Darisha K. Parker is the elect for the PA House 198th district seat.

Darisha K. Parker has ideas about how to make change in the 198th District. She will have power too in her new seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. She says she will listen to the problems and search for solutions.

Her goal for Germantown  is to start with the basics; clean it up and in the process  create effective community engagement. “I’m more focused and determined to make sure I provide the resources to the residents of the 198th district,” Parker says. 

There are 203 members in the PA House of Representatives, elected for two-year terms. Their responsibilities include passing bills on public policy matters, setting state spending levels, raising and lowering taxes, and voting to uphold or override gubernatorial vetoes.

The 198th district includes parts of Germantown, East Falls, Allegheny West, and North Philadelphia. Darisha Parker is replacing  Rep. Rosetta C. Youngblood, who presided over the seat for more than 20 years. Although Parker worked in constituent services in Youngblood’s office, there are a few things she’d like to do differently when her term starts this week.

During the campaign, Darisha Parker’s  platform included restoring confidence in elected officials through transparency, fighting for school resources, reducing gun violence, reducing poverty, and advocating for environmental health. Parker is adamant about what she calls, “organic communication. She wants to create community town halls that focus more on solutions and will call them ‘Virtual conversations.”

“If people want to vent, they can vent,” Parker says. “But I  want to be solution driven, I want to have conversations for solutions.”

Parker, who attended the former Germantown High School, says one specific issue to address is the neighborhood trash problem. She says this campaign will center around the residential streets as well as business areas.

Germantown’s trash issue began when the Germantown Special Services District was dismantled due to ineffective trash clean-up. As a result, trash was then seldom collected in the neighborhood since 2019

Since then, organizations like Trades for a Difference, Luv Thy Hood, SoLo Germantown Civic Association, and others have collectively worked on the issue with clean-up programs. Parker wants to be part of the collective solution; and believes knowing your neighbors will be a key factor in neighborhood cleanliness and more. 

“If at minimum, you know five individuals, these are the five individuals that you can keep in touch with,” Parker says. You can clean your block; you can be involved with your community person, your ward leader…your community relations officers. So all of those tiers of individuals are  cohesively working together to solve things in the neighborhood.”

Parker takes office Tuesday, Dec. 1, for her two-year term and will be formally sworn in Tuesday, Jan. 5. The virtual conversations will be implemented during her term. For more information about Parker and her platform, visit www.parkerfor198.com