PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — City Council could vote as early as this Thursday on legislation that would ask voters to create the job of chief public safety director in the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter, despite pleas from Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration to postpone action until it can study how the new position would work and whether it would actually improve public safety.
Council President Darrell Clarke authored the legislation, which spells out details about the position, including an annual salary of $265,000 and a requirement of five years of experience leading a law enforcement department.
At a Council committee hearing on the bill, last week, Clarke told his colleagues the position would encourage collaboration and coordinate the efforts of various departments, including police, prisons, fire and parks.
“Someone has to report directly to the mayor on something as serious as gun violence,” he said.
The Kenney administration says someone already does: the city’s managing director, as dictated by the Home Rule Charter.
“Adding this position with very similar duties and responsibilities, without careful consideration, could create the opposite of the intended effect and lead to a more complicated reporting structure, actually decreasing clear lines of authority and accountability,” the mayor’s chief of staff, Christina Hernandez, said in written testimony she submitted to the committee.
Hernandez urged the committee to slow down so it can research and evaluate whether it would achieve its goals.
“The administration does not feel a Charter change of this magnitude, with highly specific provisions about qualifications, compensation, and impacted departments should be moved forward on such an expedited timeline,” she wrote.
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Clarke dismissed the administration’s concerns.
“The sense of urgency is clear. We must do something, and we must do something differently,” he said.
The committee concurred, voting unanimously to advance the legislation with a suspension of the rules so it could be voted on faster than the normal process allows.
The vote followed a hearing in which only two people testified, both anti-violence advocates in favor of the bill.
While hearings on major legislation often involve multiple panels with expert witnesses presenting data on the need for a bill and research findings on how similar legislation had achieved the stated goals in other places, the hearing in the Law and Government Committee on Thursday relied on Clarke’s testimony that he and other council members had visited two cities with some version of a public safety director — Chester and Trenton, New Jersey — which had reduced crime rates.
Clarke noted that Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw had been briefed about the bill and had raised no objection. “She indicated that it is done in multiple other cities, as we saw in our research,” he said.
In a statement, Monday, a spokesman for the Police Department clarified:
“While P/C Outlaw was unaware of the granular details contained in the proposal, the Commissioner expressed to the Council President that the proposed role is not uncommon in larger cities, and that she generally supports legislation that seeks to improve synergy and collaboration between public safety partners. However, PC Outlaw, in her capacity as Police Commissioner, does not have a stance on the content and particulars of the proposed legislation — nor was she asked for an endorsement by the Council President — and will respectfully defer to the mayoral administration for further comment.”
Only Councilman Brian O’Neill asked any questions about the need for the position before voting to advance the bill.
If the legislation passes the full council this week, a question relating to the creation of the position will likely appear on the May primary ballot, but it’s doubtful the job would be filled until the next administration, when there will be a new mayor and a new City Council president (Kenney is term-limited out and Clarke is not seeking re-election).
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The administration stresses that, even without the position, the city is coordinating all its resources to address violent crime.
There is a senior director for criminal justice and public safety in the managing director’s office, Erica Atwood, whose job is to oversee collaboration among public safety agencies.
In addition, Kenney announced during his budget address last week that former Pennsylvania Welfare Commissioner Estelle Richman is joining the managing director’s office as senior advisor for gun violence intervention initiatives.