Our CommonWealth visited Mayor Michael Nutter's meeting with Kensington residents last night.
The scene last night was a packed auditorium at Kensington High School. After short drive through shattered streets, I stood outside handing out fliers explaining our CommonWealth idea for land value tax in the city of Philadelphia. I stood with people trying to battle the cuts. Firefighters' union members and anti-casino activists stood with me as we stood in the rain and showed how the outcome can be different.
Inside, a throng - a little more on edge than the previous week's crowd at South Philly High - asked respectful questions interspersed with some angry comments. The place was packed, and I didn't get a chance to speak. It's tough to offer an idea when so many people are obviously hurt and angry that what defines their neighborhoods: libraries, the fire house, the swimming pools are on the chopping block.
Kensington in particular is a distressing story. A retired lady told me how wonderful the place used to be, how close everyone was. It's hard for them to accept the fact that government and the larger community has disengaged from their lives so much.
The streets are already a mess, the blasted and abandoned factories totter in the cold December wind. These cuts are a personal issue for a long-neglected part of our city.
Since the land value tax will affect this area immensely, I will go back, again and again, to offer what we know, so they can determine if it will help.
Mayor Nutter is quite correct that this recession is "special" and will be hard to manage. He is quite correct in getting people to face the real issues of declining revenues. But his campaign motto "A New Day, and a New Way" can still be fulfilled, even in hard times.
Yet, the Mayor returned and returned to his playbook that the city is permanently changed, that things will never be the same and that somehow reducing the few services left will steady the ship - or kayak - of state.
The people disagreed. I disagreed. An already unsafe city has to shelter its children, and libraries are the ultimate sign that the community takes care of its little ones. And, although fire commissioner Ayers was correct in saying cutbacks can be softened if we have smoke detectors in our homes, and escape plans posted on the fridge, what about the 38,000 abandoned buildings that cause most fires to begin with?
We must pay attention to yelling, red-faced and unhappy citizens who come out on these cold nights. Land Value tax is a way to listen through tax policy. Untax private and personal wealth, locked up in your paycheck, your house or your business. Tax that which the whole community creates: the locational value (land value) of sites).
We created it,WE own it! We as a community, here in Philadelphia, and everywhere.
Something does not compute to me, and I know we can tap community-created land values to complete a picture of hope.
Josh