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CITY HALL Budget Hearings Begin On Monday, budget season officially began as City Council asked questions of the Kenney administration. Gun violence, racial equity, proposed tax reductions, and economic recovery were the main topics councilmembers raised during their questioning. Racial Equity Most councilmembers inquired about racial equity in their lines of questioning. Councilmembers asked how the Kenney administration utilized a racial equity lens to create the budget framework, to select projects to receive capital funding, and to support Black and Brown businesses. The administration cited additional investments in the Commerce Department, a racial equity committee, and public safety initiatives as demonstrated commitments to equity, but City Council is largely demanding more. ....
CITY HALL Budget Hearings Begin On Monday, budget season officially began as City Council asked questions of the Kenney administration. Gun violence, racial equity, proposed tax reductions, and economic recovery were the main topics councilmembers raised during their questioning. Racial Equity Most councilmembers inquired about racial equity in their lines of questioning. Councilmembers asked how the Kenney administration utilized a racial equity lens to create the budget framework, to select projects to receive capital funding, and to support Black and Brown businesses. The administration cited additional investments in the Commerce Department, a racial equity committee, and public safety initiatives as demonstrated commitments to equity, but City Council is largely demanding more. ....
WHYY By A student walks through the halls of Cardozo High School on March 12, 2020. Cardozo had problems like asbestos and lead pipes before being renovated in 2011. (Rachel Wisniewski for WHYY) Christopher Moses encountered dire conditions at Washington, D.C.’s Calvin Coolidge High School when he entered as a freshman in 2016. Damaged floors, 70-year-old boilers, no central air conditioning, dangerously obsolete wiring, and a leaky, crumbling roof. “Everything was just torn down,” Moses recalled. “We weren’t allowed to go on the fourth floor. And then the lockers, we couldn’t use them because they were messed up, destroyed. It was rats and all that, so it was really bad. Cockroaches. It was bad.” ....
On December 10, the Philadelphia City Council unanimously passed the Black Workers Matter Economic Recovery Package, a set of three bills that includes the right to return to those same jobs as workplaces re-open. It was a victory not only for organized labor, but also for broader community organizing in solidarity with low-wage workers, led by groups like POWER, an interfaith, multi-racial social justice network of 50 congregations across Philadelphia and about as many more across the state. “I had not [testified] in person in city council before and here I was doing it online,” says POWER Board Member Frances Upshaw, who testified in support of the bills. “It gives you some added angst. But I was happy to be able to do it. All of us have something to do to help these situations.” ....