GSSDone?

Looks like it’s Ken Weinstein for the block on GSSD’s reauthorization. What now? 

7/8/19 UPDATE: A press release from the Committee to Oppose GSSD Re-Authorization announced it has secured the necessary votes to stop the reauthorization. Scroll down to read the full press release at the end of this article. 

If you haven’t been following the GSSD debacle you’ve been missing an opportunity to observe organizational dysfunction in action. Basically, the GSSD collects tax from local business for street cleaning in their coverage area, which focuses mainly on/around Chelten and Germantown Aves – the “business corridor,” if you will.

Except GSSD really botched things badly, failing to collect funds and squandering what they had without providing the litter and safety services that were their mission. Last fall when the neighborhood got wind that they’d lost their authorization, a whole lotta “What the Hell?” broke out.  You can follow their unraveling in our video meeting recaps over the last year, and in an excellent WHYY article titled, ”Germantown businesses revolt against taxing district that didn’t deliver on clean streets promise”  (kinda says it all, doesn’t it?).

Undeterred by public shame and outrage, the GSSD pushed on thru the hoops required for re-authorization. The Board invited neighbors to recommend candidates for new Board members, and then pretty much went with whoever they wanted anyway. Ha!

When GSSD announced their reauthorization resolution April 14th, only one business owner, Connie Winters (Historic Germantown Properties) stepped forward to submit her formal objection. But there were more coming, she had warned, and boy… She wasn’t kidding! Connie recently showed us piles of objection letters, filed neatly in color-coordinated folders in the perimeter of what I can best describe as a “war room,” complete with a tactical map of Germantown’s business area dominating what used to be her dining room table.

We accompanied her a week later when she delivered them personally to GSSD’s office – although the interim GSSD Board President Trapeta Mayson declined to meet with her. That left the GSSD’s administrative assistant to address the stack of objections. She wasn’t pleased when Connie Winters and Allison Weiss (another opposition organizer) insisted on certifying each objection letter with a signature as proof they’d been delivered. After she refused, then argued, the letters were finally (albeit grudgingly) certified one by one.

We can only imagine Trapeta’s reaction, but Councilmember Cindy Bass’s was no mystery or surprise. In a WHYY article published in June, Cindy minimized GSSD’s documented gross negligence and then seemed to hint that Germantown’s business owners will have hell to pay:

“The Germantown Special Services District was really effective for quite some time. Then it hit a speed bump and these folks decided they just wanted to kill it,” said Bass. “Those who fought so hard against something that was working up until a minute ago should be held accountable for whatever repercussions happen for ending the special services district.”

Wait, what? GSSD’s Board faces no consequences for years of mismanagement, but when commercial property owners balk at continuing the same dysfunction for 5 more years, Cindy’s ready to bring the hammer down? Another puzzler: if more than 100 commercial property owners submitted letters of objection to GSSD’s reauthorization, why was she spinning this as a personal political attack from Ken Weinstein?

“To not live in the community and to make an attempt to use this organization, at a weak point, for your own financial and personal gain as a stakeholder and a landowner in the district, I think is highly irresponsible.”

Oh the irony! What seems irresponsible to us is taxing Germantown’s commercial property owners without providing any of the services promised. And then blocking many of them (including Ken!) when they asked to join GSSD’s understaffed and overworked Board.

And it seems irresponsible to have ignored the many attempts by the District’s property owners to collaborate in creating a more transparent GSSD with better checks and balances (or at least an occasional audit). But no – it seems full control was the game all along and now Cindy’s got a revolt on her hands. Ken Weinstein’s a big player, no doubt: a prominent developerrestaurateur & the founder of Jumpstart Germantown. But he’s hardly a lone voice in the wilderness here.

He’s also got actual, organizational experience with commercial corridor maintenance in neighboring Mount Airy, working with a Business Improvement District, or BID model. Supplemental trash collection is not rocket science: you collect the money, you pay for services. This is basic paperwork and management – skills that property owners are usually pretty adept at. Would it hurt to give them a shot at keeping the streets clean?

(A word of caution: The demographics and overall capacity of Mt. Airy are quite different from Germantown, which is a lower-income area struggling with commercial vacancies. In these sorts of less robust business areas, the budgets for BIDs can be quite difficult to scale. We hope that whatever powers step in to fill the GSSD void will keep this in mind.)

Moving Forward

Don’t get us wrong, we love when the little guy pushes back against the Machine.  We applaud Germantown commercial property owners for taking such initiative to send a strong message, to refuse to follow leaders who have proven so incompetent and untrustworthy. In fact, Philadelphia’s never seen anything like this — no other neighborhoods have ever successfully blocked their SSD’s re-authorization.

“No taxation without representation!” Fantastic, but there’s still more trash in the streets every day that needs to be dealt with. The question remains, so where do we go from here?

Where indeed. Connie Winters suggested that she and the other leaders of the “Committee to Oppose GSSD Re-Authorization” (Ken Weinstein, Yvonne Haskins, and Allison Weiss among others) had different ideas about what should happen, now that GSSD’s been trashed. “Ken and Yvonne probably want to start working on a BID (business improvement district) right away but I think there should be a vote first to go over options and decide what to do,” Connie told us. Sounds like a process either way – and just how will the streets get cleaned in the meantime?

This spring, GUCDC provided GSSD $26,800 in grant money for cleaning & operational costs. How much of that money has been spent so far? What happens when the funds run out? According to GSSD’s website, they’ve scheduled a public meeting for Monday July 8th — perhaps we’ll get some answers. Certainly, we have plenty of questions.

Add yours to the “Comments” section below and we’ll try to ask it at tonight’s meeting.

GSSD Public Meeting
Monday July 8, 6:00pm
57 Maplewood Mall

PS: Please note this post has been updated from our original May 31, 2019 piece when we followed Connie & Allison to GSSD’s office to drop off the letters of objection, which got the ball rolling. We didn’t have that much actual info to share at the time but we did document the “action” unfolding. If you ever wondered how community shit goes down…..

Text from a May 15th mailing to corridor business & commercial property owners’

ORIGINAL POST 5/31/19:

Here’s what else we know so far: Connie and Ken have been working with community watchdogs Yvonne Haskins and Allison Weiss to inform business owners about what’s going on and urge them to send in their letters of objection to stop this reauthorization in its tracks. A mailing recently went out, and Connie tells us they’ve got all the objections required. This Monday, she delivered 94 letters of objection to the Chief Clerk of City Council downtown. Tuesday, she delivered them personally to GSSD’s office — although president Trapeta Mayson declined to meet with her.

Should she be taking copies to Cindy Bass, too? Cause even if Germantown business owners opt for a different model — say, a Business Improvement District like in nearby Mt. Airythey’ll still need her OK in City Council, won’t they? Maybe just knowing there are enough objections to overturn reauthorization will motivate Cindy to negotiate a new Board and more transparent bylaws for GSSD?

Most importantly: Is there a plan? Any plan? Are we allowed in on the plan yet or something super secret going on we should know about..?

Maybe GUCDC will step in? They’ve already provided GSSD $26,800 in grant money for cleaning & operational costs. Why not help manage street cleaning, too, while we sort all this out? What a great opportunity to merge Germantown’s two most powerful community organizations together into one corporate entity controlling everything. What could go wrong?

Kidding! Kind of. As news of the blocked reauthorization spreads, feedback has ranged from elation to suspicion. Our main take-away at this point is that there appears to be some sort of rebellion/power play going on in Germantown’s business district.

View the full letter here, text below:

Business Owners Defeat Re-Authorization of Germantown Special Services District

PHILADELPHIA, PA (June 7th, 2019) — Today, the Committee to Oppose Germantown Special Services District (GSSD) Re-Authorization announced it successfully collected more than enough opposition letters to defeat GSSD re-authorization.  This is the first time an existing business improvement district (BID) or special services district (SSD) was not re-authorized by a vote of commercial property owners in the City of Philadelphia.

GSSD re-authorization failed when more than 33% of all commercial property owners in the District opposed re-authorization in writing prior to the June 8th deadline.  In total, 100 letters (41.8%), representing more than $60 million in property value, were submitted to the Philadelphia City Council’s Chief Clerk and GSSD, out of 239 total commercial properties.

GSSD was rocked by allegations of mismanagement over the past five years.  Five executive directors were hired during that period of time with no audits performed, as required by law.  GSSD lost its authorization on October 1, 2018 when it failed to provide property owners with 30 days notice to announce a vote on re-authorization.  More recently, the remaining five members of the GSSD Board voted, without debate or input from Germantown stakeholders, to ask for re-authorization for an additional five years despite continued trash problems and only $145.00 in the bank.

“We are pleased with the overwhelming response we received from Germantown commercial property owners,” explained Connie Winters, owner of Historic Germantown Properties, LLC.  “My fellow property owners were tired of paying into the GSSD without getting sufficient cleaning services in return.”

GSSD was first enacted in 1995 by City Council based on Pennsylvania’s 1945 Municipalities Authorities Act.  The GSSD Board was selected by City Council instead of property owners, as is the case with most business improvement districts (BIDs) in Philadelphia.  BIDs are enacted by local municipalities based on Pennsylvania’s more updated 2000 Neighborhood improvement District (NID) legislation.

“The overwhelming vote against re-authorization is a sign that commercial property owners want a say in how their mandatory assessments are spent,” said Ken Weinstein, President of Philly Office Retail.  “We look forward to establishing a democratic process going forward.”

The vote against GSSD re-authorization and the end to ‘taxation without representation,’ is reminiscent of the Boston Tea Party nearly 250 years ago when colonists rose up against the British Government that taxed the American colonies without allowing them a vote or say in their affairs.  Next steps include setting up a series of meetings this summer and fall with property and business owners so they hear from the leaders of other SSDs and BIDs to help decide on a path forward to once again cleaning the curbs and sidewalks and beautifying the commercial corridor.

According to Germantown activists Yvonne Haskins and Allison Weiss, both members of the Committee to Oppose GSSD Re-Authorization, “Our ultimate goal is to clean and beautify the Germantown commercial district.  Other business districts get clean, green and safe streets and sidewalks. We deserve the same!”

As always, hit us up with any questions below or email editor@nwlocalpaper.com.

Contact GSSD:
info@germantownssd.com
215-821-8145
germantownssd.com

FULL DISCLOSURE: Both Connie Winters and Ken Weinstein had been on the community’s list of Board member recommendations, and then both had been scratched off by the sitting GSSD Board members without explanation.

Press Release from the Committee to Oppose GSSD Re-Authorization (June 7, 2019)

Business Owners Defeat Re-Authorization of Germantown Special Services District 

PHILADELPHIA, PA (June 7th, 2019) — Today, the Committee to Oppose Germantown Special Services District (GSSD) Re-Authorization announced it successfully collected more than enough opposition letters to defeat GSSD re-authorization.  This is the first time an existing business improvement district (BID) or special services district (SSD) was not re-authorized by a vote of commercial property owners in the City of Philadelphia.

GSSD re-authorization failed when more than 33% of all commercial property owners in the District opposed re-authorization in writing prior to the June 8th deadline.  In total, 100 letters (41.8%), representing more than $60 million in property value, were submitted to the Philadelphia City Council’s Chief Clerk and GSSD, out of 239 total commercial properties.

GSSD was rocked by allegations of mismanagement over the past five years.  Five executive directors were hired during that period of time with no audits performed, as required by law.  GSSD lost its authorization on October 1, 2018 when it failed to provide property owners with 30 days notice to announce a vote on re-authorization.  More recently, the remaining five members of the GSSD Board voted, without debate or input from Germantown stakeholders, to ask for re-authorization for an additional five years despite continued trash problems and only $145.00 in the bank.

We are pleased with the overwhelming response we received from Germantown commercial property owners,” explained Connie Winters, owner of Historic Germantown Properties, LLC.  “My fellow property owners were tired of paying into the GSSD without getting sufficient cleaning services in return.”

GSSD was first enacted in 1995 by City Council based on Pennsylvania’s 1945 Municipalities Authorities Act.  The GSSD Board was selected by City Council instead of property owners, as is the case with most business improvement districts (BIDs) in Philadelphia.  BIDs are enacted by local municipalities based on Pennsylvania’s more updated 2000 Neighborhood improvement District (NID) legislation.

The overwhelming vote against re-authorization is a sign that commercial property owners want a say in how their mandatory assessments are spent,” said Ken Weinstein, President of Philly Office Retail.  “We look forward to establishing a democratic process going forward.”

The vote against GSSD re-authorization and the end to ‘taxation without representation,’ is reminiscent of the Boston Tea Party nearly 250 years ago when colonists rose up against the British Government that taxed the American colonies without allowing them a vote or say in their affairs.  Next steps include setting up a series of meetings this summer and fall with property and business owners so they hear from the leaders of other SSDs and BIDs to help decide on a path forward to once again cleaning the curbs and sidewalks and beautifying the commercial corridor.

According to Germantown activists Yvonne Haskins and Allison Weiss, both members of the Committee to Oppose GSSD Re-Authorization, “Our ultimate goal is to clean and beautify the Germantown commercial district.  Other business districts get clean, green and safe streets and sidewalks. We deserve the same!

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