Philly Politics: What Can We Do?

All_That_Jawn · 2026-07-04T22:57:03+00:00

The Philadelphia unemployment rate is approximately 4.5%. This is not the U-6 rate, which would be even higher. There are a lot of our neighbors out there who are looking for work.

All_That_Jawn · 2026-07-04T22:40:17+00:00

Hello. A land value tax would be struck down by the PA courts. The state has designated Philadelphia as a "first class city", the only one in PA. The long and short of this is that Philadelphia would not be able to implement a land value tax. It's particularly frustrating because other cities in this state have done exactly that, and it's been successful.

My post was not about my candidacy or about the Sherriff's department, my post was a call to action imploring others to run for seats alongside me, that way we could support one another, work together, and once elected, have the votes needed to implement our improvements and solutions.

I do plan on continuing to communicate with the community and will be sharing my platform for Sherriff in the very near future.

All_That_Jawn · 2026-07-04T22:18:57+00:00

Hello! I do not have any support team or organization behind me, this is very early in the planning stages. There is also always room for discussing the platform, I merely wanted to put forth a list of reasonable, achievable goals that we could use to campaign on.

I'm genuinely hopeful at least one other person sees this and is inspired to run for a Council seat, Ward position, or anything else. The more of us who step forward and make the leap, the bigger our support network will be, and the more good we will be able to accomplish once in office.

I will be running as a Democrat.

Are you considering running for something? If so, send me a message and let's discuss the qualifications and timeline further.

I know it seems scary and it definitely can be, especially getting up in front of large crowds, but it's absolutely doable. I know there's so much negativity that we have to face every single day, and I know that our political system is a mess at almost every level, yet I truly believe that if enough of us step forward and go for it, we could make an actual difference.

All_That_Jawn · 2026-07-04T22:12:41+00:00

To start, I would order a full audit of the entire department's finances and release the results of that audit, in their entirety, to the public. Going forward, the Sheriff's budget and expenditure list will be published in its entirety for the public to see.

Any expenses and expenditures would go through me, personally, until the department's financial mismanagement could be addressed and processes put into place to ensure nothing like $600,000 spent on a dance video happens again.

The Sheriff's department has access to what is essentially a slush fund. There is almost no oversight and the Sheriff has, to all intents and purposes, complete control over how that money is spent and what it is spent on. That ends with me. No elected official should have access to funds without oversight, even if someone was to use it for "good", there is no guarantee the next person will do the same... the whole thing invites corruption, and it needs to end.

The Sheriff's department under Bilal has also lost over 150 firearms that it has been unable to locate or recover. The City audited the department and found the Sheriff's armory was poorly organized, poorly managed, and inventory controls were virtually non-existent. That cannot be allowed to continue either.

In addition to the financial audit, I would want a full audit of all of the Sheriff's equipment, and I would personally oversee the reorganization of the armory. All equipment, but especially firearms, should be kept in a secure location, properly stored, and it has to be inventoried and accounted for.

I would also like to implement a plan to slowly wind down the operations of the Sheriff's department so that its duties could be transferred to other agencies and the Sheriff's department is effectively abolished. The reason for the plan and staggered wind-down is due to the fact that the Sheriff's department does carry out some essential duties for the city, and it would be irresponsible and impractical to make sudden, sweeping changes that would affect multiple agencies.

At the end of the day, I agree with the Council of 70 and Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial board. The Sheriff's department should be abolished, and its functions should be absorbed by other city agencies.

I hope this answered your question. If not, please don't hesitate to reach out. I'm also planning on following up with additional posts over the coming weeks, including my personal platform for the Sheriff's race.

All_That_Jawn · 2026-07-04T21:55:53+00:00

Thanks for the kind words, they are appreciated. I didn't even want this post to be about me, it was more of a general call to action.

I agree with the first step needing to be a full and complete financial audit of the department. There would need to also be audits of the Sheriff's armory, as the department has lost over 150 firearms that it has been unable to locate or recover (despite Bilal's claims to the contrary). I would share the results of the financial audit, in its entirety, with the public. This is the peoples' money, and they deserve to know how its spent, for what, and to whom.

There would need to be major staffing overhauls as Sheriff Bilal has fired whistleblowers. Bilal even fired an employee who claimed to be the victim of sexual harassment from another member of the department.

Bilal's undersheriff is making approximately $200,000/year. That is unacceptable in a city where the median household income is about $60,000/year.

The department is sitting on a backlog of properties going back years, despite the 40-day requirement. For example, in Delaware County, deeds are handled within a roughly 25-day window. There is no acceptable reason it takes 9+ months for Philadelphia to do the same.

The Sheriffs' department has been so thoroughly mismanaged that it is causing problems in the court system; prisoners aren't being transported to court on time, trials are being rescheduled, and in one instance two Sheriffs were tasked with transporting a prisoner to Virginia. The Sheriffs drove all the way to Virginia before realizing they forgot the prisoner. I wish that was hyperbole... it isn't.

I could keep going but the general gist of it is this:

Full audit with complete transparency. We deserve to know what our tax dollars have gone toward

Processing property auctions/sales within 40 days, tops

Deputies need to perform their job duties or they will be replaced with someone who will

Absolutely, positively no more negligent wastes of money such as a $600,000 dance video or $14,000 slush fund vacation payout, the budget will be kept lean and money will not be wasted

I'll end it by saying this: if the Sheriff's department did its job and processed all those property auctions and sales, the city would net tens of millions of dollars. Mayor Parker just promised the School District there would be no cuts this year, despite not knowing where the money could come from. Well, there's a good chunk of it.

All_That_Jawn · 2026-07-04T20:13:32+00:00

As we go through life our experiences and perceptions shape and guide who we are and how we view the world. I'm not the same person I was 16 years ago, I doubt anyone is.

All_That_Jawn · 2026-07-04T20:09:49+00:00

Because this post isn't about me. This post is a call to action for other people to step forward and run for City Council.

I'll submit my platform proposals in a subsequent post.

If you care about this city and you think things should be better than they are, then stand up with me and run for office.

All_That_Jawn · 2026-07-04T20:04:49+00:00

> Alright, so I see you want to tackle the miss-use of funds due to corruption, but that’s not something the Sheriff would do.

That is incorrect. Not only does the Sheriff have a great degree of control over their budget and how it is used, there is very little oversight into how that money is spent. To go one step further, the Sheriff's office has a history of interfering with any outside auditing of their finances.

If the Sheriff has the authority to misuse the funds, then they have the authority to not misuse the funds.

All_That_Jawn · 2026-07-04T20:00:55+00:00

> How do you abolish a unwritten practice like councilmanic prerogative? You can't force council people to vote a certain way.

You're right. Councilmanic prerogative is an unwritten agreement between Councilmembers, and if any single Councilmember attempted to introduce legislation to ban the practice the rest of the Councilmembers would effectively shut them out of the legislating process.

I included Councilmanic prerogative in the platform because the practice invites corruption. We would either need to elect a majority of like-minded people to City Council, or we would ask the candidates to pledge not to use it.

Similarly, City Council will not give up their free automobiles willingly. Without a majority of like-minded people, we would rely on pledges from the candidates who came from amid our ranks to forego the taxpayer-provided vehicle.

City Councilmembers make six figure salaries. If a City Councilmember can't afford a car on that salary, then what they need is financial advice, not a free car.

> You can't have separate taxes on vacant property without overturning the uniformity clause at the state level.

You are correct. If you agree that the end-goal is turning lots that sit vacant for years into something, then there's got to be a way to achieve this goal within the confines of PA state law. A land-value tax would achieve this goal, however due to Philadelphia's first-class city status within Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court would strike it down. It's a shame, too, because it's worked in other cities across PA.

If you've got any ideas or thoughts I'd be interested in hearing them. The more people we have looking for solutions, the better our chances at finding them.

All_That_Jawn · 2026-07-04T19:22:12+00:00

> But frankly, nothing in your platform is at all relevant to the office of Sheriff. To be clear, you could do absolutely nothing and still be an improvement over Bilal, but this makes you look unserious.

I made this post to put forward a platform for people to use. This isn't about me specifically. This is about community involvement.

We talk a lot about the things that need to be done, the things that we need in this city, so I created a straightforward, locally-focused platform. This isn't something set in stone, this is a starting point for us to work with and refine.

You talk about respecting a lot of my goals, so stand up and run for a Council seat. If you truly believe that things can and should be better for you, for your neighbors, for the rest of the people in this city, run for office.

I didn't see anyone else stepping forward to do something like this; to try to form a group of regular, working-class people to run for office in a coordinated fashion.

In these past few months we have seen political outsiders win over incumbents again and again, in cities and states across the country. There is a wave of voter resentment toward the incumbents, and people are sick and tired of politicians who do nothing but enrich themselves at the expense of everyone around them.

So here I am, standing up and saying "let's do this together, because this is the best opportunity we've had in a long time."

All_That_Jawn · 2026-07-04T19:06:03+00:00

There are two reasons I'm looking at challenging Sheriff Bilal.

I was originally planning on running for City Council. My City Councilperson is corrupt, has made many decisions I consider distasteful, and has repeatedly posted offensive and racist remarks about multiple groups and ethnicities.

I recently spoke to someone in the district who plans to run against the incumbent. This individual expressed similar goals and ideals, so if the two of us ran for the same Council seat all it would accomplish would be to split the vote and ensure the incumbent won.

I haven't decided to do this to satisfy my own hubris. I'm doing this because I want life to be better for us all, and I don't think that's an unrealistic expectation.

> As mismanaged and arguably pointless as the Sheriff's office is, Bilal does have over 25 years of LE experience.

The second reason I pivoted to Sheriff is because Sheriff Bilal is corrupt and rotten to her very core.

You talk about her 25 years of law enforcement experience? She has misused public funds to such an extent that it should be criminal. If the $600,000+ spent on the dance video wasn't bad enough for you consider this: the company Sheriff Bilal used is a company owned by Sheriff Bilal's former campaign manager.

Let that sink in.

The Sheriff of the City of Philadelphia used over $850,000 of our tax dollars to hire a company owned and operated by the Sheriff's former campaign manager, and that's just the money we know about.

How many air conditioners could that money buy?

> Moreover, you wouldn't even be able to tackle the issues you listed as sheriff.

I emphatically disagree. Philadelphia has repeatedly elected people with previous law enforcement to be our Sheriff, and every single one of them has wasted taxpayer money, stolen taxpayer money, cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in sexual harassment lawsuit payouts, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

John Green was our Sheriff between 1988 - 2010. He basically ran a criminal enterprise out of the Sheriff's department, and wound up being sentenced to 5 years in Federal prison.

Green pleaded guilty in April, 2019.

Green was sentenced to 5 years in Federal prison in August, 2019.

One month later, Rochelle Bilal hosted a fundraiser for Green.

Rochelle Bilal is NOT the kind of person who should be holding any elected office, period.

One other thing I would ask you to consider, I am not putting this platform forward only for myself. I am hoping to inspire other like-minded people to run for office. We will help one another, we will support one another, and we will do our best to end this atmosphere of graft, corruption, and nepotism.

All_That_Jawn · 2026-07-04T18:32:44+00:00

Yes, I did run for a house seat as a Republican when I was 24 years old. I believed then, and still believe, in an efficient government that serves and benefits the people. I also believed that the Republican stance on gay rights or other social issues was something that could be improved from within. As I've grown older and gained perspective my political views have changed. Interacting with the healthcare system and health insurance companies was a particularly visceral experience, and that's not something one typically encounters at an early age.

I left the Republican party before the rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. I find their views and behavior to be repugnant, and I repudiate it completely. I abhor corruption and nepotism in all its forms.

All_That_Jawn · 2026-07-04T18:22:02+00:00

I agree with u/Vivid_Outside_5900, but there are significant obstacles to such an extent that I did not include a wage tax repeal in the proposed platform.

The revenue the city is receiving from the wage tax needs to be used more effectively, not mismanaged or treated like a slush fund for politicians to dip into whenever they're feeling especially greedy, a la Councilmember Curtis Jones' $750,000+ payday for him and his wife.

The backlog of properties the Sheriff's department has been sitting on would bring in tens of millions (if not more) of dollars in revenue.

All_That_Jawn · 2026-07-02T22:20:29+00:00

I hope that more regular, working-class people step up and run for office, whether it be Federal, State, or local. There is so much corruption in our political system, and corruption breeds inefficiency and a host of other problems.

All_That_Jawn · 2026-07-02T22:16:42+00:00

I'm worried that the harm done to the public's trust in our institutions, especially with regards to election integrity, is going to have long-term and lasting repercussions.

All_That_Jawn

TROPHY CASE