Since taking office in 2008, Bill has focused his work in City Council on accountability and fiscal discipline, constituent service, and quality of life for city residents. Among other initiatives, he:

• successfully sued the City to prevent the permanent closure of 11 neighborhood library branches receiving a court order still in effect;

• identified over $350 million in budget savings – including through using technology and retirements/attrition to reduce the size of the city’s workforce – as alternatives to tax increases; successfully prevented a series of proposed regressive tax increases; and pressed for a more transparent budget process;

• serves on Philadelphia’s Criminal Justice Advisory Board (CJAB), whose collaborative efforts over the past several years have resulted in the prison population being reduced from 9,800 in 2009 to under 7,400 last month; $25 million/year in savings due to increased efficiencies in the criminal justice system; and a series of cross-agency reforms that have improved the administration of justice;

• introduced and passed legislation to abolish the Board of Revision of Taxes, create two new agencies to take over property tax assessment and appeals for the City of Philadelphia, and bring much needed governance reform, professionalism, and standard-setting to Philadelphia’s property tax system (this change has been attempted since Mayor Joe Clarke was in office in the early 1950s);

• introduced significant business tax reform legislation to eliminate the net income tax, which puts Philadelphia-based firms at a competitive disadvantage; disproportionately hurts small businesses; creates a major barrier to profitable firms locating in, growing, and staying in the city; and violates basic tax structure principle (broad base/low rate >>> small base/high rate);

• passed significant campaign finance and ethics reform legislation, including requiring lobbyists to register with the city and disclose their lobbying efforts, which was supported by the Board of Ethics, the Committee of Seventy, and other key stakeholders;

• wrote and released a detailed policy paper analyzing the state of education in the City and recommending 30-plus action items to improve early childhood education, expand school choice, enhance the quality of teaching and instruction, improve the condition of school facilities, and create merit scholarships for college;

• introduced and passed legislation that banned handheld cell phone use and texting while driving within Philadelphia, addressing a public safety and quality of life concern for residents;

• introduced and passed legislation that enabled the City’s Historical Commission to protect historically significant public interior spaces bringing us in line with every other major city in the country;

• introduced and passed legislation designed to clean up city streets and commercial corridors through more efficient and stricter regulation of dumpsters; and

• played an integral role in helping to save Philadelphia’s citywide wireless network, which will allow us to increase police presence on the street by 20% without increasing manpower and can be used to help take a chunk out of the significant digital divide existing in Philadelphia (over 45% of citizens lack internet access at home).