Councilmember Cindy Bass is facing a serious progressive challenger. Will voters choose her experience — or change?

Issues of real estate development and affordable housing are at the heart of a Northwest Philadelphia City Council race, as incumbent Councilmember Cindy Bass faces a Democratic primary challenge from a progressive union organizer.

Seth Anderson-Oberman portrays Bass as a neglectful leader whose office has been tarnished by poor leadership decisions, failed redevelopment plans, and political cronyism.

“This is essentially a decision about whether we’re going to keep going in the same direction, with more out of control development, no affordable housing, and destabilization, or whether we’re going to go in a new direction,” Anderson-Oberman, 52, said in an interview.

Bass, 55, is seeking her fourth term leading the 8th Council District. She defends her record and emphasizes her experience against Anderson-Oberman, casting him as a lofty idealist who doesn’t understand what it’s like to hold office.

Voting for a political novice would be akin to “turning over our keys to someone who has never driven a car before,” she said at a combative debate that drew hundreds to the Germantown Jewish Center last week.

The economically and racially diverse district stretches from wealthy and largely white Chestnut Hill, to the more mixed-race and progressive Mount Airy, to the working-class, majority Black enclaves of Germantown and North Philly. It has long been riven by political factions, but Bass hasn’t seen serious challengers before this year. She now faces one of the few competitive district Council races in the May 16 Democratic primary.

Anderson-Oberman’s platform focuses on expanding affordable housing by using vacant lots in the district, and reining in the development boom that has brought major real estate interest to neighborhoods like Germantown for the first time in generations.

Bass has characterized him as an outsider whose progressive wish list sounds nice, but would be hard to enact amid upheaval in City Hall and a gun violence crisis. But he has built a considerable base of support, and has raised enough money to mount a serious challenge, according to campaign finance reports.

A North Philly native and one-time policy adviser to former U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, Bass was elected in 2011 with a plan to bring jobs, businesses, and unity to a politically fractured district.

She positions herself as an evenhanded leader who holds public institutions accountable, from denouncing city contracts with foster agencies that excluded LGBT parents, to critiquing leaders at the Free Library of Philadelphia for alleged racial discrimination, to pressuring the mayor to distribute Rebuild money for parks and rec centers in her district.

Her supporters say she is a champion for business and the community.

“Cindy has listened,” said Mo Rushdy, a developer with the Riverwards Group. “Cindy has had her issues with developers, but she is someone that we are able to talk to and have access to.”

But to some critics, Bass has a history of playing favorites.

When preservationists and neighbors argued against the demolition of the historic Germantown Boys and Girls Club for a newer facility, she accused them of racism. She championed legislation to ban bulletproof glass at takeout beer counters that pitted Asian shopkeepers against Black residents — a crackdown Bass vowed to revisit, if given another term.

“It’s just a lot of blaming others, putting people up against each other racially,” said Bernard M. Jordan Lambert, of Germantown, an Anderson-Oberman supporter. “I’m just ready for new ideas.”

Bass rejects the idea that she has ever stoked racial tensions in the district.

“I specifically chose to live in an integrated neighborhood,” she wrote in a statement. “The work I’ve done with disenfranchised and marginalized communities to support their fight for equality clearly demonstrates my commitment to inclusivity and parity.”

Lambert and other Bass critics point to several large projects that have stalled in the district, where developers allied with Bass have won bids for historic buildings but have proven slow to begin work, including the Germantown Town Hall and the historic YWCA.

Bass said her commitment to working with developers of color “has ruffled a few feathers.”

Born to a Black and Jewish family in Germantown, Anderson-Oberman said he grew up among activists. He leveraged a career as a line cook into union organizing for restaurant workers, and later worked with the American Federation of Teachers and the New Jersey AFL-CIO, before resettling in his native city in 2007.

Yet Bass and her allies have repeatedly attempted to cast him as an outsider.

“I’ve been very active in Germantown for 15 or 20 years and I’ve never met him or seen him, he just hasn’t been around,” said Patrick Jones, a district ward leader and former Bass staffer who ran against her in 2019 but is endorsing her this year. “I wouldn’t want someone who’s never done a surgery before operating on me.”

Anderson-Oberman called it a “pathetic” attempt to discredit his track record and roots.

“My great grandparents ran one for the first Black-owned funeral homes in North Philadelphia,” he said. “My grandfather had one of the first Black-owned real estate companies, and sold many people in East Mount Airy their first home.”

At the debate last week, moderators also questioned Anderson-Oberman about his time as a member of the Communist Party USA — an activist experience in his early 20s that he said he’s proud of, to applause from supporters.

His campaign has raised a competitive sum without taking money from major real estate interests or corporations. His largest contribution from a political interest group came from the progressive SEIU union, which represents service sector workers. Bass has received tens of thousands from real estate interests and powerful unions like the Laborers District Council. “We don’t think Seth is ready,” said Ryan Boyer, business manager of the Philadelphia Building & Construction Trades Council.

But Steve Paul, a lifelong district resident who works with progressive advocacy group One PA, said Anderson-Oberman’s bona fides within the labor movement and his progressive agenda make him a viable alternative.

“People are frustrated with the changes and the disinvestment in the district,” Paul said. “And now folks have an option.”

At the combative debate last week, the two candidates differed on the issue of rent control. Anderson-Oberman said he’d support legislation that targeted “corporate landlords,” while Bass said it would burden small property owners.

When it comes to managing development, Anderson-Oberman said he would seek to implement a zoning overlay requiring developers to include affordable units in new multifamily housing projects. Bass countered that similar legislation for West Philadelphia “hasn’t produced any affordable housing” since it went into effect last July.

Meanwhile, neighborhood groups have pressured Bass for delaying an unrelated zoning overhaul crafted by city planners. (Bass says the bill is still under review.)

Bass has also faced criticism for sitting on over 1,000 parcels of unused city land rather than turning it over to affordable housing and other development projects. She blamed delays on the new Land Bank process and said two developments are now underway.

Still, some said she remains a business ally.

“We see a huge opportunity in Cindy’s district, because she is sitting on a lot of public land,” said Rushdy, of the Riverwards Group. “She’s not shutting out business.”