AmericaSpeaks: Our Budget, Our Economy:

Philadelphia, with PPCE as chair of the local organizing efforts, was host to a national conversation on the federal budget deficit. On Saturday, June 26, more than 3500 people gathered across nineteen cities and 40 volunteer-organized community conversations around the United States to find common ground on tough choices about our federal budget.

As host city, the attention was on Philadelphia, where we recruited more than 520 registrants from a cross-section of the city and suburbs, reflecting the demographic geographic and political diversity of the Philadelphia region.  Participants in the national deliberations developed some common ground perspectives and priorities for reducing the Federal deficit.

Preliminary results were presented to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform on June 30 and the interim report was presented to Congress on July 27, 2010.

AmericaSpeaks website

Green2015: An Action Plan for 500 New Acres of Open Space

PPCE, working with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and PennPraxis, held a series of six public forums for over 200 people across the city to provide input to the Department of Parks and Recreation on how to fulfill the Mayor’s goal of creating 500 acres of public green space in Philadelphia. The principles will build on residents views of how green space contributes to urban life, what more public green space would mean to their community and how best to meet the Mayor’s goal. A final city-wide meeting is scheduled for October of 2010.

Plan Philly's Green 2015 initiative

Delaware Governor Race

We are working with WHYY to design and implement a series of 3 workshops around the state of Delaware to put citizen concerns and issues in the center of the fall 2010 elections to the US Senate and House of Representatives. The workshops will focus on identifying those issues that are of top concern to Delawareans and form the basis for news coverage and a possible Citizens Convention in the fall, leading up to broadcast debates in the fall.

Continuing Conversation on Health Care Reform

PPCE will help WHYY plan and stage a series of public forums exploring the implications and unanswered questions in the new federal health care bill. These events will include a mix of citizen dialogue and expert panel discussion. Forums are being planned for New Jersey, Philadelphia and Pennsylvania suburbs. One goal is to improve public understanding of emerging issues in the evolution of Federal health care policy while providing feedback to elected officials.