UPDATE at 12:33 p.m. on Oct. 23, 2018
By the end of the year, Temple University officials will likely approach the Eagles to negotiate a contract for the football team to continue playing at Lincoln Financial Field.
Plans for an on-campus stadium have been delayed due to the university’s lack of relationship with community residents. City Council President Darrell Clarke went even further to say “there’s not a relationship at all” between North Philadelphia and the university.
We recognize that the university provides for North Philadelphia residents, it’s the largest employer in several surrounding ZIP codes. There are many little-known projects we’ll never hear about that are run by Temple community members and making a huge impact.
However, officials failed time and time again to address residents’ complaints about trash and noise. For years, these issues plagued Temple’s relationship with residents who live near Main Campus.
We hope the university and Clarke move quickly to create a special services district near Main Campus to address these continuous problems that affect the quality of life for community residents. And as Vice President for Public Affairs Bill Bergman said, the university should do this whether there’s an on-campus stadium or not.
The Editorial Board hopes that Temple uses a special services district to reintroduce itself to North Philadelphia and uses this time to rewrite itself as an institution that’s here to both engage and uplift the community in whatever ways residents request. Forget the stadium, and get back to the basics of our mission.
Editor’s Note: Managing Editor Kelly Brennan, who was the reporter on today’s stadium story, played no part in the writing or editing of this editorial, nor is her opinion represented in it.
This is a bunch of B.S. propaganda. You say…”the university provides for North Philadelphia residents…” Really? All I see from Temple is stress and trauma for Black people in the surrounding communities. Stress from wondering if you’ll be able to maintain your home where you’ve lived for generations, due to rising taxes and gentrification aided abetted by Temple and it’s agents in the form of minions like Morgan, a real estate mogul who works with developers, and O’Connor. Trauma from having our communities and culture disrupted and destroyed due to Temple’s encroachment and “expansion” into our neighborhoods. That’s the real issue. Don’t get it twisted. Cleaning up the trash and stopping the disruptive student behavior will not solve the problem. Temple has decades of lies to the community to face. Temple’s adminstration is just too arrogant and we are tired of it. You just don’t get it.
Respect to Kelly Brennan who made sure to let the public know that she was not a part of this propaganda editorial that probably was directed or written by O’Connor’s people.
It’s a joke that it just gets to be labeled this “great community” that Temple is holding back or interfering. Trash and Noise, honest complaints, are an issue on campus and the near by streets. First, you can’t say that this is due to only students. Second, and more importantly, there’s trash beyond the Temple student living streets. It’s not a clean or overly safe neighborhood. Temple is one of the most diverse universities in the state if not country, and because the local residents are being told it’s a bad idea being forced on them they’re hurting the schools ability to grow. Sure 100 years ago, this school was meant for other things. 300 years ago, America wasn’t supposed to be a free country, just a colony. Now the local residents lose the Alpha Center, something that would benefit them. I think residents need to stop following the leader and make some demands to benefit them truly and for the long term. Do not just pedal this “hey keep it as it is, we have no issues as a community” narrative. We’ve seen Temple students murdered, MURDERED, in the local area and no tears shed no “save our community”, rather, please keep the stadium out cause of traffic. This is a joke.
Mr. Grosso’s comment, I’m sorry to say, epitomizes the ignorance and arrogance that make many members of the North Philadelphia community mistrust Temple. I strongly suspect that Mr. Grosso has never actually spoken with our neighbors at any length.
If he were to do so, he would find they are fully, painfully aware of the challenges besetting their community–they require no lectures from him-and they are working hard to meet those challenges. And they know that Temple could and should be doing more to help them. No community member I have spoken with would attribute all of the problems in the Cecil B. Moore Community or Yorktown to Temple students! None would look past the crimes perpetrated against members of their community and Temple students. It is also deeply offensive to assume, as Mr. Grosso does, that they are simply playing “follow the leader.” Again, if Mr. Grosso would bother to educate himself about the community he for some unaccountable reason feels licensed to dismiss, he would see that the people ARE leading the community, though there are also many more typical community leaders also involved, from pastors to heads of non-profits. It is thus not surprising that Mr. Grosso reduces the legitimate concerns our neighbors have about the stadium to “cause of traffic.” No, the only “joke” here, Mr. Grosso, is that you feel sufficiently educated to opine at such length and so vehemently on these issues. As for an on-campus stadium, I would call your wandering attention to a survey of the faculty that found they are against it 3:1 and a survey of the students against it 2:1. I have been at Temple for nearly two decades; I love it and am deeply grateful to it. But it is a canard of the saddest type to suggest that blocking Temple from building such an ill-conceived project “hurts its ability to grow.” There are many, many ways that Temple can grow in a healthy way that don’t involve building a football stadium. I would urge Mr. Grosso to re-examine his assumptions; it is always possible to learn new things.