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

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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

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Showing 284 reactions

  • Mark Moore
    signed 2017-08-14 11:11:13 -0400
    South Phila needs the streets to be cleaned. The 300 block of Reed is terrible.
  • Ramon Martinez
    signed 2017-08-14 11:03:32 -0400
    I am sick and tired of picking up trash every day on my street. Do your job Mayor or get out of City Hall and let somebody better in.
  • Mike Hart
    signed 2017-08-13 20:11:32 -0400
  • Cathy Mcinnis
    posted about this on Facebook 2017-08-13 17:44:16 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets
  • Cathy Mcinnis
    signed 2017-08-13 17:43:51 -0400
    CATHY MCINNIS
  • Lynn Karlesses
    signed 2017-08-13 17:41:26 -0400
  • Sarah DiPietro
    signed 2017-08-13 12:39:59 -0400
  • Andrew Litts
    signed 2017-08-13 11:45:39 -0400
  • Tim Kent
    signed 2017-08-13 07:20:56 -0400
  • Brent Groce
    signed 2017-08-12 19:14:01 -0400
  • Zakejia Washington
    signed 2017-08-12 16:04:31 -0400
  • Kevin Clarke
    signed via 2017-08-12 15:48:09 -0400
  • Jamie Moffett
    signed 2017-08-12 15:47:10 -0400
  • Suzy Lombard
    signed 2017-08-12 14:23:16 -0400
  • Erica Dunbar
    signed 2017-08-12 13:01:12 -0400
  • Codeswitch McGee
    posted about this on Facebook 2017-08-12 12:52:16 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets
  • Codeswitch McGee
    @Eazy_Bake tweeted link to this page. 2017-08-12 12:52:13 -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=44872
  • Baker Blanding
    signed 2017-08-12 12:51:53 -0400
  • Alyssa Cole
    signed 2017-08-11 23:43:52 -0400
  • Jeffrey McDonald
    signed 2017-08-11 23:23:08 -0400
    Jeffrey McDonald
  • Peter King
    signed via 2017-08-11 21:48:37 -0400
  • Travis Southard
    posted about this on Facebook 2017-08-11 21:44:56 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets
  • Travis Southard
    @tsouth tweeted link to this page. 2017-08-11 21:44:53 -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=3304
  • Casey Bridgeford
    signed 2017-08-11 21:35:47 -0400
  • Neal D'Amato
    signed 2017-08-11 20:58:59 -0400
  • Anjelica Sanders
    signed 2017-08-11 19:25:18 -0400
  • Karen Rodgers
    signed 2017-08-11 19:17:00 -0400
  • Elizabeth Sarver
    signed 2017-08-11 19:03:23 -0400
  • James Harley
    signed 2017-08-11 18:38:02 -0400
  • Laura Arevalo
    signed 2017-08-11 18:12:13 -0400