Jon Geeting for Democratic City Committee Person

City Paper's Ryan Briggs shares my map in an article explaining why these little races are such an important opportunity for reformers frustrated with Philadelphia's old-school politics to make an impact. You may not realize it, but the Mayoral and City Council elections really start right now, with these committeeperson races. The people who elect the ward leaders this year will have some extra influence over who gets elected to City Council and the Mayor's office next year:

Jon Geeting, a local blogger (and a freshly minted City Paper columnist), recently published a map showing every unoccupied or unopposed committeeperson seat in Philadelphia. Committeepeople form the rank and file of the local branch of the Democratic party, and they vote to select political ward leaders. Ward leaders are important, because they vote on important political decisions, like who will fill sudden vacancies in city council seats.

It's not hard to become a committeeperson. Geeting gathered 50 signatures (five times the required amount) to get on the ballot in his own electoral division in South Philly, where past committeepeople were elected by just 62 voters.

When I last popped in here, I didn't know yet whether my petitions would be challenged, and so I'm happy to report that they weren't.

Petition challenges are still making their way through in other divisions, but in my area it looks like there are 3 people running for Committeeperson in my division, 02-19. In many divisions though, no one is running, or only one person is.

That's too bad since each division is supposed to have two Democratic committeepeople. What happens if nobody runs is that the Ward Leader from that ward gets to appoint people to the slots, rather than registered Democratic voters making the selection.

In the seats with fewer than 2 candidates, I'd like to see people run some write-in campaigns. You can probably win these seats with just a handful of people writing your name in, or maybe even just yourself!

This morning I took my 50 signatures (5x as many as I need to get on the ballot) down to City Hall to the County Board of Elections in Rm. 142.

On the way, I stopped to say hello to my new friend Tracey Gordon in Stephanie Singer's office, who snapped a photo of me with my petitions next to the ward map. 

Tracey gave me a flyer for the event on March 19th, where I'll play the ballot position lottery. The first position on the ballot is so powerful because these are such low information races that you routinely see people at the top of the ballot line, or with a last name toward the beginning of the alphabet, dominate these elections. That's why ballot position is determined by random chance.

After this I went over to Rm. 142 and turned in my petitions. The man behind the counter looked them over, and then gave me this receipt, confirming that they received my petitions:

Then on the way out I stopped by Stephanie Singer's office again to grab a fat stack of voter registration forms, because I have to go back to about 10 houses before the April 21st registration deadline and get some more likely Geeting voters registered.

Tomorrow is the last day to file petitions to get on the ballot for the May 20th primary, and I'm pretty happy with my haul.

I knew I wouldn't have time to circulate petitions today because my new blog was launching this morning, so I put in my last couple hours of canvassing yesterday afternoon to get my final tally up to 50 signatures.

I got my first 10 signatures in the first hour of the first day I went out, but I wanted to get a lot more signatures than that for two reasons:

1. Somebody could try to challenge my petitions. I looked them all up in the street list afterward and I'm confident that at least 40 of them are good. I met a few people walking their dogs who said they lived in the division, but when I checked it turned out some of them didn't :( It's easy to get bad signatures like this apparently, which is one reason why the success rate for challenging signatures is high - a bit less than 50% according to my law student friend Jake. But I can say with confidence that anyone who tries to challenge my signatures is going to be wasting their time and money.

2. Signature gathering doubles as canvassing, and it's easier to collect information when you actually need it for a petition than when you're just canvassing and asking people for their contact info. I copied all of the names and addresses I got into a spreadsheet, and I'm going to send all 50 of my petition signers a thank-you postcard with my name and contact info on it. That will be the second piece of "literature" they get from me, after my business card.

In the last election for this division, the top vote-getter was Donna Gaston, with 62 votes, so I know that I will need all 50 of those people to show up, plus another 15 or so, and I'm not taking any chances. By May 20th, I'll have at least 70 voters committed to voting for me. I am going to visit each of these people (and many more!) at least two more times between now and primary election day, so that every single one of them will remember my name when they go into the voting booth.

I also encountered about 8 likely Geeting voters who liked what I had to say but weren't registered to vote. As my first service as a committee person-in-waiting, I'm going to get them voter registration materials when I drop off my petitions at City Hall tomorrow morning, and then hand them in for them to make sure that they're registered and able to vote for me on May 20th. 

As a bonus, here's one of my favorite houses in the neighborhood, on S Delhi Street. It belongs to an architect, is a live-work space, and as you can see, the facade facing the street conceals a really cool modern building. This is the back of the building. As an architecture and real estate nerd, one of the best parts of signature-gathering has been getting to go in everybody's houses and scope out their digs. 

Albert at the Booman Tribune had a concise explanation in this post from back in 2006:

Committeepeople represent small Divisions. They vote for Ward Leaders who represent large groups of Divisions. The Ward Leaders in turn come together to vote for the County Chairman, currently [Bob] Brady. So, groups of Divisions with newbie committeepeople could be less likely to vote for their Ward Leader. If Ward Leaders get ousted [a very very tough process that Chris Bowers from MyDD accomplished out in West Philly] then Brady could ultimately lose his seat as Chairman.

I personally am not a huge fan of Bob Brady, and I like that our current Ward 2 leader Ed Nesmith has built some political power outside of Brady's purview.

Others may have counterexamples, but when I sat down with Mr. Nesmith a couple weeks ago to talk about the position, he explained that he is "not a Johnny Doc guy" and unlike some other ward leaders, he doesn't just do whatever Bob Brady or John Dougherty of Local 98 tells him to do.

So one thing you should know about me is that, from what I've heard so far, I am currently inclined to support Ed Nesmith for reelection as Ward Leader in Ward 2. That's the most important "position" you need to know about in these races.

My other positions are:

- Better Public Spaces - Quality Public Education - Cleaner, Safer Streets

I'll push candidates for office to take solid positions on those issues, but my main power will be the vote for Ward Leader, and that's what you should judge me and other committee people on.

If you have some info about Nesmith or other potential ward leaders that should factor into my vote, that would be very helpful. I've done a lot of Googling already, but I haven't found anything that would necessarily persuade me to vote otherwise.

Two things I like about Nesmith are that he helps local minority contractors get work in a city where they tend to get shut out of the biggest most lucrative projects, and that he's helped secure capital and maintainance money for lots of South Philly neighborhood parks. 

These are the kinds of areas where well-organized committee people and ward leaders can make a difference - by coming up with some key achievable policy demands, and asking the District Councilman (Kenyatta Johnson and Mark Squilla in our area), the At-Large Council members, the Mayor, and the state House and Senate members from our area to carry them out.

They have to listen to the ward leaders and the committee people, because the other key part of our job is turning out voters for our endorsed candidates. 

Don't like the same kinds of candidates that Bob Brady likes? Don't think the decision of who to replace Bill Green with on City Council should have anything to do with which 174th District House member will collect a pension sooner?

Here is a map of Ward 2. The division I am running in, 2-19, is up in the left hand corner.

The 19th division runs from 9th Street to Broad between Catharine and Christian, and juts up to Fitzwater between 9th and 10th. 

I live on 10th Street between Catharine and Christian, so I've gotten most of my signatures (25 so far) from around this area. Yesterday I started venturing over to the western side of the division.

I'm Jon Geeting. My wife Brooke and I live in a row house on 10th Street in Bella Vista, and I'm running to be your committee person in the 19th division.

Judging from the many conversations I've had with our neighbors while circulating petitions, lots of people still don't know exactly what a committee person, or the Ward Leader we elect, does.

So I'm going to do my best to change that by blogging the whole process of running for this position.

Tune in to this site daily, and you'll learn more about the process of running for committee person. You'll also learn about what a committee person does, and you'll definitely learn more about me.

And by the end of it, hopefully you'll decide you want me to do this job for the neighborhood.

I'll be using this Tumblr to supplement my off-line petition gathering and campaigning with observations, photos, and policy ideas.

You can use it to help me do a better job while I'm running for the position, and after I win.

Have a neighborhood issue you want to talk about? Ask me a question on this Tumblr and I'll do my best to give you my honest answer. I can't promise we'll always agree, but I'll listen to all perspectives, and I'm absolutely committed to making our neighborhood the best possible version of itself.