The Hoagiemeister a.k.a. Ed Rendell is coming to town on Friday to tout his healthcare plan. Well, there's a bill in the PA House that is much much better. Read about it here. The HealthCare4AllPA group is headed by Chuck Pennacchio, the guy I worked for during his run for Senate in 2006. His welcome message is here.
RSVP to Philadelphia Unemployment Project at 215.557.0822.
via YPP
Part III of the forum was when mayoral candidates Michael Nutter (D) and Al Taubenberger (R) took questions from the group. Above is a shot of Nutter answering a question. Perhaps it was the first question Skip asked: with the ever-increasing immigrant population of Russians, Asians, Hispanics, Africans and others, what would each candidate do as mayor to deal with providing services to facilitate the transition.
Taubenberger reminded the group that he's the son of German immigrants. He didn't have a specific plan on how much money he'd put towards programs or what services needed to be provided, but he was committed to making everyone feel welcome, legal or not.
Nutter deferred to Councilman Jim Kenny's plan to open an Office of New Philadelphians [.pdf] to lure more immigrants to Philly. He added that Philadelphia should make more of an effort to expand the number of languages it prints on flyers to a dozen or more, not just english and spanish. He stressed the importance of the mayor physically getting out of City Hall more and more and showing up at events in ethnic communities; "sometimes it's just a matter of showing up" he said.
Judy from Washington Square wanted more affordable housing downtown to keep young people from moving away. Taubenberger put his support behind shifting tax abatement monies to affordable housing and large developments set aside specifically for affordable housing. Nutter pointed to inclusionary housing. He noted the 60k shortage of affordable housing downtown and the abundance of $3M condos, but the lack of $100k – $250k homes. He did note the high costs of building, too high.
After the Q&A session, both candidates made their rounds to the crowd thanking them for coming out and being an important part of their communities as civic leaders.
I just happened to be sitting at the table with Nutter's former Chief of Staff, Julia Chapman. He came over to confer with her as to how he did and to catch up while the Inquirer's Chris Satullo wrapped up.
On the ride home with fellow attendees Marisa and Beth, we went over what we thought of the event. We were all happy to attend and happy that everything went smoothly. None of us had been to that part of town before and exploring new parts of town is always fun for me, even if it's just one building.
I've put up a gallery of photos from the event here, the shots are a bit bigger and you can see them all at once with captions. And shots of the notes from each breakout session can be found in this flickr set from the day starting here.
I tend to look at things differently than the average person. I look at things from a photographic perspective all the time. Constantly aware of the light (my God the light!). Where it's coming from, what it's hitting, what is hiding from it… And I'm also constantly looking at the little things around me. I'm always seeing cool little things like a sapling growing out of the same space as an Inquirer honor box over on 11/Chestnut, perfectly framed by the white box, the green of the sapling is not quite touching the text. I hear about crazy things like war, crime, natural disaster and think about all the photos I'd take if I were present. I'm horrified and mesmerized at the same time. Fearful of what would happen to me if I were there and fearful of all the photos I'm missing by not being there.
The shot above accompanies this story from the NY Times of the California wildfires raging from LA to San Diego. It's absolutely incredible. It's gorgeous. It's balanced. It's shocking. It's descriptive. It's the beginning and the end. There are other photos, including these from NY Times, but they're not as good. I'm not saying there aren't other good photos of this horrific disaster, but this is the best I've seen so far. I just resized it and it's now my desktop. That chopper is coming out of the fires of hell. The fire is encroaching on the pristine blue that is SoCal and turning slowly it into charcoal.
I've heard that this is the largest migration of Americans since the Civil War with over 500k people fleeing the area. I've heard that the burned area is somewhere around 600 square miles. To put that into perspective, Philly is some 135 square miles. That's including the area curving up the Delaware River (you can be on 95 for 30 minutes, get off an exit and still be within city limits), all the way through Chestnut Hill, waaaay out west to Lower Merion and Southwest to Chester. Imagine Philly side by side by side by side and then some… Burned.
I don't understand the urge of living in California. The earth shakes. The wildfires. The mudslides. Something's wrong. One of those lucky someones in San Diego right now is Lady's sister. She's getting the hell out of Dodge now and to the East coast as her job has closed its doors for at least the rest of the week.
On another note, I went to the library and took out Shooting Under Fire: The World of the War Photographer by Peter Howe. It's incredible. The images are amazing. The stories behind them, told by the photographers in their own words, are astounding. You can check it out of the Independence Branch after I've renewed it a few times.
Photo: Jim Wilson/The New York Times | from Gov. Schwarzenegger's helicopter
That's a slice of The Four Seasons' tiramisu. It was deeelicious. Lady and I had that, along with three other desserts, paired with three types of coffee by Peet's Coffee & Tea last month. Our post is up on Messy and Picky here.
I find it infinitely fascinating to hear the thoughts of a photographer regarding her/his shots. Even cooler is when it's an audio slideshow of their work. Even cooler is when the slideshow contains photos I'm familiar with or genuinely like. I guess it's also equally interesting to watch an audio slideshow of images I don't particularly like, but have the photographer shed some light on the work for me to understand it a little better.
The NY Times has this feature of Simon Norfolk's work for NYT Magazine over the last six years. Cool stuff. Shot with an 8×10 field camera – one of those old school cameras that looks like a box on top of a tripod and you stand behind it underneath a cloth so you can see the image better.
NYT Magazine has some of the most incredible photography out there and I've been drooling over the images in the mag for at least 10 years now. Big money shoots with big ideas behind them. Oh perchance to dream.
Norfolk's most recent assignment for NYT Magazine viewable here.
The shot above is just a glimpse of the size of the community center – two full basketball courts, complete with stands on one wall, offices and I think meeting rooms to the side. I'm also going to assume that there are two good sized locker rooms off to the side as well. The forum took place in one half of the basketball court area. Back to the happenings on the floor…
During Round 3 of switches, groups discussed what steps were needed to get to the New Deal and to maintain it. My group had a lot to say about what needed to be changed like Lisa, from Kensington, who said that agencies within the City weren't responsive to calls for help which leaves less time for neighborhood groups to take on larger projects. Gabriel, from The Enterprise Center, leadership from the top needed to lead the non political issues like trash pickup. He added that things like this are easily quantifiable with simple input/output measurements for services with incoming calls coupled to when calls were answered [once again, a CitiStat-esque system]. Rose made a very strategic suggestion to position a group to get close to the incoming mayor's transition team to get their ear; the very who-you-know attitude many want to get rid of. Lisa noted that these days, everything has become a transaction and simple services are not being done without an expectation of something. Our moderator Ben stepped in and asked the group what needed to be changed. Rose simply stated it: those within the City needed to be the civil servants they're supposed to be. Lisa and Rose touched on the issue of leaders of groups becoming too powerful and their personality taking over that of the group's. Also, those leaders were resistant to change within the group holding them back from getting things done [sounds like the Ward system to me]. Gabriel had another simple point that certain things shouldn't require a call to one's councilperson to get things done. That would free up time for neighborhood groups to exchange information in forums like this one.
The forum came back together to quickly discuss findings before breaking up into four large groups to discuss Accountability for services and strategies, Resources & Funding, Coalitions for political leverage and Cooperation for capacity building. Some quick suggestions were thrown out rapid fire. Establish PhillyComplaints.com and have citizens post their grievances for officials to see and respond to. Form a coalition of community groups. Have City Council meet after 5p…
I went to sit in on the Capacity Building group. About 8 people plus myself and 2 moderators took part. Gary, from Longcrest in the NE, started off with some good news – his group had doubled attendance in the last 4 years, but in those 4 years, the community had become much more diverse and the newcomers weren't getting involved. He looked to the group for help. But first, the group wanted to know how the group got so big. Gary said they got very involved in the community and helped get things done. They were clear that residents needed to take the first step and make that first call themselves, but if things didn't get done, his group would do the best they could. His group went to State Rep, and former mayoral candidate, Dwight Evans for help in penetrating the new groups. His office committed two people to helping out.
Kirk, from Dickinson Narrows, said that his neighborhood was incredibly diverse and that their flyers go out in 3 different languages and even that is not enough anymore with multiple Asian populations living in and around the Narrows. Skip, from the Pan Asian Association, recommended a buddy system where those new to the neighborhood or new to the group were escorted to meetings to make them feel more welcome and for civic associations to hold meetings on the turf of newcomers to let them feel at home. He stressed that Asians want to establish a relationship first and do business second. Barbara expanded on that by suggesting a buddy system be created for entire neighborhood groups – for established groups to take on a new of struggling group close by.
Kirk suggested establishing a block coordination system (different from the existing block captain system which works with varying degrees of success) similar to a phone tree in the ability to disseminate information. Freda, from Garden Court and pictured speaking above, stressed the need for the proper resources to establish a block coordinator system.
Susan, from Ashton Square in the NE and pictured above, suggested a centralized place for resources. Perhaps even an office within City Hall as it is technically the center of the city. D-L disagreed with that saying City Hall was not truly representative of a central location in this city of 135 square miles. The issue of getting too close to the politicians was on the minds of the rest of the group. Skip said that if a major citywide coalition, with Great Expectations at the center of it all, were powerful enough with so many different peoples and neighborhoods represented, a new mayor couldn't afford to ignore it. Pay to play and who you know wouldn't be in play anymore if a group were large enough. He added that a coalition should proactively steer clear of politicians (I'm assuming to avoid asking for favors). Jill, from Roxborough, was quiet through the discussion, but when put on the spot by a moderator she put in her two cents. She said that in her experience, coalitions work very well when things are going their way, but once things start going not so well, things get ugly quickly.
Time flew by and it was time to bring the whole group back to the main room. Mayoral candidates Michael Nutter (D) and Al Taubenberger (R) were on hand to answer some questions. But first, they took a tour of the room where the notes from each of the sessions were taped to the walls. The Q&A session with the candidates coming up in Part III.
From where in the world is that photo taken you ask? Well, the man, the myth, the legend B Love from PhillySkyline took a tour of the restoration efforts atop City Hall.
Inside the gigantic sculpture he went. Out of the hat he shot. Touched the hand of the Penn behind Pennsylvania he did. He's got an amazing photo essay with 72 shots from the top.
Incredible work as usual.
Photo: Brad Maule – PhillySkyline.com
I was asked to blog about another Great Expectations forum, this time up in the Northeast and with a few other bloggers in attendance: Marisa [her post is here], and here] Bill from PhillyFoodGuys and Barbara who will post somewhere in the ether that is the internet. About 70 leaders from across the city made the trek (some further than others) to the John M. Perzel Community Center in Mayfair. And for full disclosure, I worked on Tim Kearney's campaign to oust Perzel from his PA House seat. The old saying goes that if you can't say anything nice about someone, don't say anything at all – I normally don't follow that rule – but this time, I'll say this, he's built one gorgeous community center. For a little back story on how this came to be, check out Chris's post.
What do you get when you mix 70 leaders – of civic associations, neighborhood action committees, citywide agencies among others – gathered in a room on a Saturday morning in October? Surprisingly, a lot of cooperation and good listening. I went into this meeting fearing the worst and hoping for the best. I feared that it would be an overwhelmingly white crowd. I feared that leaders wouldn't listen to other leaders. I feared that the lunch would taste like cardboard. What I found was a semi diverse crowd of male and female and black and white, with not much else. I think I was one of two Asians in the room. What can be done to reach out into the Asian communities in Philadelphia to get more involved in the political process is beyond me and not really the topic here so I'll save that for another day and maybe talk to Andy Toy and Skip Voluntad first. I will say just this though, I haven't been doing my part so I'm part of the problem. The leaders, at lest in my breakout session and larger discussion groups, listened to each other and intently. Breakfast and lunch were filling.
One of the main goals of this gathering was to highlight the greatness of all of the work neighborhoods have accomplished and to try to further break down the insular nature of the neighborhoods. I thought the location in the Northeast, a section of town I had never been to in my 36+ months in Philly, was a good choice. I've been told my many that the Northeast is it's own entity and the further upriver you go, you discover new pseudo-English languages where there are no "Ls" and "Os" are sucked through black holes becoming nearly unrecognizable. I've also been told that the Northeast gets things done on it's own. Perfect.
The Inquirer's Chris Satullo kicked things off by touting the success of the Yo, Mike! Yo, Al! series with 700+ responses. He also touched on an issue which was brought up time and time again: neighborhood civic associations were spending too much time doing the little things (which need to be done) that the City should be doing, and not enough time on bigger things which could improve their neighborhoods on a larger scale.
UPenn's Harris Sokoloff sketched out the three goals of the forum:
It was the job of pre-selected moderators at each of about a dozen tables to keep the conversation going throughout several quick brainstorming sessions with changing groups. A herculean task given the time constraints and breadth of knowledge each participant brought to the table. I don't think the box of Crayons at each table helped, but it was a nice touch nevertheless.
My first group didn't get past the introduction phase of things as introductions lead to questions which lead tangentially to more questions. The final person at the roundtable barely got a few words in before the ringmasters had everyone get up and switch. So the issues of a New Deal weren't defined in front of me, but it seemed as those around our table fared better.
Round 2 was lead by an Apple MacBook toting consultant for Penn who had been with the Great Expectations project for 18 months now. Things were about to get efficient. Jose described the findings of his fist group: trying to reach people in City Hall for help was a complete crapshoot; documentation to hold the status quo accountable was mandatory; community groups are doing things that the City should be doing and without compensation. So what would a successful New Deal look like compared to that? Dave said that with appointed officials having the final say in many matters, even powerful elected officials had no power and that had to change. Rob from Logan Square noted the creation of a zoning committee to handle issues as the City hasn't been doing it's job – zoning was a major issue brought up constantly through the day as volunteer groups with little expertise to go around on such an annoying as hell subject was near impossible to tackle. Ann from a city wide immigrant services group suggested a large-scale sharing of best practices between groups as each group need not reinvent the wheel. Transparency and technology: pay to play and who you know has to stop; service request ticketing (like Baltimore's CitiStat) need to be implemented and complemented with citizens taking simple cell phone photos of things that need to be fixed around neighborhoods as evidence.
So what do community groups need to stop doing to maximize their positive output? Dave suggested a serious overhaul of the city's zoning codes to give the groups some more solid footing to stand on. Others in the group liked the case by case power they had and didn't want the city deciding things in too general a manner. And what are community groups doing well and need to get better at? Tim wanted to deal with fewer pothole requests. Penny [pictured above] wanted brick and mortar issues to tackle and not petty problems. Dave brought up a point that many didn't know existed: there are community groups whose boundaries cross political ones. This results in requests falling on deaf ears at the Council level as the segmented group does not matter as much as groups whose boundaries lie solely within political boundaries.
So there's a start. Part II coming soon.
I took the shot above [bigger and nicer here] at the Downtown Marriott last Friday after seeing the incomparable Zoe Strauss speak at the Annual American Studies Conference. What she was doing there I have no idea. It seemed to be a random pairing, but hey, who am I to complain on seeing Zoe giving a talk about her work. I think portraits in this hallway would look cool.
I learned a little about her workflow, her most recent trip to the American southwest and upcoming projects [cool!]. It was very interesting to hear her talk about her approach to people on the street for her intimate portraits. A mix of people running up to her to have their photos taken, people shying away from the camera and Zoe herself walking up to people to ask if she could take a photo [or few]. Photographing people on the street is something I've always felt shy about. I don't think I've once walked up to someone and asked to take their photo. Most of my street portraits are "from the hip" while walking by people on the sidewalk or they're at larger street fairs or events where there are tons of cameras and everyone's taking photos of everyone. From what I've seen and read on various photoblogs, it's a matter of getting into the practice of doing so and it gets easier from there.
Zoe was asked about her more recent entry into mainstream showings. She's been at the 2006 Whitney Biennial, the Silverstein Gallery, the ICA, the Philadelpha Museum of Art to name a few. She said that to her surprise, she loves it. I'm happy that she is. She's got this uncanny ability to be able to talk the hoity-toity talk and to the hoi polloi at the same time. It's kinda nuts. It's a skill you gotta have to some extent to mingle with the high powered art buying crowd I guess.
She's got some more stuff coming down the line as well in the next month or so. I hope to make it to at least one of those events.
Zoe Strauss rocks my world and one of her prints hangs royally in our house.
