Over the next two days, activists hustled (via Facebook comments and emails, naturally) to put together a slate of candidates to run for the SSWCA board.

Brad Dakake, the chair of the Gray’s Ferry Triangles Committee responsible for the new pedestrian plaza at 23rd and South, and a newly-elected committeeman in Failer’s division who ran on TJ Hurst’s slate, emerged from those conversations as the candidate for chair.

Fred Ritter, an account manager at Swell who helped organize the effort, said the group wasn’t aware until yesterday morning that SSWCA would actually be electing a full board and just replacing the chair wouldn’t necessarily suffice to change the RCO’s policy direction. He was recruited to run for treasurer at 3pm yesterday afternoon.

Filling out the slate, Matthew Olesh, an attorney at Fox Rothschild LLP and a committeeman in the 14th division who also won on the Hurst slate, would run for vice chair and Jessica Beaver, a research associate at Research for Action and a member of SOSNA’s economic development committee, would run for secretary.

The group spent the afternoon sending emails and Facebook messages to everyone they knew who lived in the area, and they succeeded in packing the meeting with about 30 supporters. (SSWCA’s by-laws stipulated no special membership requirements, and allowed any resident or business owner within the RCO’s boundaries to vote.)

When the votes were tallied, Dakake prevailed, 31 to 3. Olesh, Ritter, and Beaver were voted in as Treasurer and Secretary by similar margins (a few Dakake supporters left after the first round of voting) for a clean sweep of the board.

“We’re thrilled that the community came out to show its support and look forward to working hard for everyone to make our slice of Philadelphia the best it can be,” said Dakake, in a statement.

“It was made very clear that the community wants projects like the Triangles Plaza, which a year ago received 98% support from a door-to-door canvass of everyone within a 2-block radius.”

When reached for comment, Failer declined to discuss the election at length. “The only thing I have to say is congratulations to the new board,” she said.

As with the ward committee elections, the actual statutory power one can wield in these low-level neighborhood positions is miniature (I would know, as a recently-elected committeeman in the 2nd ward, and as a board member of the Bella Vista Neighbors Association.)

But while the zoning code establishes RCOs like SSWCA as advisory-only bodies, the fact is that City Council members and the ZBA do pay attention to what they want, especially when they demonstrate the capacity to organize politically. That doesn’t always cleanly translate into policy wins, as in the case of 2300 South St. which had the support of the area’s biggest RCO and Councilman Johnson. But it does count for something, and neighborhood groups can certainly make an impact on the margin.