This is it?
It is incredible that Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. claims “to be following the rules,” adding 720 students back to the school district’s enrollment list. After all the stories by Inquirer education reporter Kristin A. Graham about the issues around attendance in the Philadelphia School District, this is what the superintendent comes up with?
Karel Kilimnik, Philadelphia
Fiscal stability
No one wants to see Chester emerge from receivership more than I do. But after decades of financial distress, success cannot be measured by how quickly state oversight ends. It must be measured by whether Chester can govern itself sustainably afterward.
That is the distinction missing from the recent letter from Chester Water Authority Chair Noel Brandon — who is not a resident of the city of Chester. Since 2020, the city has made meaningful progress toward financial stability and stronger governance. Among its most significant accomplishments are adopting a new ethics policy and transparency practices to restore residents’ faith in government. The city also appointed professional department heads, rescued insolvent pension funds, invested in new fire trucks and essential equipment, and advanced long-standing financial audits — improvements to city operations that lay the foundation for a stronger government.
There is still work to be done. Chester’s challenges developed over decades and cannot be resolved by setting an arbitrary end date. As the receiver for the city, my responsibility is not to deliver the fastest possible exit from receivership, but to ensure Chester achieves a lasting recovery.
Chester residents deserve a financially stable, transparent, and accountable government that can serve them for generations to come. That is what we are working toward, and what will ultimately make the end of receivership a success.
Vijay Kapoor, receiver for the city of Chester
Citywide infestation
I was pleased to see that City Council recently passed an emergency resolution urging city departments to treat a reported rat infestation in the Mayfair neighborhood as a public health and quality-of-life emergency. The only problem is that this public health crisis is not unique to Mayfair. I live in a West Philadelphia neighborhood that has experienced a recent explosion in the local rat population because of excavation work by various city agencies over the last several years, ongoing problems with abandoned food-related businesses on Baltimore Avenue, improperly secured trash and illegal dumping, and private properties falling into disrepair. It’s gotten noticeably worse in the past few months. You can’t go out at night without seeing multiple rats, and a dead rat turns up on our block at least once a week. I imagine if this is happening in the Northeast and West parts of the city, it’s probably happening in lots of other neighborhoods, too. The city did an amazing job cleaning up high-profile areas where big events occurred this summer. I’d love to see that kind of coordinated energy applied to addressing the rat problem citywide — it threatens the health and quality of life of the residents who live here all year round.
Irene Lin, Philadelphia
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