Northwood Civic Association’s next general meeting will be held Tuesday, June 15, 2010, 7:00 PM, at Saint James Church, Castor Avenue and Pratt Street. Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams is scheduled to attend. He previously spoke to our membership when he was Philadelphia Inspector General. He will tell you what he is doing to improve his current office and will answer questions.
Bring your neighbors!
Well the crowd was smaller than it usually is on Tuesday night. But rain + election day + Phillies + Flyers might have had something to do with it.
The War Memorial at Frankford Stadium was a topic of discussion. One of the bronze plaques had fallen from the memorial back in February. Since that time the School District and the city have replaced it and then decided to clean all the metal. Here are the before and after pictures. You can click on the image to get a better view.
Barry Howell attended a meeting of the Concerned Citizens of Northwood at Simpson Playground last Tuesday. Barry related that people attending that meeting spoke of being besieged by gang activity, bad section 8 tenants, parking issues and drugs in their back driveways. Barry reiterated that the Northwood Civic is going to address these quality of life issues beyond the deed restricted areas of Northwood. He will be discussing the issue with Councilman Darrel Clarke.
A meeting was to be held with the new operators of the Frankford Y to work out a community relations agreement. The civic supports their effort to turn this now empty building into an asset for the community. As long as they are going in that direction the community should support them.
In June the Civic will begin negotiations with Cancer Treatment Centers of America on the renewal of the community relations agreement. The focus of this new agreement will be on jobs and investment in the Northwood community.
Some people at the meeting complained about people in pickup trucks trolling the rear driveways of blocks looking for trash and anything else that may be handy. When they are around things seem to turn up missing. There is talk of needing a town watch to keep an eye on the streets. Barry encouraged anyone who would like to start a community town watch to contact him and he will put them in touch with the right people.
Final discussion related to the problem of L&I not enforcing zoning board decisions. If the Civic wins a decision in zoning and the property owners ignore that decision, what does it take to get the city to enforce that decision. The process is long and tedious and meanwhile the property owners goes on without penalty.
The next Northwood Civic Association meeting is scheduled for June 15th. Seth Williams the District Attorney, has agreed to attend the Civic meeting. Bring your complaints and take this opportunity to sound off on what is happening to your community.
A standing room crowd showed up for a full agenda at tonight’s Frankford Civic meeting. DA Seth Williams stopped by to discuss his office’s new iniative of assigning his assistant district attorneys to geographic areas. He feels that this will allow them to better understand and relate to the needs of the community. Sounds kinda like the police departments PSAs. Here’s video of Seth talking about Frankford’s issues.
Also at the meeting, Jason Dawkins from counsel-woman Sanchez’s office spoke:
Carla Sastio came in to talk more about Philadelphia’s Recycling Rewards.
The business owner of 4102 Paul Street, sitting at the corner of Torresdale and Paul St, came in because he’s seeking a zoning for retail sales of aftermarket wheels and tires. The place is currently zoned commercial but because he wants to be able to take the tires off of cars, it has to be zoned as auto repair. There were concerns over where he would be storing all the tires after another tire joint burned down two of it’s neighboring houses. His zoning hearing is March 9th at 2:30 pm.
The owner of 1715 Harrison Street came in looking to get zoning to convert it from a 2 family home to a 3 family home. He stated he lives in New York and that he’s owned up to 100 properties in Philadelphia at one time. He admitted to having one outstanding L&I violation for having key locks on every room which usually means its a being used as a boarding house. He said 5 people were living there now. The owner left after his presentation. Later on Pete Specos spoke of taking 3 weeks and 4 letters to get into contact with the owner, and that there were 3 or 4 violations on the property. He also said all three floors of the house were occupied and that when he went to the location, it was a “pig pen”.
Seth Williams is holding a town hall meeting on April 6th. 
