PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—Pennsylvania’s largest city is gearing up to elect a new mayor. A group of candidates spoke recently at an open house event aiming to provide solutions to rising crime and poverty in the city.
Rebuilding Philly’s Police Force
Among them, Jeff Brown, owner of a supermarket chain, told The Epoch Times that he would rebuild the police force to reduce the city’s crime rate.Brown, a Democrat, is one of only two non-politicians on the ballot. A fourth-generation grocer, he and his family built a chain of 12 union-represented supermarkets that have employed more than 60,000 local residents, often providing their first work experience, according to Brown’s website.
Brown said: “We have a very bad crime situation. And we have a diminished police force. We need to rebuild the police and rebuild our systems to address crime.”
Its poverty rate is also skyrocketing, at 23.1 percent—more than double the nation’s average.
Brown said a failed educational system is the root cause of the city’s poverty.
“Well, I think it’s an ineffective K through 12 education. Education should be a place where you learn to make a living,” he said.
Lack of Parenting; Rising Violence
Candidate Warren Bloom has run for office in Philadelphia six times. In the face of rising violent crimes, Bloom said that lack of parenting is the main cause of violence.
“Children are born into this community without a proper home, without a mother and a father that’s committed to the family ... the family is where everything starts. But it has to be a legitimate family,” Bloom, a Democrat, said. “Put a ring on it, make it legitimate, and make sure your children have the proper upbringing that they need as a moral issue.” He added, “We need to look for God to solve the problems. We can’t do it as human beings. “
Candidate Jimmy DeLeon, a Philadelphia judge for 34 years, said social media is the driving force for much of the violence in the city.
DeLeon, a Democrat, shared his way to stop violence: “Anyone that’s arrested for having a gun for a straw purchase of a gun, for assaultive behavior, for domestic violence, for rape, on a case-by-case basis, we’re going to give them a social media ban.”
The Biggest Issue is Safety
Rebecca Rhynhart, Cherelle Parker, and Helen Gym, all Democrats, are currently leading the polls.Rhynhart was elected twice as city controller, Philly’s fiscal watchdog. Her top priorities are to make the city safer, cleaner and reform its schools.
“The biggest issue is safety. We have to get the gun violence down, and we have to make our streets safe,” Rhynhart said. “There are strategies that have worked tremendously well in other cities to focus on the few hundred individuals that are in the life of violence and offer them a way out with consequences if they don’t take it.”
“Oakland reduces their homicide rate by 50 percent in five years; New Orleans reduces by 27 percent. We can do this here in Philly,” Rhynhart said.
Helen Gym, a second-generation Korean American, was a two-term city councilwoman. “There’s no question the priority issue in our city is about safety and about how people are going to be safe and feel safe,” Gym said. “I have talked about, on day one, establishing gun violence as a public health emergency. We’re going to coordinate all of our city departments, all levels of law enforcement, to come together and take illegal guns off the street, to make sure that we improve our 911 response times.”
Republican David Oh: To Serve ‘All the People’
Attorney and three-term at-large Councilman David Oh is the only candidate in the GOP primary. Oh is a former Army lieutenant and assistant district attorney. He is the founder of the city council’s Global Opportunities and the Creative/Innovative Economy Committee.
Oh told the audience that he is running for mayor because “there are things that I think I could do as mayor that I could not do on the city council.”
Immigrant Voices
The event also focused heavily on immigrants—a demographic that constitutes 15 percent of the city’s population.“We will vote for who protects us!” Yuexian Wu, a Chinese immigrant, said.
“Now I feel fearful, unsafe to go out at night,” Wu said. Even though, as a green card holder, she cannot vote, she said her daughter can vote.
Wu hopes the new mayor will create a safe environment. She says she'd like to lose her “feeling of fear” and “feel safe to go for a walk.”
Wu is one of nearly 40 Chinese who came to the event with Mingchu Pearl Huynh, the president of the Northeast Philadelphia Chinese Association.
“It’s a big step for us. It’s not easy because our community doesn’t have the background of participating in this kind of political event,” Huynh said. “We constantly educate them: you have to participate in the community event to make yourself known, and people were thinking about you when they decide policy. Otherwise, you will lose out.”
The forum was organized by United Voices for Philadelphia, a coalition of city organizations that support immigrants in Philadelphia. Founder Andy Toy helped organize the event. He believes that it’s critical for people to participate in voting.
“I think some people don’t have that history of voting in their country because their countries were not democracies. So they’re not sure if they’re part of this. And they should be,” Toy said. “If we all vote, we know we can make a difference.”
Attendees were also able to meet city council, judicial, and row office candidates—sheriff, register of wills, controller, and city commissioners.
