Mayor’s Housing Plan On Ice, Fetterman's Low Book Sales, and Tough Borromoni Review

It's the Friday News Roundup. We're talking about delays in Mayor Parker's plan to build and preserve 30,000 homes, how a city council bill might affect Senator John Fetterman's political future. Plus, it's been a rough week for Stephen Starr. And it's going to be a great weekend for running the Philadelphia Marathon. It's Friday, November 21st. I'm Trinery, and here's what Philly's talking about. Joining me this week at the filler club is our executive producer, Matt Katz. Hey Matt. Hey, Renee, good morning. Good morning. Lots to talk about. Oh, yeah. So let's start off this roundup by talking about Mayor Cheryl Parker's home initiative. This is a big plan to invest in preserving Philadelphia homes and building new Philadelphia homes because she's been touting this plan as, you know, wanting to get people affordable, safe. Housing. Yeah, to address the housing crisis. This is her big initiative. This is what she's basing her legacy on. This is what she ran on. This is the whole thing. Yeah. So I want to play a video that she posted, you know, talking to us, she calls us her friend, her neighbor. Me? Yeah, you, all of us. Oh, okay. And she says, She knows how important it is for Philadelphians to have a safe, affordable home. This was posted on her social media about a week ago. I know that for so many of us, finding and keeping a safe and affordable home, it's getting harder. That's why I'm here today to talk to you about something that can truly change lives. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for our city. The home plan is a $2 billion investment in our future, an investment that will build, repair, and restore 30,000 units of housing across Philadelphia. Let me be clear. Our city faces an urgent need for more housing and the time to act is now. So this plan is in city council's hands, right? Yeah, because I was going to say it is maybe not as urgent as we think it is because city council is delaying a vote on legislation that needs to pass before Parker and her administration can start to sell hundreds of millions of dollars in city bonds to support this plan.

Yeah, so they're working out the budget. The numbers on this, city council is. And it looks like we won't get another vote on it until next year, right? I mean, the city council president, Kenyatta Johnson, has delayed several hearings that would have advanced the resolution in order to go ahead and sell the bonds to get the money in the pipeline in order to support this program. He canceled the hearing this week, didn't reschedule it. I mean, the issue appears to be that the mayor's plan is focused on the middle and working class, and city council wants to help those in poverty. I mean, there are 300,000 city residents living below the poverty line. That's unbelievable. It's also interesting because, like you mentioned, Council President Johnson is kind of... dragging his feet with all of this. And, you know, Johnson and Parker, they've been like great friends, great supporters of each other on various, like, city things. So it seems kind of odd that he might be dragging his feet. But at the same time, I think he's also... maybe like hearing out counsel because this is an important issue. Yeah, and the politics of some of the city council members are different than the politics of the mayor, even if almost everybody's a Democrat. So he's got to make sure he's got enough of his people in line to support this thing before it moves forward. That's probably what's going on here. You know, the mayor says we should not be pitting the have-nots against the have-littles because she's saying that this is her pushback against this idea that this doesn't help enough people. people who are in poverty. And I can imagine there being some sort of compromise here where the income requirements to get into this program, which allows you to have a... low-interest mortgage and other elements that are way too complicated for me to understand because I don't understand housing policy. But there are, this requires a lot of money in order to get people who in the free market wouldn't be able to buy their own home or fix up their home. This would release that money and allow them to do such a thing. And the compromise will end up being adjusting what the income requirements are for Philadelphia and who's seeking to get help through this home initiative. Yep. We've got more news after the break.

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Well, speaking of housing, there are some shakeups happening at the Philadelphia Housing Authority. We all know it as PHA. They're going to be laying off 300 of their 1,200 employees in January of next year. So these cuts are coming because PHA will be contracting out jobs such as maintenance and repair work. What's interesting is that these workers are... represented by the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council. So they are full-time workers that do maintenance for PHA. Kelvin Jeremiah, who's actually the president and CEO of PHA, he told the inquired that this is a housing program, not a jobs program. That's interesting because, you know, government jobs in cities have long been both, you know, a program for the, you know, obviously to support whatever the government's doing, but also a jobs program. They're also a way for people to get into the middle class by working for the city, working for the government. He's saying, no, we don't just give out jobs. We're here to support public housing in the city. Yeah. And it looks like... The agency would save about $24 million with these cuts. So they have this like larger plan. a $6.3 billion plan to add 7,000 units and rehab an existing 13,000 units over the next 10 years. So I wanted to know, like, okay, well, the folks that are representing these maintenance workers, which is the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council. Ryan Boyer, who's the business manager for this group, he's going to try to offer some alternative jobs for the workers that are going to be laid off. And it's not just those jobs. PHA also plans to cut 33 managerial roles at the agency's headquarters, which is in like Sharswood neighborhood. When I was reading this story in the Enquirer, it said that 93% of PHA's funding comes from the federal government. So. Even though they have this grand plan for housing, if something goes off or doesn't align at the Capitol or within the White House, you could throw this plan off. Yeah, no doubt. You know, it's also interesting that this is not the only story we had this week dealing with.

contractors and city contractors so i mean they're moving away from having full-time uh employees benefits moving toward uh contracting out with outside companies in order to like do these jobs and uh This week, we had an episode on Wednesday about how Mayor Parker killed what was essentially a DEI program for businesses. It was a set aside for a certain number of contracts for firms that wanted to do business with the city and a certain percentage for decades have gone to minority-owned businesses, women-owned businesses, and businesses owned by disabled people. And the mayor, quite controversially, is essentially replacing that with a program that she says will favor Philly businesses. So small businesses that mostly employ Philadelphia residents or where the ownership lives and operates in Philly. There's metrics for determining if a company is local and Philly enough. One of the reasons was the threat of being sued by the Trump administration based on... the former program, which was race-based. Though it was unclear even throughout this whole process over the last week if there was really any threat from the Trump administration. But the other thing the mayor said was the program wasn't working. She said many of these contracts were just going to white women. Did you hear her say that? It was kind of a throwaway line, but she did say that in a press conference indicating it wasn't actually helping black-owned businesses. So the... idea that this was like going to harm black owned businesses wasn't true because most of these contracts were just going to white women anyway. And also what I heard too is that even if you had a city contract, it would take like six months for you to get paid. Yeah. Well, that seems too long, especially if you're a small business. Exactly. Well, I don't know if they're going to fix that with this new program. Mm-hmm. The whole thing about how this came out, it was like leaked to the Inquirer or the Inquirer got his a scoop and Orso was on earlier this week. She was the reporter who found this out. And then it was cleaned up this week by the mayor with a roundtable and a press conference. But it feels like there was more happening behind the scenes with this whole thing. Either way, intentionally or not, Parker is keeping with her unofficial policy of avoiding. upsetting the president. So getting rid of a DEI program avoids getting into hot water or drawing the attention of the president. And I think that, you know, we've talked about it before. That seems to be what she's trying to do. Just get by these next few years without Trump paying attention to Philly. Yes. And I will raise you, though. She did say, even if she doesn't like them, like the policies. Yeah. So I think for a while now, we all have been like, does she like it? Does she like it? Does she not like it? And she was like, even if I don't like it. Right. Yeah, we...

Moving through city council right now, sponsored by council member Isaiah Thomas. He actually told us about this bill over the summer. It did. Yeah. So now it's happening. This was a resigned to run bill. So currently, you have to resign your seat on city council if you want to run for another position. Like mayor or Congress. Yes. In the state. in any any government exactly right so there was speculation that this was just a way of getting allowing city council members to keep their jobs while challenging the mayor in a reelection potentially so therefore you could like you know you don't have to worry about um giving up your seat you can run for mayor because in the last mayoral race a lot of people were resigning from their positions exactly and thomas told us that was bit of an issue, you know, you lose a lot of like institutional knowledge on city council, all these people resign because they want to be mayor. Okay. I see that argument. But the bill caused a bit of controversy because of this idea that, you know, all these city council members can challenge the mayor. So he has modified the bill. So it only applies to higher offices, not city offices. So that means that a city council member would not have to resign if... he or she wanted to, let's say, challenge a, you know, let's say John Fetterman in a Senate primary in a couple of years. Interesting. Listen, the next primary, which is just a few months away, it's going to be in. Interesting. Yes. You're not into politics. You better learn it now because it's going to be crazy. Okay. Let's shift things and talk about food. All right. Okay. So did you see that article that came out? that just like hours after several Philly restaurants were getting either a Michelin Star, they were either getting recognition from this guide, a restaurant called Laurel in South Philly is closing. Yeah. Laurel was one of the recommended restaurants and the Michelin Guide that we mentioned in Wednesday's show. They had been planning to close as of the summer, and they said this Michelin recognition is not going to change that. And the owners want to open a new spot in Rittenhouse. So kind of sad. It is said. So they're having like their final meal at this location tonight. Seven courses, $150 per person, chef Nick Elmi and chef Kevin McWilliams. I know. I was relieved, honestly. You were relieved? Yeah. Why? Because I've never been there. And now like it's one less restaurant. I need to cross off my list and my quest to hit all the Michelin spots. You know what? This week really taught me that.

Food is serious in Philly. Sure, we see all the, you know, the foodies on social media telling us where to eat and stuff. But there is such a rich and beautiful community of diverse and really smart. chefs and and food curators and they take food seriously. They do. And there are celebrities. There are celebrities. You know, I mean, it used to be in this town that the celebrities, the Philebrities, the Philly celebrities. Oh, you said philebrities. Food celebrities. No, I meant like fake celebrities. Like Philadelphia celebrities. Oh, Ph. H. Ph. Yeah. They used to say the only celebrities in this town were the newscasters on TV. And that's still sort of the case. But that era has somewhat subsided. Jim Gardner's gone, et cetera, et cetera. Hurricane Schwartz, he retired, right? Oh, yeah. So now our celebrities, our local, local celebrities are our chefs and our restaurant owners. You know, your Chad and Hannah Williams from Friday, Saturday and Sunday who won a star. Nicholas Bazick and his wife, Eubin, who owned Providence, who got one of the other stars from Michelin. And Amanda Shulman, Alex Brian Kemp, from her Played Supper Club. Who rung the bell at the Sixers game this week? I was like, Oh, you're at the game. Yes, yes. On Wednesday night. Amazing. How cool is that? So, yeah, you're right. Yeah, they are our celebrities. Is celebrities? Fileberties. Fileberties. You know, with the pH. Yeah. So, yes, it was really amazing week for our local food scene, our local, local celebrities to be recognized with these Michelin Awards. Like I said, like three one stars, which is amazing acknowledgement of just the extraordinary food that those three restaurants are putting out every day. And then we had... 10 restaurants that got Bib Gourmans, which means they produce excellent food at moderate prices. And then 21 more were recognized as destinations that people should go to from out of town. Well, speaking with that whole celebrity thing, a big name in Philly is Stephen Starr. Yeah, totally snubbed. I love his restaurants. And yet, nothing. None of his places. I've been to Tallulah's Garden, Tallulah's Daly. I've been to Park. I've been to The Love. And none of those places were recognized by Michelin. Elvese? Incredible. How about Barclay Prime? Oh, yeah, Barclay Prime. He's got 20 spots here.

He's our most prolific, probably a most, like, famous restaurant owner for sure in the city. And none of his spots were even acknowledged. But the food critics in the inquire said that sometimes, like, they did mention Barclay Prime, for example. They said that, like, the Michelin Guide doesn't really tend to go usually with steakhouses. It's other types of cuisine. Right. But yeah. And then Stephen Starr's, we got. worse because Craig LeBan, who's our city's most important restaurant reviewer for the Inquirer, he came out with a brand new review at the end of the week of the biggest restaurant opening of the year, and that's Stephen Starr's $20 million, 320 seat, written house square Italian spot Boromini. What did he say? The review was not good. There's this 100-layer lasagna, and that's like the signature dish at Baramini. And Craig wrote, it's intricate ridges are beautiful to behold, but to eat, this lasagna is more like a doorstop than a showstopper. The layers are so tightly compressed. It's closer to a muddled mush than a deck of delicate harmonies. a squeegee blur of cheese and dough whose individual virtues could have been more compelling conveyed in 10 layers rather than 100. Okay, before you move on to keep going with this review. You know, in the era of reviews, because if we don't like something, we will go straight to Google, write a review to about a restaurant, right? A lot of people aren't as compelled to write something if they loved it. Or we'll hitch social media and complain and things like that. I'm not saying that this is not a fair review. What I'm saying is I wonder what do we do in this era of reviews versus feedback? Oh, yeah. Right? Because like, God forbid you give feedback when, I mean, like a lot of us give feedback, you know, in our yearly reviews at work or whatever. Sure. And sometimes it's fair. feedback like, hey, maybe you should do this more. Maybe you should do that less. And my question then is, is this? Fair feedback. 100%. And Craig Laban has a history of giving feedback to restaurants in a way that sometimes leads them to improve or 86 dishes that are on the menu. It's public feedback. It's public feedback. That's the nature of it. But it has worked. I mean, it's also resulted sometimes in restaurants closing because his reviews can be so powerful. But it's helpful feedback. And I would...

Bet that Stephen Starr is talking to his chefs today about how to fix this lasagna. Tightened up on the lasagna. Yeah. Yeah. And he also says the jammy tomato sauce. It leans sweet rather than bright and lively. So, I mean, it's another piece of feedback. He did like, I should say, in all fairness, the Ficcaccia de Rekko and the Sicilian lifeguard coloramata with Kalarari and Golden Raisins. Speaking of feedback, Can someone explain to me if you go to the Michelin Guide website? Please explain to me why Delisandro's thumbnail keeps changing. And the picture is not of a cheese steak or the building, but it's a stock photo of a table set for like a fancy indoor dining. This is on the Michelin website? Yes, it's changed twice this week. Did they go to the wrong restaurant? That's not like, is there another Delisandros that we don't know? Because we both had issues with them putting DeLessandro's cheese sticks on the Michelin Guide because they're not good. Go to, like I said. I want to roll down the window on Henry Avenue and say, go to Chubbies. Right. So my feedback is change the stock photo, please. Yeah, come on, guys. Please. All right. We'll be back after this short break.

All right. Let's talk about what we're doing this weekend. Funny enough, I'm going to Burmini. Give me your feedback when I see you on Monday morning. It's my daughter's birthday. Yay. Happy birthday, Sadie. And so, and she loves food, and she loves Stephen Starr restaurants. I am not going to tell her about the Craig Laban review. I don't want to give her any negative thoughts before we go in there. I might steer her away from ordering the 100-layer lasagna. I'm going to do that. Very much looking forward to that. Are you going to be running? I'm not. My running days are over. Yeah, my knees. But a lot of Philadelphians are going to be running this weekend. It is the Philadelphia Marathon weekend. Things are kicking off today and through Sunday. 35,000 runners are expected. This race started in 1994 with 1,500 runners. It's now one of the biggest marathons in the country. Runners go through Fairmont Park, neighborhood streets. You finish at the rocky steps. Totally cool. We wish all the runners the best, and we wish... Tons of luck to anybody who's going to be trying to drive around town any time this weekend because the street closures, particularly around the center city area, are going to be freaking terrible. Yeah. And remember, next week is the Thanksgiving Day parade. So it's a lot of set up around Aiken's overall area. And it's the half marathon on Saturday and then the full marathon on Sunday, right? Yep. If you can, though. at night. Check out Luma Nature at the Philadelphia Zoo. This is when the zoo lights up for the holiday season that started this week and it runs until January 3rd. I love going to this event with the kids. They would say like funky stuff. They've got like Christmas trees with like flamingos hanging out of it. It is so cool. Nice. Awesome. Check it out. Great. And one of the things this weekend, we're hanging out on Saturday. We are? Oh, you didn't know that. Ugh. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha We're going to go to the Art Star Craft Bazaar. Yes. 80 vendors. And we'll be there. We have a little bit of swag to give out. If you come by, tell us to listen to the show. We'll give you something. And we are really looking forward to doing a little shopping too. They got homemade gifts. There's like 80-something vendors. There's food. It's at the event center at Rivers Casino. It's both days this weekend, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

And we'll be there like Saturday afternoon. So come check us out. Yeah, make sure you're there at 11 and make sure you come at 3 because they're giving out free totes. Oh, nice. But it's limited, so hurry up. Also, before we go, we have some CityCast-Filly neighbors. Welcome Bethany W. and Tom C. Hey, neighbor. You can also join Bethany and Tom and all of our other neighbors. because they're all getting great perks, like invites to members-only events. And I will shout out your favorite business, whatever you want. So go over to membership.citycast.fm. Matt, I can't wait until this weekend. It's going to be fun. See you tomorrow, Renee. And happy birthday, Sadie. Thanks. I'll pass along the message. That's all for us today here on CityCast Philly. Our executive producer is Matt Katz. Our producer is Abby Fritz. Our Hey Philly newsletter editors are Ciani Cologne and Adrian Gonzalez. And our host is me, Trunaynery. Music is by Philly's own Interminable with additional music from all the kimonos. If you enjoy the show, share this with your friend, your neighbor, your mother-in-law. Also, rate the show, leave us a review and subscribe to our morning newsletter, Hey, Philly. We'll be back Monday morning with more news from around the city. Have a great weekend and be safe, y'all. Bye.