Mayor Cherelle Parker's clean, green initiative in motion, but will changes become permanent?
STRAWBERRY MANSION - Mayor Cherelle Parker has made cleaning up Philadelphia a major focus of her first months in office. Winning preliminary approval of her budget this week, she’s pouring millions of dollars into the effort. But will clean city blocks remain that way?
The message of a cleaner, greener Philadelphia is hard to miss in Strawberry Mansion. It blares from a Big Belly trash container at the corner of 29th and Lehigh.
Beverly Mitchell said, in her nearly 60 years living near this block, trash has been a concern that may now be changing, all-be-it slowly. She said, "I think she’s trying to do something. Our trash day is Thursday, but every Friday trash is back out there."
Mayor Cherelle Parker starts 'Clean and Green' initiative in walking tour of Strawberry Mansion
From trash to parking to troubled businesses, new leadership in Philly has their work cut out for them. Mayor Cherelle Parker says she's eager to get it done and shows what her clean and green initiative means.
It was the last Friday in February when the assault launched. Street sweepers and trash trucks invaded 29th and , led by the newly elected mayor and her staff. All part of Cherelle Parker’s promise to rid the city of its ugly moniker: Filthadelphia. More than three months later, and the block is largely free of trash. Mitchell said, "It looks a lot better, and if people do what they’re supposed to do, everybody does their part, it will be great.
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Parker is pouring millions of dollars in her new budget into her clean and green efforts. 29th and Lehigh seems to show the plan can work, but a fire in a troubled property can change that.
Small business owner Donna Bruce has burned properties on either side of her Lehigh Ave. business and said she could use a little help with the leftover debris left on the sidewalk after the fire. Bruce said, "I wish someone could come and remove that, yes. I’m the one who had to set it up against the property because whoever owns the building just left it there."