Mayoral election in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (May 21, 2019 Democratic primary)

Public Safety

• The homicide rate and occurrences of shootings are out of control. Alan will make public safety a top priority and will focus on addressing the root causes behind our homicide crisis and gun violence.
• Alan will finally put a stop to the practice of “stop & frisk”
• Alan will bring back neighborhood community policing similar to “Operation Sunrise” and create safe corridors where we can move safely around our neighborhoods
• Sufficient police presence to deter shootings
• Will advocate for Focused Deterrence strategies

Diversity & Minority Contracting
Kenney is taking our city backwards to a time when Minorities didn’t have a share in our city:

• Canceling minority contracts and delaying renewals
• Cancelled PRWT facilities contract for 1500 Arch Street, the Municipal Services Building, and the Criminal Justice Center
• Has reduced African American city contracts from 19.5% to 17.3%
• Has reduced the minority share of procurement department contracts from 67% to 17%

Alan has a proven record of fighting for minority contractors:

• As City Controller, he and his office interviewed 1,500 contractors, identified problems such as lack of access to capital, and made specific recommendations to city government based on best practices in other cities.
• As Controller Alan is the first member of City Government to bring enforcement action against someone for cheating minority contractors out of their fair share, when he brought a fraudulent action against Bork Contracting

Job Creation & Economic Development
Philadelphia is experiencing a crisis of poverty – the poorest major city in the United States
Alan will move our city forward:

• Prioritize new job creation and economic growth for everyone
• Focus on jobs with sustainable, living wages
• New jobs at the Port of Philadelphia will provide high-paying, family sustaining employment

Tax Reform
Right now, our system creates big tax increases every year - this is unacceptable

• Reassessments should be revenue neutral. It should be an automatic annual tax increase as it is now
• Will reform taxation and create policies that are progressive – meaning people are taxed according to what they can afford to pay
• Will cap property tax increases at 6% a year max
• Kenney’s Loop Program is flawed and doesn’t provide the relief that he claims it does.

Alan Will Eliminate Corruption

• Kenney’s past and current campaigns for Mayor have been largely funded and completely controlled by John Dougherty, who is currently under federal indictment
• We must hold our elected leaders to a higher standard^[40]

Mayor Kenney's Progressive Record

• Created PHLpreK to provide access to free, quality pre-K for thousands of mostly low-income children.
• Took back control of Philadelphia’s public schools from the state so that for the first time in almost 20 years, the School District is led by a locally-appointed Board of Education.
• Increased funding for our public schools by over half a billion dollars.
• Gave public school teachers their first contract and pay raise in five years.
• Launched Rebuild, the most ambitious infrastructure program in Philadelphia’s history, to improve city parks, libraries and recreational centers.
• Created 12 Community Schools to provide essential resources and support services in the neighborhoods they serve.
• Safely decreased Philadelphia’s local jail population by over 40% – effectively depopulating the City’s House of Correction.
• Raised the minimum wage to $15/hr for all City employees and contractors.
• Increased the Fire Department’s budget by tens of millions to hire additional firefighters and replace the department’s aging vehicle fleet.
• Ended the City’s cooperation with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and defeated the Trump Administration’s attempt to deny federal funds to welcoming cities like Philadelphia that provide equal protection to all its citizens – regardless of their immigration status.
• Maintained Philadelphia’s commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement.
• Invested tens of millions in creating new affordable housing.
• Led the fight to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana.
• Initiated an emergency response to the opioid epidemic – utilizing a wide range of innovative services to close homeless encampments in Kensington and connect individuals to housing and treatment.^[40]

The performance of our public schools is not acceptable.

• 80% of our 4th graders are not proficient in reading or math. We need more resources for all our schools: a funding formula that takes poverty into account, adequate public charter reimbursement, and increased local funding.
• We need universal pre-K for our youngest students.
• We can make college less expensive and get students a jumpstart on productive careers.
• High schools can partner with community and 4-year colleges, and career-training programs to enable thousands of students to enroll in college courses and training programs before they graduate.

Philadelphia had more than 350 lives lost to murder in 2018; more than 2,300 people were shot—this is a state of emergency.

• Expand the use of “Focused Deterrence”, end “stop-and-frisk,” and use technology — police body cameras, cameras at crime hotspots, and big-data analytics — to be smart and accountable on crime.
• Be a national example for community policing. Our police force should look like Philadelphia not only on patrol but up through the ranks.
• Use city government as a model employer for returning citizens and increase educational and job training opportunities for inmates and returning citizens. Create strong incentives for private employers to hire returning citizens.
• Build a network of protected bike lanes and expand enforcement efforts for drivers and cyclists to keep bike lanes clear and keep pedestrians safe on sidewalks and intersections.

Philadelphia is the nation’s poorest big city, 26 percent of city residents live in poverty; 200,000 people in poverty are African American—we just can’t tolerate this.

• We need Philadelphia to be a city that grows jobs to provide a living wage that stabilizes families.
• Raise the minimum wage for Philadelphia workers so people don’t need three jobs to make ends meet. Make sure low-income families get all the benefits and tax credits available to them.
• Don’t rely on regressive and unfair taxes that cut into take-home pay and stifle business growth. Make our real-estate tax fair and equitable to drive neighborhood-based economic growth.
• Use Philadelphia public spending to ensure that city projects are built by a workforce that includes more Philadelphians. Give Philadelphia business a boost with stronger local preference rules for city contracts.
• Support the small businesses that create most of the jobs in our city with new public banking tools and loan programs to even the playing field for neighborhood-based businesses.

Clean & Livable Neighborhoods — Our streets are filthy; city services are harder to access—it’s not ok.

• We all deserve to be proud of where we live. Cleanliness is basic.
• Bring back citywide street sweeping for every neighborhood.
• Use drones and remote cameras to crack down on the illegal dumping.
• Fund city libraries and recreation centers to prevent staffing-shortage closings.

Potholes are so deep and so commonplace that driving, biking, and even walking are dangerous; too many city properties are broken-down and look horrible—we are all disgusted with it.

• We should dramatically expand city street resurfacing to meet or exceed national standards.
• We can better connect our capital planning to yearly operating expenses so investments in new city construction, rebuilding, and renovations will be attractive, sustainable, and useful for many years into the future.
• We can improve the ability of the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections to oversee construction and demolition throughout the city to protect Philadelphians and prevent construction disruptions from hampering mobility.

Right now, Philadelphia continues to live down to its “corrupt and contented” legacy—it’s unacceptable.

• 21st-Century Philadelphia must move beyond the corruption that wastes scarce city resources and kills our faith in city government.
• We should implement a whistleblower policy that offers protections to city government employees who report wrongdoing.
• Make the Inspector General a permanent position in city government, and increase funding for the Board of Ethics so it can carry out its important work.
• We can elect a mayor who won’t wink at corruption and who will speak out forcefully against abuse of public power to benefit private agendas.

Building a Better Philly
If we are going to build a better Philadelphia, we need better government

We can budget better. Our current budgeting procedures were established in 1951 and are in desperate need of revision with 21st-century budgeting practices. I will work with city council to establish an independent budget office to impartially and accurately establish a city revenue estimate, like the Congressional Budget Office. I support line-item budgeting to provide city council and tax payers with detailed online information about the $5 billion general fund budget. And I will require the city to publish a year-end budget report so we can match actual spending with the original budget estimates. The goal is to be more transparent so citizens compare exactly where their money is going and where we promised it would go.

Better budgeting means better government. Given our surplus and tax revenues which are exceeding projections, we can end the regressive Soda Tax and establish universal Pre-K because ALL of our children need help, not just a handpicked, connected few.

We afford to repave our streets and clean our neighborhoods. We can afford to fully staff our libraries and recreation centers so our communities can thrive.

Funding schools
We must give our schools more resources by demanding a state funding formula that takes poverty into account providing all of our schools with the support they deserve. The formula should also provides fair and adequate public-charter reimbursement, and includes increased local funding. Additionally, it is long past time for the state to assume its legal responsibility to fund city court costs and we should leverage the strong Democratic majority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to relieve the city of more than $100 million in expenditures that could be used to fund public education.

We will declare a state of emergency on violence to best marshal and coordinate all city agencies. At the same time, we can convene and provide appropriate funds for a plan to integrate grassroots anti-violence activists to help stem the bloodshed.

Fair taxes and assessment refunds
All of this is predicated on a fair system of taxation to fund our needs without chasing families and firms out of the city. We need to more aggressively reduce the city Wage Tax and job-killing business taxes so Philadelphia can grow more like competitor cities to drive down our shameful poverty rate. We need to get our regressive and illegal city assessments right so real estate taxes are fair and reasonable. And we need to make sure that the city refunds money to taxpayers who have paid too much.

I have spent a career in public service listening to people and building coalitions to get things done. I want to listen to Philadelphia and work with Philadelphians to make the change we need.

We can move Philly forward — together.

Better Budgeting For A Better Philadelphia
Philadelphia deserves more information about city spending. We can budget better so we can make better decisions. Philadelphia’s financial systems were designed for the 1950s. We deserve modern, accountable, and transparent government budgetary systems.

• Establish an independent local budget office similar to the congressional budget office to estimate city budget revenues to avoid overly optimistic (or pessimistic) revenue estimates by the mayoral administration.
• Adopt line-item budgeting to detail proposed expenditures to give city council and the public real authority over city spending.
• Change the city charter to require five-year budgets and financial plans in detail that both citizens and council members can understand.
• Require the mayor to produce a programmatic expression of the city budget and issue a report card on city services to track outcomes and citizen satisfaction.
• Require a comprehensive year-end report to detail how much of each line item in the budget was actually spent and to articulate the progress our city has made toward achieving outcome goals set forth at the beginning of the yearly budget process.
• Utilize sunset provisions in contracts and programs to ensure that the city finds worth in its spending and does not continue initiatives past their effectiveness.
• Require comprehensive and real-time, line-item online budget and contract details with a goal toward making available all information the city is required to provide pursuant to a valid right-to-know law request.
• Publish a comprehensive economic-development plan that considers tax policy, infrastructure investments, arts and culture spending, and the leverage of city-owned utility and transportation assets to reach targeted employment goals.

State Senator Anthony Hardy Williams - Testimony Before City Council FY 2020 Budget and FY 2020-24 Five-Year Plan - Monday, April 15, 2019.
Council President Clarke and members of Philadelphia city council: thank you for the opportunity to present testimony on the city’s proposed budget and five-year financial plan.

I am a three-decade member of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, having served five terms as a State Representative and more than five terms as State Senator. With me today, are former Mayor and Council President and Council Member John F. Street and the former City Controller’s Office Director of Financial and Policy Analysis, Brett Mandel.

A hallmark of the best governments is the expertise of the people who surround the person chosen to lead. The men who accompany me here today have greater knowledge of the city budget and government spending practices than most of us will ever understand. It’s why the recommendations we make here today reflect many years of thoughtful planning for our city.

I applaud the work that the members of this council perform reviewing budget documents and posing questions to administration officials. As our proposed spending nears $5 billion for the operating budget alone, it is a tremendous undertaking to review the city’s plan to spend our city’s scarce resources. But, I come before you today to say that this council and the public at large deserve more in terms of information about city spending. We can do better in terms of preparing and presenting systems and data so we can make better decisions about our budgetary assumptions and spending priorities.

And just as important, we want to make it easy for our residents and taxpayers to know how we are spending their money.

Philadelphia’s financial systems were once considered forward-thinking, but they were designed for the 1950s. Nearly three-quarters of a century later, the public and this city council deserve modern, accountable, and transparent government budgetary systems.

Today, there is no reasonable way city council, much less the members of the general public, can determine what will actually happen in terms of spending by looking at the city administration’s budgetary testimony. Because it is the mayor who actually determines line-item spending, there is no way for the public or city council to hold the administration accountable for what is actually spent or not spent in a given fiscal year. Finally, because there is not enumeration and public scrutiny of actual public contracts before they are awarded, there is almost no ability for the public or city council to participate meaningfully in decisions about who actually gets city work.

I very much look forward to working with you to make the changes in law and procedure to build a fiscal infrastructure for the 21st-century.

The proposed FY20 budget projects FY19 revenues to be more than $26 million higher than originally budgeted. That money could have been programmed to fund badly needed investments in our neighborhoods. Today, Philadelphia’s mayor establishes the city’s annual revenue estimate, which establishes a ceiling for budgetary expenditures. But, by setting an unnecessarily low estimate or an unreasonably high estimate, the mayor is able to budget to spend more than we have or to shortchange necessary investments.

I recommend we establish an independent local budget office similar to the congressional budget office to estimate city budget revenues to avoid overly optimistic (or pessimistic) revenue estimates by the mayoral administration.
This office would be similar to the one proposed by Councilman Derek Green and will give council some confidence about the amount of money actually available to spend in the coming fiscal year.

In FY18, the Police Department budget was set at $652 million, but the Mayor ended up over-spending that amount by more than $60 million before the year was over. In our dirty city, the mayor budgeted for a Streets Department of more than 1,900 employees this year but recent payroll records showed 154 fewer positions filled in the department. Today, city spending is authorized by agency and by class so city council and the public have no true say about a real spending plan beyond a vague idea that a certain amount will be devoted to each agency and that, within each agency, money will be allocated by category for such expenditures as salary and materials.

I recommend the city change its approach to adopt line-item budgeting that clearly details proposed expenditures to give city council and the public true authority over city spending.
Today, the city charter only mandates annual budgetary planning for operating expenditures, but best practices call for longer-term financial planning. As we can finally anticipate the end of Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority oversight, we should be mindful to formally incorporate a more long-term view.

I recommend the city charter should be amended to require five-year budgets and financial plans in detail that both citizens and council members can understand.
Today, the proposed budget represents almost $1 Billion in increased spending from the last budget of the previous administration, exceeding the rate of inflation while, simultaneously, city services have deteriorated in many serious ways. Our streets have never been worse. Potholes are everywhere. And, we are living down to our Fithadelphia reputation. It is past time for our city to re-evaluate how public-resources — our tax money — connect to public-policy programs and services that are funded by those taxes.

I recommend that, in the future, we require a program-based summary of the city budget and issue a report card on city services to track results and citizen satisfaction.
Today, the end of the fiscal year occurs with little thought as to the accomplishments of the previous year’s spending. But, we would be better served by a process that incorporates a consideration of how our spending plans affected the state of the city. In the future, the mayor should be required to reconcile the budget every year, just like people at home reconcile their bank balance at the end of the month. How much did we spend and what did we spend it on?

I recommend that the mayor produce a comprehensive year-end report to detail how much of each line item in the budget was actually spent and to articulate the progress our city has made toward achieving outcome goals set forth at the beginning of the yearly budget process.
Today, initiatives routinely continue year after year with little consideration as to their effectiveness or any regular justification to continue that spending.

I recommend we utilize sunset provisions in contracts and programs to ensure that the city finds worth in its spending and does not continue initiatives past their effectiveness.
Today, it is possible to view personal credit-card spending data online instantly to track our household spending and monitor our personal transactions, but the city still does not make available real-time information about its expenditures. Despite promises of openness and transparency, the current budget is still a mystery to the public, nearly impossible to understand.

I recommend the city follow the lead of other major cities that publish an online comprehensive and real-time line-item budget and contract details with a goal toward making available all information the city is required to provide pursuant to a valid right-to-know law request.
Finally, the city’s most pressing and intractable problem is poverty. In the last three years, there has been no credible economic-development plan to create jobs and lift poor Philadelphians out of poverty. The commitment to be a sanctuary city is laudable and the creation of community schools is important, but those policies do not create jobs.

As mayor, I will annually transmit to city council and publish an economic plan that considers tax policy, infrastructure investments, arts and culture spending, and the leverage of city-owned utility and transportation assets to reach targeted employment goals.
Today, 21st-century Philadelphia faces challenges that 1950 Philadelphia could never have anticipated. But the passage of time has also seen the emergence of incredible advances of information technology and communication tools. The financial systems designed for the era of the Phillies Whiz Kids are insufficient for the modern Philadelphia of Bryce Harper’s team and it is time to rethink how we consider the city budget and the tools we use to communicate about city spending.

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today and look forward to the chance to work with you in the future to ensure that we make best use of our city resources ­ and that we utilize the best-possible budgetary procedures to guide the decisions we make on behalf of our residents.

Historic Preservation
Philadelphia can be an exciting global city that takes care of its neighborhoods. Philadelphia can be a city that enjoys dynamic growth while preserving the heritage that is the fabric of our communities. It is time for Philadelphia, a World Heritage City, to have a worthy Historic Preservation and Cultural Resources Plan.

As Mayor, I will declare a new day for preservation in Philadelphia.
Today, Philadelphia endures unprecedented development pressure. Inadequate preservation planning and under-resourced city agencies are challenged to preserve Philadelphia’s historic buildings, neighborhoods, and character. The Philadelphia Historical Commission could do more in an advocacy capacity to preserve Philadelphia’s history and the character of its neighborhoods.

Serious inadequacies with the administration of the existing preservation ordinance exacerbate the preservation crisis in the city. The routine misapplication of the concept of “economic hardship” leads to the loss of storied structures and the lack of code enforcement leads to demolition by neglect in too many cases.

Enhance The City’s Preservation Efforts
Philadelphia’s preservation efforts require additional resources and expertise. As mayor I will:

• Appoint a staff archaeologist on the Philadelphia Historical Commission staff and give the PHC an important say in construction matters in the city’s historic districts
• Appoint a staff archaeologist on the Philadelphia Historical Commission staff and give the PHC an important say in construction matters in the city’s historic districts
• Provide the Philadelphia Historical Commission with the jurisdiction to determine the mapping of the city’s historic districts.
• Appoint an official in the managing director’s office who understands current Philadelphia Historical Commission procedures and how they can be strengthened.
• Appoint a managerial-level preservation engineer in the Department of Licenses and Inspections to make an independent determination as to the status of a structure as “imminently dangerous” to encourage more properties to be repaired and reused and reduce demolition by neglect.

Protect Philadelphia's Heritage
Only a fraction of Philadelphia’s built heritage is actually protected and preserved for future generations. As mayor I will:

• Create a list of not-yet-designated (unprotected) historic properties that would be subject to an enhanced review process for demolition-permit applications.
• Expand the buildings on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places to include buildings that are on the National Register of Historic Places and institute a citywide demolition review for buildings on the National Register of Historic Places and buildings more than a century old.
• End the 10-year abatement in its current form and implement an abatement to encourage reuse and repair of existing properties.

A new mayor and a new day for preservation in Philadelphia can ensure that the city’s past is preserved for posterity even as the city adds new vitality and growth to make the modern city prosper

Poverty and Jobs
Philadelphia is the poorest big city in the nation with about 26% of residents living below the poverty line. It is unconscionable that about 400,000 Philadelphians – including about 200,000 African-American residents – live in need.

For far too many, Philadelphia is not a city of opportunity. In too many ways, it costs more to be poor in Philadelphia.

According to the 2019 “State of the City” report produced by The Pew Charitable Trusts, “The city’s poverty rate has been stuck in the 26 percent range for the past five years, a time when the rate has dropped in many other cities. Philadelphia has nearly 400,000 residents living below the poverty line, a fact that affects numerous aspects of city life.”

Other cities are doing far better creating opportunities and supporting communities. Philadelphia cannot afford to continue to lag behind.

Mayor Jim Kenney promised to reduce poverty in Philadelphia, but his administration has failed to make progress.

To make Philadelphia a city of opportunity and to remove burdens that fall disproportionally upon our low-income residents, I offer A Better Way To Reduce Poverty And Grow Jobs For A Better Philadelphia.

Make Poverty a Priority
Philadelphia’s poverty problem will not go away unless we make reducing poverty a priority. As mayor I will:

• Target cutting Philadelphia’s poverty rate in half before I leave office as a goal toward which my administration will advance policy and budgetary plans and measure progress annually.
• Appoint a cabinet-level administration official to coordinate an integrated approach to reducing poverty in Philadelphia so all city agencies support our anti-poverty efforts.
• Follow the lead of Allegheny County and establish an integrated data system to link court, city, and school district data to best inform government’s ability to meet the needs of people struggling with the multiple challenges related to poverty.
• Publish a program-based summary of the city budget and issue a report card on city services to track results and citizen satisfaction.
• Work with city council to pass legislation to demand that an “anti-poverty financial footnote” be included on every bill introduced, to detail how each piece of legislation will contribute to reducing Philadelphia’s poverty rate.
• Cooperate with the City Controller’s Office on a performance audit to evaluate how the millions of dollars spent by the Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity can be best prioritized.
• Transmit to city council and publish each year an economic plan that considers tax policy, infrastructure investments, arts and culture spending, and the leverage of city-owned utility and transportation assets to reach targeted employment goals.

Grow Jobs in Philadelphia
If Philadelphia grew jobs like other peer cities over the last decade, we would have added 35,000 more jobs. As Mayor I will:

• Reduce the city’s unique and job-killing business taxes to drive the economic growth that employs neighborhood Philadelphians.
• Use Philadelphia public spending to ensure that city projects are built by a workforce that looks like Philadelphia and give Philadelphia businesses a boost with stronger local preference rules for city contracts.
• Lower the barrier to entry for small business to win city contracts and grow local businesses by changing the city charter to increase Philadelphia’s comparatively low dollar amount that triggers the formal request-for-proposal process.
• Explore creating a public bank in Philadelphia to support the small, neighborhood businesses that create most of the jobs in our city.
• Work with city employers to expand summer jobs and internships for students to provide valuable experience and a pathway for post-graduation employment.
• Connect Philadelphians to work by exploring options to expand the Broad Street subway to the Philadelphia Navy Yard, incorporating mass-transit infrastructure along the Roosevelt Boulevard, and restructuring SEPTA bus service to link neighborhood residents to job centers.

Unburden Low-Income Philadelphians
We cannot reduce poverty if city actions and policies continue to help make Philadelphians poorer. As Mayor I will:

• Fix our regressive and illegal city assessments so real estate taxation can be fair and reasonable – and make sure that the city refunds money to taxpayers who have paid too much for too long.
• Reduce the city Wage Tax to 3% by the end of my mayoralty to allow more working Philadelphians to keep more of their hard-earned paychecks.
• Repeal the regressive Soda Tax that falls disproportionately on low-income

Philadelphians.

• Support an increase in the Pennsylvania minimum wage to $15/hour to make work pay for Philadelphians.
• Increase funding to provide counsel for low-income tenants at risk of eviction — estimates show that spending $3.5 million could save the city $45 million each year, while keeping individuals in their homes and stabilizing neighborhoods and families.
• Expand outreach to make sure low-income families get all the federal, state, and local benefits and tax credits available to them – including Philadelphia’s homestead exemption, low-income senior-citizen tax freeze, loan program for low-income homeowners, and LOOP property-tax-discount program.
• Work to make SEPTA fare policies work for working families by eliminating the $1 penalty for those who need to transfer between buses, subways, and trolleys to travel to work or shop for groceries and by offering free SEPTA for kids under 12 to make mass transit more affordable for families.

Support Communities
It will take a city to reduce poverty and so many city agencies can support the efforts to grow opportunities and support our communities. As Mayor I will:

• Deliver universal Pre-K to reach all eligible Philadelphians because ALL of our families need help.
• Work with my former colleagues in Harrisburg for a school-funding formula that takes poverty into account provides adequate public charter reimbursement and increases funding for our schools.
• Expand support for the Office of Adult Education to expand literacy training in Philadelphia and reduce a fundamental barrier to employment for too many residents.
• Declare a state of emergency to best marshal and coordinate all city agencies as we simultaneously convene grassroots anti-violence activists to help stem the bloodshed in our communities.
• Serve our neighborhoods – we can repave our streets, implement weekly, citywide street cleaning, and fully staff our libraries and recreation centers so our communities can thrive.
• Budget better to provide city council and taxpayers detailed, online programmatic information about the $5 billion general fund budget to make it easy for our residents and taxpayers to know how we are spending their money.

Philadelphia has been a city of opportunity for more than three centuries, but too many of today’s Philadelphians are not sharing in that prosperity. We can do better and, as mayor, I will work every day to reduce poverty and grow jobs for a better Philadelphia.

Anti-Violence
In 2018, the murder rate in Philadelphia was the highest among any large city in the nation – more than 20 murders per 100,000 residents. Philadelphia now has more murders each year than New York City even though New York has a much larger population.

Last year, the homicide rate dropped in cities across the nation, but increased in Philadelphia. Murders decreased in the four Pennsylvania counties surrounding Philadelphia as a total, but increased in Philadelphia. We must stop the violence.

Violence is the norm in too many Philadelphia communities and far too many Philadelphians live in their neighborhood in fear.

Late in 2018, nearly three years after he took office, Mayor Kenney announced that the city did not have a comprehensive violence-prevention plan. Philadelphia endured more murders in 2018 than any year since 2007. Despite new pronouncements about city plans, more than 100 Philadelphians have been murdered in 2019 alone.

After years of making progress reducing homicides, Philadelphia has taken a major step back during the Kenney Administration. If these killings occurred all at once, they would represent a mass murder that would shock the nation, but because they are added up each night, body by body, we somehow ignore the carnage.

Reducing violence is no longer a top priority for our city and our elected leaders. We can do more to reduce the bloodshed.

As Mayor, I will declare a state of emergency to address the violence that will not end until Philadelphians feel safe in their communities.

According to the 2019 “State of the City” report produced by The Pew Charitable Trusts, “In 2018, Philadelphia had 351 homicides—the most since 2007—up 11 percent from the previous year and 43 percent above the historic low recorded in 2013. Similarly, there was a year-to-year increase of 17 percent in the total number of shooting incidents.”

Mayor Jim Kenney promised to reduce violence in Philadelphia, but his administration has failed to make progress. To make Philadelphia a city of peace and security, I offer A Better Way To Reduce Violence For A Better Philadelphia.

Address The Emergency Of Violence With A Coordinated Governmental Approach.
Philadelphia’s violence problem is an ongoing emergency and I will treat it as such. As mayor I will:

• Declare a state of violence emergency on my first day in office to empower the police commissioner to coordinate an integrated approach to reducing violence in Philadelphia so all city agencies support our city’s anti-violence efforts and cooperate with the Police Department’s work.
• Target reducing Philadelphia’s murder rate each year I am in office as a goal toward which my administration will advance policy and budgetary plans and measure progress annually.
• Cooperate with the City Controller’s Office on a performance audit to evaluate how the city spends nearly $50 million annually on anti-violence programs to identify which ones are making a difference and deserve additional funding, and which ones are ineffective and need to be re-conceived before they receive additional funding.
• Engage the Human Relation Commission much more aggressively in the resolution of neighborhood disputes to stop them from leading to violence.

Support Communities to Help Reduce Violence
It will take a city to reduce murder and violence – so many city agencies can support the efforts to make a safer Philadelphia. As Mayor I will:

• Deliver universal Pre-K to reach all eligible Philadelphians because ALL of our families need help.
• Work with my former colleagues in Harrisburg for a school-funding formula that takes poverty into account, provides adequate public charter reimbursement and increases funding for our schools.
• Expand support for the Office of Adult Education to expand literacy training in Philadelphia and reduce a fundamental barrier to employment for too many residents.
• Serve our neighborhoods – we can repave our streets, implement weekly, citywide street cleaning, and fully staff our libraries and recreation centers so our communities can thrive.
• Budget better to provide city council and taxpayers detailed, online programmatic information about the $5 billion general fund budget to make it easy for our residents and taxpayers to know how we are spending their money.

Philadelphia was founded to be a city of harmony and tranquillity but more than three centuries later, too many of today’s Philadelphians live in fear in our neighborhoods or travel with dread through our city. We can do better and, as mayor, I will work every day to reduce violence for a better Philadelphia.

Police Smarter To Improve Neighborhood Security
We cannot simply arrest our way to a safer city – we must engage our communities in the effort to reduce the violence. As Mayor I will:

• End “stop-and-frisk,” build a police force that looks like Philadelphia throughout the ranks, and provide much more support to police community-relations officers to best engage every community in the effort to improve public safety.
• Expand the use of “Focused Deterrence” and use technology — police body cameras, cameras at crime hotspots, and big-data analytics — to be smart and accountable on crime.
• Increase training for town-watch organizations to expand their capacity and increase their effectiveness.
• Make strategic use of electronic surveillance and drones in accordance with the law to improve neighborhood safety.
• Engage the help of the faith-based leaders and people who are in the streets working with the community every day for better crisis-intervention models – as I have done in creating the recent Citywide Peace Pledge – so anti-violence efforts are grassroots movements and not City Hall proclamations.

Address Fundamental Causes of Violence
A comprehensive approach to reducing violence must address prevention, intervention, enforcement, and re-entry. Poverty, family dysfunction, and lack of opportunity are intertwined with the violence that threatens too many Philadelphians – we must focus on issues like mental health, opportunity, and the availability of guns to address the fundamental causes of violence. As Mayor I will:

• Implement the Williams Better Way To Reduce Poverty And Grow Jobs For A Better Philadelphia plan to target cutting Philadelphia’s poverty rate in half before I leave office to grow opportunities and support our communities.
• Follow the lead of Allegheny County and establish an integrated data system to link court, city, and school district data to best inform government’s ability to reduce the violence.
• Work with my colleagues in Harrisburg to build on the work of the Philadelphia Illegal Gun Task Force I established as a state senator to curb gun violence.
• Utilize the resources of the city’s Health Department to treat violence prevention as a public-health and mental-health crisis.
• Reinforce violence-prevention programs with community-wide activities that engage schools, community organizations, and families.
• Use city government as a model employer for returning citizens and increase educational and job-training opportunities for inmates and returning citizens.
• Expand incentives for private employers to hire returning citizens.
• Continue to help returning citizens rebuild their lives with measures like Pennsylvania’s landmark Clean Slate legislation for which I was a prime sponsor as a state senator.

Gentrification and Assessments
After enduring a half-century of population and job loss – along with the challenges that face a city in decline – Philadelphia has enjoyed a decade of growth. But, new vitality brought new challenges to city neighborhoods and the people who call them home. While the city benefits in many ways from the economic development and energy of construction and commerce, we must work to ensure that a growing Philadelphia expands with equity and preserves communities as it prospers.

Philadelphia needs a mayor who will listen to neighbors and fight for change if our city is to enjoy the benefits of growth without detriments of gentrification.

21st -century Philadelphia neighborhoods are changing in many ways. According to the 2016 “Philadelphia’s Changing Neighborhoods; Gentrification and other shifts since 2000” report produced by The Pew Charitable Trusts:

Gentrification is a function of real estate cycles, according to many urban economists. Often, a neighborhood’s housing stock deteriorates over time and is occupied by people of lesser and lesser means. Home values, rents, and land prices fall. Gentrification is said to begin in such neighborhoods when the difference between the current real estate prices, which are low, and the potential prices, which are higher, becomes large enough to attract a wave of new investment and higher-income residents. According to this theory, what happened in some of the Philadelphia tracts that gentrified from 2000 to 2014 was the result of the revitalization of Center City in the 1990s, when luxury apartment towers and new restaurants replaced ageing office space and surface parking lots. By the 2000s, these developments had increased the appeal of some nearby neighborhoods, which looked like bargains compared with pricier Center City. As a result, higher-income people started moving in, housing prices rose, and gentrification occurred.

The revitalization of neighborhoods that had declined may be desirable in some ways, but, as the Pew Report notes, “Gentrification…involves new arrivals who differ from longtime residents in notable ways. Although definitions of the term have varied since it was coined in the 1960s, the underlying meaning is the shift in a neighborhood’s population from predominantly low income or working class to predominantly middle or upper class.”

Gentrification in select city neighborhoods affected Philadelphia’s social fabric and threatened its community infrastructure. Rising rents and home values have priced many long-term residents out of their neighborhoods and shifting demographics have created tensions between newcomers and families who lived on their blocks for generations.

I live in the same house where I was raised in Cobbs Creek. As a state senator, I represent many areas that have changed dramatically after years of enduring hard times. I understand how a welcome feeling makes neighborhoods into communities and houses into homes. But, I also know how easy it is to feel unwelcome in a place that has been home for years. To ensure that all Philadelphians enjoy benefits of economic growth and neighborhood development in a place that they can call home, I offer A Better Way To Combat Gentrification For A Better Philadelphia.

Fix Philadelphia's Assessment Mess
Philadelphia real estate tax assessments are a fraud, driving some out of their neighborhoods while others pay next to nothing – all while encouraging gentrification in areas where houses are not assessed at actual value as required by law. (see Philadelphia Inquirer graphic) As Mayor I will:

• Fix our regressive and illegal city assessments so real estate values for tax purposes meets industry standards for accuracy on the neighborhood level and taxation can be fair and reasonable – and make sure that the city refunds money to taxpayers who have paid too much for too long.
• Prohibit the city from engaging in “reverse appeals” so taxpayers are not threatened with an increased tax bill when they appeal the fairness of their assessments.
• Follow the lead of the State of Indiana, which requires assessing officials to defend excessive assessment increases with objective evidence so the assessor has the burden of proof to support increases.
• Make real estate taxation more fair by implementing a property-tax buffering program so that assessments are based on a rolling, multi-year average to prevent one-time spikes in Real Estate Tax bills.
• Make real estate taxation more fair by establishing a taxpayers’ advocate to represent taxpayers in matters regarding real estate assessment and appeals.
• Explore implementing land-value taxation to decrease tax rates on structures and increase tax rates on land so that the city provides an incentive for economic development and a disincentive to blight creation and speculation.

Prevent Displacement In Changing Neighborhoods
Philadelphia was a city of more than 2 million and has plenty of room to welcome new residents without having to force long-time residents out of their homes. As Mayor I will:

• Utilize inclusionary zoning and incentivize or require the construction of working-class housing as requirements for the disposition of publicly owned land to ensure that neighborhoods remain affordable.
• Incentivize creation of more affordable units as a zoning bonus or through community-benefit agreements with large developers to increase affordability for renters.
• Reduce minimum parking requirements for residential developments to drive down construction (and rental) costs.
• Increase funding to provide counsel for low-income tenants at risk of eviction — estimates show that spending $3.5 million could save the city $45 million each year, while keeping individuals in their homes and stabilizing families and their neighborhoods.
• Expand outreach to make sure all Philadelphians receive the real-estate-tax relief available to them – including Philadelphia’s homestead exemption, low-income senior citizen tax freeze, loan programs for low-income homeowners, and Longtime Owner Occupants Program (LOOP) property-tax-discount program.
• Implement a quarterly payment plan so taxpayers who do not pay taxes through their mortgage companies do not have to assemble the cash to make their tax payment on one date.
• End the 10-year abatement in its current form as the current program presents equity problems and denies money to our schools. Reducing the term of the abatement, making the abatement solely for rehabs, or modifying state Constitutional uniformity demands to allow the abatement to be phased out in certain areas or expanded in other areas — must be part of any discussion about taxation in Philadelphia.

Make Neighborhoods Welcoming For Long-Term Residents And New Arrivals
Most Philadelphians understand that good neighbors come in all colors, cultures, and creeds and I will use the bully pulpit of my office and the power of city government to ensure all neighbors feel welcome in their neighborhoods. As Mayor I will:

• Get out of the mayor’s office and into changing neighborhoods to personally engage residents in the effort to make sure that all Philadelphians – new and long-term residents – value all of their neighbors and their contributions to the community.
• Engage the city’s Human Relation Commission in efforts to intervene in the resolution of neighborhood disputes to prevent them from escalating and leading to larger problems.

Support Our Communities To Expand The Number Of Neighborhoods Of Choice
If more parts of the city are attractive and thriving neighborhoods, there will be less pressure to gentrify select areas. As Mayor I will:

• Deliver universal Pre-K to reach all eligible Philadelphians because ALL of our families need help.
• Work with my colleagues in Harrisburg for a school-funding formula that takes poverty into account, provides adequate public charter reimbursement and increases funding for our schools.
• Declare a state of emergency to best marshal and coordinate all city agencies as we simultaneously convene grassroots anti-violence activists to help stem the bloodshed in our communities.
• Serve our neighborhoods – we can repave our streets, implement weekly, citywide street cleaning, and fully staff our libraries and recreation centers so our communities can thrive.

Add Jobs And Decrease Poverty In Philadelphia To Spread The Benefits Of Growth
If Philadelphia grew jobs like other peer cities over the last decade, we would have added 35,000 more jobs. By expanding growth and attacking the root causes of poverty, I will target cutting Philadelphia’s poverty rate in half before I leave office. As Mayor I will:

• Appoint a cabinet-level administration official to coordinate an integrated approach to reducing poverty in Philadelphia so all city agencies support our anti-poverty efforts.
• Follow the lead of Allegheny County and establish an integrated data system to link court, city, and school district data to best inform government’s ability to meet the needs of people struggling with the multiple challenges related to poverty.
• Transmit to city council and publish each year an economic plan that considers tax policy, infrastructure investments, arts and culture spending, and the leverage of cityowned utility and transportation assets to reach targeted employment goals.
• Reform our burdensome tax structure and use Philadelphia public spending to ensure that city projects are built by a workforce that looks like Philadelphia and give Philadelphia businesses a boost with stronger local preference rules for city contracts.
• Explore creating a public bank in Philadelphia to support the small, neighborhood businesses that create most of the jobs in our city.

William Penn first arrived in Philadelphia on a ship called “Welcome.” Philadelphia has been a welcoming city for more than three centuries, but too many neighborhoods in today’s Philadelphians are struggling with gentrification as a byproduct of uneven growth. We can do better and, as mayor, I will work to build a better Philadelphia that grows and prospers without the rampant displacement and resentment that often accompanies development.^[40]