Frankford Community Blog | Local News, Events, Community Resources
PhillyRising is hosting its first quarterly meeting of 2013 at Aria Hospital Wednesday. Below is a flyer with all the details. Please feel free to share this with your contacts; I look forward to seeing you at the meeting!
Manny Citron Assistant Managing Director City of Philadelphia 215-686-8413 facebook.com/PhillyRisingMDO Twitter @PhillyRisingMDO
Before
Manny Citron from PhillyRising never misses an opportunity to tout the mobile app for Philly311 whenever he is at a meeting in Frankford. So I was almost happy when the opportunity presented itself a couple of weeks ago to test it out. I noticed that a contractor, working on a house on our street, had left a pile of debris at the curb for pickup. I’m not sure what made him think the city was going to pick it up but that is another story
Thursday, after the streets department had correctly ignored it, I went over and used the iphone to report it on the newly installed Philly311 app. You can report it with a picture and it will even suggest your current location for you. It was a few houses off the address so I entered it manually.
I made the report on January 30th. I got a notice that afternoon that the request had been forwarded to the Streets Department. The next morning came a notice that the request had been dispatched to a work crew. I noticed that the mess had been cleaned up on the afternoon of February 1st. It may have done late on the 31st.
I don’t know if it works this well with every request but it sure worked for this one. The request still has not been closed out on the Philly311 system but I know from past experience that they seem to lag behind on that end.
After
Also, we don’t know if any action was taken to collect from the property owner for the cost of that work crew. Contractors who work in the city should know that they have to remove construction debris. It will not be picked up by the Streets department.
Thanks to Matt Ainslee for the tip a few months ago. He has been using the system through another app called Public Stuff. The PublicStuff app hooks you up directly with Philly311 so there is no difference there but their web page is better then Philly311 for lookup after you have submitted the request.
You can get both apps at the App store for your mobile device. Its available for Android, Blackberry or iPhone.
Bottom line: this is a win for residents who want to use 311 on the go.
Pete McElroy
At the meeting on Tuesday, December 6th, the board of the Frankford Civic voted to support a zoning variance for an 8 foot tall fence to enclose the lot at 1709 Gillingham Street. The lot will be used by Karr-Parts for storage of its vehicles. The business has been a long time resident of the neighborhood and there were no objections to the fence. The variance is required for an 8 foot fence since it is outside of the standard for the code. A 6 foot fence would require no variance but would not provide the owner with the necessary security.
20 residents attended the meeting which also featured:
Peter McElroy from Philadelphia School Partnership made a presentation on the new web site www.greatphillyschools.org. The site provides a source of information for families to compare schools when making a choice for their child. It is user friendly and has information for comparing public, charter and parochial schools.
Kathy Cruz
Kathy Kruz, Citizen’s Engagement Coordinator at Philly311, spoke about the 311 system and highlighted the new mobile app that was recently released.
Manny Citron of PhillyRising gave an update on their activities.
There was some informal discussion on the recent policing activities. In addition, the residents of the 5000 block of Griscom street noted that two properties are being rehabbed by new owners which has had a positive effect on life on their block.
The next Frankford Civic Association meeting will be on January 10th at 7PM at Aria Hospital.
From Temple’s Multimedia Urban Reporting lab by By Jessica Lopez and Lucia Volpe
Vacant buildings have become spaces for art galleries, overgrown brush in parks has been trimmed, vacant lots have been cleared from short dumping and victory gardens at local schools have been planted since PhillyRising first took roots in the revitalization efforts in Frankford last year.
Read the rest of the story at this link and check out the video below.
On Monday, October 15th, from 8:30 AM to noon at Hedge and Orthodox. This park is getting a major facelift and this project is prep for the work to come.
