TheBurg

14 | theburg | 02.16 Baltimore lives on 17th Street, just north of Herr, in the home he grew up in. We spoke there one afternoon last month, in a room adorned with black-and-white photos of family members and famous African-Americans: jazz greats, Frederick Douglass, Jackie Robinson. He described his neighborhood as stable, mostly middle- class, though the population was aging. He recalled how, as a kid, he had roamed freely throughout the city, then reflected, ruefully, that things were "different now"— more territorial, with fistfights replaced by gun battles. is led him to what he saw as his own generation's failure to pass on the legacy of the Civil Rights era to their children. Young people "don't feel like they're a part of any continuum," he said. "And they are." He told me he was slow to embrace the Black Lives Matter movement, in part, because he didn't want to be "policed better." "I want better housing. I want better education. I want better health care," he said. Baltimore is a former city employee, having worked in economic development under Mayor Reed. He seems to support most of Papenfuse's legislative agenda, particularly with respect to his development goals. He was also broadly supportive of the mayor, who he said he hoped would "be a two-termer." He favored the tax abatement legislation council passed last year, describing it as a tool to attract developers he thinks will inevitably seek the best deal available. He also supports the local services tax hike, an integral part of the 2016 budget, which the new council has reopened. e $2-per-week increase will affect substantially more commuters than residents, which appeals to what, for Baltimore and many other city residents, is an article of faith about non- resident workers. "A lot of people who live outside the city bad-mouth and bash it," he said. "So hey, you know, if you're gonna talk trash about us and use our stuff, you should pay for it. You should have skin in the game, too." Baltimore had been interested in challenging Williams for the council presidency, but he hadn't wanted to nominate himself. When I asked him about it, he said he agreed with a reporter who described him as a "reluctant politician." He isn't on social media. He doesn't hold court at the Broad Street Market, and he doesn't go to church. He didn't want to discuss the details of his bid for the presidency on the record, but what he did say gave the impression that Williams out-campaigned him and that he wasn't sure how to lock down fellow members' votes. e day after the reorganization meeting, he was out with his sister distributing for Meals on Wheels. "I just don't feel like a politician," he told her. "She said, 'Jeff, shut up, you're a politician,'" he said. "'You're just really not all that good at it.'" A t a briefing in early January, Papenfuse outlined his vision for 2016 in three adjectives: he wanted Harrisburg to be "safer, more self-determined and growing." e middle term was the most subtle. "Self- determined" was a reference to two forms of long-range planning the city will formally revisit this year—the comprehensive plan, which will guide development and capital projects, and the financial recovery plan, which was passed in late 2013 and is now scheduled to be amended. Papenfuse spoke of the city "seizing its destiny" and exiting Act 47, the state oversight program, but he also acknowledged the process would take years. Whatever the timeline, the mayor's relationship with council will be critical to his achieving this goal. Last year, council members largely concurred with Papenfuse's assessment that the state receiver's plan for the city was based on inaccurate financial projections. "Right away, in year one, we felt that the revenue projections that the receiver's team had come up with were off," said Ben Allatt, council's budget and finance committee chair. In December, after rejecting cuts proposed by Koplinski, council passed a budget that will require nearly $3 million in new revenue from the local services tax hike. But it will fall to the new council to officially adopt the hike, as well as to vet the adjustments to the recovery plan. State oversight of the city is largely a bureaucratic function. But it also involves state legislators, to the extent that they set the rules on local taxing authority and appropriate $4.5 million each year to pay for city fire services. For what it's worth, council has two members with some insight on the Capitol. One is Allatt, whose partner works for the House Republican caucus, in the office of former Majority Whip Stan Saylor. Allatt said he is friendly with Saylor, with whom he will occasionally go back and forth on issues relevant to the city. "It's an uphill battle, because you have to communicate the needs of an urban community to a legislature that the majority of them are not from an urban community," he told me. Allatt was elected in 2013, having gotten interested in city politics after being, as he put it, "really unimpressed" with Mayor ompson. (When it comes to Papenfuse, he said, "I think I've been critical where it's been called for to be critical, and I've been supportive where it's been the right thing to be supportive.") e other is Westburn Majors, the third new council member, along with Johnson and Baltimore, whom Papenfuse endorsed last spring. When he ran for office, Majors worked for Gmerek Government Relations, a downtown lobbying firm. (He is now the director of legislative affairs at the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.) Like Johnson and Baltimore, he took an arm's-length view of the endorsement. He was appreciative, but he certainly didn't feel he was part of a mayoral "slate," a term he felt was too reminiscent of the "Reed team" that Papenfuse's predecessor would traditionally endorse for council. "I don't think folks are real supportive of slates and teams anymore," he said. "But I think now we actually have a council that is independent of the mayor. And that doesn't mean that you're against the mayor. It means, look, we're gonna vet our own issues. If things that the mayor brings down to council are right, people will support it." Majors grew up on Market Street, across from the former site of Bishop McDevitt, the Catholic high school he would later attend. As a kid, he said, he was a "political junkie." He went to Lincoln University in Chester County, majoring in sociology and political science, and later to Penn State for a master's in public administration. Before he got the job at Gmerek, he had a notion that lobbying would be something like what was portrayed in the film " ank You For Smoking." In fact, he said, it wound up much less glamorous. "ere's a lot of research and attending committee meetings," he said. "And you've got to have a decent pair of shoes up there, because of the cobblestone. e little flashy shoes—like, no. Get something with a decent sole." With the hearings on the reopened city budget approaching, Majors didn't quite want to tip his hand. He was supportive of the local services tax hike in principle, though he said he wanted assurances it would really be used for services, and not simply to cover salaries and pensions. Like Johnson and Baltimore, he seemed to be waiting to form his opinions at the hearings in the weeks to come. None of the three had run on specific legislative promises—a fact reflected in the mayor's endorsements, which focused largely on the candidates' experience and personal biographies. If, as Papenfuse has suggested, this is going to be a year of self-determination, how far does that concept extend? City council, as the charter commission recognized 50 years ago, was the venue best equipped to open government to the citizenry. But even if the members are "broadly representative" of residents, residents must still make their concerns known. Majors addressed this topic at one point, as we discussed disparities in wealth and investment across different neighborhoods. "e developers and the folks that are trying to get plans through planning or zoning, they're coming and they're going to speak their case," he said. "So we need residents that don't feel like they're getting enough services to come out and speak. Write a letter. Reach out to council members. And, you know, let your voice be heard." Cornelius Johnson Westburn Majors

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