recent developments

[desh]

Yesterday was a great day for Philadelphia! The Phillies and Michael Nutter both won! I was at the baseball game, listening to news radio and updating Lesley and flyinbutrs and dredpiraterober on the election results, just as Brett Myers blew a save for his first time ever. A few minutes later, when the three of them were all debating whether to stay for potential extra innings, dredpiraterober said, "It won't matter, this guy [Ruiz] will hit a homer." And he was quite right. I usually disagree with him almost all of the time, but I gotta give credit where due.

Mayor Nutter. I can get used to the sound of that. But Mr. Nutter, I voted for you because of your record and rhetoric for going against the status quo and the corruption for the good of the city. [Assuming you win the general election, which I guess is technically not a definite thing yet,] I'm going to hold you to that.

Also, for Ballot Question #1, the "Yes"es won by a score of 835 to 359, or 70% in favor. The total vote on this question was about 0.4% of the total vote for mayor. The official, legal text of this question: "REMOVED BY COURT ORDER". (For the record, I was one of the 835.)

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot to post this! In Tom Knox's concession speech, he said (and I believe this is a direct quote) "I vowed to spend whatever it takes to take the 'For Sale' sign down off of City Hall." This man spent over ten million dollars of his own money in this campaign, while all the other candidates were severely limited by local campaign finance laws. I'm glad this man, who apparently has no sense of irony, will not be our mayor.

Comments

[thornmallow.livejournal.com]

So you trust Nutter won't abuse the "stop-and-frisk" tactics? Because I worry.

[desh]

I trust that Nutter doesn't have the power to abuse stop-and-frisk. I'd be more concerned if it was a police commissioner who was as gung-ho about it.

There was a good article in Saturday's Inquirer about the policy. Apparently it's constitutional on its face, and actually works. Given how much violence has been a problem here lately, that's good enough for me for now. I hope, though, that the news outlets stay on top of whether it really does devolve into racial profiling.

[evr1bugsme.livejournal.com]

Ok, that was an interesting article.

But please, "whether" it devolves into racial profiling??

--While it can be argued that police are targeting crime zones - not minorities - perception matters, he said.--

That's not perception. Nutter wants to target certain neighborhoods. Aside from places like Mt. Airy where a real effort has been made to have a diverse neighborhood or places that are "safe enough" to be gentrified, people largely self segregate (in this city at least). Certain neighborhoods=certain people=racial profiling. It just is. And I don't even think that Nutter disagrees with that considering that he talks pretty freely about black on black crime.

Also. ""Black Philadelphians are more ambivalent than white Philadelphians about stop-and-frisk because they are more skeptical about the city's police," a release issued with the survey declared."

!!! That's quite a statement to make, especially coming from an allegedly unbiased organization (who I applied to work for and now am reconsidering). Given such a statement, who knows how that study was conducted anyway.

But, I think that this section says it ALL.

""The only question is, where do you want to set the level of surveillance? It's a cost-benefit analysis," he said. Cities need to weigh the potential benefits against "liberty interests and the inevitable racial disparities and increased complaints of police misconduct" that have followed such programs, he said.

Nutter, for his part, is unswayed.

"We will protect people's civil rights, but no one has a right to carry an illegal weapon," he said in a recent debate. "People are desperately crying out for something to be done now. People have a right to be safe and not to be shot.""

Security and liberty are held in a balance, but Nutter clearly is on the security end of that. And trying to cast security as a rights issue, at least in the way he is approaching it, is misleading at best. A lot of people agree with Nutter on being more concerned about security than liberty, but I'm not one of them. And I think singling out neighborhoods for extreme measures and at the very least potentially problematic policing is not the way to address the issue of crime or to help make people more secure. Nope.

[desh]

Targeting neighborhoods is just a reality of any form of policing. If the city were to add, say, 1000 more cops, would you want them evenly distributed throughout the city? It's a waste of tax dollars to have as many police patrolling my neighborhood, which has had something like 1 murder since January 2006, as neighborhoods with dozens.

We're not going to fix the violence problem by treating every neighborhood the same. The only true fix, I'm sure we both agree, is to put lots more money into education. But given that there's a short-term problem to fix too, we have to target violent neighborhoods. There's no other way. You just have to be completely scrupulous about making it as little about race as possible, even given the racial makeup of those areas. (Maybe keep logs of how much each cop does stop-and-frisk, and compare racial stats per cop to the racial stats of the neighborhood as a whole?)

[evr1bugsme.livejournal.com]

Yes, you put police where there is crime. But a big problem that I have with Nutter's plan is that the rules apply to EVERYONE in his zones. It's not just about additional cops, which yes, it makes sense to distribute where they are most needed. But, in general, or, at least in theory, if 5 or 50 cops are in your neighborhood and you aren't doing anything you should be fine. I think if 50 cops are in a neighborhood AND there are these additional restrictions on people AND it is easier for cops to stop people, you have a much lower chance of being left alone. And yes, clearly, living in a neighborhood gripped by shootings also gives you a lower than average chance of being left alone.

I don't think you have to treat every neighborhood the same. Quite simply, I don't think it is necessary to stop crime by breaking (or bending to almost the point of breaking) the law. I think it is entirely possible to address crime without infringing on peoples' civil liberties to that degree. And yes, education is a part of that. Nutter also supports other parts of that, like more job opportunities for former prisoners and working on decreasing recidivism. That's great! I want more of that.

Living in fear that you can be shot because your neighborhood is unsafe is not fair. I just don't see the cost-benefit value in adding some more unfairness, the targeted restriction of rights. (Basically, sure, it may work, but at what cost? I'm not willing to pay that cost, and I think it's pretty interesting that people in those neighborhoods also do not seem eager to pay it.)

[desh]

I wonder how the people in the highest crime areas did vote. I haven't seen stats on that yet.

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

Any law enforcement action on this problem is a short term, tactical measure. The real issue here is that young people coming out the schools in most of Philadelphia's neighborhoods don't really have much a future due the dearth of meaningful jobs. I also wonder how attainable college is for many of them as well. I'm used to cities that have a variety of public schools in commuting distance, but the greater Philly area seems to be dominated by private schools with really high tuitions. One way or another, I think it's pretty clear to a lot young people that there's not much out there for them and that turns into a type of fatalism that I haven't seen anywhere else I'ved lived or traveled. This all feeds back into the drug trade and the violence it brings in the form of personal disputes over money.

Out of curiosity, when did all the manufacturing leave the city? I was riding out from dropping my car off at the body shop by Temple and noticed, as I pedaled through some really distressed neighborhoods, abandonded factory after factory and the buildings didn't look all old. Seems like where a lot jobs in this city once upon a time.

BTW, for those who don't know me, I'm a transient grad student married to an equally transient grad student and we're not from around here.

[evr1bugsme.livejournal.com]

Sorry to keep rambling, but just to clarify about that "Blacks are.." comment.
1. I love that the writers said that the statement "declared" that. Clearly they get that it was a declaration.
2. I'm bothered that it is an unsupported declaration.
3. It is a declaration that presumes to know what "Blacks" think, and it doesn't seem to be derived from the survey (though I can't find the survey the article references to check). The declaration also seems to imply that that is why "Blacks" are bothered by stop and frisk, not that they could have civil rights concerns, and also seems to imply that skepiticism about police is also why whites would be concerned as well! And finally, and best of all, it seems to imply that blacks just are skeptical, period. Like there couldn't possibly be any rational, experience-based reason for that. huh.

ok, really done ranting now.

[krisispm.livejournal.com]

Damnit, I had an inkling that I could still press the button underneath the "removed by court order" stamp, but I didn't wind up doing it.

I did vote at a red box, though. I might go after work today to help them count ballots.

[desh]

Didn't see any red boxes, so I called their hotline right after I voted.

[intangiblehugs.livejournal.com]

what's a red box?

[desh]

http://phillysballotbox.org/

[below-the-belt.livejournal.com]

you couldn't. a friend of mine tried. oh well.

[desh]

It worked in my division, and there are results online of the people who did. My bet is that they were supposed to turn that part of the machines off, but they didn't get to all of them.

[below-the-belt.livejournal.com]

oh, nice! makes sense.

[arcati.livejournal.com]

Ha, I found out yesterday that I can be quite the dunce when I was reminded that I'm a registered independent and could therefore not vote for any candidates. I could do the ballot questions, so at least I get credit for coming out and exercising my right.

[desh]

Oops. But good for you for voting anyway!

I'm trying very hard to resist going into a rant about abolishing primaries in favor of a vote-counting system where they wouldn't matter...

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

Not only did Nutter win, but a lot of the City Council candidates looked really good. I haveta go and see who won which seat, but I actually liked my choices. A lot of them had some very impressive educations in areas like urban planning and so on.

I'm hoping that this election begins Philly's rebirth. It'd be a real shame to see this city go the way Detroit did and I think the city's a tipping point where it can go either way.