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1st Council District candidates square off in forum
Last week, City Paper attended (and live tweeted!) a 1st Council District forum in South Philly. It was quite a South Philly affair: It mostly consisted of white (and all-male) South Philadelphian candidates talking to white, South Philadelphian residents.
1st Council District candidates square off in forum
Last week, City Paper attended (and live tweeted!) a 1st Council District forum in South Philly.
It was quite a South Philly affair: It mostly consisted of white (and all-male) South Philadelphian candidates talking to white, South Philadelphian residents. The four candidates vying for the seat now occupied by Councilman Frank DiCicco are Mark Squilla (from the Whitman neighborhood), Jeff Hornstein (Queen Village), Vern Anastasio (Bella Vista) and Joe Grace (the only odd one out, from Port Richmond).
Squilla even attended high school in the very place the forum was being held: Neumann-Goretti.
The big issues at the forum were casinos, waterfront development, trash and Superintendent Arlene Ackerman.
Hornstein called SugarHouse "awful." Grace said he was against a second casino and the expansion of SugarHouse. Anastasio claimed he was the only 1st candidate who fought as a community organizer against SugarHouse, but later, Squilla said he did too.
Trash was a topic that kept coming up throughout the debate: Squilla called dog poop that's not cleaned up a "big issue!" Anastasio argued that his civic organization funded litter cleanup, and the city should follow suit.
Several candidates also spoke out against Ackerman. Anastasio said she ought to step down, and Grace called the Philadelphia School District's leadership "authoritarian."
Unsurprisingly, some candidates tried to make DROP a big issue — even though no 1st candidate is enrolled in DROP.
Anastasio claimed to be the only first candidate completely against DROP (except for firefighters and police). However, earlier in the race — when DiCicco was still running — Grace positioned himself as the anti-DROP candidate.
At the forum, Grace acknowledged that the four candidates agreed on a number of things, and indeed, there's been speculation that they aren't dissimiliar enough. So the question is: What is this battle about, exactly? Not race. Since all the candidates are white, it's hard to say which, if any, will attract minority voters.
Is it a battle between neighborhoods? Perhaps. Squilla is president of the Whitman Council; Hornstein has a following in Queen Village and NoLibs; and Anastasio is founder and president of the Bella Vista United Civic Association. Grace, meanwhile, can lay claim to being the only candidate not from South Philly, in a district that encompasses everything from Chinatown to NoLibs to parts of Center City.
Or is it a battle that pits political insiders against newcomers? Yesterday, Mayor Michael Nutter endorsed Squilla. Grace was a city spokesman under former Mayor John Street. Anastasio, on the other hand, has painted himself as an outsider and a community organizer — on his Facebook, he's called longtime politicians "hacks of the past." And Hornstein has positioned himself as a man of the people, too: He was an organizer for the Service Employees International Union.
Later today, look out for Isaiah Thompson's report on the 2nd Council District forum, which took place a few blocks away from the 1st.
This article is part of our new, expanded coverage of this year's exciting election season. Grab this link for more "ElectionEar" pieces and look for the new column in our print edition.
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