Ah, the holiday season. I got my first static electric shock this morning and it always serves as a reminder that winter is coming.
On another note, Cherelle Parker was elected as the first female Mayor of Philadelphia. She has a lot on her plate and while it is nice to have a historical change and perhaps some more energized leadership, results matter. I expect that we will have 8 years of her, and we can only hope that she is able to fix up the quality of life that makes people want to live AND stay in Philadelphia. I think that policing and enforcement of quality-of-life crimes has to be at the top of the list with the City’s really pathetic education system second. After that, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Country is coming to Philadelphia and will be a big deal for all of us who live here.
I happen to field a ton of calls from Philadelphia people who want to sue the City. Amusingly, if you google sue the City of Philadelphia, you see www.neuwirthlaw.com above the City of Philadelphia’s own site. So, I get a lot of calls about: 1) dirt bikes/atv’s terrorizing people; 2) Kensington’s drug abuse culture; 3) gun violence killing people. Those seem to be the hot topics to call about. I cannot help with any of these things. These are all government functions. While we are not Somalia or Yemen, it is tough to say that you are running a functioning City if you cannot protect the vast majority of law-abiding citizens from the extreme minority of jerks who make things unpleasant.
If you talk to students in Philadelphia or young families, what do you hear? You hear plans to leave because the schools are not working to educate people and the city is too dangerous to raise little ones. So, people leave. Statistics show they go to North or South Carolina for jobs, weather, schooling, etc. They are certainly not staying here.
So, Mayor Parker, have a good Thanksgiving and get some rest. You are going to need it.