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

  • Harris Pike
    signed 2017-08-09 14:42:53 -0400
  • Anne Tyska
    signed 2017-08-09 14:39:06 -0400
  • Joanna Witte
    @JoannaMWitte tweeted link to this page. 2017-08-09 14:35:44 -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=39374
  • Joanna Witte
    signed 2017-08-09 14:35:32 -0400
  • Ralph Branch
    signed via 2017-08-09 14:32:44 -0400
  • David Hayne
    signed 2017-08-09 14:32:09 -0400
  • Jack
    signed 2017-08-09 14:26:53 -0400
  • Edward Brindley
    posted about this on Facebook 2017-08-09 14:24:32 -0400
    Sign and share to tell Jim Kenney to keep his promise to clean Philly's streets
  • David Maser
    signed 2017-08-09 14:24:22 -0400
  • Edward Brindley
    signed 2017-08-09 14:24:08 -0400
  • Ryan Leonard
    signed 2017-08-09 14:21:58 -0400
  • Michael Morrison
    signed via 2017-08-09 14:21:51 -0400
  • Robert Hughes
    signed 2017-08-09 14:15:50 -0400
  • Tanya Seaman
    signed 2017-08-09 14:15:40 -0400
  • Marky
    signed 2017-08-09 14:15:10 -0400
    I have been a long-time street sweeper, sweeping my street as well as an adjoining street. I have been a staunch advocate for more cleanliness along the corridors. Torresdale corridor in Wissinoming is a mess. Many businesses fail to sweep their own street surrounding the business. These means those handicap corners, and the mayor should come and check out Sanger & Torresdale to see exactly what I mean. Can a wheelchair come through the “beach” as some calls it, at this particular corner? Come on mayor!!! Start street sweeping. You are wearing out the volunteers like me who has been going out sweeping trash blowing from all directions, and getting that dirty grime from the pollution of cars off the street. Your turn Mayor.
  • Joseph Kerr
    signed 2017-08-09 14:14:47 -0400
  • Randy LoBasso
    @RandyLoBasso tweeted link to this page. 2017-08-09 14:14:44 -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=9940
  • Randy LoBasso
    signed 2017-08-09 14:14:27 -0400
  • Andy Famiglietti
    signed 2017-08-09 14:13:51 -0400
    After trash pickup every week, our street is covered in bits of trash and terrible-smelling gunk that leaks from the back of the garbage truck!! It’s awful, please Mayor Kenney clean this up!
  • Susie Mizelle
    signed 2017-08-09 14:12:50 -0400
  • Elizabeth Froh
    signed 2017-08-09 14:08:04 -0400
  • Ray Gutowski
    signed via 2017-08-09 14:02:02 -0400
  • Michael Wall
    signed 2017-08-09 13:47:53 -0400
    I love living int he city, but it’s embarrassingly dirty.
  • Clare Dych
    signed 2017-08-09 13:40:38 -0400
    Please, please, please.
  • Jason Duckworth
    signed 2017-08-09 13:33:04 -0400
  • Carolina Lobo
    signed 2017-08-09 13:27:02 -0400
  • Michael McGettigan
    signed 2017-08-09 13:12:02 -0400
  • Monica Allison
    signed 2017-08-09 13:10:51 -0400
  • Nancy Golumbia
    signed via 2017-08-09 13:09:35 -0400
  • Jake Thompson
    signed 2017-08-09 13:07:53 -0400