of the resolution. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that the resolution be adopted. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the resolution is adopted. Chief Clerk, please read the title of the next resolution.
A privileged resolution declaring April 4, 2026 as Women in Tech Day in the City of Philadelphia, and recognizing the importance of women in technology, emphasizing their 3/26/26 - STATED - 2ND READING contributions, promoting STEM education and careers for women and girls, and expanding gender equity in the technology field. Introduced by Councilmember Lozada on behalf of Councilmember Landau.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Quetcy Lozada for a motion on the resolution.
Thank you, Council President. On behalf of Member Landau, I move for the adoption of the resolution. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that the resolution be adopted. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.) 3/26/26 - STATED - 2ND READING
The ayes have it and the resolution is adopted. Chief Clerk, please read the title of the next resolution.
A privileged resolution honoring women veterans during Women's History Month, recognizing the distinct challenges they face in health care, housing, safety and reintegration, and commending the National Alliance of Women Veterans, Inc., for its advocacy on behalf of women veterans. Introduced by Councilmember Young.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young for a motion on the resolution. 3/26/26 - STATED - 2ND READING
Thank you, Mr. President. I move for the adoption. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that the resolution be adopted. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The resolution is adopted. Chief Clerk, please read the title of the next resolution.
A privileged resolution authorizing the Committee on Streets and Services to hold hearings to 3/26/26 - STATED - 2ND READING investigate the installation, inspection, contract oversight safety and possible remediation of speed cushions and other traffic- calming measures installed in the vicinity of schools in the City of Philadelphia. Introduced by Councilmember Young.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young for a motion on the resolution.
Thank you, Mr. President. I move for the adoption. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that the resolution be adopted. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.) 3/26/26 - STATED - 2ND READING
The ayes have it. The resolution is adopted. Chief Clerk, please read the title of the next resolution.
A privileged resolution recognizing March as Colon Cancer and Rectal Cancer Awareness Month. Introduced by Councilmember Brooks.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Brooks for a motion on the resolution.
Thank you, Council President. I move for the adoption of the resolution. (Duly seconded.) COUNCIL PRESIDENT 3/26/26 - STATED - 2ND READING JOHNSON: It has been moved and properly seconded that the resolution be adopted. All those in favor. signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the resolution is adopted. Chief Clerk, please read the next resolution.
A privileged resolution recognizing March as Brain Injury Awareness Month. Introduced by Councilmember Brooks.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Kendra Brooks for a motion on the resolution. 3/26/26 - STATED - 2ND READING
Thank you, Council President. I move for the adoption of the resolution. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that the resolution be adopted. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the resolution is adopted. Chief Clerk, please read the title of the next resolution.
A privileged resolution celebrating Viola Sanders for her life's work 3/26/26 - STATED - 2ND READING and advocating for economic justice and welfare rights for the impoverished and underserved in Philadelphia, on the occasion of Women's History Month. Introduced by Councilmember Brooks.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Kendra Brooks for a motion on the resolution.
Thank you, Council President. I move for the adoption of the resolution. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that the resolution be adopted. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.) COUNCIL PRESIDENT 3/26/26 - STATED - 2ND READING JOHNSON: Anyone opposed? (No response.)
The ayes have it and the resolution is adopted. Chief Clerk, please read the title of the next resolution.
A privileged resolution honoring and recognizing Mary Nolan and her family for their leadership at the Commodore Barry Arts and Cultural Center, also known as the Irish Center in Mt. Airy, and their lasting contributions to the Irish American community in recognition of Women's History Month. Introduced by Councilmember Bass.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Cindy Bass for a motion on the resolution.
3/26/26 - STATED - 2ND READING Thank you, Mr. President. I move for the adoption of the resolution. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that the resolution be adopted. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the resolution is adopted. Chief Clerk, please read the title of the next resolution.
A privileged resolution recognizing Taiwanese Americans' contribution to the City of Philadelphia and 3/26/26 - STATED - 2ND READING showing support for the City of Philadelphia to strengthen its economic, educational and cultural ties with the Republic of China (Taiwan). Introduced by Councilmember Ahmad.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Ahmad for a motion on the resolution.
Thank you, Council President. I move for the adoption of the resolution. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that the resolution be adopted. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the resolution is adopted. Chief Clerk, please read the title of the next resolution.
Council President, there are no further resolutions in my possession.
That completes our Calendar for today. Are there any speeches on behalf of the Minority. Chair recognizes Councilmember Kendra Brooks.
Thank you, Council President. Today in the final Council session of Women's History Month and today we are honoring and celebrating Ms. Viola Sanders. Ms. Sanders was a champion in economic justice and the founder of Philadelphia Welfare Rights Organization. Her legacy lives on in her children and grandchildren, including Salah and Farah Muhammad, who have devoted their lives to building community power here in Philadelphia. I also brought forward a resolution recognizing March as Brain Injury Awareness Month. I worked many years at MossRehab Brain Drucker Center with individuals who experienced brain injuries and were adapting to the living conditions that they have. We realized that too many people with brain injuries suffer in silence because their condition does not make it easy for people to recognize on the outside. So increasing awareness is the first step towards folks getting the care that they need and the support that they need to be thriving citizens. I also want to take a moment to recognize Colon Rectal Cancer Awareness Month in partnership with my colleague Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips. Colorectal cancer is becoming more and more common among younger people and is highly treatable, but it's very important if it's detected early. So anyone over the age of 45, this is a reminder to get a colonoscopy. And I also want to recognize that this resolution, I honored some folks on Sunday in a separate venue about fearless women. And I wanted to introduce this in honor of a fearless woman that I know, which many of us know is Tiffany Harris, who also experienced this and is no longer with us now. She was a huge inspiration to me and inspired me to recommit my life and my faith. And lastly, I want to wish the best to a member of my staff who will be departing my office after this week. Ebony McCoy joined my office as my Executive Assistant in 2021 and ever since then, she has been quiet but an indispensable leader in my office. Ebony radiates calm, strength and compassion and good judgment, even on the most chaotic days here in City Hall. The work I have done in the past four years would not have been possible without her foresight, careful planning and steady guidance. She will be greatly missed, but I know that whatever she does next she will excel in whatever comes. Thank you so much. (Applause.)
Thank you and congratulations. Speeches on behalf of the Majority. Chair recognizes Councilmember Isaiah Thomas.
Thank you, Council President. Good afternoon, colleagues. I'm going to be very brief. I just want to first say thank you all for your support as it relates to the Prison Oversight legislation. That was a two-year journey that started with -- actually more than a two-year journey now, probably about a three- to four-year journey that actually started with enabling legislation that former Councilmember Gym introduced that I picked up the baton and also worked with Councilmember O'Rourke's office as well too. So I want to start by thanking them. I also want to thank the many voters who overwhelmingly seen that this is something that we significantly need and voted for on the budget. I also want to thank Saleem Holbrook who testified today, as well as John Thompson and the Abolitionist Law Center. I want to thank our Chief Public Defender Keisha Hudson as well as Tom and Kate on her team and the entire Defender Association. I want to thank Noah and the entire team from the Pennsylvania Prison Society. And also want to thank the Committee of Seventy as well as Mayor Parker, Commissioner Resnick, Chief Public Safety Director Adam Geer and every member of the Administration and the working group who was able to make that legislation possible. Thank you all. We've made history. I also introduced legislation today to create the Creative PHL Office to make it permanent. That will be an initiative that we will ask the voters to support and I look forward to us continuing to invest in the arts and culture community here in the City of Philadelphia. I also introduced a resolution today in collaboration with -- I'm sorry. That PHL Creative resolution was in collaboration with Councilmember Landau. And in her absence, I want to say thank you to her. I also introduced a resolution today in collaboration with Minority Leader Brooks. There's no secret that we are seeing ICE agents at airports. There are a lot of people who believe that the airport is just a pilot program and a trial run to put ICE agents at polls on Election Day and we want to make sure that we avoid that in the City of Philadelphia. So our resolution 12 will examine what we're doing to make sure that our elections are secure and safe. My office has worked with all of our Commissioners in the past as it related to Election Day issues, along with Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson. And we look forward to continuing that work. Last but not least, thank you to Councilmember Bass. She got my brother here so I know she's going to recognize him as well, but CEO Andre Noble is my brother, that's my man. He's in City Council today along with the Imhotep family. So thank you to Councilmember Bass for inviting them. For those of you don't know, Andre Noble is arguably, arguably the greatest coach to ever coach in a public league. So we appreciate you being here, brother, and thank you for the work that you do. (Applause.)
Congratulations. Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips.
Thank you, Council President. In the 9th District, we've heard directly from neighbors about the importance of making sure their homes are stable and there's always investment in their homes. We can't build stability for homes for neighbors in the 9th District if we have landlords who are not being held accountable for their property ownership. (Applause.)
So I'm so proud and so thankful that members of City Council supported the Nonresident Landlord Accountability ordinance, which affirms that property ownership in Philadelphia comes with real responsibilities. What this bill 19 does, it addresses an age-old problem where nonresident landlords are more likely to ignore repair requests. Often times they leave tenants and city inspectors with no 2 way to reach them when it comes to violations. And so, what this ordinance does, it requires that all landlords have either themselves or an agent provide a verifiable physical address, a phone number where they can be reached, a local Philadelphia -- of course a local Philadelphia agent, but also current reachable contact information, including email addresses. So no PO boxes or virtual addresses. And so, what is this going to do? It's going to impact our neighborhoods to have faster response times, real accountable point of contact and stronger enforcement of housing safety laws. What we're trying to do is trying to save Philadelphia so that Philadelphia can have an opportunity. Residents can have an opportunity to live in peace and tranquility without having landlords who don't care about Philadelphia, truly continue to run down our neighborhoods. So I want to thank all the members of City Council who are here today and present and supported this legislation. And my hope is that our Administration, led by the Department of Licenses and Inspections, will work closely with us to ensure that this problem is resolved in the future. Thank you so much, Council President. (Applause.)
Thank you, Dr. Phillips. Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Thank you, Council President. I just wanted to once again acknowledge our visitor Ambassador Chih-Chiang Lee of Taiwan, and I want to thank the Council President for meeting with him and the delegation who came with them and showed them around. It was a very good conversation. And as an immigrant to this great city, I take pride in welcoming people from all over the world to Philadelphia and showing them what a welcoming place our home is. Thank you again to all my colleagues for unanimously voting on this legislation, the resolution that was introduced, and putting that into the record, legislative record. And very briefly, moving on I want to again acknowledge my position on school closures, for advocating for all of this to be reviewed and advocating particularly for one school, which is the Lankenau Environmental Magnet School. I just had an op-ed published in the Philadelphia Tribune titled, Closing Lankenau Undermines Environmental Justice Education. And I laid out explicitly how closing Lankenau would be an injustice, not only to its students but to our city as a whole, the only environmental science magnet school. And if we close it, we are destroying a valuable public asset. Our children deserve a safe space to grow academically, physically, emotionally. And by closing Lankenau, the District is taking that resource away from some of our most vulnerable students. And so, I continue to stand with Lankenau and all the students, parents, educators impacted by school closures across the city. So I thank you, Council President, and yield back.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Cindy Bass.
I'm going to be brief. I just wanted to make two announcements. One is that I wanted to remind my colleagues that, as my colleague Isaiah Thomas mentioned, we have Imhotep here to talk about their STEM program and all of the work that they've done abroad. So, you know, I don't know about Andre Noble's basketball skills. You know, it's not my lane. But I do know on the academic side, right, he's bringing something to the table there. So we want to check him out and all the good work he does with the students at Imhotep. And we look forward to hearing from them. So we really hope that we can get every member to stop by just for at least a few minutes and hear from our students and also feel free to bring a staffer, number one. Number two, this coming Saturday from 9:00 to 12:00 we're going to be doing a street renaming that we mentioned previously for Saudia Shuler. Many of you know Saudia from some of her posts on social media. But you also might know her from some of the enormous giveaways, whether it's food or things people need back to school, all kinds of activities that she does for the community, and she does them out of her own pocket. So we thought it would be a good thing to name the intersection of Broad Street and Pike "Saudi Shuler Way." We really hope folks can come out. It's going to be again this coming Saturday between 9:00 and 12:00 at that intersection. So please come and participate and be a part of this momentous occasion. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young.
Thank you, Mr. President. First, I want to thank Councilmember Brooks for introducing the resolution just raising awareness of traumatic brain injury. It's very personal to me because when I was years 5 old, my mother was in a terrible 6 car accident where she was in a 7 coma for weeks. She had to learn 8 how to walk, talk, eat, every 9 everything again over in life. She 10 was in MossRehab for four months 11 learning how to, you know, be a person again. And so, there's a very big stigma about how people with brain injuries, you know, they seem to be invisible because they just don't know. But my mom has been disabled technically since I was 12 years old. And so, it's very important that we raise awareness for these types of issues because it caused turmoil in my life, right. I mean, our house got foreclosed on and we had moved back to the projects. It was a lot of stuff happening, right. So just thank you for that awareness because this is real and people live with that every single day. I also want to thank Councilwoman Brooks and Council President for their significant contributions to our Ramadan toy drive. We had an amazing Post-Eid toy giveaway this past weekend at Penrose Recreation Center. It would not have been a success without those who donated and our partners, the Philly Majalis, Councilmember Jones, the Philadelphia City Commissioners, Commissioner Omar Sabir, the Mayor's Office of Muslim Engagement and the Department of Parks and Recreation. This really brought out families in North Philadelphia. And families made friendships with one another because they had a common bond over their religion and now they know each other and are going to continue to be in community with one another. As we close out the month of March, I want to recognize women veterans for Women's History Month. Their service, their sacrifice and their leadership have often gone unseen and unrecognized. Women veterans are one of the fastest-growing segments of the veteran communities and our policies and commitments must reflect that reality. And I also want to recognize the National Alliance of Women Veterans, Inc. for their decades of advocacy, support and empowerment for women veterans in Philadelphia. We held a School Facilities Plan meeting this week in Fairmount to discuss the plan for Bache-Martin, Waring and Robert Morris School communities. Parents, students, educators and neighbors raised concerns about overcrowding, aging buildings, swing spaces, lack of transparency, etc. So just so folks know who are coming in here, we are working on issues that affect your everyday life, particularly when it comes to education in our school district. Just because you don't see us in this chamber working on it at that moment does not mean that we aren't doing it, right. So let that be clear, we're working hard each and every day to ensure that our residents can get the best education that our School District of Philadelphia can provide. But what we heard was a clear, consistent message from the community, that they don't really want this plan to move forward. They want to go back to the drawing board and come back with a plan that is stronger, more transparent and truly responsive to community needs. Our residents are the experts on the ground and they are not asking to be informed after the fact. They're demanding a seat at the table. So again, as I have been doing from the beginning, I urge the School Board to listen, engage and do the right thing. Today we also, with the support of our colleagues, passed legislation for projects in the Turn the Key program. So there are going to be 20 affordable homes in the North Philadelphia area. These homes, in particular, are a different model. They're going to be condos. So if you don't want that space of a single family home in a tight, dense area, you can be a homeowner in a condo unit.
We have to start looking at different types of homeownership options, giving our community options to continue to create viable communities. So I thank my colleagues for supporting us in those efforts, in passing those resolutions today. And finally, Mr. President, we introduced a resolution authorizing the Committee on Streets and Services to hold a hearing on speed cushions and traffic-calming measures near schools across Philadelphia. There have been recent findings, particularly by the Controller's Office, that questions whether what was designed on paper is being properly delivered in the field when it comes to some of these speed traffic-calming measures and speed cushions. So we have an obligation to take a closer look, not to undermine that goal, but to ensure that it's being achieved safely, consistently and with accountability. So as the Chair of the Streets and Services Committee, I intend to convene a hearing that brings together all stakeholders in this process to voice your concerns and just provide some oversight with this process. So we're going to ask the public to trust these safety investments around our schools, that we need to be confident that they're built correctly, inspected properly and functioning as they intended. So I look forward to having that conversation and others. So thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Mark Squilla.
Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to have everybody know that there's a flag placed on your kiosks today and they'll be celebrating the annual birthday of the Philadelphia Flag with a flag raising tomorrow at noon. All are welcome to attend. Hope to see members there. Thank you.
Thank you very much. And before we call on Member Thomas to adjourn, I wish everyone a Happy Easter and Resurrection Sunday and Happy Spring Break for all of our children. With that being said, The Chair recognizes Councilmember Isaiah Thomas for a motion to adjourn.
Thank you, Council President. Agree with you. Happy holidays to everybody. With that being said, I move that Council stands adjourned until Thursday, April 9th, Thursday April 9, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that this Council stand adjourned until Thursday, April 9, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and this Council is adjourned. - - - (Stated Meeting adjourned at 12:35 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