Penn's influence in the city evident during vending hearings

By Seth Grossman Last week's City Council hearings on a controversial bill regulating University City vending showed, in case anyone had forgotten, just how much influence Penn has in Philadelphia -- and the University administration's polished skills in using that power to achieve one of its top goals. And although the legislation's vocal opponents probably had little chance of influencing Council members heading into the initial eight-hour hearing session April 14, they did not do much to help their case by continually attacking Penn's role in negotiating the ordinance while failing to present Council with a viable alternative. Council gave its preliminary endorsement to the bill last Thursday, electing to put the ordinance up for a formal vote next week. The bill is expected to be approved this coming Thursday. The University's power in the city is hardly a secret. During the hearings, members of Council explicitly noted Penn's influence on their views. "We have an obligation to the second-largest employer in the City of Philadelphia," Council President John Street told the crowd of about 150 last Tuesday. "If you don't think that I and the other members are conscious of all the economic benefits that flow from [the University], you're wrong." But the University does not derive its influence solely from its economic power. Penn administrators also enjoy close ties with Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, whose West Philadelphia district includes Penn. This relationship played a critical role in the vending issue. On matters that involve only one member's district, Council members usually defer to that colleague's judgment, according to many Council staffers. Although six Council members told The Daily Pennsylvanian last month that they were reserving judgment until the hearings, many members seemed like they had already made up their minds by last Tuesday's meeting. As Councilman Michael Nutter of North Philadelphia said during his questioning of one of the bill's critics, "I'm not about to amend [Blackwell's] ordinance." Working with Blackwell to craft an ordinance that largely reflected its wishes, therefore, allowed the University to place itself on strong footing. The University administration only strengthened its already-formidable position by framing its arguments in a way that gave Council members no reason to violate their standard procedure of deferring to a colleague who represents the district a bill affects, even on such a controversial matter. The claims of the University and others who testified on its behalf -- that Penn has certain rights as a property owner, that many vendors were not West Philadelphia residents and that similar ordinances have been enacted for other parts of the city -- clearly resonated with Council. "The University has rights as a property owner and I think that's often forgotten," Street said at Tuesday's hearings during the testimony of Scott Goldstein, the University City Vendors Alliance chairperson who organized his ad hoc group to oppose Penn's initial proposal last May. Councilwoman Donna Miller also said that "the fact that vending at Penn is on private property made a difference." Many Council members shared the administration's concern that many of the vendors lived outside of West Philadelphia and sometimes out of Philadelphia altogether, saying these vendors were not members of the community like Penn is. In addition, Council members were convinced that the University did its best to negotiate with all involved parties. Critics of the ordinance like the UCVA and the Penn Consumer Alliance, however, strongly disagreed with Council's view of the issue. But Council members clearly expressed their displeasure with critics' repeated claims that Penn negotiated in bad faith, reneged on promises and did not fully consult all parties. Street warned various witnesses that they were "getting really close to the line" and would "lose credibility" by attacking the University. Opponents further harmed themselves because many Council members felt their attacks on the University's role in negotiating the ordinance were a slight to Blackwell. "When you make reference to a corrupt process, you insult the body and more specifically my colleague Councilwoman Blackwell," Nutter told one critic, Maria Oyaski of the Spruce Hill Community Association. "I'm tremendously offended." And opponents also failed to enter the hearings with a viable alternative to the ordinance. Many critics, including Goldstein and PCA member Jason Eisner, suggested in their testimony that the current proposal be thrown out and the negotiating process begun again. A frustrated Street repeatedly said that "we are not starting over from the beginning." PCA spokesperson Matt Ruben admitted there were deficiencies in his and other opponents' strategy. "[Council] needed an extremely convincing set of arguments to defeat this bill and we apparently didn't give them," Ruben said after the hearings. Despite almost a year of negotiations between the University and the two ad hoc community groups, this ordinance largely resembles the first proposal Penn submitted last May. The bill would ban food trucks and carts on many streets around campus and, a year after its enactment, prohibit electrical generators. To accommodate vendors displaced by the ordinance, Penn has promised to build five food plazas to hold a total of 45 vendors. That proposal is separate from the bill. More than 90 vendors currently operate on and near Penn's campus. Besides the safety problems caused by overcrowding, Penn has cited the vendors' negative effects on its ability to attract retailers as reasons to regulate vending.