Avi Adams got a baptism by fire this week – getting a first-hand look at how city government works, through the eyes of city Councilman Curtis Jones, who said Adams gave him a unique insight on the problems facing Philadelphia schools just as the issue of closing 37 of them came before Council.

“Avi gave me insight into the climate of public schools, which we discussed at length after leaving the Education Committee Hearings,” said Jones. “He also provided me with a young person’s perception of politics - he wasn’t sure that we, as elected officials, were relevant in his world. I think his outlook changed after our day together.”

Though Adams ultimately enjoyed his day at city hall, he started out skeptical.

“I really wasn’t looking forward to today. I honestly wasn’t,” Adams said. “I’m not too into politics or councilmen and that type of stuff. I thought ‘let me just go and get the day over with.’”

He would have preferred to be doing something – anything – athletic.

Instead, Adams was among a number of young adults who took part in a Police Athletic League program that connects youth with city leaders for a day of job shadowing. He was selected from his recreation center in Wynnefield to take part in the program.

So, on Tuesday, the 18-year-old sat alone in the echoing well of city council chambers looking doubtful.

The crowd around him, a mob of parents passionately expressing their concerns about school closures to Superintendent William Hite, grew unruly, until, finally, Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, hammered the crowd into silence with her gavel. Hite sat to Adams’ left, in the hot seat, less than 10 feet away. They both had their backs to the rowdy audience.

Members of the committee faced Hite, the crowd and Adams, who sat at Jones’ desk.

It was all part of Adams’ immersion into a day in the life of councilman.

And what a day it was – council’s education committee was holding hearings on the school district’s controversial plan to close 37 schools.

Jones, who is among council members calling for a moratorium on the plan, was peppering Hite with questions. Adams, a senior at Overbrook High School and the second oldest of four siblings, was not particularly interested in the topic. He’ll be gone, out of high school, by the next school year, when and if the plan goes into effect. However, the experience forced him to think about it, and about how it would affect his school, which is slated to take students from other schools as part of the district’s plan.

“I’m just thinking, next year school’s going to be crazy because ya’ll got all these people coming in,” he said. “I’m thinking I’m sort of lucky.”

Adams is looking ahead.

He’s anticipating college, deciding whether to pursue a degree in architecture or accounting and if he should attend Lincoln University or Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

“[My family] wants me to do something with my life,” he said.

It’s unlikely to be politics, but the energy of the crowd at city hall and the setting made an impression.

“That was my first time,” Adams said. “It was something like out of a TV scene or something. It was chaotic.”

School closings weren’t the only item on Jones’ agenda. In the morning, he attended another hearing. In the afternoon, he was taking part in a meeting on AVI.

“I didn’t even know what he really did,” admitted Adams. “I just sat back and listened to them talk, and their vocabulary – they’re just honest men – and now I know what they do.”

Jones said he could see Adams’ settling in and taking an interest.

“This young man is from my neighborhood, attending my alma mater, and it was great to see him grasp the issues that were discussed,” said Jones.

In addition to the drudgery, Adams got a taste of the perks. Jones gave him lunch, a pin with the city’s seal on it and a tie.

“He’s been treating me good,” said Adams.

“I also think he saw that ‘political nerds’ like me can be cool and down to earth,” added Jones.

Overall, it turned out to be a good experience for both men.

“I’ve had fun,” said Adams. “I learned a lot.

It left Jones feeling hopeful about the city’s youth.

“I am more optimistic about our youth than ever after having spent the day with Avi,” he said

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Schools Superintendent William Hite defended the district’s decision to close 37 schools during a withering barrage of questions from city council members Tuesday as council’s education committee convened hearings on the school district’s plan to restructure the district.

“We have borrowed too much year after year to finance operations,” Hite said. “This is the unfortunate product of a lot of things that have not been managed over the last several years.”

Officials plan to close schools in an effort to save $28 million, part of a larger plan to deal with a $300 million budget deficit. If implemented as presented, the plan would displace 17,000 students.

School officials contend the plan is a reaction to a falling student population, which has dipped by 60,000 students from 2003 to an enrollment of about 149,000 students. And, that it will allow the district to improve educational opportunities at the schools that remain open.

Council members pressed Hite for more details before the School Reform Commission votes on the plan in March.

“There are lot of unanswered questions,” said Councilman Curtis Jones, who quizzed Hite about how district officials decided which schools to close and whether they investigated how those closures would affect kids asked to attend schools in different neighborhoods that might be on different “turf.”

“I would be hard pressed to ask my colleagues to make a decision on half information,” Jones.

“We do have to answer those questions,” said Hite.” We do have to have a plan in place for safety and support. We are still in the process of reviewing recommendations. We’re asking parents to work with us.”

“The number one concern has to be our babies,” said Jones.

“We have listened and are continuing to listen — these are not forgone conclusions,” said Hite.

Others questioned how much the plan would really do for the perennially cash-strapped district.

“This is really small potatoes at the end of the day,” said Councilman W. Wilson Goode Jr., referring to the $28 million savings.

It was an assertion Hite refuted.

“I don’t characterize it as small potatoes,” he said. “It’s a pretty significant amount.”

Goode was mollified and said he could not support any plan without a greater level of detail.

“Don’t ask for $28 million, don’t ask for $58 million, don’t ask for $78 million unless you tell us what it’s going to be spent on,” he said. “Do not come to us asking for more money unless you can tell us where it’s going to be invested.”

The district’s plan has met with an outcry from the public and generated significant opposition on council, which has authority to allocate city tax revenue for the district. Budget negotiations between council and the district have been acrimonious for the last several years, as district officials have repeatedly asked for more money to help it end an ongoing budget crunch. In each instance, council raised taxes in response.

That seems less likely this year.

Council recently approved a resolution calling on the School Reform Commission to delay the plan for one year. That call was echoed several times throughout the hearings.

School commissioners are scheduled to vote on the plan on March 7.

Spectators gathered at in council chambers on Tuesday gave Hite a chilly reception.

Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, chair of the education committee, was forced to repeatedly use her gavel to bring order to the chamber, filled with hundreds of boisterous residents waving signs and shouting throughout the proceedings. Hite, who came to Philadelphia from Prince Georges County, Md., was greeted with yells of “carpetbagger,” “liar” and “keep our schools open.”

There was some personal support for Hite.

The Rev. Alyn Waller, pastor of Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, noted that he was brought to the district after former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman resigned, and added that the problems went deeper than the superintendent’s office.

“If [Hite] is going to be brought before us, then [Gov.] Tom Corbett should be brought before us, and Mayor [Michael] Nutter ought to be brought before us,” Waller said, to shouts of support.

Waller added that a moratorium would put some pressure on council

“The reality is that if a moratorium happens, the school district would need money. It’s up to you to make sure the district gets what it needs,” he said.

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Taking testimony from school, transit and housing officials, city Council got its first glimpse of the several networks of surveillance cameras across the city, as council ponders ways to create an integrated, city-wide system.

Council President Darrell Clarke has quietly been pressing for improvements to the city’s surveillance camera program as a way to cut crime.

“One of the things that we hope to find out today is if we can enhance our system,” Clarke said, at the beginning of hearings held by the Committee of Public Safety on the matter Monday at City Hall.

There are already thousands of cameras focused on Philadelphians every day.

By fa, the largest network belongs to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, which has 12,089 cameras throughout its rail, light rail and bus systems, on vehicles and in stations. Plans are to bump that to 16,000 by June. The school district has 5,767 cameras spread across its more than 200 schools. The Philadelphia Housing Authority has several hundred cameras now and aims to have 800 in place by June.

The city, too, has a network of just over 200 cameras. However, many of them are obsolete or not easily accessible by police. In an audit last June, city Controller Alan Butkovitz concluded that on any given day, only 102 city cameras worked. The audit found that it cost $13.9 million to install the cameras and $3.2 million to maintain them – a cost of about $136,000 a camera.

Among the problems the city is facing is the fact that many of its cameras are not linked – nor are the school district’s or PHA’s. Not only are they not part of a larger, citywide network, in many cases they are not part of a smaller, intra-agency network either.

Officials said they are working to tie their systems to the police department.

“We’re going to have to rethink our strategy,” said Chief Inspector Cynthia Dorsey.

The housing authorities’ cameras are not part of a larger network, said Kelvin Jeremiah, interim director of PHA, though officials are working to link them to the city’s command center.

“We have not been involved in those talks,” Dorsey said. “We are going to reach out today to see where we stand on that.”

SEPTA’s cameras are tied to the city command center. Transit authority cameras are tied together and to the police department and get results, said Ronald Hopkins, SEPTA’s general manager of operations.

“We readily share with the Philadelphia Police Department,” he said.

It’s a system that gets results, said Hopkins, pointing out that SEPTA cameras caught 281 incidents in 2012 and that resulted in 133 arrests. Among the most recent successes was the arrest of William Clark, 36, for throwing a woman onto the subway tracks.

Philadelphia officials cite Baltimore as an example of what they’d like to see here.

Last month, Clarke spearheaded a trip to Baltimore to take a look at that city’s network of surveillance cameras. It includes more than 700 surveillance cameras spread across the city, made up of both city-owned and privately owned cameras and equipment. The city has negotiated access to many privately owned cameras, which allows city-paid monitors to view those video feeds and expand the reach of the city’s program.

Baltimore spends about $1.8 million annually to monitor and maintain the network of cameras, said Lt. Samuel Hood III, during that visit. Determining the city’s initial investment is difficult, Hood said, because from the start the city relied on private partners. He estimated a municipal outlay of roughly $8 million.

He estimated that Baltimore gets a $1.50 benefit from every $1 the city spends and that 97 percent of cameras are fully operable every day.

In addition, the Maryland program combines cameras with an intelligence and crime prevention program that police officials there said has cut crime by 25 percent.

Philadelphia is nowhere near that point, said Butkovitz.

“Unfortunately, Philadelphia’s progress on this does not compare favorably to Baltimore,” he said.

The controller’s office is auditing the city’s camera program, and Butkovitz said a report should be released this summer.

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