Or, why you shouldn’t go into a car dealership with Councilmember Mark Squilla.
By Denise Clay-Murray
Now that Philadelphia City Council’s Committee of the Whole has passed the package of 13 bills and resolutions enabling the building of 76 Place, the proposed arena for Your Philadelphia 76ers, you could say that it’s all over, but the shouting.
And believe me when I say that there was a whole lot of shouting as the Committee did its work. In fact, anti-arena protestors were shouting so loudly that you couldn’t hear what the Councilmembers were actually saying. The four “no” voters on the project — Jamie Gauthier, Jeffery Young, Rue Landau, and Nicolas O’Rourke — had to give a thumbs-down to signal their intentions.
Council Minority Leader Kendra Brooks, the other consistent “no” voter on the project, wasn’t present for the vote or the regularly scheduled City Council meeting that followed it.
Following the vote, reporters were handed the now $60 million Community Benefits Agreement accompanying the project. If you count the $20 million that Mayor Cherelle Parker has now included for affordable housing in Chinatown, there’s $80 million floating around.
The Arena Special Services District is getting $17,500,000, which is $3 million more than originally proposed. The Business Disruption Fund for Chinatown goes from $1,600,000 to $5,000,000, and the Philadelphia City Fund for Kids is getting $3,500,000.
But the Community Benefits Agreement could have been a lot better. Part of the reason why the vote, which was recessed twice on Wednesday, wound up getting taken on Thursday was because Council President Kenyatta Johnson was trying to get at least $100 million from the Sixers for such things as a food insecurity fund.
Unfortunately, Councilmember Mark Squilla, the person who sponsored the bills, did something to the Council President that felt far too familiar to me…and I don’t mean that as a compliment.
What do I mean? Well, let me tell you the story of the time that I went car shopping with my late twin brother Dennis and wound up paying $259 a month for a Geo Metro.
Now If you’re familiar at all with the Geo Metro, you know that it was a collaboration between Suzuki and Chevrolet that gave you all that foreign car reliability at an American car price. So, when my Chevy Cavalier had given me all it could, I decided to get one.
My Dad, in his eminent wisdom, sent Dennis with me to help out since the last car I bought I paid cash for and didn’t have to do the financing thing with. We walked into Auerbach Chevrolet in Burlington, New Jersey and I saw what would become my blue, Geo Metro hatchback.
I thought, maybe I’ll pay $150 a month max. Like I said, Metros were affordable. But as I was about to tell the car dealer this, Dennis announced that I was willing to pay $250 a month.
Now, while I had a full-time job at the time, I also had college tuition at Temple to pay. So, you can only imagine the look that I had on my face when he made this announcement. You’re telling someone how much of MY money I was willing to pay for a car and you didn’t even ask me first!
But that’s all the car dealer needed to hear. No matter what I said, did, or offered in terms of increased downpayment, he heard $250 a month. I couldn’t get him down from that.
I was angry, but I learned two lessons from this experience.
One, if you’re going to go car shopping with a relative, don’t.
And two, don’t put out a number you’re willing to pay for ANYTHING unless it’s a number that favors you.
When Councilmember Squilla told reporters after a 76 Place hearing that an additional $10 million on the CBA was all that was needed to get the project out of the Committee, he put the Council President in the same position that my twin brother put me in.
Had he not said anything, the city could have at least come close to getting what the Sixers gave Joel Embiid as a contract extension, which was $148 million. But once the Sixers heard, “All we need is another $10 million,” that was it. They weren’t going any higher.
And now, because of that, the City of Philadelphia has done the equivalent of volunteering to let its citizens pay $259 a month for a Geo Metro.
By the time I traded it in for another Chevy Cavalier, I felt really stupid for paying close to $300 for a car that most folks were paying $99 a month to own.
Hopefully, city residents won’t feel that way once 76 Place is all said and done.
The final vote on the project is scheduled for Thursday morning at 10 a.m.
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