Aye. The ayes are 16; the nays are zero. A majority of members present voting in the affirmative, the bill passes. Mr. Decker, 130768.
An ordinance amending Title 14 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Zoning and Planning," by revising certain provisions relating to definitions of certain industrial use categories and regulations.
This bill has also been read on two separate days. The question is shall the bill pass finally. Mr. Decker, call the roll. 4/10/14 - STATED - 2ND READING
Aye. The ayes are 16; the nays are zero. A majority of members present voting in the affirmative, the bill passes. Mr. Decker, 140053.
An ordinance to 4/10/14 - STATED - 2ND READING amend the Philadelphia Zoning Maps by changing the zoning designations of certain areas of land located within an area bounded by Springfield Avenue (extended), 58th Street, Lindbergh Boulevard, 60th Street, Elmwood Avenue, 77th Street (extended), and Cobbs Creek.
This bill has been read on two separate days. The question is shall the bill pass finally. Mr. Decker, call the roll.
Aye. The ayes are 16; the nays are zero. A majority of members present voting in the affirmative, the bill passes. Mr. Decker, do you have any additional resolutions?
A resolution recognizing and honoring Wawa, Inc. on the 50th anniversary of the opening of the first Wawa convenience store and for Wawa's many investments in the Philadelphia area, introduced by Councilman Kenney.
Thank you. I move the adoption of the resolution. (Duly seconded.) 4/10/14 - STATED - 2ND READING
It's been moved and properly seconded. All those in favor? (Aye.)
The ayes have it, and that resolution is adopted.
And a resolution honoring the Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity on the occasion of its 110th anniversary, introduced by Councilman Goode.
Thank you, Mr. President. I move for the adoption of the resolution. (Duly seconded.)
It's been moved and properly seconded. All those in favor? (Aye.) 4/10/14 - STATED - 2ND READING
The ayes have it, and that resolution is adopted.
And a resolution in solemn recognition of the week of April 27 through May 3, 2014 as the annual remembrance of the Six Million Jewish Martyrs, who perished during the Holocaust, introduced by Councilman O'Neill.
Yes, Mr. President. I'd ask for a standing vote in honor of the victims of the Holocaust.
Thank you. Will the members please stand. (All members standing.)
And 4/10/14 - STATED - 2ND READING that resolution is adopted.
And a resolution honoring and congratulating the Little Flower Catholic High School for Girls Varsity Bowling Team on their back to back Catholic League Championships, introduced by Councilman Squilla for Council President Clarke.
Thank you. I have to say, Councilman Squilla, quite a productive day. It seems like teams in your district have won every championship in the City of Philadelphia. With that, I call on you for a motion.
Thank you, Mr. President. I'm honored that all these great champions are in there. So it's a pleasure, and I move for the adoption of the resolution. (Duly seconded.)
It's been moved and properly seconded. All those in favor? 4/10/14 - STATED - 2ND READING (Aye.)
The ayes have it, and that resolution is adopted.
And a resolution congratulating the Saints John Neumann and Maria Goretti 2013-2014 Boys Basketball Team on winning the Philadelphia Catholic League Championship, District 12 Class AAA City Title, and the PIAA Division AAA State Championship, introduced by Councilman Squilla.
Thank you, Mr. President. I move for the adoption of the resolution. (Duly seconded.)
It's 4/10/14 - STATED - 2ND READING been moved and properly seconded. All those in favor? (Aye.)
The ayes have it, and that resolution is adopted.
And a resolution Honoring and Congratulating The Constitution High School Boys Basketball Team, The Generals, on winning the 2014 PIAA AA State Championship and The District 12 City Title for the AA Classification, introduced by Councilman Squilla.
Thank you. And the Chair again recognizes Councilman Squilla.
Thank you, Mr. President. I move for the adoption of the resolution. 4/10/14 - STATED - 2ND READING (Duly seconded.)
It's been moved and properly seconded. All those in favor? (Aye.)
The ayes have it, and again another champion is adopted.
And a resolution authorizing City Council's Committee on Global Opportunities and the Creative/Innovative Economy to hold hearings concerning college admission and tuition policies of local colleges and universities for undocumented youth in Philadelphia, introduced by Councilman Oh.
Thank you, Mr. President. I move for the adoption (Duly seconded.)
It's been moved and properly seconded. All those in favor? (Aye.)
The ayes have it, and that resolution is adopted.
There are no other resolutions on the Final Passage Calendar, Mr. President.
Thank you very much. That concludes our Calendar for today. Are there any speeches on the part of the minority? The Chair recognizes Councilman Oh.
Thank you very much, Mr. President. I would like to that we passed today, and that has to do with undocumented youth in Philadelphia and the opportunity for them to go on to college. There are approximately 1.8 million undocumented youth in the United States. About 65,000 will graduate from college each year, but 50 percent will drop out of high school. And of the ones that graduate, only between 5 and 10 percent will actually even apply and attend college. We don't know how many will make it through. This is in large part because of two reasons. One is because many of these students, even if they're valedictorians and high school honor students, they don't think they can go to college, so they don't bother to try. The second thing is for those few that do find that they can go to college, they are, in most cases, charged a very high tuition rate. For example, of public education for the university, that tuition is about $6,400, but if you are an undocumented youth, despite having lived your entire life in Pennsylvania, even if you are in county, in state, you will be charged an international rate, which is between $9,600 and $16,000. Thereby prohibiting many of these youth to go to college. I'd like to adopt the slogan of the United Negro College Fund: A mind is a terrible thing to waste. And I think it is one of the issues that we face today that if these youth do not know that they can go to college, they don't try to go to college, but they remain with us, less productive than they would be, and I think it is a loss for our city. The issue that we face now is there's about 105 universities and colleges in and around Philadelphia, but for those in Philadelphia, we'd like to these youth, will you provide them a fair tuition rate. I have in my prior life as an attorney involved with free legal services taken young people to Community College, and there, depending on who we meet, they may be accepted. The problem with that is, it's an opaque situation. Unless you know someone, you can't get the opportunity to be considered for college. And if you know someone, then you still are subject to the international rate. You may not be able to apply -- to be able to pay it. So I think it is a critical issue for us at this point in time as a growing city, a city that is full and welcoming of all sorts of people, that we deal with this issue and try to come up with a policy for these private and public institutions. Thank you very much.
Just a couple announcements. First and foremost, I want to thank all my colleagues for supporting on final passage an overlay for South Philadelphia -- an overlay for the 2nd District, specifically South Philadelphia, but in this particular case Southwest Philadelphia that regulates how we go about opening up auto mechanic and junkyards. There's been a proliferation of auto mechanic shops and junkyards throughout Southwest Philadelphia, and the constituents in that part of my district have been advocating to make sure that, one, that there's a balanced approach and also a level of accountability in these shops opening up. to thank all my colleagues for voting in favor of that particular overlay. But also on this Saturday, in Point Breeze we will be having a Point Breeze 5K Run and Walk to bring awareness to those who are victims of pancreatic cancer, but also raising funds for the University of Pennsylvania to find research to find a cure for those who suffer from pancreatic cancer. That's going to take place at 8:00 a.m. at Wharton Square Park. So I encourage everyone to come out, participate, get a team, come out. And we're also going to be doing a health fair as a part of it as well. But also I introduced a legislation that we will be voting on in the upcoming weeks commemorating the anniversary of Brown versus the Board of Education. And so as we look at the state of education here not only in our nation but also more particularly in the Philadelphia, this evening I will be joined by Dr. Hite, Chairwoman of Education Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, State Senator Anthony Hardy Williams, State Representative Jordan Harris, and a variety of different community leaders from the Southwest Philadelphia area in a call to action town hall meeting at John Bartram High School at 6 o'clock. We have seen the various instances that have been taking place in the news recently regarding John Bartram High School, and so at least tonight will be an opportunity for the leaders, the working partnership with those who represent the Philadelphia School District but, most importantly, the community. I also believe the community has a role to play in regulating the outside environment and being supportive of our young people when they're coming to and from school. And so we're going to have the discussion, but also put together a plan evening, again, at John Bartram High School, 6:00 p.m. I just want to thank you for the opportunity to say a few remarks. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Councilman. The Chair recognizes Councilman Jones.
Thank you, Mr. President. On my way home I had an opportunity to hear on 103.9 the town hall meeting that was conducted by 103.9 Lady B, Senator Williams, Representative Harris, and our own Councilman Kenyatta Johnson as they struggled with crime and the breaking of the weather and what to anticipate for the summer, and I heard a lot of good ideas about what people could do, how they could engage, and I started to put my mind around what was the one thing that we could all do. And I want everybody that's listening in the sound of my voice to pick up a pen right now. with -- you can be a good coach, you can teach your kids to pray, you can teach kids in school, but there's one common thing that we all can do to help curb the violence to provide assistance to law enforcement this summer, and it is simply to join Town Watch. I don't care what neighborhood you're in, from Chestnut Hill to the deepest part of Eastwick, Wynnefield, wherever. You can become involved, engaged in Town Watch, and by not -- and, again, I don't expect anybody to put a cape on and tackle drug dealers or assailants trying to victimize women with pocketbooks, but you can safely be an extra pair of eyes and ears to law enforcement to enable them to do their job. And they've made it easy for us, Mr. President. They've given us -- you ever see those T-shirts where it says "no snitching"? Well, I'm at the age at the MAC machine, if I see it, I'm telling. now. And they've given us convenient ways to do it. You can tweet information anonymously through Twitter.com Philadelphia Police. You can Facebook your information to Facebook.com Philadelphia Police. You can YouTube your information without putting your name out there through YouTube. You can text it. You can tweet. If you are old school and have a rotary phone, you can call in 686-TIPS. You can do it on the web. You can do it in the car. It's almost like Green Eggs and Ham. There's faceless ways to do this. And I would suggest that all of us consider joining Town Watch Integrated Services, and they're located at 1441 Sansom Street, Suite 200. If you want to call on that rotary phone, it's 215-686-1453. 215-686-1453. As the weather breaks, we can't keep our kids in the house, but we can do our best to keep them safe. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Councilman. The Chair recognizes Councilman Kenney.
Thank you, Mr. President. As you know, over the past number of weeks, we've been dealing with this issue of custodial arrests for the possession of small amount of marijuana, and as you also know, there's a bill that's pending on Final Passage that I've agreed to hold as a result of meeting with CJAB, the Criminal Justice Advisory Board, at the request of Judge Woods-Skipper, who has began to put together a group, a small subcommittee, to deal, administratively, hopefully deal with this issue. But today in the City Paper, just published today, I want to quote: "For years, getting caught cracking open a beer on the streets of Philadelphia was an arrestable offense. In fact, it was the only place in Pennsylvania where by law to detain those who had committed very low-level crimes, sometimes for hours, just to issue a citation and a small fine. " God forbid. "What once involved a trip to a local district station is now handled on the street in a matter of minutes, like a parking ticket. "The change came in 2009, after the state Supreme Court reviewed Philadelphia's non-traffic summary citation procedures at the urging of Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey. " This is a quote from Police Lieutenant Kevin Long: "'These are the crimes we're looking to address immediately out on the street,' said Police Lieutenant Kevin Long. '" It seems to me that the technical problems that have been quoted in the reason why we still need to take a person with two marijuana joints in their pocket into custody, put them in handcuffs, fingerprint them, photograph them, and put them in a jail cell for a period of time, only to have the District Attorney decide to divert that individual to a diversionary program, the arguments that the technology doesn't exist for us to do this seems to fall quite flat based the police, with the concurrence of the Supreme Court, decided to make an arrestable offense that was required by state law at the time to a summary or a citation, without taking the police off the street. And I'm not suggesting that anyone get a red plastic cup and go out and drink in public nor am I suggesting that anyone stand on the street corner and smoke a marijuana joint. However, why is one different than the other? If we can issue a summary citation for an open container of alcohol, which happens, I will say, much more than the ingestion or possession of marijuana, we can do it for that particular offense that was once required to arrest someone, what is the problem with doing it for those who are stopped, frisked, and discovered to have less than an ounce of marijuana on their possession? To me, my hope is that Judge Woods-Skipper will continue her due done, but since 2009, we've been able to do it with people drinking in public. I see no reason why we can't do it with people either possessing or smoking marijuana in public. So I would urge that committee to continue to move as fast as possible to ensure that our young people do not have another opportunity to receive an arrest indication on their record, which precludes them from getting a job, getting into school, and having a productive life over this simple knuckle-headed opportunity to go smoke a joint. I think that alcohol, public drinking of alcohol, and the possession of a small amount of marijuana is basically the same and they should be treated the same. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Councilman. The Chair recognizes Councilman
Yeah, Council President. I just want to follow up on my colleague's comments, and I'm not really thoroughly knowledgeable about the particular bill, but I do understand from the District Attorney's perspective they don't want to lock people up with small amounts of marijuana, which I do understand, because a significant population of young African American males receive records as a result of them having a dime bag of weed in their pocket or so forth. But I also want to make sure as we explore this type of legislation and we move forward, that we have a conversation regarding drug and alcohol abuse amongst African American young men and young people just in general. Oftentimes beyond smoking weed, some of these young men engage in smoking something in the street known as wet, which is embalming fluid, and when you look at some of the crimes that take place, the wet is intertwined with the marijuana. And so when you look at some of these shootings, some of these young men be bugged out of their mind based upon them engaging in the level of drug use. And so even as we move forward as a city and we definitely don't want to have the young men getting felonies for something that is non-violent, but also we want to pay attention to the other side that's a real issue, which is drug use amongst young people. And that has a significant impact on the shootings and the violence that we see, because the majority of young people who do engage in rather it's smoking weed or smoking wet wind up somehow in some cases, at least from personal knowledge and knowing some of the young guys in the street that engage in these type of activities, is a result of them being high and bugged out of their mind. So as we move forward, you know, we take a comprehensive look at how we approach it, and if the bill does pass and young people are allowed to get high on the streets, then we also have a contingency plan to look at, okay, the treatment that falls in line with the actual use. Thank you.
Thank you, Councilman. The Chair recognizes Councilman Kenney.
Thank you, Mr. President. In response to my colleague Councilman Johnson, I totally agree. No one is suggesting that anyone be urged to smoke marijuana on the sidewalk or on the street or to use it at all, as a matter of fact. But I will tell you that it is harder to get drug treatment and to get yourself straight if in fact you have an arrest record on top of you trying to get yourself right. I will also tell you through my issue, there is a wide, wide, wide disparity between the use of alcohol and violence and the use of marijuana and violence. From my conversations with many, many people in the know, people who are involved in domestic violence are generally involved in alcohol, not marijuana. Most of the crimes and fights and other types of situations that result in the overimbibing of alcohol creates a violent situation. If it's marijuana, generally it's not. Whether someone is smoking wet or whatever, there are other drugs. Now, that begins to now ramp up. So if you're using something that's other than marijuana, that's a different story. But I will tell you that you cannot move ahead, get a job, get yourself straight, get drug treatment, be educated if you have an arrest record on top of the other things you're dealing with as a 20-year-old in the City of Philadelphia, whether you're black, white, Asian, Hispanic. So my point is, if we're going to treat alcohol the way we treat it and we're going to glorify it at the Super Bowl and we're going to glorify it at sporting events and we're going to make it available everywhere, I don't think people should be getting arrested for a small possession of marijuana that's just marijuana. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Councilman. The Chair again recognizes Councilman Johnson.
And thank you, Council President. And I do agree. You know, again, my position is that we definitely don't want to see young people receiving records as a result of them having a small amount of marijuana. I just want to make sure as we move forward, again, that the mental health component is a part of this overall discussion as we move forward. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Councilman. And with that, I recognize Councilwoman Reynolds Brown for a motion to adjourn.
Thank you, Mr. President. I move that Council stand adjourned until Thursday, April the 24th, 2014 at 10:00 a.m. (Duly seconded.)
Thank you. It has been moved and properly seconded that Council stand adjourned. All those in favor? (Aye.)
m. Thank you all very much. ) CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. MICHELE L. ) A actions 40:18 aerial 58:9,17 amending 40:14 appreciate 16:11 AA 54:2,3 90:15 activate 66:6 affect 20:10 41:10 43:13 36:4 90:16 active 11:4 affirmative 80:12 47:8 48:21 50:3 approach 19:6 AAA 53:16,17 activities 108:22 82:22 85:10 77:25 80:16 32:13 96:24 89:14,15 actual 109:8 African 67:15 America 21:25 109:3 AARP 7:24 8:15 actuarial 41:9 107:12,19 66:6 67:3 70:19 approached 8:20 9:12,25 additional 21:11 age 100:24 American 67:16 64:20 66:16 10:2,11 11:15 29:8 85:13 agencies 32:25 77:2 107:12,19 approaches 22:5 11:25 address 71:24 36:20,25 37:10 Americans 65:6,9 appropriate 40:9 AARP's 10:6 72:24 73:25 ages 18:6 65:9 43:22 47:15 11:11 76:3 77:5 104:6 ago 15:2 amount 102:10 49:10 50:12 able 3:5 9:10 15:5 addresses 15:11 agree 109:17 106:19 111:23 approval 5:1,5 27:23 29:16 22:22 74:25 111:19 amounts 107:10 approved 5:12,18 30:11 37:15 addressing 19:6 agreed 102:13 Andrus 7:24 8:19 6:2 95:14,15 106:3 adhere 64:13 agreement 39:17 9:12,25 10:3,11 approving 62:17 absence 6:4,9,17 adjourn 112:10 40:20,23 41:4 11:13,25 71:19 72:19 abuse 31:9 32:5,7 adjourned 112:13 44:24 and/or 114:22 73:20 74:20 33:10,11,12 112:19 113:2,5 agreements 40:17 Anne 37:25 75:22 76:23 34:5,16 35:4,6 ADJOURNME...