No bike lane from Jeffery Young; no state budget from Kim Ward | Shackamaxon

This week’s edition of Shackamaxon covers the absurdities of councilmanic prerogative, efforts to curtail it elsewhere, and the lawmaker who may be one of the biggest obstacles to a state budget deal.

For longer than I’ve been alive, The Inquirer Editorial Board has been calling for the end of councilmanic prerogative, which gives the 10 district City Council members discretion over land use, transportation, and other policy decisions within their constituencies.

While Council members insist prerogative is simply a way to ensure the community’s voice is heard, the tradition makes the city poorer and breeds corruption. It may be no surprise, then, that the bulk of the City Council members who have gone to jail since the inception of the current charter have represented districts.

Recently, the practice of prerogative has reached new heights of absurdity, mostly thanks to the antics of freshman Councilmember Jeffery “Jay” Young. While his more seasoned colleagues are usually content with harassing the owners of food trucks and trying to micromanage sidewalk cafes and loading zones, Young likes to think small and obstruct big.

He is holding up the renovation of the Cecil B. Moore Library branch, despite outraged constituents urging him to act. At a contentious town hall earlier this year, Young compared himself to the luminaries who have previously held his seat, which has been a platform for civil rights legends like Ethel Allen, Raymond Pace Alexander, former Mayor John F. Street, and Cecil B. Moore himself. I couldn’t help but think of how unflattering the contrast was, especially given he was the one calling attention to it.

Young also blocked a proposal to build affordable housing for older Philadelphians in Strawberry Mansion, arguing that the neighborhood, which is losing residents at the fastest rate of any community in the city, is drowning in new development.

His obstinacy might best be encapsulated by his recent refusal to permit a vote on his own bill allowing PennDot to create a bike lane around City Hall. Young has consistently expressed skepticism about the idea, only introducing the legislation under duress.

When asked by advocates why he won’t bring the new lane up for a vote, Young didn’t even have an answer.

It’s important to remember that Young was elected by default. His opponents lost legal challenges to their petitions, while the case against his own nomination was dropped. This meant voters had no chance to scrutinize him, his ideas, or his penchant for offensive social media posts like, “Dear Chinese Stores, we don’t eat dog, cat, or rat here in America, on purpose at least.”

Loath as I am as a Philadelphian to cite an example from New York City, voters in the five boroughs have an opportunity next month to do something we haven’t, which is strike a significant blow against “member deference,” their own version of prerogative.

According to Casey Berkowitz, a spokesperson for the Charter Revision Commission, New York City has a housing crisis, including record low vacancy rates, and the City Council and member deference has often been an obstacle to solving it. The commission has responded by giving voters the chance to revise the city charter.

The proposed charter revisions would fast-track affordable housing projects, rather than allowing them to fall under the sole discretion of individual council members. The change helps ensure that one person can no longer make themselves an insurmountable obstacle to change. If only.

Through the ongoing state budget saga, one politician has done more than anyone else to sabotage negotiations: Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, who represents parts of Westmoreland County, near Pittsburgh. Ever since Gov. Josh Shapiro double-crossed her on school vouchers two years ago, she’s taken any opportunity she can to exact a little payback on his administration, no matter the cost to Pennsylvanians.

Last year, Ward tweeted out a picture of herself scrolling on her phone during Shapiro’s budget address, like a surly teen. This year, she seemingly pops up every time budget negotiations are going well, preventing her caucus from coalescing behind a compromise. Ward says she’s a champion of fiscal discipline, except for the hundreds of millions of dollars she wants for school vouchers and cyber charters.

Thanks to Ward’s efforts, SEPTA’s capital budget has been depleted (why replace exploding ancient train cars?), Philadelphia’s rape crisis center has suspended services, and the city itself faces a potential cash flow problem at the end of the year.

Don’t worry, though, the esteemed Senate president was working for you … from Dublin. Ward joined a trip organized by the Pennsylvania-Ireland Trade Commission, of which she herself is not a member.

By convenient coincidence, this trip just so happened to occur at the same time as the Sept. 28 Pittsburgh Steelers game in the Emerald Isle. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review called the decision to attend a game abroad while Pennsylvanians experience service cuts “tone-deaf.” I agree.

Ward, State Sen. Devlin Robinson, and State Reps. Mary Jo Daley and Joe McAndrew got to enjoy watching the Steelers do what the actual Irish themselves failed to do 1,200 years ago: defeat the Vikings in Dublin.

If only Ward would let the rest of the commonwealth get a win, too.