Mike Nutter is one cool guy, right? I mean who else has ?uestlove spinning at their inauguration, Ed Rendell? John Street? Me thinks not.

But alas, it is not his great taste in DJ's or ability to rock the mic that is the essence of Mayor Nutter's cool. It is the fact that he gets it: he gets that government is supposed to work for the people (sounds like such a novel idea in this day and age, eh?). In the spirit of continuing to give power to the people the new administration, Great Expectations and Young Involved Philadelphia are partnering to provide young Philadelphians with a forum to share their ideas, ask tough questions, and demand excellence from their government. The administration will use the input from this forum to directly inform the performance standards and expectations set up for city departments.

A City That Works
An interactive forum on the relationship between our city's budget and the commitments of the new administration

The $4 billion budget is approved, but it will take more than money to set our city straight. Where does the money go and when can we expect to see results?

FACILITATED BY:
* Steve Agostini, Philadelphia's new Budget Director
* Chris Satullo, former editoral page editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer & founder of the paper's Citizen Voices program
* Claire Robertson-Kraft, YIP Board Member & Civic Education Committee chair

WHEN: This Thursday, May 29th at 6PM
WHERE: Philadelphia Inquirer Office, 400 N. Broad St.
WHO: Free and open to the public, email YIPCivicEd@gmail.com to learn more

Friday evening, I had the pleasure of joining a Pot Luck at Ebony Staton and John Weidman‘s house in Mount Airy as part of the Inquirer’s Great Expectations/Citizens Voices Forum. Below I relate my interpretation of some of the highlights of the evening with a healthy dose of paraphrasing. To the extent possible, I'm letting participants thoughts speak for themselves and accept all responsibility for any errors or misinterpretations. Comments and feedback are welcome.

According to Chris Satullo, head of the Great Expectations project and former Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Page Editor, soon after his May primary election, Michael Nutter was at a restaurant in Center City and expressed an interest in engaging in a series of low key events where he could personally interact with Philadelphia residents prior to the November election. Great Expectations proposed a series of pot lucks and Al Taubenberger (or Al T., with no disrespect intended), his opponent, was agreeable.

Ms. Staton and Mr. Weidman live in a beautiful medium-sized single family home that they purchased in March of this past year. The pot luck included a variety of excellent food including rellenos de carne and other choice empanada-like pastries provided by attendees from Kensington, cole slaw with cabbage from a Philadelphia community garden and some out-of-this-world Lasagna from Ms. Staton. During the course of the evening, Al T. expressed his opinion that the food was better than the previous pot luck, last Wednesday, to the delight of all who attended.

Prior to starting the listening session, I had the opportunity to talk with a couple of the participants and get to know them.

Mary Ellen Graham is a social worker and professor at the University of the Sciences. She lives in Fairmount. (She contributed the cole slaw to the meal that included cabbage she grew in a community garden somewhere around town.) Ms. Graham's dream, however, is to start an innovative shelter for homeless men to be located in Germantown that provides clients with extensive support services. According to her, such shelters have been started in other places and proved successful. After almost two and a half years of working on the project, she has been told that the ideas are solid and the obstacle that remains is the question of whether the project can be funded. Furthermore, she says that there are folks at the Department of Human Services that love the idea but that funding the project will ultimately be a result of decisions made by the Next Mayor.

Alexis Gonzalez is a 15-year old from Kensington. Alexis came with his pastor, Adan Mairena, who leads a congregation in West Kensington. Alexis is about to start Edison High School in a couple of weeks. He has worked helping fix computers at a shop near Kensington and Allegheny Avenues and wants to study welding. He spoke of one of his cousins who does underwater welding and how difficult it is to work underwater, in what is often claustrophobic environments fixing boats. I asked Alexis what he wanted from the next Mayor. He said that he wanted a Mayor who would do to Philadelphia neighborhoods what politicians had done across the river from New York City in New Jersey. As he understood it, there, the officials had gotten uptight about graffiti and trash. To show they were getting uptight, they had instituted serious fines, like $500 for anyone who was caught defacing buildings or littering. The officials had also told abandoned factory owners they had 30 days to do something with their properties or that those factories would be knocked down. And apparently scores of them were.

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