the naked city
[ a million stories ]
✚ COMEBACK NID Less than a year after it was defeated by residents, the controversial Callowhill Neighborhood Improvement District appears to be rearing its head again — and this time with a new sales team. It was last April that then-1st District Councilman Frank DiCicco introduced a bill in City Council that would have created a Neighborhood Improvement District (NID) in the area between Vine and Callowhill, Broad and 10th streets, imposing a tax on residents to be used for neighborhood improvements. While some residents favored the bill, others saw in it the empowerment of one group of residents (represented most closely by the Callowhill Neighborhood Association) over the rest of the neighborhood. Opponents rallied and managed, despite efforts by DiCicco to stop them, to defeat the NID — no small feat, considering the law places the burden on those opposed, requiring signatures of either a majority of residents or the owners of a majority of the property value to petition against it. But controversial legislation has a way of coming back from the dead — and NID opponents are worried the bill is already stirring in its coffin. A week ago, the Callowhill Neighborhood Association announced a “60-day pilot cleaning program” in areas “where there was strong support” for the NID. The cleaning is being administered by the Center City District, whose executive director, Paul Levy, first proposed the NID. Levy confirms that the city’s Commerce Department — which recently released a brochure on how to start Business and Neighborhood Improvement Districts in Philly — is paying his agency $80,000 for a “demonstration” cleaning and potential street improvements, as part of a contract that also
twominuteswith 55
60
5
50
10
45
15
40
...an underground expert
20 35
30
includes work on the SEPTA-owned portion of the Reading Viaduct. Word of the pilot program went out 10 days ago to members of the Callowhill Neighbors Association listserv, among them vocal NID opponents Philip Browndeis and Lee Quillen. Quillen says that DiCicco’s successor, Councilman Mark Squilla, whom she contacted, was initially unaware of the pilot. But later, Quillen says, Squilla told her that he was, in fact, considering introducing new NID legislation. “I was stunned,” says Quillen. “I told him, ‘Mark, if I have to defeat this again, I’ll defeat this again.’” Squilla, who is on vacation this week, couldn’t be reached for —Isaiah Thompson comment.
✚ HEALTH HAZARD Over the recent budget season, Republican Gov. Tom Corbett showed he’s willing to be the guy who kicked thousands of vulnerable people — victims of domestic violence, children in the care of non-relatives — off government assistance. But a national reputation for illegally throwing tens of thousands of children off Medicaid? That just might be too far.
That’s why, while some conservative governors like Texas Gov. Rick Perry are taking a stand against the expanded version of Medicaid created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), there’s a possibility that Corbett may quietly acquiesce. The same U.S. Supreme Court ruling that supported Obamacare’s controversial individual mandate to buy health insurance made it easier for states to opt out of the law’s Medicaid expansion, which is set to provide health insurance to a huge chunk of currently ineligible poor people — up to 682,880 Pennsylvanians — living below 133 percent of the federal poverty line. >>> continued on page 10
REBECCA YAMIN
25
E VA N M . L O P E Z
past 24 years, the West Shipyard is being unearthed for just two weeks, in an archaeological dig open to the public July 19-20 (see westshipyard.wordpress.com). The Delaware River Waterfront Corp. commissioned the dig, on which Yamin’s a consultant. City Paper: What’s the backstory on this site? Rebecca Yamin: James West seems to have had a shipyard there as early as 1676,
and that’s before William Penn. He also seems to have acquired the Penny Pot House, an early tavern. We don’t know if we’re going to find the remains of the tavern, but we hope we’re going to find … wharves and bulkheads that expanded the shore. CP: What’s the significance of this dig? RY: Imagine having the possible remains of a tavern dating to the 1670s and the
remains of a boatyard. It’s the beginning of the story of the development of the Philadelphia waterfront, and that’s what’s significant. It will be fascinating to see exactly how that boatyard was organized. You can imagine how the work was being done, and imagine a piece of the past that was fundamentally unrecorded. CP: What’s the next step? RY: The site will be covered back up, because if there are interesting remnants to be Historical archaeologist; author, Digging in the City of Brotherly Love
explored further, then the Delaware River Waterfront Corp. will have to [find funding for a] bigger archaeological excavation. It’s kind of exciting when you’re just beginning a project, because you have no idea what’s going to be there. —Samantha Melamed
By Isaiah Thompson
MURKY WATERS ³ RAISE THE MAINSAIL and batten down the hatches: Your own Man Overboard! returns from the deep to the troubled waters of his beloved Philadelphia! This column space had, some readers will note, been occupied for a time by the moniker “Hall Monitor,” bearing the same byline you see here. The difference? More nautical terms, more leaping off planks. And speaking of leaps — Mayor Michael Nutter showed remarkable agility last week in his own leaps of logic before U.S. District Judge William Yohn in defending his proposed ban on outdoor “homeless feeding” (yeeeeccchh — that phrase, which is not of the mayor’s making, should be buried at sea) against a lawsuit by religious organizations who claimed the ban violated their constitutional rights. In defending his ban, the mayor waxed philosophical, couching the city’s “no” to meals on the Parkway as part of a larger “yes” to serving the needs of the neediest. The mayor wants to bring meals indoors and provide more services, all as part of the city’s “plan to end homelessness.” But if ending homelessness is our destination, the city doesn’t seem to have plotted much of a course lately. The mayor’s ban preceded any effort by the city to bring meals indoors, and the mayor has yet to reveal any commitment greater than encouraging the efforts already under way by groups like Broad Street Ministries and Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission to serve meals indoors. And what of this “plan to end homelessness”? In an email, mayoral spokesman Mark McDonald asserted that “the plan” was “neither a justification nor an explanation” of the ban, and pointed out that under Nutter the city has created 215 “housing first” units and 75 new entry-level housing slots, among other commendable initiatives. But lately the news has been grim. Beds and services have been cut from shelters, and the plan for replacing many of the beds lost with the closure of the city’s largest men’s shelter, the Ridge Center, hasn’t been unveiled. The mayor’s budget this year does not come close to replacing funding for services being cut by the state. And stimulus money used over the past two years for housing the homeless and preventing homelessness has now run out. It’s not Nutter’s fault that efforts to “end homelessness” haven’t been realized. But the outdoormeals ban — as Yohn pointed out when he issued an injunction against it — proposed to take away without giving, and to diminish without replacing. ✚ Isaiah Thompson can be reached beneath his battened hatches at isaiah.thompson@citypaper.net.
P H I L A D E L P H I A C I T Y PA P E R | J U L Y 1 9 - J U L Y 2 5 , 2 0 1 2 | C I T Y PA P E R . N E T |
³ DATING TO 1676 and hidden under a parking lot just north of Vine Street for the
manoverboard!
feature | a&e | the agenda | food | classifieds
[ has a way of coming back from the dead ]
7