Dena Ferrara Driscoll

Protecting sources of drinking water, in our case the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, is crucial to the health and safety of our citizens. To do so, the city of Philadelphia must take a combination of preventive measures, including protecting our watershed, preventing pollution, controlling runoff, regular water quality monitoring, and emergency planning. This weekend we witnessed the abject failure of the last — but highly crucial — part of its responsibility.

Access to public pools may seem as if it has little to do with gun violence and community safety, but public pools are not just a nice thing or a perk. They provide a safe place for recreation. In a city where hundreds of people are killed each year, keeping an indoor public pool open could make a lifesaving difference. That’s why the Philadelphia Board of Education should reverse its decision and reopen Sayre-Morris Pool as soon as possible.

As Congress negotiates the next big coronavirus relief package, it is clearer than ever that a sustained investment in Pennsylvania’s public transit systems, including SEPTA, is absolutely vital to our region’s recovery. Funding for public transit in Pennsylvania can be described best as a series of band-aid fixes with no long term solutions. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, PA’s transit funding mechanisms were already in a tenuous state.