New Blood: City Council Candidate Justin DiBerardinis

February. 15, 2019

With a few fleeting exceptions, Philadelphia City Council has been, for decades, a place where vision goes to die. It was once called the "worst legislative body in the free earth" by a former mayor, and it has long been characterized either by members looking out for their—or their benefactors'—private interests above the common adept, or by an almost comical emphasis on constituent service, at the expense of really legislating.

Granted, this current Council, while still clinging to its past excesses, has seemed to legislate more than than by ones, even if said legislation is stunningly simple-minded—barring cashless retail outlets rather than growing jobs?—and kicks the difficult issues downwards the road. (Seriously, not one hearing on our pension crisis?)

But help may be on the manner. This ballot cycle, change is in the air amidst an electorate that's freaking out over national politics, and there are indications that a new class of Quango candidates are planning to actually inject some vision into the mix; between now and election 24-hour interval, we'll innovate yous to some, and zippo in on their ideas.

DiBerardinis is total of ideas. But his biggest, and mayhap most fantastical, idea is what he calls A New Deal for Philly. Literally: A grassroots public works project.

Thirty-seven-yr-old Justin DiBerardinis, running for Council-at-large, is ane such potential change agent. If the name sounds familiar, it'south because he'south the son of the city's sometime Managing Director Mike DiBerardinis—Mike D—a widely respected practitioner of government. Merely the son is more thinker than technocrat; DiBerardinis, whose recent fundraising report placed him in the top five of all candidates with $140,000 cash on mitt and who has garnered a slew of endorsements, including ane from Ed Rendell, says information technology's fourth dimension Philly gets out of the small ball game. Mario Cuomo used to say, "you lot entrada in poetry but you govern in prose," and DiBerardinis is all poesy, his rhetoric seeking to summon Philly to its better angels.

When I caught upwardly with him last week, he launched into his elevator pitch, which isn't a laundry listing of programs or critiques of current policies so much equally a kind of civic pep talk. "For generations, the metropolis was certain information technology was dying and we had a politics of turn down," he said. "We were parochial, having to do with less each twelvemonth, each interest grouping trying to concord onto its share. Well, nosotros're not dying. Now the question is what will be the terms of our prosperity going frontwards? This is the virtually exciting moment in Philadelphia in my lifetime, because we have the run a risk to adopt a generationally-frontward looking platform and take on big challenges together."

And what follows, in strings of run-on sentences, is more of the same, a mix of idealism with street smarts. DiBerardinis is full of ideas, everything from making the wage taxation progressive—giving a break, in other words, to those who need a mitt up—to using property tax incentives to "build a greenish city one row house at a time." Simply his biggest, and perhaps almost fantastical, thought is what he calls A New Deal for Philly. Literally: A grassroots public works project.

"When our country had a poverty rate as high every bit Philadelphia's, this is what nosotros did," he explains. "We put people to work. I'm talking about hiring teacher's aides in every K-5 classroom, street sweepers for our streets and parks, traffic enforcement officers to keep our kids rubber."

"We should be measuring ourselves not by our private wealth, but past our shared wealth," DiBerardinis says. "Our parks, our libraries, our schools, our buses, our trains. These are the public assets we should be investing in."

Before you conclude that DiBerardinis is just a throwback big city tax and spend liberal, he complicates matters a chip by talking about his bold plans not every bit social rubber net but as part of a pro-growth strategy in left-backside neighborhoods. He knows those neighborhoods, having grown upwards in Fishtown before the dog grooming storefronts. His was, and remains, a family devoted to public service; his three siblings are all school teachers. They were all, he reports, taught to go beyond complaint. In one case, at 17, DiBerardinis remembers a policy-oriented disagreement with his dad. "'Okay, you lot're right,' my dad said," DiBerardinis remembers today. "And then he said: 'At present what are you going to practice most it?'"

Young Justin grew upwardly amid the lore, and lure, of public service and social justice. His male parent one time led a squatter'southward rights campaign in Kensington. His mother, Joan Reilly, had been part of the Camden 28, a group of radical Catholics who raided the Camden draft offices during the Vietnam State of war in order to destroy its records.

Then it was no surprise nearly a decade ago when, equally a community organizer himself, Justin helped a neighborhood put bated its internecine battles and rebuild the overcrowded and dilapidated Willard Elementary schoolhouse in Kensington, a lesson in grassroots ability that informs his politics today. "If y'all desire better outcomes from government, y'all'd better detect or build new ability sources to get it," he says. "One k neighbors united with collective vision and commonage will? That'south how yous put pressure on elected leaders."

Nor was it a surprise when DiBerardinis served half dozen years as legislative adjutant to Councilwoman Maria Quiñones-Sánchez. Quiñones-Sánchez is one of the more interesting political figures in our midst, a gritty survivor who, time and again, takes on her ain party establishment and emerges victorious. She bucks the system and has the scars to prove for information technology. But on ballot day, her nonconformity has always been rewarded.

"From Maria, I learned not to be afraid to challenge orthodoxy," DiBerardinis says. "She wasn't agape to notice common ground with uncommon partners, working with [so-Councilman] Pecker Green and [current Councilman] Curtis Jones on tax reform and other issues. You wouldn't expect her to be such shut partners with those who she was so dissimilar from—different parts of the city, unlike socio-economic backgrounds—but she put the common involvement beginning."

Yes, DiBerardinis might be floating some pie in the heaven ideas, and here's hoping he thinks more deeply about how to fund them. Only better a cacophony of ideas than the same-old transactional politics that has gotten united states of america where nosotros are, correct? Better vision than cynicism, no?

It's striking how often DiBerardinis speaks of common things. In these bifurcated times, it seems ingrained in him to think about the whole of the metropolis. That's a lesson learned during his most contempo gig, as the Manager of Programs and Partnerships at Bartram'southward Garden, from which he's taken a exit of absenteeism to campaign. With its 45 acres of public, nationally celebrated state in Southwest Philadelphia, Bartram's Garden has become a public park and racially diverse meeting place for unlike Philadelphias and Philadelphians. It's led him to think deeply about how we define what's public.

"We should exist measuring ourselves not by our private wealth, but by our shared wealth," he says. "Our parks, our libraries, our schools, our buses, our trains. These are the public avails we should be investing in."

Ah, yep, investing. Therein lies the rub. He wants to exercise a whole helluva lot of information technology. When I ask him how a city with a still-shrinking revenue enhancement base of operations, uncommonly loftier taxes, and stalled task growth can afford such a massive public works project, he responds by proverb, in result, that such picayune concerns are above his pay course. "I don't know all the details—I'm not a technocrat," DiBerardinis says. "The outset step is having the chat and building the coalition for change. You've got to know where you're going first."

There's that old poetry/prose conundrum. The truth is, if you're seeking a legislative post, you accept to be more than a pundit. You besides have to demonstrate you can get stuff done, which means having a plan.

But this is Urban center Council we're talking about, and wouldn't yous rather accept someone running for it with big, bold ideas, no matter how challenging or impractical? Every bit opposed to, say, a candidate who stays true to the body's quondam merely transactional playbook? In that location are plenty of case studies that illustrate the backwards, small-minded means of Council—the Councilmanic Prerogative  embarrassments, John Dougherty'southward alleged weaponizing of its members to serve his narrow interests, Darrell Clarke'due south refusal to even hold hearings on the selling of the Gas Works  in 2015, a potential $1.five billion windfall—simply it'due south actually the smaller indignities that become me most worked up. Similar the story of Bill Miller's tuxedo.

A little over a decade ago, the tardily Miller, who had a vi figure communications contract with Council, establish himself preparing to go out on the town on New year'due south Eve, when he realized his tuxedo was at the dry cleaner'due south. And they were closed. And then what did Miller do? He called and then-Councilwoman Marian Tasco, whose district was habitation to the dry cleaner's business concern.

The possessor lived in the suburbs, and imagine his surprise when he got a call from the Councilwoman on New year's day's Eve, directing him dorsum into the city and so her fellow insider could be properly decked out in black necktie. It'due south a funny story, simply also a terrifying one. Think of it: Would a pocket-sized business possessor dare pass up a "asking" to schlep back to piece of work from someone who could zone his business out of existence? I ever think of Bill Miller's tuxedo when contemplating just how out of line Quango is with our values. Who knows how many such stories there are?

So, yes, Justin DiBerardinis might be floating some pie in the sky ideas, and here's hoping he thinks more than deeply about how to fund them. But better that, improve a cacophony of ideas than the same-old transactional politics that has gotten u.s. where we are, right? Improve vision than cynicism, no?

That'southward another lesson from DiBerardinis' fourth dimension at Bartram's Gardens. "Yous don't plant a garden for tomorrow," he says. "Instead, y'all think about what you lot're going to have in 25 years. Well, a city is an even more complex and organic ecosystem. You lot have to have a vision."

Photograph via Justin For Philly

johnsoncoursentand.blogspot.com

Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/new-blood-city-council-candidate-justin-diberardinis/

Share this post