Inquirer.com – Zurich DR

Author: Sean Collins Walsh

  • Philly’s Democratic Party is likely to order a rerun of Councilmember Cindy Bass’ contested ward election

    Philly’s Democratic Party is likely to order a rerun of Councilmember Cindy Bass’ contested ward election

    Philadelphia’s Democratic City Committee is likely to take the rare step of ordering a redo of Monday’s controversial 22nd Ward leader election, in which City Councilmember Cindy Bass declared herself the victor after a closely divided voice vote, according to a person with knowledge of the party’s decision-making process.

    City committee chair Bob Brady confirmed that Octavius Price, a progressive who ran against the incumbent Bass in the Mount Airy ward, has filed a formal challenge to the election results.

    Councilmember Cindy Bass declared herself the winner of a Philly Democratic ward election — and may have violated party rules

    The party’s contest committee, which is made up of other ward leaders, will meet on Sunday to hear from both sides, Brady said. That committee will then make a recommendation on how to proceed that will be considered by the full body of duly elected ward leaders from across the city — excluding Bass. From political endorsements to disciplinary decisions, the ward leaders in the past have almost always followed the recommendations of the party’s committees.

    Philadelphia Democratic Party Chairman Bob Brady listens as Mayor Cherelle L. Parker speaks at a rally for 3rd Congressional District primary candidate State Sen. Sharif Street May 18, 2026.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    Possible outcomes include the party declaring that either Bass or Price had won on Monday night — or ordering a rerun of the election, in which the ward’s committeepeople would have to meet for another election overseen by a neutral party.

    Given reports from Monday — including a video showing Bass adjourning the meeting after declaring victory, while ignoring cries for a roll call to clarify the vote — the city committee is all but guaranteed to order a rerun of the election, according to the source, who was not permitted to discuss the party’s plans publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

    Philly progressives made gains in Democratic ward elections. But party chair Bob Brady remains well-positioned for reelection.

    That decision would represent a notable rebuke from the city’s Democratic establishment for Bass, a centrist who has been a ward leader since 2018 and holds a leadership role in the citywide party as a vice chair.

    Bass has repeatedly clashed with progressive activists in her Northwest Philadelphia-based 8th Council District and was narrowly reelected in 2023. She is likely to face another challenge from the left in next year’s Council election, and control of the 22nd Ward could be an important factor in the race.

    Octavius Price, a fiber optic engineer and member of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, ran for 22nd Democratic Ward leader. Sean Walsh

    Bass said she is confident she will have the votes to win another four-year term as ward leader if there is a rerun.

    “It’s not in my hands,” she said Wednesday. “It’s totally up to the Democratic City Committee, and I’ll support whatever the decision is.”

    Ward leaders and committeepeople are the foot soldiers of the Philadelphia Democratic Party. They are tasked with knocking on doors to get out the vote for party-endorsed candidates, as well as sometimes fielding constituent services requests.

    As the incumbent ward leader, Bass chaired Monday night’s election at the Germantown Seventh-day Adventist Church in Mount Airy. A video of the meeting obtained by The Inquirer showed that numerous people voted for Bass and for Price during the voice vote, and that Bass ignored requests for a vote-by-vote roll call that could have clarified who won.

    Brady said Monday that while voice votes can be used to decide ward leader elections, any requests for roll-call votes must be honored. He added that having a video of the meeting would provide “great proof” for the contest committee as it tries to sort out what happened.

    “There’s always ‘he said, she said,’” Brady said. “But if there’s a video, we gotta take a look at that.”

    Price, a fiber optic engineer, said that Democratic City Committee officials have made “no guarantees” to him that there will be a new election. But, he said, they have briefed him on how a rerun would work if the ward leaders order one.

    The election would take place at a time negotiated by Price and Bass, he said, and it would be at the city committee headquarters on Spring Garden Street, not in Mount Airy. Price said he was not informed how votes would be cast.

    “We just want a fair vote. It’s supposed to be one person, one vote,” he said Wednesday. “I hope that we do get our fair shot. I hope that we get transparency and an opportunity to get our voices heard.”

  • Philly progressives made gains in Democratic ward elections. But party chair Bob Brady remains well-positioned for reelection.

    Philly progressives made gains in Democratic ward elections. But party chair Bob Brady remains well-positioned for reelection.

    Former City Councilmember Jannie Blackwell, who has been a fixture of Philadelphia politics for decades, is no longer a Democratic ward leader. State Sen. Sharif Street — weeks after losing the city’s heated congressional race — just became one.

    And the Rev. Lewis Nash Sr., who in 2024 was removed as leader of the 47th Ward after The Inquirer reported he was recorded making anti-LGBTQ+ remarks, has returned to the post after being reelected in his North Philadelphia ward Monday night.

    Meanwhile, the upstart group Wards That Work, which was backed by progressive activists and sought to recruit hundreds of people to run for committee openings in the May 19 Democratic primary, claimed victories in six wards that were previously seen as aligned with the party establishment or more centrist Democrats.

    Despite those notable gains, fewer than one-third of Philadelphia’s 69 Democratic ward leaders are seen as closely aligned with the party’s left wing.

    That means Bob Brady, who has led the local Democratic Party since 1986 and is seen by many as the embodiment of the political old guard, will likely coast to victory in party leadership elections — decided by the ward leaders — next week, securing an 11th term as chair of the Democratic City Committee.

    A reform coalition is targeting Philly committee seats — and drawing party pushback

    The party’s internal politics have become a key battleground in the fight between progressive upstarts and the Democratic establishment. There has also been a renewed push to grow the number of “open wards” — those that allow committeepeople to vote on political endorsements rather than allowing ward leaders to decide unilaterally.

    Brady, a former U.S. representative, has over the last few weeks struck a conciliatory tone regarding the party’s left wing after clashing with activists in a series of elections, most notably when the party sought to punish committeepeople who endorsed the elections of Councilmembers Kendra Brooks and Nicolas O’Rourke from the progressive Working Families Party.

    “These labels — Working Families, Reclaim, socialist — the best labels they have that I love is they’re Democrats,” he said in an interview, referring in part to Reclaim Philadelphia, a group inspired by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential runs that organized the local progressive movement’s first successful ward takeovers in 2018.

    Now, he said, he is focused on unity as Democrats hope to make gains in this year’s midterm elections and defeat candidates aligned with President Donald Trump in future elections.

    “We can come together and beat that nut in the White House,” Brady said.

    Chris Rabb’s election marked a big night for Philly progressives — and a rebuke of the Democratic establishment
    Philadelphia Democratic Party Chairman Bob Brady (left) and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (right) listen as Mayor Cherelle L. Parker speaks in support of State Sen. Sharif Street at a get-out-the-vote rally at the Church of Christian Compassion in West Philadelphia Monday, May 18, 2026 the day before Tuesday’s Democratic primary election for the 3rd Congressional District.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    Earlier this year, however, Brady acknowledged that the Democratic City Committee funded mailers opposing some of the committeepeople backed by Wards That Work, and many on the left are still hoping for major changes in the local party.

    District Attorney Larry Krasner, for instance, recently called on Brady to resign, and State Rep. Chris Rabb, a democratic socialist who last month won the Democratic primary for an open Philadelphia congressional seat, has emerged as a leading critic.

    Rabb beat Street, the party’s endorsed candidate, in the 3rd Congressional District race, and has accused the city committee of neglecting the work of turning out the vote, instead concerning itself with backroom dealings among party insiders.

    Chris Rabb’s path to victory in the U.S. House race ran through Northwest Philly and the progressive left
    State Rep. Chris Rabb greets supporters on election day. He is arriving to his polling place to vote, Grace Epiphany Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, Tuesday, May 19, 2026.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer

    Rabb has not explicitly called for Brady to resign. But he is now calling for a dramatic overhaul of the party, from its leaders to its bylaws to the city’s antiquated ward boundaries.

    “What I’m asking for is for the ward leaders — whatever candidate is running for chair, whether it’s Bob Brady or anyone else — that they demand that their first order of business is to overhaul the bylaws by Labor Day [to focus] on building a local party built on transparency integrity and inclusion,” Rabb said in an interview last week.

    Progressives make gains

    On paper, Philadelphia’s Democratic Party structure is bottom-up. Every four years, during the primaries of presidential midterm cycles, registered Democrats elect two committeepeople from their precincts, as they did this year on May 19. The committeepeople then elect neighborhood-level ward leaders, and the ward leaders in turn elect the top officials in the city party, including Brady.

    But in practice, many critics of the city’s old guard see a top-down reality, with Brady and other high-ranking city officials controlling the party’s agenda.

    Progressives are hoping to wrest control of the party from the establishment or to force reforms that make it more hospitable to left-leaning candidates. But it remains an uphill battle given the diffuse nature of the party system.

    Among the notable progressive wins in Monday night’s ward elections:

    • 5th Ward (Center City): Ryan Alsayegh, a political consultant currently working for State Reps. Tarik Khan and Joe Hohenstein, unseated Mike Boyle.
    • 25th Ward (Port Richmond, Kensington): Alexandria Mercedes Murphy, a neurophysiologist and volunteer with Reclaim Philadelphia, succeeded Tommy Johnson.
    • 31st Ward (Fishtown, East Kensington): Molly Hartman, a staffer for Councilmember Rue Landau, faced no opponents in her bid to succeed Margaret Rzepski.
    • 27th Ward (University City): Benjamin Moss-Horwitz, a staffer for State Rep. Rick Krajewski, won a contested race to succeed retiring ward leader Carol Jenkins, a party stalwart.
    • 46th Ward (Squirrel Hill, Cedar Park): James Bridgeforth, a University of Delaware professor, ran an uncontested race to succeed Blackwell, who retired this year after defeating a progressive challenger for her ward in a contentious election four years ago.

    In West Philadelphia’s 60th Ward, State Rep. Amen Brown, a centrist Democrat, was unseated by Lorraine White-Johnson.

    White-Johnson, who had the backing of Wards That Work, said in an interview that she is not aligned with one faction and welcomes all Democrats. She added that she plans to explore opening up the ward but has not made formal plans to do so yet.

    Philadelphia City Councilmember Cindy Bass on Thursday, September 11, 2025.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer

    In Mount Airy’s 22nd Ward, Councilmember Cindy Bass declared herself reelected to a new term in a controversial move by saying she won a contested voice vote of committeepeople and denying motions for a roll-call vote that could have clarified the results. Her opponent, Octavius Price, was backed by progressive organizers and said he plans to challenge the election.

    Councilmember Cindy Bass declared herself the winner of a Philly Democratic ward election — and may have violated party rules

    Some notable ward election results did not involve major ideological shifts.

    Nash, who on Tuesday denied having made the anti-LGBTQ+ comments that previously cost him his seat, won a three-way race to reclaim the 47th Ward.

    “I forgive everybody that was involved with those unforeseen circumstances,” Nash said in an interview Tuesday. “To anyone that was offended by the alleged comments, forgive me and the person who made those comments, allegedly and falsely, and let’s move forward.”

    Also in North Philadelphia, Street, a former chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, unseated 11th Ward leader Dwayne Lilley just weeks after losing his congressional bid to Rabb.

    In a statement, Street said he would “take a back-to-basics approach, listening to my neighbors about their concerns and filling vacant committee member seats.”

    “Last month’s election results galvanized my belief that we need to build the party from the ground up,” Street said in a statement. “We need to increase voter turnout in Black communities, like North Philadelphia, by demonstrating every day that Democrats are fighting for them.”

    Staff writer Anna Orso contributed to this article.

  • Councilmember Cindy Bass declared herself the winner of a Philly Democratic ward election — and may have violated party rules

    Councilmember Cindy Bass declared herself the winner of a Philly Democratic ward election — and may have violated party rules

    The meeting lasted only a few minutes.

    City Councilmember Cindy Bass on Monday night was facing a challenge in her bid to be reelected as the Democratic leader of Mount Airy’s 22nd Ward. Her opponent, Octavius Price, had the backing of a well-organized group of progressive activists, many of whom were newly elected as committeepeople in last month’s Democratic primary election.

    As the incumbent, Bass chaired the meeting to determine her own fate as ward leader, and she held a voice vote to determine whether she or Price had more support among the committeepeople assembled at the Germantown Seventh-day Adventist Church.

    A video of the meeting obtained by The Inquirer appears to show a narrowly divided room, with many people saying, “Aye,” in support of both Bass and Price. Attendees cried out for a roll call, in which the committeepeople’s votes would be counted one by one, clarifying which candidate had more support.

    But Bass immediately announced herself the winner, rejected all motions from committeepeople objecting to the vote, and quickly adjourned the meeting, the video shows.

    Philly progressives made gains in Democratic ward elections. But party chair Bob Brady remains well-positioned for reelection.

    Bass, a centrist Democrat, narrowly won reelection to her fourth term on Council in 2023 and has clashed with left-leaning activists in her Northwest Philadelphia-based 8th District. A progressive takeover of Bass’ own ward could hinder her reelection chances in next year’s Council election.

    She is now facing accusations that she skirted the party’s procedures for ward reorganization meetings by declaring herself the victor while denying requests for a roll-call vote.

    Democratic City Committee Chair Bob Brady said Monday night that wards can use voice votes for leadership elections, especially when the results are “overwhelming,” such as when an incumbent is running unopposed. But if a committeeperson calls for a roll-call vote to ensure greater accuracy, he said, the request must be honored.

    “You can do a voice vote,“ Brady said in an interview. ”If they do a voice vote and somebody calls for a roll call, you gotta do a roll call.”

    On Monday night, Bass, who has been ward leader since 2018, maintained she had the votes to win another four-year term. But she did not respond to a request for comment on why she ignored requests for a roll call.

    “We had the votes,” she said in an interview. “No matter what I did, some of these people are not going to be happy.”

    She added: “It’s OK. That’s democracy.”

    A reform coalition is targeting Philly committee seats — and drawing party pushback

    Ward leaders and committeepeople are the frontline workers of the local party, charged with getting out the vote for Democratic candidates running for everything from Municipal Court to president.

    Fights over control of the city’s 69 Democratic ward leader positions have for years provided flash points in the long-running battles pitting the party establishment against anti-corruption reformers and, more recently, the local progressive movement.

    State Rep. Chris Rabb, a Northwest Philly Democrat whose victory in last month’s primary election for the 3rd Congressional District marked a landmark victory for progressives, on Tuesday linked Bass’ reelection bid to his broader criticisms of the Democratic City Committee.

    “If she ‘wins’ this battle, the Philly Dem Party will lose the war,” Rabb posted on X. “Either it refashions itself around equity, accountability & transparency OR it just withers away election cycle by election cycle while Dem voters statewide suffer because … as Philly goes, so goes PA.”

    Chris Rabb’s election marked a big night for Philly progressives — and a rebuke of the Democratic establishment

    Brady, who is expected to be reelected to an 11th term as party chair next week, declined to comment on the result of the 22nd Ward election, but said he expects it will be challenged. Challenges are heard by the party’s contest committee, which is made up of other ward leaders. If Price formally objects, the committee would likely hear the challenge Saturday, Brady said.

    “[Price] would have to notify us that he’s contesting the election, and then we’ll hear from both sides,” Brady said.

    The committee, he said, could declare a winner if members determine the results are clear, or call for a rerun of the election.

    Price, a fiber optic engineer, called Bass’ handling of the election “unjust” and said he plans to file a challenge.

    “I initially ran to be a committeeperson because I believe in democracy and I believe in transparency and fairness,” Price said in a statement following the vote. “This was an example of moral decay and emboldened cruelty and corruption that has made so many people disillusioned with participating in politics.”

    A “vote here” sign outside the polls at Marconi Plaza in South Philadelphia, Pa., on Tuesday., May 19, 2026.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer

    Another point of contention on Monday was the number of people in the room, which could become a key factor in a contest committee review of the election results because it changes the number of votes needed for a majority.

    Price, whose supporters whipped votes ahead of the meeting, said that by his count at least 26 committeepeople were planning to vote against Bass and for a candidate who, like him, supports “open wards,” which allow committeepeople to vote on political endorsements rather than letting the ward leader decide unilaterally for the entire jurisdiction.

    Price said his supporters counted 48 committeepeople present on Monday evening, meaning he should have had the votes sufficient for a victory.

    But a sign-in sheet at the meeting told a different story.

    The sheet, a photo of which was obtained by The Inquirer, listed 55 committeepeople and appeared to include a tally of their allegiances before the election was even held. Price said ward organizers who appeared to be working with Bass circulated the sheet at the beginning of the meeting. The paper showed 29 for Bass and 26 for “other.”

    “Her sheet has a total of 55 people who voted, but we know for a fact that’s not the case,” he said.

    Former Councilmember Derek S. Green, a 22nd Ward committeeperson who ran against Bass for ward leader in 2018, flirted with running for the post again this year. But he did not end up throwing his hat in the ring, resulting in a one-on-one showdown between Bass and Price.

    Green, who was present Monday night, declined to comment on the election results.

    After Price was nominated during the meeting, Bass launched into the voice vote.

    “All in favor of Octavius Price, signify by saying, ‘Aye,” Bass said. “All in favor of Cindy Bass, signify by saying, ‘Aye.’”

    In the video recording of the meeting, many people can be heard supporting each of the candidates. Even before Bass announced the winner, a participant can be heard saying, “roll call.”

    Bass then said, “In the call of the chair, the ayes have it for Cindy Bass.” The room immediately erupted with objections.

    “No, no, no — you’ve got to have a roll call,” one person said. Others shouted: “Roll call!”

    “There will be no motions accepted on the floor,” Bass said over the commotion. “We’re going to have to adjourn the meeting. There is no point of order. So the motion has been made — that concludes — there is no additional business for the ward tonight. Thank you for coming.”

    The tensions did not end there.

    After the election, participants in the meeting clashed outside the church as a man and a woman holding the sign-in sheet refused to let other committeepeople record their attendance on the form, a separate video reviewed by The Inquirer shows.

    “Y’all got to get back. Better get back,” the man told a crowd pleading to sign the forms. “Shut up!”

    As the man walked away, one person can be heard turning to Green, who was caught in the middle of the fracas.

    “Derek, we just wanted to get our sign-in [on] the sheet. He took it from us,” the man said.

    “I know. That’s why I came,” Green responded. “It’s not right. It’s not right.”

  • St. Hedwig’s in Chester is no longer a church. Some of its buildings may be redeveloped into multifamily housing.

    St. Hedwig’s in Chester is no longer a church. Some of its buildings may be redeveloped into multifamily housing.

    St. Hedwig’s, which served Chester’s Polish Catholic community for generations, is officially no longer a church. And some of the former parish’s buildings may soon become multifamily housing.

    Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez last week issued a decree approving the “relegation” of the building to “profane but not sordid use effective January 1, 2026.”

    In other words, the building will “no longer be designated as a Roman Catholic church,” according to a Sunday announcement from the archdiocese.

    Pérez’s decree merely capped off a process that had been in the works for years.

    In the early 1990s, amid decreasing attendance, the archdiocese merged several Delaware County parishes. St. Hedwig’s became a part of Clifton Heights’ Sacred Heart Parish, which also serves the Polish community, and its building became a place of worship under the care of Sacred Heart.

    That marked the official end of the parish, which was established in 1902 and was named after Hedwig of Silesia, a 13th-century duchess of Greater Poland.

    But financial pressures — including an estimated $60,000 repair for a failed boiler — and pastoral challenges continued to mount, and church officials moved to unload the historic property.

    “While those worshipping at Saint Hedwig’s had been contributing generously for the upkeep of their church, their donations proved insufficient for the church’s ongoing maintenance needs,” the archdiocese said Sunday. “Multiple repairs have been financed by Sacred Heart Parish, which itself faced an operating deficit in 2024.”

    The final Mass was held in 2023.

    “For 121 years, St. Hedwig’s has been there to serve the Polish people,” the church announced in a Facebook post at the time. “We have celebrated baptisms, communions, confirmations, marriages, and ultimately funerals. We have been forever faithful.”

    A parishioner at the time lamented the demise of a church that had served the area’s Polish community for more than a century.

    “We sing in Polish and pray in Polish and we still have a very tight-knit community that maintains this church,” Judy Kuchinski of Chester told 6abc.

    The archdiocese in January sold a property across the street from the church that included a former school, rectory, and convent to a group of real estate investors, according to Delaware County records.

    “While the sale of property adjacent to Saint Hedwig Church in January 2025 provided additional capital to Sacred Heart, this money will be needed to help offset the regular deficits that accrue in financing parish operations,” the archdiocese said Sunday.

    Mario Rivello, a multifamily housing developer who has done other work in Chester, is leading the project.

    “We’re very active in that city, and this may be a property that we further develop based on approval process,” Rivello said in an interview Sunday.

    Rivello said the investors’ goal is to convert the buildings into multifamily housing, which he said is “our expertise.” They have no plans to demolish the buildings, he said.

    “We’d rather not,” Rivello said. “The archdiocese — the bones of the buildings that they sell — usually these properties are in good condition or they’re well-built.”

    The archdiocese did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

  • Philly sends a third of its trash to a Chester incinerator. Council members took a ‘Toxic Tour’ to get a closer look.

    Philly sends a third of its trash to a Chester incinerator. Council members took a ‘Toxic Tour’ to get a closer look.

    CHESTER — Like a Ben Franklin impersonator waving at Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, tour guide B. Preston Lyles directed the tour group’s attention to various landmarks as they passed by.

    But instead of highlighting monuments that made locals swell with pride, Lyles was pointing to sites he said made the people of Chester get sick and die younger: power plants, an oil refinery, a sewage sludge-burning facility, and — most relevantly for Friday’s group — the Reworld trash incinerator, the destination for about a third of the rubbish collected by Philadelphia’s city government.

    “Chester City is known as one of the nation’s worst cases of environmental racism,” Lyles, an organizer for Delco Environmental Justice, told the group, referring to the concentration of polluting industries in Black and brown communities. “It is not just because the city holds the nation’s largest waste incinerator, but due to an extreme concentration of toxic industries in and adjacent to such a small city.”

    Philadelphia City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who is hoping to end the city’s relationship with the Reworld incinerator, on Friday attended the Energy Justice Network’s “Toxic Tour” in and around Chester to highlight the facility’s impact on Philly’s southern neighbors.

    Philly burns a lot of its trash. A new Council ordinance would stop that.
    Philadelphia Councilmember Jamie Gauthier tours Chester to discuss her “Stop Trashing Our Air Act,” which would ban the city from incinerating waste, during a visit with lawmakers and staff in Chester, Pa., on Friday, Nov. 7, 2025.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

    “From a justice and fairness perspective, it just seems so wrong to me and so obvious,” said Gauthier, who was joined on the tour by Councilmember Kendra Brooks and staffers for other lawmakers. “Seeing the incinerator on the waterfront and all of these other dirty uses and the abandoned homes, that made me want to do this more, because it’s wrong. It’s wrong that people should be loaded down with all these toxic uses.”

    Reworld in 2024 burned more than 355,000 tons of trash collected by the city. Its contract with Philadelphia ends in June 2026.

    Gauthier has introduced a bill, the Stop Trashing Our Air Act, that would prohibit the city from incinerating trash, and Council’s Committee on the Environment, which she chairs, will likely hold a hearing on it this fall.

    Reworld spokesperson Linda Ribakusky said the company is a “leading sustainable waste solutions provider.” The Chester facility, she said, offers “a more sustainable alternative to landfilling by converting waste into renewable energy and recovering valuable metals that would otherwise be lost.”

    “The Reworld Delaware Valley facility helps reduce greenhouse gases by avoiding landfill methane and generates enough clean electricity to power more than 50,000 local homes each year,” Ribakusky said in a statement. “We are proud to be an active part of the Chester community. Working alongside local schools, nonprofits, neighbors, and community organizations, we support initiatives that create real impact.”

    ‘Now is the time’

    The Philadelphia Sanitation Department collects and disposes of about half of the city’s waste, said Michael Ewall, founder of the Philly-based Energy Justice Network. The other half is handled by private haulers hired by businesses and owners of larger residential properties.

    Under its contract, Reworld takes one-third of the municipally collected trash to the Chester incinerator, which the company says produces about 87 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 52,000 homes, while burning the waste. WM, which operates a major landfill in Bucks County’s Falls Township, takes the other two-thirds.

    When the most recent contracts were signed in 2019, the city agreed to pay roughly $65 per ton of trash to both Reworld, which was then known as Covanta, and WM, formerly Waste Management.

    Gauthier said she has had constructive conversations with Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration about eliminating incineration from the city’s waste management operations, and is hopeful the city will include environmental justice concerns in its request for proposals for the new contracts.

    Parker’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

    The Chester incinerator provided a flashpoint in the 2023 mayoral election, which Parker won. During a debate, a moderator asked candidate Jeff Brown about the incinerator, prompting Brown to say, in part, “The trash has to go somewhere.”

    In a debate performance that was key to her rise and Brown’s downfall in the race, Parker was among the candidates who pounced on the soon-to-be-infamous comment.

    “That response is the same way you treat the Black and brown community,” said Parker, who ran on a campaign to turn Philly into America’s “safest, cleanest, greenest” big city.

    ‘The trash has to go somewhere:’ Jeff Brown draws rebuke over debate answer on Philly sending trash to Chester
    Top candidates for the Philadelphia mayor seat former City Council Member Cherelle Parker, left, Former City Council Member Derek Green, and businessman Jeff Brown, during a televised debate at the Temple performing arts center in Philadelphia, Pa. Tuesday, April 11, 2023.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

    During the debate, however, Parker was not asked directly if she would commit to ending the city’s contract with Reworld.

    “I was enthused to hear our mayor speak about this on the campaign trail,” Gauthier said. “I hope we all want to do the right thing. Now is the time to show that.”

    Environmental advocates contend that neither landfills nor incinerators are good for the environment and urge municipalities to focus on reducing waste in the first place. For instance, Ewall, who developed a policy platform called the Zero Waste Hierarchy, pointed out that thousands of communities now charge residents for each bag of trash just as utilities charge for each gallon of water or kilowatt of electricity.

    But for the “residuals” that do need to be collected, advocates have generally coalesced around the conclusion that incineration is more harmful than landfilling, Ewall said.

    Delaware County, which adopted a Zero Waste Plan in September, commissioned a 2021 study that found incineration was the costliest of its waste-disposal options, from both a health perspective and a financial one.

    The county determined that each ton of trash burned at the incinerator produced $234 to $337 in health and environmental costs. The impact from landfilling, meanwhile, was $144 per ton.

    ‘Reverse the environmental tragedy’

    Founded by William Penn, Chester is the oldest city in Pennsylvania. But over the last century, it has become a hub for some of the region’s least-wanted uses, including polluting manufacturers, fossil fuel facilities, a state prison, and, since the early 1990s, the incinerator. About 69% of Chester’s 33,000 residents are Black, and 31% live below the federal poverty line.

    “We hope that Philadelphia is listening in a strong way … as we attempt to reverse the environmental tragedy that has occurred here in the last 3½ decades due to the incineration of trash,” Chester Mayor Stefan Roots said Friday. “It’s an old technology, and it’s time for it to go. Especially in a community like Chester that’s looking to develop, it’s one of our biggest impediments.”

    For 30 years, she has fought a waste-to-energy plant in Chester City: ‘We don’t have a choice’
    Chester resident Zulene Mayfield, left, Philadelphia Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, right, and Chester Mayor Stefan Roots meet to discuss Gauthier’s “Stop Trashing Our Air Act,” which would ban the city from incinerating waste, during a visit with lawmakers and staff in Chester, Pa., on Friday, Nov. 7, 2025.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

    About 31% of the trash the incinerator burned in 2024 comes from Philly, with Delaware County accounting for 28% and New York City 26%.

    During the tour, Lyles explained how environmental racism can occur even if decision-makers are not consciously prejudiced against certain communities, because wealthier areas often organize to prevent polluting industries in their backyards.

    “In the late 1990s, there were about 60 proposals for new gas-fired power plants in PA. Only 16 of them were built,” he said. “Most of them faced a stiff opposition from community groups in suburban and rural areas, but those on either side of Chester went in with no organized opposition.”

    The final stop on the tour was a row of boarded-up and dilapidated homes along a railroad used for industrial purposes near the edge of the incinerator property. The homes started emptying out in the early 2000s, Ewall said, and the last was abandoned a few years ago.

    He recalled meeting one of the last residents to leave.

    “She had six grandchildren. She lived with her granddaughter, around 14, and one of the times I met her, had an oxygen tank that she would carry around with her just to be able to breathe,” Ewall said. “They just kind of disappeared one day, and I saw a boarded house.”