![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/hanging-in-the-hall-copy-4.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCouncilmember Jamie Gauthier speaks at Thursday\u2019s Stop Trashing Our Air presser.
Photo by Lawrence Jones | PHL City Council<\/p>\n
Philadelphia City Council\u2019s first day of the fall session included resolutions, protests, and a building evacuation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By Denise Clay-Murray<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s probably been a while for a lot of us, everyone remembers their first day back at school following summer vacation.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re glad to see the friends you didn\u2019t see all summer. You\u2019re comparing new outfits, pencil boxes, and other stuff. You\u2019re catching up on all the gossip that you missed and getting ready to learn new things.<\/p>\n
But most importantly, you\u2019re looking forward to recess. Because while students understand that they\u2019re in school to work, being able to play is also good.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what the atmosphere at Philadelphia City Council felt like on Thursday as Council held its first session of the fall. Everyone was excited for the prospect of new legislation, discussions and hearings on such things as the expected closing of the Academy of Natural Sciences and the city\u2019s continued reliance on flaming trash.<\/p>\n
Councilmembers got the chance to introduce bills and resolutions, including one that called for hearings to investigate the Academy\u2019s closing, restructure the city\u2019s Law Department, and discuss traffic tickets and towing.<\/p>\n
(There were also resolutions welcoming the Philadelphia 76ers\u2019 newest members \u2014 forward LeBron James and swingman Jaylen Brown \u2014 to the City of Philadelphia. If you want to see a man look giddy, Councilmember Anthony Phillips introducing the LeBron Resolution will make your day. In all honesty, I\u2019m surprised he didn\u2019t dance a jig.)<\/p>\n
At around 11:45 a.m. on Thursday, in the middle of public comment, Council President Kenyatta Johnson called for a recess.<\/p>\n
But there was no playtime involved.<\/p>\n
A council staffer found a backpack in Council\u2019s caucus room across the hall from Council Chambers. When the staffer couldn\u2019t identify where the backpack came from or who owned it, police were called, said Vincent Thompson, Johnson\u2019s spokesman.<\/p>\n
When police dogs reacted to something on the bag, the decision was made to evacuate everyone, Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said. When the bag was searched, nothing harmful was found and while the owner was detained, no charges were filed.<\/p>\n
At around 1:30 p.m., Council was brought back into session, and public comment continued. Have to hand it to the people who came back. They must have really wanted to make sure they had their say.<\/p>\n
Although no one would have blamed Council if it decided to extend the meeting\u2019s recess an additional day, Johnson said that wasn\u2019t a possibility. Once the police and sheriff\u2019s departments gave the all clear, continuing the people\u2019s business became the priority, he said.<\/p>\n
Following the meeting, Johnson praised the efforts of the Philadelphia Sheriff\u2019s Department and the Philadelphia Police Department\u2019s Civil Affairs Unit in getting everyone evacuated safely.<\/p>\n
While it didn\u2019t turn out to be serious, Council had to err on the side of caution, Johnson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very, very serious issue and we\u2019ve seen oftentimes in the world where things didn\u2019t turn out the way it did today,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, we do not take it lightly in terms of security here in this building. This is the people\u2019s chamber, but at the end of the day everyone needs to feel safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toward that end, safety protocols for Council will mostly likely be re-evaluated, something that my Hanging In The Hall sources say was on the table before Thursday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n
There were more than 25 bills and 40 resolutions introduced during Thursday\u2019s meeting prior to the evacuation. Hopefully, next week\u2019s session will focus more on legislation than it does on safety.<\/p>\n
Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the article belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author\u2019s employer, The Philadelphia Sunday SUN, the author\u2019s organization, committee or other group or individual.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Councilmember Jamie Gauthier speaks at Thursday\u2019s Stop Trashing Our Air presser.Photo by Lawrence Jones | PHL City Council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-291201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}