Philadelphia Mayor 2023 - Official Thread (Chester, Jefferson: restaurant, cost, mall)
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How to win an election in 2023: play the race card, or victim card, if you're eligible (pretty much anyone other than white males), seals the deal for white liberals and progressives for sure despite anyone dealing said cards qualifications and backgrounds.
Is it my imagination or it looks like a playbook once used by Coleman A. Young when he was mayor of Detroit?
-I still like Rebecca Rhynhart, she seems super smart but wasn't particularly inspiring. Still may vote for her.
-I am sure I am in the minority here, but I like what Parker had to say, especially about the Sixers arena. Seems to recognize there are middle class neighborhoods that aren't CC adjacent and they are on the brink in many ways. The city is not just a wealthy center city surrounding by endless poverty (Chicago says "hello"), that part gets lost too much.
-Jeff Brown, that remark about Chester...oof. Hard to get past that
-Helen Gym...I wasn't going to vote for her anyway but that total non answer about her "general meeting" with the Sixers owners is why people hate politicians. Though her last minute dig about the sixers winning the championship did at least show some self awareness.
-Derek Green definitely rehearsed some good zingers. I hope if he wins, he has fruit loops drop from the ceiling
-I thought the question about Amen Brown's personal financing was poor shaming. Though his response wasn't particularly comforting...
-Allan Domb, I liked everything he had to say. I also liked his snazzy glasses.
-I am going to start quoting Jeff Cole "the heroin is the cheapest and the best in the world...apparently"
So I will like either go with Rhynhart or Domb, but I could be convinced to vote Parker.
I am seeing lots of pro-Gym sentiment on Twitter getting a ton of likes/retweets. i guess most people are perfectly happy with the way things are now. I honestly would've thought her expression of support for Krasner as well as stating that the DA's office should get increased funding wouldn't be well-received. Especially when she couldn't explain why she recently met with the Sixers owner and didn't answer one way or another when asked if Outlaw would be fired. How can people get away with refusing to answer yes/no questions?! SMH I am getting worried.
You got to remember too, that Gym easily has had the biggest social media presence from the start. However, it bothers me how much the local media loves her and basically gives her a pass on a whole host of issues. Truly goes to show that if you have been playing the city hall game with the reporters, lawyers, and non-profit machine, you will get good press no matter what even if your "proposals" are made up hogwash that won't address any citizen's concerns
I'm telling you: if Allan Domb or Jeff Brown had a child at Penn who was fighting to stop investment in Market East, it would be a massive story. But it's "racist" to bring it up that Gym's daughter and their activist best friend Debbie Wei are leading the charge.
ISTR that Michelle Obama did ask Brown privately to stop running that ad featuring her praising his opening supermarkets in food deserts. I may be wrong here, but whereas the ad featuring a Black guy comparing Brown to Jesus and another comparing him to a pillar of support in Black neighborhoods went down the moment it drew flak (and I did see it, and it was truly cringeworthy; way too much white-savior content in it), the MO ad continued to run for a while after she made her displeasure known.
Yes, pols talk out of both sides of their mouths quite frequently. This flip-flop, however, was quite blatant. And worse still, what he said to Black voters ran counter to what Black candidates themselves are saying. Both Green and Parker are on the record as wanting to put more cops on the streets. Last I looked, you can't do that unless you spend more money on the police. I'm sure you're aware of this, but most Blackswant good police protection just as most whites do. The difference is that a lot of them don't think the cops treat them with respect. I think eliza61nyc, who has NYPD officers for relatives, pretty much got to the crux of the matter when she said over on the crime discussion thread that her officer relatives pointed out that simply having the cops walk beats (and, as in Camden, get to know the people they are sworn to protect and serve) would go a long way towards solving that problem.
The news about the Ethics Board order broke late yesterday. AIUI, it's not an investigation, it's an order that the super PAC stop spending money on Brown's campaign because it found evidence that it is coordinating its activities with that campaign, a huge no-no under both state and Federal campaign finance law.
Are you quoting EO at the end there? I disagree with him on many things, but I defend him as a journalist because whenever he did straight news reporting (as opposed to opinionating, which is what he does exclusively now), he played the story down the middle, making sure to report all sides. It was often hard if not impossible to tell from reading the news stories which side he favored in a dispute. My guess is that since the opinionating fed his inner Donald Trump, he found it more salubrious to do more of it.
Anyway, that sounds awfully mild for him as far as criticism of Gym goes. And Gym is a huge hypocrite, and that hypocrisy is what usually comes up first when you ask people who are cool on her why they are cool on her. The Union League incident is simply the most recent and glaring example; often enough, people also bring up her founding a charter school, then opposing any effort to create more or support them better. The School District could use more funding, true, but that and supporting charters shouldn't be cast as a zero-sum game.
As for Rhynhart: I think it worth noting that neither Nutter, who brought her into public service, nor Street belong to the Democratic Party's progressive wing. That both are enthusiastic in their support for Rhynhart — yes, Street is actively part of the campaign apparatus, and if he's getting paid for his work, well, I'd say it's money well spent — should tell you something about how far she will go down the Working Families Party rabbit hole (which is to say, she will avoid it).
And since I've brought up the party that now holds the two minority-party at-large seats on Council: It's a sad commentary on the state of the Philly GOP that the "official opposition party" is one whose beef with the Democrats is that they haven't gone far enough to the left.
Michelle Obama didn't directly call Jeff Brown to remove a reference to her in one of his Philly mayoral ads. Folks actually believe MO picked up her cell phone and called Jeff Brown directly about this? If anything, ''her people'' may have contacted the Brown campaign yet the Brown folks say no one contacted them at all about this. Of course, Brown is accused of keeping the ad up post-MO displeasure being made known, stirs the pot against Brown by disrespecting MO even if not true; racial politics 101.
Regardless, MO did give a shout out to Brown for his efforts in restoring food options in these so called ''urban food deserts''. Then we have Ernest Owens and his ''White Supermarket Tycoon....'' headline stories.
It takes a white dude to address this food desert ''issue'' with actual supermarkets employing ex-cons to help them constructively integrate the black community as immigrants open, own, and run food bodegas in these same communities? Regardless,
Yet we have headline stories like (WSJ 4/10/13)''Philly, Fraud and ‘Equity’ Gone Wrong; The feds steer billions to ‘disadvantaged’ firms, and one analysis says fraud is ‘pervasive.’
In part: ''The DBE program, set up in the 1980s, steers money to small businesses that are at least 51% owned by “disadvantaged” persons. Women are “presumed disadvantaged,” along with people who are black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian-Pacific or Subcontinent Asian, although there are also limits on net worth and firm size. The government’s general goal is for 10% of its highway and transit funds to be spent with DBEs. But they’re supposed to do real work, not merely pass money through.''
“This was precisely the case with the Platt Bridge project,” says a news release by the U.S. Attorney. In 2011, Hercules-Vimas Joint Venture won a $42.7 million painting job from Pennsylvania’s Department of Transportation. To meet the disadvantaged rules, it subcontracted Vertech International, a certified DBE. “While Hercules-Vimas represented to PENNDOT that Vertech was the paint supplier, the government alleges that it worked directly with Sherwin-Williams, a non-disadvantaged business, to deliver paint and materials to the project site. Vertech merely created invoices designed to conceal the fraud in exchange for a nominal fee.”
Is Jeff Brown considered a "DBE" for $$? Where are the black business owners doing what Brown is doing? The DBE program, for example, has been around for 40 years and yet the new mantra today is ''equity'' as if this is something new?
I saw the Brown ad with the black community; what's the big deal? Ernestine writes that Brown is compared to God. Then the ''offensive'' reference to ''lynching''; really? This whipped up ''blacklash'' against Brown is just a case of plain old ''sour grapes'' otherwise known as racial politics 101 underwritten by jealousy and resentment.
Why is it always ''most blacks want police protection just like whites do"? Uh, where do the Asian, hispanic, indigenous people, etc stand on the police issue? Ernestine, for example, likes to use the ''brown'' community as occasional ''add-ons'' when he needs to make a point. Always when it comes to using the ''minority-majority'' stuff but it always comes down to black v white in the end. Interesting side note, in the northeast, there's tension/fighting between black and ''russian' students; why aren't they white? lol
Those are direct in-part quotes related to Gym and Rhynhart. After the recent debate, Gym, including her union league issue, isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Rhynhart, a ''Wall Street Insider disguised as ''an original progressive'' has a dull, hand, a la Trump, gesturing personality with canned responses and non-substantive ideas; otherwise known as a perfect personality to manage BearStearns credit derivative department and rate fraudulent mortgage securities at Fitch in the '00s.
Is the black community, black leadership, and folks like Owens complaining about Rhynhart make a $$$ killing by having a direct hand in the financial, equity, and wealth destruction in the black community? Nah, Brown is an open and easy target cuz he's white and has invested in a community that has ''deserts'' otherwise..."White Supermarket Tycoon..." LOL
I'm telling you: if Allan Domb or Jeff Brown had a child at Penn who was fighting to stop investment in Market East, it would be a massive story. But it's "racist" to bring it up that Gym's daughter and their activist best friend Debbie Wei are leading the charge.
Well one person's "fighting to stop investment in Market East" is another's "preserving a cultural neighborhood that has been slowly eaten away over the last few decades".
I'd like to see the south side of Market across from the Fashion District get redeveloped too...but Gym's daughter and her friend are far from the only people living in or culturally connected to Chinatown who are concerned about what will happen to Arch Street and points north.
That's not to say Gym's my first choice. I'm not quite sure who it is yet...but it's not Domb - whom I see as potentially our version of 1990s-era Giuliani - or Brown - whom I was skeptical of even before he threw Chester under the bus. And by now we know that Green opted out this morning...but not in time to stop his ads from playing during the 6:00 news.
Last edited by FindingZen; 04-13-2023 at 07:52 PM..
“According to a new poll commissioned by the Black Leadership PAC in Philadelphia, a newly formed coalition of business, labor, community and civic leaders focused on advancing Black political power, about 42 percent of Black voters in the city are undecided on the mayor’s race. Conducted by HIT Strategies, the early March poll of 400 Black Philadelphia voters also found that 59 percent were dissatisfied with the direction of the city, and that gun violence/crime/public safety were their top issues, with 89 percent of them believing that their vote is `very or somewhat powerful when it comes to making changes on issues that matter to them.’”
Well one person's "fighting to stop investment in Market East" is another's "preserving a cultural neighborhood that has been slowly eaten away over the last few decades".
I'd like to see the south side of Market across from the Fashion District get redeveloped too...but Gym's daughter and her friend are far from the only people living in or culturally connected to Chinatown who are concerned about what will happen to Arch Street and points north.
The mall is dying. The southside of Market is dead from about 6th to 11th. People who visit Philadelphia and walk through there, think Philly is a bad city. You have to be a real narcisst who hates the city and the actual community to believe it's going to "hurt" the neighborhood to the north of it. But, I get it. In the age where identity and race matter more than community, the south jersey business owners in Chinatown matter more than having a safer and more vibrant city.
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That's not to say Gym's my first choice. I'm not quite sure who it is yet...but it's not Domb - whom I see as potentially our version of 1990s-era Giuliani - or Brown - whom I was skeptical of even before he threw Chester under the bus. And by now we know that Green opted out this morning...but not in time to stop his ads from playing during the 6:00 news.
threw chester under the bus? You mean the sneers Jeff Brown got about sending the trash there? Gym Kenney voted Yes to do that.
The mall is dying. The southside of Market is dead from about 6th to 11th. People who visit Philadelphia and walk through there, think Philly is a bad city. You have to be a real narcisst who hates the city and the actual community to believe it's going to "hurt" the neighborhood to the north of it. But, I get it. In the age where identity and race matter more than community, the south jersey business owners in Chinatown matter more than having a safer and more vibrant city.
Again, agreed about the south side of Market in that stretch.
Beyond the business owners that populate Chinatown, there are the longtime Asian residents who benefit from affordable housing and the Asian community from the surrounding area that appreciates having a cultural center to come to.
One can only look down the road in DC to see what can/will happen. Gallery Place did become a more attractive neighborhood anchored by what is now known as the Capitol One Arena. But the adjacent/overlapping Chinatown was decimated to the point where practically the only discernible sign you know the neighborhood exists are the arch and the obligatory Chinese subtitles under each broadly non-Chinese business.
I mean, sure: I suppose one could shunt them up to East Oak Lane with the Koreans or down to South Philly with the Vietnamese. It’s far from the first time that POC/poor/working-class people have been sacrificed in the name of gentrification.
Why not knock down those south side Market buildings between 10th and 11th instead? It might require a bit of negotiation with Jefferson with their properties on or near Chestnut…but that would lessen the impact on Chinatown.
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threw chester under the bus? You mean the sneers Jeff Brown got about sending the trash there? Gym Kenney voted Yes to do that.
Maybe it’s that Brown said the “quiet part” out loud…
Again, agreed about the south side of Market in that stretch.
Beyond the business owners that populate Chinatown, there are the longtime Asian residents who benefit from affordable housing and the Asian community from the surrounding area that appreciates having a cultural center to come to.
One can only look down the road in DC to see what can/will happen. Gallery Place did become a more attractive neighborhood anchored by what is now known as the Capitol One Arena. But the adjacent/overlapping Chinatown was decimated to the point where practically the only discernible sign you know the neighborhood exists are the arch and the obligatory Chinese subtitles under each broadly non-Chinese business.
I mean, sure: I suppose one could shunt them up to East Oak Lane with the Koreans or down to South Philly with the Vietnamese. It’s far from the first time that POC/poor/working-class people have been sacrificed in the name of gentrification.
Or you could send them up to Mayfair in the Northeast, which is where the most recent Chinese immigrants to settle here have settled in.
I was actually surprised to see about 50-60 Chinese Mayfair residents show up at the Philadelphia Protestant Home last fall to show support for State Rep. Jared Solomon's push to secure funding to build the Roosevelt Boulevard subway, a line they would not directly benefit from (unless they took a crosstown route like the 77 to a future station on it). Solomon pledged to make information on the project available in Chinese, which he hadn't.
The lower Northeast has become the city's immigrant magnet. Who'da thunk it?
That having been said, I can't dismiss the rest of what you said out of hand. I like the arena proposal because it would have unrivaled access by transit, all of it all-weather. Ideally, I'd like to see everyone attend the games and concerts via Regional Rail, rapid transit or PATCO, using the lower level of the Fashion District mall to reach the arena. But I did have a chance to speak with Tom Lee of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation yesterday, and he did point out to me that chances were that many suburbanites would drive in anyway, exacerbating traffic jams on Chinatown's narrow streets.
And both of us acknowledged that the supposed spillover effects of sports facilities on surrounding neighborhoods simply don't exist. The fans don't spend money in the nearby restaurants and bars before or after the game; the arena itself captures all those discretionary dollars.
I know that another argument for downtown sports venues is that they would encourage office workers to stick around after work on game days and (presumably) spend a little money in bars or restaurants between quitting time and game time, but WFH has reduced the number of those office workers.
And in this case, there is an alternate downtown site for that arena that has almost as great transit access: across Market Street at 8th, on the "Disney hole" site. (You could still provide all-weather connections from Jefferson Station via the Fashion District concourse level and the crossovers at 8th and Market subway station.) That would pose less of a threat to Chinatown's viability.
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Why not knock down those south side Market buildings between 10th and 11th instead? It might require a bit of negotiation with Jefferson with their properties on or near Chestnut…but that would lessen the impact on Chinatown.
Maybe it’s that Brown said the “quiet part” out loud…
1) See above, A bunch of buildings have already been knocked down on the south side of Market.
2) I guess I need to get up to speed on how his comment about shipping trash to Chester threw that city under the bus. From what I read, Chester City Hall is doing a pretty good job of that itself.
Jeff Brown wasn't asked generally about the trash deal, it was specifically about the racial component of it. In that context, "it has to go somewhere" is just complete disingenuous at best, as though it was just bad luck that we burn trash in Chester and not Bryn Athyn. There may be very legitimate reasons to keep the current arrangement, IDK, but "who cares? Its just Chester" is not one of them.
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