Ian McClendon - Lobbying Blog #3 — Science Leadership Academy @ Center City

The Triangles on Grays Ferry Gateway Project has been on a hiatus since its last Community Meeting on March 29th. Some major names were present at such as Terri Paone from the Presidents Anna Verna City Council Office. Also State Representative Babette Josephs was there in the break out groups.

Anna C. Verna

Babette Josephs

Babette Josephs, State Representative, lives near by Grays Ferry and in the meeting she stated that she "has been watching this effort very closely, that the future of this area will be decided by the neighbors, and that what ever decisions are made she will be there to help out!" As the State Representative of the 182nd District she controls a office in Grays Ferry, a District office on Walnut St., and another House of Representatives office in Harrisburg. Honestly who knows how much assistance can she be for the rapid recreation of Grays Ferry?

(2) District Office

1528 Walnut St. Suite 501

Phila., PA 19102

P: 215.893.1515

F: 215.560.5816

(3) Harrisburg Office

House of Representatives, Room 300

P.O. Box 202182

Harrisburg, PA 17120-2182

P: 717.787.8529

F: 717.787.0861

(1) Grays Ferry Office

Barrett-Nabuurs Senior Center

28th & Dickinson St.

Phila., PA 19146

P: 215.952.3376

Wed. 8:00-4:00 pm

http://www.babette.org

As for Terri Paone, I wasn't able to find much background about her. Terri is a member of the (PHCD) Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation Board of Directors. Her presence at the citizen group meeting doesn't seem to useful in pushing forward for the actual changes of Grays Ferry but although Paone could contribute good ideas for the structure and design of improving the area.

The organizations that sponsor The Gateway Project are:

SOSNA

CCRA

SSWBA

and SOSCDC.

With the help of all these local organizations the community was able to have hired 2 traffic engineers from the Philadelphia Streets Department to review the map, traffic flow, and local business import and exporting areas. At the meeting that I attended last year the engineers where there for the first time and presented many different blue prints of re-mapping the area.

Here are the blue prints represented in detail of the 5 important safety issues that the community wanted the engineers to tackle:

To view all of the detailed blue prints from PSD: CLICK HERE

(Since the meeting before the one in March there seems to be no new additions to the blue prints itself)

This is just that time where not much, or any at all, action is being taken for the Gateway Project. Now, Im not saying that the citizens, organizations, and the whole community is just lying on their back and giving up but that this is not the right time to focus on a single area of Philadelphia when America is struggling itself. I believe that in a couple years when the economy is back on track Grays Ferry would be first in line to receive notice from City Hall accepting much needed recreation.