District Attorney Seth Williams addresses the Frankford Civic Association meeting Thursday, March 4, 2010 inside Frankford Hospital. Image from Frankford Gazette

District Attorney Seth Williams will assign his assistant district attorneys to specific geographic areas to increase accountability and familiarity, according to his presentation at Thursday night’s Frankford Civic Association meeting, as reported by the Frankford Gazette.

The meeting also featured a series of updates from City Councilwoman Maria Sanchez’s office, including her hesitance to support Mayor Nutter’s proposed “soda tax.”

See video of Williams and other updates from Jimmy Smiley at the Gazette.

State Rep. Tony Payton at the February Frankford Civic meeting.

It has become something of a tradition at Frankford Civic Association meetings in the past year.

The first 15 or 20 minutes of the meetings, held in a conference room on the second floor of the old Frankford Hospital, are devoted to typical zoning issues, event announcements and new community concerns. Then something changes.

The meeting becomes more of a conversation and the topic is always the same: recovery homes.

True to form, it happened again Thursday night. Only three or four residents were in attendance, outnumbered by media and legislative aides and almost doubled by the association’s executive board, but the conversation was no less lively.

continue reading »

The futures of two large neighborhood institutions were discussed at Thursday’s Frankford Civic Association meeting.

First, the now vacant Salvation Army building, on Frankford Avenue near Unity Street, is up for sale, recycling residents’ fear over recovery homes that have beleaguered Frankford for years. Second, the latest chapter in the harried sale of the Frankford Y was announced, including a sale date that passed without action.

continue reading »

Frankford residents ask questions at the Dec. 3 Civic meeting about the proposal for the new Frankford Y.

A starry-eyed plan for reinvigorating the century-old Frankford Y has now lost the support of the civic association to whom the proposal was first presented.

Northwood Civic Association President Barry Howell, who presided over the November meeting of his neighborhood group that featured the announcement that a for-profit group would purchase the cherished, nonprofit community center, stood up at Thursday night’s Frankford Civic Association meeting and addressed the issue aggressively.

“I sense a rat,” Howell said, to chatters of approval from the 16 residents and 10 Frankford board members in attendance. “They fed us Disney World, but this ain’t Disney World.” continue reading »

Resident frustration over what some called a lack of enforcement of a variety of issues became the central theme of last night’s Frankford Civic Association meeting.

“If this were Center City Philadelphia, we wouldn’t have any of these problems,” said Galen Ettinger of the 1800-block of Ruan Street. Watch video of the meeting exchange below.

continue reading »

The backyard of Frankford resident Majorie Rivera's neighbors, where she says she's seen drug deals take place.

It was early afternoon on Feb. 28, 2009 when Frankford resident Marjorie Rivera got an unexpected scene. She was getting ready to celebrate her wedding anniversary with her husband when they noticed a moving van outside of their two-story home. That chilly February day would be the first time Rivera would learn that the house next door was being turned into a recovery home for men.

As a mother of two daughters and aunt of many nieces, Rivera panicked as the thought of living right next to a recovery home settled into her brain.

“I’m thinking, ‘Oh wow, I got problems. These are all men. Recovery home? Well that’s for drugs. And don’t courts usually send people to them? What if these guys did something?’ I don’t want that next door to me,” she said. continue reading »

The Frankford Civic Association board at its Oct. 1, 2009 meeting at the Frankford Hospital.

The 15th police district is often unresponsive to resident concerns about quality of life crimes, particularly so-called recovery homes, according to an impassioned call to action from state Rep. Tony Payton’s chief of staff at last night’s Frankford Civic meeting.

“We have to harass the police to get them to harass the criminals,” said Jorge Santana, Payton’s top legislative staffer.

Santana’s call came after another of the neighborhood’s monthly civic meetings broke down into a open venting of frustration over the ongoing battle with private boarding houses that are known citywide for selling themselves as places of recovery for people suffering from an array of addictions and instead devolving into havens for drug activity.

continue reading »

Frankford residents are worried the owner of 1734 Harrison St., whom they say is currently housing 29 people, is disregarding zoning laws. Photo by Christopher Wink.

Roughly 10 people showed up for last night’s Frankford Civic Association meeting – an unusually low turnout, as some attending members mentioned – to hear the latest on several zoning issues in the neighborhood.

Four properties in the neighborhood are all on the group’s list of ongoing, resolved and upcoming zoning issues. continue reading »

There will be a Frankford Civic Association meeting tonight at Aria Health’s Frankford Hospital at Frankford Avenue and Wakeling Street in the second floor conference room. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m., and lasts until 8 p.m.

The Frankford Gazette has the minutes from last night’s civic association meeting. Among the topics covered were recovery houses, zoning issues and and recent crime complaints.