Philadelphian Politics

[Redddog]

I'm confused. Do we want street cleaning or, no?

Sheesh.

[ScreamShatter]

Originally Posted by Redddog

I'm confused. Do we want street cleaning or, no?

Sheesh.

Yes! After years of broken promises and putting politicians own political inconveniences in front of the needs of the city, glad it’s being done. But shame on Kenney for us lack of leadership and political courage for doing it sooner, as promised.

Now let’s return to general development speak.

[Boku]

Originally Posted by Redddog

I'm confused. Do we want street cleaning or, no?

Sheesh.

Yes, but only if provided by Allan Domb, not socialists.

[Insoluble]

Originally Posted by Capsule F

He is kind of right about the socialist thing though.
Crime is up in basically every major way, those paying the lion's share of taxes are tired of worrying about danger everywhere.

Those of us paying the lion's share of taxes generally live in neighborhoods in which crime is low. Also, I suspect the crime rate increase has more to do with the turmoil in the Philly PD over the past few years under Ross than it does with an election that took place, what, two months ago?Speaking of which, what do you all think of the pick for the new commissioner?

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

Alan Domb will speak with a level of clarity that others won't even know how to formulate a plan to create.

I hope you're right. So far, Domb seems to have to be like most of the rest of city council in that he's more interested in appeasing his niche special interest group and maintaining power than actually fixing things. It's just that his niche special interest group happens to include developers. Talk about pulling people out of porverty is great and all, wake me up when it actually happens

Originally Posted by ScreamShatter

My points are based on facts, not theories. See below for a little reference since you seem to not be in the know on many topics.

I think most of us are trying to understand how your personal ax to grind against "socialists" has anything to do with The current administration's failure to enact government funded social programs like street sweeping. The Working Class Party only won seats on city council a few months ago. I have a hard time seeing how anyone would classify Kenny as a socialist. He's more of an old-school machine Democrat, trying his best to maintain the status quo. I agree with you about the street sweeping for the most part, it should have happened sooner. But you are bringing unrelated politics into it and it's severely weakening your point.

[cardeza]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

People will move their cars when they get ticketed $25.

Or they can just drive to work that day. Or they can drive their car to the next neighborhood which won't have street cleaning that day and leave the car for a few days until they want to go back and get it.

It's not that difficult. It's not like every neighborhood in the entire city will be cleaning simultaneously and thus you will have literally nowhere to park. You'll probably have to drive a half mile to the next neighborhood and then gasp, walk your fat *ss back to your sofa which will take all of 15 minutes.

It all depends on what areas you are talking about. I used to live on a one way street with parking on both sides and I can tell you there was nowhere to move 50% of the cars at one time. Period. That said, I doubt my old block would be candidate for street sweeping. Its a bit ridiculous to act like there arent any logistical challenges here and attribute everything to people being lazy. THis wouldn't be a big deal in my current neighborhood- but it's not laid out like south, north or west philly.

[cardeza]

Originally Posted by Insoluble

Those of us paying the lion's share of taxes generally live in neighborhoods in which crime is low. Also, I suspect the crime rate increase has more to do with the turmoil in the Philly PD over the past few years under Ross than it does with an election that took place, what, two months ago?Speaking of which, what do you all think of the pick for the new commissioner?


I hope you're right. So far, Domb seems to have to be like most of the rest of city council in that he's more interested in appeasing his niche special interest group and maintaining power than actually fixing things. It's just that his niche special interest group happens to include developers. Talk about pulling people out of porverty is great and all, wake me up when it actually happens


I think most of us are trying to understand how your personal ax to grind against "socialists" has anything to do with The current administration's failure to enact government funded social programs like street sweeping. The Working Class Party only won seats on city council a few months ago. I have a hard time seeing how anyone would classify Kenny as a socialist. He's more of an old-school machine Democrat, trying his best to maintain the status quo. I agree with you about the street sweeping for the most part, it should have happened sooner. But you are bringing unrelated politics into it and it's severely weakening your point.

Do you know there are taxes in Phila not related to income? Did you know flat taxes are regressive? Let's not go down the "I deserve better because Im one of the few that pays taxes" road. Please. Philly is full of flat taxes which means the poor pay more proportionally than the wealthy. And if you are complaining about property tax let's remember we all choose what homes to buy- there are plenty of homes in Philly with affordable property tax bills- just not the homes you want.

[Londonee]

Originally Posted by cardeza

It all depends on what areas you are talking about. I used to live on a one way street with parking on both sides and I can tell you there was nowhere to move 50% of the cars at one time. Period. That said, I doubt my old block would be candidate for street sweeping. Its a bit ridiculous to act like there arent any logistical challenges here and attribute everything to people being lazy. THis wouldn't be a big deal in my current neighborhood- but it's not laid out like south, north or west philly.

They'll find a way.

I live in Fitler Square with many of these types of streets and over the last 6 months they have been replacing every water line and every gas line to all of the houses. It's been an ordeal. Road closures, etc. Cars find new spots to park, trust me.

And, as EVERYTIME someone like you brings up this point, other more practical people bring up the point that there are wayyyy too many people with 3+ car households in the city. It's just absurd. I have a friend who lives on Watkins Street in S. Philly. They have a neighbor who has 4 cars on the block. They only actually drive two of them - but the other two they use to keep the spots directly in front of their house. The process is this: They pull the car they actually drive out of the space. Get out of the car - pull the other car that they never drive up about 4-5 feet so it's taking up 2 spaces, not enough room on either side to park. When they get home, they simply do the reverse.

Anyways, it's important to note that there are two types of cleaning programs - sidewalk sweeping (like the CCRA funds in Fitler Square) - which is people with brooms and buckets walking around the 'hood sweeping up loose trash on the sidewalk and in the gutter.

And *Street Sweeping* - which is done by the large sweeper trucks and focus on removing gutter debris quickly.

To be truly effective, both are needed.

[Insoluble]

Originally Posted by cardeza

Do you know there are taxes in Phila not related to income? Did you know flat taxes are regressive? Let's not go down the "I deserve better because Im one of the few that pays taxes" road. Please. Philly is full of flat taxes which means the poor pay more proportionally than the wealthy. And if you are complaining about property tax let's remember we all choose what homes to buy- there are plenty of homes in Philly with affordable property tax bills- just not the homes you want.

You're quoting a post that was in reply to Capsule F's. No doubt people in low income neighborhoods pay quite a bit in taxes, I assumed that Capsule F was referring to middle to higher income families when mentioning "those paying the lion's share of taxes" because that's the impression that the rest of the post gave. You can argue over different ways to partition income demographics to say which one pays for the largest portion of the city's revenue, but that seems like it's getting pretty far afield of the original topic.

[iamrobk]

Originally Posted by Londonee

And, as EVERYTIME someone like you brings up this point, other more practical people bring up the point that there are wayyyy too many people with 3+ car households in the city. It's just absurd. I have a friend who lives on Watkins Street in S. Philly. They have a neighbor who has 4 cars on the block. They only actually drive two of them - but the other two they use to keep the spots directly in front of their house. The process is this: They pull the car they actually drive out of the space. Get out of the car - pull the other car that they never drive up about 4-5 feet so it's taking up 2 spaces, not enough room on either side to park. When they get home, they simply do the reverse.

Lol my neighbors in Fairmount that do pretty much the same thing, though it's using 2 cars to save a spot for a third. Pretty sure it happens everywhere in Philly but there's nothing anyone can really do about it. Doesn't really affect me though since I don't have a car.

[City Wide]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

People will move their cars when they get ticketed $25.

Or they can just drive to work that day. Or they can drive their car to the next neighborhood which won't have street cleaning that day and leave the car for a few days until they want to go back and get it.

It's not that difficult. It's not like every neighborhood in the entire city will be cleaning simultaneously and thus you will have literally nowhere to park. You'll probably have to drive a half mile to the next neighborhood and then gasp, walk your fat *ss back to your sofa which will take all of 15 minutes.

I pretty much agree with you is that's what should happen and that its doable, but if a district councilperson has hundreds or thousands of citizens who would rather scream and shout instead of just moving their car, most councilpersons are going to be very aware of those voices. And if $25 tickets are handed out like candy----and we all know how effective the PPA is at issuing tickets----then the number of complaining people will go through the roof. Most voters are more likely to go out to vote to say no to something or someone then to say yes. And when was the last time we had a councilperson vote for the betterment of the City instead of job security? This is another example where term limits would be helpful.

[ScreamShatter]

Originally Posted by Insoluble

I think most of us are trying to understand how your personal ax to grind against "socialists" has anything to do with The current administration's failure to enact government funded social programs like street sweeping. The Working Class Party only won seats on city council a few months ago. I have a hard time seeing how anyone would classify Kenny as a socialist. He's more of an old-school machine Democrat, trying his best to maintain the status quo. I agree with you about the street sweeping for the most part, it should have happened sooner. But you are bringing unrelated politics into it and it's severely weakening your point.

Reread my comments on page 668. My comments about Kenney/street cleaning and the socialists were two completely unconnected points.

Unfortunately, the trolls and their group think mentality jumped because any mention of a criticism against their own political beliefs required immediate pushback, condemnation, and attack to browbeat me into submission to toe party line standards. In reality, I’m very supportive of both socialism And capitalism, but I expect results and am not going to sugarcoat that Philly’s socialized services like street repair, street sweeping, etc do not inspire confidence in socialism given their subpar quality despite the highest city taxes in the US. I stand firm that we deserve better than Philly government provides.

[allovertown]

Originally Posted by City Wide

Wow, I think you are falling into the same mud hole that you are saying he is falling into--------

I mean... I'm definitely being an asshole, but I'm definitely not engaging him in a political debate. I'm basically just telling him to shut up.

Besides, regardless of whether I posted or not, his highly inflammatory post was already well into starting an avalanche of bullshit. I may have thrown some more kindling on the blaze, but it was already burning before I got here.

It's just very frustrating that some people here (and it frequently seems like the same people) just can't fucking help themselves. It's really not hard to talk about development without getting into this bullshit. Politics affects development of course, but it's possible to criticize a policy or a politician without slinging mud.

Honestly, does anyone really like Kenney or think he's doing a great job regardless of political affiliation? Criticizing him should be the easiest thing in the world, but for some reason we're bringing up Bernie Sanders, and accusing people of being socialists, and creating strawman grad students... Enough.

[cardeza]

Originally Posted by Londonee

They'll find a way.

I live in Fitler Square with many of these types of streets and over the last 6 months they have been replacing every water line and every gas line to all of the houses. It's been an ordeal. Road closures, etc. Cars find new spots to park, trust me.

And, as EVERYTIME someone like you brings up this point, other more practical people bring up the point that there are wayyyy too many people with 3+ car households in the city. It's just absurd. I have a friend who lives on Watkins Street in S. Philly. They have a neighbor who has 4 cars on the block. They only actually drive two of them - but the other two they use to keep the spots directly in front of their house. The process is this: They pull the car they actually drive out of the space. Get out of the car - pull the other car that they never drive up about 4-5 feet so it's taking up 2 spaces, not enough room on either side to park. When they get home, they simply do the reverse.

Anyways, it's important to note that there are two types of cleaning programs - sidewalk sweeping (like the CCRA funds in Fitler Square) - which is people with brooms and buckets walking around the 'hood sweeping up loose trash on the sidewalk and in the gutter.

And *Street Sweeping* - which is done by the large sweeper trucks and focus on removing gutter debris quickly.

To be truly effective, both are needed.

first and foremost let me say it would be a waste of money to clean EVERY single block on a regular basis. It seems many here disagree but I want to see the best bang for the buck. I'd rather have high traffic areas cleaned twice a week than have more sporadic intervals due to crews being spread out too thin. My residential block (and most nearby) absolutely does not need regular mechanical cleaning and it would be waste of money to send sweeper up there. Some seem more focused on the gratification of watching people move cars than on what is needed. Philly has trash problems that extend beyond whats near the curb- maybe not in CC or south philly but this is the case elsewhere. Street sweeping does not equal a clean city. To me, curbside litter is less of an eyesore than trash on vacant lots, in and near our parks and on front lawns. All of that needs to be addressed to have a clean city.

Im not going to get into evaluating who has the right to own more than 1 car. On my old block no one had 3 cars and I would say less than 50% of the homes had 2 cars- some had zero. The block had roughly 60 rowhouses and no rear driveway parking- there was never an evening where more than a handful of spots were unused- sometimes every inch of curb was occupied by a parked car. The only time lot of people moved their cars was when we had block parties and that involved some people parking a block or two or three away- and trust me there was not universal cooperation. Also, what happens in such an area if more than one small street is to be done on the same day- where will the cars go?

[cardeza]

Originally Posted by allovertown

I mean... I'm definitely being an asshole, but I'm definitely not engaging him in a political debate. I'm basically just telling him to shut up.

Besides, regardless of whether I posted or not, his highly inflammatory post was already well into starting an avalanche of bullshit. I may have thrown some more kindling on the blaze, but it was already burning before I got here.

It's just very frustrating that some people here (and it frequently seems like the same people) just can't fucking help themselves. It's really not hard to talk about development without getting into this bullshit. Politics affects development of course, but it's possible to criticize a policy or a politician without slinging mud.

Honestly, does anyone really like Kenney or think he's doing a great job regardless of political affiliation? Criticizing him should be the easiest thing in the world, but for some reason we're bringing up Bernie Sanders, and accusing people of being socialists, and creating strawman grad students... Enough.

I dont know if I "like" him but I definitely do not think he's doing a bad job. However if I had a narrow view of what the city is and should be and I only cared about the interests of those who were in my specific socioeconomic group and neighborhood I might feel differently. To be frank, we have much bigger issues that street sweeping so I find it interesting that people are willing to give a mayor a failing grade largely based on lack of street sweeping.

[Frontst17]

Originally Posted by Justin7

Drink!

(Am I the only one playing this game?)

At this point I’m wasted, someone call me a cab.

[Frontst17]

I’d love to know what Kenney has done that’s so horrible? Is it really about street sweeping and sugar taxes that pisses people off so much? I don’t even know why his name get brought up positive or negative he’s kind of just there. If anything people should be thrilled he actively travels around and out of the country as an ambassador to the city bringing in business. Crime rate is still an issue and drug use is still an issue but what’s worse than it was? Honest question

[ScreamShatter]

Originally Posted by allovertown

I mean... I'm definitely being an asshole, but I'm definitely not engaging him in a political debate. I'm basically just telling him to shut up.

Besides, regardless of whether I posted or not, his highly inflammatory post was already well into starting an avalanche of bullshit. I may have thrown some more kindling on the blaze, but it was already burning before I got here.

It's just very frustrating that some people here (and it frequently seems like the same people) just can't fucking help themselves. It's really not hard to talk about development without getting into this bullshit. Politics affects development of course, but it's possible to criticize a policy or a politician without slinging mud.

Honestly, does anyone really like Kenney or think he's doing a great job regardless of political affiliation? Criticizing him should be the easiest thing in the world, but for some reason we're bringing up Bernie Sanders, and accusing people of being socialists, and creating strawman grad students... Enough.

Honestly, you are the one stirring up stuff.

Reread my comments on page 668. My comments about Kenney/street cleaning and the socialists/Alan Domb were two completely unconnected points. . They weren’t even stated about the same topic so not sure why you are trying to force a connection that doesn’t exist and then ranting that they are all lies.

I’ve been accommodating to you by supplying sources to back my posts, but you continue to rant and slander me for absolutely no reason. Lets just put this aside and move on, please.

[Londonee]

Originally Posted by cardeza

first and foremost let me say it would be a waste of money to clean EVERY single block on a regular basis.

But that's what EVERY OTHER REAL CITY DOES.

[ScreamShatter]

Originally Posted by Frontst17

I’d love to know what Kenney has done that’s so horrible? Is it really about street sweeping and sugar taxes that pisses people off so much? I don’t even know why his name get brought up positive or negative he’s kind of just there. If anything people should be thrilled he actively travels around and out of the country as an ambassador to the city bringing in business. Crime rate is still an issue and drug use is still an issue but what’s worse than it was? Honest question

It’s a fair question. Crime rate at a decade high, sugar tax, drugs, and street sweeping are big points of contention. Especially, that he kept several communities from investing in their own street sweeping programs.

Roads are in the worst shape in 20 years and when asked about it, he responded something like “Tough. That’s the price you pay for progress” totally condescending and unwilling to look at basic solutions to make the pot holes created from gas department hooking up new houses better.

For the sugar tax, he positioned it as helping expand pre-k, but did a bait-and-switch and put the tax into the General Fund, most not going to education.

He refused to go to debates, and walked out of the African American forum when he didn’t like being asked why his Admin doesn’t have more POC in it.

Lots of corruption charges from people under him, but more importantly were the audits that showed total mismanagement of something like $250m worth of budget. I’d need to go back and check the exact amount.

His record, and his attitude, leave a lot to be desired.

[ScreamShatter]

Originally Posted by cardeza

first and foremost let me say it would be a waste of money to clean EVERY single block on a regular basis. It seems many here disagree but I want to see the best bang for the buck. I'd rather have high traffic areas cleaned twice a week than have more sporadic intervals due to crews being spread out too thin. My residential block (and most nearby) absolutely does not need regular mechanical cleaning and it would be waste of money to send sweeper up there. Some seem more focused on the gratification of watching people move cars than on what is needed. Philly has trash problems that extend beyond whats near the curb- maybe not in CC or south philly but this is the case elsewhere. Street sweeping does not equal a clean city. To me, curbside litter is less of an eyesore than trash on vacant lots, in and near our parks and on front lawns. All of that needs to be addressed to have a clean city.

Im not going to get into evaluating who has the right to own more than 1 car. On my old block no one had 3 cars and I would say less than 50% of the homes had 2 cars- some had zero. The block had roughly 60 rowhouses and no rear driveway parking- there was never an evening where more than a handful of spots were unused- sometimes every inch of curb was occupied by a parked car. The only time lot of people moved their cars was when we had block parties and that involved some people parking a block or two or three away- and trust me there was not universal cooperation. Also, what happens in such an area if more than one small street is to be done on the same day- where will the cars go?

I get your gist.

Keep in mind, trash and most importantly sediment from the street go into the drains. It’s corrosive to the water pipe infrastructure, causes backup water that floods basements, creates sink holes, and also leads to unsanitary streets which is one reason Kensington has a Hep A outbreak. And that doesn’t even address how all that trash gets pushed into the Del River and swept out to sea.

These programs are needed for infrastructure protection, public health and sanitation, and also to improve general quality of life in the city. We need to take care of the city and it’s people. Investing in proactive street and sidewalk cleaning reduces infrastructure and public health costs on the backend.