Aye. The ayes are 17, the nays are zero. A majority of all members of Council SECOND AND FINAL READING PASSAGE CALENDAR having voted in the affirmative, the bill passes. The next bill for consideration is Bill No. 980033. The clerk will please read the title of the bill.
An Ordinance authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 1998 from the Grants Revenue Fund, Director of Finance, Provision for Other Grants, to the Special Gasoline Tax, Department of Streets.
This bill having been read on two different days, the question now is shall the bill pass finally. The clerk will call the roll.
Council President Street. SECOND AND FINAL READING PASSAGE CALENDAR
Aye. The ayes are 17, the nays are zero. A majority of all members of Council having voted in the affirmative, the bill passes. The next bill for consideration will be Bill No. 980034. The clerk will please read the title of the bill.
An Ordinance authorizing transfers in appropriations for the Fiscal Year 1998 within the Water Fund from the Water Department to the Department of Revenue.
This bill having been read on two different days, the question now is shall the bill pass finally. The clerk will call the roll.
Councilman DiCicco. COUNCILMAN DiCICCO: Aye. SECOND AND FINAL READING PASSAGE CALENDAR
Aye. The ayes are 17, the nays are zero. A majority of all members of Council having voted in the affirmative, the bill passes. The next bill for consideration will be Bill No. 980035. The clerk will please read the title of the bill.
An Ordinance authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 1998 within the General Fund from certain or all city offices, departments, boards and commissions, to certain or all city offices departments boards and commissions.
This bill having been read on two different days, the question now is shall the bill pass finally. The clerk will call the roll.
Aye. The ayes are 17, the nays are zero. A majority of all members of Council having voted in the affirmative, the bill passes. The next bill for consideration is Bill No. 980036. The clerk will please read the title of the bill.
An Ordinance authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 1998 within the Grants Revenue Fund from Director of Finance, Provision for Other Grants, to the Mayor's Office of Information Services.
This bill having been read on two different days, the question now is shall the bill pass finally. The clerk will call the roll.
Aye. The ayes are 17, the nays are zero. A majority of all members of Council having voted in the affirmative, the bill passes. The next bill for consideration is Bill No. 980038. The clerk will please read the title of the bill.
An Ordinance authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 1998 within the Grants Revenue Fund from the Director of Finance, Provision for Other Grants, to the Mayor's Office of Community Services.
This bill having been read on two different days, the question now is shall the bill pass finally. SECOND AND FINAL READING PASSAGE CALENDAR The clerk will call the roll.
Councilman O'Neill. SECOND AND FINAL READING PASSAGE CALENDAR
Aye. The ayes are 17, the nays are zero. A majority of all members of Council having voted in the affirmative, the bill passes. This brings us to the end of our consideration of the calendar. Are there any speeches on the part of members of the minority? Are there any speeches on the part of members of the majority? The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter.
Mr. President, under the circumstances, I think I can wait. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. President. The great thing about a democracy is that it sometimes gets very uncomfortable. Sometimes we hear music, sometimes we hear discord in voices. What we're hearing today is from a group of citizens of the City of Philadelphia who came here today hoping that there would be some discussion about their lives, about the fact that the City of Philadelphia has taken action which they regard as very dangerous to their lives, and that's SPEECHES the reason they are here. And they are here because they feel that the regular doors that are open to most citizens, most of the time, have been closed to them. And they felt that there was apparently no other way for them to be heard. There is nothing on the agenda scheduled with respect to PHA, but the issue as everybody knew even before today is far from a dead issue. Studies are being made of the legality of the action that was taken by the Board of one housing agency to hire Carl Green, and then to assign him to another agency. And I believe that the tenants in Philadelphia Housing have a right to be treated like all other citizens. I must say, I have never known of a case in which such a large number of very fine people, part of the City of Philadelphia, have sought to be heard, sought to have their injustices rectified, that has been so disregarded by the City of Philadelphia. And I just make this statement because while it was very difficult to conduct our SPEECHES Council business today under these circumstances, I think the situation cries out for rectification by the City of Philadelphia. And I hope this body as a body attempts to do it. And I thank all my colleagues. I think this body understood that the action that was ultimately taken was a bad action, even in this early stage. So I think the citizens are here to tell us they are not going to rest or be quite or permit their rights to be taken away from them. Thank you very much, Mr. President. (Applause.)
Thank you, Mr. President. I am glad to be associated with the comments made by my colleague. Certainly these leaders came to me this morning and were expressing concern about the process, what was legal, where they go from here. And as we all know, they were in Council last week because they wanted to be included in the process. SPEECHES And their continued complaint has been that they feel shut out of the process in electing a new PHA director, and now today they feel further alienated from the process. And certainly we would hope that an effort will be made to include them in a meeting, so that they feel that they have some way to address the situation, other than being forced to come into Council and to demonstrate to let their opinions be known. Certainly as we said in the past, many of us support them. All of us have members of various tenant associations in Section 8 who are here, and whom we support. And certainly we would want to say that we will continue to support them, because they are the leaders in our communities in our districts. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. President. I have a couple brief issues that I would like to make mention of. But first and foremost, many of the tenant leaders also reside in the district that I represent. And I certainly hope that we are able to bring this particular matter to a mutual resolution, that people feel that they have been respected, that their interests are heard, and that there is at the end of the day some satisfaction with the process and also the result. Secondly today, Mr. President, a resolution had been circulated yesterday with regard to reports of an action taken by the Philadelphia Facility Management Corporation, generally known as PFMC, with regard to their actions pursuant to an amendment made by Council ordinance some time ago on performance standards and salaries and bonuses for high-level employees of the Philadelphia Gas Works. At the request of a couple of my colleagues, and as our normal practice is, I have agreed to hold that resolution only for hearings to look into the matter. Our usual practice is if a request is SPEECHES made, it is most often accommodated by the member. And I have done that with regard to this particular resolution. That does not, Mr. President, resolve the issue in any way, shape, or form. Our Finance Director was quoted in the newspaper as saying that the action taken by the Board was done so because someone had made a promise about doing something. I have asked the City Solicitor to look into this matter, because I do not believe that any verbal promise, commitment, statement, nod and wink, handshake or anything else can override an Ordinance passed by this City Council, and dictates that that order must be followed and carried through. And we will get to a resolution on that particular matter. Lastly, Mr. President, yesterday we saw at times, I guess, a somewhat tension-filled environment here in our chambers. And I want to say to my colleagues that if any of them felt uncomfortable in that regard, I certainly regret that. But I stand by the actions and the SPEECHES statements that I made yesterday. And I will continue to represent my constituents, ask questions and demand answers from anyone who comes in this chamber to seek support from this City Council. That is the process, that is the way things go. And if you can't stand the heat, then you certainly need to get out of this kitchen. (Applause.)
We have a responsibility, I believe, Mr. President, to get answers to the various questions that people ask. And as you stated yesterday -- and I appreciate your standing up for the body -- in the statements that you made with regard to how people conduct themselves and their business here in these chambers. The fact of the matter, Mr. President, is that last summer, the District Attorney has characterized all of this as being personally driven or politically motivated. She is 100,000 percent wrong. This is professional. This is what I do for a living. I ask questions, try to get answers. She has a responsibility to respond SPEECHES to the citizens of this city. That is the way it goes, and that is the deal. But she reached out to me last summer because she was concerned about her general election, re-election efforts in November. We had a meeting. She made commitments. She did not follow through, and she lied. And that is why there is such a problem between myself and the District Attorney, because she does not answer questions and doesn't think she has to, and then can come in this chamber and act like everything is okay. Well, it is not okay. And I will continue to demand that questions be answered in a respectful fashion. She has other matters to deal with with her staff, and I won't address those. I think that you and Councilwoman Clark handled those matters yesterday in the best and appropriate fashion. And I appreciate my colleagues here for the work that we did yesterday and for what we try to do for the citizens. SPEECHES This is all business, Mr. President. Thank you very much. (Applause.)
Thank you, Mr. President. I would like to say that Public Housing tenants throughout the whole process of the hiring of the new Executive Director have acted very responsibly, have organized themselves, and for the first time in years we are hearing the voices of those individuals, our citizens, who live in the developments -- and we are hearing it very clear -that they want to have a voice in the decisions that most affect them, and that they will not be shut out ever again from that process. And I think we have to pay attention to that. Throughout the last ten years, we have seen an attack of low-income housing. Low-income and moderate housing has not been built in this city. Low-income housing in the city has been let to deteriorate, and now we are talking SPEECHES about almost eliminating it from governmental priorities. Well, I think the tenants in their organizing have said that that will not happen as long as they are able to organize themselves and speak for themselves. And I am very glad that they have done that. I think we need to move into the resolution of all the questions that are still out there. But I think this process has done a great service, that it has awakened a population that was there, a constituency that had been under attack. Statewide, nationwide, the poor have been made the scapegoat of governmental indifference. And I think this time around, government cannot be indifferent to the interests that they are expressing and putting forward. I would like to say something about what my colleague Michael Nutter said about yesterday. We still did not get some of the answers that we needed from the District Attorney. We did not get some of the answers specifically as to what is happening in the East Division, in the SPEECHES drug-infested areas of the city, and what her office plans to do to be able to bring that plague under control. We have asked the answers of the Police Commissioner, we have asked for plans from the Police Department and from the Mayor, and we are asking her to do the same thing. And how she plans to begin to cooperate with the new Police Commissioner, with the U.S. Attorney, with DEA and all of the other federal agencies, those are things that she has to come up to Council with if she ever wants to have our cooperation. Because we need to have her as a full-fledged partner, not an individual out there all by herself, but as a partner in a concerted process and a plan that works together with all of the different departments of the city and the state and the federal government. And she has not answered those questions, and she has to come in and give us that plan and that answer. Thank you, Mr. President.
Are there any other speeches? The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Verna.
Thank you, Mr. President. I move that Council stand adjourned until Thursday, March 12, 1998, at 10 o'clock. (Duly seconded.)
All in favor let it be known by saying aye. Those opposed say nay. Stay in your seats, please. This Council stands adjourned until Thursday, March 12, 1998, at 10 o'clock. (Stated Meeting adjourned at 12:15 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of Thursday, March 5, 1998, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: STATED MEETING _____________________________________ DEBRA A. WHITEHEAD, RPR