City Council's summer recess: Too much of a good thing?

In City Council's often-bustling chambers, the curtains are drawn and the lights dimmed to a soft glow. The 17 mahogany desks are cleared, save for a few copies of bills and a soda can left by advocates who favored a soft-drink tax to fund Philadelphia schools - a fight now in the rearview mirror.

This room will get little use this summer, as Council takes its annual three-month legislative break.

It's among the longest recesses taken by any major city council in the country. But members bristle at the term paid vacation, saying the time is spent reconnecting with constituents after the busy budget season. That does not stop critics from questioning the long-standing practice.

"This is not a part-time City Council," said Zack Stalberg, who formerly led the watchdog group Committee of Seventy. "Many people treat it that way. But they get paid serious money to work year-round. And then they don't."

During the 12-week recess, Council members don't introduce legislation, and hearings usually are not held. Offices are open, and constituent calls never stop. Even so, in City Hall, the pace clearly slows down.

Among the Council members, whose salaries range from $127,000 to $159,500, several are notorious workhorses. Some City Hall insiders say that over the years, other members have been known to take the term recess more literally.

Council, which recessed June 18 and will reconvene Sept. 10, has a long habit of such breaks. Former Mayor John F. Street has said it started in the 1980s, out of boredom.

"We found ourselves holding bills from one week to the next just to have something to vote on," Street, who was on Council at the time, told The Inquirer in 2009.

He said hearings were difficult to schedule because witnesses and government employees were on vacation; "Thus we instituted the practice."

Many cities' councils do the same, but their legislative breaks are all shorter than Philadelphia's, according to a 2011 Pew Charitable Trusts study of 15 major cities. Most take six weeks off. New York and Washington take eight. Chicago takes nine.

Baltimore's City Council comes closest to Philly's. This year, the body has 11 weeks off between June and September. But it will meet once in July and once in August.

Philadelphia's Council occasionally meets over the summer, such as in 2013, when it held five hearings after the fatal Market Street building collapse. More often, the break passes with no official meetings.

Council President Darrell L. Clarke said that was not a bad thing. When members are tied to City Hall for hearings, "you don't have the ability to access the citizens," he said.

"They do constituent services and meetings with their citizens, getting feedback, going to picnics . . . going to church groups," said Ed Rendell, the former mayor and governor.

Clarke's spokeswoman, Jane Roh, Clarke planned to be in Harrisburg this summer advocating for school funding.

Councilwoman Jannie L. Blackwell said she would spend the summer making a ward-by-ward breakdown of potholes, crafting a housing strategy for a neglected corner of her West Philadelphia district, and attending "a zillion block parties."

The break "gives you time to plan and pre-act instead of react," Blackwell said. "The weather's nice. It's light and bright outside, and you can really get a lot done out there."

Jim Kenney, the Democratic mayoral nominee, defended the break while serving on Council, especially when a 2009 editorial criticized the practice.

"I just read yesterday's editorial ('Great Indoors') from my desk at City Hall," he wrote the Philadelphia Daily News. "Thanks, I didn't realize I should be at the beach."

Several former Council staffers, who asked to not be named, called the recess a chance to reset and focus on their own legislative priorities rather than responding to those constantly coming down the pipeline from other offices during a session.

They said that the first day back offers a chance to show off, and that each member wants to introduce impressive legislation.

But if staff are hard at work during the break, some critics believe their bosses are not.

"Many of them are slackers, and it's that simple," Stalberg said. "If you don't have a strong work ethic, you can really cruise."

Stalberg said that while heading the Committee of Seventy, he once urged Council to go back into session to deal with a pressing issue. The request hit a nerve: Stalberg said he received protesting calls from all 17 Council members the next day, the only time he could remember that happening.

He said that decades ago, Council likely did find itself with little to do in summer. But he said the body had become more involved in issues ranging from economic development to school funding. He suggested Council could hold hearings on one pressing issue each summer.

David Thornburgh, current president of the Committee of Seventy, said that at face value, 12 weeks seems like an "awfully generous break." But he said members should be judged on results, not how many hours they spend in the office.

"The people who elect them are paying attention," he said. "If they're seeing their Council member lounging at the pool or spending an inordinate amount of time in Margate, they ought to be offended and vote them out of office."

Clarke, who in the last session blocked major initiatives from Mayor Nutter such as a large property-tax increase to fund schools (Council opted for three smaller tax increases), suggested the mayor's office does not mind Council taking time off.

"If you talk to the administration," he said, "they may be quite happy that we decide to take a two-month recess."

215-854-2730@TriciaNadolny