Voters Bond Together to Discuss 8th District Council Race

Voters in the 8th City Council came together at the  on Tuesday night to try and figure out how to bond with one another over the issues that matter to them.

It was clear that many of the residents who attended a third Newsworks-organized voter forum intended to allow voters to explore the issues in an upcoming 8th District primary. The 50 or so people who came broke up into smaller groups—which were moderated by representatives from the Penn Project for Civic Engagement—to try and figure out what makes a good council person.

Some thought the person who is elected to replace incumbent Donna Reed Miller, who , needs to be able to help schoolchildren attain higher levels of achievement. Others said they wanted their councilperson to bring dollars into the district's neighborhoods, while even more said they should be committed to ending the city's controversial DROP program.

Many also said they wanted the candidate they support to work to figure out what to do with abandoned homes and buildings throughout the district. The word that kept coming up throughout, however, was "community."

"I need you to be of the community, by the community," said Jerry Brown, who attended two prior voter forums in  and Chestnut Hill. "Whether it's upper class, middle class or lower class, you are doing a little bit by a little bit in every community."

Five of  attended the forum. Bill Durham, Andrew Lofton, Greg Paulmier, Robin Tasco and Howard Treatman walked around the room, listening to voters speak. (Cindy Bass and Verna Tyner were not present.) They didn't, however, participate in any of the discussions, as they were prohibited from doing so.

Voters, however, were asked to play free association with the candidates, which meant that moderators said the name of a candidate and residents had to say the first thing that came to their mind. The candidates often listened in as they did so.

They also heard that voters don't expect City Council members to solve all of their problems. Voter Mary Beth Murphy said as much, but said the person who gets elected will need to work hard to try and understand why different parts of the district are so different from one another.

She said she generally thinks of Northwest Philadelphia as very safe, but said that there are times that you turn down a particular street and things change rapidly.

"At the very least we should understand why these divisions are so sharp," Murphy said.

In order to do that, Stephen Johnson said, the candidate must be willing to work together with other council members to get things done. Without that, money won't flow into the neighborhoods.

"A councilperson cannot work by themselves on these issues," said the West Oak Lane block captain, who said he supports Durham in the race.

Voters later got into even smaller groups to come up with questions they would like to ask the candidates. Some of those questions will be posed to them during a Newsworks-organized candidate debate April 27 at 7 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church in Germantown, 35 W. Chelten Ave.

The voters who attended the forum often passionately talked about the issues surrounding the race. But Brown said he felt there was room for improvement. Even more residents, he said, need to get involved, and need to get away from they idea that they'll never be able to effect real reform.

"I'm not seeing them out there in droves to show how serious they are in terms of trying to get the change they want," he said.