The Kenney Administration's Street Sweeping Pilot is Going Awry
(Photo: Philadelphia Inquirer)
It brings us no pleasure to report that the Kenney Streets Department is at it again, messing up the roll-out of the hard-won street sweeping program that we and others have been agitating for for many years.
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Highlights from the 2022 Philly Ward Elections
Philadelphia’s political parties held ward reorganization meetings a couple of Mondays ago, choosing new ward leaders and other officers for the next 4-year term.
These contests are always worth watching because they offer a glimpse into the parties’ mood and direction in different parts of the city, the relative power of different factions of party activists, and the potential consequences for next year’s municipal elections.
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What You Need to Know About the Ward Reorganization Meetings
Primary Election Day may be over, but the fun continues for people who won their elections for party committee person seats on Tuesday as the focus turns to the all-important ward reorganization meetings.
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How Can Philly Cushion the Blow from New Property Assessments?
(Image:Jon Geeting
New city real estate assessments will be released on Monday after a 3-year pause on reassessing property, with the Kenney administration reporting a 31% increase in the average property’s assessment.
That’s going to turn up the political heat on a major pocketbook issue for many residents, and it’s important that decision-makers resolve to address that with some thoughtful policy remedies rather than knee-jerk opposition.
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City Council’s New “1,000 Affordable Homes” Announcement and the “Where?” Question
Council President Darrell Clarke announced last week that as part of the Neighborhood Preservation Initiative (NPI), City Council would pursue a plan to build 1,000 affordable homes on city-owned land.
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Map: Open Seats and Competitive Seats in the 2022 Philly Ward Elections
With over 3,000 tiny precinct-level seats in play in this year’s party committee elections on May 17th, it can be hard to wrap your head around what is happening all across the city.
In the interest of helping journalists, activists, and local politics watchers better understand what’s going on, and where there could be opportunities to act in the final few weeks before Election Day, we’ve published a new interactive map for visualizing some of the dynamics more clearly.
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Why SEPTA's New Institutional Pass Program is a Sea Change for How Transit Is Funded in Philadelphia
A few weeks ago SEPTA announced a new pilot initiative, SEPTA Key Advantage, that has the potential to seriously transform the transit agency’s business model in exciting ways that could create a lot more stable local transit funding.
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Philly Permitted Two-Thirds of the Housing in PA in 2021
(Photo: Jon Geeting)
A few weeks ago we reported that Philly had permitted over half the new housing units in Pennsylvania in 2021, based on the November totals published by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD.)
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Where Domb and Gym Agree: It’s Time for City Council Term Limits
Aside from two high-profile upsets in 2019, Philadelphia City Council has been a very low-turnover local legislature for all of modern history, with Councilmembers serving exorbitantly long terms.
Almost purely generational turnover has introduced some newer members into the body over the last two election cycles, mostly through the At-Large seats, but what you rarely see happen is serious challengers running and winning in District seats—the real power seats on Council.
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Bill Greenlee is the Father of Washington Ave Political Dysfunction
(Some guys who really love Councilmanic Prerogative)
Very large majorities of residents living near Washington Avenue in South Philadelphia have told the City’s transportation office that they want the Kenney administration and City Council to prioritize the safest possible redesign option for pedestrians there when the street is repaved and restriped next year.
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