Committee of the Whole, May 6, 2025

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE FY26 BUDGET City Hall, Room 400 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, May 6, 2025 10:00 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILWOMAN RUE LANDAU COUNCILWOMAN NINA AHMAD COUNCILWOMAN KENDRA BROOKS COUNCILWOMAN JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILWOMAN KATHERINE GILMORE-RICHARDSON COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS COUNCILMAN MICHAEL DRISCOLL COUNCILMAN CURTIS J. JONES, JR. COUNCILMAN NICOLAS O'ROURKE COUNCILMAN JEFFREY YOUNG, JR. COUNCILMAN ANTHONY PHILLIPS HELEN LOUGHEAD, CLERK - - -

This is the public hearing. A public meeting of the Committee of the Whole regarding Bills No. 6 250195, 250196, 250197, 250198, 250199, 250200, 250201, 250202, 250210, 250211, 250212, and Resolution No. 250214. Ms. Loughead, will you please take the roll?

Councilmember Squilla.

Present.

Councilmember Gauthier.

Present.

Councilmember Jones.

Present.

Councilmember Young.

Okay.

Present.

Councilmember Young.

Present.

Councilmember Driscoll.

Present.

Councilmember Lozada.

Present.

Councilmember Bass. Councilmember Phillips.

Present.

Councilmember O'Neill. Councilmember Gilmore- Richardson. Councilmember Thomas.

Present.

Councilmember Harrity.

Present.

Councilmember Ahmad.

Present.

Councilmember Landau.

Present.

Councilmember Brooks. Councilmember O'Rourke.

Present.

Council President Johnson.

Present. We have a quorum. And this meeting is now called to order. Ms. Loughead, will you please read the title of the resolutions?

Bill No. 5 250195, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-1500 of the Philadelphia Code entitled Wage and Net Profits Tax by revising certain tax rates, under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250196, an ordinance adopting the operating budget for fiscal year 2026. Bill No. 250197, an ordinance to adopt a fiscal 2026 capital budget. Bill No. 250198, an ordinance to adopt a capital program for the six fiscal years 2026 through 2031, inclusive. Bill No. 250199, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-2600 of the Philadelphia Code entitled Business Income and Receipts Taxes to revise certain tax rates and end certain exclusions from the tax on receipts, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250200, an ordinance amending Chapter 12-1000, the Philadelphia Code entitled Traffic Code to revise the fee for the use of parking meters all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250201, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-1800 of the Philadelphia Code entitled School Tax Authorization to provide for an increase in the tax that the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia is authorized to impose on real estate, and amending Chapter 19-1300 entitled Real Estate Taxes to establish an equivalent reduction in the tax rate for the City Real Estate Tax, all under certain terms and Conditions. Bill No. 250202, an ordinance amending Section 19-1806 of the Philadelphia Code entitled Authorization of Realty Use and Occupancy Tax to eliminate certain exemptions, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250210, an ordinance amending Section 10-1001 of the Philadelphia Code entitled Fees of Commissioner Records to increase the portion of fees for the recording of deeds and mortgages and related documents to be used for housing trust fund purposes, under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250211, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-1400 of the Philadelphia Code entitled Realty Transfer Tax by revising the rate of tax, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250212, an ordinance to amend Chapter 19-4400 of the Philadelphia Code entitled Development Impact Tax to end imposition of the tax, under certain terms and conditions. Resolution No. 250214, resolution providing for the approval by the Council of the City of Philadelphia of a revised five- year financial plan for the City of Philadelphia covering fiscal years 2026 through 2030, in incorporating revisions with respect to fiscal year 2025, which is to be submitted by the mayor to the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority pursuant to an intergovernmental cooperation agreement by between the city and the authority.

Today, we will continue the public hearing of the Committee of the Whole to consider the bills read by the clerk that constitute proposed operating and capital spending measures for fiscal year 2026, a capital program and forward- looking capital plan for fiscal year 2026 through fiscal year 2031. This morning we will hear testimony from the Law Department, the Office of the District Attorney, and the Defender Association of Philadelphia. This afternoon we will hear testimony from the Philadelphia's Sheriff Office. Ms. Loughead, can you please call the first panel, which consists of the District Attorney Larry Krasner, Chief Defender Keisha Hudson, and Chief City Solicitor Ms. Renee Garcia? Can you please all come to the panel? As you are surrounded by greatness, Larry, Mr. District Attorney, I'm going to ask for Ms. Keisha Hudson, Chief Defender to please begin her testimony. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: All right, Council President.

I said Ms. Keisha Hudson, Chief Defender, can you please begin your testimony? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: One Philly, a city united, I just want to clarify.

Yes, sir. One Philly, a city united. Ms. Hudson, please speak into the microphone to begin your testimony. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Good morning, City Council President, esteemed members of City Council. My name is Keisha Hudson. I am the Chief Defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia. My -- I'm going to keep my remarks brief today because I have submitted extensive written materials to City Council. The Defender Association of Philadelphia as you know, has contracted with the city of Philadelphia since 1973 to provide indigent defense services to people who are poor in the city of Philadelphia. And last year, we represented -- we rose from 70 percent to 75 percent of the people in Philadelphia that we represent that come into the system. We represent not only youth independency, but we also represented youth in delinquency. Last year we had 29 children -- 2,900 children that we represented in dependency and delinquency. We also represent adults from preliminary arraignment all the way through to appellate proceedings and in homicide. That number last year was almost 34,000 adults that we represented. We are a large organization. We are an organization of 530 defenders, that includes only 29 social workers for that adult client population. I want to spend my time talking about where we are right now, not only in the city of Philadelphia, but statewide and nationally. I presented a budget of $15 million which to this body may seem like a large request. But our budget as it stands compared to my counterparts who are sitting with me and to the Office of Public Safety is not nearly where it needs to be. Our base budget as it stands today, is $66 million. We are a 91-year-old organization founded in 1934. The Office of Public Safety that this body created is a one-year-old organization, and its budget is million less than ours at 66 million -- 65 million. So I come to you today wanting to stress again where we are. When we look at our counterparts, when we look at the Defender Association, when we look at the resources that we have, it is not enough. We are critically underfunded. We have been critically underfunded, and thanks to the work of this esteemed body, including City Council President, we have made strides in closing that funding gap. But we need more. I want to talk just a little bit about the things that I think this body should know. Starting with our starting salaries. As of today, the starting salary for a Public Defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia is $64,000 a year. The starting salary at the District Attorney's Office is $70,000 a year. And the starting salary at the Law Department is $79,000 a year. Compared to our collar counties where the starting salary is $72,000 a year, and New Jersey, which is at 75, Maryland, which is at 85. We cannot be a revolving door when it comes to being able to recruit and retain the attorneys -- the excellent attorneys that we have at the Defender's Association. But it is not tenable in a city where it costs $75,000 a year to rent a one-bedroom apartment for our lawyers who are the best in the city, the state, and the country to start at 64. We are losing lawyers every month because they cannot support themselves on the salaries that they earn and they deserve more. We have staffed over 200,000 hearings last year. We continue to do more without a single additional resource that involve -that includes helping the prison decarcerate because it is under contempt under the Remick litigation. We have staffed early bail hearings in partnership with the courts and the district attorney's office. We have staffed Wellness Court and without an additional sense. I stand here or sit here before you today, and I will close with this. We don't get our rent paid from the City of Philadelphia. We pay real estate taxes back to the city of Philadelphia. Last year, that was $330,000 which we cannot get waived. We do not get any healthcare benefits from the city.

We do not get a pension from the city. We get no support in infrastructure or technology. No 23 support at all. So when you look at our budget as compared to the district attorney's budget, the law department's budget and OPS's budget, we in fact, under this mayor's proposal, received a cut this year. The only allocation we got was $1 million for Wellness Court. But when you look at what we have to pay and the cost associated with what we have to pay that my counterparts here have covered by the City of Philadelphia, that $1 million is really a budget cut. It reflects a budget cut. We are at a reflective point right now in our city and our state and our country. I presented a $15 million budget that I classified as a transition budget, and I met one-on-one with many of you. And I thank you for giving me and my team the time to meet to talk about the various issues. But I presented that $15 million budget to you, and we need every penny of that $15 million. There's a lot that is coming to the city. I have 45 children that I represent independency who are at risk of deportation. We had one child deported last week without any due process. We have defunded in mental health and drug addiction services. Our client population is rising. It will continue to rise, and we need these resources in order to meet the moment and be the well-funded and well-resourced constitutionally entitled council for the city of Philadelphia. Thank you. And I will take questions.

Thank you very much. Chief Solicitor Renee Garcia. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Good morning, Council President and Council Members. I'm Renee Garcia, the city solicitor, and I'm pleased to testify this morning as to our proposed fiscal year 2026 budget. As you know, we run a full-service civil law firm that supports the entire city. We are at approximately 400 people. We handle all silver matters in the city, whether that's labor and employment, short dumping, real estate transactions for rebuild. We handle privacy issues. We handle tax collection. Our affirmative litigation brings in tens of millions of dollars every year. It is our privilege to do this work. It is a purpose-driven department that we run, and we are committed to principles of equity. We are committed to serving the people of Philadelphia. We are committed to municipal government in a hard time when the rule of law is not necessarily respected in all courts. And so today, I want to express my profound gratitude for the 400 people who come to work every day in a time when we need local government attorneys more than ever. And we're seeing more and more candidates that want to work for us because they do believe in the purpose. And so I'm pleased to present this budget. It's a strong budget for my department and it will help us to hire more people to do the work that we need to do, approximately 12 positions. And we will continue to support council. We'll continue to support the mayor in all the work that we need to do, which is more important now than ever. And I'm ready to take questions when you have them.

Thank you very much for your testimony. And, Mr. Larry Krasner, District Attorney, please just state your name, for the record, and begin your testimony, sir. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: My name is Larry Krasner. I'm the elected District Attorney for the city of Philadelphia. Council President, I have an overview and greetings that are about to minutes. And then I have the substance, which is 8 to 10. And then I also have a brief conclusion, which would be about three minutes. Were you looking for the full testimony at this time, or?

I'm sure my members did their due diligence and already read your testimony. So if you could summarize your key points and then we'll get right into the questioning. Is that okay, members? Is that okay, members? COUNCILMEMBERS: Yes.

We good. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Very well. Well, good morning, Council President Kenyatta Johnson, Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore-Richardson. For those of you here in person, greetings. For those of you here in spirit, greetings. Appropriations Chair, Councilmember Mark Squilla, and members of our esteemed Philly City Council as a whole. I run an office of more than 650 people, including sworn law enforcement, 300 plus attorneys, victim service advocates, and support staff professionals. I want to make sure, though, that we are very clear. The parade that came walking in the door, that parade involves people on our team who are not within our office. More specifically, that parade involves our contracted victim services providers in Philadelphia, which comprise nine different groups. And those groups need money. They have had no 6 increase in funding for 15 years. And as we all know, it hasn't been the cheapest 15 years. They do incredible and important work. I'm going to read their -- the names of their organizations and I will ask them to rise as I do so, so that you can associate the face and the people and the incredible work they do with the name of that organization. They include Northwest Victim Services, Anti- Violence Partnerships, Victim Witness Services of South Philadelphia, WOAR, now known as the Philadelphia Center Against Sexual Violence, Concilio, Central Division Victim Services, Women Against Abuse, Northeast Victim Services, and Support Center for Child Advocates. As I'm sure you will know, members of council, from reading the testimony that has been provided, this -- these are groups that provide absolutely essential work. That work is part of the public safety success that this city continues to enjoy. There's absolutely no 12 question that when you protect witnesses and you protect survivors and you protect victims so they feel that they can't testify, there's absolutely no question that when you address some of the trauma that is caused by some of the more violent and more disturbing crimes that occur in the city of Philadelphia, that you are doing things that will benefit us as long as we are alive. You're doing things that are incredibly important. We work with these organizations all the time, and our humble ask on their behalf, please understand this is not our money. Okay? We're not getting any of this. This is their money. But please understand that our humble request here is only $347,276 in Class 200 that flows right through us to them. It does not allow us to increase the compensation for our new attorneys, which we need to do for equity, parity, and purposes of hanging on to extremely talented people, as I think has been mentioned here by my colleagues as well. It does not address the other budgetary needs that are itemized and specified here, which come to, you know, the numbers that are indicated in Section 2 of our testimony. But they are to some extent without a voice in the budget process, and they need to have that voice because the work that they do is so essential. I realize that's not a fulsome summary of this testimony, which goes on for a number of pages, but it is a point of particular emphasis. We -- you know, I've seen on a day-to-day basis the incredibly important work that they do. And simply put, it is not right that they're expected to do that amazing work with moderate funding and then wait for a raise for years. It 15 just isn't right. Therefore, I'm happy to take the bit of time that I have right now to make sure you all understand. We view that as a tremendous priority even though none of it sticks on our fingers. All of it goes straight through. And beyond that, for the time being, I will rest on the written testimony.

Thank you very much. I just have a couple brief questions before I turn over to my colleagues. And one, I just want to welcome back the City Council board member from the Defender Association, Everett Gillson. Let's give Everett a round of applause. I see him back there and I've sat in many meetings with him regarding the public safety of the city of Philadelphia. So it's always good to see you, Everett, doing the hard work. And to Ms. Keisha Hudson, defense never rests. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Never.

I think -- think I know that more than anybody. And so I thank you for your hard work and your dedication to making sure that those who need representation receive quality representation. And most importantly, you're reshaping the identity of the Defender Association, taking a comprehensive approach. I think you-all just -- would you create the Office of Education Advocate through the Defender Association? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Yes. I'm pleased to announce that through grant funding, we will be bringing on an education advocate to work with our dependent and delinquent youth. As you know, City Council President, the School- to-Prison Pipeline is a real one. We've switched our thinking and now called it the Womb-to-Prison Pipeline. As you know, one in four children who start independency end up in our delinquency system, and one in five of our adult clients started independency. And oftentimes the thorough thread of missed opportunities for intervention starts in the education setting. Teachers see students for eight hours a day and we see with our clients missed opportunities to intervene early before they're removed from their parents and placed into the foster care or adopt -- adoption system. So this education advocate will be an incredible add to the work that we do for our clients. I also want to mention that through grant funding, we have started a reentry practice for the first time to work with our adult clients. We are currently working with 12 clients. It's one person. So 12 clients on State Road. So we are grateful that we have expanded our practice and we'll be expanding our practice this year.

Okay. And also working with social workers, with your clients as well as a way to provide wraparound services on that first intake. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: We can provide wraparound services, for -- not for adult clients. We have, as I -- as I mentioned in my testimony, we have 29 social workers that works with almost 34,000 people. We --

for 34,000? 14 CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: 29 15 for 34,000. 16

17 29 for 34-. 18

19 We refer our social workers 20 for those who are watching are just 21 amazing. They come to work for us 22 with a master's degree starting at 23 $45,000 a year. They could go 24 anywhere else in the city, in the counties, but they come to work for us because they believe in the mission. I'm grateful to them, to our entire staff, but we cannot provide wraparound services. We would like to do that, and that's why we are hoping to get additional funding to hire more social workers to be able to do that.

But you do have social workers that service the clients, correct? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Yes.

Okay. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Yes.

And District Attorney, Larry Krasner, I just always want to acknowledge your hard work in working with this body under the leadership of our Chair of Public Safety, who's going to lead this session, Councilman Curtis Jones. Rather, it was the carjacking unit responding and making sure we're addressing those who are carjacking individuals. Rather, it's an issue near and dear to me, addressing the issue of gun violence and making sure that we're very, very strategic as we work with the Gun Violence Task Force. And I also see you have a new unit that deals with guns, which I also thought was very, very interesting. It's the prolific Gun Defenders Unit, which I'll allow you to elaborate on at the appropriate time. But, you know, I would be -- would be remiss about it and say that we are at a 30-year historic low when it comes to homicides and shootings in the city of Philadelphia. And pretty much those numbers have decreased under your watch. And so I think that deserves some level of support. You know, people think, you know, are we celebrating and we are acknowledging that the work that we've done comprehensively to focus on prevention early on, focusing on boots-on-the-ground organizations so young people don't pick up guns in the first place, and specifically focusing on how to make sure we don't have -- we address recidivism but not increase mass incarceration. So I just want to acknowledge you as a part of that work that this body has been doing in partnership with our law enforcement agencies, including yourself. And also you never being shy and saying, you know, if there are issues and concerns, you invite members of council to meet with you and your team, I think it was once a month. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Yes.

We would come and sit with your team and ask questions and do a deeper dive on the work that the district attorney's office is doing. And so I just want to acknowledge you from that aspect. And, I guess, I'll do a deeper dive into the work. Give me an idea. So we know we had a historical low when it comes to gun violence and shootings. There was a trace report to talk about amongst juveniles though. You had to charge more juveniles as adults regarding gun crimes. Give us an idea of what are we doing to address that? And what do you think are some of the symptoms that our young people are continuously picking up guns? And then last, I do acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the victim advocate organizations that you do have working day in and day out to support families who have been victims or co-victims of all types of violence. And so let's talk about the juvenile issue. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Yes, Council President. Thank you for that. And -- but I do -- just before I get into the weeds with that, I do want to say, I believe it has been a partnership. And it's been a partnership that has really had some successes. If we look back, you know, and this is something I've discussed with a number of members of council. If we look back at some of the crises that we faced in the pandemic coming out of the pandemic, time and time again, when Council raised concerns, same concerns that we had, whether it was about house theft and retail theft, or it was about carjacking, or it was about particular corners in Kensington where there was, you know, uncontrolled drug activity or whether it was robbery, time and time again when we came to Council and said, we'd like to have a unit to specialize in this, we have seen council respond, we've seen council fund it, and we have seen that that specialization, that investment in specialized work in that particular area has borne fruit. We have seen crime come down in one of those areas after another, after it's funded and after we get these units up and running. Even recently when Council in conjunction with the Mayor, were agreeable to some funding so that we had more resources to prosecute short dumping, and emphasis of the Mayor's cleaner, greener initiative. Even when we came up with that money, you know, we were so appreciative that we started doing the work without the money. The money doesn't show up till July. But, you know, we did what you do with tape and paper clips. We found some people to get the work going because it does take a minute. So I do believe it's a partnership. I think time and time again when there have been real concerns about criminal activity, we have all been able, in a collaborative way, Council, the Mayor's Office, government, those working community-based organizations outside of government have been able to come together. I also bring you some good news. On my numbers, it's not the lowest homicide in 30 years. It's the lowest homicide in over 50 years. Lowest number of homicides this morning. The second closest one -- we're at 66. The second closest year was 73. So we are actually well ahead of some of those other years.

You said 73? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Yes.

1973? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: No, the number was 73.

I'm sorry. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: It was around 2014, I believe. 2014, 2015.

Around 2014. Okay. I'm sorry. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: In the last 50 years. But, you know, we also, as we look at other categories of crime, 15 out of 18 that are listed by the Philadelphia Police Department are down. And they are down after 2024, which was the year in the United States when there was the biggest improvement in public safety in U.S. history. Okay. So, you know, I got up this morning and there's something on TV about how crime is going up. Really? Really? Crime is going up? Well, that is interesting because we have facts --

Numbers don't lie. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: And then we have fear. And I appreciate that Council has always stuck with the facts and has always been able to work with us. You know, even when we didn't know the solution or we didn't see the same solution, has been able to work with us to try to get at those results. We are seeing crime come down and down and down. Shootings come down and down and down. Victims of shootings come down and down and down in category after category. And I think Council deserves a lot of that credit. When we talk about juveniles in particular, the issue that often comes up to which you have alluded, Council president, is that we're seeing more juveniles arrested for homicide, and more juveniles arrested for shooting in some instances. It's part of a -- kind of an interesting riddle because we are also seeing fewer people between the age of 22, or even between the ages of and 22, 18 or between 18 and 25. We're seeing fewer of them. Exactly why? Once again, I'll stick with the truth. I don't know. I'm not sure. And I also think we have to bear in mind that when you talk about that, we don't know the ages of the people who do not get caught. Okay. So one of the powerful techniques that has been used by the Philadelphia Police, federal partners, and our office is social media analysts. And I don't think there's any question that the shooters most active on social media are younger. That that is how they brag about what they did. That is how they manifest their arguments and beefs back and forth. That's how they challenge the other side, is become a powerful source of evidence. So it is possible that part of what's happening here is they have made themselves easier to catch. And so we are seeing more of them arrested. But if you look at the population of people who are not caught, that you would see are more adult population. That's possible. There's no way of knowing if that's what's actually going on. It is also very clear, even including from the press conference we did yesterday, which was about an arms dealer. It was about, you know, people who were engaging in straw purchasing, buying a whole bunch of handguns. They were being dismantled and they were being shipped, concealed inside of microwave ovens into New York, into New Jersey, and also to the Dominican Republic. It is also clear that our state legislature has left us a wash in guns. You know, last year in Pennsylvania, there were almost 800,000 guns purchased lawfully. And that of course doesn't even count the ghost guns that are circulating after they're built, doesn't even count the illegal trade. But it was 800,000 guns just last year in Pennsylvania. Do you want to know how many were taken off the street by law enforcement? And I don't say this to criticize law enforcement at all. You know, they work hard and this is important work, 17,000. So what is your net? Your net new number of guns purchased lawfully 783,000 more guns in Pennsylvania purchased lawfully. The fact that we are in a position with a 50 year low on the 6th of May of 2025 in homicides, while we have more guns on the street every single day over those 50 years, is something to encourage us to work harder and do better and do everything we can to try to get the guns out of the hands of those young people. You know, having said that, we have seen the complete dismantling of shooting groups that are populated by young people, many of them juveniles, not just the Young Bag Chasers.

Say their names for the record. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Sure. Well, among them are the Young Bag Chasers, 02da4, The Senders. And we have also many others, half shut down or on the radar as active -- as our investigations with our excellent partners continue.

So for the record, these are -- these are groups of gangs that are responsible for shooting and warring in neighborhoods that you have prosecuted and taken down for the record? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: That is correct, sir. There -- there's another five or six. I can dig up the names for you if that is of help, but, you know, this is real and it's something -- again -- once again, I'm not saying it's us because it has been a wonderful collaboration with the FBI, with ATF, with DEA, with the attorney general's agents, with the Philadelphia Police Department in particular. It has been a wonderful collaboration. But some of the modern enforcement techniques that we are using based upon the limited but very powerful forensics that we have, some of those techniques have really borne fruit. We do not have a record in Philadelphia of taking down shooting groups. We have a record of shooting groups' names living for decades as they are passed from one generation to another and people are shooting each other over stuff that started long ago and they don't even know why. That's the truth. But we are seeing some of them be shut down. So, you know, I think that the solutions here have to include things like this. The state shut down an awful lot of juvenile facilities because they were snake pits, and then did not replace them with ones that are effective and humane. That's a problem. If you take a 15-year-old who's been swept up into a life where people have guns and there are threats back and forth, and you simply incarcerate them with no treatment, with no 12 education, with no effort to address the underlying issues, they're going to come out educated in crime. If on the other hand, you are able to put them into humane institutions where we can deal with them in the juvenile system, you have all those years from age 15 to to try to address these issues 21 and get them back on track. And we have seen oh so many times that, not everybody, but the majority of those young people can be put back on track if we have those facilities. I know it's a problem with the state. You tear down, you don't rebuild. It's exactly what happened with mental health during the rise of mass incarceration, the dismantling of 85 percent of our mental health system, which was never replaced except by jail cells in the streets. You know, that's the truth. But the city also has a role here, and I would be delighted to work with the city because the city does have the ability -- the ability to contract with appropriate facilities. If they're not built in Pennsylvania yet, then we're going to have to find them somewhere. But the city does have the ability to contract with those facilities and to make it a priority. The more we do that, the more we will see people who have been right -- rightfully arrested and put into custody, reforming and coming out and not endangering public safety.

Okay. Thank you. I also want to acknowledge the work of G. Lamar Stewart. Takes the call at any time of the hour. I think I caught him before going to church service the other day, Sunday morning. I know you was preparing your sermon, I apologize. I needed some help trying to help a constituent. And I see Fritze back there who's the head of the Gun Violence Task Force unit. Thank you also for help getting them guns off the streets. And the whole district attorney team. And Ant Brown is around here somewhere. Young man who you recruited to come and work with you. I'm going to have Quetcy Lozada talk about where we at on retail theft policy at some point in time, as well as Councilmember Jim Harrity. Because I know those are issues that they're very, very passionate about in terms of the Kensington Corridor. But I just want to -- also, Renee, thank you for your hard work as well on behalf of the administration. Sanctuary city, at some point in time, and I could hear Rue Landau on my ear now, like, what are we going to do? At some point in time, they're going to acknowledge the city of Philadelphia from D.C. What are we going to do defense wise, legal wise, to fight back, if we could talk about it? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Sure. Pursuant to the President's executive order, in probably a month's time, the Attorney General Pam Bondi will issue letters to cities, counties, states maybe, and designate them as sanctuary city. We have no 3 definition of what they think is a sanctuary city. We do not use that term sanctuary city. It is a term that is bandied about to accuse municipalities, counties, and states of illegally harboring migrants or undocumented people. That is not the case. We -- as I have been very clear, we do not honor detainers. We honor judicial warrants. We are backed up by Third Circuit case law in that respect. So we believe that we are following the law. We know that we are following the law. Nevertheless, we may get this letter designating us as a sanctuary city. Pursuant to the executive order, again, we will have time to respond, and I expect the Mayor will have many conversations and follow her diplomatic procedure as she does. And then we will see what comes next. Right?

Okay. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: We will see if they try to cut off funding, which we've already litigated this issue. We litigated this issue in 2017 and 2018. They cannot cut off funding. It is very clear. If we have to litigate, then we'll do that. But we --

That's what I wanted to hear. We prepared to fight. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: -- I expect -- I'll expect there'll be many national lawsuits between now and when these letters come out and when the letters come out and when funding is cut off. And as I've said before, it is an hour by hour, day by day. There has already been a lawsuit filed in San Francisco by a number of cities and they have succeeded on a limited injunction out there. So the legal road is long, but the courts have really been stepping up to protect the rule of law.

Okay. Just one small question. We talk about equity in contracting, minority participation. FY24, historically underrepresented groups account for 76 percent of law department contract partners. But in FY25 is 65 percent. So what's the disparity in terms of the decreasing going into the new year? Is that a change of major contracts, or? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: It ebbs and flows depending on when we're entering contracts and what contracts we need. But I want to be clear that we believe that diverse attorneys are important on our matters. It is the most important to have attorneys both internally and externally with real life experience in the city of Philadelphia from different backgrounds. And when I came to the law department, what I found was the big firms were using minority firms to make their numbers, right, to show that they had diversity. And that was not something that sat well with me. And so what I have done is entered into contracts with those smaller firms that are -- that have minority partners so that they could do the work and get the credit themselves. And that encourages our big firms to then bring up diversity within their ranks. And now diversity is a bad term that we -- that is being bandied about. But there is diversity that we can always do that is legal, right? We're not talking about quotas. We're not talking about picking people because of their race or their gender or their background. But we're talking about is broadening the pool and making sure that different firms have an opportunity to apply, to come forward, to make the pitch and to be awarded on their merit. And so that is something that I believe in. It is something that I believe in hiring both internal and external counsel. And we see the dividends of that. We see in a room when we have the thorniest legal issues, when we're dealing with the opioid crisis or we're dealing with public nuisance. We know that we need a variety of people in the room 24 because if everybody looked like me, it wouldn't be effective, right? If everybody looked like you, if any -- everybody looked like even one person in this room, it wouldn't be effective. We need everybody. And so we are constantly striving to broaden the pool and we will continue doing that.

Thank you. It's crazy. We -- they say we can't even say diversity. That's like saying you can't say black people. Totally racism in my mind, but it is what it is. We got to keep fighting. I want to let the Chairman of Public Safety lead this round. And then next, Councilmember Jim Harrity. Councilmember --

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President.

-- Curtis Jones, Jr.

I want to thank the dream team up here. They look like they could defend us well at a -- as a city in whatever case in courtroom. So I want to thank you for that. There's over 3,000 parts in a jet engine. And all of them have to work together in order to create lift so that a plane or jet flies. Between you and the boots on the ground and the people that work for you, we are seeing lift in the right direction as it relates to reductions in fatalities in Part I Crimes. And I want to go through that list with you. I want to also say to Keisha Hudson, Chief Defender, thank you. You have the most comprehensive continuum of what happens when we get it right and what happens when we get it wrong with our young people. You see them as advocates that you defend in the beginning and sometimes you have to defend them as the defender when we get it wrong. So your input on how we can early or have intervention, think about and will answer. That's the question for you. For you, Madam Solicitor, thank you for representing us in some hostile courtrooms up in Harrisburg and others. So I need you to give us a quick update like you do every court or monthly with us on the crimes -- on the court cases that we -- that you are defending and where we are. DA Krasner, I need you to look at the -- you know, there's facts and fears. Where are we down at in the crimes? By category? If we gave you money a while ago to create a carjacking unit, where are we in carjackings? So take us through that. I wanted to get my questions on the books before the bell run. So I'm going to -- I -- I'd like to start with you, Madam Solicitor. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Great. Thank you, Councilmember Jones. We have a very strong mandate from the Mayor and from City Council to make this city safer. And as you know, we do that in a number of different ways. I will take you through our affirmative litigation and our legislative work. We are defending the ordinance on 3D printing. We have been successful there. That is up in the PA Supreme Court. We are briefing that now. We were successful on getting rid of a Second Amendment claim for our gun range case. We unfortunately lost on the Crawford case that was fighting preemption. But we will continue to fight preemption. We still have our lost and stolen case, which is --

Elaborate lost and stolen first. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: So lost and stolen is an ordinance that requires a gun owner -- a lawful gun owner to report when a gun is no 10 longer in their possession. So either it has been stolen or lost or what have you, right? And we strongly believe that this is not preempted. It does not infringe upon your right to own a gun, to transfer a gun, because you no longer have the gun. And so we are hoping the PA Supreme Court will take that up as well. We are defending our switch ordinance, which we have been successful so far. We have had our ghost gun litigation that we settled. Right? And actually Polymer 80 has filed for bankruptcy. That was the company selling the ghost gun kits, but no ghost guns are able to be sold in Philadelphia and the collar counties for four years. And then JSD Supply, who does the gun shows cannot sell throughout Pennsylvania for I think four years as well. Un-serialized ghost gun kits. And then we have a lawsuit pending against three gun dealers. This is a straw purchasing case. One of them has surrendered its gun license already and we're fighting with the other two. So -- and I've got some more ideas up my sleeves, so you may see more coming. That is the overview. We're also very active in our code and public nuisance space where we are working with the police on nuisance businesses, skilled game, tobacco, doors and windows, all of that. We are also working with the prisons to make the prison safer. With Commissioner Resnick, we've a lot of money, obviously coming out of the Remick litigation. We have million set aside and 7 we're doing that. 8 Our child welfare. We 9 shouldn't forget about them making 10 this city safer for the nearly 3000 11 children that are in custody right 12 now. And our people are doing that 13 work day in and out. 14 We also -- I want to shout 15 out our employment group, making it 16 safe to be at work and our data 17 privacy work as well, to keep 18 people's information safe. Right. 19 Because that is a vulnerability as 20 well. So we think about safety very 21 broadly and we are working with all 22 of our partners. 23 Council President? 24

Can I put in one point of information just real quick, Chairman Jones? So when you talk about these different partners in terms of the administration agenda to make sure the city is -- the city is safe, right, so we have a contract with the Public Defenders Association, right? And so wouldn't that be a part of the strategy to address the issue of recidivism? And so people who are involved in the system through trying to get representation, right, for something they may have done, but during their point of intervention, right, is an opportunity to kind of steer them in the right direction so they won't continue on that path of doing something bad in the city. Like is that part of you-all strategy as well? Because it's kind of like it's the Defenders Association over here, but we doing everything for the police, we doing everything for the district attorney's office. And I know it's a contract, but I think, and help me out because -- for the lawyers in the room, but there's a mandate for people to have legal representation in the city of Philadelphia, right? Part of their constitutional rights. So is that -- did that play a role in your strategy? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: For immigration? Are you saying specifically?

Yeah. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Or generally? Yeah. So that money, what do they call it? PAIFUP. P-A-I-F-U-P. The administration has been very clear that that will be allocated appropriately. They're waiting for the Office of Immigrant Affairs to hire their director, which we are in full steam ahead in hiring that person. But it's not as if that money is going away. It just has to be allocated. Quite honestly, I will defer politely to the administration. I'm not involved in paying money out, but we work very closely with the Defender's Office in all matters related to children in particular.

Yeah. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: And I think we have a very healthy relationship, and we are talking as well as we enter this new frontier where there is concern around immigrants. But on the specific funding, I will defer to the administration.

Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't really -maybe my question might have been interpreted. Talking about the immigrants, I was just saying overall strategy. So -- CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Overall strategy.

-- probably may be a better question for Adam Geer and administration, but you were just touting all the different agencies that you-all are working with -- CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Yes.

-- to make sure the city is safe. So since you were touting everybody you're working with, I'm kind of saying, okay, well, this would be a part of that conversation to address recidivism before individuals go on a life of crime and gun violence. That's all I wanted to say for the record. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Yeah, I agree.

Chairman Jones.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. So we are in key for a number of cases that deal directly with public safety. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Yes.

And you and your team have been, you know, chin to chin with some folk from other parts of the commonwealth and federal government and private sector to defend us and the bills that we pass, the bills that we've implemented. So thank you for the update on that. I'm going to go with the district attorney. I want you to go down by these part crimes. We funded a lot of stuff and we're seeing results. And, you know, if people are going around telling us that it's not working, two things can be true at the same time. We can be for criminal justice reform, but we can also be for public safety. It's not a or it is an and. And what the stats have proven is that is true. Can you give us an update on where we are on different parts of crime? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I certainly can. So I check everyday and I encourage any of you who are interested to check every day at the Philadelphia Police Department's publicly available website. Sometimes I check it a couple times today. So as of this morning, meaning through midnight last night, this year we have seen almost a percent decline in 23 homicide over last year. Rape down 24 almost nine percent over last year. Robbery with a gun, which goes to the carjacking issue, down almost 23 percent over last year. And remember, last year was not only a national record for public safety improvement, but Philadelphia led big cities in the United States. We were the locomotive on this train going in the right direction. That is robbery with a gun. If we look at robbery by other means, meaning without a gun, almost eight percent decline. We take a look at aggravated assault with a gun, that is down almost five percent over last year. As we move into the property crimes, we see residential burglary is down 11 percent. We have theft from auto, down almost 12 percent. Theft in general, down very slightly over last year. 09 percent to be precise, because I know it's a matter of concern to all of us. 29 percent. Overall violent crime down almost three percent. Overall property crime down over six percent. 44 percent. 34 percent. And this is after the year when Philly led the nation among big cities, cities of a million or more, in public safety improvement. Just to put a finer point on it so that -- so that we don't get it twisted as they say. Philadelphia has been getting safer for four consecutive years at a rate that is better and higher than the average of other big cities. So if we go back to the -- to the bad old days in the pandemic, and look at when it peaked and started to improve all over the country, all over the country in big cities, you had an eight percent decrease in homicide. Philly went down 11. The next year you had a percent 10 decrease in homicides. Philly went 11 down 20. 12 And then in 2024, you had a 13 23 percent, an amazing 23 percent national average reduction among cities of a million or more, 23 percent. Philly was 35. Okay. Year after year after year, we are leading the way despite being the brokest of those cities, despite being in a state that is, frankly, so inadequately regulated when it comes to guns, that we are the supplier for New York and New Jersey crime guns. Despite all those challenges, we are leading the way. And once again, I'm not saying that to pat myself on the back. We should probably pat these victim services providers on the back and everybody else who's in this room, I don't need a pat on the back. And we should also pat the commissioner on the back, a couple of them, and a Mayor or two. We should probably pat them on the back and everybody in Council. But these are remarkable achievements that should really encourage us to continue on this path of deep investment in prevention, deep investment in forensic science, and understanding the value of what the public defender does and what the city solicitor does, and what the DA's office does.

They -- there's a lot of places that need money, but we are seeing a very significant return on investment when that investment is made in these areas.

I would like to just end with Defender Hudson, who pointed out to me at the 100 Shooter review that the young man or woman that we don't intervene with early becomes the defender client. And you keep them in your portfolio throughout. And what things can you tell us that we can do to intervene earlier so that what the -- there was a, I believe, a conviction yesterday of the individual up in, was it the shoot out, the conviction, what was his name? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Maurice Hill. The Maurice Hill case.

Yeah. They -- we just complete -- he --you negotiated him out to surrender and convicted him. But how can we find him earlier before he offends? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: I say often that when our clients come to us, however young or old they are, that is because all systems have already failed them. And I mean that intently. We -- Philadelphia leads the nation in the number of children -- black and brown children removed from their homes and placed in dependency. We are No. 1. We all know that children have a right to be with their parents, but we are removing children at a large rate. And we have made improvements in the last few years under Commissioner Ali's leadership. But we have a ways to go to change that. So whether it's in the family system or the family policing system, or whether it is in the communities that our clients are raised, we have kids who are living in traumatized areas that have been disinvested in over decades. There's no green space. There are a few outlets for them. And I just want to -- just remind all of you that we do dependency work with the Defender Association, but we don't come in until after the child is removed from the home. That is when we come in. So we don't see what is happening to that child until the removal has happened and the petition has been filed, then we get appointed. But we do strongly believe and are working hard with our -- with our partners in the law department and community legal services and others to see what can -- what can be done to keep that child in the home. When we look at the children who are coming in delinquency system, we had last year, over 1,300 kids who spent at least one night in the detention center. A third of them had a dependent history. A third of those children. We do not do any juvenile reentry from our perspective. We don't have the capacity in our office. Right now our most serious cases are handled by a phenomenal group of five attorneys. They carry over 100 cases each. So we simply need, and I keep going back to staffing, I keep going back to resources, I keep going back to needing to lower caseloads so we can focus on the children who need help early and connect them with the resources including wraparound services. With supports for juvenile reentry, right, we're talking about 400 and 55 children, right, that we cannot work with on reentry. We have a social -- we have social workers in juvenile -in our juvenile delinquency systems. But we have five of them. And as I said to you last year, we represented over 1,500 children who are in our delinquent system, five social workers. So we have no reentry supports. We need more in order to do the work we can do. We can intervene, and we have intervened. And we have many success stories of children who are accused and were found guilty or adjudicated delinquent of very, very serious offenses who are now in college and beyond. We had a former defender come and visit us who started in our dependency system, and then he was in our delinquent system. He came back, worked as a social worker, he then went to law school, and now he's an assistant federal defender. So there are success stories. Members of this body who have had family members or friends know that there are success stories, but it's with the right investment. Our clients do not get a private council. They don't get a crisis manager. They get a overworked, underfunded public defender who's doing their best to represent them. And maybe they will get social services referral if we have the staffing to do that.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity, then Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips, then Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.

Thank you, Council President. Thank you all for coming today. Council President, you're -- you know, I had some questions about the AMP Court and stuff like that for them, but since you brought up with the juvenile justice, last night I spoke at a graduation at the Philadelphia Juvenile Justice Center for a group of kids that were graduating the PTTI course up there. PTTI is in Councilman Young's district on Girard Avenue. Used to be the Burwin Institute. Great program. Something like something kids 11 started the program, but only 12 12 actually finished. 13 And it wasn't that the 12 14 that finished were, you know, the 15 smarter of the kids, the other kids 16 either were released and weren't 17 able to complete the program. But I 18 got to spend some time, and it was 19 kind of messed up. I -- we couldn't 20 even take pictures with the kids because we had to blot out their faces if we did, which was just a shame because they were very excited. They did it really nice for them. They had cap and gowns for them and stuff like that. And they graduated out of two programs. One was electrical and the other was cement mason. And I had a chance to talk to these kids. And while they were in the juvenile justice system, they weren't bad kids. Once you got past the neighborhood slang and the little trying, you know, trying to be a tough guy type attitude, these kids were good kids. And what I really noticed was they were scared. Scared not only because of where they were, but scared because of they were getting ready to get out. But thank God for this program, all 12 of those kids will be starting Saturday classes soon as they're released. It was great to see the families up there and the actual sense of pride that the kids felt as they were getting their certificates. And all those kids, they left with their OSHA certificate, which if you're in the construction business, you can't work on a job -- walk on a job in Philadelphia and work on a job in Philadelphia without your OSHA 9 certificate at least. And these 10 kids are leaving the detention center with that. So in my opinion, that actually gives them a leg up. It actually gives them a leg up on the kids that are graduating high school, because when they're both going to apply for that same construction job, that kid's going to get that job because he has the certificate. So, and I apologize, I'm an emotional guy. Stuff like that upsets me. So first off, the discrepancy that I see between the Defender's Office and the District Attorney's Office and funding is ludicrous. I am for right off the bat 100 percent funding our Defender's Association. It's not -- CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Thank you, Councilmember.

It's not -- it's not a wish. This is a necessity especially when it comes to the juvenile justice system. Having an attorney that knows the law is the difference in the path. You know what I'm saying? So I'm for giving the Defender's Office, whatever we need to do to even the playing field. That being said, I'd like to just hear a little more about how do we get some more of these programs from each of you into not only the juvenile justice system, but our criminal justice system. Because the fact of the matter is that at some point, people are going to get out. And then what do they do? You know, people that have been there know, you know, when you first get out, you get home, first month, everything's peachy keen. You know, the -- your wife or your girlfriend hasn't seen you in a while and you know they're happy. So the first month is really good, but then that second month comes and she comes in from work, and you're still sitting on the couch because you can't get a job. So you end up going back to the same thing that sent you there in the first place, because that's the only thing you know. How do we get more of these programs and what -- give me some opinions from you. And I'll get to my other questions in the second round if we can. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: You know, from a historical perspective, the birth of the prison, the prison was founded by the Quakers. It was meant for a very, very short stay and focused on rehabilitation. We have moved very, very, very far away from that. You are correct, the majority of our children, right, I mentioned that statistic of at least 1,379 kids spent at least one night in detention. And a third of them had more than one admission in a calendar year, right? That -- that's the client population of youth we represented. And 455 children, right, our children, are reentry. If we had reentry, support could serve. We started a reentry practice. We did that through grant funding. We're only -- we only have one staff member that's working currently with 12 adults. We need the same for our youth. We need more social workers that stay with them. We have a model like that independency. And I really want to thank this body because I came to this body in 2022, my first budget cycle, talking about the fact that our dependent attorneys had over 100 children each. And through support with City Council, right, we are able to now lower that caseload to 55 -- to 60, which is remarkable. In my -- in my thinking, that's still too much. Because again, we have a lot of work to do with our dependent kids, and we're seeing a third of them of the current population end up in delinquency. But we have no supports. I love our children, but they -- I -- and I don't like to talk about second chances, but they didn't have a first chance to begin with. And I think we need to think through what we are funding and what sorts of interventions we need. And the fact that the best place for them is in the home, but the family needs supports, right? The entire family needs supports. If we have that child with that OSHA certificate go back into a community where they have unstable housing, or they have to find a way to support a mother and/or father and/or siblings, or they can't move away from the influences that they have in that community, without the right supports and the mentor and the job connection and real actual livable wages, right, to get themselves out of multi-generational poverty, we are just going to see that client again. We should all care about funding public defense because one in three people come into the justice system. We all know someone who has, but the majority of my clients are coming home, and it doesn't end at incarceration because you're coming back to communities that are going to remain stagnant. And they themselves are not getting served in the institutions that they're in.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

District Attorney, you have anything to add to that? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Certainly. I do want to point one thing out. As you all may know, my entire time in office, I have advocated for parity for the public Defender's Office. Parity means fair equivalent treatment. But let us not lose track of the following. My office does all the cases. We do all, the criminal cases. The public Defender's Office does a portion of the homicides. We do them all. The public Defender's Office does not resent -- represent all the people who have private counsel. We do them all. So when we talk about parity, parity does not mean equal funding. It might very well mean that the Public Defender's are starting at 79,000, like the city solicitor. That my office has lawyers starting at 79,000, like the city solicitor. We're at 70-. It might very well mean that. It should mean something like that because the work they do is incredibly important. And that's why I've supported them in that regard. But equal funding does not make sense. If you have one office --

No, that's not -- that's not -- that's not what I was suggesting at all. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Okay.

I get the parity. That's not -DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I got you.

-- where I was going at all with the numbers. The numbers are what they are. Your office exactly does all the cases. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Right.

It's a lot larger. You do go against people who are represented by private attorneys. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Exactly.

That's -- I wasn't doing that. I'm just saying they're only trying to get to 15 million, you know what I mean? District Attorneys at 58-, there's got to be some kind of percentage there for the percentage of cases like you just stated, and the funding of their attorneys versus the funding for your attorneys that would make it even not per se as 58 million, 58 million, but million to 58 5 million. You understand what I'm 6 saying there? 7 DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: 8 Of course. 9

And 10 the question was actually about how 11 do you feel and how do we get some 12 more of these actual programs into 13 the Juvenile Justice Center to get 14 these kids before they become adult 15 offenders? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Understood.

And that's -- that wasn't nothing against your office or how much your budget is. I get -

Councilman --

-there's a big difference. Sorry.

No, no, that's okay, Councilman. Can we have you go back to that on the second round?

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you, Councilman. Chair recognizes Councilman Phillips.

Thank you so much, Chair. I just want to begin by thanking District Attorney's Office for being supportive in many endeavors that we've done in the city together, especially through G. Lamar Stewart staff, but also District Attorney. Thank you for your work that you've done. So, on that lens, I'm just going to actually just run through all of my questions. Hopefully Defenders, District Attorney, and also the Law Department can just take note of the questions. I'm going to give them all at once. First question is, District Attorney, there has been progress made in the past year or so since Mayor Cherelle Parker has come into office as well as Commissioner Bethel. What has changed? I just want to know what has changed in terms of showing that the -- and the -- and the progress has been made compared to the other administration that you had to work with and the police department as well? I just want to ask that. The second question is, you mentioned that you're concerned about the rehabilitation of young people as well as not just adult citizens alone. When you do your prosecution, you don't want to just send them to any particular prison. How do you make those decisions in terms of your prosecution? Do you prosecute at a -- at a -- at a different level when, you know they only can go to a certain, you know, detention center? Or do you -- you know, how do you make a decision on what, you know -- trying to push a certain rehabilitation center for individuals? The next question I just have for the Defenders Association, Defenders Association, can you just describe, for many people they see you defending people, young people, adult citizens alike, and they're like, oh, you're just helping to defend criminals. Right. You know, people who just can't afford things. There's a perception out there in our city from some people. How do you measure the effectiveness of your diversion programming when you're trying to, like, you know, defend these individuals? And what are you doing to show the courts that in your defense, they're going to be rehabilitated? And lastly, for the Law Department, I just want to know more broadly, how many active cases is the Law Department currently pursuing against landlords for cold violations and unsafe living conditions? And then also, can you just explain to me, is the Law Department doing proactive work with licensing and inspections around landlords, you know, and other situations like, you know, that, are going on? So basically, we want to be more -- are you having a proactive process of prosecuting landlords in the city? Thank you. I guess District Attorney could start us off, and then Defenders Association. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember Phillips, thank you for the questions. If I lose my way, because what can I say? It's been a long few weeks.

Yeah. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: If I -- if I lose my way and I misinterpret the question, please let me know. But I think there are some spectacular things that have been going on during this administration in terms of the DA's Office's relationship with the police commissioner. And also I think that the Mayor has gone in the right direction in many ways that are very, very important. Just one example would be her commitment, unlike prior administrations, to $30 million for a state-of-the-art forensics lab, made two budget addresses ago. That can have such an important impact. These numbers are truly remarkable. But oh my goodness, what would happen if we had that state-of-the-art forensic facility operating? I mean, I can tell you right now, I spoke to a high-level person in Phillips Police Department years ago about what it would mean. And, you know, he was banding around the notion of an additional percent decrease in 9 violent crime, which would be an 10 amazing thing. I don't want to take anything away from the prior commissioners. I had a very good relationship with both of them. And I don't want to take anything away from the Mayor -- you know, the prior mayor. But I will say this, I think we all feel that the progress that was being made is moving more quickly now. I think we all see the result of being on the right track for a period of years. And the Mayor is to be commended for that, and the police commissioner is to be commended. And I would also say, let us not forget the role that having a new head of the Fraternal Order of Police has played. There was a time under the old head of Fraternal Order of Police when you had a massive portion of Philadelphia police who had been categorized as injured on duty and unable to be on the streets, unable to testify, et cetera. All those doctors were picked by that prior head. And that is not how FOP President Roosevelt Poplar plays. We are seeing the numbers of officers IOD, in other words, injured on duty and unavailable, getting back towards a normal rate of about four percent, rather than the ridiculous rate of 18 percent that we saw under John McNesby. So I think -- you know, I think that speaks to some of the excellent efforts that are being made by this administration that build on, you know, three prior -- a few prior years of progress. But they build on them. And, you know, we just keep going. We just keep getting better. Crime is cyclical. It is going to -- it is going to bottom out. It is going to go back up at some point. That's just the reality. It relates to a myriad of factors so long, it's hard to even include them. But we continue to make progress, and I have to feel it has a lot to do with the excellence of this administration, including both the police commissioner and the Mayor and obviously their executive staff in many different areas. Your second question I'm going to beg your pardon and ask you to just remind me briefly, what was the second question?

Just 10 seconds. I just want to say, basically the question was, can you explain your -- the role that your prosecutor is play -- not -- your prosecutors play in helping to request judges to put them in certain rehabilitation centers that you believe can be stronger for their -- for their growth and development? Because you say that there's some prisons that are not opted out, that are not doing as much growth and development. How does that play in your prosecution? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Well, Councilmember, thank you for the question. You know, one of the great things about our administration is that we have Robert Listenbee, who was Obama's Chief of Juvenile Justice in the second term as a first assistant, and who was a national authority when it comes to these issues. I would phrase this a little bit differently. We flat out don't have access to facilities that we needed -- that we need for people who have done stuff that is serious, but is still best addressed in the juvenile system. They don't exist. They were closed, and they were not replaced with other facilities. So we do what we can within that context with what is made available to us four or five years after a lot of those facilities were shut down and were not rebuilt. You know, I will be very transparent with you. There are certain people in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania who would like their adult prisons full. They make money off of them, up in Cole County and Elk County and other places named after minerals and deer. You know, that's what they like. And I see their hand in not providing humane facilities that will be more rehabilitative for young people as a way to pressure us into sending those young people to places where they will not get an education, and their issues will not be addressed. So the issues are tough, but I will say this, if you look at someone like Marvin Robinson, a juvenile who committed an atrocious murder, you know, the U.S. Supreme Court does not permit life sentences for someone like him, but he's on the -- in an adult prison doing 35 years. You look at Ameen Hurst, this was a juvenile who killed a number of people and also escaped. He's in an adult facility doing 50 years. Okay? These -- this is what happens with juveniles who are not appropriate for the juvenile system. And yet, on the other hand, I could -- I could point you to a girl, and I'm going to keep her name out of it for appropriate reasons. A girl who at was involved in killing a man who was using her for sexual purposes. And she's in the juvenile system, and that is where she belongs. That's where she's going to get the help, the support that she needs despite what she actually did. And then she will come out and be supervised and free in the adult system. So, you know, it's individual justice. It's about being extremely specific, extremely careful and trying as much as we can to increase public safety by that sort of individual attention and separating the wheat -- the wheat from the chaff, as they say in the good book.

Thank you. And just real quickly, from the Defenders Association and then the Law Department. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Just to give you an idea. Last year we made 740 referrals for mental health and substance abuse support. So I referenced again, the systems have failed our youth and adult clients before they get to us. We do not have nearly enough resources pursuant to a Jefferson Hospital report that said that people who are looking to get better from substance abuse really have difficulty accessing treatment, the appropriate inpatient and outpatient treatment. People commit crimes or they are brought into the system. One, we get them because they're poor. Constitutionally, you get us because you have no resources to afford a counsel. But because we have the privilege of the attorney-client relationship, we get to know that client intimately. We get to know everything about them, and we get to approach what they need holistically. But we cannot do that without resources. We can't -- it's not sustainable that after all the systems failed and they end with us, then we don't have the resources to help divert them. They are not just poor, they are laboring under substance abuse issues, severe mental health issues. The adult -- the adolescent brain is a real thing. It is decades of research that is in multiple Supreme Court opinions. Boys don't mature till they're 26. I'm sorry. You -- they don't. They are a car without brakes, as one of my favorite neurologists describe them. A children brain is like a car without brakes. They don't -- they can't foresee consequences. They don't understand consequences. They can't life plan. So we have to meet them where they are, provide the resources they need until we get them to the point and after. Girls develop a little earlier as we -- as we know, at 25, until we get them to a place where we can provide stable supports and they can get out of the system. So it -- we have to provide support for interventions, but we have to provide support for the advocate standing next to that child who was brought there by the failure of so many different systems, but are now here for us to advocate for.

I know I just had that one quick question, but I'm going to run out of time for the Law Department. Thank you. That was helpful.

Thank you, Councilman.

Thank you.

Chair recognizes Councilwoman Gauthier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning to all of you. And thank you so much for everything that you do to bring justice to our city and to protect our city. Your work is vital and critical. I wanted to address my first comments and questions to Defender Hudson. First, thank you for your stellar leadership of the Defenders. Thank you for coming here and very clearly and succinctly laying out the case for your budget request. I agree with you that there needs to be parity among these three organizations. However, we define parity because poor people in this city deserve quality, free, and fair legal defense. And our ability to do that is how we continue to root out racial injustices in the criminal legal system. I wanted to talk about PAIFUP. The issue of where PAIFUP funding will be housed has come up several times during the budget season. Immigration advocates have asked that the city raise the amount of money in this fund and move immigration defense work from MDO to the Defender's Office. And I just have to say, Solicitor Garcia, I respect you great -- greatly. I've worked with you very closely on very hard things and respect your opinion. But I do not understand the administration's position on this. I do not understand why we would need to wait to bring on a new person to decide whether to fully fund immigration legal defense and to move it to an organization that's already doing that work. And frankly, you know, if we are hiring someone that has a different opinion than that, I would question whether we should hire them. And so I wanted to ask you, Defender Hudson, can you briefly describe how moving this funding right now to the Defenders would be beneficial for this work? And also how increasing this funding would be beneficial to this work in this environment that we're in right now. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Okay. Thank you, Councilmember Gauthier, and thank you for your support of the Defender Association. We have -- we started to have conversations with the National -- Nationality Services Center three years ago about moving immigration defense to the Defender Association. We -- after the Trump got elected, we realized that we needed to move quicker. And we wanted to start working with the area immigration nonprofits, HIAS, and PICC, and NSC to move immigration defense to our organization. That's the model in public defender offices in New York and around the country that have large immigrant population. Philadelphia's immigrant population or non-documented population is around 50,000. That proposal, I asked for 1.5 million this budget cycle out of the 15, but in anticipation that we were going to get the funding that has traditionally gone to HIAS and NSC would come to us for a total of 2 million. We needed to be in the work day one. Quite frankly, I am bereft that we didn't start planning for this last year when we knew what might be coming. But our clients are under threat. We had a client that was detained by the police after his case was dismissed for lack of evidence. And he was escorted out by a police officer and handed over to ICE. No one saw warrant -- a judicially signed warrant. So the threat is real. Our clients are being impacted. As I mentioned before, we have close to 45 dependent children right now who are non-citizens. We had one deported last week without any due process. We are behind -- we are going to be remain critically behind in the number of people who are going to come into the system who need representation in immigration federal court.

Thank you. The federal government is moving fast and furiously in their targeting of welcoming cities. We need to make the decisions right now in this moment to protect our people. And that's certainly a big part of my push this budget season. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Council Lady. Councilwoman Lozada, and then Councilwoman Landau.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all for being with us this morning. Now, I'm going to ask all of my questions for the three of you and then come back in the second round so that I can get them all in at the same time. My first question is for the Law Department. The proposed funding request section, a section 13 of the budget outlines the explanation of the code and public nuisance litigation unit. What specific matrix will you use to measure success in reducing short dumping and nuisance properties? And how will you coordinate with L&I and other departments to ensure the effective collaborative efforts? As you know, I deal with that in the 7th Council District. It's become a very serious problem, not just in the Kensington community, but across the district and almost in every neighborhood. And so can you talk to us a little bit about what your matrix are and how you're going to measure the success as far as your -- and as well as your collaborative efforts? And then for the District Attorney's Office, according to your program description of pre-trial diversion programs, it references connecting defendants to resources as alternatives to incarceration. Could you please provide the breakdown of your specific funding allocations with your budget dedicated to the diversion programs and their expected outcomes, as well as how will the DAOs diversion programs complement or collaborate with other diversion programs in the city? And then for the Defender, when we met, you mentioned some of the images that we've seen on social media as it relates to young children representing themselves in immigration hearings. Can you talk to us about how you and your office can prevent those types of situations from happening here? And why is that so important to not just young people in our community but for their families as well? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: I am going to answer Councilmember Phillips's question the same time I answer your question because I didn't get to get that on the record. But I do -- I do want to just correct the record, something that the Defender said about the incident last week, just so it's accurate, that the person in question was not detained by the police and was walked down as he was offering translation services. So I just want to put that on the record. But as to public nuisance and short dumping, I do have some statistics. And Councilmember Phillips, I don't have statistics broken out by which cases are against landlords versus other property owners. But this year through March, our code team has handled in court 2,735 matters. And before the board of L&I review 1,559 matters. That's through March. We have -- we have filed 27 short dumping cases so far. We need to ramp up. And these positions will help us ramp up. We're getting a lot more referrals from both police and Clean and Green and L&I. And we work with them day in and day out every day on public nuisance. We know that this is part of safety, right? Safe neighborhoods, safe neighbors. That has an effect on the overall neighborhood. So we will be using these five new positions to hire attorneys to really ramp up what we are doing in the courts. What we are also doing is looking at who the perpetrator is, because sometimes there is a landlord or a property owner who maybe is, you know, a mom and pop who we just need to get into compliance and maybe there's a language access issue or lack of information and we can work them to get them in compliance. And then we have, you know, the bad guys. We have the Adam Erhlichs and the Philip Pulleys in the world who have LLC on top of LLC, and they have a -- you know, they're -- they have a bunch of properties, the guys who own Brit Shalom. And this is where we're really ramping up with data, with the help of Philly Stat to figure out where are these properties? How do we go after all these LLCs that they're hiding behind? And that's punitive, right?

That's where we're getting the big judgements and trying to collect on those judgments. So it's both, right? It's working with the community to get individuals in good faith into compliance. And then the bad landowner -- landlords who are doing this over and over and over again and creating blight upon the properties. We do have metrics that we have been working on, and we will across the board, be gathering more data on what we're doing. But overall, just ramping up our public nuisance work.

Thank you so much. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Councilmember, our client who was -- had his case dismissed for lack of evidence. We all know that when you're in the courtroom and your case is done, that you are free to leave. And our public defender told him that he could leave. Court staff then told the sheriff, who then told the client that ICE was waiting for him and he could not leave. A police officer then walked into the courtroom and escorted him while the officer speaks Spanish. And the client may have needed translation services. I can tell you, we are all lawyers up here. That was a detention. He was not free to leave. He was escorted downstairs, our attorney, because she had other matters before the court did not go with him. And so no one saw a warrant. Regarding representation for children, yes, children are representing themselves without counsel in immigration court. We had a couple recent examples in New York in the last month. You're not entitled to counsel unless your family can afford you immigration counsel. Our proposal would have a staff of lawyers. Each lawyer 4 could represent 25 to 30 detained 5 clients plus another 20 or 20 to 30 6 non-detained clients. It will not 7 be enough at the pace at which we're 8 seeing detention and removal. 9 People are being removed without 10 even appearing in court for any sort of process or due process. So the best we can do right now is just tell our clients to be prepared at any time because they can be detained in a courtroom, outside the courthouse, on their way to court, at work. We're seeing this happen in places that were previously deemed safe and welcoming spaces. But the moment is here. And I just wanted to again, you know, ask the Council to approve this funding, but also implore the administration to release the funding to us so we can start this work immediately.

Thank you. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember, thank you. Oh, sabotaged again. Here we go. Councilmember, thank you. I do want to just briefly comment on immigration, then I'll go right to your questions about diversion and diversionary programs. You know, I think it's very important for all of you to know that when we were doing a press conference yesterday about people who are international armed smugglers, who are sending weapons to, not only to other states, but sending them to the Dominican Republic, various different ways, I found this out. There's a co-defendant, a co-conspirator, I should say, very actively involved in that plot to do these things. ICE grabbed him, ICE took him away. Why is that a bad thing? Because we had not finished prosecuting him. We had not gotten him to a courtroom. We had not gotten him to a conviction. We had not gotten him to a sentence. This is exactly the kind of undocumented person who is a danger in the United States. And Donald Trump kissed him. That's what he did. They are terrorizing victims of crime who are undocumented. They're terrorizing witnesses to crimes who are undocumented, who we need to prove cases. And they are kissing that very small segment of an undocumented population who do terrible crimes by deporting them before they even have their day in court. It is the most upside down anti-public safety nonsense that I've ever seen. And this is not the first time we have seen it. They're out to crush, hardworking, fundamentally law-abiding undocumented people who are just trying to make a living and raise their kids on simple stuff like a first DUI, something like that. They're out to crush them, or women who are complaining about being in a domestically abusive environment and they're trying to vindicate their own rights. They're crushing them. But they're kissing that small segment of an undocumented population that is less likely to commit crimes as a total population, nonetheless, includes a few real bad actors. They're kissing them. S. Constitution, what is known as the Commandeering doctrine. That doctrine says, President cannot tell the police commissioner what to do. The president cannot tell the district attorney what to do. The president cannot tell the Mayor what to do. There is a separation of powers that is enshrined in the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution. And as Solicitor Garcia indicated previously, this city has fought against these efforts to punish cities that are diverse. In a way, this president doesn't like. Punish cities that are democratic in a way this president doesn't like. And the city fought successfully in the courts. So I understand it may feel overwhelming to be in a position where you have a want to be dictator, that's exactly what he is, who is threatening left and right and writing crazy on pieces of paper. But we need to stand on those rights, and we need to stand together and defending this city from these selective, vindictive assaults that are going to make us less safe. And frankly, I suspect he wants to make us less safe. There's a -- there's a longer play here. I could get into it, but I think you all know what it is. If the cities that are doing well with lowering crime go in the other direction, then what does that justify? And what is his long-term goal? Having said that, I know that your question was a little off on a different topic. And that question was, what's going on with funding in terms of diversion? So we do not have a specific ask in our budget for a change of funding that is used for diversion. And there is a reason why it's a little hard to answer your question. Not that I don't want to answer it, but it's a little hard. So, for example, AMP, the numbers of people in the accelerated misdemeanor program, diversionary program, a program I support very much. Those numbers shrunk a lot in the last few years because of the rise of police diversion through the PAD program, Police Assisted Diversion.

Simply put, they didn't come into the system in the first place. And honestly, the notion is a good one. It's one that's worked in other places. I'm not saying it's working perfectly or well, or whatever here, but the notion is not a bad one. So how do we compare that? It's -- we don't have lawyers whose only job is to do diversion with few exceptions. We have lawyers who go into courtrooms and they got 10 cases on the list that are not diversion and they got two cases on the list that are diversion in juvenile court among young adults in other spaces. A lot of the diversionary programs that exist out there, we do not fund. Or if they are funded, they're funded from the outside through grants and things of that sort. So it becomes a little difficult. And once again, perhaps we could sit down with your staff and try to go over in more detail some of these specifics. It becomes a little difficult to say what portion of a particular attorney's time was dedicated to diversion? What portion was dedicated to going for a first-degree verdict in a homicide case? In that kind of a way. But this is certainly true, and I think this is a fair observation. We have very substantially increased diversion opportunities, especially in juvenile court, especially among young adults. We initiated a program that never exist -- existed, which was known as the Emerging Adult Unit. It specifically goes after people between ages and with special 6 programming. Some of those people 7 plead guilty. Same thing with our 8 mental health court. Some of those 9 people plead guilty, and then they 10 receive special programming to 11 address their needs. Some of those 12 people are diverted. It all depends 13 on the specifics of the case. But 14 it's -- what I'm saying is diversion 15 is happening in a variety of 16 different ways. A lot of it grant 17 funded, but most of the money that 18 is in our budget is simply 19 compensation for the attorneys, and 20 in some cases social workers who are 21 doing work that connects to this. 22

23 Thank you for that. I 24 think that, you know, as it relates to diversion programs, I'm all about giving people opportunities, right? The right opportunities to be able to get them on the right path. And you and I have had this conversation about sitting down and looking at the diversion programs that run out of your office and other diversion programs throughout the city to figure out which ones of them actually are working and which are not. And how do we redirect the dollars from those diversion programs that are not working into better use. And so we haven't had the opportunity to sit down and have that or to further that conversation. But I want to get it on the record to make sure that we look at all of these diversion programs. Some of them overlap, some of them are serving the same people. And so what is the real impact that we're having in the community? And how are these individuals who are being referred into diversion, how are they taking advantage or not of these programs? And do we need to look at something different? So thank you for that. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I hear that. And I just want you to know, Councilmember, I salute the idea of mapping it all out and seeing what is duplicative and comparing these diversion programs. But I think it's also very important we look at the outcomes with diversion and compare them to what used to happen, which is most of those cases were not diverted. We have, for example, done that with a diversion program that might seem controversial to some, for people who are not criminals but are illegally in possession of guns. And what we saw when we looked at what happens when they're convicted as compared to when they're diverted, is that we reduce recidivism by three out of four. In other words, we cut recidivism by 75 percent. That is a tribute to carefully selecting who's in the program to the fact that there are wraparound services and caseworkers working with small cohorts of people over a long period of time with judicial supervision, right? That has also been basically grant funded as well. So I totally agree with you that it's good for us to map it out, look for efficiencies, look for ways we can consolidate. But we -- but we should always be comparing diversion, not just to other diversion, but also to what would happen if we went ahead and got convictions in those cases. Does it make us safer? Ultimately, it's not about do we feel kindhearted, it's about are we safer? And if the diversion is making us safer, and I do believe that our expansive view of diversion in Philadelphia is part of this much larger picture of improvements, then that's what we should do for the public.

Thank you.

Thank you. Council Lady. Council Lady Landau, and then Councilman O'Rourke, and then Councilman Thomas.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Chair. Thank you to all three of you being here. I -- you are the highest law enforcement officials on every level that we have in the city of Philadelphia. And it's essential not only that you work together, but that you work with all of us and that you work with community. And I appreciate so much your ability to do all three of those. So thank you. I want to start by underscoring some of the things I've already heard today. First of all, you are the three-legged stool that must have all three legs strong. And if we don't have all three legs strong, the stool will topple over. And I believe, because of that, it is essential that we fund the Defender's Association to a higher capacity so that it can be as strong as the other legs. As somebody who's been a legal aid lawyer, I know what it's like to be in the batting cage, to be there with overwhelming number of cases and the weight of the world on you as all of your attorneys and all of your units feel. It is -- it's very burdensome and it's wonderful. And it is the moment, you know, we know that everybody who works for all three of your units are doing it for service, for community and to make a better Philadelphia in all the ways that we've heard today. But considering that the Defender Association does not -- has to pay for its rent, its healthcare, its SEPTA, and if you could be offered a pension, it would be nice. It makes it so inequitable that it's unfair. I had -- I must admit, I did not know until taking this role that you had to pay for your rent and your utilities, right, rent, utilities, and healthcare while the other entities do not. And that, to me, is such an inequity. We should actually just start there. If we could alleviate that burden from you, then you'd be freed up to spend some of that money in other areas where you know, as the expert in the Defender Association where you had to pay it. So I -- even if we just start with rent, utilitiesband healthcare, I am all in on making sure that we -- that we make this equitable.

Point of information, Councilwoman Landau Madam. Defender, what's the -- what's the price tag on that roughly? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: So our operating costs are 2.5 million for this budget year for -- out of the 5, million. 14

For 15 what Councilwoman Landau was speaking on regarding -- CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: So our annual --

It was rent, healthcare, and what else was it?

The 2.5 is the ask for the increase.

You have to come to the microphone. Please state your name for the record and proceed.

Yes. Hi, everyone. Thank you, City Council. I'm Carolyn Jester. I'm the chief Financial Officer of Defender Association. So, our budget for the year for those types of expenses, our operating expenses, is about $9 million, not counting benefits. Our benefits are another $15 million. Oh, my God. And our ask this year is $2.5 million. It's just for the increase that we're expecting and the increase that we had last year that we were not funded for. So, we have normally these kinds of increases are addressed at mid-year transfer ordinance.

So these increases, are they, like, salary increases or cost of living?

No.

No? 2

This is benefits and --

Oh, 5 benefit increases. 6

-- operating 7 expenses. 8

Okay. 9

We have our 10 rent increases every year. We have 11 common area maintenance charges that 12 are imposed on us by our landlord. 13 We pay -- we pay the city of 14 Philadelphia property taxes. So, 15 you give us money that we give back 16 to you. We pay our electric bill. 17 We pay all our telecommunications. 18 We fund all of our IT, backup 19 systems, network switches, 20 everyone's laptops, everyone's 21 computers, all the phones, internet, 22 so forth. 23

Got 24 it. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. And you do all of that when it's a constitutional mandate that -- and thankfully, you do it so well, of defending and representing those who have been charged with crimes and make sure that you do so in a way that is socially and equitably just and in collaboration with the other legs on the stool. I also want to just take this first round to weigh in on PAIFUP as well. I, too, do not have any idea why we are talking about having to hire somebody who might be new to the city of Philadelphia or new to a role, even working for government, to decide where we should put the money for PAIFUP, for immigration defense, when all of the immigration organizations have come together and said, please put this with the Defender Association. We are asking you to put it with the Defender Association. We need a headquarters that is strong and fully equipped to handle this. So my question for you is, if we can give you the extra $1.5 million for PAIFUP, which I am strongly in favor of as well, along with the money that had previously been put to HIAS and NSC, how many attorneys would that hire, how many support staff, and are these new roles that you would hire for, and if not, when can you get started? And if we -- if we could tell you today that you are going to be the recipient of these funds, when could you get started and what would you need to make this happen? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: The proposal, if we only got the $1.5 million, we would be able to have a staff of 13, 10 would be attorneys. We would also want to hire someone in an administrative capacity. We would also want to hire a mitigation specialist because, of course, we want to be able to do a lot of work to humanize our clients before the court. A lot of our clients are here because of fear. They left their country because they did not feel safe, and they cannot -- and do not want to return. Many of them have no family ties in their home country. So our mitigation specialist would do a lot of that work. I would have to post and hire, but I could be up and running in a month.

That's great. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilman O'Rourke.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to all of you, the three- legged stool, as my colleague called you, for the defense and the legal expertise that you provide, our little domicile. Good morning, Madam Solicitor. Good to see you again. I was going to ask a few questions around what the council president already kicked off, considering we are under new management and a new mayor, how we were going to grapple with Trump 2.0 compared to 1.0, but I think it's kind of been covered a bit. So I'll jump to something else. Neighborhood Wellness Court raised some serious constitutional as well as operational concerns, including from the judiciary itself at this point. The program has been paused, postponed, and publicly criticized by the very judges that are meant to actually oversee it. From my understanding, the program is currently paused based on those concerns. Here are a few questions that I want to get on the record. Has the city, at this point, prepared the manual that Judge Simmons requested in order to resume the court operations this week? And if so, will you submit it to the chair for our review? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: I understand that the document has been submitted and reviewed by the courts and that they -- but we can share that with Council.

Okay. This is actually for the solicitor. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Oh.

Yes, no problem. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: That would be a question for Director Geer as to the manual that's -- but the Defender said it's been submitted, so there you go.

Okay. The administration has claimed that the program meets constitutional standards. Can you speak to what specific legal thresholds that you're relying on to make that particular claim? What legal analysis gives you confidence that this model is constitutionally sound? And I'm thinking in this point right now because we heard reports that residents were nodding off, otherwise not coherent, drifting in certain spaces, which I understand to be the constitutional basis for competency. So can you speak to that? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: It is true that my office has consulted with the public safety office all along the way on all manner of legal issues, including constitutional issues. I will not waive that privilege here, but I can follow up with your office in written or spoken format. But that analysis is not appropriate for the public since it was given in confidence to a client.

Duly noted. I actually would be interested in having that conversation if we have to have it off the record. So let's do that. Lastly, how have law and -- excuse me, how have law and OPS worked to help train police officers that are actually undertaking the very delicate work of bringing those folks in, since those officers are the actors with the ultimate choice to bring somebody to the Wellness Court in the first place? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: The officers that are presenting in court?

Yes, for those who are actually do -- CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: The specific court or the -- well, we've trained all officers from those who are working with Deputy Commissioner Rosario in the field in Kensington, those are the officers who would be bringing people into Wellness Court along with the medical providers, the police officers. We have been involved along the way in every single aspect. And a lot of that is explaining constitutional rights to the officers and those in court.

Okay. I heard the bell, but I want to ask really quickly to Defender Hudson. The administration has told us that we need to wait six months for enough data to evaluate Wellness Court. Your office has already gathered meaningful data, and more importantly, you've been on the ground representing many of your clients who are pulled into this pilot. So we'd like to better understand what you're seeing now. And here's my three, and then I'll get off. First, as of today, how many people have been brought through Wellness Court? How many people have accepted diversion? And how many people have decided to have a same-day trial? And of those who have actually accepted diversion, how many of them successfully completed the treatment and are at the wellness village? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: I'm going to call up Andrew Pappas, who's our managing director of pretrial and has been the one staffing Wellness Court on the Wednesdays.

Thank you.

And good morning, Council. Andrew Pappas from the Defender Association, and thank you for your question, Councilmember O'Rourke.

Good morning, Mr. Pappas.

To date, there have been 72 unique arrests made for neighborhood Wellness Court. Not all of those cases resulted in -- not all of those arrests resulted in a case being brought in Wellness Court. There have been 67 unique individuals who were arrested. Some were arrested multiple times, which is how you have 72 arrests but 67 different individuals. As to the number of trials, there have been eight individuals who rejected Wellness Court. Two of them entered guilty pleas. Six of them went to trial. Of the ones that went to trial, four were found guilty. Two were found not guilty. There have been four cases to date that were marked as successful completions of Wellness Court. One was for a housing referral. Three were for treatment. Of the three that were successful completions for treatment, two of those individuals made it to Riverview Wellness Village.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councilman. Councilmember Thomas. Chair recognizes Councilmember Thomas.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Thank you. I want to jump right in because we don't have much time. I want to start with our city solicitor. Good afternoon. First question, why did you recommend to the Mayor that we get rid of the $100,000 exemption for BIRT, as well as the $2,000 exemption on use and occupancy? What made you say that this is something that we should get rid of as far as the exemption? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: I have -- I have been public about this as recently as last week in a press conference. The law has changed on uniformity and is getting more and more strict.

The law where? The state law? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: The state law on uniformity. Correct. And there were a number of cases in the PA Supreme Court, so the highest court since the law was passed in 2011, 2012. And it is very clear now that this program is very risky. And I'm talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in risk. And we are put on notice by the Zoll case. And if we continue this lawsuit and we lose, it could be hundreds of millions of dollars in judgments against the city.

So because this is a City Council project and a City Council-based initiative as far as the creation of the legislation, did you or anybody on your team think to come to Council and offer some type of legal representation for us? I'm thinking about when I went through drive inequality and being sued there and there was a lot of reluctance and we worked with the public defender's office on that specific initiative, but one of the things that happened was City Council had the option to be able to retain outside council. So based on my knowledge of both the exemption around BIRT and use and occupancy, it's a City Council-based initiative. So did that conversation happen? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: I cannot disclose to you in this open forum what conversations happened with Council, but there's no legal conflict here. That's between the Mayor and Council. The law is clear.

Do you think we should have our own council for this particular issue? Do you think we should have our own representation that gives us our interpretation on what direction we should go in, around BIRT and use and occupancy exemption? So if you represent us, you represent everybody. You are saying as our lawyers, that we do not need our own separate council for this specific City Council-based initiative. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: I do not believe there is a legal conflict. I do not believe there --

No, I'm not asking you is there a legal -- CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: I do not believe --

I want to be clear. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: -- there is not clarity in the law.

So -- CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: I believe that this is a risk --

So as our lawyer, you recommend that we do not need to retain our own counsel for this particular issue to advise us on what direction we should go in? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Correct.

Why would we not have our own council for this when we have been given that option when other City Council- based initiatives have come under threat in the past? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: The last time I remember having that was in self-injection sites. And then probably before that was the Nutter administration regarding the library.

We had outside legal counsel when we were sued around driving equality. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: We were working together with that counsel.

We did. We worked in collaboration, but we still -- CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Right.

You guys still came to me and offered me the option to retain counsel. I think this is my concern. This decision was made without dialogue with City Council. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: That is not the case.

It's a City Council project -- CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: It's not the case. It's not the case. And we can talk offline or the administration can talk offline.

I don't think that's best for the public to have a conversation offline. I think, again, I don't know. So let me just be clear. Over the last three years, I've been a person that have led the way around any legislation around the BIRT tax. So basically if you're saying that a conversation took place, you're saying that I just wasn't preview to that conversation. So you had the conversation without me. I'm not allowed to be a part of the dialogue. Is that what we're insinuating? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: I know that there were conversations.

I'm going to move on to the public defender's office. I'm going to cue myself in the tee for the second line of questioning because I'm going to go and talk to a couple other people and get clarity because this is not the way I thought this line of questioning was going to go. And it's unfortunate that you're taking a position that's, like, clearly very adversarial when I'm just trying to get questions answered on something that's going to impact thousands of businesses across the city of Philadelphia, right? Like, we're not just talking about the BIRT exemption. Have we done a calculation to recognize how use and occupancy is going to really hurt businesses? We talk about corridors and corridor development and developing businesses in neighborhoods across the city of Philadelphia. Is there a fiscal analysis that says what the $2,000, you said, occupancy exemption being dissolved is going to do? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Yes. The revenue commissioner has all those numbers. And I'm truly not being adversarial. If we lose --

I'm just saying, we're the ones who got to go back to these businesses. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: I completely agree with you.

Right? Like, no one's going to vote for the city's -- you don't have a position that's voted on, right? And at the end of the day, we're the ones who are going to have to take the hit. And I'm at large. So I'm really thinking about the district council members. I'm going to move on to the public defender's office. I'm going to come back with a different type of line of questioning. And DA Krasner, I want to say thank you to you, G. Lamar, your entire team, Chief Public Defender Hudson, Kate, the entire team, everybody who we work with, I want to say thank you very much. Just a quick question, and then I'm going to tee up for the second round of questioning, specifically, around rent, and this is just like a curious thing. Why don't you just use a city building? Why are you renting a building that's not owned by the city of Philadelphia? Why can't we put ourselves in a position to be able to absorb your office in one of these city buildings? I think about Councilmember Young and some of the work that he's trying to do around center city buildings and center city spaces. And all we're hearing is office spaces are empty and no 8 one's taking new leases. How come we haven't been able to rectify that issue? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: We have been asking budget cycle after budget cycle about what supports we can get around rent. And we have tried to, at the minimum, get our real estate taxes waived. We explored that with Director Dubow, and he told us that he is not in a position, and the city is not in a position to waive those property taxes, which last year was 330,000.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to definitely queue up for a second line of questioning because I'm very curious to know how dialogue happened with City Council, but I was excluded from the conversation, so thank you.

All right. So we'll look to hear from you in the second round. Councilwoman Ahmad.

Thank you, Council Lady, Council Chair. I have a bunch of questions for all of you, so I guess I'll tee them up. First, for the public defender. Thank you so much for what you do. And I just want to underscore that public defenders are essential in ensuring the constitutional right to counsel for those who cannot afford it. The 6th Amendment. And in that light, I was just curious why you have a 501c3 that has a relationship with the city that allows them to disregard your needs. Is there a different structure that would obviate all of these, you know, budgetary constraints you have? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Thank you, Councilmember. We are an independent or what we call quasi- city agency. The first rule, the APA has principles for effective 9 public defense systems. That first 10 rule is independence. But we don't want to be a part of the city government because then we are advocating, right? We're advocating for our clients and our first and only duty is to our clients. And there are times when that is going to be in conflict with what the city interests or city priorities may be. So we have a board of directors, but 99 percent of our funding comes from the city of Philadelphia.

How are your -- is your structure different from the DA's office in terms of the relationship with the city? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: The District attorney's office, the law department, office of Public Safety are city agencies.

City agencies. So in order for you to be able to, you know, honor the 6th Amendment, have we put in that frame that the work you do actually in the long run saves us money and follows the constitution? And what has the response been when this is mandated in our constitution, we have this, and yet we are not able to fund it so that we are -- people are getting appropriate representation. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: This isn't just a Philadelphia issue. The state ranks 45th in the country in supporting public defense around the Commonwealth. I think when we look at supports of public defense, our clients are not popular. And what we see on the news and the narratives about them, right, and how they're portrayed. And so, you know, for example, I will say that for my colleagues, right, the ability to get grants and grant funding, things like the opioid settlement funding, again, funding that we do not get, right, because of who we represent. So that's why I come every budget cycle with high asks, because we have high needs. You just heard from the CFO, we have a $66 million budget. 9 million of it goes to operating costs and another 15 to benefits. And I have 530 people. So you can imagine how much we spend on salary, which is upwards of $40 million.

You had mentioned something when we met, which really struck me, that the way you work with your clients, so that they plead appropriately, has much less appeals and costs us less. Could you elaborate on that, please? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Part of the million ask was to 6 expand homicide representation. We 7 currently represent 20 percent of 8 the people in Philadelphia charged 9 with homicides. We would like to 10 represent 40 percent and expand to 11 40 percent over two years, and 12 that's a 3 million over two-year 13 ask. The Defender Association of 14 Philadelphia, with the incredible 15 work that District Attorney Krasner has done in his Conviction Integrity Unit, I believe we're up to 50 people?

45. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: 45 people that have been released through the Conviction Integrity Unit. Not a single one of those people were represented by a public defender. I did death penalty representation for years. There's not a single person on death row that was represented by a Philly defender. We are the best, and we should be doing more work. But because we spend time building relationships with our clients, should they decide to plead guilty, we have that relationship. We do effective representation. Our cases rarely come back for ineffective assistance accounts, or prosecutorial misconduct, or judicial misconduct, police misconduct. They don't come back. So, it's for three million over two-year ask to increase the representation, would down the long road save the city tens of millions of dollars from wrongful conviction litigation.

All right. We're advocating for this. A quick question for the DA. Thank you, Public Defender. The question for the DA is the resources you allocate to organizations doing gun violence prevention work. Is there any requirement, or at least are they using cognitive behavioral therapy in any of these programming? And obviously, there's been evidence across in Chicago and Maryland, and our own Philadelphia Osteopathic College just got awarded $750,000 to do CBT work. I just wondered how intentional we are about using CBT in our programming. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you, Councilmember. The good news is, yes, we're very intentional. We've been doing it now for years. More specifically, just to give you, I think, the leading example, in our diversionary program intended for people who are illegally possessing guns but are not criminals or not gang- affiliated, are operating more simply without having gotten the right paperwork or out of fear. In that, the way that works is intensively based upon cognitive behavioral therapy. We work with the Center for Carceral Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and it is done under the guidance and supervision of University of Pennsylvania professor, Dr. Toorjo Ghose. The work that they do involves cohorts of about people. 15 It involves caseworkers who very 16 actively are trying to assist them 17 with everything that's not correct 18 in their lives at that point, and 19 cognitive behavioral therapy often 20 done in a group session with mentoring among the people is essential to it. We have found it to be extremely successful. As I mentioned earlier, if you look at a cohort of people who used to get convicted, and compare them to the ones who are in this diversionary program now, the convicted crew will give you a rate of four arrests. The CBT, Intensive Social Work Crew, will give you a rate of one re-arrest, okay? Any time we can reduce re-arrest by 75 percent. That is absolutely in the interest of public safety, and I think that is just one example of how cognitive behavioral therapy has shown its power to deal with some of these issues.

So, yes, that's great to know. So all the organizations that you grant funds to, are they privy to this CBT training, or is that part of their programming since clearly it would behoove us to make sure everybody has access to that? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember, I agree that more widespread access is a fabulous idea. We -- you know, we give micro-grants to community-based organizations that do many, many different things. They're all carefully vetted by the Philadelphia Foundation. They get relatively small amounts of money, by which I mean amounts usually between $5,000 and $50,000. We view it as seed money for, you know, innovative mom-and-pop, smaller community-based organizations. And, you know, recently we gave, I think, $1.2 million. Please remember we're not allowed to use any of this for our salaries, okay? Which is basically the vast majority of our budget. And we're also not allowed to use it for a lot of fixed costs. It's money that by law must go back into the communities it came from in order to rebuild the harm that was done by criminal activity. So I don't want anybody to think we're depriving the taxpayer. Not only are we increasing public safety with this work, but in my opinion we're aiding the taxpayer in myriad ways. But there are some of those organizations that use cognitive behavioral therapy. There are some of those organizations that use other tactics. You know, I'll just lift one up at random. If you look at Eyekonz, E-Y-E-K-O-N-Z, which is a sports organization that teaches inner-city kids, especially started out with girls but is now also boys, lacrosse skills. This is a group that has not only succeeded in increasing capacity there, but they've put 80, 80 of their kids through college on scholarships as a consequence of what they've done, which is just amazing. You know, there are these heroes and sheroes all over the city doing incredible stuff, and they're doing it different ways. But I am with you in saying that all the research and all the science supports the intentional use of cognitive behavioral therapy to address many of the criminal justice issues we face.

We should think of a fund of some sort that others can use. But I'll go to the second round, but just a question for our city solicitor. You know, these bonds we're looking to float for our HOME Initiative that the Mayor is, you know, proposing. Who are getting awarded these bonds? Are you involved in that process? Or who exactly is overseeing the awarding of these massive floating of bonds? And which law firms are getting those? And how does that work? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: The law department is involved. I will have to get you right up on that. I've been involved at a very high level with the solicitor's opinions and the legislation, but we can get you in more detail, I wouldn't want to mutilate the response to that. But obviously the law department is involved. There's law firms involved. And obviously city planning and the mayor's office of housing.

Yeah. So if you could give that to the council president, appreciate that. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Absolutely.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will reserve the rest of the comments for the second round.

Thank you, Council Lady. Next is Councilman Young and following Councilman Young -- Councilman Harrity, would you be willing to yield your time for Councilwoman, Majority Leader Gilmore-Richardson, who hasn't had a chance yet?

(Indiscernible).

Okay. Thank you. Okay. So young, and then Gilmore-Richardson.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This has been a very interesting conversation. I'm learning a lot. But I would want to put on a record, you know, that, you know, definitely supportive of the Public Defender's Office and what they do to our city, what they mean to our city. But we have to realize that they are a vendor, essentially, of the city. So those workers are not entitled to, you know, a city pension. And I'm sure all the other vendors that the city has would like us to pay their rent and things like that as well. But we have to keep those things in consideration as we're going through the budget process for our city. And one question I do have for the Defender, and we were talking about parity. Are your attorneys allowed to live outside the city? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: They are allowed to live outside the city, and many do. Getting the SEPTA benefit would help remarkably considering that that comes out of their already incredibly low paychecks. But they do live out the city. It's more affordable.

Thank you. And this question is for -- oh, and so you are -- for the defenders as well, and the city or the state is constitutionally mandated to provide the service. But your Defender Association of Philadelphia technically does not -- technically is not itself constitutionally obligated to provide indigent defense in our city. Because our city technically could contract that service out to Ballard Spahr if we so decided to. And so in having -- in being a vendor of the city, how can we -- as a city, how can we help you improve some of the services that you're providing to us as a city? What are some of the things that we need to do in order to help you uplift your services that you provide to us? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: It is correct that the city could contract with any entity at any price to fund a constitutionally required representation. We go through an RFP process every five years. We just went through our RFP this year. We were, since our founding in 1934, once again granted the opportunity to represent people in indigent defense in the city of Philadelphia. How we can improve our representation. I referenced earlier the importance of recruiting and retaining excellent lawyers who are going to carry this organization forward. Every one of my clients is a human being. Every one of my clients deserves representation no 13 matter of what they're accused of doing. And any one of us in this body, should one of our family members come into the system, are going to want the best representation and the best advocate next to them. And the only difference between us and the clients who represent are the fact that they're poor and they can't afford one. But they're entitled to excellent, zealous representation.

Thank you. And one more question. Could you provide us with the demographics of the attorneys that are representing the clients here in Philadelphia? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: I absolutely will. I will say on recruiting, as a generation, we are not so far removed from the current state of law graduates who are the first in their families to go to college and the first in their families to go to law school. It is really hard and has always been hard to recruit diverse, particularly Black attorneys, because they are not coming here for $64,000 a year. And when they do come here, it's very hard to stay here when their salaries do not move. But I will absolutely get you those numbers.

I mean, I ask that because me being an attorney, have friends, I've heard a different perspective than that answer that you provided to us. And so if you could get us those demographics, I would appreciate that. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Will do.

Thank you.

Thank you. Majority Leader Gilmore- Richardson. And then Councilmember Bass.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Council President. And I also wanted to thank all of you for your work and for being here. And also thank Councilmember Harrity for this time. I wanted to quickly start off with some thank yous for law, Solicitor Garcia. For Sam, your Chief of staff, who has been stellar. Lewis Rosman, our longtime friend in the Leg Unit. Reynelle Staley, who was excellent and came over with us in our last law and government hearings so we could get through those amendments after three hours of negotiations. Zoe in the Leg Unit, Joanna Klein, Marta Sanchez, thank you for all your assistance with scheduling. And Amanda Stewart- House, who was at all of our nonprofit provider meetings. So I wanted to thank all of you. And then for our district attorney's office, obviously DA Krasner, we thank you for your work. And, you know, I say this every single year, so you already know it's coming. G. Lamar Stewart, who we rely on to be a liaison between Council and the DA's office.

Put that raise in the budget request, sir.

Right. So, you know, we are here for G. Lamar Stewart because he makes it happen.

From Northwest. Rather wilder than them --

And also for the Defenders Association, Chief Defender Hudson, I think you are doing a stellar job. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Thank you.

I really do. And you are really representing our most vulnerable residents and especially our youth, and to Kate Parker for all of her help and her work. So I wanted to get the thank yous on the record. For the law department in particular, I wanted to ask a question relative to nuisance businesses. And also some of the code enforcement cases that we have for properties, like actual residential properties. Recently, we've been talking a lot, as we always have, about these nuisance businesses. We know that Councilmember Bass and Councilmember Phillips and I have all done legislation on this matter. We're working together with Councilmember Bass's office on this issue now. And I wanted to, you know, for the record, if you all could just explain why you can't confiscate the drug paraphernalia when the CVNs are issued, you know, for violations. And in addition to that, when we had one of our hearings a few weeks ago, and I thank all of my colleagues for being there, it was brought up several times that the IRS will move penalties from one LLC to another LLC so that these businesses don't skirt their responsibility. Are you familiar with this process, and is it something that we could use here in Philadelphia to stop the nuisance businesses that we're dealing with from avoiding justice around the illegal sale of drug paraphernalia? I'll start there, and I'll just have a couple more. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Thank you, Majority Leader, and thank you for your gratitude for all of the members of the law department working hard over the last year. I'll start with the second question first on nuisance businesses. I'm not sure if you were in the room 21 when I was responding to Councilmember Lozada, but there are ways to sort of pierce the veil, right, is what we call it. And, yes, we are doing that. And what we are doing is very rigorously tracking these LLCs from person to person to person to person to person because they set up all this. It's a shell game with them, right? This is a shell game. And so we are doing that, including with information that Philly Stat is getting.

Okay. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: So we're aggregating all this data that LNI has, that the revenue department has, that -- anyway, different -- the commerce department, right? Everybody has little pieces of these LLCs, and we are putting it together, and we are piercing the veil to go back to that sort of core owner or owner. So we are actively doing that.

Okay. I hear the bell. I want to honor the clock. But as a secondary question, as an example, I know when we did one drug paraphernalia tour, there was one owner with a number of businesses, but it was only one business that was shut down. In that instance, what do you do? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Yeah. So, yes, it is. And they do have due process, right? And so we do have to make sure that we can stand up those cases and educate the court as to why we are tracing back the trail of ownership. But that is a high priority for us, and the money that we are getting for the code team will help us. We are hoping to get an investigator to help do that, too, and do that tracing back.

Okay. And then I also -- I had a question regarding the BIRT tax exemption that I will hold and I will save. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Okay.

But I wanted to also ask a question relative to -- and I know this question has come up for a million years. I remember being a legislative aide here, and I remember former Councilwoman Blackwell used to even ask this question all the time. Relative to legal representation for counsel and also for the administration, seeking to -- and you know we always do get outside counsel. And we can get outside counsel if we need to. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Sure.

But there are some instances where there are matters where we know that one party may feel strongly about the matter and there may be some disagreement, right? And so in those instances, how do we -- I don't even know what way we make that process fair for everyone, not just for counsel, but also for the administration. Because I think it does become a conflict wherein we know as an example if there's something the administration wants to do or strongly believes in, and even if, you know, I'm just going to give the example. The charter change passed regarding workforce development, we received the opinion from your office. It basically stated that even though the charter change passed, you all don't have to follow it. And so my concern is not around that specific issue because -- any longer because we have -- I've spoken with the administration. We've met, we have agreement around that part of the workforce development situation with Commerce. And so -- and I'm continuing to meet with them. So it's not specifically about that particular issue anymore. My concern is as the chair of the Law and Government committee where all of our charter changes must be approved before they go on the ballot. My concern is that at what point do voters believe that their votes didn't matter? Because even though it was a charter change and it was approved by the voters, now the administration has stated they are not following that. And your office, which represents both of us, is saying that they are correct and we have no sort of like due process in that. And there's no knock at all. This is really a procedural question. This is not an issue question because we've worked out the issue and I'm very appreciative of what the administration has done in this process. They've been working with us in good faith. So this is not a knock to the issue. It's a procedural question. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Right. You're right. This is a question that goes back ages.

Yeah. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: And it does. And the way the charter is set up, the solicitor's office provides the legal opinion for the entire city. So that everybody who does business with the city, everybody, the courts, right, everybody who's internal knows that it is the solicitor's opinion that will be presented in court along the way. So, yes, you can get another legal opinion, but I am telling you what the city will present if we go to court on this issue.

I understand. So I understand what you're saying. You're saying if the city goes to court, then the solicitor's legal opinion is what would stand up in court as it relates to the city's position -- CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Correct.

-- even though we may have had a difference of opinion in counsel. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Yes.

So I guess the question would be then how do we solve for that? How do we -- and I know I'm not an attorney, which is why I'm asking this.

Excuse me, Majority Leader. I have a point of information.

Okay.

Councilmember Jeffrey J. Young Esquire.

Yes. Thank you. And Madam Leader, I think I have an answer to that question, and that would be that council needs its own solicitor's office. It was just something that I've been advocating for since I was a staffer on City Council.

Okay.

We need our own solicitors to issue -- to fight for us in court.

Well, I think for additional point of information for the record, I think my chief legal counsel said, we can't have two solicitors at one time. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: You could change the charter. That could happen. I'm telling you in other jurisdictions, it turns out to be a disaster.

The Chair recognizes Majority Leader Gilmore-Richardson.

Right. So -- and so, but here's -- this is my concern, right? We -- so say you do a charter change at -- we're back at where we are now. So I'm just asking for a procedural operational understanding. How do we solve for this challenge? Because, again, I don't want it to be a situation where now all these folks have voted in favor of this said initiative, and it wasn't my bill. I introduced it on behalf of another member who's no longer in this body. And I just don't know how we solve for that. Like, how do we solve for an issue like that, recognizing that other parts of the charter do state the administrative authority empowers of the administration, but when that is in conflict with the intent of the legislation and the question that hundreds of thousands of people voted in favor of having? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: And my response is that keep doing what you're doing. You know, come to the law department before anything is introduced and passed, and you will know the law department's position on whether it is legally enforceable, whether there's a preemption issue, whether there is separation of powers issue. Those are the two main things, and you will be on notice, and we can help fix whatever it is before it goes up.

So, but here was the issue with this. This happened under a previous administration, and so it was prior to this administration that the legislation was passed. And so now that there's been a change in administration and a change in the organizational structure of the staffing complement within the administrative department, now the opinion has been requested when there was no issue prior to this time. So it's one of those circumstances where we -- you know, I came right to you all because I just think that that's the right thing to do. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Right.

Because I always want to protect us and protect ourselves from, you know, any litigation. And just as a former legislative aide of five years, I know to do that. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Yes.

But again, in this instance is, I don't know how we solve for that challenge because say we do a charter change, and then as well, I don't have to follow that. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Well, and that's not a question of the law changing. We can tell you -- you know, you could ask, could future mayors ignore this? And we could say yes, because this is an executive prerogative, right? So, you know, I wasn't there when this conversation was taking place.

That word's prerogative. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Right?

Say that again. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: I mean, there is a separation of powers, and we can warn of that up front, right?

Okay. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: So you have a different mayor. The law doesn't change, and I don't make up the law, right? We interpret the law to the best of our ability. And again, that is the opinion of the city, should it be challenged in court.

Okay. I appreciate it, and I appreciate the time, Council President. I just wanted to get that on the record because as the chair of the law and government committee, I don't want folks to think that I didn't do my due diligence. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Of course. Yes.

As the chair of the committee and as the, you know, sort of chair that ensures that we're getting the ballot questions on. I work with the commissioner's office on the plain language statements with the law department, with you all. So I just want to make sure that I am doing my job to the very best of my ability, and wanted to ensure we have clarification on that issue. And I want to say again for the record, because I know they're listening, that I appreciate this administration for the opportunity to meet and work together. This was a bill that was introduced under the last administration that we're just getting an updated opinion regarding under this administration. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Understood. And your office is always a great partner, and I'm happy to talk about this further.

Okay. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilmember Bass.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. I just had a couple questions and I want to follow up somewhat on Councilwoman, our majority leader's line of questioning. And, you know, I had never heard the term of executive prerogative, which suggests to me that the executive office really is who the solicitor works for. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: No, I would say Council also has prerogative, right? We can give you all the advice in the world and you can pass what you want. So both -- there's a separation of powers and both the legislative branch and the executive branch have their own powers by design.

I -- listen, I know the way it's supposed to be set up and the way it's supposed to happen, but I'm saying that from your own words, the term executive prerogative would determine if there could be two solicitors in this administration or in future administrations. It's a bit -- you know, it's a bit troubling to me. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: No, no, no. I -- maybe you misunderstood.

Maybe. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: The charter is what says that there's one solicitor.

No, I understand that, yes. But we're talking about if there was a change so that there could be representation strictly for Philadelphia City Council, you're saying that it could be ignored by future mayors, by -- CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: No, no, not if there was a charter change.

Or but -- CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: No, no, no, that is not what I was saying.

You're saying not if there is a charter change. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Not if there's a charter change.

Right. Okay. All right. All right. Let me ask you a question then about this thing we call due process, which in many ways, in my opinion, is a bit of a double-edged sword, especially right about now, because we want to make sure that, you know, when it comes to individual rights, that people receive due process. When it comes to the operation of businesses in our communities that are flouting our laws, that are doing whatever they want to do, that are operating without licenses, without any sort of permits, you know, basically doing whatever they want to do. We continue to come back to L&I and different departments, the health department. We can't do anything about nuisance businesses because these businesses are afforded due process, and it feels as if it's over the rights of the community. The people who are most negatively or adversely impacted in the neighborhood. And so I was wondering if you could speak to that a little bit. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Sure. I don't know that -- we'd have to talk further about the perception or the reality. I'm not sure that there's a favoring of business rights over individual rights, because I don't --

What's the -- in my opinion, it's very much a reality. Anytime you can walk into an establishment that has no 13 operating permit, no operating licenses, no tobacco license. They're selling tobacco products. They're selling fake cigarettes. They're -- you know, there's no -- the signage is illegal. They're operating down the street from a school, which is illegal for the type of products that they sell. I mean, pretty much everything that they're doing is illegal. And yet they opened up earlier this year and they're still open. They were closed for maybe hours, but they're still open. And so when we've asked, and we just asked the other day, the Department of Licenses and Inspection, we asked the health department, and what we keep coming into, running up against is that they are afforded due process to be able to get their stuff together. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Yes.

Now, I 15 don't understand how it is that if I 16 put my trash out early, I don't get 17 due process. I get a ticket. If my 18 grass grows too high, I don't get 19 due process. You know, I don't get 20 a warning. I don't get time to get 21 it together. I get a ticket saying 22 you have to pay, you know, judge and 23 jury, you know, you are fine. If 24 there's construction done on a building that's, you know, of concern and L&I comes across the site, then it's a an immediate work stoppage, cease order -- cease work order. So I don't understand how these -- you know, what is the line that is drawn that says that certain businesses get a pass. They get time to get themselves together. And it feels as if for the rest of us, you know, there is no, you know, grace or time or warnings given. You get the actual violation which is, you know, due in, like, 10 or 15 days or whatever. And then it escalates and then you have, you know, additional fees and, you know, interest and penalties and all those kinds of things. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Sure. Let me try to tackle that in a couple different ways. So if you get a ticket for putting out your trash, your due process is that you have the ability to challenge that ticket.

Well, I'm not saying -- no. Well, let's say that I did put my trash out early, so, you know, yeah, guilty, right? But at the same time, they put out -- if they're going into a business and don't have a license to this day, they're guilty, right? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: So -- so --

So why do they get -- why do they get time to get their license or not and continue to operate? Shouldn't they have to close down while they're getting their license and all of their other, you know, use and occupancy, you know, fees and taxes that they have to pay? They don't have any of the licenses that they are required to have. They don't have any of the permits that were required when the construction was done. They have multiple violations as they're operating now, plumbing code violations and electrical code violations. And, you know, I'm harping on the same one over and over again because it's just so egregious, but I could duplicate this by 30. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: So the due process is built into the code, right? So it depends on the violation, but there are violations where you get sort of a CVN, right? Or three notices, and then you get your commercial activity license pulled after a hearing. That is all built into the code.

But if you don't have a commercial activity license? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Well, it depends on what the penalty is, right? There are code violations for which that require a hearing. It requires Board of L&I review or ZBA review or whatever it is. That is all built into the code. I do think license and inspections, and I believe they testified to this, will be ramping up so that they are hitting more CVNs right off the bat and not giving people time. But if you are looking to close a business or take away a license, that does require -- that is a constitutional issue and does require due process. Now, there are certain circumstances where the business is imminently dangerous that we can shut down before that initial hearing, right? We can go in on an emergency motion without the full hearing and shutting you down in part.

What determines if the business is dangerous and should be shut down? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: It's a hearing. It is a hearing where we go, the Law Department would go, and there would be an inspection, and we'd have someone from L&I come to testify as to whether that business was imminently dangerous. And this is all governed by statutory and then the common law as to what has determined in other cases to be imminently dangerous.

You know what, I understand what you're saying, but I think that there's a disconnect. And I think that the disconnect is between a lot of our communities and what's happening and how these businesses are operating and the people that we have who are responsible for ruling on whether these businesses should be open or closed. There's a real disconnect because there's no way that this business would be open if they stepped across the street on Cheltenham Avenue in Montgomery County or, you know, Delaware County or Bucks County. Like, there is no 5 way. And for some reason, this notion of due process for a business that is operating in a manner that is detrimental to the community, you know, to the taxpayers, you know, listen, it's questionable as to if these folks even have a tax account in which they're paying their fair share of taxes. So, you know, I'll continue to beat this dead horse until we get some resolution on it. But we are not -- our communities are not being serviced legally the way that they should be, because if someone operates in a way that works against the community, they should be shut down immediately. Everybody knows it. I've been talking about it. This is not a secret. And this needs to be addressed. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Yeah.

It needs to be addressed. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: And I understand. And I don't know if you were in the room. I can't remember when people are coming out that we have -- we handled 2700 cases in court last year and we -- and it's not enough. And we're not going fast enough through our boards, too. So we are ramping up as much as we can, as quickly as we can. But if any of you have a business in your jurisdiction that you believe is not being inspected or is not being penalized like they should.

I'm going to give you a list. I got a list. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Send me the list.

Yeah, I'll give you a list. It's disturbing that --

Thank you, Member Bass.

-- continue to have the same conversation. Thank, Mr. President.

Thank you, Member Bass, and provide the list.

I will.

I know you will. Thank you. Point of information.

Yes. I just --

Briefly.

I just -- briefly just say in 10 seconds, I concur with Member Bass. I think this is very unfortunate that if everyone in the law department, everyone in public health, everyone at L&I lived in these neighborhoods and had to listen to people deal with this every day, they're not going to be talking about the due process. They would say, you know what, shut them down and they can take us up in court later on and try to prove their point. There should be a zero tolerance when it comes to certain things in our city. And I think that's the due process. The due process, they have the right to appeal. But for us to internally have these policies that keep giving people opportunity after opportunity, when we don't even have the human resources in the city of Philadelphia that constantly keep checking back to see if they're doing the right thing, it's just a waste of our time. It's wrong and it's archaic and it needs to be fixed. And I think it's just unfair that we keep circling every year around us. And I just hope that we can become more innovative with our law department, public health, and L&I around us. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: I do understand that. We do have department members that live in all neighborhoods throughout the city. But the law is the law, and if we want to change the law, we can talk about changing the law. But what I'm not going to say is, forget the law. We're just going to shut them down. That's not what we're going to do. That is not the reputation of the law department. The judges will not take kindly to that, and everything will get reversed. We believe in the law. If we want to change the law, that's a different conversation than just saying ignore the law.

The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity. We're officially in our second round. And be brief in your response and direct. Councilmember Bass, would you like to be acknowledged? Councilmember Cindy Bass.

I would just -- you know, I apologize, but I just, you know, just the sort of like the tone and the response. You know, and I know you and I'm -- you know, maybe it just came out a little bit, you know, aggressively. But, you know, we're not asking you to not follow the law. What we're saying is, we need help. These neighborhoods need help. And we're asking for help. We've been asking for help over and over and over again. And we get these same kinds of responses, which is just like, well, this is what it is. Deal with it. Like, no. We're here asking you for help. We need your help. We need your buy-in. And we need for you to help us figure out what to do. You're the chief legal strategist for the city of Philadelphia. We need your help. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: And we are here to help you.

It doesn't feel like it. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: I'm telling you, we handled 2,700 cases in court last year. And I'm telling you, it's not enough --

Well, none of them were in the 8th District with these nuisance businesses. I'm glad. Thank you for your service. But none of them -- none of the work that you did had any impact on businesses which have a huge impact on the larger community. People in those neighborhoods really feel stuck. And a lot of them, beyond selling, you know, these products that they shouldn't be selling in the first place, but then they attract other people who are selling additional products that are illegal. So we need your help, is what I'm saying. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: And we're here to help. And I'm sorry if I'm coming across defensive, but we are working very, very hard.

We're all working hard. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: I agree with you.

There's not one person on this floor who doesn't work from the time that they get up to the time that they go to bed. We work days, nights, weekends, holidays, summer, winter, fall. We work. That's what we do. That's the gig. And it's -- you know, I think you work too. I'm not saying that you're not working. I'm saying we need help. We need your help. Please help us. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Yes.

Please help us come up with a remedy to address these nuisance businesses. That's -- thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity.

Thank you, Council president. I'm not even going to get on that with the nuisance business where I live. I'm going to stick to my questions. I got two more left here. One for the Law Department. What is the Law Department's role in mitigating the issues faced by the Kensington Wellness Court? And then for the District Attorney's Office, how does your office determine who to refer to Wellness Court? Yadda, yadda, yadda. The city is making a big investment in this program and we would see -- would like to know how they determine who goes through AMP or who goes through PAD. How do your district attorneys go about that process of how one is perceived PAD or AMP? Just trying to figure out, you know what I mean, the differences between the groups and the fact of are they -- are you going to be using AMP as well as PAD in the wellness ecosystem? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: I'll take wellness very quickly and I'll pass it to the DA. As I said before, we have been advising Office of Public Safety all along the way with wellness courts. We will continue to do that. And I have personally been in a lot of meetings involving people in this room, and we'll continue to be. We are riding along to do whatever is necessary and whatever advising is necessary to get the court on track. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember, thank you for the question. So just a, you know, partial mechanical answer, and then I'll try to speak a little more broadly. We are involved in referrals to AMP. Amp of course has existed for more than a decade. And it involves people who are already arrested and in the system. We are not involved with referrals to PAD. Those determinations are made entirely by the Philadelphia Police Department. We don't even see those cases because there's never an arrest in those cases. And I don't say that to demean or minimize the good work that can be done through a PAD type program that's done the right way. There certainly are national examples of places where it's been a good idea. PAD in Philly is modeled in many ways among other programs on the LEAD model in Seattle, which has done remarkably good work in terms of dealing with people who are unhoused, living on the street with addiction, often with mental health issues as well. When we talk about Wellness Court, the cases that are getting to Wellness Court are getting there through the Philadelphia Police Department. They're not getting there through us. As you know, there's sort of a -- how shall I put it, there's a gathering of people that occurs often in the morning before Wellness Court and then those people are brought into the system. So those are not referrals we make and once again, I'm not criticizing anybody, I'm just trying to say mechanically that's how that works. The part of what is going on with the discussion around Wellness Court is that Wellness Court is evolving. It has been evolving from the beginning and some of what's going on now is an effort to include more information from entities that have knowledge and expertise in the field that would like to see a Wellness Court type solution or a public health solution work. You know, the courts have things to say about courts. Public Defender's office has things to say about proper criminal defense and about the position of their clients, many of whom get picked up. The District Attorney's office has a whole lot to say about what are best practices in relation to this. So, you know, in my mind, we have -- we all want -- we all share the value of wanting a proactive approach to what's occurring in Kensington, Port Richmond and other areas that have a high level of people living on the street suffering from addiction, and that also have a high level of homeowners who have suffered for decades under certain conditions. We all want this to succeed.

The discussions that are going on are simply about whether or not the final result, the evolving Wellness Court is going to be effective, successful in ways that frankly no 17 other program has been in Kensington for decades. Whether it's going to succeed. I think all of us would agree that it's not enough to say we tried. It's enough if we are effective and we are alleviating problems for the residents, but also for those who are suffering from the disease of addiction.

Yeah, all I was trying to get at was the fact -- I thank you for clearing that up too. That would have made it very simple, I think. So, PAD is the police before anybody has been charged or anything and the AMP is after somebody actually has been charged or allowed to. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Yes, sir.

Okay. So, that's the discrimination -- the difference between the two of them. I appreciate that. And you are you saying that you will continue to use both as -- on a per person basis, is what you are saying? It goes by a per client, I guess, basis of what they would get if -- the police, you don't even see the PAD people. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Correct.

You only see the AMP people; is that correct? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: We do not see the PAD people because, you know, almost all of our cases originate with an arrest by police and the presentation of documentation. If there is no 11 arrest, we don't even know the names of the people who go into PAD, much less what happens to them. I don't say that to criticize.

No, no, I get it. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: You know, there's much to be said for a multi-layered approach to diversion. But, you know, and I also don't see it as within my purview to criticize the police commissioner on the decisions that are made internally with reference to them. But when it comes to AMP, that is in our bailiwick, that's in our ballpark. And yes, we -- like AMP, we want AMP to continue to do the good work. We want to see it evolve. We want to see it grow in ways that will make it more effective, along with a variety of other diversionary type programs.

All right. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: All right.

Yeah, that's --

The time is up, Mr. Harrity.

That's good for me. Yes, I did hear the bell. Thank you.

You're welcome, sir. I'm just condensing because we're going to be wrapping up at 1.30. So I want people to be direct and direct responses, please. Councilmember Rue Landau, then Councilmember O'Rourke, Councilmember Thomas.

Thank you. I'll stay in the same line of questioning for a second. Chief Defender, I believe you said last year you made 740 referrals to mental health and substance abuse? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: 1,740.

1700. I missed a digit. Sorry. Thank you. Are you referring people to the same entities that the city is using for their 30, 60 and 90 treatment centers people are going to before they go to the wellness center? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: My understanding is where we refer our clients to a number of places for inpatient and outpatient treatment. I have an understanding that once clients are finished their 30, 60, 90, then there are no supports that I'm aware of in terms of where they go then. There are people at the wellness center. Only two of the people at the wellness center currently have gone through Wellness Court to get there. The others who are residing there, I don't have any visibility as to how they got there, whether it was a 30, 60, 90. Did they complete treatment? Are they there in some sort of rehabilitation? What services are they connected to? So we're not seeing that population.

Are you referring to the same service providers that the city is sending to? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: We do.

The same companies? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: We do.

Nonprofits? Okay. And -- I got more. I wanted to ask -- switching over to --

Real brief.

Okay. The issue that Majority Leader Gilmore-Richardson championed, and that I helped to work on, too, that I want to thank the city for focusing on contract conformance and tackling that issue because it was affecting so many nonprofits, and I was so happy to be appointed to the nonprofit task force to play a role in that. We know that you've removed a strong amount of -- a large amount of the backlog on the contracts. What specific steps has the law department taken to streamline contract conformance and payment of invoices to nonprofit vendors who partner with the city? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: So one thing we're doing is shoring up the different templates for different kinds of contracts. So there's two ways that contracts could be drafted. It's one by agency draft and one by law department draft, and then an agency draft then comes to the law department. What I would like to move eventually, and we're getting two more people to do that, is move to more law draft, right? So that we -- but one thing we can do now is shore up templates so that we are not reinventing the wheel all the time. There are certain negotiations that take forever, right? And I think there also needs to be, and this has come through the task force, but an education for the nonprofits on how to have their paperwork together. So that makes it quicker also. So we are doing that. We are streamlining within, but we are doing an awful lot of client counseling within the different agencies. We have a new procurement commissioner who I'm very excited about. He gets what's going on, and we are meeting with him on the regular to try to see if we -- you know, right now what we have is a system built in 1980 for 2025, and we are trying to figure out what code, what's a system limitation, what's a code limitation, what's an agency limitation. And we will be continuing to work with Council on this. There are a lot of fixes that need to happen, and we are in the middle of all of it.

Thank you. I have a few additional questions, but I'll put them in writing.

Put on writing. All right.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Rue Landau. Councilmember O'Rourke and Dr. Nina Ahmad next.

Thank you, Mr. President. Being mindful of the time, I wanted to just put on the record that I agree with my colleagues, Chief Defender Hudson, that your work is absolutely incredible and necessary, and would ask if we have more time for you to talk a little bit about what pay equity would mean even beyond this for your folks, but I do believe that you deserve it. That having been said, I want to say that as we discussed at a hearing in March, the defenders have continued to step up to do more of this incredible work to safely reduce our jail population by over 1,000 folks in a year. Thank you for that. How does your office contribute to the recently launched emergency bail process, and what funding have you received for this vital work to date? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Thank you, Councilmember. Really quickly. So, we have not received any funding or supports to staff the early bail hearings that I --

No 18 funding. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: No 20 funding or supports. We're doing it in partnership with the First Judicial District, with the DAO, and us, where we do exhaustive work to look through everyone who we think could safely be released. The folks who we are getting out through early bail hearing, 48 percent of them have had their cases dismissed. These are not clients that should have been incarcerated in the first place, but we will continue and hope to expand should we get the support to do so.

Thank you, Chief Defender Hudson. And one question, I'm done. For District Attorney Larry Krasner, sir. Let me just say that the work of the Conviction Integrity Unit, I believe it speaks for itself, leading to dozens of exonerations and commutations, as well as new sentences in hundreds of juvenile cases. We talk a lot about rebuilding trust.

Ask that question Member O'Rourke.

We talk a lot about rebuilding trust with communities who have long faced injustice. How does the Conviction Integrity Unit advance the work of actually rebuilding trust? Can you speak to that please? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Yes, it's absolutely crucial that people believe that we are trying to be fair, because that means if they're sitting on a jury, they're not assuming, I'll leave the names out of it, that a certain prosecutor's up there lying to them, hiding documents, tricking them. It becomes easier when you play fair to prove to a jury that you have established a case beyond a reasonable doubt. Witnesses are more willing to come forward because they know you're not going to try to jack them up and claim they committed the crime, which has happened historically. Victims are more willing to come forward because they know that they are not somehow going to be vilified and told that they are the problem. So, trust is absolutely crucial. One of my favorite little anecdotes. I'll be quick, Council President, I promise.

I didn't say nothing. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: One of my favorite little anecdotes is we came into office, started doing what we're doing, and there was kind of an old school prosecutor in the office who changed how she did closing arguments. You know what she said? She said, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I want you to know that we have come here and presented this evidence in good faith, and you know we're being honest and we're being fair because this is the new district attorney's office, okay? She worked in the old one, but she figured she had a better shot at hitting that home run if she made sure people remembered who she was working for, okay? That's not about me. That's about integrity. That's about setting a standard that even though we're going to make mistakes like everybody else, we are trying as hard as we can to play fair and to be fair, and that changes everything. It changes everything in terms of the ability not only for our office, but other law enforcement entities to operate because people believe in it.

I thank you for that response, and I'm just grateful to know that that is happening. I believe we are living in a time, and have been for a little while, where trust in institutions is deteriorating and eroding as a result of an inability to be able to move with certain values like integrity. So to be able to create and set up a situation whereby we can actually see some genuine justice within our criminal legal system as it relates to convictions or what have you, I believe goes a long way in re-engendering a sense of trust, and therefore hopefully it will turn into more civic engagement in a time when we need more of that as well. So thank you DA, thank you, Solicitor, as well as thank you, Defender Hudson, for all the work that you do. I'm done. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad, Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, Councilmember Young.

Thank you, Council President. Wanted to follow up with the DA about sexual assault cases. And one is, I heard you say nine percent decrease in sexual assault cases that you're prosecuting. Maybe I misheard you. If you could address that. And how much of your budget is allocated to work on sexual assault cases and the new forensic lab, will that help in more clearance of these cases? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you for the question. Thank you for the question. The data indicates that this year as compared to last year, meaning on this date, we are down 8.86 percent in reported rape incidents. And obviously we know there's a great complexity to the reporting of these cases. But I also think it's fair to say as we get farther from the pandemic, that the level of reporting is liable to be a little more accurate than it was during the pandemic when victims were often basically stuck in the home with an offender in a way that was affecting them. Our two most active trial units in the office are the Family Violence Sexual Assault Unit and the Homicide Non-Fatal Shooting Unit. They try more cases than any other units. And therefore these are relatively large in terms of the staffing. It takes up a significant part of the budget because they are so crucial. And because the work is so intense, it does often involve completing jury trials, much higher level of preparation. I can't give you a number off the top of my head, but I would think that we're probably looking at staffing in that unit on the order of 35 people. Probably looking at a number of attorneys that at the moment, and yes, of course it changes with people coming in and exiting the unit. But we're probably looking at more than 20 attorneys who are actively working on these cases. So it's an essential part of our office. It's something that we consider to be vital. Most people, when they're asked to say what are the most heinous crimes, most people are going to say murder and rape. That's the first thing that's going to come out of their mouths. I think that viewpoint reflects how the general public feels. It also reflects how I feel in terms of the gravity of this. And that's not to minimize the other offenses. They're incredibly important as well. But we take them very seriously. Would a state-of- the-art forensics lab help with this? That absolutely. You know, one of the more interesting developments that I've seen in the last five years --

Just a point of information. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Yes, sir.

District Attorney Krasner. Because we know you've been sounding the alarm about when we have this state of the art on forensic lab that it was going to increase the quality of prosecution to make sure we make our city safer. That bill has been introduced. I think we are waiting for a hearing and so at some point in time we will be building the brand new forensic lab. And so I just wanted to state that for the record. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: And that is marvelous. I was aware it was underway. It's been a years- long project. And I applaud everybody who supports that. Because keeping innocent people out of jail and solving unsolved cases against people who've done terrible crimes is essential. Just one example of that is a 30-year-old rape murder that was solved with the help of the FBI and was solved using something known as genealogical DNA. You know, in the old days, you had to have a DNA match to prove a case. You don't anymore. These days, we can go into a giant database of people who might be related to a perpetrator, even a distant relation to a perpetrator. And we can work through that DNA to identify families in which the perpetrator is a member. That's how that case got solved. That was a man who not only raped and murdered a medical student 30 years ago, but he raped and attempted to rape multiple other people and then slashed two people with a machete. We're talking about a vicious human being who was living in a tent in the woods off the grid without a cell phone. His family didn't even know he was alive. But that's the power of this work. When the FBI showed up and said, we got magic, and we said, please, that's the power of this work, and that's the power of those resources.

Well, thank you. Science rules. And I also just want to quickly --

Wrap up, Dr. Ahmad.

Wrapping up. Quickly, human trafficking issues that are going to crop up in 2026 with the increased sports venues and all of that. I had talked to you about this. We're going to follow up. I want to make sure there's money allocated for us to do that work in conjunction with the Attorney General and all the groups who do the work. We want to make sure that you are thinking about that, and I'll be following up with that -- on that issue as well. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you, Councilmember. We have a specific ask in that regard in our budget and I am with you a hundred percent.

Thank you, Dr. Ahmad. Councilmember Thomas, Young, then wrapping up us up is Councilmember Phillips.

Thank you, Council President. I want to just take a couple steps back to the line of questioning that I had started earlier, and I just want to take a moment to just say, City Solicitor, I think you are doing a good job, and your office and my office has had a great working relationship throughout the course of my time here and your time, so I just wanted to provide that context. Back to the earlier line of questioning, you said when we were talking about the exemption, you represent the city of Philadelphia; is that correct? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Correct.

So when you say you represent the city of the Philadelphia, who did you talk to to determine the city's position? So in order for us -- you had to take a position, right? We got sued and you had to take a position and you've taken the position that you want to settle based on the best interest of the city because you represent the city. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Correct?

Who did you talk to to determine the city's position? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: On that specific case?

Yes. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Or generally about the exemption?

About both exemptions on both BIRT and use and occupancy. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: So, I mean, on the exemption itself, it is Council's decision whether to repeal the exemption, right? So I am telling you from the city solicitor's perspective that it's too risky to continue this exemption, and that is the briefing that we've provided to your office, to a number -- City Council as a whole, a couple different times.

So I think what I'm trying to get at is there are bills and recommendations on behalf of the city and -- CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Correct.

No 2 one -- I don't know about other members of Council, but no one said, well, this is the lawsuit. What is your position? I work for you, you're my client. So if you are the lawyer and I'm the client and -- how can you feel comfortable telling me my position without having a conversation with me? You took a position. You already took the position and then briefed us on the position that you took. You didn't say this is the case, this is the dynamic, this is what I recommend, but because I work for you and I'm your lawyer, do you say I should go forward with this? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: So the litigation is in my purview, right? And that consultation was made with the finance director, with the revenue commissioner with the Mayor. That falls in my purview. Under the charter, I decide what litigation is going forward and not going forward. For you all, what you decide is whether you're going to repeal this exemption and that is the briefing that we have all provided to you because there will be another case.

Yeah, I think that we have a difference of opinion, not necessarily to where we are, but how we got here. I don't think that I'm arguing whether or not you've made the right decision around the position we should take on use and occupancy in BIRT. I think I'm worried about the precedent that this set because it gives me the perception that the law department feels like it's okay to discuss things with the executive branch of government exclusively and then come to Council and tell us, well, this is the position that this city has taken. That's how it feels. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: When it comes to litigation, right, unless that is litigation involving City Council on your ordinances, which we would talk to you about, right?

So that's what -- right there. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: That's different. That's different.

But these are -- these are City Council ordinances, these are City Council initiatives. Last I checked, the BIRT exemption was a bill that was introduced by former Councilwoman Maria Sanchez. This was a project that came out of her office that she worked on. So we recognize that she's not a part of this legislative body right now, but it comes from -- CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: But this is a state constitutional issue, number one.

Yes. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: And there were other claims in the case. There are other claims in the case that have nothing to do with this because what it comes down to is these companies aren't owed money back, right? They're owed money back on these other claims.

So I think now you're moving into a legal argument, and I think my pushback is a process. I'm not -- I'm not talking about the legality of it. I'm talking about the process. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Right.

And I just want to be very clear, because this is not just about me. This is about all of the members on City Council, and not just about us in 2025. There will be a 2030. There will be a 2035. And I would hate for my colleagues over here who did all this great work in 2025 to be put in a position where it gets repealed without a conversation with the legislative branch of government, because those specific people are no longer here. I think you've proven my point, because we both know firsthand that when it's a City Council initiative, you guys come to us. I'm saying this is a City Council initiative. The exemption around BIRT, the exemption around use and occupancy, they're both City Council-based initiatives. And I think the concern that I have is the precedent that's being set around this process, because it makes it okay for the administration to work with the law department to unilaterally make decisions without coming before this body, specifically, on projects that came out of the legislative branch of government. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: But let me be clear that in the resolution of this case, we're not agreeing, and the settlement isn't out yet, but we're not agreeing to enjoin the enforcement of your City Council bill. The resolution is on the monetary claims in this case. So it's very different than the law department agreeing to enjoin the collection or non-collection of the tax, right? That's why --

So I'm going to -- I'm going to talk to some lawyers, because I can't go get my own lawyer. So I'll talk to some lawyers that I know, and I'll get those opinions from some friends that I know who are lawyers. And we can agree to disagree for this moment. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Sure.

And I look forward to having a conversation at another time because we do have some lawyers. I'm looking at a couple of them on the floor right now. Let me just give some homework assignments, Council President and then I'm going to go ahead and wrap up. I just want to make sure that we can get these questions answered for the record. City Solicitor, you don't have to answer this right now, but I want to know how much have we spent on lawsuits over the last five years in the city of Philadelphia, specifically lawsuits around vehicles that started with traffic stops. We know that crime has been down significantly over the last couple years and we want to see how much money have we saved on lawsuits, specifically dealing with traffic stops. Chief Public Defender, you guys have the Driving Equality dashboard. That is an initiative that you started out of your office, and that data is something that's readily available to the constituents of the city of Philadelphia. I want to know a fiscal number. What does it cost to maintain that dashboard and to expand that work? You don't have to answer it right now, but to be able to expand that work to put us in a position to address some of the technology concerns that you had. Last but not least, District Attorney Krasner, we passed the exonerated Justice Bill because of the work of the district attorney's office, specifically the exoneration unit. You have seen more people exonerated during your time in the city of Philadelphia than probably the entire existence of the city combined before you got there. We want to know specifically how much money has these exonerations cost the city of Philadelphia. We also want to know who's taking advantage of the exoneration restorative package that we pass to ensure that people who are exonerated have resources that they can benefit from. And then last but not least, specifically around exoneration, we want to know any data around recidivism for people who've been exonerated. And we also want to -- we want your office to look into the fact that the courts, and I know this from personal experience, that the courts are no 22 longer as open to exonerating people in the past compared to now asking people for time served. So in writing, if you can let us know why the courts are moving in that direction and the implications that can have on our city moving forward, that would be appreciated. Council president, I'm going to stop right there because I know we're pressed for time.

Yes, Member Thomas.

And I'll follow your lead as it relates to what's in writing and what gets answered right now. Thank you, Council President. Thank you all for what you do.

Just provide it in writing because I do want the last two members to get their questions on the record before we wrap up. So make sure you provide the chair the response to his questions so we can provide to all members of Council. Councilmember Young and then Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips. So we wrap up.

Thank you. I want to put my first two questions on the record for the city solicitor. Can you talk to us about how close you work with the Office of OPA when it comes to tax appeals and actual tax assessments to proactively get accurate assessments so we are not having to litigate so many appeals? That's the first question for you. And the second question is, if -- is it -- do you think it's appropriate for when City Council passes a charter change that then gets voted on by the public to be implemented, do you think it's appropriate for City Council to sue for an injunction when such charter change has not been implemented by the executive branch? CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Okay. With respect to OPA, we have a unit dedicated to OPA and so we work with them both on setting up the assessments and further defending the appeals, right? We do kind of all of it including when it gets to the tax appeal phase. I have personally been involved with conversations with OPA and CLS and other community partners on ensuring that the assessments are fair and non-discriminatory. So I have personally been in those conversations. Just because there are a large number of appeals doesn't mean the assessment was not accurate. But we all know those stories of two buildings right next to each other and they're valued differently. So we have handled thousands of these cases. We ride along with the OPA. We assist them. We make adjustments. And so sort of at bottom we are intricately involved in tweaking the assessments every year as we go on. And then your second question, I'm sure I'm not -- there was a charter change.

Yeah, so it's a hypothetical, right? But if there's a charter change that's approved by this body, approved by the voters, but the executive branch chooses not to implement that charter change, is it appropriate for Council to sue for an injunction to get the implementation of that charter change?

Before you answer that, you represent both of us. So -- CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Yeah, it's a separation of powers issue again, right? And it is a hypothetical. And we'd have to sort in, you know, what the -- what the charter change was. But there are certain things within the prerogative of the legislative branch and the people and certain things that the executive branch has control over. And so in a vacuum, I don't know the answer until I know the specifics.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can I get one more question on the record for the district attorney? I'm sorry I haven't asked a question yet to the DA.

And be like, she can respond on the record because Rue is giving me the scouring eye because I cut her short. So go ahead, Mr. Esquire.

So to Mr. Krasner, thank you for being here. You brought some victim services organizations here today. What is the difference -- what's the difference between funding these victim service organizations through the district attorney's office versus the city's managing director's office and other offices? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I just want to be clear. I'm supposed to answer as opposed to put that on the record. I'll do whatever the process is.

Put it on the record, please. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: If you really --

Go ahead, sir. Briefly. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Okay. So there are -- there are services -- historically, money has gone to the DA's office not only for its own internal operation, which is quite elaborate, but also for regional, outside, you might say outside, contracted victim witness services organizations. That goes back a very long time. These are all organizations that have operated under contracts with the DA's office. We don't get that money. The money passes through and the money that goes through these organizations does not simply come from --

Please don't say pass -- don't say pass through in the chambers, sir. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Okay. I'm sorry.

We don't do pass throughs. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Sorry.

We get the operations of it, but what's the difference?

You support and partnership with them, sir.

So I think we get the operational aspect of it. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: That is correct. Never been a better partnership.

What's the difference between the funding mechanism coming from your office versus the managing director's office, Office of Victim Advocate, you know, public safety office, whatever? What's the difference in that? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Well, I will say there seem to be all kinds of layers here that maybe we should all sit down at some point and try to sort out. I will say that because I don't think it actually makes a whole lot of sense to have different entities doing the same thing in silos, especially if we are in a situation where the most crucial information about danger, the most crucial information about the case itself, are held consistent with Pennsylvania law by the DA's office. So there may be some efficiencies to be had here, but please remember that because we are prosecuting these cases, we are privy to all of this information that is law enforcement only. And therefore, if we know that someone involved in a case is a member of a shooting group because we have intelligence from the FBI or something of that sort, it enables us to figure out where the relocation money should be spent. It enables us to be in close contact with victims, witnesses, et cetera, and to do so in the context of what's actually happening in the case. Is this retaliatory? Is there a motivation involved? Could there be aspects of self-defense here? What's actually going on? So I'm not going to discredit any other entities or, you know, in any way tear them down for what they do. But what I am saying is that we are uniquely positioned to have access to a lot of information about the case, which does put us in a position to work closely with these outside contracted organizations on the protection of those folks, a company met in court, what their needs may be, how can we help pay for the funeral, things of that sort. I view it as a very positive collaboration. They do amazing work. That work needs to be supported and funded. But as for other structural aspects, are there other efficiencies to be had, we're always open for that conversation.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. And last, Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips.

Seventy seconds. I just want to - I just want to clarify something I couldn't get to do during my point information because of time. I am in favor of due process. I'm going to tell you why. Because if I get pulled over by the City of Philadelphia for something, I have a -- I deserve a hearing if I don't agree with it. I deserve the right to appeal that hearing. What I'm saying is that the City of Philadelphia has archaic ways when it comes to handling due process. We have to handle due process in a much more expedited way given the seriousness of our community. I went to school. I know a couple things about these things and how this works, so I'm not familiar with it. What I'm saying is the quick comment question I have for you is this. What should happen for serious violations around alcohol distribution, drug distribution, illegal sales and things, there should be -- the violation should be -- you should get the notice. The business gets the notice saying violation for looseys. That could be an example. After the business learns about their violation of selling looseys, there should be a certain amount of time that they get to make an appeal for that violation. But as soon as they get that violation, there should be a cease and desist order. Once they make the appeal, they can begin to continue to operate their business. After they make the appeal, there should be a hearing that they can defend their case, showing that they're not in wrong, whatever their defense is. We can then determine through a judge after that to say, hey, you know, are they guilty or they're not guilty. Once they're determined to be guilty, then we shut them down. They're not guilty, they could continue. But what's occurring in the city of Philadelphia, and the question I want you to think about more innovative, I want this on record, is how can we expedite the due -- expedite the due process so this could be a lot more quicker when these serious violations are happening. And then just really quickly, I just want to know what can we do to stop giving these businesses so many warnings for them to get it correct to the point where we don't just -- we don't have the time. So I just wanted to state that. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Yes. And thank you. We will follow up because some of the changes are code changes, some of them are process changes, some of it is preempted by the alcohol and drug bureau. So we will follow up. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Council President --

Thank you, Council President. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I must apologize. There's one sentence I need to put on the record in reference to Councilmember Young's question. It is included in our testimony, but I think it's very important to answer his question. And that is that the DA's office is statutorily required by Pennsylvania statute under the Crime Victims Act and the Juvenile Act, as well as Pennsylvania rules of juvenile court procedure to ensure that victims of crime whose cases are processed within the criminal and juvenile justice system receive all rights, notifications, and services to which they are entitled. So we have a statutory requirement that does not necessarily apply to some of the other entities who are helping to provide these services.

And I just -- I was just saying I just think our community needs due process. That's why I'm passionate about this. But go back to Young.

So -- DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I'm sorry if I interrupted. I did not mean to interrupt if that's what I just did.

No, just for the record, Councilman Dr. Phillips was just responding to the city solicitor just saying -- DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Oh, I see.

I want to make sure there's a due process law. It is frustrating when I'm dealing with like auto zone. I call them out in Southwest Philadelphia and you got guys inside the parking lot doing illegal mechanic work that's holding all the tenants, including a daycare center hostage. And then we have to wait until they go to court. And it's like we treat them with kid gloves, right? And it's probably procedural things, right? But when I get a call from Illinois saying, well, we're in court and they get their chance to do their due process and so forth. But in the meanwhile, they aren't improving their behavior. And so the whole legality of it, I think, need to be reviewed in terms of how we hold the bad actors accountable. Because we do know some way, somehow, depending on what neighborhood you live in, somehow the law just works more efficiently than other neighborhoods. I'm just being quite frank in terms of my experience as a young man growing up in the city of Philadelphia. So I dare you open up one of those stores in certain neighborhoods and sell certain things. And some way, somehow, the law magically works in that neighborhood's favor to expedite and address a particular issue to make sure a certain store doesn't open up. And I think, you know, in this particular body, there's an appetite of advocacy around just holding the bad actors who prey on our communities day in and day out. And so it's a longer conversation. And obviously, we'll work with not only just the solicitor's office, but also District Attorney who has environmental clean and green unit to actually go after the bad actors that's doing illegal dumping. And like due process, if you're illegally dumping, once you get caught, you shouldn't be allowed to do business in Philadelphia no more. Like period, not you should get a chance to come back because that means you have a lack of respect for the neighborhood that you're doing the illegal dumping in. But that's a longer conversation. This is Democracy in Action. We thank the three of you for being here today. To Ms. Hudson, we will make sure we stay on top of addressing the issues regarding the Defenders Association. And so thank you for being here. I thank all three of you for being here, District Attorney Larry Krasner, City Solicitor Renee Garcia. We will be in recess for the afternoon session for the Sheriff's Office until 2.30. CITY SOLICITOR GARCIA: Thank you, City Council President. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Thank you. (Council at ease.)

Good afternoon, everyone. COUNCIL MEMBERS: Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, everyone. COUNCIL MEMBERS: Good afternoon.

We will continue our committee of the whole budget hearings. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the next panel for testimony.

Sheriff Rochelle Bilal.

Good afternoon, sheriff. SHERIFF BILAL: Good afternoon, Council president, City Council members.

Just state your name for the record, and then please begin your testimony. Good to see you. SHERIFF BILAL: Good to see you too. Good afternoon. I'm Sheriff Rochelle Bilal for the city and County of Philadelphia. May I begin?

Yes, you can begin, please. SHERIFF BILAL: Good afternoon, Council President Johnson and members of City Council. It is both an honor and a privilege to appear before you today. I am Rochelle Bilal, sheriff for the City and County of Philadelphia. Joining me today are Tariq El-Shabazz, undersheriff, Jamison Rogers, Chief of Staff, Patrick Lee, Chief Financial Officer, Craig Martin, chief budget officer, chief deputy of Court Operations, Sean Thornton, Inspector Heinz, Family Court and Transportation, Inspector Sean Marshall, he's not here today. He had an emergency situation because he was over Internal Affairs and Training Bureau. Inspector David Fallon over Civil Enforcement. Inspector Joshua Perez over City Hall and Widener Building. Inspector Nicole Nobles over the Warrant and Bike Units. IT manager, Eric Chambers. On the behalf of my entire team, I want to thank you for your continued partnership and support in our shared mission to keep Philadelphia safe, secure, and thriving. It's a true privilege to stand alongside such dedicated public servants as we work together to strengthen our communities. Plans for fiscal 2026 -- year 2026. As we move forward into fiscal year 2026, our office main objectives are aligned with the blueprint for a safer Philadelphia, which is an initiative that remains at the heart of our efforts. Our mission is to execute all orders from the first judicial courts and to continue to work on deploying personnel to return excess proceeds from property sales to the citizens, helping them access economic opportunities like home ownership. Our office stands ready to enhance public safety, particularly in line with Mayor Parker's vision for a safer, greener, and cleaner city. The Philadelphia Sheriff's Office has made significant contributions to this vision, particularly through our work with Civil Enforcement and Warrant Unit, who have been instrumental in apprehending fugitives working in partnership with the District Attorney's Office and the Philadelphia Police Department. This collaboration is essential in keeping our streets safe and ensuring the court system operates smoothly. Additionally, the sheriff's office has played a critical role in our election security efforts, stepping up to meet the demand for more trained law enforcement officers during the election of 2024. This service was invaluable in helping ensure a smooth, safe process for our citizens. However, as we continue to evolve and grow, we face challenges. Our deputies' salaries are not competitive with other counties within Pennsylvania. And if you just make a little note here, correctional guards get more than our deputy sheriffs. And this disparity has made it increasingly difficult for us to retain high quality deputies, especially given the increased demand for our services. The need for local sheriffs' academy. This is very, very important. One of the greatest challenges we face as an office in the time, commuting -- with a time, commuting, and costly requirement for our deputies to travel and attend Pennsylvania's Sheriff Academy at State College for 14 weeks. This is a 19-week program. 15 While essential presents significant 16 barriers for many in our 17 communities, particularly 18 individuals with families or other 19 local commitments. This process results in a delay in the training of deputies. Therefore, I propose we explore the establishment of a local sheriffs' academy here in Philadelphia. A local academy will allow us to shorten the training period, enhance accessibility of the program for the diverse communities, and most importantly, speed up the hiring process. This initiative would enable us to hire and train deputies on a more consistent, rolling basis. Rather than being restricted to only one or two training cycles per year. This would greatly benefit both our office and the city.

Ensuring that we can meet the growing demands of law enforcement while providing stable, well-trained professionals to serve our citizens here in this city. Technology. Whew. Technology integration and community engagement. To address these challenges, expanding the role of technology in our operation is essential. One of the most promising developments in our partnership with Tyler Technology, which will enhance transparency by allowing us to track receipts, voided transactions, and disbursement accounts with greater accuracy. Additionally, the implementation of the Live Scan Plus system. An advanced mobile fingerprinting and biometric recognition tool will significantly improve real-time identification of individuals with outstanding warrants. This technology enables deputies to perform field-based warrant checks and identifications, reducing delays and increasing public safety by closing critical gaps in the execution of judicial orders. In the upcoming -- in the coming year, excuse me, allergies, we are also looking to expand our bike and canine units, which will provide a more visible presence around the courts and city hall, as these units currently have been serving our citizens throughout the city. This increased presence is part of our larger vision to help improve safety and strengthen community trust through visible, proactive law enforcement. I am also proud to announce several key initiatives we have undertaken in our community engagement efforts. We are working closely with Councilmember Dr. Ahmad and Councilmember Lozada to host upcoming events aiming to increase hiring opportunities for both the AAPI and Latino communities, demonstrating our commitment to engaging with Philadelphia's diverse population and providing opportunities for all. We also committed to enhancing the health and well-being of our communities. In 2024, we honored -- we were honored to host a free healthcare pop-up clinic that provided much needed medical services to underserved communities throughout Philadelphia. Our motto with that, you can come in and say your name was SpongeBob, and all we were going to say is, how can we help you? These efforts represent our broader commitment to not only protecting citizens in the courts, but supporting their well-being in all aspects of life. Additionally, in a groundbreaking move for public safety, I am proud to announce that the Philadelphia Sheriff Office is now the first law enforcement agency in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to be certified in autism awareness. This important certification required our sworn and professional staff to undergo specialized training and pass an assessment, ensuring that we better equipped to serve individuals with autism and their families. In closing, with your support, I know we can achieve these goals together. We are committed to working in partnership with City Council and all stakeholders to move Philadelphia forward and ensure brighter, safer future for all our citizens. We look forward to continuing these efforts and to further engaging with our communities through the various initiatives we outlined today. Finally, I must address an important issue. Earlier this year, we learned that last year's budget proposal was not properly placed. As a result, it was not given full consideration. This is something that must be addressed so we can ensure our current fiscal year proposal is properly considered. I trust that this process will be handled professionally and honorably, ensuring that the needs of the Sheriff's Office are met and that we can continue to provide the critical services to our citizens in this city and their demands. Thank you for your time and attention. We look forward to answering any questions you may have.

Thank you, Sheriff Bilal. And I think it's great that your agency received the Autism Awareness Award. I know you did another initiative recently with the district attorney, Larry Krasner, an announcement with the chair of Public Safety, Curtis Jones Jr., to go after those individuals who I think steal homes, correct? SHERIFF BILAL: Yes.

Is that -- is that correct? SHERIFF BILAL: Yes.

Okay. Clearly, so I have a couple questions I want to ask before I turn it over and let the chair of Public Safety lead this conversation. First, just clarify this budget conversation because I think we all were a little perplexed. So what happened on the last budget? SHERIFF BILAL: The last budget, we didn't know that the administration would just put what they thought we needed instead of giving you-all the total request of what we were asking for. And so last time we had a copy because you-all didn't have the actual copy of what we submitted. And so we had a copy of it and we gave it to everybody. So if that happens again, we got a copy of our budget of requests so that we can give to everybody.

So the full budget for everyone member of the council, which should be in alignment with the budget that the administration has. So everybody is seeing the same information; is that correct? SHERIFF BILAL: That's correct.

Okay. Cool. Just a couple questions. You talked about establishing a local academy. What's the status? What's the timeframe to bring that local academy here to the city of Philadelphia? SHERIFF BILAL: Well, we submitted our space request to public property. We looked at a space which basically can accommodate all of what we need as far as a sheriff's academy. We're going through PCCD, which is the sheriff's academy board of people requesting that we have this academy here in this city. We're talking to them now. We got a big presentation to give them. We want public property to go with us to our location so we can map out that space. We want it as soon as we can. But, you know, the wheels of justice move kind of slow. But we're trying to get it done by the end of the year or the beginning of next year. And so we're having all of them conversations. We had a conversation with the Philadelphia delegating from the state basically to get a waiver for us to have the academy here. You have the other municipalities around the Commonwealth like Montgomery, Bucks. All the people on this side will be happy to have a Philadelphia academy here for their people to come to and go home at night and not have to go stay up at Penn State for weeks, five days out of the week 6 for 19 weeks. And so we're in those 7 conversations, and so we just got to 8 be able to move it along, I guess, 9 with your approval and the mayor's 10 approval that we -- public property 11 can say yes, and then we can start 12 putting everything together. 13

14 Okay. And also in terms of the 15 recruitment and salary and 16 compensation, do we provide bonuses 17 for individuals who have an interest 18 in becoming a sheriff? 19 SHERIFF BILAL: We just -- from this administration, and this basically has been the first time since I've been in office, since I've been screaming and since I walked in the door, they are providing a $10,000 bonus for recruits that are coming in right now. So that's what's going on.

When you say they, meaning your team is providing? SHERIFF BILAL: The city.

The city. SHERIFF BILAL: Yeah. We can't offer any bonus.

The city has to agree in order to offer bonus for deputies to, you know, for those who are recruits that are looking to make this a career.

Good. SHERIFF BILAL: So that bonus of $10,000 is now. This is the first time that we're talking to the HR administration under the new leadership, that we are now going to be announcing twice. We have an announcement now that ends May the 18th, and then we are going to have another announcement in June. And that's the first time, because prior to that, the HR only announced for deputy sheriffs once a year for six weeks, and that was it.

Okay. What's your strategies for recruitment to make sure we're addressing the issue of vacancies? SHERIFF BILAL: Well, we are out on all public social media. We are on TV. As a matter of fact, I saw that on ESPN. Our deputies are out around the city as to -- I thought this was off. We are out around the city recruiting. We are at every event. We are at your budget meetings. We're hitting the ground running. So we're putting up on media. We're on radio. We're on TV. We just didn't get on the buses yet. I think that's about to happen. And if we can get some billboards up, we put them up and put them too. We're out everywhere.

Okay. And you were at my job fair as well. SHERIFF BILAL: Yes.

And I also want to acknowledge the work that you-all are doing, going after those who have warrants in the process of us -- making us have a safer city. Let's go into and do a deeper dive regarding the executive orders from Nina Wright Padilla, right? Give us an idea of how you and your team are addressing corrective actions regarding those two executive orders. And just for the record, just give members a brief overview of what those two orders were asking you to address. But most importantly, how are you addressing them? SHERIFF BILAL: I'll let the undersheriff reply to that.

Thank you for allowing us to have this question so that we can answer it properly.

Just for the record to kind of clarify.

Absolutely. First of all, it should be noted that prior to -- I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Council.

State your name for the record, please.

Tariq Karim El-Shabazz, Esquire. I'm the undersheriff of Philadelphia -- in the city of Philadelphia, city and county, I should say, of Philadelphia. We would -- we were working with the First Judicial District prior to any executive order coming out. What was noticed and we had that conversation -- like any other law enforcement agency, we were shorthanded. Based on that short- handedness, there were some complaints. And we acknowledged that there were some complaints with regards to courtrooms being covered, with regards to individuals getting to courtrooms on time, to the end of it. We began to address those matters, but those matters were kind of married to the ability to recruit and to hire. We've already went through in the sheriff's presentation --

More of a manpower thing?

Manpower thing. Just like every other law enforcement agency. But what the sheriff did was, prior to the order, began to design a plan. In order to do that, because it's a security plan, we had to go through first analyzing what the problems may have been, come up with a strategy that could work with the numbers that we had, and then try to test out that strategy to ensure that we cover every hole. Prior to being able to cover every hole, the court order came out. Once the court order came out, myself and other members of the sheriff's team began to meet. As we were meeting, we began to meet more often with the AGB board. During the course of that meeting, we began to address each and every issue. We got together with members of the -- some of the -- I should say all of the inspectors, with respect to the courts, to put together that strategy. Unfortunately, I'm not going to go into the details of the strategy, because if we go into the details of security, we'd have to change it. But what we noticed, in reviewing it, is that we needed to make supervisory changes as well. Because making supervisory changes allowed us to get people in place that began to see shortfalls and come up with remedies. Once we began to do that, the inspectors dug in and came up with a plan. That plan was presented to the -- to the AGB board, who presented it to FJD, and we began working that. During the course of working through that, with no 18 complaints at all, for example, people were getting to court earlier because they were getting picked up from the prison earlier. We began to work with the prisons and together, as one Philly, we began to bring people down earlier. Juveniles are a little different, because they're juveniles, they have a different feeding policy to the end of it. But we began to get people down earlier, buses down earlier, so we rectified getting people to court on time. We began to redeploy individuals and deputies in particular locations and at particular areas that gave us the ability to service the courtrooms. And to make sure that each judge, that each deputy, that each citizen, and each individual that's accused would be safe. We began to do that as well. We began to come up with plans that allowed us to go around the areas of every installation and to explore what we can do to secure those areas. And we were able to do that prior to the second order. The second order didn't deal with any of those things because everyone was satisfied, based on all of the meetings we continually had, with what we were able to do. Our presence in the courthouses, our presence in every installation, our presence around the city and county, or the center city in Philadelphia, to the end of it. But there was a concern about recruitment. Mind you, the sheriff and myself, along with other individuals in the team, sat down with the AGB in -- last year, in 2023, talking about the shortage and coming up with different ideas to do it. With the redeployment, new supervisors, new chiefs, and beginning to put people in place, we were able to deal with that. But we discovered that in order to, I guess, totally alleviate the concerns that people had, we had to come up with strategies. One of the strategies that the sheriff came up with, she talked to you about, the Sheriff's Academy. The other strategy that they came up with, it was how could we publicize -- how could we publicize the hiring of sheriff deputies? The other thing is, this was the first time, as the sheriff indicated, that OHR began to actually work with us and open up their entire list to us. Originally, they didn't give us the entire list. But since this administration has come into place, they give us the entire list, and we're able to actually draw down on that list.

To the degree that we're getting more people coming up to our physical agility, we have more people that are actually in the pipeline going through the other processes to get them ready to come into court until they are able to go up to Penn State. The sheriff also installed some other tools that we can have a discussion about that, but I don't think that this is the present for it.

Cool.

So both executive orders, one, I would submit to you, has already been accomplished. The second one is being accomplished with the numbers that we're increasing now. The last thing I want to say, and I'm going to end it with this as to that question. We didn't have a budget for advertising. The sheriff, in order to expand the budget for advertising, she actually had to use service fees to pay for operations like advertisement. With that, and with that new strategy that came up with her team that deals with media, we've been able to put more up. We've been able to address all social media platforms. And that advertisement actually is playing out in terms of the number of people we have coming out to our physical agility and our orientation.

Are we partnering with -- the Mayor has a municipal government college at Community College of Philadelphia to try to serve as a pipeline to help young people follow a career in city government? Has that ever been discussed to maybe do a partnership? Because it sounds like more of a personnel thing more than anything else. SHERIFF BILAL: No. 19

Okay. I just asked that because I know that's like a major part of the administration's goal to try to get more people involved in various city agencies. And so when you talk about personnel, and I know the recruitment is a key component to make people want to be a part of the city jobs that we have to offer, particularly the sheriff's office. That might be another avenue just to think about from a partnership standpoint and the administration being supportive of making sure that we address the personnel issues. I have one or two before I turn it over to my colleagues. And I did the same -- asked the same question yesterday regarding the Registered Wills Office. So PICA, they say we shouldn't have the Sheriff's Office. We shouldn't have the Registered Wills Office. For the record, I did reach out to PICA to try to get what their perspective was. And they were going off a report like in 2003. SHERIFF BILAL: 2009? Was it 2009?

2009. So I said, just to be fair about the process, give us your response and give us the things. I have your report. So I have read your report in terms of things you have been working on in terms of the audit from the last city controller. But what's your direct response to that recommendation and the things that your office have been doing that's up to date now? Because I didn't see any actual data specifically. But nevertheless, that was a recommendation. So give me your feedback. SHERIFF BILAL: Basically, we looked at the --

And have anyone called you directly or your team?

They have not.

Before it came out? SHERIFF BILAL: No. 3

Okay. SHERIFF BILAL: There was no --

Want to go on the record. SHERIFF BILAL: There was no conversation with the -- what are they called?

PICA. SHERIFF BILAL: PICA. In reference to the Sheriff's Office prior to them making a statement. And as we looked at what they were formed for, we kind of see that basically they are way out of their line recommended any -- elimination of any elected official in this city. And we talked to the senator who basically gave us a letter as to the fact that they're out of line. They did not talk to us. They're going through old stuff. And they're putting it on this office. And when you say you're talking about 40 years of what you may say what was wrong with the office. But never have a conversation of me only being there since 2020 as to what we are doing to improve the office to bring the office in compliance. Not at all. We had an audit. Because when I came in, the one thing I know about business, if you're taking over somebody else's business, the first thing you want is an audit so you can find out what it is that you need to do --

And just for the record, you called for the audit, correct? SHERIFF BILAL: When I was coming in, certain checks were being sent out. And I asked the controller then to do an audit.

So you asked -- SHERIFF BILAL: Yes.

Asked for an audit the office that you were representing? SHERIFF BILAL: To stop and see what was going out before I got into office. Basically, inviting her to come in there so that she can do an audit so I can find out what is going on in the sheriff's office. Because mind you, when I walked in there, there was no pamphlet. Nobody came to the sheriff's office and say, hey, this has been going on. This is the next project. This is the ones that need to be updated. This is how the office is supposed to run. This is how you're supposed to work with your City Council people. This is how you're supposed to work. Matter of fact, the Homeward Charter, I'm not an elected official. I didn't even know what the Homeward Charter was. And so by getting an audit back in 2022 from the controller's office at that time, basically gave us a blueprint on what needed -- what was deficient and what needed to be corrected. And one of the major things, me being in law enforcement in Philadelphia Police Department in 27 years, when I walked into the armory, I thought it was a major disgrace. Because I've never seen people just with very haphazardly taking care of guns in that manner. And I believe we gave copies of what that was prior to what it is today. I mean, it was just a mess.

Just for the record, talk about what it is, the changes you have made regarding the firearms and so forth, and what you're doing today. SHERIFF BILAL: What it was back then, it was a manual record keeping book from the pre-historics. Trust me. And the computer system that was there was like your old TV with tubes in it. This is 2020. It had no means of communication between me and my staff at all. The guns was on the floor. Long guns were stuck on the corner. FEMALE VOICE: They were in a barrel. SHERIFF BILAL: In a barrel. Long guns were stuck on the corner. There was no mechanism or any electronic mechanism to track anything in the armory at all. So what we did was modernize. There was -- there's new technology, there's security systems, there's the BEAST that basically tags everything that comes in there that puts it into a system. We know when it goes. We know when it comes out, who took it out, and for whatever reason. If you see -- if you want the pictures, we'll send them to you from what it was then to what it is today. We had a press conference on this as what we did with the sheriff's office. For some reason, one certain media didn't put none of that in there. None of it. Thank you. And if you want to, term report, go to phillysheriff.com, and our term report shows us that the recommendations from the controller office, we've done some, there is some pending because technology costs money. And when we put it in our budget and say we need upgraded technology is because that's what we need to do to help bring the office in compliance.

And last, because I know my members are ready to start, just give us an overview of your budget request and how that budget request will be broken down into how you're going to utilize the request for services. SHERIFF BILAL: Okay. That means we need to bring the CFO up here and the budget manager up here. You-all step out.

Like in the perfect world, you get that $20 million, how is that money being spent? SHERIFF BILAL: Say that again?

No, I said, in the perfect world, let's say if the $20 million was allotted, how would that be spent? SHERIFF BILAL: Okay. You've got to introduce yourself. Tell them who you are.

Good afternoon. My name is Patrick Lee. I'm the chief financial officer for the sheriff's office. And that's a good example of a number that we've requested over several financial periods. That allocation goes to expansion. If I could use that as a backdrop because of technology, personnel, contracts. For example, we need contracts just to do psychological evaluations for recruits. So we've been able to manage that partially. But if we have more than one provider, we can get them through the background check with regard to psychological evaluations a lot faster. The other part of that is upgrades to just how we deliver food to the inmates. Something as simple as that we've been trying to do, but it requires an RFP because the sheriff have a certain focus with regard to how she wants to increase the nutritional value for the inmates. We've presented all that information, for example, to finance, and we've given them detailed justifications. What has not happened is we never get a response to it with regard to that. So using $20 million, if we allocate it correctly, that covers the health with uniforms, special equipment. The inspectors have done a fantastic job with identifying their needs with regard to special equipment they need in their units. We get those requests, we review them with the sheriff, and we try to get them covered. But she's got to make a decision who gets what first because of budget constraints.

Okay. Thank you very much. And now the chair recognizes Councilman Curtis Jones and Councilmember Jamie Gauthier and Councilman Jim Harrity.

Thank you so much, Mr. President. I'm going to use a football analogy for those of you who follow football. The number one draft pick this year was Cam Ward.

It should have been Shedeur Sanders, but that's a different conversation.

You know, I'm getting ready to make my point. Shedeur Sanders was at least supposed to be in the top five, wound up going all the way to the sixth round. One would question, was it for football reasons or other reasons? So life ain't fair. Having said that, that means Shedeur Sanders is going to just have to outperform on the football field. Everybody that came before him. So get used to that. With that, can we take a step back and tell the listening audience what is your primary responsibility as a sheriff? You do a whole lot, but what are your primary responsibilities? SHERIFF BILAL: Our primary responsibility is the security of the courts, the fiduciary for the sales of the land and property. Those are court orders. And our safety for our deputy sheriffs as far as day safety. Because when I came in, they had no equipment in order to keep them safe. Especially when you have a civil arrest and they had basically nothing to do what they needed to do out there. And so those are the things -- are you finished with our budget people?

I think. SHERIFF BILAL: Okay. You-all come back. Bring them back. So, the fiduciaries for land here dealing with the real estate sheriff's sale, the arm and security of the courts for the citizens of the city in reference to a safety to keep them safe. Because we get, I think my deputy said the other day, two point something million people that came through the courts in one year.

How many? Say that again. SHERIFF BILAL: 2.64 million people come through the courts in one year. One.

And you have to transport prisoners. SHERIFF BILAL: Prisoners. We transport prisoners.

Keep courtrooms safe. SHERIFF BILAL: Keep courtrooms safe.

Keep judges safe. SHERIFF BILAL: Keep judges safe. Keep the people --

Witnesses. SHERIFF BILAL: Safe.

Safe. Okay. SHERIFF BILAL: In and out of there.

There's 66 courtrooms across the street, isn't it? SHERIFF BILAL: Uh-huh.

All right. And then four other buildings that you have to secure. What -- how many -- how many slots do you have to fill that are still open? SHERIFF BILAL: Did you hear that? No, we got it. We need to.

How many deputy positions are vacant?

Oh, we need to fill another 190 --

Excuse me, sir. For the record, you have to come and speak onto the microphone.

And say who you are. SHERIFF BILAL: We need -- he's going to answer that, but when I came into office, we were budgeted for 420 deputy sheriffs. And I said, okay, let's start hiring. When I went to hire, they said, oh, you ain't got no money in your budget. I tried to figure that one out. If you're telling me I'm budgeted for this much, when I went to use it, it wasn't there. So, go ahead.

So I'm trying to do what Tariq would do in a courtroom, try to build my case. SHERIFF BILAL: Go ahead. Build your case.

So, what I'm saying to you, you have probably, I'm going to guess, at least a 30 percent vacancy rate that you have to fill in order to be able to meet those basic responsibilities. So, right now, you're doing what you can with what you have to keep both the defendants, the accused safe, and the judges safe. And so, to do that, you've had to do some interesting things that I know about, but I won't share, right, in order to keep things, at least the perception of safety out there. So, some of these things that they have talked about, I know that they tried to do early on, because in full disclosure, we had a transition meeting where we talked about audits, where we talked about how to fill these vacancies. So, I know this has been on the radar for a while. And for whatever reason, they have not -- they've received the Shedeur Sanders treatment within budgeting. And we have to -- we have to pay attention to that, because it is our victims that go to those courtrooms. It is many people from our communities that are the accused going to the court. And what we cannot have -- what we cannot have is fights on the elevators. In order to be a bold witness, you've got to feel safe when you come to testify. And so, that is a primary function of them. I'm going to switch real quick, Mr. President, to the training center. I know for a fact that PCCD is --