Folks, something else came out yesterday that is very indicative of the underlying problem with UCD. The Councilwoman told everyone that her staff member, Marty, was removed from the UCD Board. Later, Glenn Bryan, with whom she has worked, was also either removed or not permitted on the Board.
We don't know anything about how Penn real estate and its corporate partners choose this body and they can change it at will. Mr. Lewis Wendell, at one point yesterday, asserted that all the civic associations have Board members on the UCD Board. A civic association leader leaned over to me and gave me a little hearsay. She suggested that the UCD picked or suggested the civic association representatives and not some internal voting process after some discussion by the members. Has anyone anything else to add about the civic associations' representative choosing process? Are their people in the associations that have UCD Board representatives that can confirm or deny if there were appropriate discussions to choose your representatives? Did you find out that you had a Board representative but had not heard of any process for choosing? Can anyone describe an internal choosing process? I know that with all of the UCD initiatives, it is a very strict UCD policy that UCD handpicks the "community" representatives and may close out all stakeholders suspected of not rubber stamping the planned agenda. So although I haven't been on the Board of any of the civic associations except FOCP, the brief story from the civic association leader sounds believable to me. In one of their first initiatives, the revitalization of Clark Park, I experienced this closing out of stakeholders as I was repeatedly barred from the steering committee. At the time, I was leader of one of the largest organized stakeholder groups in the park. Park groups were generally uninvited or barred from the steering committee. If anyone can add to the understanding of choosing UCD "community reps," thank you. Cedar Park, Spruce Hill Civic Association, Powelton Village, Garden Court and Walnut Hill have a representative listed on the UCD web site. Can anyone from SHCA, for example, talk about the discussions to send Barry. Did anyone run against him? What was the vote count? When was the vote? Sincerely, Glenn
