City Services

Some in Washington suggest that so-called "enterprise zones" are the answer to many of America's inner-city problems. They can be. But the American Street corridor in Philadelphia's Kensington section shows evidence, not only of the good in these zones, but also of the bad and the downright ugly. Since 1979, every conceivable federal, state and local economic development program has pumped grants, loans and technical assistance into making American Street a showplace. The success of these efforts is visible, and encouraging: Sixty-five companies that employed thousands of people have been assisted.

Saying they're fed up with Philadelphia's continuing decline, more than 100 neighborhood associations across the city yesterday formed a coalition to reform city government and shift more decision-making power to the people. The coalition, the Alliance for a Better Philadelphia, called for changes that would allow voters to recall elected officials and to vote for key legislation in referendums. It also proposed changes in civil service regulations that would make it easier to reward and motivate city employees and to hire new talent.

WANT CITY SERVICES? Concerned about your library closing or having a problem getting through to a city agency? From now until Aug. 31, the number to call for city services is not 3-1-1. It's 717-787-4712. That's the number for state Senate Majority Leader Domenic Pileggi. He's the guy to call because until he gets the state Senate to move on a bill that would enable the city to raise the sales tax from 7 percent to 8 percent, the city's own resources are continuing to shrink.

What's going to hurt Philadelphia more? A $165 million tax increase to carry the city and public school budgets through the next fiscal year, or another year of dirty streets, deteriorating schools and too few police battling neighborhood drug dealers? Goode administration officials have decided Philadelphia stands to lose the most if its already dismal services deteriorate any further. And when they say the city loses, they mean that more residents and businesses will be tempted to flee to the suburbs.

Frank L. Rizzo says that the city worked when he was mayor, that he was a leader who got the streets cleaned, the trash collected on time and the potholes filled. Today, Rizzo says, "there are no services. " Mayor Goode says that he is a manager, and that as a result, the city works today with fewer people on the payroll. He says he is improving trash pickup and other basic services with management systems, computers and better training. The key, Goode says, is getting a "bang for your buck.

As he prepared to launch the city's service blitz into the Fairhill neighborhood of North Philadelphia, Managing Director Joseph Certaine's pep talk to an aide wound up with a terse reminder. "Impressions are important," he said. Impressions such as bewilderment and amusement are probably not what Certaine had in mind. But that was the reaction of some Fairhill residents yesterday as the Rendell administration opened its "Partners for Progress" neighborhood stabilization program.

Mayor Goode last week asked the municipal labor unions to "invest in this city's future" by accepting an unprecedented two-year wage freeze that would enable him to balance his proposed $1.7 billion budget for the coming fiscal year without a tax increase. The mayor might just as well have asked for a similar sacrifice from the many thousands of city residents who have come to rely on, and often complain about, the current level of municipal services. Goode's austere blueprint for the fiscal year beginning July 1 could affect anyone who drives a city street, goes to Fairmount Park, checks out a book at a Free Library branch or plays basketball at a neighborhood recreation center.

City residents who live in North and West Philadelphia soon won't have to come to Center City to pay real estate taxes or order a copy of a birth certificate. Managing Director James S. White said yesterday that within two months the city will have mini-city halls in those two areas modeled after the Northeast Municipal Services Center opened in September 1985. White said final sites had not yet been chosen. But he said that the city's goal is to place both service centers in locations "where people would normally go while taking care of other business.

Philadelphians feel a little better about their Police Department these days, maybe a little less happy with their libraries. They're still generally ticked about street cleaning and repair, but overall, they're fairly satisfied with most city services. So finds the newest Mayor's Report on City Services, released yesterday, for the 1997-98 fiscal year. The report, which offers thousands of obscure facts about city functions, also includes a citizens satisfaction survey conducted by the Melior Group.

Declaring that it has dramatically cut costs elsewhere, Managing Director David H. Pingree called on city officials yesterday to seriously consider privatizing many city services. Testifying before a City Council committee, Pingree said that other cities have saved millions of dollars by contracting out certain services and suggested that it may be Philadelphia's best hope for surviving its fiscal crisis. "We in government cannot do it all. The resources and expertise are simply not there to meet the needs of the city," Pingree told the Committee on Fiscal Stability and Intergovernmental Cooperation, a panel created to examine the city's financial problems.