Would Philly lawmakers repeal the soda tax? Council is going to take a look. | City Council roundup
During its first meeting of the year Thursday, City Council approved legislation to hold hearings on the city’s sweetened beverage tax, a signature achievement of former Mayor Jim Kenney's.
Just a year after former Mayor Jim Kenney left office, Philadelphia lawmakers are already reexamining one of his signature achievements.
During its first meeting of the year Thursday, City Council approved legislation to hold hearings on the city’s tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, commonly known as the soda tax, which Kenney championed as a way to pay for universal prekindergarten and upgrades to the city’s parks, recreation centers, and libraries.
But Councilmember Jim Harrity, a Democrat elected to office at the end of Kenney’s second term, said that the 1.5-cent-per-ounce tax disproportionately affects the poor and that Council should consider if there are other ways to drive revenue.
“We need to reevaluate its impact on Philadelphia businesses, trades, and consumers,” Harrity said.
» READ MORE: How Mayor Kenney’s soda tax ignited controversy and impacted Philadelphia
Also this week, members floated legislation to condemn President Donald Trump just a few days into his second term and to investigate the school district’s practice of relegating some staffers to sit around in conference rooms.
What was this week’s highlight?
Is the soda tax losing its fizz? Getting the beverage tax approved in 2016, Kenney’s first year in office, is still widely seen as one of the former mayor’s defining achievements. It caused a political uproar and pitted the city’s special interests against one another when it was under debate, but it has been relatively uncontroversial since it passed, and research shows it has had positive health impacts in the city.
While campaigning, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said that she would retain it and that she supports the programs it funds. When Council previously voted to study the tax in 2019, Parker, then a Council member, called it “political weaponry.”
Since the tax went into effect, it has brought in about half a billion dollars for the city’s coffers. Harrity said the city needs to explore if that money can be made another way. He said he is a proponent of universal pre-K and “will do nothing to hurt that program.”
“I just want to look at [the tax]. I’m not saying that we’re going to do anything with it,” Harrity said. “I just want to make sure that I bring everybody in that has an opinion about it.”
It’s not clear if a majority of Council members really have an appetite for taking up an issue that was once a political hot potato, or even where most members stand on the tax. The body has seen significant turnover since 2016 — just four members who voted in favor of the tax are still around.
One of them is Council President Kenyatta Johnson, who controls the flow of legislation in the chamber. He said Harrity “has a right to have a hearing” and indicated he still supports the tax he voted in favor of almost a decade ago.
“My position is the same,” Johnson said.
What else happened this week?
An official Trump condemnation? Three days into his second administration, and City Council was already considering condemning Trump.
A day after Councilmember Rue Landau called a hearing to examine the city’s preparedness to protect immigrants and other marginalized groups during the second Trump administration, she introduced a resolution Thursday “condemning” Trump’s “underqualified” cabinet nominees and leadership picks. Council will vote on the resolution next week.
In the legislation, Landau singled out several picks for controversial records or a lack of governing experience, including billionaire Elon Musk, former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, and former wrestling executive Linda McMahon.
Landau, a Democrat, contended that Trump’s choices will have a direct impact on Philadelphians.
“We learned a lot in the first four [years of Trump], but there’s nothing that can get us ready for what’s about to happen,” she said.
Several other members took shots at the new president. Democratic Councilmember Anthony Phillips called on the Philadelphia School District to ensure it has adequate safeguards against federal policies that target immigrants, LGBTQ people, and other marginalized groups.
“It is very important for us as servants of the City of Philadelphia to understand that we cannot play with Donald Trump,” Phillips said.
And Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke, of the progressive Working Families Party, introduced legislation Thursday calling on the city to provide funding and resources for climate change mitigation.
O’Rourke campaigned on advancing environmental sustainability and said it’s more timely now given the raging wildfires in California and Trump’s executive order to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accords, a binding, international treaty on climate change.
Probing the “rubber room”: Council on Thursday passed legislation to hold a hearing about the Philadelphia School District’s so-called reassignment rooms following a push by Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who chairs Council’s education committee.
The offices, colloquially referred to as rubber rooms, are designated locations for school staffers who are being investigated for misconduct.
Thomas is calling for more transparency into the process by which staffers are assigned to the windowless conference rooms at the district’s North Broad Street headquarters with little direction as to how to spend their time. And they are getting paid while sitting there.
» READ MORE: City Council wants answers on Philly schools’ so-called rubber rooms
“The topic of school faculty discipline can be uncomfortable, but putting teachers in a disgusting room with little communication or due process is not a solution, and not a good strategy for teacher retention and talent acquisition,” Thomas said in a news release. “I look forward to working with the school district and relevant unions to address this issue and explore immediate solutions.”
The hearing has not yet been scheduled.
Quote of the week
OK, so that wasn’t a City Council member. That was Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown on why he was caught reading the book Inner Excellence while on the sideline during a playoff game earlier this month.
Council Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson must have been inspired — she brought 16 copies of the book to Council on Thursday and left one on each of her colleagues' desks. Guess it’s time to refocus.