Council approves diversity statute

On Thursday, City Council passed an ordinance introduced by Councilwoman Cherelle Parker that acknowledges and provides a framework for Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration to prioritize diversity and inclusion for the upcoming $600 million Rebuild initiative.

Launched to make sweeping improvements to Philadelphia’s parks, libraries and recreation centers, Mayor Kenney has made diversity in employment a priority for Rebuild. In November, the administration named Mary E. Stitt Rebuild’s deputy director of workforce diversity and inclusion.

Of Parker’s resolution, Stitt said in a statement, “We appreciate Councilwoman Parker’s thoughtful and detailed recommendations for increasing diversity and inclusion for Rebuild and look forward to reviewing this resolution and recommendations in depth.”

Councilwoman Parker’s resolution acknowledges Rebuild’s 40 percent minority and female participation goal and suggests several means of achieving this goal in Rebuild and general city construction.

“Rather than just say we have diversity, [Cherelle Parker] actually gave some ideas about it,” said President of the Finley Recreation Center Advisory Council Walter Marlin.

The resolution suggests investment in and tracking of neighborhood-based per-apprenticeship programs with recruitment efforts at local strongholds like places of worship and schools.

Specifically targeting Rebuild, the resolution calls on the building trades to calculate and state the number of new people of color and women they will need to reach 40 percent participation.

If firms fail to comply, the administration should consider discontinuing any project labor agreements with that firm, the resolution suggests.

At Thursday’s council session, Parker said the resolution “was an effort to institutionalize diversity and inclusion in what we do here in the City of Philadelphia.”

And local leaders in business and building expressed their support.

“I think it’s a good start,” said Emma Chappell, founder of the United Bank of Philadelphia and co-founder of the Black Women’s Leadership Council. “I think it was a strong resolution and I support it 100 percent.”

Ryan Boyer, business manager of the Laborer’s District Council, said that he’s “optimistic” the Kenney administration will adopt the resolution’s language.

“The Kenney administration has been very aggressive in trying to pursue a pathway out of poverty for everyone,” Boyer said.

Some community members, though, are more skeptical.

Jihad Ali, a retired Philadelphia police sergeant and real estate developer believes the resolution’s language leaves room for non-compliance.

“I think that the resolution is weak, the language is weak because it doesn’t have a legal term in it for what the City shall do...everything is ‘should,’” Ali said in an interview.

“We understand the good intent but we need more structure,” he added. “We can’t rely on the administration to do right by us. We got to rely on ourselves. And ourselves is that leadership of council.”

Boyer acknowledged Parker must adhere to legal guidelines.

“All you can have is goals,” he said. “That’s the law.”

Parker created her resolution to help inform Kenney’s administration in their ultimate Rebuild proposal, she said in an interview.

“These are recommendations that we are making that were intended to provide some ideas about what the proposal should include,” she said.

Rather than wait on the administration’s proposal, Parker wanted council to be proactive and “provide some ideas about what the proposal should include.”

For her efforts, Mayor Kenney told The Tribune, “Councilwoman Parker has been at the forefront in submitting policy recommendations that will be part of our negotiation with the Building Trades to ensure underrepresented populations have access to a career path in the building trades.”

The first set of Rebuild projects are anticipated to begin in spring 2017 and investments in each Rebuild site will range from $50,000 to $13 million, the website said.

“With the $600 million that city is getting with the Rebuild project as it unfolds,” Marlin said, “the voters are going to be watching, and they’re going to be asking some serious, soul searching questions to unions, to the mayor, to council and everyone else.”

Source: The Philadelphia Tribune