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12 | theburg | 02.16 ArouND the burg T he public comment portion of City Council meetings has always intrigued me. We live in a representative democracy, not a direct one, and so the challenge for the electorate, in the years between elections, is how to keep the ears of the elected. You can petition, you can email. You can comment on Facebook or Twitter or anonymously on PennLive. But there's really no substitute for showing up warm-blooded in the place where council does its business. You state your name and address, the mayor seated to your right, the councilors fanned out on the dais before you. For a few minutes, you stand in the spotlight of democracy. It's a beautiful thing. And a tedious thing, and a beguiling one. e meetings are broadcast on the city's television station, WHBG-TV 20, and people milk the free airtime. ey pontificate. ey self-promote. Occasionally, they heckle. Last month, at council's first legislative session of 2016, a man identifying himself as Keith Lawson, a resident of S. 17th Street, took to the microphone. He was a big guy with a blue-collar aspect: wool hat, wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt over a long-sleeved one. "I'm glad we got new council members, because I got a complaint about council," he began. He said he was speaking on behalf of young people, particularly in poor neighborhoods, claiming they never saw council members "except when it's time to get voted." Council President Wanda Williams engaged him, and the exchange quickly got testy. Lawson accused her of ignoring residents' questions. "Excuse me," Williams interrupted. "I'm not going to be in a debate with you, nor am I going to allow you to stand up here and say that these council members do not respond to you." Lawson persisted. He wanted council to address the issue he felt was at the root of violence in the city—idle youth, many of whom couldn't find employment because of drug problems and criminal records. Eventually, Williams concluded by gently inviting the young people he'd been talking with to come address council any time. "OK," Lawson said. He sat down and folded his arms. After the meeting, I caught up with Cornelius Johnson, one of four councilors elected last year. We chatted at the sports bar Rookie's on Derry Street, over wings and beer. "I think a lot of times, especially when people come to the mike, people make blanket statements," he said. He didn't take Lawson's comments personally—he volunteers at the southside Boys and Girls Club, and he has family all over the city, so he didn't accept the suggestion that councilors were out of touch. "But I think what he's basically trying to say is, there is a segment of our community that are affected by criminal charges, who need opportunities," he said. He also understood why Williams "may take it personal"— you can do a lot of work that goes unacknowledged, and still get publicly blasted for not doing enough. "It's a lot of work to be on City Council," he said. He was playing it down the middle, respecting the constituent while being sympathetic to his senior colleague. Johnson grew up on Holly Street, in South Allison Hill. His mother is from Sierra Leone, his father from Jamaica. Perhaps due in part to his background, he has little patience for the "natives-versus-outsiders" dynamic that inflects city politics from time to time. "I'll take someone who just moved here six months ago and is about moving the city forward over someone who lived here their entire life and doesn't want to do anything and is completely negative about the city," he said. He was a member of the first class to complete four years at SciTech High, a specialized public high school for gifted students in the city. He joined the Sigma Beta Club and served on the student council, though he had no thought of entering politics until years later, when he started working for the city. Among his colleagues on council, Johnson is perhaps the best positioned to understand the day-to-day operations of municipal government. A year after graduating Penn State, with degrees in general science and toxicology, he took a job as Harrisburg's health officer, inspecting the city's 400 or so restaurants. One of the things he said he noticed was a "disconnect between citizens and their government." People were unaware of the programs available to them, like one that would help pay for lead removal. He left, after a little more than a year, to take a position as the health officer at Susquehanna Township. e job came with a raise, but he also saw it as a chance for professional growth. With fewer restaurants and a more stable budget, the township gave him the opportunity to study other parts of government. Johnson was one of three candidates endorsed by Mayor Eric Papenfuse last April, about a month before the Democratic primary. Explaining his picks, the mayor said council needed "fresh, independent, new voices"; he also specifically asked voters to oust the incumbent, Brad Koplinski. Among other things, he said Koplinski was propping up the council presidency of Williams, whose leadership Papenfuse thought was "problematic" and the "source of the dysfunction on Clean slaTe After being endorsed by the mayor, three newly elected council members are determined to go their own way. by PAuL bArker

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