The 27th Ward Democratic Executive Committee will host a forum Thursday, March 26 with candidates contending in May’s primary. The forum will include mayoral candidate and former city councilman Jim Kenney and city council candidates Blondell Reynolds Brown, Helen Gym, Ed Neilson, and W. Wilson Goode, Jr., Paul Steinke, and Sherrie Cohen.
The public is welcome to attend this meeting, which will take place at Rosenberger Hall at the University of the Sciences (600 S. 43rd Street, near Woodland Ave.), starting at 7:30 p.m.
This forum was originally scheduled for March 5 but was cancelled due to snow.
The primary election will be held May 19 and the general election is slated for Nov. 3. You can get up to speed on the council and mayoral candidates on the Committee of Seventy website.
West Philly resident Paul Steinke, the former general manager of the Reading Terminal Market, will officially announce tomorrow that he will run for City Council.
Steinke’s announcement that he will run for an at-large Democratic seat in the May 19 primary was expected after he stepped down as general manager at the Terminal Market in early December. The announcement is scheduled for Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at the Field House, a sports bar adjacent to the Market.
The former finance director of the Center City District and the first executive director of the University City District, Steinke, 49, has overseen a 30 percent increase in visitors and $4 million in renovation and expansion of the Market in the 13 years he has overseen operations there, according to a statement from his campaign. Steinke is a 1986 graduate of Penn State University.
Steinke hopes to be the first openly gay person elected to citywide office. He lives in the Spruce Hill neighborhood with David Ade, his partner of nearly 20 years.
All 17 City Council seats are up for election in November – 10 district seats and seven at-large seats.
Last year’s record snowfall left sidewalks like this one on 44th Street near Spruce buried.
The City Council passed legislation recently that will now require property owners to shovel at least a 36-inch path – up from 30 inches – down snowy sidewalks. The change is designed to make a wider path for people in wheelchairs, many of who were stranded during last year’s record snowfall. City Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, who proposed the changes, also said the bill will help people pushing strollers.
The catch to all of this, of course, is enforcement. We’ll see if the city backs it up, especially considering that, as the Inquirer reported, City buildings are often the worst offenders of leaving treacherous winter sidewalks.
There’s not much more to it than that, but here’s the actual changes if you’re interested:
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