Mayor Nutter met with a group of LGBT community leaders last weekend to assess the community’s needs and inform its representatives about the current state of affairs within city government.
Nutter participated in an hour-and-a-half discussion Feb. 8 at Duross & Langel, 117 S. 13th St., with 23 members of the Philadelphia Gay Tourism Caucus, Midtown Village Merchants’ Association and the Independence Business Alliance, the city’s LGBT chamber of commerce, during which he explained how the city’s budgetary concerns could affect different facets of the LGBT community and asked for feedback from the participants about how the city can most effectively serve the LGBT business and tourism communities.
Gloria Casarez, the city’s director of LGBT affairs, said last weekend’s gathering was one of many the mayor is currently undertaking to establish connections with the city’s different communities.
“As part of the budget discussions happening right now within City Hall, the mayor and other administration officials are engaging in a number of key stakeholder discussions,” she said. “This is a time for some of the stakeholders in various communities in the city to ask questions and voice their concerns.”
Casarez said Nutter was able to get a better grasp on financial and other issues concerning the LGBT community from the diverse representatives.
“These were people who have a heavy, deep stake in what’s rolling out now in the city in terms of the budget process,” Casarez said. “These were a range of business folks, from longtime business owners who have multiple properties in the Gayborhood to somebody who just owns one shop and to those who do independent consulting. To have all of those perspectives in the room was really beneficial, especially because they all had direct access to the mayor to ask questions, give ideas and raise concerns. The mayor was able to engage with these folks and get more background about where we’re at directly from the folks in the room.”
Tami Sortman, PGTC president, said the meeting gave the participants insight into a variety of topics and allowed for the free flow of communication between the mayor and the community.
“We covered budget costs, safety, as well as who in his administration he suggested we should be getting to know and meeting with,” Sortman said. “It was definitely informative, that was the main thing. The mayor got his information out to us and then asked us if we had any questions to react to that information.”
Casarez noted that while it was beneficial for the mayor to meet with the LGBT leaders, it was also important for the participants to become better acquainted with one another.
“This was a time that was meant to be a dialogue. It’s valuable to get these folks together to talk to each other. Some people may be members of all three of these organizations and others might belong to one, so they don’t all know each other and it was good to get them all together. Many of the things that are coming down from the city right now require that people talk to each other, so this is not a time for groups to be isolated and it’s important to get people together. We know it’s tough right now, and we want to make sure that we’re talking to small businesses and they’re talking to each other so we can see more collaboration going forward.”
Bill Gehrman, IBA president, said that while the mayor gave just a basic overview of the budget situation, Nutter did mention the city is providing about $13 million for the development of commercial corridors such as the Gayborhood.
“One of the positive things the mayor said is that although there are going to be more cuts, there is also money that the city has announced for commercial corridors, which is great and seemed like a really good thing for us,” Gehrman said.
He added the mayor stressed that LGBT residents should try to maintain a positive outlook and continue to invest in the community to preserve its success during the city’s ongoing financial crisis.
“The mayor encouraged us to work together and be upbeat. It’s going to be a tough time and everybody’s going to have to make decisions and deal with challenges that they don’t want to, but we’re going to get through this,” Gehrman said. “The whole community needs to stay upbeat as much as we can and go about our business. We need to keep going out to dinners, patronizing our businesses, donating to charities and just continuing to live.”
To access a list of LGBT and LGBT-friendly area businesses, visit www.independencebusinessalliance.com.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].