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Philadelphia City Council’s 2012 session's just gotten rolling, but it’s already looking interesting. Over the next few weeks, Hall Monitor will keep you posted as the issues confronting this year’s Council take shape.
Probably the biggest news for tomorrow is that Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez and Councilman Bill Green plan to introduce a bill, long in the works, that would create a “land bank” — an entity that would hold and be able to distribute vacant land. This bill comes as the city administration’s task force on vacant land distribution still hasn’t produced a proposal for a “front door” system for the private acquisition of vacant land — after about a year and counting since they said they would.
Green also plans to introduce a bill that would resructure the city's delinquent tax collection practices, offering new incentives for debtors to get into a payment plan but also requiring that the city begin foreclosure proceedings against those who don't take advantage of those incentives.
The Sanchez/Green Land Bank bill isn’t the only vacant land proposal floating out there: the administration is rumored (not for the first time) to be close to releasing its plan at last, and Council President Darrell Clarke has proposed the establishment of “Redevelopment Zones,” in blighted areas, in which public properties could be purchased at discounted prices. (A summary of Sanchez' bill emphasizes it could co-exist with Clarke's proposal).
Most of tomorrow’s calendar, meanwhile, involves resolutions calling for hearings:
At-large Councilman James Kenney and Sixth Distict Councilman Bobby Henon have put forth a resolution calling for hearings on their proposal for “special purpose” tax zones. The idea seems to be something along the lines of allowing certain neighborhoods or zones to be able to keep portions of their taxes for use within that area — kind of like the much-discussed Neighborhood Improvement Districts cropping up around town, but without the added assessment. A draft bill characterized this measure as a way to help low-income communities; but critics will no doubt point out that it could also allow better-off communities to withhold taxes from the general fund for themselves.
Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez has a resolution calling for hearings on “zero tolerance” policies in the Philadelphia School District and the “negative and disproportionate effect of zero tolerance discipline policies on poor and minority students.” Sanchez has also sponsored a resolution calling HB-2029 — a bill in Harrisburg that bans “the application of foreign law” in judicial matters, and which is an obvious copycat of “anti-Sharia” bills in other states (the non-inclusion of the word “Sharia” in this bill likely stems from serious constitutional challenges to similar bills elsewhere)— “unnecessary and inconsistent with our core constitutional principles.”
Councilman Wilson Goode Jr., who’s made minority participation in city contracts his specialty — and whom Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council head Pat Gillespie recently called “a dope,” — will soon have his chance to shoot back: the Councilman has a resolution calling for hearings on the results of city contract participation goals released recently.
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