We the people of the neighborhoods of Philadelphia, in order to form a more perfect city, hereby assert the following rights to be our own. In pursuit of happiness as guaranteed by the founding document of the United States, the people of Philadelphia shall be entitled to responsible, respectful and reasonable government which protects our interests, defends our quality of life, and works to advance our collective will.

Because our families, our lives, our fortunes, and our futures are directly linked to the health and well-being of our City and her communities, we declare these rights to be fundamental.

We hereby pledge to work toward positive change, engage our leaders, and give our neighbors and ourselves reasons to stay in Philadelphia.

Furthermore, we pledge to share our vision of change with public servants, fellow civic leaders, and communities not represented here today, the twenty eighth of January, two thousand three.

Our public education system shall be designed to offer quality education options for every family in every neighborhood of Philadelphia. This system should encourage parents to utilize their neighborhood schools, discouraging attendance at schools outside of their neighborhood. When a neighborhood is not utilizing its public schools, a task force formed of community members should decide how to make these schools attractive to the community. This task force shall be composed of members of the civic group in whose boundaries the school sits, and shall be able to work with the administration and public officials of that school to bring the community back in. The task force shall also be composed of parents of school-aged children who do not attend the neighborhood public school. New charter schools in elementary and secondary education shall continue to be created and funded by the system, in order to serve more neighborhoods.

The Philadelphia public school system shall maintain their properties, institute strict disciplinary codes that are aggressively enforced, and raise standards of classes and professional standards of teachers. The system shall work to negotiate terms with teachers that require staff development and permit principals to have greater control in personnel decisions and curriculum.

The public schools shall be part of their neighborhoods. They shall reach out to their communities, and operate in the best interests of their neighbors. An advisory committee shall be formed consisting of representation chosen by the civic group(s) surrounding each school. This committee should have direct input toward such issues as evening classes, recreational facilities, use of the building for meetings, dismissal of students, truancy, and any other issue that impacts the local community. The use of school buildings shall be provided at no charge for community meetings and events. Schools shall be open later in the day. When new administrative staffs are to be assigned or interviewed, a representative from the civic group(s) that the school serves shall sit on the committee to interview and decide on the principal and assistant principal. Public schools should be an integral part of every community and every community should be an integral part of our public schools.

Our municipal agencies shall be designed to minimize work duplication, maximize the efficient delivery of services and streamline procedures to improve productivity. A legislative committee should be formed to study the size of government and make recommendations on which agencies could merge, streamline duties and incorporate workloads. Our municipal government agencies shall take a customer-service approach to the delivery of city services and instruct employees on proper customer service procedures.

Our police force shall be on our streets in residential areas and commercial corridors. A community-oriented policing strategy should be encouraged. Visibility shall be a regular element of crime fighting efforts. There should be limits and controls on handgun sales, safety locks and reasonable waiting periods. A strategy to effectively deal with drugs in our communities and schools should be developed and executed.

Our elected officials shall protect the physical qualities that make Philadelphia great: its historic streets and architecture and its intimate, human-scaled neighborhoods, and its magnificent parks and urban squares. We oppose the destruction of our urban fabric for the benefit of the automobile. Our government shall consider the needs of pedestrians and public transit first. We discourage the building of parking garages in Center City that destroy the streetscape and hurt economic development. Any new above-ground parking facilities should incorporate street-level retail or other "liner" buildings, minimize curb-cuts and driveways, relate to the human scale and pedestrian life of the city, and be carefully planned as part of the surrounding neighborhood.

Our city’s Blight Initiative shall include open communication and input from our neighborhoods with regular updates and government liaisons. The Blight Initiative shall also include a detailed plan to build sustainable communities with an economic development strategy for creating and maintaining job growth.

Our Parking Authority shall be reasonable in its enforcement. Studies shall be conducted to measure the effectiveness of the Authority. Selective enforcement shall be prohibited. Other measures to deal with the parking concerns of many neighborhoods should include commuter parking garages in outlying areas, resident-only parking in selected communities, the promotion of car share companies and municipal parking garages complementing commercial development.

Our Department of Licenses and Inspections shall work more closely with neighborhoods on zoning issues and code enforcement. Communities shall be empowered to develop uniform preservation guidelines and preferred materials in their neighborhoods and our City government shall help these communities enforce these guidelines. Our leaders shall support zoning codes that maintain urban standards of building, rather than suburban building typologies that alienate the pedestrian and create wastelands of concrete. It shall be the goal of the municipal government to improve the enforcement rates of building and zoning code violations.

Our government shall work toward relinquishing all non-essential real estate holdings to private developers and initiate a plan to turn the Philadelphia Gas Works over to private operators.

Our elected public servants shall work to reduce the municipal wage tax. These reductions shall be implemented reasonably to minimize any adverse impact on the delivery of services to our neighborhoods, but must be meaningful in size to encourage a more effective government and a growing population.

Our municipal government shall reform the way in which all real estate is assessed and taxed. The assessment system shall be transparent, standardized and universal. Tax reformation should favor residential property owners, discourage blight and under-developed lots, and encourage the best possible use of land.

Our leaders shall implement a property tax system that rewards the preservation of older buildings, instead of one that punishes homeowners who improve their properties. Therefore we support the exploration of taxation alternatives that include a gradual shift of the Philadelphia property tax burden away from buildings and toward land value.

Our leaders shall support the Tax Reform Commission, whose creation was overwhelmingly approved by the residents of the City of Philadelphia. Further, we stand in full support of the Tax Compact, which asks for community voices to be heard in the tax debate and asks that action be taken to revitalize the fragile economic conditions of our City.

Leaders shall reflect the values of the people they serve. Therefore, we the people of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods ask that our elected officials sign a Pledge of Ethical Conduct that includes the following items that we deem necessary to become law:

No public servant shall be permitted to use campaign funds for any activity that fails to directly impact the outcome of an election.

There shall be a reasonable cap, set by the City Council, on all individual campaign contributions.

Public servants shall be required to fully disclose all real estate purchases at the time of purchase and all prior holdings at least once a year. Disclosure shall include purchase price, seller’s identity and description of the parcel.