OUT & ABOUT: Ori Feibush Takes Aim At 2nd Dist.

By Denise Clay

While everyone’s eyes will be on the folks hoping to occupy the Big Chair on City Hall’s 2nd floor, there are a few hot races that will be happening among the folks that work on the 4th floor, otherwise known as City Council.

Of those council races, the one that’s drawing the most attention is the 2nd Dist. battle between incumbent City Councilman Kenyatta Johnson and developer Ori Feibush.

Developer Ori Feibush says “I can do a much better job than the current Councilman.”

While many believe the heightened tensions in this race are due to, well, race, it appears, at least to me, that this race is more about the future of the district. Who gets to stay in it and who can’t afford to.

I sat down with Johnson and Feibush earlier this week to talk about their campaigns and their competing visions of the Second District. For the next two weeks, I’ll share what I’ve learned with you.

First up, Ori Feibush.

Feibush came to the Point Breeze section of the 2nd Dist. in late 2005, a developer looking for places to build and jobs to create, he said. He’s a Temple grad (but then again, who isn’t?) who grew up in Montgomery County.

Working with then-Councilwoman Anna Verna, he was able to clean some vacant lots, fix up some of the blighted parts of Point Breeze, and create small businesses.

He decided to run because he sees some things that need to be done in the district, things that aren’t being done right now.

“I feel that I can do a much better job than the current Councilman,” Feibush said. “If you look at challenges and the issues in the 2nd District, you’ll find that I have better, more pragmatic solutions to our problems. If you compare my approach and vision to his, mine is better.”

So I challenged this notion by asking about his vision on the one topic that this column will be focused on throughout campaign season: education. The first thing citizens need to realize is that certain things, like a revision of the school-funding formula, that City Council can advocate for, but not much else, Feibush said.

But there are some things that Council can do when it comes to the School District of Philadelphia and one of those things is to make sure all schools are provided with the resources they need to provide a quality education to the students they serve, he said.

“While I agree that Philadelphia doesn’t get its fair share in education funding from Harrisburg, we should make sure that the funding we do have is appropriated to every school. It’s not acceptable to me that our poorest schools are the schools with the least resources.”

One way to change this is by getting rid of a few things.

“[The City] needs to sell every single one of its blighted properties,” Feibush said. “We could take that money and give it to parent groups so that they can use it to help our kids.”

Now, the first time that I saw the name “Ori Feibush” was in a Philadelphia Inquirer story about the opening of OCF Coffee House in Point Breeze. It was a coffee shop and would probably create some new jobs, but neighbors weren’t impressed.

In fact, what stood out to me in that story was a quote from one of the residents nearby who said, and I’m paraphrasing, she’d rather have a drug dealer on the corner than this coffeehouse.

People like the residents of places like Grays Ferry and Point Breeze, people who are afraid of being priced out of their homes, are among the voters Feibush has to reach if he wants the investment he’s made in this campaign (he’s sold several of the buildings he owned in the city to finance it) to pay off.

How do you do that?

First of all, Feibush said, you can’t believe everything you read when it comes to how the neighborhood views him. The loudest voices are usually the ones that attract media attention, but they don’t speak for everyone, he said.

And secondly, residents are smart enough to see the current system isn’t working.

“I think everyone is aware that they deserve better; that the current system is failing them,” Feibush said. “They’re eager for a change, a seat at the table and new ideas. I’m willing to guide the conversation.”

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