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Mayor Cherelle Parker delivers her first State of the City Report

Reading Time: 6 minutes

At the beginning of her administration in January of 2024, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said, “Listen to what I say, then watch what I do.” Now, as we are just days away from the close of her first year in office, our city’s 100th Mayor continues on her path of transparency with how she’s running Philadelphia.

To close the week out on Friday, December 20, 2024, Mayor Parker held a gathering on the campus of Temple University at Temple’s Performing Arts Center, where she delivered a speech on the State of Philadelphia.

In front of a room largely filled with members of the Parker administration and city employees, the Mayor spoke about some of the positive trends in Philadelphia in 2024, including a 37 percent decrease in reported homicides compared to the same time last year, according to police data.

“We’re proud of where we are as Year One draws to a close,” Parker said. “Our city is becoming safer, our blocks are cleaner, and there are more educational opportunities in our schools. Let me be clear: We have a long way to go and much, much more work to do. But I’m proud of our administration and every official and city employee working for the people of Philadelphia.”

Mayor Parker stated, “The people of Philadelphia elected me to the position, yes, to be the 100th Mayor, the first woman in 341 years in the city of Philadelphia, and while I am invigorated by the challenge every single day, I want you to know that I did not run to be Mayor of the city of Philadelphia so I could simply be a footnote in somebody else’s history book. We wanted to use this opportunity to get things done.“

“We are moving beyond the promise now. Let’s talk about what we’ve done, working together for eleven months and twenty days. Let’s start with public safety. My number one priority as the Mayor of Philadelphia. We are by no means resting, and we know we have a long way to go, but the work of our Police Commissioner, Kevin Bethel, the best Police Commissioner in the country right now. Thank you, Commissioner. In partnership with our Chief Public Safety Director. Thank you, City Council of Philadelphia, for having the wherewithal to know that Philadelphia needed a public safety director, and we have the best in Adam Geer. Their partnership, particularly with our grassroots community-based anti-violence advocates, we are literally starting to show results for the people of Philadelphia. Yes, homicides are down thirty-seven percent compared with one year ago. And shootings are down thirty-six percent. And you would be correct if you referenced a recent report from the Center for American Progress that shows violent crime is down in big cities with the steepest rate of decline right here in Philadelphia.”

The Mayor added, “But let me be clear. It is not enough. The numbers don’t mean a damn thing. If you are a friend or a relative of someone who has been immediately impacted by violence, I want you to take a stroll back to last weekend when we had twenty-four people shot in Philadelphia. Four of them died. We had three young people shot. None of them fatally. Thank God. Outside of an ice skating rink. An ice skating rink in our Christmas Village right here in Center City. These are not statistics I am talking about. These are human beings. Someone’s brother, father or son. Someone’s sister, mother, or daughter. A beloved family member. And it should not go this way in Philadelphia. We cannot and will not rest until every neighbor, in every neighborhood, feels safe in their homes and on their front steps. Until every child can walk to school safely–until every senior can sit on their porch on a summer night and feel safe again, we will not stop until we achieve that for every neighborhood in the city of Philadelphia. We can’t rest and take our foot off the gas about making public safety our number one priority.”

How else are we tracking how we’re doing, the Mayor asked. We know, and we are proud of the fact that we have more than 200 police officers who are walking the beat, riding bikes, and getting to know the communities that they are sworn to protect and serve as our community policing model takes root. Let me tell you something. Community policing works. When people see officers proactively in their neighborhoods, and they have not had to call 911, and they are there as guardians and not warriors, please give a round of applause for our community policing model. You’ve heard me say this a thousand times. We cannot and will not police our way out of our problems. The public safety strategy that I have led with, that I advocated for, and that I campaigned for is the pie. It is referenced when you think about prevention, intervention, and enforcement. I wholeheartedly believe that this comprehensive model is working in our city.“

We approved $28 million in my first One Philly Budget passed with the strong support of City Council to spend on grassroots community violence prevention programs – and we will CONTINUE that innovative work because we know it WORKS.

Thank you, Council President Kenyatta Johnson! Thank you, Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr. Thank you to every Member of Council who voted to support these essential programs.

Our work is starting to gain national and international attention. I was recently asked to speak about P.I.E. at Bloomberg’s CityLab in Mexico City to Mayors from all over the world. It was a privilege. But we are not resting on these laurels. We understand the job is not done until every resident in every neighborhood feels safe again.

Public Safety, as I’ve said, is NOT just Policing or even Violence Intervention. Public Safety is also City agencies COLLABORATING to break up ILLEGAL auto shops that operate illicit towing and storage yards in residential neighborhoods.

Just this week, our Police Department, working together with the Philadelphia Parking Authority and our Licenses & Inspections Department, issued Cease & Desist Orders on four illegal auto shop businesses, towed away 45 unregistered cars and vehicles, and recovered four stolen vehicles, too.

Here’s a bit of what Mayor Parker had to say about her efforts around public health. “We have built out a comprehensive Public Safety and Public Health Strategy to provide long-term care, treatment, and housing for those individuals who are unhoused and are suffering from substance use disorder, addictions, and/or mental health challenges. In my One Philly budget signed into law in June, working together with City Council, we invested $100 Million in capital funds for our rehabilitating and building of Riverview Wellness Village – a facility with up to 640 beds that will be a refuge for people living on the streets, a place to get the treatment they need, and a state of the art, dignified place to get themselves on a path to being self-sufficient again.

As our first step, we’re rehabbing existing cottages and buildings at Riverview. Then, we plan to issue an RFP to build a new state-of-the-art building on the campus. We are excited to announce we will be opening the rehabbed facility early next year. I cannot emphasize enough that what we are doing has never been done before. Our city workers, led by Managing Director Adam Thiel and Deputy Managing Director Crystal Yates-Gale, are working literally around the clock on this project, and I am so very proud of EVERY worker working on this critical public health initiative for our city.

On Education, Mayor Parker said this. “You know I may be your Mayor, but I’m also a Certified Secondary English Teacher by Profession! Public Education means EVERYTHING to me. This fall, we launched the Extended Day – Extended Year Program to create educational enrichment opportunities for our children in 25 schools — 20 traditional public schools and five charter schools. Extended Day – Extended Year is a FREE city-sponsored program in partnership with the School District to offer parents early care services starting at 7:30 am and after-school care that provides programs ranging from coding to computer sciences to girls’ rugby – and MUCH MORE. We’ve already created over 7,355 educational enrichment opportunities for our children – and MORE, MORE, MORE are on the way. Our newest Chief Deputy Mayor, Vanessa Garrett Harley, working with our Chief Education Officer, Dr. Deb Carrera, leads our efforts with Extended Day – Extended Year, and we are PROUD of their work.

There are many important initiatives included in Mayor Parker’s first State of Philadelphia report after her first year in office. To read the full report, log onto the City of Philadelphia website at Phila.gov. Ahead of the 2 pm speech at Temple, our feisty Mayor chose to take the subway from City Hall to Cecil B. Moore Avenue. She then walked to the Temple Performing Arts Center.

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