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CityAndStatePA.com
December 14, 2016
ALISON PERELMAN Executive Director PHILADELPHIA 3.0 B.A., PRINCETON UNIVERSITY; PH.D, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA Alison Perelman spent years working on a University of Pennsylvania dissertation about insider-y political candidates everywhere cravenly draping themselves in apple pie-loving, down-home faux-folksiness to appeal to voters. Everywhere except Philadelphia, that is. Here, phony politicians tend go over about as well as a lead balloon. Eventually, Perelman, a scion of the influential Perelman family, submitted her work – and promptly walked away from academia. “My academic options weren’t really where my heart was,” Perelman explained. “I wanted to make Philadelphia my career.” So Perelman, the director of Philadelphia 3.0, one of the city’s most well-endowed PACs, worked at Philadelphia City Council, first as a policy research fellow for Council President Darrell Clarke, next as a staffer for former councilmember Bill Green. “Our political system has a lot of scar tissue to break through, but it seemed like the place you could do the most good,” she said of her decision to go into local politics. The council contacts she made there made her an easy pick when the Zuritsky family, parking magnates by trade, decided they wanted to fund a 501(c)4 organization to shake up Philly politics. “There really wasn’t an example of a hybrid organization that was interested in electoral work and reform advocacy. I’m proud of the fact that we’ve made it work,” she said. Perelman has Philadelphia 3.0 on a mission to increase youth participation in local politics, eliminate the City Commissioners office – oft regarded as a local patronage den – and bring term limits to City Hall. “Our local government and legislature could work so much better,” she said. “The city can’t reach it its full potential without those institutions moving into the 21st century.” - R.B.
If you didn’t work in politics, what would you do?
Professor of communications