Despite collective agreement by city officials, activists say the fight for creating a Reading city ID is nowhere near over.

Make The Road Pennsylvania, a community action group leading the effort for municipal IDs, filled its Reading headquarters Thursday evening with people resolved to continue pushing for the initiative.

Reading City Council members and Mayor Wally Scott said Monday night that they would not pursue an ordinance setting up a program.

Make The Road submitted a draft ordinance for the creation of a city ID in May.

The IDs would help make everyday life easier for the elderly, undocumented immigrants, some Puerto Ricans and others who face hurdles getting ID, Make The Road says.

City officials cited several concerns about the draft ordinance, including the legality and costs of a program.

Make The Road organizers countered some of those reasons Thursday by naming 13 municipalities around the country that have already approved local IDs.

They also presented their own cost-analysis of the program which, under the group's estimates of an ID with a $30 price tag, would bring in about $130,000 for the city.

Gabriela Raful, president of the Berks County Bar Association Minority Law Committee, and Bernardo Carbajal and Abraham Cepeda, attorneys and Reading School Board members, also spoke with ID supporters.

The local bar association's board of directors endorsed the creation of a city ID Tuesday, but did not specifically endorse Make The Road's draft ordinance.

Though activists are determined, City Council President Jeffrey S. Waltman Sr. said Thursday afternoon that he doesn't think council will revisit the idea anytime soon.

"The bottom line is I don't foresee City Council taking the issue up in the near future," he said. "It deals with federal issues and with our city and our resources, we have to be focused on getting out of Act 47."

Waltman also said the draft ordinance would have to be significantly altered or completely rewritten for council to even remotely consider it.

At the council's meeting Monday, leaders expressed opposition to a stipulation in the ordinance that states the city would not be able to share cardholder information with federal authorities, such as Immigration & Customs Enforcement.

Scott did not return calls requesting comment Thursday, but expressed strong opposition at the council meeting to aspects in the draft ordinance, including the prohibition on information-sharing.

He had also questioned the constitutionality of the draft ordinance, an argument that Make The Road countered Thursday.

The Center For Popular Democracy, a social issues advocacy group based in Washington, helped craft the ordinance.

Emily Tucker, a senior staff attorney specializing in immigration law, said Thursday that in the other cities where similar legislation was introduced and passed, such as New York City and Newark, N.J., there had been no concerns from local officials about limits on information sharing.

Waltman said that the decision to not pursue the IDs is not to slight city residents, but that creating a municipal ID is an effort that the city cannot presently handle or is responsible to undertake.

Cepeda said city officials should not ignore an issue that he feels would be very beneficial to the Latino community.

"It shows that they either have an issue with the people they represent or they are clueless," Cepeda said.

By ANTHONY OROZCO

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