Interview with Jolyon Thomas

In our minds, the best thing for the university to do is to pay 40 percent of its forgone property taxes to the city of Philadelphia under a contractual relationship, where that is understood to happen not only now, and not only ten years from now, but for as many years as the University of Pennsylvania exists in Philadelphia…Let me just reiterate here: all Philadelphians are giving Penn a gift every year by choosing not to tax Penn’s property. So Penn can pay back that gift by paying some of those forgone property taxes as a way of lifting all boats.