An awkward reply-all email exchange among Philly Council members shows tensions remain high over a new law on Kensington addiction services

A reply-all email. A misunderstanding. Insincere exclamation points.

Screenshots of an email exchange among Philadelphia City Council members last week are making their way around City Hall, and they have all the trappings of a cringeworthy office communication gone wrong. But the topics discussed — mental health and addiction services — were more substantial than typical watercooler gossip.

The internal exchange, which was obtained by The Inquirer, shows that the fight over the city’s controversial response to the drug crisis in Kensington is not just a matter of public debate, but also a tense conversation among city leaders, who apparently are as liable as anyone else to send head-scratching workplace emails.

The email thread began last Friday afternoon when a staffer for Councilmember Kendra Brooks invited colleagues to attend a screening of a documentary on “the life-saving impact” of Philadelphia’s mobile crisis units, which are squads of mental health professionals dispatched to people in crisis to prevent unnecessary police interactions with the potential for dangerous escalation.

» READ MORE: Mobile crisis units in the Philly area take strain off police when dealing with mental-health incidents

The staffer’s invitation — and the numerous subsequent replies — went out to all 17 Council members and all of their staffers.

Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, who represents Kensington, seemingly thought that the documentary was extolling the benefits of mobile service providers. That’s a similarly named but entirely separate concept, referring primarily to medical professionals who provide overdose reversals, wound care, and other addiction services out of vans or trucks to people on the streets.

Council last month passed a bill, authored by Lozada, that will severely limit where mobile service providers can operate in her district, after the Council member said her constituents have complained the vans create dangerous conditions where they operate.

The bill would restrict mobile medical services to a designated lot on Lehigh Avenue during the day and a two-block stretch of Kensington Avenue overnight, and many providers said that would hamper their work because it is critical to reach people in addiction where they are.

The legislation was at the center of a dramatic Council session in which providers accused Council of supporting a bill that could lead to increased overdose deaths, and Lozada lashed out in response.

“How dare you organize and tell people lies … without reading the damn bill,” she said during an impassioned floor speech.

» READ MORE: Frustrations over Kensington erupted in Philly City Council with heated speeches: ‘How dare you!’

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker — who, along with Lozada, has championed the city’s recent turn toward a law-and-order approach to Kensington, the epicenter of the city’s opioid crisis — signed the measure into law after it passed in a 13-3 vote.

Weeks later, the idea that a fellow lawmaker’s office would be promoting the benefits of mobile service providers apparently did not sit well with Lozada.

“Maybe your office can also put together a documentary about the lifelong mental/social negative impact it has on children in communities like mine,” Lozada wrote in her first reply-all email. “I’ll provide the food for that one!”

Brooks, a progressive who voted against Lozada’s bill, chimed in — but she did not clarify Lozada’s apparent misunderstanding.

“Sounds like a great idea! Maybe we could work together as professional,” she wrote.

The exclamation points continued.

“Awesome Councilmember!” Lozada replied. “Let me know when your office is ready I’ll order the food.”

Next, Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, a champion of the mobile crisis units program, set the record straight.

“To be clear, mobile crisis units are different than the mobile service units that have been the subject of recent litigation,” wrote Gauthier, who pushed for added funding for the units after her constituent Walter Wallace Jr. was killed by police in 2020 while experiencing a mental health crisis. “Hope everyone can take a beat and enjoy the weekend.”

Lozada took a beat. And then sent another reply-all seven minutes later.

“Thank you for the information and the background Councilmember Gauthier, context is always important and so is COMMUNICATION!” Lozada wrote. “NO one is questioning or disrespecting the work that any member has done here in the past but what I will NOT allow is for stories to be told that are one sided especially if they impact MY DISTRICT. Maybe next time a courtesy call would prevent miscommunication and misunderstandings. Enjoy your weekend!”

Finally, Council President Kenyatta Johnson stepped in to shut it down.

“Ok everyone, this conversation has concluded!” he wrote. “Feel free to meet amongst yourselves to discuss further.”

The entire exchange took place over 95 minutes in what must have been an entertaining afternoon for Council staffers. Johnson followed up Monday by sending a formal memo, addressed “Dear Beloved Members.”

“Please be mindful that you are community leaders and members of the proud institution of Philadelphia City Council. Your conduct and discourse with members of the public and each other, are very much on public display,” Johnson wrote in the memo, which was also obtained by The Inquirer. ”Finally, when a matter is serious or of a sensitive nature, please make every effort to speak in person."

Johnson and Lozada declined to comment on the email chain.

The documentary screening was Tuesday. Brooks’ office said more than three dozen people attended. Lozada was not among them, Lozada’s office confirmed.

“I’m glad we had the chance to share important information about these teams and their positive impact on the communities we serve,” Brooks said in a statement.

Kelsey Leon, a harm-reduction worker with the group Community Action Relief Project who testified against Lozada’s bill, said the Council member’s remarks in the email exchange were “disappointing.” Opponents of the legislation, she said, also care about children in the Kensington community — and believe that limiting medical care in the neighborhood will expose them to more scenes of suffering and death from addiction.

Leon’s group, a mutual aid organization in Kensington, is not itself a mobile healthcare provider, but offers a number of services to people in addiction and other area residents, including handing out food, hygiene supplies, and safer-drug-use kits, and performing wound care. Its workers also transport people to emergency rooms and other medical appointments and serve as patient advocates.

Leon said that groups like hers are “doing the work on the ground that the city has abdicated responsibility for doing.”

“Seeing the way that Councilmember Lozada is so flippantly using children’s well-being to score cheap political points, in a reply-all email thread where there are really no stakes,” she added, “I’m not surprised, but it’s incredibly disappointing.”