The City Council chambers looked as they always do: a sea of slacks and blazers, votes and debates, bills and budgets. The only difference? Every Council member was ateenager.
Around 100youths entered Philadelphia City Hall on Wednesday to take part in the Greater Philadelphia YMCA’s Government Youth Summit. The event, hosted by the YMCA for the first time, gave teens from Philadelphia and the surrounding area a hands-on way to learn about their city government.
“This is our first shot at it. I think it’s been real successful,” said Shaun Elliott, president of the Greater Philadelphia YMCA. “And there’s two things we want to do: teach kids about civic government and how it works, but also help them develop the competencies of leadership.”
At the beginning of the day, the participants were presented with a bill on spending and initiatives during the FIFA World Cup, which they then discussed, debated, and reshaped in line with their roles.
Sitting alongside teens representing other districts, Justina Ndebhleh, 17, who was representing the Sixth District in Lower Northeast Philadelphia, led a discussion on SEPTA funding.
“We’re talking about whether increasing SEPTA prices will be beneficial or not,” Ndebhleh said. “Because we know increasing the fare would be a regressive tax since lower-income communities do take SEPTA on a daily basis.”
Students hold discussions after meeting with City Council President Kenyatta Johnson.Joe Lamberti / For The Inquirer
Between debates and meetings, teens were given the chance to speak with Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and City Council President Kenyatta Johnson.
Lindsay Doyle, director of youth civic engagement for the YMCA, said she hoped the participants left understanding that their opinions matter and that they can help make change.
“It’s really incredible to see them in these spaces,” Doyle said, “and have them interact with City Council members, and have those elected officials reinforce the idea that their thoughts … and their beliefs really matter, and they can utilize those to change the entire city, state, and nation.”
Kailey Reinboth, 18, from Boyertown Area Senior High School, said the experience gave her a better understanding of what it means to be an engaged citizen, especially at a young age.
“I believe that it is really [giving] me insight into my roles and responsibilities as a citizen and being someone that needs to be civically engaged,” she said. “You are the change, ultimately. And being … the change that you want to see, not just in the future, because, you know, they talk about the youth being the future — the youth aren’t the future. They are the present, and we really need to enforce that in making sure that we’re not making change in the future. We are making change now.”
Elliott said he hopes to see the program grow in future years, providing more teens with the experience to learn about local government.
“We have 100 young people here. So how about 200 or 250 next year?” he said.
In videos posted online, firearms instructor Eric Franks taught others how to handle guns safely.
“If you don’t have a leg strap on … your firearm’s going to be flapping out,” the 57-year-old Wynnefield man said in an Instagram video demonstrating how to properly secure a“battle belt,” a tool for holstering guns and equipment.
So some people who knew him found it hard to fathom that Franks, a retired Philadelphia firefighter, father, and business owner, walked up to a group of police officers on a West Philadelphia street and got into a confrontation that ended in gunfire.
“The biggest thing he taught was restraint, situational awareness,” said Randy Robinson, a friend and fellow member of That Gun Talk, a firearms training organization Franks helped found during the pandemic.
Robinson said Franks taught students: “The last thing you want to have to do is pull your firearm.”
Police were called to the block around 10:30 p.m. that night for a report of a shooting on 54th Street, not far from Mingle, a popular event space Franks owned that had hosted a teenager’s birthday party that evening.
Alerted by his son to the nearby gunfire, Franks made his way to Mingle, near where he began to argue outside with several police officers who told him they were trying to establish a crime scene, according to surveillance footage and police accounts.
As officers investigated a vehicle that had been struck by bullets, Franks approached and began complaining about crime and policing in the area, said a source familiar with the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
He appeared frustrated, the source said, that officers had not yet cordoned off the area around the vehicle with crime scene tape, and became increasingly agitated as officers repeatedly asked him to step back so they could do their jobs.
Video obtained by The Inquirer appears to show Franks yelling at officers, then pushing one, before stepping back and pulling a gun from his waistband.
Franks then fired multiple shots at the officers, who took cover behind nearby vehicles, according to the video and police accounts, and four officers returned fire. Three officers — including a sergeant — were struck by gunfire. Franks was shot in the chest and the leg and later died at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
Police have not released the names of the injured officers or identified those who discharged their weapons that night. One officer was shot in the face, one in the hip, and another in the leg, officials said. A 43-year-old officer was released from the hospital on Tuesday, police said, following the release of a 39-year-old sergeant on Monday.
The shooting remains under investigation by the police department’s officer-involved shooting unit and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.
DA Larry Krasner said investigators from his office had visited the scene, spoken to witnesses and Franks’ family, and reviewed video footage and other evidence. He said his office — like Franks’ family and members of the community — has questions about what happened that night.
James Funt, an attorney for Franks’ wife, Michelle, and his two children, said he,too, is looking for more informationon what transpired in the moments before the gunfire.
“That’s all the family is looking for — a full, fair, and thorough investigation,” Funt said.
Meanwhile, those who knew Franks say the shooting ran counter to the behavior of the man they knew — an advocate for responsible gun ownership and reducing crime in the neighborhood.
Franks was a founding member of That Gun Talk, a local chapter of the National African American Gun Association formed in 2020 to promote self-defense training among Black gun owners, according to Robinson.
He said he was puzzled that Franks would resort to violence in a neighborhood he had urged local leaders to make safer.
In recent years, Franks had brought his concerns to City Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr., who grew up near the Franks family in West Philadelphia and was familiar with his older brothers.
Jones said in a recent interview that Franks had spoken with him multiple times about his frustrations with crime and policing on the business corridor near Mingle.
“What he wanted was better enforcement of laws, and felt frustrated with the reality of our ability to patrol in a way he thought [the corridor] deserved,” Jones said.
And Franks once visited Jones’ office to discuss firearms education for city residents, as well as the possibility of opening a Black-owned shooting range in the neighborhood, an idea Jones said he did not agree with.
The Council member recalled that Franks’ relatives were among the first to open a business on the 54th Street corridor in Wynnefield in the 1970s, a variety store not far from where Franks was killed.
“This whole tragedy, it’s bizarre, ironic, and I grieve for everybody,” Jones said. “The officers that were shot, the family — Franks was a patriarch, the community respected him.”
Funt, the family lawyer, agreed.
Franks cared about “getting more police on the beats, trying to get drugs out of the neighborhood,” Funt said. “I think it was in that spirit that he went there,” to the block in West Philadelphia, on the night he was killed.
How that instinct led to the gunfire that wounded three police officers and ended Franks’ life is a question police and prosecutors will seek to answer as their investigation continues.
Staff writer Ellie Rushing contributed to this article.
Since 1986, Philadelphia has had six different mayors and five City Council presidents. But over those four decades, the city’s Democratic Party has known only one leader: Robert A. Brady.
And he’s not done yet.
Brady, 82, on Monday night won an 11th term as chair of the Democratic City Committee, continuing an astonishing run as the top official in the local party despite growing tensions between the local Democratic establishment and progressive insurgents.
Fresh off democratic socialist Chris Rabb’s victory in last month’s Democratic primary for an open Philly congressional seat, District Attorney Larry Krasner called on Brady to resign, and progressive activists hoped to shake up the local party they blame for Philly Democrats’ lackluster turnout in recent federal elections.
But following last week’s ward leader elections — in which left-leaning candidates notched at least five victories but came up well short of the numbers needed to seriously threaten Brady and his allies — the writing was on the wall.
No challenger stepped forward during Monday night’s leadership elections at the party’s headquarters, the Robert A. Brady Office Building on Spring Garden Street, and the incumbent won another four-year term.
“It‘s pretty nice to get it unanimous — nobody complains at all, no problems whatsoever, and that’s the way I like to have it,” Brady told reporters after his reelection, in which the ward leaders approved his slate of party officers in a unanimous voice vote.
He added that he believes the party’s factions can overcome their differences.
“They know that my heart’s in the right place,” Brady said of the party’s left-leaning critics. “I want to go in the right direction, and it might be the direction that they want to go.”
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, who leads the 50th Ward, addressed party officials during the election meeting, telling them she is a “progressive with a capital P — because if you want to be a progressive, you got to make some progress.”
“People want results,” Parker said in an interview afterward. “They don’t want to see fighting. They don’t want to see finger-pointing. Let’s focus on an agenda and not try to eat our own.”
Also Monday, the party elected several new officers to serve alongside Brady and ordered reruns of three ward leader elections with contested outcomes.
Brady lives in Overbook, where he is the 34th Ward leader.
His mother was a committeeperson, and he worked as a union carpenter before his mentor, the late City Council President George X. Schwartz, got him a patronage job as a Council sergeant-at-arms. (Schwartz later went to jail after being convicted on corruption charges as part of the Abscam scandal in the 1980s.)
City Council Sergeant-at-Arms Bob Brady, left, looks on as Councilmember John F. Street, top, and State Rep. Milton Street, right, take part in a near-riot in Council chambers. (Daily News File Photo)
Brady was elected to Congress in a 1998 special election, and eventually chaired the House Administration Committee, which handles behind-the-scenes tasks such as assigning office space to lawmakers.
While in Congress, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2007, losing to Michael A. Nutter, who ran on an anti-corruption campaign.
In 2017, news broke that Brady’s congressional campaign was the subject of a federal investigation over an alleged scheme in which a would-be challenger accepted $90,000 to withdraw from running against Brady in a 2012 primary.
Two of Brady’s aides served prison time, but Brady never admitted wrongdoing. He chose not to run for reelection the following cycle, in 2018.
A modern political ‘boss’
While Brady is often referred to as Philly’s “party boss,“ leading the Democratic City Committee is not the same job as it was in the heyday of big-city machine politics.
Thanks to civil service reforms in the 1950s, there are far fewer patronage jobs to hand out. And Brady’s time is more often spent attempting to maintain peace among the various political organizations around the city, rather than telling them what to do.
“It really isn’t all that easy, you know, keeping everybody together,” Brady said Monday night. “You got all kinds of factions, all kinds of egos, and I try to do the best I can to keep together, like we did tonight.”
Bob Brady, right, chair of the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee, dances with Cherelle L. Parker at a “unity breakfast” following her victory in the 2023 Democratic mayoral primary. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
One area where today’s party does resemble the machine politics of old is local judicial elections. Party-endorsed candidates almost always win seats on the local Municipal Court and Common Pleas Court benches, and many of their staffs are in turn filled with people connected to the local party.
Brady and party leaders have no qualms about admitting what it takes to win their approval: doing favors and free legal work for the city committee, ward leaders, and their constituents.
Philly Democrats’ new No. 2
Although the Democratic City Committee does not have a new chair, ward leaders on Monday elected a new No. 2.
Former Councilmember Sharon Vaughn, who leads the 49th Ward, will be the new first chair of the party, replacing former Councilmember Jannie Blackwell, who did not run for reelection as 46th Ward leader.
Vaughn, who is also a secretary of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, would temporarily become city committee chair if Brady were to step aside. Brady said Monday he would support her to one day hold the position on a permanent basis as well.
“She’s a great world leader, a former Council person, a hard worker,” Brady said. “What you see is what you get, straight shooter, and she’ll tell you just what it is. And she’s a loyal lady.”
Lauren Rinaldi, the 18th Ward leader who is seen as having relationships with both the progressive and establishment wings of the party, became the second vice chair. She replaces Bass, who has now lost out on her citywide party leadership post regardless of how Wednesday’s 22nd Ward election redo shakes out.
Rinaldi said Monday night she understands her election to leadership was partially an olive branch to the left wing of the party.
“I‘m sure that’s part of it, definitely,” Rinaldi said in an interview. “But I am seeing my role as an advocate — advocating for reform to strengthen the party and modernize the way we do some things and bring more people in instead of shut them out. Basically to rebuild trust with voters.”
The third vice chair remains 7th Ward leader Angel Cruz, and 63rd Ward leader Brian Eddis has replaced Bill Dolbow as fourth vice chair.
Former City Controller Jonathan Saidel will stay on as the party’s treasurer, with John Brady, who is not related to the chair, serving as assistant treasurer.
And 6th Ward leader Pete Wilson was retained as secretary, with 8th Ward leader Elaine Petrossian elected as assistant secretary.
Back-to-back-to-back reruns
The party on Monday ordered the results of three contested ward leader races voided. They will be rerun on Wednesday at the Brady building, with a committee of other ward leaders overseeing the results.
In all three instances, the ward elections were found to have violated the party’s procedures.
The redo for the 14th Ward, in which incumbent Arthur Green lost to Valerie Williams, will take place at 6 p.m.
City Councilmember Cindy Bass, left, speaks with a reporter about her contested 22nd Ward leader election. Aidan T. Gallo / Staff Photographer
That will be followed by a 7 p.m. rerun of the 17th Ward election, which was an open seat in which Tyrone Barge defeated Michelle Schley.
And finally, the 22nd Ward redo will take place at 8 p.m., with progressive challenger Octavius Price taking on Bass.
In all three races, the party will allow submission of “proxy votes” from committeepeople who cannot attend if they are accompanied by notarized affidavits.
Brady said the decision to redo the 22nd Ward vote was an easy one after he saw a video published by The Inquirer showing Bass, who chaired her own reelection meeting, shutting down requests for a roll-call vote that could have clarified the results.
“I don’t think anybody that saw that … was supportive of it,” Brady said. “One ward is one ward, and there’s 68 others, and we’re all going to fix that on Wednesday night.”
Through much of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s first two years in office, most political insiders in Philadelphia assumed she would cruise to reelection.
After all, no mayor in the last eight decades in the deep-blue city has lost a bid for a second term. And Parker is backed by the city’s long-powerful Democratic establishment, contributing to the foregone conclusion that their allied mayor would win again.
Even some of Parker’s staunchest critics on the left admitted privately that they were resigned to her serving eight years in office.
Then last month, conventional wisdom started to crack.
State Rep. Chris Rabb — a democratic socialist and an anti-establishment firebrand — won a tightly contested battle for an open seat in Congress, prevailing over Parker’s endorsed candidate and even carrying the 50th Ward in Northwest Philadelphia, where Parker is ward leader.
Now some of the activists who lead the city’s largest left-leaning organizations think that race showed that Philadelphians are ready to pick a progressive over the Democratic establishment. And they are looking at next year’s mayor’s race again, asking the question: Is Parker vulnerable?
“We would love to have a progressive challenger in this race,” said Sergio Cea, political director of the progressive group Reclaim Philadelphia. “The establishment was really defeated on all fronts this election cycle.”
In a little more than 10 months, Parker, a centrist Democrat and the city’s first female mayor, will be up for reelection. She has not officially announced a campaign — doing so would trigger strict fundraising rules and limits — but all signs indicate she intends to run again, including an already huge campaign war chest.
Any challenger to Parker would be considered a significant underdog. The mayor has the power of incumbency, and can point to progress on her 2023 campaign promises to make the city safer and cleaner, not the least of which is a historically low homicide rate. Thousands of residents are getting their trash picked up twice a week, and polls consistently show that more Philadelphians say they think that the city is heading in the right direction now than when Parker took office.
She even seemed to recover politically after one of her lowest moments: the eight-day municipal worker strike last year that left so much garbage piling up that it became colloquially known as “the trash strike.” Parker, through her signature unyielding negotiating style, muscled her way to an agreement with the union.
Today, she is supported by most of the city’s elected officials and powerful organized labor groups. Ryan N. Boyer, the head of a coalition of deep-pocketed building trades unions, said recently that any challenger to Parker would face “annihilation.”
“This is Philadelphia, there are always people who want to run for mayor. But mayoral elections are decided on whether people think their city is moving in the right direction,” said Aren Platt, executive director of People for Parker, the mayor’s political campaign arm. “Mayor Parker has been underestimated her entire career, and she has a habit of proving people wrong.”
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker raises a finger with her call-and-response “One Philly, A United City” mantra ending her speech during a ceremonial meeting of the Pennsylvania Senate at the National Constitution Center across the mall from Independence Hall on May 5.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
However, some on the left see a coalescence of forces that could bolster their chances: national frustration with the Democratic establishment that has manifested in leftist wins, a widespread anti-incumbent sentiment, and liberal rage toward President Donald Trump, whom Parker has largely avoided maligning publicly.
“If you just have the right candidates that are able to speak to the dissatisfaction of Democratic voters in Philadelphia,” Cea said, “I do think [Parker] is in trouble.”
But the biggest question for Philadelphia progressives in the approaching mayoral race remains: Who could be their candidate?
The potential challengers
Jack Inacker, a Democratic strategist based in Philadelphia, said there are few, if any, challengers to Parker who could pull off a win in 2027.
“The progressive infrastructure now has built up in a way where, if you squint really hard, you can see a path to a progressive challenger,” Inacker said. “The problem is that [Parker] is one big mistake away from being beatable, but she’s not beatable yet. And people know that.”
Candidates have plenty of time to decide. Paperwork to get on the ballot likely would not be due until March.
Perhaps the most talked-about potential challenger so far isDistrict Attorney Larry Krasner, the city’s most prominent progressive. He has not ruled out a run for mayor, and he has recently publicly criticized Parker and some of her closest allies.
Last week, he invited media to walk along with him while he hand-delivered a letter to the mayor’s suite in City Hall to express dissatisfaction with his office’s budget. Parker called the move “stunting.”
Platt, in a thinly veiled shot at Krasner, said in a statement that “what we’ve seen recently is too many politicians focused on generating headlines rather than solving problems: manufacturing controversy, looking for someone else to blame, and confusing political theater with leadership.”
District Attorney Larry Krasner greets supporters during his election night party at the Pipeline Philly coworking space on May 20, 2025, in Philadelphia. Krasner defeated challenger Patrick Dugan both in the Democratic primary and in the general election.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Krasner has won citywide election three times, twice winning reelection in landslide fashion. He is one of the nation’s most well-known progressive prosecutors and one of the city’s most polarizing figures. His base of support includes the city’s left, as well as a large swath of Black voters and elected officials.
But it was Parker’s political family — the vaunted Northwest Coalition of the some of the city’s most storied Black politicians — that was key to Krasner’s political ascent. Challenging Parker could be seen as a betrayal by some in the voter-rich northwest corner of the city, and his base there could fracture.
Krasner has also in the past struggled to keep up with his opponents in fundraising. Any challenger to Parker would likely need to bring in well over a million dollars, a sum of money that Krasner has never raised before.
Several other elected officials are seen as potential challengers to Parker, including several sitting members of City Council.
Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who represents the city at-large, has long been rumored to have ambitions for higher office. He has been elected citywide twice, and recentlywas among the most vocal opponents of the Philadelphia School District’s controversial plan to close 17 schools.
And he has allies both on the left and in the city’s business community, the latter of which has been frustrated with a Parker administration policy shift that increased the tax burden on small businesses.
Councilmembers Isaiah Thomas (from left), Curtis Jones Jr., and Jamie Gauthier protest at an April school board meeting as the board prepared to vote on the facilities plan.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
Thomas said last week that he is focused on his job in City Council.
“That job right now is hard enough, looking at the affordability crisis, the crisis around public education, and other issues that we’re facing,” he said.
There’s also two-term Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who represents parts of West Philadelphia and has positioned herself as one of Council’s chief critics of the Parker administration. She said earlier this year that running for mayor “could be interesting one day,” but that she would not run if she did not see a clear path to victory.
She said in a statement that her focus is “finishing what we started on City Council, especially building affordable housing.”
Gauthier added: “But it’s clear Philadelphians are hungry for leaders who will put working families above big business.”
And there is Councilmember Kendra Brooks, the de facto leader of the city’s left-leaning coalition and a member of the progressive Working Families Party. Brooks, who represents the city at-large, has twice campaigned and won citywide.
A political adviser to Brooks said she is focused on her work in City Hall and running for reelection to Council, as well as “building Black progressive political power through the WFP.”
What do progressive gains mean for the 2027 mayor’s race?
Parker’s camp sees strength in her numbers.
In March, the mayor’s political arm commissioned a poll that found that 60% of respondents approve of the job Parker is doing as mayor, while 33% disapprove. Her approval rating was even higher among Black voters, older voters, and residents of Northwest Philadelphia — one of the highest-turnout areas of the city.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker (right) hugs Rachel O’Neal, executive of the Friends Childcare Center, at the unveiling of a new playful learning hub at Sisters Cities Park on Thursday.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
Cornell Belcher, one of the top Democratic pollsters in the nation, has conducted polling for Parker dating back to her mayoral campaign. He said that a key indicator of voter attitude toward an incumbent mayor is the number of residents who think the city is heading in the right direction.
The results this spring, he noted, were “dramatically different” from when Parker was first campaigning for the office. In April 2023, Belcher measured that 66% of Democratic primary voters in the city were dissatisfied with the direction of Philadelphia.
Today, he said, 62% are satisfied.
Still, other polls have shown potential warning signs for Parker.
In three polls that were conducted this spring in the 3rd Congressional District and obtained by The Inquirer, an average of 48% of Democratic primary voters said they had a favorable view of Parker and 41% had an unfavorable view. The polls, which measured voter attitudes in roughly half the city, were conducted by three different firms, and they were commissioned by different campaigns and organizations.
Approval and favorability ratings are not apples-to-apples. An approval rating is often considered a more reliable data point for an incumbent executive, because it measures attitudes about job performance, not reputation.
Belcher, who founded his polling firm 25 years ago and polled for former President Barack Obama, said he would not draw conclusions from polls of a congressional district that includes only half the city and was taken in a different election year. And he questioned other pollsters’ methodology in Philadelphia, a city that is tricky to survey.
“A city like Philadelphia, with all its different racial and ethnic groups, getting that right is hard,” Belcher said. “The more diverse an area is, the more work you have to put into getting it right.”
Chris Rabb greets supporters on election day. He is arriving to his polling place to vote, Grace Epiphany Episcopal Church, on May 19.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
The results of last month’s congressional race energized progressives, in part because Rabb performed well in parts of the city that Parker carried when she won the crowded open Democratic mayoral primary in 2023. An Inquirer analysis found that more than a quarter of Rabb’s votes came from divisions that voted for Parker in 2023.
Rabb won his Democratic primary in a race that included three front-runners. But mayoral reelection battles in Philadelphia have historically been head-to-head, meaning the winner will look to reach 50% of the vote, a more challenging proposition for an ideological candidate.
“The mayor is organized, and her coalition across Philadelphia is strong,” Platt said. “They may not be active on Reddit, but they’re there, and they believe in what she’s doing because they can see the results in their neighborhoods.”
Sick of being charged with “processing” or “transaction” fees when shopping online?
So is City Councilmember Rue Landau, and she introduced a bill Thursday to help Philadelphians avoid so-called pay-to-pay fees for online transactions.
“This will keep money in people’s pockets,” Landau said in an interview. “Oftentimes, people are paying these fees every single month to simply pay their bills to an entity that only allows you to pay it in a certain way. They are unnecessary. We are making them unlawful.”
The legislation aims to ban fees that are not related to actual costs to the seller. That means standard credit card processing fees, which retailers must pay to credit card companies, would not be banned under the bill. Instead, the bill aims to tackle additional fees beyond those processing charges by:
Mandating online payment portals have at least one option that involves no additional fees.
Requiring “cost justification” for fees, which Landau’s office said would essentially ban convenience fees by necessitating proof they are related to real costs borne by the seller.
Compelling online retailers to disclose all fees up front in “total-price advertising” before a transaction begins.
To enforce the bill’s provisions, the city’s law department would be authorized to sue businesses charging illegal pay-to-pay fees. The bill would also allow private individuals to sue for damages from companies charging the fees, including as part of a class-action lawsuit.
Next, Council President Kenyatta Johnson will refer the bill to a committee, where it could get a hearing as soon as this fall.
Philadelphia City Council members inside the caucus inside City Hall in Philadelphia, Pa. on Thursday, June 11, 2026.Aidan T. Gallo / Staff Photographer
City budget negotiations wrapped up last week, and Thursday’s votes were largely procedural.
But the fallout continued Thursday from Council’s decision last week not to adopt Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s proposal to plug the Philadelphia School District’s budget deficit with a new $1-per-ride tax on rideshare services like Uber and Lyft.
Council President Kenyatta Johnson speaks during an announcement at the School District of Philadelphia Headquarters on Wednesday, June 10, 2026 in Philadelphia. Philadelphia School District officials will move to restore 340 classroom-based jobs that were slated to be cut, despite top district leaders saying last week that they did not have the recurring funding needed to keep the positions.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Council instead pulled roughly $50 million, the amount the tax would have generated next year, from the existing city budget to help fund the schools. District officials, however, said after that vote that they would have to move forward with cuts to 340 classroom positions because Council did not provide recurring revenue.
The Tower of Taxpayers: The city will soon own the 18-story tower at 400 N. Broad St., the beaux arts landmark that is the Philadelphia Police Department’s headquarters and was dubbed the “Tower of Truth” when it was the home of The Inquirer.
Council on Thursday voted 17-0 to approve legislation authorizing the city to borrow $200 million so it can own the building, part of a complex and controversial deal in which the city is buying outstanding debt on the property that is currently held by developer Bart Blatstein.
The Philadelphia Public Services Building (PPSB) at 400 North Broad Street is the historic former Inquirer and Daily News building. It will soon be owned by the city of Philadelphia.TOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
The purchase stems from an agreement inked in 2017 during former Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration. Under the terms of the deal, the city’s current $15 million annual rent on the building was set to nearly double if the city did not exercise a one-time option to buy the property.
Parker administration officials testified to a Council committee last week that, while the building is appraised to be worth $21.5 million, in order to purchase the structure, the city was required to assume the debt that Blatstein incurred to renovate the property.
Council members on the Finance Committee balked at the $200 million price tag and initially held up the proposal, but eventually approved the measure.
The city will issue bonds to buy the debt and will pay roughly $15 million a year in debt service.
Expanding the definition of ‘the line of duty’: The city appears poised to offer death benefits to the families of first responders who die by suicide, a change that amounts to an expansion of how the government defines a death that occurred “in the line of duty.”
Council approved legislation to offer pension payments, healthcare coverage, and other forms of compensation to the families of city workers who either had a diagnosed psychiatric disorder due in “significant part to exposure to one or more traumatic events in the line of duty” or died by suicide within 45 days of exposure to a traumatic event at work.
That was despite the city’s risk manager testifying last week to a Council committee that the Parker administration opposes the change. Sharolyn Murphy told Council members that the administration is focused on suicide prevention, and that expanding who is eligible for death benefits would result in higher costs to the pension fund.
On Thursday, Council approved the bill in a 17-0 vote, sending it to Parker’s desk with a veto-proof majority.
Quote of the week
Philadelphia City Council members inside the begin the session inside the chamber at City Hall in Philadelphia, Pa. on Thursday, June 11, 2026.Aidan T. Gallo / Staff Photographer
A bittersweet Pride: That was Mark Segal, the publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News and one of the most recognized leaders of the city’s LGBTQ+ community. He spoke Thursday during a Pride celebration in Council, and he called for accountability following the police response to Pride festivities on Sunday that many have called heavy-handed.
Philadelphia School District officials and public education advocates were relieved Wednesday when Mayor Cherelle L. Parker announced she had reached a deal with City Council that will prevent 340 classroom positions from being eliminated amid the district’s funding woes.
But as limited details about the agreement began to emerge Thursday, it became clear that the deal was less of a schools-funding program than a plan to figure one out over the next year — with the prospect of $216 million in city budget cuts taking effect if Parker and Council cannot eventually agree to adopt a new revenue stream.
“Council President Kenyatta Johnson and I publicly committed to working together to find local, recurring, predictable, and dependable revenue sources for the School District of Philadelphia over the next year to ensure that we keep these critical positions,” Parker said Thursday during a city budget bill-signing ceremony. “That is our shared goal and our commitment.”
But if Parker and Johnson do not make good on that commitment by July 1, 2027, the city will be on the hook for additional funding it has promised the school district between 2028 and 2031, including roughly $50 million in the first year of that time frame.
Council President Kenyatta Johnson speaks during an announcement at the School District of Philadelphia Headquarters on Wednesday, June 10, 2026 in Philadelphia. Philadelphia School District officials will move to restore 340 classroom-based jobs that were slated to be cut, despite top district leaders saying last week that they did not have the recurring funding needed to keep the positions.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Parker, Johnson, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr., and school board president Reginald Streater triumphantly unveiled the agreement to stave off the planned job cuts Wednesday. That announcement followed days of suspense after Council last week refused to pass the mayor’s proposed $1-per-trip rideshare tax, which would have funded schools, and instead advanced a city budget with about $50 million from one-time cuts that would be sent to the district as a Band-Aid for its $300 million budget gap.
Council’s move prompted Watlington, with Parker’s backing, to say the positions would still be eliminated without an explicit promise that the money would be recurring, rather than a one-time allocation.
Officials said they worked “around the clock” between Council’s rejection of the rideshare tax and Wednesday’s announcement, which Johnson jubilantly hailed as “Christmas in June.”
On Thursday, education advocates and labor leaders heaped praise on the administration for the deal.
Several district principals said Thursday they do not yet have details about exactly how much they will get back in their budgets, or how the dominoes will fall once positions are restored.
Watlington had school leaders build their 2026-27 budgets as if the cuts were happening, and many of the affected teachers, counselors, and climate staff secured new positions, some in the district and some outside the system. The restoration will undoubtedly cause vacancies elsewhere, months after other districts filled jobs for the fall.
“The win is making sure that those 340 jobs, with teachers, will not be laid off, and they will not have to second-guess if next year they’re going to come back to work,” Johnson told reporters Thursday. “And I think ultimately we can talk about sometime the ‘how’ we get to a particular end. But it’s always the ‘why.’ … At the end of the day, all of our young people still can have a chance to get a quality education.”
‘Budget sequestration’ comes to Philly?
The agreement between Parker and Johnson in some ways hearkens back to Congress’ 2011 “budget sequestration” debacle, when President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) agreed to severe across-the-board spending reductions that would take effect automatically if lawmakers and the White House failed to reach a “grand bargain” to restructure the federal budget.
They never reached an agreement — and the sequestration cuts, once thought of as too painful to countenance, eventually became reality.
Parker and Johnson are optimistic their arrangement for the school district and the city budget will not suffer a similar fate.
The future city budget cuts will be reflected in the city’s five-year plan, which must be approved by a state oversight board each year but is not binding legislation like annual taxing and spending measures. That gives City Hall more wiggle room to figure out how to find the money officials have now promised the district than Obama and Boehner had.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker is cheered by members of Philadelphia City Council at conclusion of the budget address, Thursday, March 12, 2026. From left are council members Nicholas O’Rourke, Cindy Bass and Katherine Gilmore Richardson. In background is council President Kenyatta Johnson. .Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
Parker said her administration has already identified the cuts that will be reflected in the five-year plan when it is up for approval next month at the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority. But she has offered few specifics on what those potential cuts would entail.
Parker said Thursday that the city could make up part of the difference by reducing future debt repayment obligations by reducing the size of planned city bond sales. She mentioned the city’s capital budget, which funds projects like repaving roads and renovating recreation centers, but did not say how much would be cut.
And she said the city could halve its next borrowing related to her signature housing program, Housing Opportunities Made Easy. The city plans to take out a second tranche of $400 million in city bonds next year for H.O.M.E.; the potential cuts to free up money for schools could include taking only $200 million at that time, she said.
“Where did we get the money from in future years?” Parker said Thursday. “In our five-year plan, we made cuts to very important programs associated with our capital budget and even our H.O.M.E. plan — but cuts that will never have to be realized once we all make good on that commitment to generate that approximately $50 million in new, predictable recurring revenue.”
One complication in the negotiations to come is that Parker and all 17 Council members are up for reelection next year, and lawmakers are not eager to approve new taxes before voters head to the ballot box.
The Democratic primary, which effectively decides almost all elections in Philadelphia due to the city’s deep-blue electorate, will be in May 2027. The next city budget, including all tax measures for the following fiscal year, must be enacted by the end of June 2027, leaving several weeks after the election for Council to potentially approve a new tax to provide money for the district next year.
Philadelphia City Council members at City Hall in Philadelphia, Pa. on Thursday, June 11, 2026.Aidan T. Gallo / Staff Photographer
Some possibilities do not involve new or increased taxes for residents. The city, for instance, could speed up its plans to increase the share of property tax revenue that is dedicated to the district. Currently, the district receives 56% of property tax revenue, while the city takes 44%.
Parker said the agreement will allow Philadelphia to present a united front in Harrisburg as officials prepare to ask for more state funding for the city’s school district. State lawmakers in the past have pointed to disagreements among city leaders when rejecting requests for additional support.
“This is the first time … in my lifetime that the city of Philadelphia, the administration, and the legislative branch, along with the superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia and the school board, will all travel [to Harrisburg] in unity, along with all of our union partners and all of our education advocates,” Parker said. “We can stand up when we arrive in Harrisburg and say … ‘Philadelphia’s homework is done.’”
School advocates relieved
Arthur Steinberg, president of the 14,000-member Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said the news of Parker and Johnson’s agreement came just in time. Thursday was the last day of school for 114,000 district students; staff finish the school year Friday.
“It was a very difficult year, and I’m glad that we’re able to tell them now that the positions that were cut due to this will be restored,” Steinberg said at a news conference Thursday morning outside Council chambers. “This means a lot to them. There’s stability over the summer. The communities will know who their teachers will be, and they’ll know where they’re going.”
Arthur G. Steinberg (left), president of the Philadelphia Association of Teachers, and school superintendent Tony B. Watlington, Sr. (right) greet students as they arrive onstage for Mayor Parker’s announcement March 23, 2026, of $1 rideshare tax proposal to fund city schools.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Tiffany Johnson Williams said she was thrilled that cuts at her child’s school — Nebinger Elementary in South Philadelphia — and others would be rolled back.
“I am equally grateful to Mayor Parker, Superintendent Watlington, and the school board for coming back to the table and working collaboratively to reach the solution that restored our critical positions,” Williams said at the news conference. “As a parent and educator and a youth advocate, I know that stability matters.”
Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, who has had a testy relationship with the district and school board over the last several months, suggested it was time to move forward cohesively to push for more funding elsewhere.
“I think where we are at this moment is recognizing that as we come together as Philadelphians, our job now is to use our advocacy initiatives and our leverage to try to get even more resources from Harrisburg,” Thomas said.
Staff writers Anna Orso and Jake Blumgart contributed to this article.
Philadelphia City Council will hold public hearings to examine the police department’s crowd-control tactics used during Sunday’s Pride festivities in the city’s Gayborhood, a response that drew criticism from LGBTQ+ community leaders who have called the display of force unacceptable.
Councilmember Rue Landau, a Democrat who represents the city at-large and is Council’s first openly LGBTQ+ member, introduced legislation Thursday to authorize Council to hold hearings on the response, citing video and eyewitness accounts of “aggressive police tactics,” such as physical confrontations between police and celebrators, as well as the use of mounted and motorcycle officers to disperse crowds.
A large police presence at a Pride celebration in the Gayborhood on Sunday, June 8, 2026.Courtesy of Joshua Stokem
Images and videos that circulated widely on social media this week showed officers pushing attendees, as well as police on horseback dispersing crowds from the sidewalk. Multiple officers were seen on video with their faces covered, and others barricaded Gayborhood streets. Police said 15 people were arrested.
“It’s clear that this was a lack of communication, a lack of planning, and a lack of clear on-the-ground decision making of what to do in this situation,” Landau said Thursday.
Holding hearings in Council “is not going to heal the pain and trauma that happened on Sunday,” Landau said, but it will “answer strategic and tactical questions.”
”We need to work towards a time when the Gayborhood is safe and open and welcoming to every member of the queer community, but especially to Black and brown queer people and trans people,” she added.
Councilmember Rue Landau on Thursday, March 12, 2026.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
During an acknowledgment of Pride month in Council on Thursday, Mark Segal, the publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News and a fixture of the city’s LGBTQ+ community, said he was looking for accountability and wanted to know: “Who was in charge Sunday?”
“No police should be wearing a mask in Philadelphia,” Segal said to applause. “No motorcycle should be up on the sidewalk. Police on horseback should not be hurting citizens. The police should not be running around with Tasers. People should not be punched. People should not be fenced off like animals.”
Council unanimously approved a resolution to hold hearings. They are not likely to take place until fall, as Thursday was Council’s final meeting before adjourning for summer recess.
The move to hold hearings is a notable step for a Council that has largely steered clear of public criticism of the city’s police department in recent years. While individual members have taken issue with discrete tactics or policies, most have been satisfied with the leadership of the force under Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel, who took the helm in 2024 when Mayor Cherelle L. Parker appointed him to the role.
Bethel said the police department is investigating the agency’s response during the Pride festivities, and a police spokesperson said that five officers who wore facial coverings may face discipline for violating department policy.
Parker said in a statement that senior members of the administration were examining the response. During an unrelated news conference Thursday, she said that “accountability will be reached.”
“Rest assured we’re going to do the research. We’re going to find out what happened and where accountability is appropriate,” Parker said.
People fill the street during the Philly Pride Festival on the Ben Franklin Parkway on Sunday, June 7, 2026 in Philadelphia.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
More than a dozen LGBTQ+ residents and Pride attendees came to Council on Thursday to tell lawmakers about their experiences Sunday and call for an investigation.
Philadelphia resident Jazmyn Henderson, a longtime activist in the city, was in the Gayborhood on Sunday and said she witnessed police using aggressive crowd-control tactics.
She said she did not think Council’s resolution was enough to make her feel safe going forward.
“I think City Council is delusional,” Henderson said. “I think the city is delusional, and they think that that resolution meant anything to any of the Black and brown people who were brutalized, assaulted, hurt, or mistreated by the cops on Sunday.”
Sergio Cea, political director of the progressive political group Reclaim Philadelphia, testified during Council’s public comment section that he was tear-gassed by officers in West Philadelphia during a wave of civil unrest in 2020 and, following Sunday’s events in the Gayborhood, he does not feel safe in the city from what he described as “police violence.”
“I really welcome the resolution that Rue Landau is presenting, but we need to go beyond that,” Cea said. “We are not safe.”
Philadelphia School District officials are restoring 340 classroom-based jobs that were slated to be cut, despite top district leaders saying last week that they did not have the recurring funding needed to keep the positions.
In a surprise, dramatic announcement late Wednesday, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker — flanked by Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr., school board president Reginald Streater, and Council President Kenyatta Johnson — said the city had identified enough money in the existing budget to stave off the cuts.
“We have delivered for the School District of Philadelphia today,” Parker said. The mayor added that the city “made some tough decisions” to save the positions of 149 teachers, 130 climate staff, and 23 counselors.
Parker and Johnson pledged $216 million over five years to keep funding the school workers.
Officials said the $48 million in new money the city is providing for the 2026-27 school year is the floor, and not a one-time fix.
The administration will look to new, recurring revenue sources in the future, Parker and Johnson said, but if those are not found, the money will come from the city’s capital spending and other areas the mayor said she would release Thursday.
“Everything is on the table” for those new funding streams, Parker said, though she did say that raising property taxes was a nonstarter.
Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. speaks during an announcement at the School District of Philadelphia Headquarters on Wednesday, June 10, 2026 in Philadelphia. Philadelphia School District officials will move to restore 340 classroom-based jobs that were slated to be cut, despite top district leaders saying last week that they did not have the recurring funding needed to keep the positions.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
The mood at district headquarters, where leaders gathered for a hastily arranged news conference, was positively jubilant.
“It’s Christmas in June,” Johnson said. Thursday is the last day of school for district students, and Johnson said he was thrilled that teachers and staff “will have an opportunity to remain in the schools that will continue next year, in the years beyond, to support our young people.”
“I can’t stop smiling,” Streater said.
An about-face
The move was an about-face from last week, when Watlington wrote in a letter to Council that the system — which is facing a longstanding $300 million structural deficit — could not restore the 340 positions “without a commitment to recurring and predictable funding over multiple years.”
After that grim moment, Parker said, members of her team, Johnson’s office, and district officials worked “around the clock” to find a way to cobble funds together to save the jobs, which were imperiled amid a $300 million district budget deficit. City Council last week rejected Parker’s proposed $1-per-ride tax on rideshare services like Uber and Lyft, which she said would generate about $48 million a year in revenue for the district to cover the classroom cuts.
Instead, legislators and the mayor’s administration agreed last week to use money in the existing budget to increase the city’s annual contribution to the school district by $48 million this year.
After Parker’s tax plan collapsed, she held a fiery news conference, casting one-time money for the city’s public schools as a Band-Aid and saying that the lawmakers did not “offer an alternative plan for recurring revenue.”
“Our children deserve better. They deserve more,” Parker said. “We didn’t meet the moment here in the city of Philadelphia.”
“Billionaire big tech companies just won round one in this process,” says Mayor Cherelle L. Parker at City Hall Thursday, June 4, 2026 after City Council rejected most of her tax proposals for the city budget.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
But Council members, already frustrated with the school board for voting in April to advance a plan to close 17 schools, were up in arms.
Council leaders said that they had been under the impression that the school district would not make the job cuts if the city came through with an additional $48 million this year, regardless of whether the money came from a new tax or the city’s existing coffers.
“We wouldn’t have gone to the lengths that we went to to come up to what we thought was an agreement with the administration for the district to then say that was not adequate,” Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson said in an interview Friday.
The union that represents Philadelphia teachers and other schools advocates also implored Watlington to change course. Arthur Steinberg, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said last week that it was “deplorable and really absurd” that the district was opting to move forward with staff cuts despite getting $48 million in new money from the city.
No ‘tricky math’
Parker on Wednesday said she did not regret waiting for a guarantee on paying for the positions going forward.
“I don’t know how they do math in other cities, Mr. President, but I know here in the city of Philadelphia, we can’t have tricky math,” the mayor said, addressing Johnson. But, she said, “we were committed to ensuring that politics of any kind were not going to stand in the way of us doing what we’re supposed to do as elected representatives for the city, and that is delivering for our school district.”
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, Council President Kenyatta Johnson and Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. arrive for an announcement at the School District of Philadelphia Headquarters on Wednesday, June 10, 2026 in Philadelphia. Philadelphia School District officials will move to restore 340 classroom-based jobs that were slated to be cut, despite top district leaders saying last week that they did not have the recurring funding needed to keep the positions.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
The district must now shift immediately to figuring out how to restore the 340 positions. Schools built their budgets based on the cuts, and the teachers, counselors, and climate staff who believed their positions were ending either found new jobs or, in the cases of some, left the district altogether in what has been an especially chaotic school-hiring season.
It was not immediately clear what would happen, logistically, with the positions, but Watlington said he would be delighted to figure it out with representatives of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and the principals union.
“I can guarantee you’re going to work through all those issues,” Watlington said. “It’s not a problem.”
Philadelphia’s chief public defender warned this week that the city’s indigent defense system will begin scaling back services next month unless City Council approves additional funding for the Defender Association of Philadelphia.
In an email sent Tuesday to judges, City Council members, and Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, Chief Defender Keisha Hudson said the agency would reduce or withdraw from several programs beginning July 1 if lawmakers on Thursday adopt the mayor’s proposed budget as is.
The planned changes include ending representation at expungement hearings and reducing participation in specialty courts and programs, including Neighborhood Wellness Court and the Accelerated Misdemeanor Program, according to the email.
Hudson said the Defender Association would also stop staffing emergency bail hearings, a practice she credited with helping to significantly reduce the city’s jail population.
The warning escalates a monthslong dispute over funding for the Defender Association, which has argued that its expenses and responsibilities have expanded without a corresponding increase in city support.
Despite that growth, Hudson said in an interview, the Defender Association is the only major criminal justice stakeholder that would receive no additional money under Parker’s proposed budget. That decision “felt very much personal and political,” she said.
A spokesperson for Parker did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Parker’s proposed budget allocates $69 million to the Defender Association for the coming fiscal year, unchanged from its current funding level. Hudson had sought about $5 million more, saying the bulk of the money was needed to cover rising labor costs — including contractual obligations to unionized attorneys and staff — and higher rent, insurance, and technology expenses.
The disparity had left the agency facing “difficult decisions” about what services it can continue to provide, Hudson said. “There are human and financial costs to us not being in certain spaces,” she said.
Hudson wrote in the email that additional reductions could follow in the coming months, including in Veterans Court, Treatment Court, and other tasks that are not constitutionally required — such as representing people at preliminary arraignments.
A spokesperson for the courts did not respond to a request for comment on the cutbacks’ potential impact.
A written statement by UAW Local 5502, which represents public defenders, immigration attorneys, and child advocates at the Defender Association, said this was the third year in a row that funding for the agency had remained flat — which it called “a funding decrease when accounting for record-high inflation.”
The announcement came as other criminal justice agencies also made final appeals for funding before City Council’s scheduled vote on the budget Thursday.
On Monday, District Attorney Larry Krasner publicly urged Parker to provide additional funding for his office, delivering a letter to the mayor requesting $5.6 million beyond the amount included in the proposed budget. Krasner said the money would support shooting investigations, domestic violence prosecutions, victim services, and other public safety initiatives.
Parker has allocated $62.4 million to the district attorney’s office — about $3 million more than last year.
Parker’s proposed budget would spend roughly $7 billion next fiscal year, with major investments in housing, public safety, and other priorities. City officials have cited financial constraints and uncertainty about future revenue as they weigh competing requests for additional funding.
Vincent Thompson, a spokesperson for City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, said that Council members had advocated for the Defender Association’s funding priorities during budget negotiations but that “any additional funding increases must be agreed upon through the budget negotiation process.”
Last Thursday, after City Council rejected a series of tax increases the mayor had proposed, Parker told a reporter that the association’s request was among several funding priorities her administration weighed with Council members “to do the best we could with what we had.”
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker says she is looking for answers after Philadelphia police arrested 15 people at a Pride celebration in the Gayborhood on Sunday that drew anger from community members over police use of force.
“I know that members of our LGBTQ+ community are hurting, frustrated, and looking for answers. … I want everyone to know that I hear you, I see you, and my Administration is taking your concerns seriously,” Parker said on social media Tuesday evening.
Images and videos spread across social media of police using crowd control tactics to disperse Pride-goers in the neighborhood, in what some considered to be an outsize and aggressive law enforcement presence.
In one image shared on X, a police officer on a motorcycle appears to push against a woman’s chest, and, in a separate photo, another officer pushes the same woman against a storefront security door while arresting her.
Other videosposted on social mediashowed police on horseback dispersing young people from a sidewalk, as well as officers physically struggling with a man outside the gay bar Woody’s. Another clip shows a row of police officers — two of them wearing face coverings — forming a line to clear a barricaded Gayborhood street while officers on motorbikes rode along the sidewalks.
On Wednesday, Sgt. Eric Gripp, a spokesperson for the police department, said that officials had identified five officers who wore face coverings during the enforcement, and that those officers had violated department policy by doing so.
The department is still working to determine what type of corrective action will be taken depending on the outcome of an internal investigation, he said.
On Tuesday, Parker said she and some of her top staff, Director of LGBTQ+ Affairs Tito Valdes, and Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel had met to “review the information available to us and discuss next steps.”
“In the days ahead, we will meet with community leaders as part of that effort. As we move forward, we must reject the notion that public safety and accountability are mutually exclusive,” Parker said in the statement posted to social media.
Commanding officers at the scene gave orders to disperse crowds, according to Gripp, the police spokesperson.
The crowd control tactics used on Sunday drew ire from local elected officials like City Councilmember Rue Landau, who said she has been in talks with city departments and police to understand why PPD used this strategy. “Police brutality has no place at Pride,” Landau said.
People wait to enter the Philly Pride Festival at 21st Street on the Ben Franklin Parkway on Sunday.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
A different Pride this year
This year’s Pride looked different from that of earlier years. Usually, Philadelphia Pride celebrations and parades occur within the Gayborhood in Center City, east of Broad Street. But this year Philly Pride 365 and the city moved the parade and festival to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway because of security concerns over crowd sizes that had grown to more than 150,000 people, among other reasons, festival organizers said.
The festival portion of Pride also asked attendees to pay $10 to enter an event that for years had been free to attend.
Before and after the official celebrations ended, Pride-goers gathered in the Gayborhood, patronizing bars and spilling into the streets — a common practice during the celebration. But guests were surprised to find that several Gayborhood blocks around 13th and Walnut Streets were blocked with metal barricades, limiting crowds to sidewalks, said Joshua Stokem, a New Jersey resident who regularly attends the city’s Pride celebrations.
Stokem said the layout caused large groups to pack into the corridors outside bars and restaurants and, in his view, created confusion and exacerbated some of the issues attendees had with police.
On Sunday, police had 600 officers assigned to Pride celebrations with around 150 officers in the Gayborhood monitoring festivities, Bethel said.
“By all accounts, [it was] a successful event attended and enjoyed by thousands of people. As crowd sizes increased in the Gayborhood, officers responded to a growing number of public safety concerns, including fights, disorderly behavior, blocked roadways, and the challenges associated with safely managing large crowds in a confined area,” he saidin the statement.
Bethel said the department had expected the Parkway celebration to gradually transition to the Gayborhood event, but that did not happen.
Instead, he said, two separate gatherings were essentially happening at once, creating a situation that was “challenging to manage safely” and led to the decision to clear parts of the neighborhood.
“That decision was not made in any way, shape, or form because people were celebrating Pride,” he said.
Most of the arrests during Sunday’s event were for disorderly conduct, according to Bethel, while one person was charged with aggravated assault of a police officer.
