It was a busy first City Council meeting of the fall session, with several important pieces of legislation introduced and, somehow, a bomb scare that delayed the proceedings for over an hour. We were forced to exit the chambers about an hour after the meeting began, and were required to stay outside for over an hour until police had confirmed the issue was a false alarm.
By that point, however, Councilmember Mark Squilla had introduced legislation “authorizing a plan for evaluation and potential restructuring of the City’s solid waste management and recycling systems, including consideration of long-term recycling processing and long-term waste disposal services featuring specific infrastructure developments, establishing strict waste reduction and diversion targets, and transition toward a sustainable and equitable waste management economy, to be known as the “Philadelphia Zero Waste Circular Economy Act.”
This legislation appears to be an attempt at compromise between those who object to how the city handles waste disposal and city officials who wish to maintain the status quo. The central issue, which remains unresolved, is the burning of a portion of the city’s trash in an incinerator located in Chester, Pennsylvania.
Information distributed by Squilla’s office outlines key goals of the legislation, including:
Achieving a 60% total waste diversion rate
Investments in organic waste diversion (such as municipal composting and anaerobic digestion)
Evaluation of current municipal collection practices against international best practices
Opportunities for significant public engagment
Authroizes contacts of up to 20 years
“Transitioning to a Zero Waste Circular Economy will significantly reduce localized greenhouse gas emissions, clear litter from our neighborhood streets, and create high-quality green jobs right here in Philadelphia. I look forward to working collaboratively with all of you to ensure its successful implementation,” Squilla said via press release.
Thomas Looks at Law Department and Taxes
Amongst the legislation introduced by Councilmember Isaiah Thomas was a resolution “authorizing the Committee on Legislative Oversight to hold hearings on the structure of the Philadelphia Law Department and to consider the separation of the department’s functions between the Administration and City Council.”
For some time now, there has been conversation amongst members of council that perhaps City Council needed it’s own Law Department, as members of the current organization are appointed by the mayor and, therefore, would most likely side with the executive branch when a dispute between the two branches arises. It could become problematic, however, if two separate, city-operated Law Department’s disagree with one another without reaching some sort of compromise, which could lead to the city essentially suing itself in court.
Thomas also introduced a resolution “authorizing the Committee on Legislative Oversight to hold hearings on the competitive challenges created by the net income portion of the Business Income and Receipts Tax, its history, the affordability crisis and routes to take to ensure a thriving business community in Philadelphia.”
Thomas has long been one of Council’s most ardent supporters of reducing city taxes, spearheading an effort a few years ago in reducing city Wage and Business Taxes. Unfortunately, those cuts left holes in the budget that nearly decimated the city’s five-year fund balance and necessitated the implementation of new taxes last year.
Landau Calls on Commonwealth to Ban Automatic License Plate Readers
Councilmember Rue Landau introduced a resolution calling on the General Assembly and Senate of the Commonwealth of Penns”ylvania to pass bipartisan legislation to ban the use of Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras like Flock cameras across the Commonwealth and ban or develop strong guardrails for the use of automatic license plate reader technology.”
Amidst the concern over other forms of government surveillance such as Flock cameras, Councilmember Landau, who is chair of the City Council Tecnology Committee, as taken an active interest in the usage of new technologies and artificial intelligence, holding hearings on the city’s AI policies that left some observers feeling the city was not adequately prepared to handle coming technological advancements.
According to the resolution, “approximately 200 municipalities and 20 police departments throughout the United States have cancelled or refused to initiate contracts” with Flock Safety, the company that makes the license plate readers. This is due to added invasiveness of the cameras, which are constantly recording, tracking, and sharing information with mass surveillance databases.
Academy of Natural Sciences
A major topic of discussion at Thursday’s meeting was the recently announced closure of the Academy of Natural Sciences, a Drexel University run museum located on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The announcement drew sharp scrutiny from members of Council and citizens during public testimony.
In response, Councilmembers Jay Young and Nina Ahmad introduced a resolution “authorizing the Committee on Legislative Oversight to hold hearings investigating the announced closure of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University’s public museum, its consequences for Philadelphia, and options to preserve public access and the institution’s scientific and educational mission, and authorizing the issuance of subpoenas to the full extent authorized under Section 2-401 of the Home Rule Charter.”
It is unclear what City Council could actually do to forestall or even stop the closure of the 200-year-old institution, as they held similar hearings over the closure of the University of Arts which yielded no tangible results.
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