Updated 2022 Budget Request Letter to Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson from Reclaim Climate Justice Caucus
June 1, 2022
Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson
Philadelphia City Council
City Hall, Room 581
Philadelphia, PA 19107-3290
Dear Councilmember Gilmore Richardson,
We are writing to you as a budget-focused working group within Reclaim Philadelphia’s Climate Justice Caucus with requests for the next City budget. The budget will affect the lives of every resident, worker, business, and visitor to our city. Budgets are moral documents - they reflect what we prioritize and value.
In this letter, we ask that you:
Push to fully fund and expand programs that mitigate the climate crisis and other environmental harms, prevent violence, and support poor and working class Philadelphians
Increase revenue to fund these priorities by supporting the proposed City Wealth Tax, pushing for wealthy non-profit landowners like Penn to pay pilots, and rejecting proposals to increase the police budget
Structure next year’s budget process to include more participation by residents
Our Values
Budgets should embody what we, as a society, deem important: we ask that you champion these fundamental beliefs through the budget:
City investments should be evaluated according to principles of justice, diversity, and equity, as well as environmental impact; we need corrective action for decades of disinvestment
Wealthy people and corporations must pay their fair share of taxes
Everyone has a right to a healthy, affordable, comfortable home
All Philadelphians should be guaranteed reliable, affordable, clean energy
Children should receive a high quality education in safe buildings and have access to nurturing out-of-school time programs
We all have the right to clean air, water, and streets and easy access to green space
Investing in communities is key to preventing violence – investing in police and incarceration perpetuates violence and discrimination against black and brown communities and makes our city less safe; and
City services are crucial to daily life and need adequate, consistent, long-term funding
Climate and Environmental Justice in the City Budget
Environmental issues do not stand apart from other concerns. Climate change and other forms of environmental degradation are woven through all the challenges our city faces, like housing, economic justice, violence prevention, and healthcare. The climate emergency is already harming Philadelphians, just like people around the world. Those who have the least wealth and power are hurt most, though they contribute and have contributed historically the least to creating the problem in the first place. This will increase in the coming years without dramatic action. We need transformative investments to limit global heating while guaranteeing everyone clean air and water, as well as safe and healthy homes, streets, schools, and green space.
We appreciated your 3/31 statement about community investment and climate protection:
“After two years with devastating flooding and some of the hottest summers on record, we are not fully resourcing our commitment to carbon neutrality or to protecting our most vulnerable communities. Despite a significant uptick in violence and nuisance business operations, we are not increasing the investment in departments that address quality-of-life issues. With so many people still stuck in the cycle of generational poverty, we are not developing strong pipelines to family-supporting and sustaining careers, especially for those without four-year degrees. Our communities deserve a budget that prioritizes improving their quality of life, and I look forward to working with my colleagues and the Administration to achieve that goal…”
In line with this encouraging statement, we ask you to:
Press to fully fund the Philadelphia Energy Authority (PEA) and the Office of Sustainability (OOS) as essential parts of city government. The Mayor’s proposed cuts to PEA and OOS are unacceptable. PEA’s and OOS’s programs address multiple intersecting crises in our city. They advance the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, reduce utility bills, limit toxic air pollution, make our homes and schools healthier, support access to green space and healthy food, create good jobs, train young people for careers in growing industries that serve the public good, and more.
Rather than cutting these forward-looking offices, the FY 2023 budget should expand them. We would be happy to work with you and your office to advocate for full funding.
Embrace the #JustServicesPHL budget platform to repair environmental harms, address major quality-of-life concerns, and reduce gun violence. We are excited that Councilmembers Gauthier and Brooks have initiated this effort in partnership with Controller Rhynhart and grassroots community leaders. They are calling for new investments and policies to ensure equitable provision of basic services like:
trash collection
street light repairs
clean-up of vacant properties
enforcement of rules against short dumping
removal of abandoned cars
traffic calming
The City fails to provide adequate services in low-income communities of color. As a result, short dumping, trash-strewn and unsafe streets, broken street lights, home disrepair, and the lack of safe green spaces are crucial environmental justice issues in disinvested communities. The campaign is bringing attention to those failings and offering a path forward. In addition, the campaign is bringing forward a body of research which indicates that these and related investments significantly reduce gun violence.
Repairing environmental harm can play a key role in making our communities safer, especially in conjunction with expanded and improved mental health services, education, youth programs, and restorative justice initiatives.
Support the demand by the Rec It Philly Coalition (with more than 50 member organizations) to fully fund Parks and Rec. The coalition is calling for an $8 million increase in the department’s budget for in order to move toward 3 goals:
Making sites safe, clean, and ready to use in every neighborhood
Increasing recreation programming
Increasing tree canopy
These investments are essential for providing Philadelphians with healthy and safe public spaces, for cooling overheated neighborhoods, and for preventing violence.
Support other institutions and programs that are needed for a just, healthy city. We support calls for increased funding of public libraries and schools, affordable housing, the Community College of Philadelphia, and mobile crisis teams that respond to mental health calls without police.
Increase city revenue to pay for the services we need while making our tax code fairer. Working class Philadelphians and communities of color have suffered from years of austerity. At the same time, the richest residents of our city and country have gained enormous wealth during the COVID-19 pandemic. We cannot have adequate services without increased revenue. And it is not possible to build a healthy city while the wealthy hoard resources that are needed for the public good.
We ask you to push for:
Making use of the City’s allocation of funds from the American Rescue Plan more quickly than Mayor Kenney has proposed
Enacting a local wealth tax, as proposed by Council Members Brooks, Gauthier, and Gym, in order to generate revenue in equitable manner over the long term
Requiring the University of Pennsylvania and other wealthy tax-exempt landowners to pay PILOTs to the city
Allocating start-up funds for the new Philadelphia Public Financial Authority this year and ensuring this authority operates in the interests of the public good.
Reject proposals to increase funding for the Philadelphia Police Department. The initiatives that are outlined in this letter provide real solutions to the violence that Philadelphia communities are experiencing. Increased police funding will not provide greater public health and safety but instead will disproportionately subject communities of color and poor communities to increased harm.
Say “NO” to the proposed allocation of $3 million to the wealthy Cobbs Creek Foundation (CCF) for Cobbs Creek Golf Course. Hundreds of residents are calling for those funds to be used instead for other essential services. When it signed the lease with the City, CCF presented a fundraising plan for the projected cost of the entire project. CCF has violated its lease by clear-cutting heritage trees while keeping the community in the dark, and by not completing a floodplain restoration plan. It’s time that CCF started honoring its promises to Philadelphia by fully paying for improvements to the Golf Course, like restoring the creek, as agreed in the lease.
Support the Restore Community Land initiative to preserve community gardens and create affordable housing. Championed by Council Members Brooks, Gauthier, and Gym, the plan calls for allocating $10 million to purchase 2000 plots of land currently held by the U.S. Bank National Association before they are sold through sheriff’s sales. More than 50 of these lots are currently used for community gardening and could be preserved as gardens permanently. Other lots could be distributed through the Land Bank for the development of permanently affordable housing.
Publicly champion a Green New Deal. We urge Council Members to join grassroots organizations in putting forward a vision for real transformation. In Philadelphia, a Green New Deal would mean transforming our utilities, our buildings, and transportation system at a pace that matches the urgency of the climate crisis as well as the crises of poverty, violence, public health issues such as asthma, and racist disinvestment. It would create good paying jobs in a variety of fields that could lift people out of poverty. An inspiring vision will help communicate the importance and value of the initiatives described here and generate momentum toward the much larger investments that we need.
Living our Values through the Budget Process
Education, transparency, and equitable involvement are key for a just budget process. Next year, we hope you demonstrate visionary leadership in offering Philly residents more education about the budget process and increased opportunities for input. We would like to see earlier engagement, more surveys and canvassing, budget roadshows in neighborhoods across the city, and more public input hearings that are more accessible. We ask for you to evaluate budget impacts to key communities (something akin to an Environmental Impact Statement). And we are happy to partner with you to support such an effort.
We believe advocating for equitable, just, and transformative investments in our city will create a stronger and more resilient democracy. We all deserve a voice, and you can help link us to our power. We look forward to discussing our requests with you or your staff.
Thank you,
Sarah Bausmith
Deborah Zubow
Tania Czarnecki-Wismar
Eireann Young
Curt Malkemes
Shannon Robinson
Isaac Garfield
Walter Bilderback
Harrison Mace
Carly Agre
Elowyn Corby
Corey Reidy
Nicholas Collura
Sherrie Cohen
Aaron Appel
Christina Tierno
Drew DeVitis
Nathan Pitock
Lia Mastropolo
Jessica Bellwoar
Duncan Gromko
Beatrice Zovich
Adams Rackes
Miriam Singer
Mitch Chanin
Kelly Morton
Lynn Robinson, with deep concern about how wealth tax funds will be distributed
Natalie Walker
Members of Reclaim Philadelphia’s Climate Justice Caucus