Letters to the Editor | Feb. 22, 2023

The election for mayor of Philadelphia is incredibly important. The city is in a deplorable condition in many important areas, including gun violence, homelessness, and escalating homicides, to name a few. The lack of leadership has slowed progress. We have given the men a chance to clean up the city. It’s time to elect a qualified woman. Women offer natural skills to leadership such as strategic and long-term thinking, collaboration, and trust building. We are inclusive leaders who seek the best solution to our most difficult problems, and we don’t back away from hard ones. And there is a positive correlation between gender diversity in leadership and the bottom line. Philadelphia is full of promise, history, and beauty. Visitors question if it is safe to visit. Should tourism slip, we will have even more serious problems. Let’s identify the strongest female candidate and support her run.

Molly D. Shepard, founder and CEO, The Leader’s Edge, Bala Cynwyd

In his 1987 stand-up film, comedian Eddie Murphy channels an exasperated wife as she asks her husband, “What have you done for me lately?” As a voter looking toward the upcoming mayoral election, the question seems very much on point. So far, there are 11 announced candidates, 10 are Democrats and one is a Republican. Six of the group have collectively served on City Council for multiple decades. As the mayoral seat seekers make their pitch to prospective voters, they are all proclaiming what they intend to do if elected. But where is the visible demonstration of what they have accomplished in their political, professional, and life journeys? And will their skill set be transferable to the extreme difficulty of redirecting a city off course? As I wander around our city, I see those in addiction on street corners, trash-filled vacant lots, the rapid displacement of rowhouse city dwellers, failing public schools, and escalating gun violence, all against the backdrop of Philadelphia being the poorest of the nation’s large cities.

Therefore, I ask the question: What have you done for us, the taxpayers? Election campaigning should be a time for show and tell, not just the unveiling of a spreadsheet and well-rehearsed talking points during a community forum.

Karen Warrington, Philadelphia

On Jan. 27, the World Health Organization convened and determined it valid to extend the global public health emergency. In contrast, three days later, the U.S. government announced that its public health emergency would end on May 11. This move was not especially surprising given the gradual lifting of public health measures over the last year. However, it is premature. Americans might be weary of COVID-19, but it is not vanishing anytime soon. While I do not support the further lifting of safety measures, any opposition to the further relaxation seems futile. In order to ensure the safest way of moving forward, we need to use the 2023 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, as a model of how to safely convene.

What are some of the takeaways from the Davos meeting? Organizers designed a multilayered approach to public health. Participants were required to test before traveling to the meeting, and then take a PCR test when they arrived. Attendees were also encouraged to mask and follow other public health guidelines. In order to ensure compliance, participants wore special smart badges that prevented access if the participant did not take an onsite test or if they tested positive for COVID-19. Unfortunately, this smart badge technology is not yet widely accessible to much of the world. In addition, the design and support of the Davos meeting prioritized ventilation and clean air: Public and private meeting spaces were well-ventilated and employed air purifiers.

While mask-wearing is one of the least invasive, least expensive, and least difficult ways to stymie the spread of a respiratory illness, it looks like much of the world, sadly, has not embraced this intervention. Moving forward with or without widespread mask use, it is important that air quality be prioritized in workplaces, schools, medical offices, and public spaces such as grocery stores, transportation centers, and movie theaters. Yes, improving ventilation and investing in air purifiers involve start-up costs. However, with better air quality coupled with biomedical interventions, we can make the future healthier for us all. To that end, a public-private partnership to help make sustained healthy air quality commonplace would be a transformative public good.

Donna A. Patterson, chair, department of history, political science, and philosophy, Delaware State University

The Inquirer’s Feb. 19 front-page detailed the fatal shooting death of Temple University Police Officer Christopher Fitzgerald and calls for critically needed firearm regulations. On the next page, a story explained how the ability to address the firearm epidemic is greatly impaired by the U.S. Supreme Court’s New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen decision, which will allow changes to a range of regulations for firearm control. The court, again, used the Second Amendment to undo efforts to save lives. A true adherence to the Second Amendment, however, would restrict weapons to those available when the amendment was written: muskets and flintlock pistols.

Joel Chinitz, Philadelphia, jjchiun@comcast.net

Is it too much to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to be as honest and transparent as the average citizen? Is it too much to ask the high-profile trio of Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham to not foment civil discord by repeating proven lies? Is it too much to ask the men and women in our highest positions of government to be role models when it comes to subpoenas and answer questions truthfully? Is it too much to ask that our doctors, nurses, election officials, poll workers, etc., not be threatened and harassed when doing their jobs? Is it too much to expect our police officers to act in accordance with the laws they are presumed to defend?

It’s time accountability is actually reinforced. If you lie under oath, the punishment should be immediate. If you abuse the freedom of speech to where your actions cause distress and harm to others, you should be arrested. If you endlessly repeat known falsehoods, you lose your freedom of speech and get arrested for fomenting actions that will denigrate democracy. Our laws are too slow, lenient, and too often, ineffectual. Until we see real consequences in a timely manner, evenly handed out, we will only see the laws abused.

William Cohen, Huntingdon Valley, athomebill@comcast.net

As someone who voted for John Fetterman, I hope he recovers soon and returns to his duties in the U.S. Senate. However, The Inquirer story detailing his bout with depression failed to discuss the extent to which his health insurance covers his hospitalization. I am sure that as a member of Congress, his health coverage is quite comprehensive, and he won’t be hit with any unexpected bills when he is released from the hospital. Also in Sunday’s edition, there was a very disturbing horror story detailing how a young family spent three years fighting a $14,000 charge that was illegally assessed for the hospitalization of a mother and her prematurely born daughter. Perhaps if Fetterman and others in Congress were made to endure similar treatment they would finally get the message and clean up the mess that our flagrantly flawed and corrupt health-care system has become.

Hal Marcovitz, Chalfont, hmarcovitz@aol.com

To Gov. Josh Shapiro, who recently called on lawmakers to end the death penalty in Pennsylvania, I say that the ultimate power of life and death should always rest in the hands of the democratic state, rather than in the hands of criminals and thugs. Feckless justice in an age of assault weapons for sale and rising mass murders is a total disregard of where power should reside. The death penalty is a necessary tool for justice in a democratic state; it must never be misappropriated for use by thugs and criminals alone. The technologies of confirming guilt are better than ever. The democratic state should always retain the ultimate power over who lives and who dies in Pennsylvania. The democratic state exists to deliver us from evil, and not to coddle it. Make it so.

Mitchell Gordon, Philadelphia

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