Jerome Henry, J-E-R-O-M-E
last name Henry, H-E-N-R-Y
right, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
okay, so as you see we have several witnesses
I'll be very brief
are you in support of this project or against?
yes sir
you're in support?
thank you very much for coming
we do appreciate the time you spend here this morning
okay, thank you
next witness
hello hi good morning could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer
my name is macken cb m-a-k-a-n last name s-i-b-y right do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes sir uh are you uh are you uh a neighbor
Sir, are you in favor of this project or against?
I'm in favor.
All right.
Thank you so much for coming here.
We appreciate you waiting.
Thank you.
Next witness, please.
Hi, good morning.
Could you sit close to the mic for me?
Thank you.
Could you please state your name and spell for this stenographer?
Tanya Grimes, T-A-N-Y-A-G-R-I-M-E-S.
i'm definitely for um i swear wait a minute wait a minute do you swear or affirm to tell
I'm definitely for Oswego.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
If you swear or forgive,
the truth the whole truth nothing but i do are you a neighbor no i'm not a neighbor but i live
in a surrounding neighborhood are you in favor with this product or against i'm in favor thank
you so much for coming here today next witness
good morning do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
state your name and spell for the stenographer
Johnson
J-O-H-N
Do you swear or affirm, tell truth, tell truth
Are you a neighbor?
I'm in the neighborhood
Are you in favor of this practice
or against? Absolutely
Absolutely in favor?
In favor
Can I just say something?
You most certainly can be
This young lady
When it comes to character, she is very, very much reliable.
I can't say too much about this woman.
She cooks every Friday for elderly people.
But 8 o'clock in the morning, she's done with her cooking.
I'm going to give it to other people.
You know what?
Thank you for your testimony.
We really appreciate it.
You brought her to tears.
It's like, you guys all want to cry here.
I mean, next witness, please.
Good morning.
Good morning, sir.
Good morning.
Could you please state your name and spell for this tonight?
My name is Haja Fatima Shari, H-A-J-A-F-A-T-I-M-A.
That's me, Shari, S-H-A-R-I-F-F.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Are you a neighbor?
Yes, sir.
Are you in favor of this project or against?
You're in favor?
Oh, thank you so much.
I've been living in the community for 25 years now.
And before she came there with the business, it was really bad.
Because a lot of ladies were in the street there.
And she got a lot in front of the street and gave them jobs.
So our community is really, really good now when it comes to that.
So I would really look forward to speak.
Thank you so much for spending the time here this morning.
Next witness, please.
Good morning.
My name is Gail Carter.
G-A-I-L-C-A-R-T-E-R.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir.
are you in favor of this project or against
thank you very much for spending the time
here this morning we appreciate all the time you spent
alright next witness please
good morning could you please state your name
Sandra Corden
and could you get a little
closer to the mic sure that's good
could you spell it for the court stenographer
S-A-N-D-R-A-C-A-R-T-E-R
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I think.
Are you a neighbor?
No. I'm doing the era, back in the 60s, doing a desegregation era. I was one of the bus kids that came into that neighborhood.
So I've seen the transition of the neighborhood, how it went down. And then in that particular place where she's at, how it's coming back up, where she's really an asset to the neighborhood.
All right. Are you in favor of the project or against?
I'm in favor of this.
Thank you so much for coming here today. We appreciate it.
Next witness, please.
Sit down, please.
Good morning.
Could you get close to the mic?
Good morning.
Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
My name is Anthony Kabba.
A-N-T-H-O-N-Y-K-A-B-B-A.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
You're the contractor husband?
I'm not going to ask whether or not you're in favor of the project.
I don't want to cause any troubles here.
But I think counsel had a few questions for you.
Am I correct?
Thank you, Anthony.
So when you purchased the property, what sort of work was done to the basement and specifically the basement bathroom?
The bathroom was, like, the bathroom seats were all broken, so we replaced it.
But in terms of sort of the plumbing and the water, it was just sort of cosmetically improved, but it was all existing?
Yes, we just replaced the bathroom. It used to be copper pipe.
It used to be copper pipe, and because it becomes frozen, we change it to PVC.
Any questions?
Is the PVC insulated?
Yes, because of the coal.
That was my question.
All right.
Thank you.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
No hands at this time, Chair.
Planning Commission.
I'm sorry, Chair.
Someone just raised their hand. We have an attendee by the name of Craig Melodosian.
All right. Good morning, Craig.
Good morning, Chair Bergman.
Could you please, for the record, state your name and spell for the sonographer.
Craig, C-R-A-I-G
last name Melidosian
M-E-L-I-D-O-S-I-A-N
do you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth, nothing but the truth
and just for the people that are
there's a large amount of people in the room
could you identify your RCO
alright
the Ward 40 Republican RCO
is acting
at the request of Council President Johnson's district office to be the coordinating RCO for,
in this matter, seven jurisdictional RCOs. We refer to ourselves as the Southwest
Philadelphia Consortium of RCOs. Could you please start your testimony?
All right. I wanted to point out that we, as I put in my letter, that we held two community
meetings virtual on 4-15-2024 and on 11-25-2024. Prior counsel took this project over and
submitted plans that were inaccurately portraying the facility. Another expediter came in after we
had a meeting with him and again submitted improper plans. Fortunately, the Nockmson law
firm took over and revised the plans. The reason we are here today is because all is not peaches
and cream as it seems. I think the board knows that one of the reasons council president uses me
is because I try to fairly structure win-win situations that benefit the community and the applicant.
This has been a particularly difficult process, and I'm trying to be courteous here.
However, if you were to pull up the dashboard for the L&I dashboard, you will find that this project had not a single permit pulled for the work that was done within the building.
The only reason the building came up for you is because a dispute occurred with a neighbor or neighbors and L&I came out and issued property with a cease and desist.
I had two, because I had a personal relationship with an extended member of the family, I came into this very positively, meeting with them several times to try and prep them, structure this so that we could come to a successful outcome that made everybody happy.
It was an extremely difficult process. It became caustic to the point where I said to the intermediary family member, it's probably best that we not discuss this.
And I again got correspondence from the husband, at which point I contacted Alex and said there should be no further contact between the family and me, that everything should be between counsel.
These caustic relationships came across both the community meetings.
We did ask for the residential to try and structure this.
We were actually looking to get the business into the basement, which has a ground-level entrance on the north elevation, which you can see by a car.
They did not opt for that.
They came back with the second floor.
we thought that that would be satisfactory. We were looking for an open market apartment.
We were then told it would be rented to a family member. We did ask that if this comes back online
that it would have to have a certificate occupancy. In discussion with Breonna Wakefield
from the council president's technical staff yesterday, we further asked that if this is
We further ask that if this is given approval, that the visa would require the applicant to go back and pull all required building permits and pay any penalties that may be associated with them so that there's no issues of life safety, all electric plumbing and heating is up to code.
given approval.
As you can see, everything is sheetrocked over.
There's been no inspection of it.
I understand this is not an L&I meeting, but I think to the fact we have two very sophisticated people here involved in this,
a woman who has a doctorate in nursing and her husband who was a former captain of the United States Army.
And to use, not to be insulting, but to use a phrase that we use in real estate,
it appeared, it seemed to the RCOs, using the language associated with real estate transactions,
The applicant did not exercise reasonable professional skill and care and engaged in conduct which demonstrated bad faith, dishonesty, untrustworthiness, or incompetency.
That's why we're asking for retroactive pulling of permits, inspection of the site, and either a TCO or CO.
I want to point out that we were initially sympathetic about them being displaced from the facility, but they continue to operate throughout the property being labeled as C&E.