Committee Hearing, December 4, 2002

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC HEARING COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS - - - Room 696, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, December 4, 2002 10:25 a.m. - - - BILL 020729 - An Ordinance authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 2002 within the General Fund... BILL 02730 - An Ordinance authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 2002 within the Water Fund... BILL 020731 - An Ordinance authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 2003 from the General Fund... BILL 020735 - An Ordinance authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 2003 within the General Fund from the Department of Revenue... BILL 020736 - An Ordinance authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 2003 with the General Fund from the Department of Revenue... - - - PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN JOAN KRAJEWSKI, Chair COUNCILMAN ANGEL ORTIZ COUNCILMAN RICHARD MARIANO COUNCILMAN DARRELL CLARKE COUNCILMAN MICHAEL NUTTER COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER - - - V A R A L L O, Incorporated Litigation Support Services Eleven Penn Center 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 (215) 561-2220 I N D E X BILL 020730 PAGE ROBERT DUBOW, Budget Director ............... BILLS 020729, 020731 ROBERT DUBOW, Budget Director ............... SYLVESTER JOHNSON, Police Commissioner ...... WILLIAM BLACKBURN, Narcotics Bureau ......... MS. MARTINEZ ............................... 105 RICK TUSTIN, Capital Program Office ........ 115 3 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS

Good morning. Thank you very much for waiting. The Committee on Appropriations is now in session. Will the Clerk please read the title of the bills.

Bill No. 020729, an Ordinance authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 2002 within the General Fund from certain or all city offices, departments, boards and commissions to certain or all city offices, departments, boards and commissions. And Bill No. 020730, an Ordinance 14 authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 2002 within the Water Fund from certain or all city offices, departments, boards, and commissions to certain or all city offices, departments, boards and commissions. And Bill No. 020731, an Ordinance 20 authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 2003 from the General Fund certain or all city offices, departments, boards and commissions and from the Grants Revenue Fund, the Director of Finance, provision for other General Fund, certain or all offices, departments, boards and commissions. 4 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020730 And Bill No. 020735, an Ordinance 3 authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 2003 within the General Fund from the Department of Revenue Sinking Fund Commission to the Director of Finance, contribution to the School District. And Bill No. 020736, an Ordinance 9 authorizing transfers in appropriations for Fiscal Year 2003 within the General Fund from the Department of Revenue Sinking Fund Commission to the Director of Finance contribution to the School District.

Thank you. I believe we'll call upon Rob, Rob Dubow.

Good morning, Councilwoman Krajewski. Good morning, Members of the Committee.

Before we begin, Rob, I'd like to have the testimony on Bill 20 020730, the Water Fund.

Okay. Bill 020730 transfers $7,080 within the Water Fund from the Water Department's Class 100 appropriation to the Water Department's Class 100 appropriation to cover the cost created by lower than anticipated attorney 5 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 attrition.

And that's all that --

That's all that's in there, that's right.

Are there any questions from Members of Committee? (No response.)

Is the Water Commissioner here?

Actually, there's a representative from the Law Department here. The transfers are for the Water Department. I'm also offering testimony on Bill No. 16 020729 and 020731. 020729 makes Fiscal Year 2002 budget appropriation transfers between and among classes and departments in the General Fund. And 020731 makes 2003 budget appropriation transfers from departments in the General Fund and the Grants Revenue Fund. Bill 020729 is required for the 2002 year-end closing financial records of the City. As you know, year-end transfer ordinances are introduced in City Council every year. Once the 6 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 Fiscal Year ends, the Accounting Bureau and the Office of Director of Finance closes the books on that year's financial transactions and begins to compile the annual financial report of the City covering that Fiscal Year. And, of course, in preparing the City's financial report, the Accounting Bureau identifies reconciliations which need to take place between the total to be shown in the financial report in appropriations for each department included in the City's adopted budget. Once the annual financial report is completed, it's audited by the City Controller. For the Controller to get a favorable opinion regarding the report, legal appropriations for each department and each fund must be consistent with the annual report. Enactment of the 2002 year-end transfer ordinances will make possible the reconciliation that's required in order to permit the Controller to issue a favorable opinion. In Bill 020729, there are 12 transfers, and I'll summarize the major transfers that are included in the ordinance. 6 million. 9 million for the Police Department, its transfer to Class 100, largely to cover higher than expected overtime costs related to the City's anti-terrorism response after September 11, court appearances, and Operation Safe Streets. 7 million. 3 million is requested in the First Judicial District Class 800 appropriation to make up the deficit created when the First Judicial District overspent a Child Support Grant allocation. 4 million. The Procurement Department requests an increase in appropriation of $71,170 in Class 100 resulting from lower than expected attrition and $326,135 in Class 200 to cover increased election advertising costs. 8 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 Some of the department's costs were offset by a surplus of $81,112 in Class 300 and 400 that was a result of using electronic bids to reduce printing costs. An additional net increase of over 115,000 is requested in the City's Commissioner's appropriation to cover the cost compensation of election day workers and of moving voting machines. $353,195 in Class 200 purchase service increase was offset by a combined 237,753 reduction in classes 100, 300, and 400. Those increases are made possible through reductions in three different appropriations. 5 million from the Director of Finance Sinking Fund Commission. This reduction is possible because interest rates were at historically low levels. 9 million is requested from the Director of Finance fringe benefit. That reduction is possible because there were fewer employees than originally anticipated as a result of the hiring freeze enacted November 15, 2001. 2 million appropriation from the Department of Health is requested. Those savings resulted from a lower than anticipated residents 9 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 census, but that decrease is completely offset by a reduction in revenue for medical assistance and Medicare subsidies. The other five transfers in this bill 6 are between classes within departments and thus result in no net change in Fiscal Year '02 departmental appropriations. 9 million between classes in the Department of Public Property. In the FY '02 mid-year transfer ordinance, 8 million was transferred to the Department of Public Property to cover the cost of making security improvements to City Hall.

While some of that money has been spent, most of it will be spent in FY '04, and this transfer to Class 800 will allow the City to make those payments in the Capital Fund. I'll move on to the '02 mid-year which is 020731. 5 million between and among the General Fund and the Grants Revenue Fund. 5 million in the Police Department's Class 100 personal services appropriation. The funds were needed to cover additional overtime costs from 10 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 Operation Safe Streets as well as salary increases directed by the Fiscal Year 2002 arbitration award. We had a mistake in the ordinance. It says the transfer is going to Class 200. 12, and I have amended versions of the ordinance here. 5 million in Class 200 purchase service for City Council to cover outside legal counsel costs. These costs are partially offset by a transfer from the Law Department's 200 appropriation of $500,000. The next largest request is for $375,000 distributed through all classes to fund the Tax Reform Commission, the creation of which was approved by the voters on the November 2002 ballot. The funding would allow the Commission to hire a four-person staff, hire consultants, and purchase materials, supplies, and equipment. The final transfer requested is for $100,000 in the Department of Human Services Class 200 appropriation to the Mayor's Office Class 200 appropriation to appropriately fund the contract for communication services that was mistakenly drawn from the fund for Philadelphia. 9 million. I hope these comments have been helpful. On behalf of the Administration, I respectfully request your favorable consideration of the bills and suspension of the rules to permit consideration of these ordinances on the First Reading Calendar at City Council's next meeting. I'll be happy to answer any questions. There are representatives from the departments covered by this bill who are all happy to answer questions.

Thank you very much, Rob. I'd like to hear from the Police Commissioner. Good morning, Commissioner.

Good morning. Good morning, Councilwoman Krajewski and Members of the Appropriation Committee. I am Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson. I'm here this morning to testify regarding the Police Department's request to 12 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 increase the Fiscal Year '03 General Fund by $34,531,000 and to increase the Fiscal Year '02 General Fund by $23,749,637. For Fiscal Year '02, the Police Department is requesting an increase in Class 100 of $23,931,655. Class 200, 300, and 400 is being decreased by $182,018 for a total requested increase of $23,749,637. The Police Department is requesting this additional funding for our 2002 budget due to an increase in the Department's overtime. Since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the City has incurred a number of unanticipated expenditures resulting from the increased security, including an augmented police presence and extensive patrol and security at public facilities. The increase in overtime resulting from the events of September 11th and the advent of Operation Safe Streets are the two major reasons for this Class 100 increase request for Fiscal Year '02. The decrease in Class 200, 300, and 400 of $182,018 is due to small unexpected amounts remaining in several purchase orders and lower than projected expenditures for materials, supplies, and equipment. 13 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 For Fiscal Year '03, the Police Department is requesting an increase in Class 100 of $25 million for overtime related to Operation Safe Streets. In May 2002, the Police Department implemented Operation Safe Streets. The Safe Streets mission is to improve the quality of life for all Philadelphians by eliminating open-air drug sales in the City. The Police Department is also requesting an additional $9,531,000 due to the 3 percent pay increase for sworn personnel resulting from the Act 111 arbitration award. The request for additional funding for Operation Safe Streets merits particular comment. Since the 1980s, the nation, as well as Philadelphia, has engaged in a well-publicized war on drugs. The fundamental strategy of this war is centered upon law enforcement and incarceration. While the police began aggressive campaigns on the streets, our legislators fought the war by passing new mandatory drug sentencing guidelines. Regrettably, decades have passed, and despite these well-intentioned efforts, the drug problem in this country has continued largely unabated. Cities throughout America, including Philadelphia, have 14 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 clearly been losing the war. The unsung casualties have been our communities, our children, and our sense of safety. During the last years in 6 Philadelphia, as in many cities, the drug trade 7 flourished, violence intensified and the number of 8 drug addicts multiplied. Open-air drug markets, 9 once the exception, became the norm in many 10 neighborhoods throughout the City. The most tragic victims of the drug trade have been our children who were unable to play in their neighborhoods and our elderly citizens who were afraid to leave their homes. Businesses, too, were victimized, and many packed up and left communities. Despair set in. Undoubtedly, the time had come for a fresh new approach, one where all the stakeholders are a part of the solution, where hope and optimism have a chance, and one that empowers the residents of Philadelphia to take back their streets and corners. This new approach is called Operation Safe Streets. Safe Streets is a critical component of preserving and rebuilding neighborhoods. Current 15 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 residents and businesses will not invest in their communities nor will the City attract new residents or businesses if we do not regain control of our communities from drug dealers. It has always been my contention that we cannot arrest our way out of this drug problem.

We need the help of the community and social service agencies. The initial plan of Operation Safe Streets was that the Police Department would go into the neighborhoods and stabilize the area to enable the City's social service agencies and community groups to come in and saturate the neighborhood with assistance and services. The police would provide the necessary safety and security, while other City departments and community organizations could provide drug rehabilitation programs, job training, and education assistance. The mission of Operation Safe Streets is to dramatically improve the quality of life throughout the neighborhoods of Philadelphia by creating a partnership between the Police Department, the communities, faith-based organizations, town-watch and the City's network of social service agencies to eliminate the violence 16 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 and tragedies associated with both the open-air drug trade and drug addiction. The formidable goal of the Philadelphia Police Department in Operation Safe Streets is to return control of the streets of Philadelphia to the law-abiding residents of the City by preventing any open-air drug markets from conducting business within the boundaries of Philadelphia. To address this challenge, the Police Department identified approximately 293 locations designated as "A" corners. Police officers were assigned to these drug corners in order to disrupt, dissuade, and deter the drug trade, creating an indefinite and unrelenting presence in those known drug corners would force the open-air drug markets to cease operation. Night and day, police officers patrol these corners, not to arrest, but to prevent drug sales from occurring. This is not in the testimony, but I just want to explain a little more about how we came to the drug corners. What we did is that I had every district captain -- there's 23 police captains -- give me a list of all the drug corners that they knew. Then I had all the narcotics give me a list 17 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 of all the drug corners that they knew. So I had two lists. In addition to that, I had 911 responders contact us on all he drug that was reported in the year 2001 was also reported, so I wind up with 3 lists. In addition to that, I had a map to give me all the gun confiscations for the year 2001. We confiscated over 5,144 guns in the City of Philadelphia. In addition to that, I said give me a list of all aggravated assaults and all the robberies and the homicides in the City of Philadelphia in the year 2001. And then we identified those corners as "A" corners, "B" corners, and "C" corners. "A" being the most problematic corners where actually shootings, murders, or robberies have been taking place; "B" being second; "C" being the third. The saturation of police officers on the streets instantly and effectively ended open-air drug markets in Philadelphia. The combination of the police presence and the resulting elimination of open-air drug trafficking provides the residents of these besieged neighborhoods with the safety and security needed for them to reclaim their streets without fear of violence, retribution, or 18 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 intimidation. Operation Safe Streets went into effect citywide on Wednesday, May 1, 2002. On average, there were approximately 300 major open-air drug corners in Philadelphia. To compile the number and location of the most notorious open-air drug markets in the City, the Police Department undertook an in-depth study of the following: Location of homicides, location of aggravated assaults, and robberies with guns, narcotics arrests, 911 calls and ongoing drug investigations. Once this information was gathered, the Police Department's mapping unit charted out areas of the City with the most notorious drug trafficking problem.

And what we found was that when we found drug corners, we found guns; and where you found guns, you found the violence. The Police Department then undertook the most aggressive and widespread deployment of officers in recent history to combat the drug problem. Teams of police officers were assigned specific locations to patrol. The policing was not focused on the number of arrests, but on totally disrupting the open-air drug trade. The Police 19 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 Department has successfully begun its attack on the open-air drug markets. The impact throughout the City has been dramatic. Unquestionably, Phase I of Operation Safe Streets has been a success. The Police Department has achieved its goal of disrupting the open-air drug trade and continues to maintain our presence in neighborhoods throughout the City. We know, however, that drug trafficking is a very profitable business. Those who benefit will not lie down and give up their corners with ease. We are prepared for the ever-changing drug industry. As the dealers have changed their modus operandi, so has the Police Department. The sellers are now becoming mobile, and with this comes new challenges for the Police Department. The Police Department has strategized and is preparing for Phase II of Operation Safe Streets. This will include the creation of an elite Bike Patrol Unit as part of the Narcotics Strike Force. This unit will be staffed by officers who have shown a strong interest and commitment to the mission of Operation Safe Streets. These officers were required to complete an intense training course 20 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 that will include bicycle training and community intervention. This training will allow them to compliment the efforts of the foot patrols and allow the Police Department's frontline crime-fighting efforts to become more mobile. As a result of Operation Safe Streets, and our other very sophisticated police fighting activities, crime is down in every major category, bucking the national trend. On very telling statistics, as of November 30 of this year, there were fewer murders this year than over the same 13 period last year. In fact, Philadelphia's murder 14 count for calendar year 2002 may end up being its 15 lowest in almost 20 years. 16 Further, prior to Operation Safe 17 Streets, a significant number of people arrested for 18 narcotics possession resided outside the City. For 19 example, in East Division, approximately 20 percent 20 of the buyers arrested resided outside Philadelphia. 21 Philadelphia was a virtual drug supermarket. It was 22 reported that the purest heroin in the nation was being sold on our streets. With 85 percent to 90 percent purity, Philadelphia was being saturated with heroin buyers. This too is beginning to 21 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 change. Operation Safe Streets has allowed the Police Department to address strategically and effectively the challenges as well as successfully chart our successes. We have continued to strategize and redeploy our troops as the need arise. With this infiltration of police officers into the City's most drug-infested neighborhoods, the Police Department has seen a rise in the number of drug confiscations. A study of the period from May 1, 2001 to September 5, 2001 compared to the same period in 2002, shows that city-wide narcotics confiscations has more than doubled. All drug-related seizures have dramatically increased since May 1, 2002. However, the actual seizure of drugs and vehicles have more than doubled as a direct result of Operation Safe Streets. The success of Operation Safe Streets is unparalleled, however, some have questioned whether this focused assault on drugs has potentially compromised other police services and response to 911 calls. It has not. The Police Department has been receptive to the needs of all residents, 22 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 including our emergency calls.

Operation Safe Streets has not impacted the Department's 911 response time nor has it lessened our normal police patrols. The City of Philadelphia is a safer place today than it was prior to May 1, 2002, because of the infiltration of police officers into the most violent and drug-infested neighborhoods in the City. These police officers are in addition to the normal patrol officers who patrol the City and respond to 911 calls. Additionally, a concerted effort has been made to reach out to those who may be facing the struggle of drug dependency. The Police Department has publicized a 24-hour drug hot line, 686-DRUG. This hotline was established to encourage citizens to provide detailed information to assist law enforcement in the campaign against drugs. The Police Department has received an overwhelming response from the community in providing information and drug locations. Prior to Operation Safe Streets, the hotline received approximately 100 calls per month. During the first month of Operation Safe Streets, the hotline received approximately 1,700 calls. To date, well over 4,700 23 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 calls have provided detailed information of drug activity and operations to the Tactical Operation Center. Operation Safe Streets has created a true partnership between the Police Department and the community. 5 in Fiscal Year '07. It is important to put 13 this increased cost in perspective. 16 billion for our Police 16 Department, over 200 million in overtime unrelated 17 to Safe Streets. 18 The Department will generate internal 19 savings of 45 million over the next five years or 20 2 percent of the total Police Department budget in 21 order to support Safe Streets. In addition, we will 22 confiscate aggressively the real and personal 23 property of people selling drugs in our City. 5 million in cash 25 and 450 automobiles that can be sold to also help 24 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 fund Safe Streets. The Department estimates that approximately million will be collected each year 4 throughout the forfeiture of cash and real and 5 personal property. Operation Safe Streets has been a huge success for the citizens of Philadelphia. Mayor Street has given the Police Department all the necessary resources and support to continue the success of Operation Safe Streets. It has positively and significantly affected the quality of life for every Philadelphian. The public's response to police officers is both encouraging and motivating. While the Police Department has increased its contacts with the public, a preliminary finding of the Police Advisory Commission shows that our complaints against police are significantly lower for 2002. The Police Department's approval rate is higher than it has been in years, and the overall morale of the department is at its highest. Operation Safe Streets is creating a better quality of life for the residents of Philadelphia. As the Police Commissioner of Philadelphia, I recognize that I must ensure that 25 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 this Police Department does its part in eliminating wasteful spending. I have taken on this responsibility, and I will create a more fiscally responsible Police Department with the support of all of you who have historically supported our efforts. I thank Mayor Street for giving me and the Police Department his support in making Operation Safe Streets a success. I have a power point presentation that, with your permission, we would like to show. If not, I'm prepared to answer any questions you may have.

Yes, I do understand, Commissioner, that you do. For just one minute, I just want to take time out to thank you for all the help that you have given me and my constituents. You were always there. Every time I call, you're there. You're doing a great job.

Thank you very much.

But before we start the presentation, I would like to have the department heads have their testimony read into the record and then we can continue on with the slide 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 show.

I'd like to enter the testimony from the other commissioners into the record. You can have a copy of the testimony.

I think all the committee members have copies of the testimony from all the other commissioners. Are there any questions based on that testimony of any of the other commissioners, with the exception of the Police Department. They have not finished their presentation.

We're going to ask those questions after the slide show?

Yes. Mr. Dubow and Commissioner Johnson, why don't we put on the slide presentation?

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning, members of City Council. My name is William Blackburn. I'm the Chief Inspector of the Narcotics Bureau. Operation Safe Streets was designed to eradicate the blatant street corner operations in the City of Philadelphia. These are the conditions prior to Operation Safe Streets: Round the clock 27 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 open-air drug markets operating unabated in residential neighborhoods. Philadelphia earned a national reputation as a market for the highest quality, purest heroin in the nation. Fourth quarter reports in the DEA indicate that the level of heroin, the purity of heroin, depending on the amount of seizure ranges from 72 percent to 90 percent in Philadelphia. You'll see later on in the presentation there's a chart that the City of Philadelphia has the third cheapest heroin of all major cities but the purest heroin in the nation. Highest levels of drug-related violence, often innocent victims being caught in the cross fire. We analyzed the homicides, you'll see that a disproportionate amount of homicides, narcotics play some role in the violence in Philadelphia. The quality of life, the inner-city neighborhoods devastated by narcotics trade. Burgeoning levels of addiction and drug overdoses. According to studies from the DAWN studies, Drug Abuse Warning Network, Philadelphia leads the nation in hospital room 23 episodes, for every 573 persons per 100,000. It's a 50 percent increase since 1994 and two times the national average. Every category, the City of 28 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 Philadelphia leads in, whether it's heroin episodes, marijuana episodes, cocaine, even to the fact where young adults ranging from the age to 24, the City 5 of Philadelphia leads in that. We also lead the 6 nation in overdose, drug deaths due to overdoses. 7 Traditional methods of law enforcement 8 based on arrests and incarceration prove to be 9 costly and ineffective. From 1997 to year 2001, we 10 arrested over 100,000 persons for drug violations in 11 the City of Philadelphia. 12 This will be a short film, 15 seconds, 13 20 seconds. It's a film in the 4000 block of 14 Fairhill Street. This is what we considered when we 15 started classifying corners as "A" corner. It's 16 about five or six deals in a matter of 15 seconds 17 here. This is located in the 25th District, 4000 18 block of Fairhill Street. After this film, there will be a series of still photographs also representing conditions in the 25th District. The first will be A and Somerset -- I'm sorry, this is another video depicting a drug corner, A and Somerset where the drug dealers are being robbed here. You can see him armed with a handgun. As the suspect moves forward, you'll see 29 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 another male that's preventing pedestrians from going down the street. And then you'll see in a few seconds both suspects get into a car and flee the area. This series of the next photographs will be 6th and Clearfield, the 25th District. Members of our IDIS squad, our long-term investigations, was doing this surveillance. Everyone of these individuals were arrested. That's Sixth and Clearfield. This is the chart showing our homicides from 1995 to present. You can see last year we had 309 homicides. As of this date, I believe there's 270 homicides this year so far. We have 39 less homicides compared to last year. This is what I talked to you in beginning of my presentation about the Philadelphia region leading the nation in drug-related emergencies. You see drug-related emergency room 21 visits, Philadelphia's No. 1. Fatalities because of drug overdoses, Philadelphia's No. 2. This is narcotics arrest and buyers, 1997 to 2001. Over 100,000 persons were arrested. And you can see the focus. 1997 pre Commissioner 30 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 Johnson, pre Commissioner Timoney, the Narcotics Bureau was staffed with about 200 people.

Now they're staffed with approximately 600. You can see after 1997 the increases in arrests. You can see that also the chart will reflect that we're focussing on buyers, that there are more buyers being arrested than sellers. And you'll see later on in the presentation, under Commissioner Johnson there's a shift, that there are more sellers being arrested, less buyers, because we're focussing on more drug organizations. The Mayor and the Commissioner recognize that we could not arrest our way out of this problem. It was time for a new approach. I believe that is the 2900 block of Germantown. This is the conditions as they are present day. That photograph was taken about two or three weeks ago. It's the genesis of Operation Safe Streets. Operation Safe Streets is a manifestation of Mayor John Street's vision of improving the quality of life of all the residents of Philadelphia. The Mayor is committed to achieving this goal by eliminating blatant open-air 31 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 sales of narcotics on the streets of Philadelphia. The Safe Streets concept began to take form in April of 2002 with a series of meetings between the Mayor, Police Commissioner Johnson, myself, and First Deputy Commissioner Robert Mitchell. This is a location again. These photographs depict the 25th District. This is Germantown and Stella. This was an "A" corner. The primary operative of Operation Safe Streets is the disruption of Philadelphia's open-air drug trade and the dismantling of those criminal organizations that promote it and profit from it. Specific goals: The elimination of all open-air drug markets, a significant reduction in drug-related violence, the reduction of fear of crime and the incidence of crime and substantial increase in the quality of life found in Philadelphia. 900 Stella Street in Philadelphia. The predominant strategy was the strategic positioning of police officers to active drug corners in order to prevent the sale or purchase of illegal narcotics, discourage buyers 32 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 from returning to corners due to fear of arrest and vehicle confiscation. Mr. Johnson spoke in his presentation that a disproportionate amount of persons arrested in East Division reside outside the City of Philadelphia. Disrupt of flow of narcotics through established channels of distribution. And we wanted to demonstrate a commitment to the community that we care about their citizens, that we care about neighborhoods. We wanted to improve the quality of life in the City of Philadelphia, encourage law-abiding citizens to work with the police in reclaiming their neighborhoods. You'll see in the presentation what we feel are strong indicators of where the increase of hotline complaints where the citizens are calling the Police Department and providing detailed information, where in the past they would give you limited information. They are now leaving their names, where we can call them back. They're providing detailed information that assist the Narcotics Bureau in making arrests. The goal, obviously, is deterrence not arrests. Another corner in the 25th District 33 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 which was classified as an "A" corner. What's the planning process? The Commissioner talked about the planning process, identification of active drug corners and how we collected the data. Computer maps were prepared to show the location of the following types of incidents: Narcotic arrests, narcotics complaints, shooting victims, and gun seizures. District captains submitted a list of the active drug corners operating within their commands. The Narcotics Bureau submitted a list based on our intelligence reports and based on our data in Frankford Arsenal. The aggregate data was used to compile a citywide master list of active drug corners. We classified these corners based on the severity or the level of problems in the neighborhoods.

We used categories A, B, and C based on this criteria: Drug activity, related violence, the hours of operation, and the effects on the community. The Commissioner indicated in his presentation it resulted in corners designated as A, B and C; obviously, A corners being the most problemtic. "A" corner list was comprised. There was approximately 300 drug corners. I looked at our 34 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 TOC report yesterday. It was approximately 306 corners. It fluctuates between 290 to approximately 310 on a daily basis. A decision was made on May 1st to occupy every one of those corners. The Commissioner was clear that he didn't want a pilot program, he wanted a strategy that we shut down the entire City at one time. This is the corner as of May 1st, depicting that we have throughout the City -- different areas of the City are all being patrolled by uniformed police officers. Just to go back for a moment. When Commissioner put these maps together of shooting victims, of drug seizures, and of violence, the information -- it was unmistakable. You could overlay the maps and it was identical, where there was drugs, where there it was guns; where there was violence, there was homicides. This is the 25th District. These are the "A" corners in the 25th District, the most problematic area. As of this date, we have approximately 100 drug corners being staffed about 16 hours a day. Some are fixed posts, some are roving patrol, some are based on Narcotics Bureau 35 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 doing surveillances, different types of strategies. But there's approximately 100 corners in the East Division section of the City. This is 900 block of West Somerset Street, the 25th District. It's also important in the beginning stages in our planning sessions that we wanted to make sure that we were not violating individual's Constitutional rights. We wanted to make sure that when we put extra police officers on these corners that the complaints against police didn't rise. I'm happy to report specifically in the Narcotics Bureau, complaints in Narcotics Bureau have gone down 42 percent since Operation Safe Streets. We developed a two-part training phase. The first phase was something that you seen in the beginning of the presentation, what a drug corner is about, what are you looking for. The second part, with the help of Chief Legal Counsel Karen Simmons, we developed scenarios that dealt with temporary detention, probable cause, laws on search and seizure, and racially biased policing. Again, this training, these scenarios that was supplemented with roll call training, they were given a pamphlet, and 36 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 it was being reinforced on a daily basis. It was important that we had strong on-scene supervision at each level of this operation. We also decided in our planning stage that we would establish a Tactical Operation Center. A Tactical Operation Center's mission was to act as a central repository for all Operation Safe Streets related data and intelligence. The Tactical Operation Center is located at Second and Chestnut at the HIDTA Center. At the HIDTA Center we have a team of analysts from the federal agencies to assist us. Staffing consists of one police supervisor who coordinates the activities of the HIDTA staff members. Personnel assigned to HIDTA represented a wide range of state and federal agencies, including the National Guard. Their specific responsibility is to collect and analyze and disseminate this information. Also, they're responsible for a daily publication which indicates the list of active drug corners, the activity of the previous day, and any intelligence that can assist the Patrol Bureau or the Narcotics Bureau, and also outlines a narcotics hotline complaint information. This is our department hotline 37 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 215-686-DRUG.

Before Operation Safe Streets, that was being staffed at the Frankford Arsenal, one person a day work tour duty. At nighttime, if a person wanted to call that hotline, it would be answered by an answering machine. Because of the overwhelming response from the community, it was necessary to shift that responsibility to 911. This is just a graph representing the substantial increase in hotline complaints. What's important to notice here is on the maroon color you can see -- and we kind of predicted that this would happen, that the drugs would move indoors, and the hotline complaints indicate this. Hotline complaints reflecting indoor sales have gone up dramatically. This is some internal reports that are prepared by the Police Department just to kind of keep track of the drug corners. There's a drug corner assignment sheet, drug corner activity reports, status reports, and criminal activity report. This information that we compile on a daily basis is used by the District Commanders. It's presented to them to make strategic moves. If 38 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 the drugs are displaced from A and Somerset, they moved around the corner and we had the intelligence, obviously, we want to move the positioning of those officers also. This here is a location in the 25th District where drug sales have moved indoors. I believe it's the 2900 block of Germantown where we arrested a senior citizen who moved their drug operation indoors. It's a Nino's Pizza in the 2900 block of Germantown Avenue. It was important to the Police Commissioner, it was important to the Mayor that we got the Fraternal Order of Police on board. We had a series of meetings, the Commissioner and I, First Deputy Commissioner Mitchell, with members of the Fraternal Order of Police to make sure that we didn't violate any contractual issues, that we didn't sacrifice officers' safety, and that overtime compensation was discussed and it would be adequate supervision when these officers are out on the streets. This has proven to be a success. Commissioner Johnson has a very, very good working relationship with the FOP. He meets with them on a daily basis. And as of this date, we have had no 39 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 problems. This is the commanding control, this is the structure. You see Commissioner Johnson at the top, First Deputy Commissioner Robert Mitchell, myself on the left, and Keith Sadler, the Chief Inspector of Patrol Bureau. This is just an organizational chart of the Narcotic Bureau. It's divided into Narcotics Field Division headed by Inspector Joe Sullivan who has East Division, North Division and South Division and also citywide vice. Inspector Mark Dorsey heads our Narcotics Intelligence section, our HIDTA Center, and our Narcotics Strike Force. I also have an Integrity Control Officer who reports directly to me. Chief Ray Rooney to the left, he has an education program, the Heads Up Program. Operation Safe Streets meeting. The Mayor holds a weekly meeting every Tuesday with the Police Commissioner and his key staff. These meetings are 6:30, 7:00 in the morning every Tuesday. This is follow-up with the First Deputy Commissioner who holds a weekly meeting on Tuesday to discuss strategies to re-deploy personnel, to discuss any problems concerning violence. This is 40 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 done on a weekly basis. In one of these such meetings, myself, First Deputy Commissioner Keith Sadler and the captain from the Strike Force. Command accountability. Operation Safe Streets commanders are responsible for reviewing and analyzing activity and intelligence reports on a daily basis and adjusting the deployment in their personnel. I talked about that. The information is supplied from our Center. Sources of information include the field intelligence reports, Safe Streets activity and arrest reports, narcotics complaint logs, COMSTAT crime maps and reports.

Just discussing the importance of strong on-scene supervision, here's another picture at Nino's Pizza in the 2900 block of Germantown Avenue. We arrested a senior citizen. I believe she was selling heroin at that location. Community involvement. Police Commissioner and the Mayor were very strong and wanted to have direct participation and input in the community and indicated it was a critical component of Operation Safe Streets. The commander solicits feedback on the community's perception of the effectiveness of Operation Safe Streets from a wide 41 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 variety of sources, including the PDAC groups, the Police District Advisory Councils, town-watch groups and police clergy, neighborhood business and civic association and media. One of the things Police Commissioner Johnson tasked me with when I took over the Narcotics Bureau was to be open with the media, and we've been very successful with the media. We have invited them many, many times on our raids. We discussed -- we've really been open with the media and I believe we've been getting a lot of positive articles in the newspaper. I'm sure all the members of the Council heard about the bike operations. On a weekly basis the Commissioner and the Mayor, key members of my staff ride with the Police Commissioner and ride with the Mayor. In fact, I believe next Thursday we're riding 40 miles. We've schedule a bike ride this weekend, supplementing one on next Thursday, and then the following weekend, so we have a 40-mile bike ride scheduled in the East Police Division. The Mayor wanted to view firsthand the conditions on night hours concerning the drug problems in the East Division. Deployment issues. We discussed the 42 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 deployment issues. It's based -- just like a chess game. It's based on the information received. It's based on the displacement. It's based on whatever patterns we develop. Some of the corners are staffed hours a day, some are 8 hours a day, 7 sometimes we come in 5 o'clock in the morning. It 8 all depends on the information that we receive, the 9 intelligence and things of that nature. Hours of 10 deployment vary, historical hours of operation, the 11 type of narcotics sold. Some parts of East 12 Division, drugs, heroin is being sold at 5 o'clock 13 in the morning. We obviously have to position our 14 police officers depending on those needs. 15 Modes of deployment vary. We have 16 uniform fixed posts. We have roving patrols. We have bicycles. We have plain clothes surveillance. Decisions are based regarding the mode of deployment on the level of drug activity, the level of associated violence, or proximity to other drug corners, the MO of the dealers. Again, an "A" corner in the 25th District. The Police Commissioner spoke it was important that once he put this operation into place 43 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 he didn't want to have a negative impact on 911. He wanted to make sure that we were able to answer the service calls. When the community called the police, we were concerned that we responded in a quick fashion. To ensure that this does not occur, commanders are strictly forbidden to utilize the officers with 911 responsibilities to fulfill their Operation Safe Streets personnel commitment. Instead, they are directed to assign officers in administrative and tactical posts to Operation Safe Streets corners. Obviously, overtime is part of this operation. Again, this is just showing the amount of calls that we receive into the hotline. You can see the difference between 2001 and 2002. This program evaluator indicators: Availability, purity level, and price. The availability, I believe there are some good things to report about that. We have a domestic monitoring program from the DEA. We send them out on a periodic basis to see how quickly they can purchase drugs. In the past, certain areas of the City, they could make numerous buys, 10, 15 minutes.

Some areas of the City they can't make 44 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 buys. They have to go other areas. This is an independent report, and I can provide that information to members of City Council. I believe we had an impact on the availability of drugs in the City of Philadelphia. Purity levels, I don't think the news is too good with the purity level. We do our own quality testing. I just got a report from DEA, the fourth quarterly trends, it's still the highest purity in the nation. Based on the amount that we seize, it's still well over 70 percent. Drug-related violence, as I indicated, we have approximately less homicides than we had 15 the year before. 16 As to displacement to other 17 jurisdictions, we believe there is displacement, not 18 only to other jurisdictions, but other sections of the City that didn't experience drug activity in the past. I have intelligence reports where it's going to different jurisdictions. This is the report I talked about before. This is a report from DEA. I know it's very difficult to read, but what it says here, of all those top cities, is that Philadelphia has the 45 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 purest heroin, 75 percent -- and that's based on small seizures -- but we have the third cheapest heroin in the nation. For example, I believe it's St. Louis, I believe they have the highest price per milligram, but the purity level is than percent. 7 They're paying enormous prices, but they're only 8 getting 13 percent purity in heroin. And the same 9 reflects in cocaine. We have very, very pure heroin 10 in the City of Philadelphia. 11 Here's Narcotics Bureau statistics. 12 This only reflects activity from the Narcotics 13 Bureau. You can see the shift. You look at year 2001 versus 2002. The chart on the right-hand side is just Operation Safe Streets. And you can see that we're focussing more on sellers than buyers. This is Narcotics Bureau seizures. It's hard for me to read these numbers. In every category it's up. Gun confiscations are up. Vehicle confiscations are up. We're serving more search and seizure warrants. You look at the chart on the right-hand side, it's even more pronounced when you look at the time during Operation Safe Streets starting 5/1 to 10/31. Again, the search warrants are up. The vehicles are up. The guns are 46 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 up. I don't know if I can take credit for the vehicle confiscations. A lot of that has to do with Live Stop. So it may be a number that's a little skewed there because of Live Stop, so it's difficult to take credit for that. Just some pictures I wanted to show you. The amount of effort and ingenuity that the drug dealers get involved in. It's very, very difficult, narcotics enforcement. And the lengths that the drug dealers go, it's unbelievable. Here's a case that I worked with DEA and the federal government. What he's doing here is he's secreting drugs in the rims or the tires of his Explorer truck. We actually had surveillances where those tires were installed in a vehicle, but because of the balancing, he got concerned it wasn't driving properly. He took the tires off and put them in the back of the truck. The seizure here is, I believe, $800,000 in methamphetamine. Just some figures here with money and drug seizures. It's an unbelievable amount of -- especially when you look at drugs. You look at the start of Operation Safe Streets, the bottom 47 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 right-hand chart, 5/1 to 10/31. I believe we seized last year about around or $13 million. This year 4 we've seized $60 million in drugs just in the six or 5 seven-month period; confiscated over $3 million in 6 cash. Every indicator in terms of seizures is way 7 up. The most pronounced, obviously, is the amount 8 of drugs that we seized during Operation Safe 9 Streets. And I have to give credit.

I have task 10 forces with the FBI, I have task forces with DEA, I 11 have Customs, postal authorities; and they all 12 bought into this program. So the seizures reflect also the task force enforcement efforts. This is a job we worked with the FBI. We had information from a hotel squad we had in Philadelphia that two individuals were staying at a hotel. They were acting suspiciously. We set up a surveillance. And these 50 kilos were secreted in the bed of the truck, in the skins of the truck. Those ropes were to pull out the 50 kilos. We also confiscated $800,000 or $900,000 in cash. And this was an operation in Philadelphia. We took the truck down in New Jersey, but the money came out of a house in Philadelphia. This is a long-term investigation. It's 48 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 still an active investigation involving a Columbian organization. We had seized this automobile approximately three or four months ago. We had a dog hit on the vehicle. We had intelligence that there's drugs secreted in this vehicle. We couldn't find them. We got an intelligence report from DEA in New Mexico that the same type of vehicle drugs were being secreted in the roof of an automobile. We had to take that automobile to the dealer. They found special welds in it. We had to peel back the roof. We peeled back the roof, and there were 50 kilos of cocaine was found in that vehicle with a street value of over $5 million in drugs. I talked about this. I'm happy to report the Narcotics Bureau, my complaints against police are down 42 percent. Some statistics the Police Commissioner indicated about the effect of Operation Safe Streets. I believe overall crime is down approximately 11 percent. Homicides are still down. We talked about this. We talked about these in strategy meetings with Commissioner Mitchell and Commissioner Johnson. We were concerned about the displacement of drugs, 49 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 displacement to different neighborhoods, to other jurisdictions, and the movement indoors. Obviously, our charts and our graphs and our seizures reflect all that to be true. Drugs have moved indoors. Not only have they moved indoors to residential properties, they have moved indoors to business establishments. And we're making a lot of arrests in bars, in business establishments. There's a case in West Philadelphia. I believe it's on Lancaster Avenue. We knew there was a drug operation in there. We just kept sending our confidential informants and our police officers in there to make buys. We weren't successful. Until we debriefed someone, we learned we had to ask for a pack of candy cigarettes. And inside the candy cigarettes were secreted marijuana sticks and marijuana. Again, this is just indicating -- we feel happy about this. This is something that we feel the community is buying into our program that they're calling the police to provide detailed information. Again, the shift of information that the drugs are moving inside. This is just more reflective of the 50 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 increase in cost. Again, we were concerned about the displacement of drugs and the modes of operation. They have changed. And you've seen an article in the Inquirer where they had this caller service or beeper service. They don't position themselves on corners anymore. What they do, they use beepers and cell phones and you call and you order drugs. They deployed scooters and bikes. They have -- as I indicated before, it's a chess game. Every time we make a move, they make a move and we counter it. We're now in Phase II of Operation Safe Streets. Approximately three weeks ago, we purchased a hundred bicycles with forfeiture money. We purchased a hundred uniforms with forfeiture money. And we plan to be operational in two weeks. We plan to put approximately 60 officers on a daily basis in East Division to compensate for that large concentration of drug corners in East Division.

That's my presentation. And anyone has any questions for Commissioner Johnson?

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you, Commissioner. 51 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 Commissioner, I'd like to know what's being done about the corners not in the Safe Streets Program, what Inspector Blackburn called "B" and "C" drug corners.

We're still enforcing that. And what we found was that most of the "A" corners were also around schools. The roving patrol and the responsibility of the district captain is to enforce those corners and are being enforced on a daily basis. We have not eliminated any drug activity or drug enforcement because they're not an "A" corner or not a "B" corner or not a "C" corner. So if it's a problematic corner, regardless of what the level of problems is, it is being enforced basically by district commanders.

If I may, I can add to that a little bit. The Narcotics Bureau in the last couple of months have trained a hundred district level police officers. I'd also like to add that the Narcotics Bureau stayed intact. We're still providing our same missions and goals. I have approximately 170 Narcotics Strike Force officers that are uniformed officers that still deploy displacement of drug activity. So if the officers 52 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 are positioned in "A" corners and drugs have displaced, I have that information and the Narcotics Strike Force is deployed in those other areas. Keep in mind, some of these "B" corners, we added corners and they now have become "A" corners.

Well, the reason I ask this question, and I'm sure my colleagues would agree with me that we all have street corners in our district where illegal activity occurs. I know Safe Streets addresses the worst corners, but shouldn't we be looking at the problems areas in other police districts? I've noticed your map. There are other areas that weren't highlighted where I know for a fact where we have our problems, as well in other districts.

Well, my belief is that we're attacking all the crime problems here in the City of Philadelphia at one time. With Safe Streets, it's an addition that we're doing. In other words, as long as there is illegal activity and crime, the Department's obligation is to attack that. The district captains come to COMSTAT every 53 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 single week. Every 28 days every district captain has to come to our COMSTAT. They're being questioned by our deputy commissioners and myself about what they're doing about crime in their division, not just what's on the "A" corners, not just about drugs. Because what happens is that we're concerned about quality of life issues. That's the difference right now. Whatever is the quality of life issues in these individual districts in the City we're trying to address.

Excuse me. I'm not talking about quality of life issues. I'm talking about drug corners that I know of in my own area.

We realize that -- at least I realize that in five months, we're not going to change something that took years to get into 19 place. It's almost impossible. Law enforcement 20 will never do it by ourselves. We need the 21 partnerships of everyone. So in addition to putting 22 the police out there, we need the town-watch 23 organization, we need the community groups, we need 24 the politicians, we need everybody there. Are we 25 going to eliminate all the drugs? We're not. It 54 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 took us 25, 30 years to get into this condition, and we're not going to get out in six or seven months. But at the same time, we're attacking the violence of it. We're attacking as much problems as we possibly can. What I did last night to prepare for this testimony, I looked at the tapes, the City Council hearing when Commissioner O'Neil was present. And I remember on that tape being asked the question by City Council, "What are you doing about drugs?" And the answer from Commissioner O'Neil was "Everything that we can." And I remember the answer from City Council was, "It's not enough." We're doing even above that at this point. We're going, but we need it and I realize the fact that even after Operation Sunrise that law enforcement by itself and traditional policing is not working. So we have to go into the rehab community. So I want to assure City Council, the fact that there are not police officers on those corners, the district captain and lieutenant's and 55 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 the sergeants and police officers are doing everything they can to attack those problems. Every single district has a Narcotics Net Teams whose their responsibility. One of the things that Chief Inspector Blackburn mentioned, that the Narcotic Bureau stayed intact. He still have full units that are out there on every part of the City attacking these problems that are going inside, these problems on the corners. So it's a team effort. We're in contact with DEA, FBI. Everyone is working hand in hand to eliminate the problems that we have here in our City.

Well, some critics would have you believe that what we're doing is pushing the dealers from one neighborhood to another. What are we doing about that?

Critics say that and I disagree with that.

In other words, they'll find another way of getting it delivered.

Well, we realize the drug dealers are not just going to turn over. And what we attacked was the open-air drug corners, the ones that sometimes when you go to these corners they 56 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 were like car washes, people lined up. Are we going to have people that's going to go out there and set up another corner? Sure, they're going to try to do that. They're going to sell drugs different places. So we're not going to eliminate drugs in seven months. We're going to have people go out there and try to do these things. But in the meantime, the public has been given us a lot of information. Any information that they have give us, we try to react on or 48 hours. 12 As I said, I think we made tremendous 13 strides so far. Again, have we stopped all the 14 drugs? We have not. Have they changed corners? 15 Sure they have. I think with the addition of the 16 bike officers coming out there, it's going to be 17 even more. As they're going mobile, we're becoming 18 mobile. Like Chief Inspector Blackburn mentioned, 19 it's like a checks game. But I think at this point, 20 we're winning that game. At one time before, we 21 were losing. I don't think we're losing anymore. 22 But we have a long way to go. But we need 23 everyone's help. 24 They set up on corners where they know there's least resistance. There's a reason why 57 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 people set up on a corner; because they know people in that certain block will not do anything about it. They're not going to fight the other people. Those who sell drugs live in our neighborhoods. Those who buy drugs come from outside the neighborhood. You can't set up a neighborhood that you're not familiar with. They rent these drug corners between $1,500 to $2,000 a week to rent a drug corner. For every time that kid sells $130 worth of drugs, he gets $20. So there's a reason why in certain neighborhoods there is no drug activity because the community will not tolerate, blocks will not tolerate it. But you other blocks that will tolerate it. We pulled away from a corner in North Philadelphia that we had taken over just to see what would happened. The drug dealers came back. The community themselves came and said, "We're not going to tolerate this no more. We're not going to deal with it." And they just moved to another place. It is a battle, but it's a battle that we're committed to do to change the quality of life here in this City.

When are these 58 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 bike patrols coming out, Commissioner?

The only thing we're waiting for right now is uniforms. They've been trained. They had a 40-hour training. We have the bikes. When you ride the bike, you have to have the proper uniform, especially in this type of weather. Those uniforms, from my understanding, should be here within the next two weeks, and they should be hitting the street within two weeks. In addition to give them bike training, we also gave them narcotics training. So they're well trained, they're well prepared, and they're out there. And I think one compliments of the department that I felt good about, when we asked for volunteers, we had over 400 people volunteer to ride this bike to come out there and get involved in the unit. And we had interviews with them. We had criteria for them. And we didn't want officers to say what you want to do, we wanted to know what you have done in the past. Every officer came there had earned their right to be in that unit.

Thank you, Commissioner. 59 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 Well, first of all, I'm not here to criticize you because I think you do a fantastic job. I believe in Safe Streets, and I'm very happy to see it implemented. I think it's long overdue, and I applaud the Police Department, as I usually do because I think they're the best in the country. Well, we'll get off that subject for a moment. In a speech, the Mayor stated that he expected to generate $45 million in internal savings over the next five years to pay for Safe Streets. Could you tell us where to expect this -- how we're going to save this type of money without affecting services?

There is one other thing that myself and our command staff did last week. Historically, in the Police Department our offices are open from 8:00 to 6:00 p.m., and the reason being -- it's a little comical at this point, but wasn't comical when the Commissioner was there. The Commissioner wanted to stay until 6:00. If he stayed until 6:00, then the deputy stayed until 6:00. When the deputy left, then the chief left. When the chief left, then the inspectors left. So consequently all our offices stayed until 6 o'clock 60 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 at night, so every person in those offices normally got two hours overtime a day, including my office. I eliminated, starting in my office this week, of five people, they're not allowed to work any more administrative overtime at all. By checking and finding out how many people that we had, we had approximately over a hundred people two hours overtime a day in all of the offices. We eliminated that. Just eliminating that will save us $2.5 million a year. In addition to that, I've assigned three captains, the Deputy Commissioner Nestel, to address the budget problems and the overtime problems in the Detective Bureau, the Patrol Area, and Special Operations. We have to be fiscally responsible for it. At COMSTAT, Deputy Commissioner Nestel asked every captain, "What are you doing about court overtime? What are you doing to eliminate overtime in your particular district, in your divisions?" We need the help of the courts. We have a numerous amount of officers get overnight court notices. Last week we had over 120 in one day that come in at 8 o'clock at night for officers to come to court the very next day. So we're trying to be 61 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 fiscal responsible by trying to eliminate as much unnecessary overtime, unnecessary expenditures as we possibly can. But even just this week alone, I think we will save approximately 3 or $4 million in a year just eliminate the -- it will have no effect on crime at all. The officer out there working and doing their job, that's fine. But at the same time, we will have no more built-in overtime in any office in this City in the Police Department.

Thank you, Commissioner. Before we begin with other members, I'd like to acknowledge that we have with us Councilman Clarke, Councilwoman Miller, Councilman Nutter, myself, Councilman Ortiz, and Councilman Mariano. Are there any other questions? Councilman Mariano.

Thank you, Councilwoman. Commissioner, I also would like to thank you for everything you are doing here. And I've gotten to know you pretty good since you've been Commissioner. Your door is always open, and it's a good thing for me as a Councilman because most of 62 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 them street corners that Inspector Blackburn had on his presentation -- all of them were on my district. Maybe one in Darrell's, we might share a couple drug areas up there. So the east is pretty much all mine, 24th and 25th. And I gotta tell you -- and I know you know this, but this needs to be said. In the summer, Fourth and Cambria was a different place than it's ever been since I've been a Councilman and before that when I was going down there because my grandmother lived down there. And it has changed and it's really rejuvenized. We're trying to do a lot of different things with the quality of life issue. But that's all a moot point if this didn't happen, Safe Streets. For the first time, many of these little kids -- I had a staffer who left me, Willie Ortiz, he had some grandchildren, and for the first time in their life, they were able to go around in that neighborhood in the summer, in thier life and they're like 7 and 8 years old. Never were able to be out at night. In the summer, that's a part of being a kid in Philadelphia, staying out because you got out later you can stay out until 9:00 maybe instead of 7:00 because it gets dark later. First time in their life. 63 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 First time in 10, years people go to that corner store, that check cashing place at Third and Cambria. It's because of this program. Because that is the place where you buy good heroin around there. I had personal experiences myself being down ther by myself and realizing, what am I doing here? This isn't the right place for me to be t 2 o'clock in the afternoon three years in a City car with a staffer. Really scary. So things have certainly changed there. And also, on the one point the Councilwoman brought up, the rec. center, 2nd District, Inspector Daley is in the back, he was a big help. The new captain was new up there in the spring when you did the "A" corner things. And talking to people -- we had a community meeting. The Commissioner, the inspector, the captain there were all out there within a week. You said, "Let us address this." That became a priority, and that wasn't a "A" corner, but it became a priority where the people up there just love it. We went back a month later, two months later, and they love it. That neighborhood changed so fast and it was around 64 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 a rec. center and people were coming from other neighborhoods selling drugs to people playing basketball and we were up there in the summer for different things. It's a totally different place. So just those two little microcosms of universe, the 7th district alone -- I could speak on hundreds of them but it's not necessary. It really made a difference. Frankford, same thing where we addressed it. It's important. So I appreciate it and I'd like to thank you, and I'm sure everyone that lived at Fourth and Cambria would like to thank you.

Thank you very much. You know, one of the things I'd like to say, unfortunately, what happened in Washington, D.C. and Maryland where people, because of the snipers, couldn't come out, couldn't let kids come out and play, afraid to go to the stores. We had neighborhoods in the City of Philadelphia, 15, 20 years lived like that. Some people take for granted you can sit on your steps. Some people take for granted the kids can come out and play. In certain areas of our City we couldn't take that granted. And I think what Operation Safe Streets has done is 65 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 give them an opportunity just to live a decent, normal life.

Councilman Nutter.

Good morning, Councilman.

Good morning, Commissioner. Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner, thank you for being in today. I want to first commend you and the Inspector for a great presentation. First, I want to ask with regard to what you laid out in terms of the overtime and apparently the dismissal order at the Police Administration Building. I appreciate your creativity in terms of trying to cut back on the overtime. Do the lower-ranking officers still have to wait until their superior officers leave, or are they able to leave now when they want to?

The things that we put in place did not just affect police headquarters. It affects every district and division in this City and every unit in this City where they was built-in overtime. So it should affect approximately a 66 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 hundred officers throughout the City.

Commissioner, you're much too serious. You really do have to lighten up a little bit. It's okay. Tell me this. In terms -- and I understand your philosophy with regard to, as you talk about and the Mayor talks about, trying to arrest your way out of the problem. And I also recognize that you're not necessarily going to get all the results that you want in, I think we're now in the sixth or seventh month of this particular program. Can you give us a little sense of what is the ultimate goal here? And I guess combined with that, how long can you maintain this kind of activity?

Well, our ultimate goal is to change the quality of life in the City. Last year we locked up 37,000 people in the City of Philadelphia just for drug. We confiscated $40 million in cash just in drugs, and almost $48 million in drug confiscation. The amount of arrests that we make is not important if you still can't come out your house and the kids couldn't come out and play, so numbers are not important to me. The 67 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 ultimate goal is to change the quality of life. In addition to that, the first phase of Safe Streets was law enforce because we knew that the drug dealers would not just turn over. We have Officer Smith in here today who was a very active officer in the 35th District who went to stop three people in drugs probably three or four months ago, and they wind up shooting him. Luckily and by God's blessings, he's here to sit with us today. We know for a fact that as we took over these corners, and it's like an invasion, that there had to be law enforcement first. We didn't community groups to be involved in it because too dangerous. But as we moved on through this process and as we have taken over the corners, then we wanted to build block captains. The town-watch plays a very important part, community groups, business people, clergy is very important. And if I think if we go just year, year and a half that this money will basically even out. I think the fact that we put 60 bike officers out on the street at one time will eliminate a lot of the overtime. Our overtime during the period of summertime -- because we had additional things, our alert went up, we had vacation periods, we had other 68 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 incidents going on, we had the Mardi Gras, we had the Greek Picnic, we had other things like that, so it added on to the overtime. Right now what we're trying to do is strategize how we can reduce overtime. And with Deputy Commissioner Nestel assigned to this, it's not just overtime for Safe Streets, but all overtime in the department, as far as court's concerned, unnecessary overtime. So I think it's just to judge this program in four or five months. But in a year's, we can look at it. There's 30 less people who were shot. When we started Operation Safe Streets May 1st, we were plus seven home sides. Today, from May 1st to the present compared May 1st to the present 2001, we're down 29 homicides. We're down 15,000 less crimes in the City of Philadelphia. So by less amount of people being hurt, less amount of people going to hospitals, less amount of people going to court, if you put all the savings into what's happening because of Operation Safe Streets, I think that this cost will not be as much as it as been in the last four or five months.

Mr. Nutter, if I could just add. With the deployment of the bike officers 69 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 in the 25th, this is just preliminary numbers. I believe we can save about $400,000 a month just by instituting that program there where officers will not be standing on corners; we will have approximately 30 or 40 bikes per shift operating that area, which would be a tremendous savings to the City.

I understand. I mean, you'd be surprised, I guess, to some extent, I'm actually not so much raising a cost of operations question at the moment. What I was actually trying to get to is -- I mean, the one thing that I've clearly been able to understand about the program is you are trying to, in a sports analogy, trying to disrupt the lines of communication and the activity between these two sides who really want to connect with each other. You're trying to intercept their operations. My question really was -- I mean, you'll deploy officers. They will, quote/unquote, take over the corners. They will be a presence. Some of these people, they may be slightly crazy, but many of them are not completely stupid. They will be less likely to engage in their activity at least out where the 70 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 police are. You had the slide up showing that activities will probably, if not already, go inside. And I have a question about that. The question is, how long can you continue to do that and what else are we trying to accomplish beyond that particular goal? I mean, are we trying to stop people from actually getting involved in the drug trade and drug operation? What other goals are we trying to accomplish in addition to standing out there and making sure that people don't do anything on Corner X?

What we're trying to do, and think we've been doing -- when we started this, we had two numbers. One number was to call up for drug information. The other number was if you're addicted to go get help. And I think what we're trying to do is then send a message that no matter how many drugs that come into the City of Philadelphia, we can educate our people, especially our children not to use it and not to sell it, then we've come a long way. This Heads Up Program, we presented in the last year to over 60,000 people. And we're trying to build a strong partnership between the 71 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 community and all people about how we have to have these partnerships to be able to eliminate a lot of the crime and eliminate a lot of the blight in our neighborhoods. No matter how beautiful the neighborhood is, if you still have people selling drugs out there, if you still have people committing crime out there, and people are afraid to come out to those streets, then we really haven't done anything. Maybe I'm not answering your question correctly, but at the same time, my belief is that -- again, I'm using that same word. We're trying change the quality of life and put people and police involved. Community policing is not a program, it's a mindset. It's a mindset from the top down. It's not where we're going through the community and tell the community what we're going to do for them. As I said from the beginning, how can we strategize together to change the quality of life? And I think that's true community policing. That's what we're trying to do.

Just a couple last questions, Commissioner. Tell me as the activity 72 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 moves indoors, and you've already anticipated that, how are we going to deal with that.

In Phase II, we've been working very closely with the US Attorney's Office and with the District Attorney's Forfeiture Unit. I think approximately two weeks ago we forfeited and sealed up three houses up in the Northeast, and they were very beautiful homes. One house, we found over $400,000 worth of heroin inside the house. So we're sending a message that if you're going to deal drugs indoors, you're taking the possibility of getting your house forfeited and sealed up and we're going to enforce that. As I said, we had a meeting with the District Attorneys last week, District Attorney's Office. Thre's a Mr. Whitehead over there who is in charge of their narcotics people right now. So we're working very closely with them. We're just not going to take them off the corners and let them move inside. If they move inside, they're going to suffer the consequences of possibly having their homes forfeited.

This will be my last question. Inspector, one of the slides was this 73 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 candy store operation. You mentioned that it was West Philadelphia. You don't have to put the exact location on the record. But we get reports about these kinds of stores, not so much that distribution methods, but there are often a lot complaints about these local neighborhood stores that have, you know, one can of Pledge, one bottle of dishwashing liquid, and 2 boxes of corn flakes on the shelf, much of has dust on it. So I tend to think that they're possibly in some other business. What actually happened to the candy store after you realized that they were actively engaged in marijuana sales?

Mr. Nutter, every time that we make an arrest inside a private residence or inside a business establishment, the District Attorney's Office, the Forfeiture Unit, is notified. And we request that they start a process where they seize that property. That is an automatic. That is an automatic every time they make an arrest inside that their office is notified. I don't have the exact numbers, but there's different categories where there's like a full and half seal and things of that nature. When you look at the District Attorney's Office numbers, they're pretty 74 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 impressive, Mr. Nutter. The indoor sales, we're handling the indoor sales. The Narcotics Strike Force's primary responsibility is street corner enforcement. The NETS Team operation is street corner enforcement. But the Narcotics Field Divisions, they are tasked with indoor sales. And for the most part, they're not involved in street corner activities, Mr. Nutter.

Commissioner, I look forward to working with you. I'd like to have an opportunity for more in-depth discussion about activities in the 5th, the 19th and the 39th Police Districts as soon as possible.

Yes, I'll be available that you're ready. I'll make myself available. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Councilman Clarke.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, gentlemen. 75 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731

Good morning, sir.

I just wanted to ask you a first questions. Earlier in the slide presentation, I think the term was called displacement of jurisdictions, and essentially meaning that, I'm assuming, that the drug activity is moving to not only other municipalities which I understand it is. I hear some people in Camden are a little upset that we're creating an additional burden on their drug-fighting initiatives. And I guess they need to talk to their police commissioner to impose a similar program. But I'm assuming that we're also talking about moving the activity to other neighborhoods and actually other locations within the same neighborhoods. And while I understand that -- and I don't want to ask you the specifics of what we're going to do because I know a lot of that, frankly speaking, is not something you want to talk about in a public way. One of the questions that I continue to get in my council district because, as you know, I have a very diverse district. I represent Center City, Fairmount, Spring Garden, North Philadelphia, east and west of Broad. In some parts of the district, I get voices 76 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 of concern about staffing levels in areas that are not A, B, C drug corners, open-air drug market areas. Could you, Commissioner, through the Chair provide myself and the members of this committee with a list of the staffing levels in those areas that are not the primary targets of Safe Streets? I just want to make sure that we're not reducing the staff that ultimately will cause some increases in other types of crimes in those areas.

I will have those delivered to you either late this afternoon or the first thing tomorrow morning.

And if in fact -- and this is an assumption on my behalf. If there are reductions in staffing levels in those other areas, could you provide summary as to what would be done to ensure that if we in fact have to reduce the staff that it will not allow increase in other types of crimes?

Yes, sir, I will.

One other issue --

Excuse me one moment, Councilman. Would you give us the information as well? 77 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731

Yes, I'll give it to every Councilperson.

And my district.

Yes, ma'am.

All of the City. Actually I wanted him to do it for all of the City. I just happened to reference my district because I have this strange district. Commissioner, would you agree that conditions breed crime? When I looked at the mapping area, without knowing the specific locations, when I saw the murders in relationship to the drug activity, it looked like they were possibly in some areas where there were some levels of concern with respect to the conditions in those neighborhoods. Do you find in your policing, in your COMSTAT, that the physical conditions of the neighborhoods sometimes have a direct correlation to the levels of activity, drugs and open-air drugs and other types of drug activity.

I believe that it does. The fact that realistically, is that when in certain years -- and I have to admit, a lot of it is the 78 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 Police Department's fault. We let go so long that it's really hard to catch up. Originally, and I said this numerous amount of times. In one area of the City, 75 percent of the drugs coming to the City of Philadelphia was coming to one area, North Philadelphia's East Division. 48 percent of the entire drug arrest for the City of Philadelphia, North Philadelphia East Division. One-third of the entire homicides for the City of Philadelphia, North Philadelphia East Division. In the years that you have a lot of crime and violence then businesses move out, people move out. It has to be a correlation between the condition that people live in and the amount of time the crime that happens in those particular areas. Even though people may be in the Northeast and other areas that live in good houses that don't have that open-air drug sales, but they have drug problems in their homes. It doesn't make any difference whether you come from a $50,000 or a $100,000 home or a million dollar home. Darryl Strawberry making five and a half million dollars a year, addicted to drugs. Jimmi Hendrix, John Belushi, Richard Pryor, we can name person after person. Drugs has no color, drugs has no economic 79 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 stature. Drugs affect all people. It doesn't make any different what race you are. But the fact that we have a kid that growing p in Fifth and Indiana has a better chance of getting involved i drugs than the kid that's growing up at Byberry and Academy. The facts that businesses are moving out, churches have closed their doors, businesses have closed their doors. It breeds a lot of things. That's why I constantly said, law enforcement will not arrest our way out of this problem. So I do believe, with you, I think we're essentially saying the same thing, the condition that a kid lives in sometimes is going make the difference of -- not in all cases, but sometimes going the conditions of what he's going to grow up to be, what he's going to come in contact with. Everybody doesn't want Safe Streets to work. There are streets that we have raided and had eight houses on one block. That was the whole economics in that block was drugs. You have some people who are in rehab don't want it to work because they would lose money. So as long as there's drug activity there, as long as people -- I mean some of these kids are paying their parents 80 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 rent. Some of these kids are paying utility bills. They grow up like that. So I agree totally the conditions in certain neighborhoods breed crime.

I actually asked that question -- as you may know, I live in the Strawberry Mansion community and the probably the most heinous drug corridor in that community is 31st Street which at one point was the strongest commercial corridor in North Philadelphia. We actually had a movie theater and shoe stores and all types of other activity where you virtually never had to go downtown, but things happen. The riots happened, there was looting, burning, vandalism. And that corridor essentially became a corridor that the drug dealers took as their own. And we recently targeted that particular corridor for massive demolition and removal of that debris. And the people in the community were very happy because we removed what was essentially a blighted condition that allowed all of that negative activity to take place. With that, can you talk to me about the Police Department's role in the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative as we continue to target 81 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 various areas for transformation nation and improving the quality of life? Does the Police Department play a key role in the planning initiatives and the implementation of those programs?

It does because we would have to. You're not going to have a striving neighborhood if you don't have a safe neighborhood. They can build all the beautiful homes and all the beautiful parks you have. You want to build, but if people can't utilize these places, then you have a problem. I remember 33, you had Pat Steaks up there. You had a whole lot of things up there. But businesses will go where they feel safe at. They're not going to go where they feel they're going to be robbed or people are going to take over their businesses. So we have been working very closely with Ms. Smith and NTI. The Mayor has made it mandatory that not just the Police Department, but the Health Department, the Fire Department, all City agencies work together to attack this problem in changing the quality of life, cleaning up lots. I think one of the things that helped us 82 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 tremendously was the removing of all abandoned cars. They were stashing drugs in cars. The blight and those things -- and I think once the neighborhood felt as though the police was concerned, the City was concerned, even during Operation Sunrise, they came out and they got concerned. We have officers in the 26th District on a weekly basis go out there and clean the neighborhood. The first two or three weeks they did it by themselves. The third week, the community came out and started doing it. So I think NTI and safety and Safe Streets and all this has to go hand in hand. As they move in one neighborhood, we have to move with them. And we have to build up a strong community group, strong town-watch, strong block captains, because I think for a long period of time the people felt as though, even with Operation Safe Streets, it was a publicity type stunt. The drug dealers we heard on wiretaps, "It ain't gonna to last. We can outlast them." Well they're not going to outlast us and we're going to be there. We're going to be there for as long as it possibly takes and strategize and do everything we can, whether we have the money or we don't have the money -- quite 83 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 naturally, we need the money. But we're committed to going out there doing everything we can to change the quality of life. And we will accept any partners that we can. We've now accepted inmates from Graterford Prison. We accept people from rehab. We'll accept everybody to join our partnership. There has to be a holistic type of approach.

One last question. By the way, that was the original Pat Steaks up at 31st Street. The steaks were much better when they were up in Strawberry Mansion. Commissioner, I want to ask you one last question with respect to the volunteers for the program. Not the Police Department employee volunteers, but the volunteers that we've been asking people in the neighborhoods to participate in the various programs. And I'm not clear as to how that will work. Although I've been promoting it in several community meetings. I know that at one point we were actually talking about individuals being a part of bike patrols.

What would happen is that we want them to join town-watch organizations which 84 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 we think are very effective and a strong partner with us. The bike patrol, we have police officers and civilians on town-watch who are walking. Then we want to give them bikes to go out there. We have certain organizations that are town-watch people who instead of walking, they will be on bikes in their own neighborhoods. We want block captains to go out there and organize their streets in their communities. And we want them to be involved with the district captains and the PDAC associations. We want the clergy to be involved. But I think Anthony Murphy, I believe I seen him come in here, was in charge of town-watch and has been doing a tremendous job. It's more than just riding a bike. When the chief mentioned that we were going to have a bike ride next Thursday for 40 miles, I can't keep up with them. I don't even try no more. I just come out there and I ride the best that I can. But I think it's effective the fact that we go through the neighborhoods, that they see the Mayor, they see the police officers on bikes. I think bikes are very effective because they're mobile. One of the other things we did with the 85 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 bike patrol, instead of having two officers, we're going to have three with the idea that when they make an arrest, that one officer can go in there and do the paperwork and the other two can stay out there. They can continue to patrol. I want all of us to go into true community policing. I just don't want them to ride by a corner. Go out there and talk to the kids. I don't want them to just ride by a school, talk to the people in the schools, talk to the neighbors. We need their support. And every Philadelphia Police Officer has to live in the City of Philadelphia. We're all Philadelphians. It doesn't make any difference what neighborhood we have, but it affects everyone. So I think right now with the town-watch, with the block captains, with the community groups -- in certain areas we have strong ones; some we weak ones. But I think their responsibility, Anthony Murphy, and the people it has start building a strong community group and strong town-watch organizations that are like our eyes and ears. We don't want them to be vigilantes we just want them to assist and help us.

Thank you, Commissioner. 86 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731

Councilwoman Miller.

Thank you. Good morning, Commissioner.

Good morning.

And I'd like to applaud you on behalf of myself and my constituents.

Thank you.

And the entire Police Department. I'd like to know -- I want a follow-up to a question that Councilman Clarke asked regarding the bike patrols. Earlier when you stated that you were going to have 60 bike officers, does that mean that that number is for the bike officers in the program you're going to start in a couple weeks?

No. When I say 60, that's 60 additional bike officers that will be assigned to the Narcotics Strike Force. Now, the districts will have their bike officers. In addition to that, we already have bike officers that are already in narcotics. We plan on having approximately 100 people who are trained in narcotics to ride bikes in addition to the districts. If there's a problem in the Northeast, we're going to put 14, 15 bikes up 87 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 there. If there's a problem in the Northwest -- we will pu bicycles where they're needed to go out there and to saturate these areas in regard to the patrols. So overall, I think -- I may be wrong, but Deputy Commissioner Mitchell might be able to inform you. We have approximately 200 trained officers in the City of Philadelphia, a little more than that right now that are trained. These 60 are brand-new officers in an elite unit assigned to the Narcotics Strike Force.

In teams of three.

Well, we thought to have teams of three because if you only have the two out there, and I think this something that Chief Blackburn came up with idea. Because if you have two and they make an arrest, then they both go off the street for a period of time. If you have three, then only one will go in there. And they make numerous amounts of arrests. That way you will have constant bike patrol on that eight-hour tour.

I think that we need a briefing, Councilmembers need a briefing on the whole issue of the new deployments and all the other stuff more than just today. Because I have a 88 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 ton of questions I'm not going to ask this morning. But I do have other questions. Will those bike officers be assigned to the "A" corner neighborhoods? How are you going to do that?

The bike officers will be deployed citywide. They're not just going to be going to certain areas. Again, remember, we have 200. We just don't have -- these are just 60 additional people.

Okay.

And the members of the Department, especially myself and our executive staff, will be glad to come City Council at any time to give you a debriefing or anything that you want and take for as long as it possibly will take or any questions that you may have asked us. We need the support of City Council, and we want City Council to know exactly -- especially because of your constituents -- of what we plan on doing; what we've done, what we're doing, and what we plan on doing.

Great. And I also have a question around the Safe Streets officers. Are they Safe Streets only officers. 89 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731

No, they're not. And I think there's another misperception. We have six divisions in the City of Philadelphia. We don't take officers from another division to put into a different division. Most of the officers on Safe Streets are really on overtime, but they come from that particular division. They're officers that are normally working overtime. Some are working regular time, but a large amount are working overtime. They're officers who on a daily basis patrol the streets of Philadelphia. That's not just thier responsibility. He could be working Safe Streets today and in a car tomorrow or on a foot beat tomorrow.

One of the reasons I asked was because I was wondering if the Safe Streets officer receive some different type of community relations training. Because as you indicated in your testimony that the morale in neighborhoods are up, the morale in the Department is up. I mean, I have actually seen neighbors having a real conversation and dialog with police officers, which has all been very positive. I've seen and heard neighbors and residents offer police 90 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 officers chairs, food, water, all kinds of things. I mean, they really are beginning to feel like they're a part of the neighborhood, particularly the same ones who are on corner all the time. People get to know them. They're walking up to them very comfortable. And I think that's just a wonderful way of community policing. And it has, I've seen it. I sat with a Safe Streets officer one day for about an hour, and I was just amazed at how many people actually came up to the car to the officers saying "thank you."

First thing, every City of Philadelphia Police Officer is a Safe Streets officer because he can be assigned on those corners at any time. In addition to that, I think in the Police Department, a lot of the officer felt as though by going to these corners that they would not be welcome. They have been overly welcome. So I think the relationship and the mindset on both sides has completely changed. And I think that's one of the other positive things of Safe Streets. It's that connection there. It makes us reevaluate do we need foot beats. We got away from foot beats now. We may have to look into that and see what whether 91 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 we should have officers back there on those foot beats that would come in contact with the community. So it's been a change of the mindsets on both sides. And the police officers are glad to be on those corners and glad to be in those communities because they are being told "thank you" and they're welcome. They feel very good about what's going on.

That's right. I was able to go to a store in my area, Chew and Shelton which mostly everybody in the Police Department knows that that's really a pretty bad, pretty rough corner. Ad I went to a store there that I haven't been to in years. And the reason I knew that I could go to the store was because there was a police presence, and it felt good being able to go and not have to go, you know, three or four blocks away out of your way to purchase something that you could just purchase a little bit close. So I again want to salute you and I think it's a good program and I do look forward to whatever briefing we'll have.

Thank you very much.

Councilman Ortiz. 92 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731

Good morning, Commissioner.

Good morning.

Commissioner, it feels like we've been through this a long, long time over the years. And I agree with you, we are obviously not going to arrest our way out of this problem. And we're not going to be able to achieve what we want in this City unless we deal with the other aspects of -- that create the need for the drug issue, the demand for drugs in the City. But I would like to find out if -- has the amount of drugs -- because we have spoken over the years about the East Division being the warehouse of drugs in the City. And has the amount of drugs coming into the City diminished in any perceptible way?

Realistically, I don't believe so. From our intelligence, drugs are still coming here from New York and other areas. East Division, I don't think is really the stash house. The distribution centers -- a lot of these places, New York and some of them in the Northeast and some of the others areas where they don't sell out of, but they keep the drugs in those particular places. 93 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 East still has a big problem because they're so embedded in East for such a long period of time. That's where most people came to buy their drugs, on these corners. That's why we have over a hundred drug corners right there on the same streets that's right there in the East. Because when people came over those bridges and came to the City, they knew exactly where to go: Go to East Division, there's less enforcement there, there's more corners there. Out of 300 corners, if you got over a hundred corners in just one district or one division, then obviously there's a problem. It took us 20, 14 years. Ninth and Indiana historically -- 15

Eighth and Butler. 16

Eighth and Butler, right. 17 If you go by those corners right now, you don't see 18 that. 19

Seventh and Pike. 20

Well, everyone in the 21 police department knows what corner. And not only 22 do we know them, but every buyer knew them. They 23 knew exactly where to go. Again, that's just my 24 opinion. Chief Inspector Blackburn may have a 25 different opinion, but I don't think the amount of 94 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 drugs has diminished. It might have intensified. But I'll let him give his opinion about that.

Mr. Ortiz, I don't believe that the drugs coming into Philadelphia has diminished. But what I do see is, I see some shifts. I see the City of Philadelphia now supplying other areas of the East Coast. We see Philadelphia more in the past maybe as a buyer, classified as a buyer --

So we're becoming a retailer, distributor.

I have a couple of long-term investigations that have shown a large amount of drugs leaving Philadelphia and going to other parts of the East Coast. They're confidential investigations. In fact, one of them concluded last night where we showed a shift in the drugs leaving the City. But I believe it's because we have disrupted and we discouraged people coming in to buy drugs. I believe that's the phenomenon from this. And we can support that with, as the Commissioner said, some of our long-term wiretap investigations where we hear conversations -- where in the past drugs were never fronted. They wouldn't front a 95 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 hundred dollars worth of drugs. We're seeing thousands and tens of thousands of dollars worth of drugs being fronted.

But we are the -- still the amount of drugs has not diminished?

I don't believe it's diminished.

We're still more or less a warehouse of distribution, whether that changes in terms of to whom and where. The drugs still in Philadelphia have not been lowered. Councilman.

Thank you, Councilman. Inspector, the quick question is, why? I mean, of all of the things for the City to be leading in the nation in, to be honest with you, and the double benefit of lowest price, highest purity, why is this taking place in Philadelphia?

Mr. Nutter, I've asked this question. Mr. Johnson has asked this question. I've asked DEA. And their explanation is that, in other major cities, for example, New York, they have gangs like the Crips and the Bloods who control a 96 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 disproportionate amount of the drug cartels in that particular area. In the City of Philadelphia, we don't have that particular close control by organizations or gangs. We have a lot of independents. So what they do to keep the price down and the quality up, they're going to sell their drugs. It's all stamped with different brand names. The people, the buyers, know where to buy the best drugs. If you're selling at 8th and Butler at 40 percent heroin, and a block up the street you're selling at 80 percent heroin, you're not going to get any business. They keep it at a high level.

I understand the fundamental laws of economics.

I know.

I'm trying to understand why is it that Philadelphia -- what is so unique to our City that would cause this kind of phenomenon? That's what I'm trying to understand.

I'll just give you my opinion. Drugs go where there's least enforcement.

Where there's?

Least enforcement. For a long period of time, the least enforcement for drug 97 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 activity was Philadelphia. When we had that Council hearing -- and I think even when I looked on the tape last night, in the entire Narcotics Bureau in 1997 we had 200 people assigned to narcotics for the entire City. And at that time, district police officers were not allowed to enforce narcotics laws because of the 39th District scandal. So it just flourished here. And people came here because in New York they had strong activity. In Washington they had strong activity; Baltimore had strong activity. But we had I-95; you've got the seaport; you've got the airport. This was a major distribution where people were coming from all over Philadelphia because we didn't enforce it. We were number driven. Fishnets. It wasn't important then. We weren't asked those same type of questions that we're being asked today. We were asked about our numbers, "How many arrests did you make last year?" We made 50,000 arrests between 1992 and 1998. We didn't change anything. So we had to go into a different area. And it's just my opinion that we didn't deal with the communities the way we're dealing with the communities right now. But the fact is that 98 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 drugs and drug dealers go where there's least enforcement. For a long period of time on the East Coast, the least enforcement for drug activity was Philadelphia.

Thank you, Councilman.

Excuse me, one moment. I'm sorry, Councilman. I don't believe there were any questions for the Fire Commissioner. I know that you've got a busy, busy day so, therefore, if there are no questions, you're free to leave, Commissioner. Councilman Ortiz.

The street corner individual is the most easily replaceable person in the drug trade hierarchy; is that correct?

Absolutely, sir.

And that is the individual that forms that revolving door of arrest, court, and they're usually very young. And since they are the individuals that we are, in Operation Safe Streets, really putting a focus on attacking, what are the alternatives? Are we reaching out to those individuals? Because I think you've got the 99 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 right idea in which it's not incarceration that is going to do this. It's going to be something else. But if you're interrupting the process that is the only source of livelihood of those individuals in those neighborhoods at the present time, what are we doing with them? I mean, are we just moving them off the corner, arresting them and then they come out -- as we all know, they will come out immediately. So what is the plan? You move them out. What happens to those kids? I mean -- and I know, Commissioner, your job is one job. I'm just saying whether in the planning this has been looked at, because it is a very young community of folks that we're dealing with when we're dealing with street corner drug dealers and sellers. So I want to know what is it that the Administration, in terms of the projection of Operation Safe Streets, in terms of those young individuals and what it is, if anything, is thought about them?

Well, I think there's a couple things. One is that we're not just targeting street corner drug sales. The Narcotics Bureau's mission is to go after organizations, and I think it's been that way for the last four or five years 100 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 that we go after organizations. When you lock up a child one or two times or three times, I don't think the fact that there's nothing else for them to do gives them the reason to sell drugs on those corners. At least that's my belief. If you lock up sellers today, 8 you'll get 10 more tomorrow. We're going after the 9 mid-level person. We're going after the dealers. 10 We're going after the suppliers. And when we go after them, we normally take them federally. We have opened our doors -- because we are not social workers, but we will sit down at the table with social workers. We will sit down at the table with anyone that can help us out to join that partnership. I think once we solve a lot of the problems in our neighborhoods and you have the businesses start coming back into the neighborhoods and we can have the opportunity for these kids to get jobs. We just don't want to bring them from one corner to another corner. We just don't want to lock them up for -- we've got some people we've locked up five or six times even on Operation Safe Streets. 101 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731

I understand that. But what I'm saying is, are their discussions to evolve a program, a plan, to be able to achieve what you're saying? At the present time, are discussions going on along those lines? Because if you're going to disrupt the commercial aspects of drugs in those neighborhoods, you're going to create another problem because that's the livelihood of most of those kids and probably the families that they come from. So do we have an idea of what we want to do along those lines?

Okay. To be very -- the Police Department doesn't have any idea about giving them jobs or helping them out in any way.

I'm not saying you, sir. I'm saying --

Well, I don't know what the City -- we've discussed this with a lot of different people in the City agencies to try to assist them in training. There's other groups that's out there to try to get them into some sort of educational program. But as far as the law enforcement is concerned --

I understand about 102 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 law enforcement. I see -- Darrell.

Thank you, Councilman. Councilman, I just wanted to kind of briefly respond to the question that you were asking the Commissioner. And this is obviously not an answer to your question in its entirety, because I don't know the answer. I don't think the Commissioner, not to speak for him, may know the answer in its entirety. But one of the things we did working with some good people both in and out of government, we targeted those particular individuals. We recently had a job fair and we worked with the Philadelphia Work Force Development and Men United for a Better Philadelphia, a number of individuals that work in and out of government. And I think Anthony was involved in that also. And we had a job fair up in a recreation district up in North Philadelphia, and we specifically targeted those individuals in terms of our outreach; where the individuals from the organizations actually went out on street corners and talked to these individuals who were selling a product and tried to 103 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 encourage them to participate in this job fair. And interestingly enough, I must say I was somewhat surprised, is that a substantial, I mean substantial, amount of individuals actually showed up to a job fair because their premise was that they understood that this wasn't where they really wanted to be. They wanted an alternative. We targeted the employers and we were very candid with the employers. We actually told them the population that we were attempting to address. And they came to the job fairs understanding that these were, to a large degree, you know, somewhat unemployable individuals. And they actually hired people on the site, giving them an opportunity. And that too, obviously, will only deal with a small amount of individuals, but I think we should duplicate that. Another thing we did -- actually, it was a Bill that was sponsored by Councilman Wilson Goode. We had the hearing on the micro-enterprises. In that public hearing we got a commitment from a number of the individuals to work with coming up with a strategy that would hopefully put these individuals, who are entrepreneurs and probably have 104 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 some of the best distribution systems in the world -- only problem is they're selling the wrong product -- to focus on a program where they can actually sell things. We're actually looking at targeting clothing wear. We're going to be working with a couple of guys up in the neighborhood who are actually building some stalls and creating some opportunities for people to sell clothes. So I think it's something like this, you've got to get extremely creative. I just think that every elected official and every appointed official and every citizen probably needs to pitch in and, to some degree, kind of come up with some strategic initiative to get these people focused on other activities. I think, by and large, if you talk to these guys on the street, they're not really happy because most of them are not -- Commissioner, you can, I guess, address this. They don't really make a whole lot of money. I mean, you're out there making $50, $100 a day. That is not really a productive life for those individuals. So we can just get creative in bringing up some other alternatives. So I just wanted to kind of throw 105 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 that out there, some of the things that we're trying to do.

That's what I'm saying. I talked to many of the individuals on the corners. They don't want to be out there. Obviously, if they had something else, they would be doing it. And, Commissioner, I know you don't have the answer. What I'm saying is, and it's just a question, that if you have a program that does something, it's cause and effect. And once you push, there's going to be a result of that. And I think as an Administration -- and I know that Commissioner Martinez is there itching to say something. So, Commissioner Martinez, if you want to say something, please, you can come up.

I just want to support the Police Commissioner in answering this question in a very brief, kind of sketchy way since the focus is his work. There is a huge effort underway and many things being implemented around linking systems, social services systems, in the City and also targeting resources into the highest risk neighborhoods. 106 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 And just a short laundry list of the kinds of things that we are doing. We're doing more assessments in the court system. When kids come into the court system, there's assessments that happen right there in the Youth Study Center. Assessments happen immediately, not only processing kids. And, you know, we're trying to shift the system away from being a holding kind of system and a machine to being a system where much more value is placed on assessment; and doing a good assessment once or twice, not 50 times like we often do because systems don't coordinate. Second of all, it's critical in social work practice to link assessment to action. So we're really designing a system, a social service system, where we don't accept doing an assessment of someone and not offering them something in return to needs that are identified. Next month we're going to open a center called the Achieving Independence Center that targets and serves kids in foster care that are 16 to 21 or kids who have exited foster care, 16 to 24. Why is that critical -- oh, and the focus of it is employment and education. It's in partnership with 107 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 the Workforce Development Center. Why is that important? Because there's a high correlation between foster care, delinquency, and youth crime. There's also three youth opportunity centers run by the Workforce Development System that we are linking into our social services systems. We've also opened 400 slots of an Intensive Delinquency Prevention Program to try to make sure that kids don't have to become adjudicated in order to get intensive service. We also have 11 beacon schools. And beacon schools are programs that are open until 9, 10, 11 o'clock at night where quality services are offered. The Recreation Department has opened three teen centers. The bottom line is this: The work that he is doing creates additional incentives for kids to accept the services that are offered. Because in the absence of consequence for bad behavior -- you've got social services systems offering them good things. They choose not to use the services we offer. There's no consequence. Now, the pressure that the Police Department is putting helps us because the choice looks better. But more importantly, we're also very conscious that we need 108 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 to offer quality services to kids or we might as well not offer anything at all.

Thank you, Commissioner. Going back to -- and you mentioned it. Since the amount of drugs have not diminished and you said that there's a process of going through those systems that are established -- I remember in the early days the blue tape gang, the yellow tape gang. During the last year, what organizations have we put out of business in the City of Philadelphia? And how many and what's been the total amount of drugs in those organizations and money, if any, confiscated and so on? And what has been the result in terms of incarceration and punishment?

We would like to be able to sit down with you and the other members of City Council in private to discuss all those organizations that we've taken down, because some of them are still flourishing, some of them are cooperating with us. And we would also like to be in private to give you the amount. But just from this year we've confiscated over $58 million in drug 109 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 confiscations, just this year. But I said that we will give you a debriefing on drug --

That's been split between City and Federal or State?

Well, what happens is that -- my philosophy, as was Mr. Timoney's philosophy, especially my philosophy, is that we have -- I have 20, almost 30 people in DEA. I have people in the FBI. So we work hand in hand. They have the resources. They have the manpower. And one of the other things that's a benefit to that is that when we confiscate money with the federal sector -- they can have 28 agencies. We have one. We get 80 percent of that money. So I believe in putting our people, as long as they're working on the side of the City of Philadelphia. But as I said, I will be glad to come to City Council in a confidential meeting and give you an update with names, locations, everything of the drug things that happen here in the City of Philadelphia. But we have taken down numerous amounts of organizations.

I have one question for Mr. Dubow. Mr. Dubow. It's related to the police. 110 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 I see the two Bills in terms of monies that are from, to. Could you give us a breakdown so we have a better idea of what is the -- how the money is going to be taken from departments? From what department is the money going and being transferred to the Police Department to be able to cover this? And could you give us specifics, how much and what, if any programs have been affected in terms of health, DHS, whatever?

Yes. For Fiscal Year '02 the money that went -- the from section is from health -- that's for the nursing home. Census was lower than the appropriation allowed for.

That money is going to the police request?

Well, it's going to the police. There are four items that are getting money in '02, so all the money, all the from, is going to those four items. So part of it goes to police. Part of it goes to the First Judicial District. Part of it goes to procurement and part of it goes to commissioners. It's not one for one. So there's three areas where all the money that goes to those four agencies come from. That has no 111 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 impact on service. It's just appropriation power that was put in the Health Department in case the census of the nursing home went up. It didn't go up as much as we anticipated. The second item that we took money from was fringe benefits line.

But does -- go ahead.

The fringe benefit line was lower than we anticipated because there were fewer employees because of the hiring freeze. And then the rest comes from the debt service line, and so that had no impact on service. In '03, the money is essentially coming from unanticipated grants line in the Finance Department. So it's not coming from any department's budget. So it's not being taken from a department and it doesn't have an impact on service in any other area.

And what are those grants?

What that line is, it's really to cover if there are unanticipated costs that come up during the year. We move money from that line over to the General Fund.

Thank you. 112 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you. Are there any other questions of the Police Department? Commissioner, thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you.

And all of you fellows and ladies, too. Mr. Dubow, I have a few other questions for other departments. In the FY '02 testimony, you state that the First Judicial District overspent the child support grant over $17 million. How is this possible? Who is responsible for the oversight and auditing of these types of grants? Does the City Controller play any role in this when the audits --

They get an appropriation every year, just to answer the first part of the question. The appropriation was in anticipation of their getting a certain level of grant funding. They didn't get that level. They spent the entire appropriation and didn't get the entire level of the grant. We in the Finance Department should have done a better job of monitoring that than we did. 113 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 So we have to take part of the responsibility for the overspending happening. The Controller has kind of a post expenditure function. They're auditing it at the end of the year.

Does he audit all of the funds? Someone from the Controller's office was here.

Yes, they have -- they were here before. They do do some auditing. Yes, they do.

What was the original amount of the grant?

They get about $14 million a year in that grant.

How can we be sure that they haven't overspent on other grants that they have been awarded? Is there anything being done to make sure this error doesn't occur again?

Yes. We're doing two things with them now. We are actually holding some of their appropriations in reserve and we won't release those if they go over their budget and --

Well, 114 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 actually, don't they have an annual surplus?

They have an annual surplus in the General Fund. This is over in the Grants Fund. And when you combine the two, they actually have not really had a surplus the last couple of years. The other thing that we'll do is if they're running up against their 100 appropriation, we'll stop letting them hire under the grant.

Well, I don't understand why isn't that money being used to pay back a larger portion of the grant. What is the current surplus?

Well, part of what we did this year, they ran -- they reported a five and a half million dollar surplus in '02. In a typical year, that would get transferred over to their Court Improvement Account in the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts. But since they ran the deficit, we did not transfer that over this year. So we're counting that against the deficit that they ran.

Any other questions? 115 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 (No response.) Well, it's Public Property. Is anyone from Public Property here?

No. But if the questions are about the security --

That's my question.

Yes. Rick Tustin is here. He'll be able to answer those questions.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Councilwoman.

State your name for the record, please.

My name is Rick Tustin and I serve as the Director of the Capital Program Office for the City of Philadelphia.

What security measures are being implemented so far and who did the work and how much has been spent?

Okay. The original request for City Hall in particular was $6.5 million.

Beg your 116 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 pardon?

$6.5 million for additional security for City Hall. That money will be spent on projects, individual projects. What we have done 6 so far is we have taken two projects and we've 7 completed them, which is the installation of a steel 8 bollard system that rings the perimeter of City Hall 9 in order to restrict traffic from getting onto the 10 apron. And I know that also requires another level 11 of enforcement as well. Because along with those 12 bollards, there are areas that have been left open 13 for gates that need to be left open for access by 14 sanitation trucks for picking up trash from the 15 building, as well as other areas for access to certain corners of the building.

Excuse me.

The other thing that's being completed --

Excuse me, Mr. Tustin. I'm sorry. Excuse me.

Councilman Nutter.

Thank you, Madam Chair. 117 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 Is that what those bollards are for?

Those bollards are intended to keep traffic, vehicular traffic in particular, off the apron.

Wow. I didn't realize that. I thought they were primarily decorative. Did you pick the color? And who decided about the yellow chain? Where did that idea come from?

Well, the color was actually approved by the Historic Commission.

Really? Is there, like, government green or something?

Well, it was a close match to what the existing bollards were on the north side of City Hall. And as we do with any capital project, Public Works project, we need approval from the Historic Commission for anything relating to this building.

So people actually sat around and thought about this?

Absolutely. As far as the chains go, Councilman, the chains are a temporary way of closing off those areas where we will have 118 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 permanent gates in the future, and the Department of Public Property provided those chains. I don't know if that was the only color available at the time.

No, they painted them.

Oh, did they?

I saw some guys out there one day, yeah. And there's one on the Market Street side that I found particularly intriguing. That one has -- apparently a part of the feature is a milk crate is apparently part of the security feature designed into the chain. I don't really understand it. You might want to check it out. I'm not really sure.

I'll have to discuss that with the --

I always thought of milk crates up on poles as a part of a basketball operation.

Councilman, was the milk crate approved by the Historic Commission?

Well, I'm not sure, Councilman. I think that's an issue that needs to be raised. 119 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731

I actually don't think that was approved since it's a temporary measure and they don't have to approve temporary measures.

The Councilman and I collect -- between us, we collect wooden milk crates. We're planning to make -- remember the scooters?

Yes.

Instead of skateboards, we're going to use the scooters.

What's that new human thing that you ride around? Way before they came along, you just got a milk crate and a couple wheels and nailed them together.

The predecessor to the skateboard. I think they were --

It was called a scooter. The bottle caps. Councilman has a bottle cap collection. I have the skates.

When we provide the permanent gates at that location, we'll donate those boxes to your office, if you'd like to hold on to those.

Did you ever shoot 120 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 tops? No, I'm sorry. Thank you, Madam.

Could I follow-up on the Councilman's question on that line?

Yes.

Rick, when they do get to where they're going -- I mean, many times my staff brings someone in, say, a priest or a rabbi or a clergyman, and sometimes they're older, and we like to drive up on the pavement. Now we can't do that. Will there be, like, a gate where maybe we can have a car? Because we're not allowed to park there anymore. The Inquirer made sure of that. So that's fine.

I think the intent is to have controlled access to the apron. The Department of Public Property is a responsible party for monitoring that. And if you have visitors that you need to have come into the building and you need to have access to the apron, I'm sure a phone call to their department, they would be available to open the gate to let people come in to make deliveries and then close it after they leave.

And, Rick, along 121 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 that line, controlled access is great. This isn't a shot at you; please don't take it that way. About two weeks ago someone broke in my office. Will it be as controlled as that? Because anybody walks around in here. If they come in any other door but there, nobody knows about it.

I don't know --

There's controlled, and there's controlled.

Correct. Part of a long range plan -- or not even a long range plan, but the immediate plan for security for City Hall's part of the $6.5 million is not just for bollards around the exterior of the building. It's to limit access into the building and control it so that people can come in through only specific points. In addition to that, there will be monitoring devices on each floor in each hallway that will all be tied back to a central control.

Can I ask this? When this security happens, will there, by any chance, be a program that eliminates anyone from the building, trades getting in here, like a profiler? This guy is with the building trades, he's white, 122 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 he's with the building trades, he may not live in Philadelphia. Besides the jackets, will there be anything like that?

Councilman.

No, that's serious a question. I need that for the record, because nobody wants a profiler --

There's a serious answer, too. The Department of Public Property is also responsible for people that come into the building to perform construction work or any kind of related work. They should have a list of the individuals and the laborers that are on the job and where they are located in the building. So that kind of information should be available if you need that.

Thank you.

That was going to be my question. What future security measures have to be implemented?

There are many more security measures that we anticipate implementing. Right now we have under design enhancements to the elevators within the building. So not only will we be able to improve the service of elevators, but 123 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 also provide security as part of that elevator itself. We're looking at --

If the elevators work, you know, because sometimes you stand there for minutes. 7

They're actually 8 going to work; that's the enhancement. 9

Our hope is that they do 10 work very well. Where is Andy Perez when I need him?

Are these projects bid out, Rick?

I think I should have stepped out and left Andy in here.

Are they bid out to the procurement, these projects?

The elevators are in the design process right now. They should be bid out shortly, and so that, hopefully, in the early spring we'll start to see that work being done on the elevators. In addition to that, we have a firm on board now doing design, looking at the entrances into the building, which entrances should have 124 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 security desks, which entrances should have controlled access via turnstiles, metal detectors on other entrances. On the first floor there are over ways of getting into the building from the 6 outside, on the first floor alone. 7 We're going to restrict access through a 8 card access system and a back-up camera system, all 9 tied back to a central command center that will be 10 manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So that 11 not only will they know when you come in that door, 12 but they'll have a video of that as well. 13 So in addition to that, we're talking 14 about putting some cameras within the hallways of 15 each and every floor so that, in particular, after 16 hours, after the building is vacated, after 5 p.m. or 6 p.m., there will be a way of monitoring who's in the building on each and every floor and if, in fact, they belong there and you don't have strangers walking around and hopefully not breaking into a Councilperson's office. So those --

When do you think this is going to be on its way and completed? Do you have an idea?

Well, we have it under 125 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 design now. As I said, we have -- we've broken it into 15 small design packages because we'd like to do each one simultaneously so that we can get the work started earlier rather than later. We would expect that you'll start to see some of these improvements in early spring.

Again, I'll 9 ask the question. Are these projects, are they bid 10 out of the procurement or the Capital Program? What 11 role do you play in this? 12

Our office is responsible 13 for overseeing the design and putting the packages 14 together. Once the bid packages are together, they 15 go to the Procurement Department, who then is responsible putting them out. They will all be Public Works contracts.

Thank you, Rick.

You're welcome.

Are there any other questions? Are there any other questions for any departments from the Members of Committee?

Councilman Mariano. 126 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731

On 020731, I was wondering if someone from the Council President's Office can come here and answer some questions I may have about the $1,500,000 for legal work? Can we have someone, maybe the Council President or Charlie McPherson?

I'm sorry, Councilman. What did you say?

On Bill No. 020731, I have some rather serious questions about the one --

And you want to question Mr. McPherson?

Or the Council President. Whoever is available. Or their designee.

Are there going to be any questions for the Health Commissioner or the Human Services Commissioner?

No. If there are no other questions for any other department, they're free to go. Thank you very much.

I believe it's just the Law Department. Is someone here from the 127 12/4/02 - APPROPRIATIONS - BILL 020729, 020731 Law Department?

Yes. Just Budget and Law.

The Committee on Appropriations will stand in recess until tomorrow morning at a.m. Thank you. 7 (Council adjourned at 1:08 p.m.) 8 - - - 9 128 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 December 4, 2002, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. RE: COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS ___________________________ Lisa C. Bradley, RPR and Notary Public