Council needs more new blood

Even with five new members elected to City Council in 2012, the average length of service for the current group of lawmakers is 11.6 years, or almost three full terms. And among the rookies are former state legislators Kenyatta Johnson and Denny O'Brien - hardly what you would call fresh faces.

When Councilwoman Marian B. Tasco recently announced that she will not run for reelection, many probably thought the 27-year veteran was Council's senior member. But that distinction belongs to Brian O'Neill, whose service dates back to when Jimmy Carter was in the White House - 1980.

Behind O'Neill's 35 years on Council and Tasco's 27 is Jannie L. Blackwell, 24; Jim Kenney, 23; Darrell Clarke, 16; Blondell Reynolds Brown and W. Wilson Goode Jr., both 15; Bill Greenlee, nine; Maria Quiñones-Sánchez and Curtis L. Jones, both seven; Johnson, O'Brien, Cindy Bass, David Oh, Mark Squilla, and Bobby Henon, all three; and Ed Neilson, one.

It's not that Council doesn't have new blood, but it doesn't have enough. That was evidenced by the lack of dissent when Council President Clarke declared, without a vote or hearing, that a deal to sell the city-owned Philadelphia Gas Works to a private buyer was dead. This city needs shepherds, not sheep, on Council.

Maybe there are stronger voices among the new faces running for Council, including Jenné Ayers, the president of the city NAACP Youth Council; Michael Galganski, a Penn State-Abington music professor; George Matysik, a Philabundance administrator; Paul Steinke, the general manager of the Reading Terminal Market; Isaiah Thomas, an associate dean at Sankofa Freedom Academy; and James Williams, a track coach at Cheyney University.

No matter how well a Council member may be doing his or her job, more than three terms is in most circumstances excessive. But rather than term limits, voters need more viable alternatives so that others who are qualified to be on Council have a chance to defeat entrenched incumbents.

Of course, it's hard to beat anyone backed by the Democratic machine, especially with no prior political experience. One way to overcome that deficiency would be for Philadelphia, perhaps through the Committee of Seventy, to develop a program similar to the Citizens Campaign in New Jersey, which teaches people how to get involved at the grassroots level before running for a local office.

Get more good people to run, and it's unlikely that anyone will be on Council through six presidencies.