In 195th Dist., Bullock Sticks To Community

by Tony West
Passionate about community.
That describes the career of attorney Donna Bullock, the Democratic nominee for State Representative in the Aug. 11 special election for the 195st Legislative Dist., which covers parts of North and West Philadelphia.

Donna Bullock … chose to stick with Strawberry Mansion.

Bullock went to Temple’s Beasley School of Law because, in her words, she “wanted to save the world.” There she became excited by corporate and tax law and to become one of philadelphia tax attorneys – because she saw ways these skills could be used to help community nonprofits.
“Schools, child-care centers, civic associations need to be free to act without worrying about legalities and accidentally stepping on land mines,” she explained.
After serving this field at Community Legal Services and with a private law firm, Bullock was hired by City Council President Darrell Clarke four years ago. In his office she worked on a range of projects, many of them surrounding affordable housing. Clarke’s signature Workforce Housing Initiative, launched last month, which aims to retain middle-income residential choices in rapidly appreciating neighborhoods, bears Bullock’s fingerprints.
Bullock is married to another passionate community workers, Otis Bullock, whose Diversified Community Services, serves the Point Breeze and Newbold neighborhoods in South Philadelphia.
These young professionals, with their two children, make their home in Strawberry Mansion, a community not known for young professionals. But that is a deliberate choice on their part.
“I grew up in a New Jersey neighborhood that had a lot of challenges,” Bullock said. Everybody told me, ‘You’re so smart, you should move out of here.’ But we wanted to be a part of a neighborhood where we could give back. give back – not just by buying a home but by investing our time.”
The Bullocks are active in school volunteering and mentoring. “But it’s also important just sitting on the porch talking,” she said. “I like to engage with neighbor kids and identify college or trade-school opportunities identifying colleges; also to encourage young people to become civically engaged, sweep the block, show pride in themselves and their neighborhood.”
Bullock is proud of her block. “We’re the professionals,” she noted. There is some PHA scattered-site low-income housing on it. But we also have a SEPTA bus driver, a corrections officer, a nurse’s aide. We all share a block sense of unity. It shows how strong a community can be.”
An important part of her community is Fairmount Park. Her seven-year-old Malcolm is a proud conservationist and a birder, a self-styled “wildlife warrior” who is always in the park or at the zoo.
Bullock has embarked on an unusual political campaign, in the dead of summer, when few people are paying attention to public affairs.
“This isn’t traditional door-knocking,” she explained. “I’m meeting people where they are, wherever I can find them – at pool openings, block parties.”
Her first challenge, she has discovered, is to get voters to believe there actually is an election. “I tell them first and foremost to vote on Aug. 11; and secondly, vote for me.”
Bullock will face a Republican, Adam Lang, and a write-in candidate, Judith Robinson.
“It is important for people to learn it’s important for me to get their vote, and that I am there to serve,” she said.
If elected next month, Bullock will likely plunge into the simmering cauldron of Harrisburg, where a protracted struggle over the state budget is expected to be approaching a climax – with lots at stake for North and West Philadelphians.
“I’ll have to jump right into it,” Bullock shrugged. “No rest for the weary.”

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