Last week, we came face to face with the ol’ Philly Shrug. The day after 55 shots rang out on a Spring Garden playground, killing two, we found the mayor and City Council president holding a press conference…about President Trump. To them, it was just another day in Philly, where the murder rate, year over year, is up 35 percent—the second worst in the nation.
Well, around the same time, Council President Darrell Clarke received a heartfelt plea via email from a constituent to do something to stop the violence, or just to say or do something. The constituent has asked to remain anonymous; reading his letter, you can feel his love for his city. The dude doesn’t want to run off to the suburbs—he’s just looking for some help in the form of a government that does the basics, providing services like keeping the streets safe and picking up the trash.
The reply from Clarke’s office, however, doesn’t hold out much hope. It gets the reason for his letter flat wrong; He wasn’t writing about “encampment issues,” he was writing about Clarke’s lack of leadership.
This is the money shot in the constituent’s letter:
Whether it’s the homeless encampment terrorizing the neighborhood, or whether it’s the rampant gun violence affecting your district, not once have I heard an actual word from you. I have emailed. I have called. I have left voicemail after voicemail. All I’ve gotten is a copied and pasted three-line response—which multiple other neighbors have gotten—from your office, or no response whatsoever.
Read the correspondence below, and you tell me if the bloodless, ho-hum reply from Clarke’s office is up to par. You tell me if it even makes a nod toward the I feel your pain lingua franca that we yearn for from public figures. You tell me if you’re okay with this example of your tax dollars at work.
Hello Council President,
Since moving into our home just over two years ago, my wife, daughter and I have listened to over six shootings within a block of our home. Earlier this summer, there was a man shot just a door down at 1:30 PM on a Sunday. He ran down the street, dripping blood, while a man chased him. He then bled just near the children’s playground as families on our block huddled close and literally cried.
Just now, I listened as over twenty gunshots were discharged—again, a single block away. I am listening as police cars race down the street and helicopters whir overhead. I want to take my dog out for a walk but I am too scared to walk outside for fear of dying.
Here is my issue: Whether it’s the homeless encampment terrorizing the neighborhood, or whether it’s the rampant gun violence affecting your district, not once have I heard an actual word from you. I have emailed. I have called. I have left voicemail after voicemail. All I’ve gotten is a copied and pasted three-line response—which multiple other neighbors have gotten—from your office, or no response whatsoever.
The source of the gun violence is clear. At 17th and Wallace, there is endless drug dealing which is supported by a local bodega. Everyone knows this within the community and even within the police. And yet, nothing has been done for years now.
If we don’t have a councilperson who cares about his district, then the answer is quite simple: Take our income, take our tax dollars, take my business and the people we are planning to employ, take my wife’s service to the school district of Philadelphia, and move it elsewhere.
As of now, there are four homes for sale on our block. My wife just texted me and said that we need to move.
I want to stay in this city, but we are not safe in our own homes and on our own streets. Sure, I could ask you to do something—but at this point, I am asking for something really, really simple: Show us that you actually care by not giving me a copied and pasted response. I sit here and take the time to write to you – now can you take the time to write to me and tell me what you think?
If we don’t have a councilperson who cares about his district, then the answer is quite simple for me and my family: Take our income, take our tax dollars, take my business and the people we are planning to employ, take my wife’s service to the school district of Philadelphia, and move it elsewhere.
This is an atrocity and it cannot go on.
Good morning, thank you for contacting the office of the Council President regarding the encampment issues. City Council is meeting regularly with the Kenney administration on these situations and look forward to coming to a resolution in the near future.
Donna Cisowski
on behalf of Council President Clarke