Controversy divides area residents

The University City Community Council, a consortium of area community organizations, lost one of its largest members this week in a development that has left its members divided. The Spruce Hill Community Association, which represents the Spruce Hill neighborhood immediately southwest of Penn's campus, voted Tuesday night to withdraw from the UCCC after several months of disagreement over administrative issues. "The issue boils down to a philosophical difference Spruce Hill has with the other organizations that make up the council," Spruce Hill Community Association President Barry Grossbach said. "There is a difference of opinion on what role the organization should play." Grossbach contends the UCCC -- meant to aid neighborhood organizations in their attempts to improve University City -- overstepped the bounds of its original mission by making policy decisions against the will of some of its members. The group's original purpose, he said, was to act simply as a forum and allow each community organization to make its own policy. The UCCC is made up of presidents of the six neighborhood organizations and members of local special interest groups, such as Friends of Clark Park. Furthermore, Grossbach pointed to growing tension in UCCC meetings as another reason for Spruce Hill's withdrawal. "Volunteers don't want to spend their time at meetings that are rancorous, uncivil and unproductive," he said. However, another member of the UCCC disagreed with Grossbach's claims. Amy Williams, vice president of the Squirrel Hill Community Association, said in an e-mail to a community listserv that Grossbach simply overreacted to "being on the losing end of the democratic process." She said the UCCC passed resolutions that Grossbach opposed -- including one against the then-proposed catchment area for the new Penn-assisted public school -- and that the withdrawal was based on an inability to work with the council's other members. Williams added last night that she was dismayed by Spruce Hill's withdrawal and hopes the issue can be worked out. "We have worked for the unity of the community and we will continue to work for that," Williams said. Nonetheless, Spruce Hill's decision has raised concerns among some residents that the UCCC may be heading in the wrong direction. "The organization shouldn't be a major decision-making body," said Roger Harman, president of Cedar Park Neighbors, another member organization of the UCCC. "It should be a forum." However, Harman was quick to praise the UCCC's previous accomplishments, which include helping secure Penn funding for West Philadelphia's Lea School. "I think this organization is an incredibly wonderful thing," Harman said. "But there are clearly some personality conflicts. I think that all sides are probably to blame." Todd Kovich, a former president of Cedar Park Neighbors who now serves on its board of directors, said he believes the UCCC is actively trying to address the conflicts among its members. He pointed to efforts by the UCCC's members to rewrite the consortium's bylaws in order to make it more representative of the area as a whole. "They don't represent the community that they purport to represent," Kovich said of the UCCC. But, he said, "We hope to create more of a broad association and try to draw [Spruce Hill] back in." "I wish they hadn't withdrawn," Kovich said of the Spruce Hill decision. "But I think they recognized that it wasn't working."

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