Jim Kenney: Keep Your Campaign Promise. Bring Back Street-Sweeping in Your First Term.

stanley.philly-940.jpg

Sign our petition to tell Mayor Kenney to keep his campaign promise, and bring back street-sweeping services before the end of his first term.

Philadelphia is known nationwide as an exceptionally dirty city, and this dirt problem even has a name: Filthadelphia.

Mayor Kenney campaigned on changing this during the 2015 campaign, and restoring the street-sweeping program was a regular part of his stump speech. He even said that cleaner streets are worth the occasional hassle of alternate-side parking.

The red flags started going up right after the May primary, when Kenney started backtracking, saying he'd only bring the program back for neighborhoods willing to move their cars, and there would be some kind of opt-in or opt-out provision. 

This week we found out it's been cast aside even further, as a "Long-Term Priority" in the Zero Waste Action Plan released this week, described in the most non-committal possible language. At some undefined point in time, the administration will maybe "consider restoration of street sweeping."

That's unacceptable. Mayor Kenney needs to make restoring street-sweeping a priority in his first term.

As we've argued previously, street-sweeping should be one of Philadelphia's bedrock municipal services. Philly was actually the first city to have a street-sweeping program (thanks, Benjamin Franklin!), and now we're the only major city that doesn't have one. It's relatively cheap, costing the capital budget just $18 million in to buy the sweepers, and about $3 million in annual salaries to clean the whole city every other week. The problem isn't money—it's people who don't want to move their cars, even occasionally. 

The Mayor is already on the record saying that he wants to take the cleaner streets side of that trade-off, and now it's time for him to make good on that promise. 

Sign and share the petition, and help us send a message to Mayor Kenney that he needs to put clean streets first, and be accountable for what he promised the voters.

333 signatures

Will you sign?

Showing 284 reactions

  • Dena Driscoll
    @bikemamadelphia tweeted link to this page. 2018-02-22 09:18:04 -0500
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets http://www.phila3-0.org/street_sweeping?recruiter_id=20318
  • Yury Korzun
    signed 2018-02-22 09:17:57 -0500
    Yury Korzun
  • Dena Driscoll
    signed 2018-02-22 09:17:57 -0500
    Car owner in South Philly checking in. Our streets are filthy we need to clean them.
  • Jeffrey Ogbara
    signed 2017-11-04 11:25:39 -0400
    Philly is a great city but needs some tough love… Let’s get this gem polished!
  • Steve Vaughan
    signed 2017-11-01 16:28:31 -0400
    Philly needs to pick it up and actually penalize those who litter. Kicking trash every day on my walks around the city. I pick it up when I can but we need more trash cans and an effort to clean up our city. The nickname Filthadelphia is one we need to shed immediately
  • Heather Prasad
    posted about this on Facebook 2017-10-31 13:34:00 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets
  • Heather Prasad
    signed 2017-10-31 13:33:11 -0400
  • Mary Meloscia
    signed 2017-10-30 05:13:18 -0400
  • Carl Bennett
    posted about this on Facebook 2017-10-29 16:26:21 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets
  • Carl Bennett
    signed 2017-10-29 16:25:34 -0400
  • Anna Smith
    signed 2017-10-28 04:31:50 -0400
  • Stephanie Horwath
    followed this page 2017-10-28 00:23:57 -0400
  • Stephanie Horwath
    signed 2017-10-28 00:23:25 -0400
  • Kevin Kane
    signed 2017-10-27 20:50:19 -0400
    Clean this place up.
  • Marion Blow
    signed 2017-10-27 16:53:44 -0400
  • Alexandra Speers
    signed 2017-10-27 16:22:10 -0400
  • Will Woldenberg
    signed 2017-10-27 12:28:01 -0400
  • Anais Cooper-Hackman
    signed 2017-10-27 11:09:11 -0400
  • Jenna Richter
    signed 2017-10-27 08:11:36 -0400
  • Brett Cohen
    signed via 2017-10-18 21:52:18 -0400
  • Arlene Mcelwee
    signed 2017-08-29 08:52:00 -0400
  • Mark Bolen
    signed 2017-08-28 23:01:04 -0400
  • Linda Pellecchia
    signed 2017-08-28 14:03:41 -0400
  • Jessica Best
    signed 2017-08-28 14:00:15 -0400
  • Carol McGinness
    signed 2017-08-28 13:15:33 -0400
    Carol mcginness would like our streets clean. I pay taxes tried of our streets being so dirty. Our Mayor & city council should act on this.
  • Stefi
    @sh_ahaha tweeted link to this page. 2017-08-28 12:17:08 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets http://www.phila3-0.org/street_sweeping?recruiter_id=45117
  • Matt Ryan
    signed 2017-08-27 11:04:53 -0400
  • Chris Nevin
    signed 2017-08-15 14:06:35 -0400
  • Lynne Brosch
    posted about this on Facebook 2017-08-14 13:16:28 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets
  • Deborah Marie Casdia
    signed 2017-08-14 11:17:06 -0400