The Next Mayor

Now this is interesting. Mayor Street and City Council passed a budget yesterday in the style of a family with a new credit card at Christmas: It gives everybody everything they want. And, in Mark McDonald's story about this today, Darrell Clarke notes:

"Unless we're going to dramatically cut services, we are going to have to start talking about raising some revenue," he said. "It may call for some minimal tax increases."

Obviously, he's right -- but the problem is (as Rob Dubow of PICA, the city budget watchdog, points out in the same article) that we are facing more than just a budget with too much under its tree -- we're looking at structural budget problems AND new union contracts that must be negotiated immediately after the next mayor takes office.

These two things are NOT directly connected. However, is it a common sense -- or smart negotiating -- to head into what should be a difficult, painful time of renegotiating contracts with a budgetary attitude of, "Hey, whatever you want!"?

I couldn't help but read the whole paper today with a sense that we're ignoring some structural problems. The schools budget is "balanced" with the imaginary support of money from Harrisburg, though lawmakers have said they aren't going to give it. The city budget is "balanced" this year, though the spending it in "utterly imbalanaces" the city's five-year plan, as Mark reports.

Meanwhile, DHS just realized that its failure to deal with kids in its care a generation ago is leading those now-grown people to kill their own kids today.

You know how, after too many of those Christmases, families that have lived an unsustainable high life for too long have to sit down and figure out a way out of debt?

Well, in the next mayor's term -- perhaps when those union contracts are up for renewal -- the city will find itself having to do something similar. We're already in debt at a level that worries budget analysts, so more city borrowing really isn't the answer. The answer will be hard choices, something we don't seem quite ready to accept.

The always outstanding Clout column in today's Daily News gives us all KINDS of updates on election matters...

On Traffic Court nominee Wayne Singletary and his issues with traffic fines/filling out campaign disclosures

On how a Penn grad student who thought he was doing community service ended up working a Tom Knox event

On Bob Brady's new role as Mayor of Capitol Hill

And on Terry Gillen's new role in the Nutter campaign.

Go read it!

A couple of recent stories have given glimpses of what slots actually do to a community. They are just glimpses, but in many ways I find them more realistic and revealing than the generalities that predictions based on studies or coming from other states give us.

That's because they are based on the real stories of what's really happening in and around the slots parlors at Philadephia Park, in Bensalem, and at Harrah's in Chester.

For one thing, petty crime is up. And it's targeted at the very people who we all knew would attend the slots: older gamblers.

These crimes aren't violent -- we're talking swiping winnings or purses -- but they do take up cop time and upset the victims,

But for another thing, at least around Harrah's, local purchasing is - anecdotally - up. This is a significant change. Chester is a devastated, very poor community. Despite the support of local institutions such as Crozier-Chester Medical Center and Widener University (where students can now see Harrah's blinking lights from campus), there was no real hope of getting the kind of massive investment that the community needed -- until slots parlors emerged as an option.

From the Inquirer story Sunday:

"It has hired 222 Chester residents at what the city estimates is an average annual salary of $30,000. By year's end, Harrah's will have paid debt-ridden Chester an expected $9.4 million in taxes - more than a quarter of the city's $35 million budget. Most will go for debt payments."

But it hasn't been easy...

"Today, 20 percent of the 1,113 employees at Harrah's are from Chester. A total of 65 percent are from Delaware County, according to the casino."

"Nevertheless, the results have not fulfilled a pledge made three years go by Harrah's local partners, who said 60 percent of the workers would be from the city. That number was never believed by local residents, and is no longer cited by the casino."

"As predicted, some Chester residents couldn't negotiate the exhaustive application process, or pass stringent background checks imposed by the state."

I'm not promoting slots parlors. But I do think these two recent stories have been instructive because they are real -- they aren't hypotheticals, and they give us an idea of what slots can do, and can't do.

Finally, and from the perspective of civic budgets, Stu Bykofsky has rendered his verdict on casinos...

Discuss!

My hat's off to Wendy for doing such a wonderful job with the blog while I was off in Israel last week for a friend's wedding plus a tour of a lot of great historical sites. I've been trying to catch up with the news for the week and it seems that not too much happened last week, though this post about the budget worries me a little bit.

The Phillies were a .500 team when I left and as of yesterday they're still a .500 team.

Did anything exciting happen last week? Can someone send my the Cliff's Notes version of last week's events so I can stop combing through all of the headlines and just focus on the important stuff?

Thanks folks. Hopefully I can get back to blogging this afternoon after I clear out my email inbox and make the dozen or so phone calls I need to make.

After reading Ronnie Polaneczky's column today, I am wondering if Philadelphia has invented Casino Correctness. You know, the feeling that you can't possibly support slots parlors coming to Philadelphia because 1) none of your friends, or people that you would like to hang with, do 2) you'll be called an apologist for the gambling industry.

Peer pressure is not exactly the best way to conduct public business.

Now, please don't fill up my e-mail box. I am not expressing a pro-slots-parlor position here. I am not sure whether the advent of slots would be a mere nuisance or a really incredibly bad, city-altering decision. The only decision I've made is that I am unlikely to spend a dollar there, because gambling really isn't my thing.

I am just a little alarmed by Casino Correctness, and the reaction that some Fishtowners have faced (as described in Ronnie's column) when they expressed their support for the slots. It was a typical smashmouth Philly reaction to someone voicing a view opposed to the popular one. But this is hardly the way to have a reasoned discussion about the pros and cons of slots parlors,

Of course, if we'd had a actual debate in the state legislature about slots -- with time for the neighborhoods to have their say -- we wouldn't be in the situation anyway.

Philadelphia city government is really bad at a lot of things. Streets remain in disrepair, often for months, as potholes grow ever more gaping. Folks who are trying to do simply, permit-requiring, home repairs often tell stories of the difficulty they have in securing thost permits from the city. Most of the time, the failures of government result in minor annoyances.

Sometimes, however, the results are tragic.

The Department of Human Services has been in the spotlight recently, (not the good spotlight like at a play, but the bad spotlight like in an interrogation room) because of an alarming number deaths of children who under their care. Apparently, 52 have died since 2001 and the number continues to grow as more are discovered.

The mayor commissioned a report to study DHS and explain why this has happened.

Today on Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane, Marty talks to three of the authors of the report. Here's the promo copy:

Between 2001 and last year, 52 Philadelphia children -- whose cases were among the Department of Human Services files -- died. A panel of experts convened by Mayor Street to investigate the Department’s failings released their report last week. We talk panel members CAROL WILSON SPIGNER, FRANK CERVONE of the Support Center for Child Advocates, and pediatrician CINDY CHRISTIAN.

You can listen live here. Later on, I'll put the link to the podcast in case you missed it.

(edited to add)
As promised, the podcast.

Seventy is writing a wrong. Not a huge wrong, no, but one that does affect me personally when I am anxiously trying to hail a cab on Broad Street, running late as usual...

Admit it: You were surprised at the margin of Michael Nutter's victory in the primary.

Even among those of you who thought he'd win -- the polls were pointing in that direction, at the end -- did you really think he'd nab 36.6 percent of the vote, while the next-highest voter getter, Tom Knox, managed 24.6 percent? And that Nutter would win wards all over the city?

Apparently, the doubters were in good company -- the Nutter campaign was surprised by the margin too: "We internally saw how we could win, but we thought he'd have to dig out a three- or four-point lead," says Nutter adviser Dick Hayden in a revealing story in today's Daily News.

The story is about how the campaign bucked conventional wisdom in its successful effort. And it's very interesting. Olivia -- the star of the commercial that seemingly turned the tide -- turns out to be a small (if telegenic and generally charming) part of a longer trudge to the top that began back when Nutter quit City Council.

Along the way, the techniques drew derision from what Catherine calls "local political know-it-alls."

Admit it -- you wondered, too, when Nutter commercials stayed resolutely off the air or the candidate said he was counting on volunteers for the get out the vote effort. Well, the proof is in the official vote count, and Philadelphia elections don't always run by yesterday's patterns.

Now that the intensity of the race has faded and fewer people are paying attention, I have to admit I'm finding it difficult to find inspiration for substantive, issues-based blog posts. Even poring through the day's headlines hasn't really been doing it for me.

That said, there are a couple things in today's collection that, unintentionally or not, made me laugh.

From today's City Paper interview of Michael Nutter on "Important" LGBTQ issues:

CP: What piece of clothing can you not live without?

MN: Generally my pants; I tend not to travel too much without my pants.

I find that one wool sock can make up for a lack of pants in an emergency.

The headline of this article in today's Metro reminded me a lot of the famous, apocryphal question put to Mary Todd Lincoln, "Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

Here's an Inqling that you may have missed:

There'll be a mayoral challenge at the Rosenbach Museum and Library as Nutter and Republican hopeful Al Taubenberger plan to be among those reading James Joyce's tongue-tripping Ulysses on June 16 at the museum's annual Bloomsday Celebration.

This may be one of those situation where Taubenberger would probably be willing to wave the equal time rule. What if, instead of reading from Ulysses, Nutter and Taubenberger interpreted it through performance art with the help of this woman? Now that I'd go and see.

This has basically nothing to do with the politics or issues of the mayor's race or the City Council elections. I just thought it was interesting.

On that note, have you ever had the privilege of waiting for the El at 12:30am and seeing the "money train?" It's pretty cool if you haven't and it also signals that there's only one more El train coming through. Last time I saw it, the train was made up of 6 of the old style El cars - the ones I used to ride in high school - except instead of windows, there's armored plates.

The train rolls into the station and from one end the custodial staff jumps out (oh yeah, did I mention that there's no doors either?) and grabs all of the trash bags from the cans on the platform. They tie up the bags and toss them into the car where dozens of similar trash bags are piled. From the other end of the train come two of the most bad-ass, jacked-up looking mofos that you'll ever see on a SEPTA train. In each hand they carry two lock-boxes (Al Gore would be proud). As they walk past, briskly but not looking rushed at all, the pounding of their feet on the platform seems to shake the entire station. They disappear up the steps to the cashier booths and less than a minute later reappear with their boxes full and jingling with thousands of coins and tokens.

Within 2 minutes, everyone is back on the train and it pulls out to head to the next station. Both times I witnessed it, the train was heading westbound, most likely where it delivered its contents to the the armored cars that would carry the money to "nondescript fortress in a secret location" mentioned in the article.

Am I the only one who read this and immediately became curious about the location of this fortress?

Anyway... just thought it was interesting.

It's been a few weeks since I brought up the ticking time bomb that is the municipal worker pension issue.

It's clear that within the next few years, the amount of money the city will need to meet its pension obligations is going to eat up a significant portion of the budget. However, did you also know that currently, in some places, public employees attempt to "spike" their pensions in order to get a higher payments during retirement?

Governing.com columnist Girard Miller explains it best but essentially since the amount that a retiree receives each year in his or her pension can be a percentage of their last (or highest) annual salary, the worker will work a lot of overtime or cash in several unused sick and/or vacation days in order to inflate that number well above where it should be. The city (or county or state) ends up paying much more during that employees retirement than they would if such spiking didn't occur. Ultimately, though, the taxpayers are footing the bill since that's where the money comes from in the first place.

I don't know if such a thing happens in Philly (or if the "diluted" version that Miller talks about happens) but it wouldn't surprise me. There are ways to fix this problem and Miller explains a few - including diverting "sidecar" deferred compensation plans that would contribute to 401k-type plans a percentage based on income that is above the base salary.

But... like all seemingly logical solutions, once political considerations are taken into account, the math seems to get a lot fuzzier.

It's time to meet another mayor - Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. This one's easy, since 13th Floor already compiled a bunch of interesting links for me that provide both glowing praise (here, too) and harsh criticism of Mr. Villaraigosa. Granted, 13th makes the point that the harsh criticism is more about the man himself and not his policies.

Villaraigosa is one of a number of mayors (like Bloomberg in New York and Daley in Chicago) who attempted to "take back" or take control of their city's school districts. For Villaraigosa, it didn't exactly work out but his attempt can be instructional for anyone else who wants to do the same in their own city.

Interesting trivia... his last name was originally Villar but he blended his wife's name, Raigosa, into his own to get Villaraigosa.

Leave it to City of Gotham to be employing technology in its crime fighting efforts that would make Bruce Wayne proud. Following up on the success of the Comstat crime tracking program, the NYPD has begun using high tech approaches to gathering and storing information and putting that information at the fingertips of officers and detectives in the field.

Using a combination of an advanced database, wifi and a Google-like search capability, detectives can search for obscure details given to them from witnesses and be put on a suspects trail in minutes. Facts and notes that were once stored in vast warehouses, tucked away in boxes, file folders and other detectives' notebooks, are now available on-line.

There's no statistical way, at this point in time, to prove that the new system is having a dramatic effect on crime fighting but the NYT article gives several pieces of anecdotal evidence.

Crime fighting appears to be just one of many different benefits that city's are discovering about citywide, municipal wireless internet. Among those are "automated traffic monitoring, parking enforcement, and meter reading" and using wireless video cameras to watch for vandalism.

Bottom line... no matter what happens for consumers when Wireless Philly is up and running, if the City does it right and takes advantage, we could be in for a whole new era of smart government. (Or at least an era in which the phrase "smart government" doesn't cause some to chuckle or roll their eyes.)

Then tune in to The Next Mayor next week!

We are delighted to announce that we will host two special live chats with the major party candidates:

Democrat Michael Nutter will be LIVE on our site Tuesday at 1 p.m.

And Republican Al Taubenberger will be LIVE on our site Thursday at 10 a.m.!

Come back to chat with them directly! And if you think you'll miss the chats, just comment here with any questions you'd like us to put to the candidates.

Boy, Marcia Gelbart sure has a good story in the Inquirer today about attacks on Bob Brady's position in the Democratic party...

Every time I start to think that the future of the city is bright and we're moving to a time when we'll all be able to work together to solve the major problems that confront all of us, all I have to do is peruse the letters to the editor in The Northeast Times. Scroll down to the seventh headline. There's no way I'm going to reprint any of it here. I'll just give you a warning that what you're about to read is some of the most racist, ignorant, hateful words ever sent to (and printed by) a newspaper. It's instructive only in that I can't imagine that the letter writer is the only one out there with those feelings and when I think about that, a little part of me dies. It also makes me sad when I think about how DUMB someone must be not to see their own vitriol for what it is AND set those thoughts on paper AND send it to a newspaper.

Free speech and the marketplace of ideas being what they are, today's crop of letters in the Northeast Times has plent of rebuttals (and one agreement, sigh again.) Scroll to the bottom.

My legislative body is trying to put together a taste test to determine the fate of several small bakeries:

The original bill's [banning trans fat] sponsor, Councilman Juan Ramos, asked Krajewski to hold the amendment or withdraw it; to which Krajewski replied, "No, I want these bakeries to come in and testify in front of City Council."

Krajewski plans to bring in several of the independent bakeries to offer Council Members a taste of their prize winners, with and without trans fat. They'll taste the difference, she notes.

I'm ok with this tactic but I hope Krajewski and O'Neill don't plan on using a similar method to provide evidence for their opposition to the Water Department's proposed sewage holding tank.

I'm a former suburban kid and a closet environmentalist so I'm always readingup on the ways that other cities and regions are working to curb sprawl, reduce air pollution and strengthen the connections between the core city and the surrounding region.

In this fascinating article from Governing magazine, you can read about the evolution of transit-oriented development in the historically auto-centric city of Charlotte, North Carolina. Apparently, a lot of it was spurred by the fact that many former Philadelphians (and folks from other older cities) moved down there during the wave of bank consolidations and headquarter relocations that happened in the nineties. Who knew that nostalgia for the El could result in $5 billion in infrastructure development?

This article is replete with people saying the right things when it comes to long term planning:

“Planners use acronyms and words like ’density’ and ’R6 zoning,’ ” [Charlotte Mayor Pat] McCrory says. “People can’t relate.” The mayor liked to present two competing images of Charlotte’s future. One included tidy tree-lined streets with bikeways and sidewalks. The other showed “traffic lights every 15 feet, strip malls and unlimited pavement.” More than anything, McCrory stressed the idea that a transit system isn’t intended to be a quick fix but rather a long-term investment.

As if to underscore that smart growth and environmental awareness isn't a partisan issue, it should be noted that McCrory is a Republican and was among those advocating for a half-cent sales tax increase that covered the 25 percent local share of the overall cost. Another 25 percent came from the state with the remaining 50 percent coming from the federal government. Kind of makes we wonder what we could do here to extend transit out to King of Prussia or Bucks County if our regional delegation in Harrisburg could get on the same page.

It seems that everyone needs to be on the same page to accomplish such and effort. Here's another quote from a very "on message" advisor to the mayor:

Voters have supported transit several times in the past, and city officials, from the planners to Mayor McCrory, have worked hard to build support within the community. Tina Votaw, a planner with the city agency in charge of light rail, says it’s important to convey a big-picture message to the public. “You have to be honest and say, ’You’re right. This transit line might not help you. But it might help your neighbors. It might help your children.’ ” Votaw adds that traffic congestion isn’t going away, and that adding lanes to busy freeways is a short-term solution to traffic problems. “We’re not traditionally good at taking the long view,” she says. “But you’ve got to impress that upon people one by one.”

Charlotte is among many sunbelt cities following this trend along with Austin, Dallas, Orlando, Phoenix and Sacramento.

So, let's say they all succeed and are able to replicate, in some measure, the walkability, convenience and car-independent thing that we have going on here in Philadelphia. And we can take it one step further and say that such success spurs the development of thriving arts and culture scenes, eclectic mixes of people and vibrant hospitality industry. If you add this to the fantastic weather, cleaner visual environment and efficient delivery of city services and lower tax rates, what's stopping ANYONE from moving from here to one of those places? Our mega-successful sports teams?

Here's hoping that the competition pushes us to achieve even greater things.

I'm not a big fan of the voter as customer metaphor but if you are, here's an interview with the author of a book titled, The Price of Government: Getting the Results We Need in an Age of Permanent Fiscal Crisis.

The quote from the title of this post is his and he seeks to give lessons from the retail world to government officials.

On one of the campaigns I worked for, the candidate made what I thought was a very convincing argument that when we treat voters like customers, or more accurately, consumers, we end up ignoring that citizenship and being a part of a commonwealth or city requires some sacrifice on our part for the common good. That's not to say that the sacrifice should come in the form of sacrificing our expectations for the efficient, predictable, courteous and consistent delivery of basic city services. The sacrifice comes from paying your taxes knowing that not every cent is going to benefit you directly.

He went on to say that when we treat citizens as consumers, they treat their elected officials like salesmen, voting out any of them who even consider raising a tax. Of course, this has more to do with federal tax policies than local tax policies. But we don't call the occupant of room 215, the CEO of Philadelphia, we call him (or someday her), the Mayor. There's a lot more to that than just managing the dollars and cents.

If you're a time-shifting television watcher and you haven't seen the series finale of The Sopranos yet, and the only reason you came out from hiding under that rock this morning was to check our blog, rest assured we won't give anything away here.

Buuuut...

In the category of "Vacation Experiences That I'll Never Have," there's this story about Tom Knox and his recent boat trip Sopranos star James Gandolfini. It even includes some great snapshots that beat the heck out of the ones of me and my college roommates on our recent wedding/reunion trip to Israel. Gandolfini wasn't the only celebrity that Knox spent time with in the Bahamas over last New Year's Eve:

It was a star-studded vacation for Knox at the exclusive Ocean Club in Nassau. While hanging out at the pool on New Year's Eve, he struck up a conversation with a man who asked what Knox did for a living.

"How about that?" responded the stranger. "I'm mayor of Chicago." Knox invited Richard M. Daley to join him and his new friend Jim Gandolfini for dinner that evening.

While it's true we don't have Knox (or Brady or Fattah or Evans) to kick around any more, I can't help but feel a little relieved that someone who (at least by this account) didn't know the mayor of Chicago (aka "The Mayor) before being told "I'm mayor of Chicago," didn't end up as mayor of Philadelphia.

Oh and by the way, if you really want to know what happened to Tony use your mouse to select the block of blank space below:

In the final scene, with both FBI and rival mob bullets flying throughout the diner in which Tony and his family had been dining, an autistic child holding a snow globe in one hand guided a 1950s-era chopper to the ground. Tony got into the chopper and as he flew off, he read the words "Good Bye" spelled out with a number of large stones on the street below. As Tony drifted to sleep in the airborne chopper, he was suddenly roused from sleep to find himself back in his bedroom with the sound of the shower coming from the bathroom. He entered the bathroom and pulled back the curtain to find Patrick Duffy lathering up at which point he realized... it was all a dream!

(A nod to Adam B. for the formatting idea for spoilers. He's "a friend of ours" which in blogosphere mafia speak means "another person with a blog," who writes a lot about pop culture and, therefore, often walks the spoiler line.)

Tomorrow we welcome Democratic nominee for Mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, to our virtual press conference, except by "press" we mean people wasting their employer's valuable time chatting at work or taking a break from afternoon courtroom television shows. All are welcomed to join in this chat with the man who, many believe, has a better-than-average shot at being the next mayor.

Make sure you check out the main page at 1pm tomorrow for information about how to participate in this Q&A session.

Al Taubenberger will join us in the "virtual family room" for a chat on Thursday.

Last Friday I waxed philosophical as I explored the role of the mayor as the leader of the city and as the manager of the city government. To sum up, I said I was a bit skeptical of instances in which voters have been treated to and appealed to as if they were consumers searching for the lowest prices.

The good folks at the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia wrote to me today to provide a counterpoint. I respect their work a lot and on many points I agree, especially the idea that they've been talking about for long time - that the city budget is the best and most clear way for the mayor to demonstrate his priorities and overall philosophy on governing - that is, if the budget itself is clear and easy to understand. Since I can't do justice to their arguments, I'll share with you the email from Marisa Waxman, Senior Associate and policy expert.

Click on "Continue Reading" to check out the email.

It's a brave new world in Philadelphia politics and it starts this afternoon at 1pm on the official website of The Next Mayor project.

Democratic mayoral nominee Michael Nutter will participate in a live web chat from the offices of the Philadelphia Daily News. I'll be there too but you don't really care about that.

Anyway, there's a lot on my blogging plate for today but I'll wait until after the 1pm event.

And I would be remiss if I didn't remind you that your opportunity to get to know Republican mayoral nominee Al Taubenberger will be this Thursday at 10am. But please, do your research before you jump into that chat. It'll be embarrassing for me, you and Mr. Taubenberger if the first question is reminiscent of the Springfield Shopper's Dave Shutton ("Who are you? Where are you going?").

Vance Lehmkuhl, on-line editor of the Daily News, just told Nutter that he's getting "Bill Conlin-like chat numbers" and that a vast majority of the questions were coming from all different people. In technical speak, that means we could see the IP addresses of the users and they were all unique for different names.

Yep. We just wrapped up the first Next Mayor live chat with the candidate and I guess all of our fears about not getting enough questions were answered early on. Before Mr. Nutter could sit down, we had about 10 questions and it was all he could do to keep up with the stream of questions that came in.

Anyway, if you missed it, we'll be putting up a transcript of the session that puts his answers directly after the questions that they refer to. Wendy is working on that now and will post it on the blog and the site.

Thanks to all of you who participated and used your employer's valuable time to ask Candidate Nutter a question. (Just kidding folks, I know you all scheduled your lunch break so you could participate in this.)

Remember Al Taubenberger on Thursday at 10am. Come by the site for an informal chat with Republican mayoral nominee.

Wow, that was HUGE. Concerned citizens deluged Democratic mayoral candidate Michael Nutter with questions for today's chat. An edited version of the session -- which puts the questions and answers together -- is below the jump.

It was hard to follow the answers to the questions as the chat progressed, so perhaps this will be easier to read.

Now, I am sorry to say that the questions came so thick and heavy that Nutter did not get a chance to answer them all. He did get to most of the major points, however...

ETA: Here's the unedited version of the chat. It's tough to read because it's not in order, but it's the complete transcript. I am still working through the rest of the transcript. I will be posting an update tomorrow. - Wendy

Philadelphia Business Journal's survey of the week is "grade recent graduates in the workforce." While the grades themselves fall into a pretty typical collegiate-like curve, skewing towards the "Gentleman's B," the more revealing part of this survey can be found in the comments. Here are some of my favorites:

Motivation and commitment level are average at best even if they have great knowledge and skill. A few shining stars, but most feel the world owes them something and therefore, they don't feel they should have to work hard to achieve success. They feel entitled. This is what our culture and schools/unversities are producing today for the most part, and it's a shame.

Motivation and commitment level are average at best even if they have great knowledge and skill. A few shining stars, but most feel the world owes them something and therefore, they don't feel they should have to work hard to achieve success. They feel entitled. This is what our culture and schools/unversities are producing today for the most part, and it's a shame.

Their writing skills and knowledge of contemporary history is sorely lacking.

Does anyone else see the irony in that last comment? Doesn't take a college graduate to know subject-verb agreement.

Anyway, are their any employers out there who want to say something positive about recent college grads? Do you think employers in cities that are well-known for attracting the best and brightest college grads are having these same issues? Are their any recent college grads who want to respond? My sense is there's a certain amount of the curmudgeonly "in my day..." at work in these comments but it could be true that things are actually worse in this department than they were a generation ago.

Food for thought.

I haven't been following the Kim Byrd story all that much. Byrd, a Philadelphia police officer, was promoted a couple years ago to be Commissioner Johnson's chief of staff. Rumors of favoritism spread throughout the department and there was some degree of controversy that eventually died down - or at least wasn't covered in the news. Recently, Byrd won the prestigious George Fencl award, the MVP award for cops. With Johnson as a judge for the award, the same favoritism issues were brought up again. Soon after, Johnson promoted Byrd to "executive officer," a move, apparently, that brings more responsibility but no upgrade in pay (what was second place? two such promotions?).

Anyway, to outsiders it probably seemed like the jealousy and negative reactions among police officers were due to typical issues of seniority with a little sexism mixed in. But, according to this Tribune story, racial tension in the police department is a serious issue.

I'm especially troubled by this quote from an anonymous source:

“We have a new mayor coming in and no decision has been made yet as to who the next police commissioner will be. If it’s a white commissioner, then God help us,” the officer said.

I'm not even sure what this officer means by this. What don't I know about the internal workings of the Philadelphia Police Department that would make a statement like this true? Or could this just be the rantings of one loudmouthed, disgruntled cop and not reflective of the attitude of the vast majority of cops?

Either way, it's disturbing.

There's a saying about government that goes "a billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money." I've always wondered why some government services cost sooooo much. This sidebar about the $38 million price tag on the rehabilitation of the Ada H. Lewis Middle School could shed some light:

For example, the district estimated a cost of $2,500 per door to be placed on existing frames.

"I've done prison work, hospital work, and a fire-rated, prefinished door, I can get for $250," he said.

Apparently the School District also has aspirations to host an NCAA tournament opening weekend at the gym:

Kirby also said the estimate for replacing the Ada Lewis gymnasium floor was overpriced at $40 per square foot.

"Unless you're at the Palestra, you're not going to spend $40 per square foot," Kirby said. "You could do a middle-school gym floor for $10 to $12 a square foot."

Or you could just use linoleum like some of the floors I played on in grade school.

Imagine if every budget item for every government expenditure could just as easily be revised downward by seventy to ninety percent.

According to Frank Fairbanks, award-winning city manager of Phoenix, Arizona, community participation is key (link will work for about a week). Phoenix, by the way, has been recognized a number of times for its efficient delivery of city services. We even have video of Mr. Fairbanks from his visit to Philadelphia, explaining part of how Phoenix does things "faster and better."

Of course, he's using graffiti as his example of a "big problem" for the "low-income" area of Phoenix so his perspective may not exactly fit with some of the major issues that we face in Philadelphia. Still, it's instructive to see how intensely and deeply the city of Phoenix enlists the help of community residents to perform what some might consider city services. Most importantly, the city makes certain promises that it will hold up its end of the bargain:

Graffiti Busters includes:

- A strong city service delivery team to quickly paint over graffiti
- Effective program measurements and accountability to a 48-hour removal goal
- Extensive outreach enlisting community members to report and paint graffiti, using borrowed city tools and free paint to expedite paint-overs and cut costs
- Use of technology through paint color matching, web-based communications, and motion-activated digital cameras to catch violators
- Outreach training for the community
- Financial rewards for tips that help apprehend graffiti violators
- Prevention activities via city ordinances requiring that retailers lock up spray paint and refuse underage sales
- Assignment of three detectives to investigate graffiti cases
- Prosecution of graffiti vandals to obtain restitution and sentences
- A probation program that allows first-time graffiti vandals to paint out graffiti in lieu of jail time
- Advocacy for state legislative action supporting strong, uniform anti-graffiti laws

Again, I realize it's graffiti that we're talking about here and that the City does have it's own version of this with the Anti-Graffiti Network, but the point is that a major theme that was brought up repeatedly during our Next Mayor Community Forums was the desire for members of the community to have a greater voice in service delivery. Phoenix just provides one example.

As an aside, has anyone ever worked with the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network? How responsive and effective are they?

In this case, the machine is your computer.

In about 50 minutes, Al Taubenberger will join us for a live webchat. This may be the first time many of you have gotten to chat with Mr. T. and I pity the fool who misses out on it.

We think we've smoothed out some of the rough edges in the process but like before, we'll make a transcript of the entire thing available later in the day.

Well, I'm off to the Daily News office. Hope to see you on-line.

I just got back from the Daily News where Republican nominee for mayor, Al Taubenberger, conducted a live web chat with participants. There was a good mix of questions including several that had been emailed to us in advance. Al was able to get to 17 different questions in the hour he was with us and he said that he enjoyed the experience very much.

I was a little disappointed that more people didn't take the opportunity to try and get to know Al Taubenberger, "the guy," instead of just treating him like Al Taubenberger, "the candidate." There's still a lot that we have learn about this guy and in the future (and he said he'd welcome the chance to do this again), I hope we get questions that probe a little deeper into his personality and leadership style.

Anyway, you'll find an unedited version of the chat here. Start at the bottom and work your way up. Wendy is working on pairing up the questions with the answers in a more coherent fashion. I'm working on a web-only radio (webdio?) piece about both Nutter's and Taubenberger's experience. Check back here later today and tomorrow for those pieces.

PS. A reminder: here are the edited and unedited transcripts of the Michael Nutter web chat. We welcome your thoughts in the comments, especially if you participated in either of the chats. We'd like to know what we can do better to make these events both more entertaining and informative.

The Inquirer's Great Expectations project has been asking people to imagine that "Michael Nutter, Democratic nominee and likely next mayor of Philadelphia, has materialized at your kitchen table."

You would have his undivided attention for two minutes and would start your conversation with "Yo, Mike! The one thing I really need you to do is..."

You fill in the rest.

Today they have a sampling of some of the 600 or so responses that they've gotten.

Some of it is almost enough to bring tears to your eyes:

"Often people wrote not about a specific issue, but a heartfelt aspiration. Many want to believe that Nutter's primary win was a sign that hope isn't just for suckers. Some comments:

I'd like to feel like a winner."

I happen to be a baseball fan, so for me, news like this is helpful for that winner thing. But seriously, I know exactly what that commenter is talking about. When I was in college - in Massachusetts - I lived with 4 guys who were from different cities all around the country (and world for that matter). Whenever I told someone that I was from Philadelphia, I seemed to get either sympathetic reactions, or "oh, the cheesesteak place" reactions or no reaction whatsoever. On my recent trip overseas, I got similar reactions, albeit with less of the sympathetic and more of the no impression at all, from people from London, Brazil, Chicago, etc. People from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, even Boston, don't get those reactions.

I don't know if I'll always live here but I'll always answer the question of where I'm from with "Philadelphia." I'm hopeful that the reaction will be more positive in the future.

The more I read stories like this and see headlines like this, the more I realize that the most difficult issue facing the next mayor is protecting vulnerable and at-risk children.

It's important because it's precisely these children who, if not cared for and raised properly from the very earliest part of their lives, are statistically more likely to enter the criminal justice system and be the perpetrators and/or victims of violent crime. And that assumes that they even make it to adolescence and young adulthood. Of course it's even more important that they be kept safe and be given a chance to grow up. But where do you draw the line? At what point do you determine that it's in the child's best interest to be separated from their parents or taken from their home environment? There are probably a LOT of folks out there who shouldn't be parents. Heck, there are probably a lot of people out there who shouldn't have pets. But the fact is they become parents and as such also have certain rights.

The issue is difficult simply for the political reason that the mayor serves for eight years and will spend most of his time dealing with the issue of the day. Much of what needs to happen at DHS and in the care and education of children in general, require actions that focus on the long run - 10, 15, 20 years down the line. The mayor needs to realize that it may be his successor or his successor's successor that actually enjoys the fruits of his labor. How many elected officials do we have who take that sort of long range view of things? More importantly, how many voters are willing to let them?

Anyway, keep your chins up, DHS workers. I know morale must be pretty low with headlines like those screaming at you every day. But since you're the ones who actually will be there in 15 or 20 years, this city needs you.