Derek Green Is Expert At Putting The Pieces Together

by Tony West
There isn’t much City Council has accomplished in the last dozen years without Derek Green’s input.

As chief counsel to influential 9th Dist. Councilwoman Marian Tasco, Green has helped assemble ground-breaking legislative packages like Philadelphia’s anti-predatory-lending initiative, which has become a model for other cities around the nation. His holistic grasp of many different policy areas has made him a leader in planning the budget – a mammoth project in which every public need must be made to fit together somehow.

“Commerce, education, the arts, all are important. And we’ve got to get it all done by Jul 1,” Green explained. “It has provided me with a broad perspective.”

DEREK GREEN … knows ways of City Hall.

Green grew up in Germantown. His father had come from North Carolina (they still own a family farm there) and went to Temple University night school. His mother was a schoolteacher at Olney HS. Their family’s pastor was close to the towering civil-rights figure Rev. Leon Sullivan. They have been attending Little Canaan Baptist Church all Derek’s life.

Green’s grandfather ran a gas station at 20th & Indiana and Derek also started out early in the private sector. Steven Bradley (now president of the African American Chamber of Commerce) ran a summer-internship program called “Inroads” that placed the young man in Meridian Bank. He rose to become assistant branch manager at Broad & Glenwood, ultimately specializing in small-business loans.

Green then went to Temple Law School, graduating in 1998. Thinking about banking law at first, he ended up working in securities, summering at the Securities & Exchange Commission in Philadelphia and in Delaware. The SEC gave him a taste of litigation; he liked it and took a job as Assistant District Attorney in the criminal division, where he worked alongside now-DA Seth Williams.

In 1999 he took a job with the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp., working with communities and economic development across the city. Then he worked for three years in the City’s Law Dept., rising to Deputy City Solicitor.

He’s still a small business man. His wife and he started a retail store in Mt. Airy: Soles, A Shoe Experience. So he feels the pain of any struggling entrepreneur in town.
“I know the Revenue Director and the Commerce Director personally, and I found the red tape of starting a business daunting,” he admitted. “Now imagine a young person facing the challenges of starting a business and trying to meet a payroll!”

Education is the most-important issue Green must tackle if he is elected City Councilman for 2016, he says. He grew up in a teacher’s family and wound up an activist in education when his son was diagnosed at an early age with autism. He helped put together an autism program at a neighborhood school.

Green calls the School District’s budget “very challenging.” He likes Gov. Tom Wolf’s weighted funding proposal but recognizes it will be a hard slog to sell it to the General Assembly. He wants to put together a coalition of local elected officials throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania, who are also staring at soaring school taxes, to take a bipartisan message to Harrisburg.

Green would like to revisit PGW, whose sale City Council spiked earlier this year. “I don’t think we should sell this asset but we can leverage it,” he said. He cites Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski’s public-private partnership as an example.

Green has been president of E. Mt. Airy Neighbors and served on the board of Mt. Airy USA, Center in the Park and the West Philadelphia YMCA.

Green has been endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, United Food & Commercial Workers Local 1776, and Clear Water Action. Green’s political expertise and his overall commitment in helping ameliorate all communities within Philadelphia, is the reason for receiving these endorsements. “Derek made the decision easy for us to endorse him, due to his knowledge about our issues and our interests as an organization,” stated FOP’s Gene Blagmond.

Wendell W. Young, IV, president of Local 1776, said, “We know through Derek’s experience and work on many important issues that he will be a strong member for Philadelphia’s working families in City Council.”

Other endorsements have come from AFSCME District Council 47, Gas Workers Local 686, Transport Workers Union Local 234 and the Fire Fighters’ Union Local 22.
“I have worked all over the city in many different capacities,” Green said. “I still do pro bono law once a month so I understand ordinary people’s problems. I have a lot of relationships all around the city and I am an expert on getting things done.”

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