With only a week until election day, Tuesday evening’s second debate between incumbent 8th district councilmember Cindy Bass and her opponent, Seth Anderson-Oberman, marked the second and final time that both candidates are scheduled to appear in the same room before the citywide primary election on May 16. 

Like the first debate, the second, which was held jointly by Germantown Community Radio and Center in the Park, had its fair share of highlights that portrayed the differences between Bass and Anderson-Oberman, who, if elected, would serve in office for the first time. The Local was present and rounded up a few of the highlights.

A question of responsibility

The previous day’s major headline wasn’t lost on anybody in the audience. With gun violence a primary issue in the race, a 46-year-old canvasser for OnePA was fatally shot by a fellow 22-year-old canvasser for the same organization, which was campaigning on behalf of several progressive candidates running for office in the city, including Anderson-Oberman. The tragedy went unmentioned in the debate until the very end, during Bass’ closing statement. She responded to a comment Anderson-Oberman made earlier in the debate, in which he criticized Bass for her involvement in the Germantown Special Services District scandal in which Ingrid Shepard, one of Bass’ appointees to the GSSD’s board, stole $125,000 from the organization. 

“That's wrong,” Anderson-Oberman said. “And our councilperson still hasn't taken any responsibility for her role in that.”

Bass responded by arguing in her closing statement that she was no more responsible for Shepard's actions than he was for the shooting – a comment that drew jeers from the crowd. The canvassers involved in the shooting were working for a third party organization, and not directly volunteering for Anderson-Oberman’s campaign.

“Earlier in the debate my opponent made a reference to me accepting responsibility for something someone else does, and I want to ask him if he really wants to take that stance after yesterday and what happened,” said Bass, referring to the shooting. “Do you want to take the responsibility for something that someone else did [when] you weren't there, that you weren't a part of?” 

Community involvement

In the first debate, Bass hit her opponent hard on what she felt is his lack of involvement within his community. That theme continued in last night’s debate. 

“Being from North Philadelphia, I knew that if I wanted my community to be better that it was going to take the work of the people who lived in that community and other communities to make it happen,” she said. “ I started as a teenager volunteering, being involved in the neighborhood, being a part of what was happening in the community. I didn't wait until I was running for office.”

Before she ran for office, said Bass, she served on the Democratic State Committee, was an elected committeeperson, served as president of East Mt. Airy Neighbors, and was involved with the Pleasant Playground Advisory Council, the Youth Services Committee and the Mt. Airy Schools Committee.

“I've been active long before I held any public office or had any title attached to my name,” she said.

Anderson-Oberman didn’t respond directly to the criticism during the debate, but has touted his 24-year career as an union organizer in the past. 

“In that capacity,” he said in the previous debate, “what I've done is I've brought people together to identify our common points of interest and fight for what we need.”

Senior housing and Black development

The biggest point of contention  between the two candidates stemmed from a question about how they’d ensure affordable housing for seniors in the community. Anderson-Oberman used the opportunity to criticize Bass’ handling of the redevelopment of the Germantown YWCA, located next door to Center in the Park. 

He criticized Bass for “scuttling” a developer Ken Weinstein’s proposal to fill the building, which had been vacant for years, with affordable senior housing.

“That was not even considered,” he continued. “When we had opportunities to build low-income senior housing, we chose not to, and we insisted on market-rate housing. I think that history speaks for itself.”

Bass did not substantially address the lack of progress on that building, but responded by pivoting to the question of whether Black developers should be getting preference for the redevelopment of city-owned properties in Black neighborhoods, and criticized Anderson-Oberman for not doing enough to ensure that Black developers win projects in Black neighborhoods. The Black development company she supports for that project is based in Ohio and has not moved forward with the work since winning the contract in 2016. 

“You talk about Black Lives Matter, Black development matters, but ‘oh we'll get to it later’,” Bass said. “Black development matters and it matters right here right now…And if you support Seth, you're supporting someone who is not willing to take a stand for Black and Brown developers and development projects in the city of Philadelphia.”

Anderson-Oberman noted that “the councilmember is talking about the developer, the councilmember isn't talking about the project,” and added that he, too, agrees that Black developers should get priority. He argued that supporting a Black developer who isn’t from Philadelphia shouldn’t take priority over the needs of Philadelphia residents who are waiting to see the building redeveloped. 

“I support supporting Black developers,” he continued, but “I also support Black low-income seniors having a place to live. It doesn't seem like these two things need to be incompatible or in contradiction.”

Public safety and police 

Just as she did in the previous debate held by the Chestnut Hill Local two weeks prior, Bass attacked Anderson-Oberman for being in favor of defunding the police.

“There's only one candidate who thinks that we don't need police and thinks it's OK to defund police, and that's Seth,” she said. 

This time, however, Anderson-Oberman, denied the claim – something he didn’t do when Bass made the same attack in the first debate.

“I have not talked about defunding the police at all,” he said. “I think the police are part of the solution to addressing crime. I also think that we need deep investment in our communities to address crime and violence because the violence that we're seeing is systemic and its generations deep.”

Violence, Anderson-Oberman said, “comes from disinvestment, it comes from mass incarceration, it comes from redlining and unemployment and underemployment in our communities.”

The polls will be open on Tuesday, May 16 from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. To find your polling location visit vote.pa.gov.