The Next Mayor

Hey folks, in case you missed it on the front page, today's episode of Issues Forums deals with the slots parlors and Delaware waterfront planning.

You can watch it on that page, download it as a podcast (caution, you need iTunes for that link to work), or just watch it right here:

For more information, you can also refer back to this post that I did about the unveiling of the Central Delaware waterfront planning committee's plan.

If you're really interested, that committee will be having public meetings tonight and tomorrow to show the results of their work and answer questions from the community. Here's the info:

For nine months, a group of citizens -- led by Penn Praxis, the Philadelphia Planning Commission, and planning and design firm WRT -- have been working on a new concept for Philadelphia's waterfront. Now, they are ready to show off their collaborative vision.

The seven-mile PennPraxis vision calls for integrating mass transit, bike trails, car sharing, and remote parking to shift the focus of the central Delaware from the car to the pedestrian. A new open space network reclaims the waterfront as public domain, calling for a park for every riverward neighborhood, connected by a trail system that will make the Delaware a regional destination.

The public can see the plans today at the Cescaphe Ballroom, 923 N. 2nd Street. Refreshments will be at 5:30; the presentation will be from 6:15 p.m.- 9 p.m. Another presentation will be held tomorrow at Settlement Music School, 416 Queen Street, at the same times. Register for each at www.planphilly.com

So, folks, what do you think? Do you think these casinos can be a good thing? If not, do you think there's any way that they can be stopped? If you think they're inevitable how do you feel about the city's chances to integrate them into a vibrant and attractive Delaware waterfront? Or... should we just sell that strip of waterfront to Camden since we can't seem to do anything good with it anyway? Your comments are welcome.

Over at YPP, not-quite-ready-for-prime-time mayoral write-in candidate, Larry West made an interesting point, if not with his blog post, at least with the title of his post:

How the Media can Help Lower the Murder Rate

You can read his post but I don't necessarily agree with his point that there needs to be more coverage of the murder rate, nor will placing those stories higher up in television newscasts do the trick. In my comment (reprinted below) I argue that it may be about the quality of each individual story, rather than the quantity:

We've been kicking around this question for a few days now as we try to figure out where to go with thenextmayor.com once "the next mayor" becomes "the current mayor." Some of the concerns that we see with the media coverage of the murder rate is that all of the stories tend to be the same - whether they're done by print media and get on the front page or cover of the paper or by television news.

Does anyone else have any more thoughts about what the media could do about this?
So, any ideas?

Governing Magazine's website has a weekly "Management Insights" column published in collaboration with the Government Innovators Network at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. As the network's name indicates, this is about innovative efforts by governments to improve the cities and states which they govern.

The latest column spotlights Cleveland, OH's strategy to create a broadband infrastructure and (gasp) it may be better than ours!

The essence is found in what Cleveland is doing with broadband infrastructure for innovation on a regional basis. Cleveland is unique in its approach to broadband, its emphasis on entrepreneurial innovation and its focus on the region rather than on the city, the state or the nation.

The columnist, Jerry Mechling, is a lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of government and seems to like this whole idea of "regionalism" just as much as we here at The Next Mayor do:

Cleveland could not create broadband-enabled innovation on its own. It tried but could not get much help from the state capitol in Columbus. It tried but could not get much help from national policy in Washington, D.C. The reality for Cleveland and all northeast Ohio is that jobs are increasingly mobile while people and the regional workforce are remarkably stable. Despite the fact that roughly 20% of Americans move every five years, nearly half live within 30 miles of where they were born. The regional economy is the essential unit of community and change. (emphasis is mine)

I've got some ideas for actions that this region could take to solve a lot of different problems. However, step 1 continues to be, opening the lines of communication. Once the next mayor does that, then just about anything is possible.

I've been writing a lot about urban planning lately, especially since today's episode of Issues Forums deals with the casinos and waterfront planning, so here's a story about what happened when one London street was stipped "naked" (via "The 13th Floor"). Given the emphasis that urban planners like to place on preserving the pedestrian friendly aspects of the urban landscape, it's interesting how, according to the "shared space" philosophy, bringing walkers in closer contact with cars may actually make them safer.

Could you imagine east Market Street without curbs, lines or crosswalks? Yeah... neither can I.

My apologies to my Daily News partners for plugging a blog written by their rivals at the Inquirer, but I just found this one and since it's about a subject near and dear to my heart, I just had to point it out.

Inquirer writer Melissa Dribben (with a little help from Ned Rauch-Mannino of the "Pick-up Philadelphia" campaign) has a blog that is essentially about the crazy amounts of litter on the ground in our fair city. It seems to consist mostly of citizen-written comments about the dirt in their part of the city or the "way things used to be" (everyone always remember it being so clean in the past, but I've seen Rocky and Philly in the 70s looked pretty dingy).

Anyway, I'm not one who believes that it's a core function of government to pick up litter, afterall no boroughs or townships pick up litter off the streets in suburban communities and those seem pretty clean. But the next mayor could make it a priority to make it easier for people to do it themselves or (and this I'm fine with) enforce the laws on the books and prosecute to the fullest extent. Start handing out a few $300 littering fines and we'll see how quickly people stop tossing their trash on the ground.

Is John Staggs of the Socialist Workers Party, 60, a meatpacker living in Germantown.

Those who have followed local campaigns will remember his name. As Bob Warner reports in Thursday's Daily News:

He ran third in the 2003 mayoral contest, collecting 1,292 votes against John Street and Sam Katz, less than one-half of 1 percent of the total votes cast.

Last year, Staggs challenged state Rep. Rosita Youngblood for her House seat and got 3.7 percent of the vote, without a Republican in the race.

He has, however, already created change in government: Also last year, Staggs refused to sign the “loyalty oath” that the state had required of political candidates for more than 50 years, in which the candidate swore he or she is “not a subversive person," Bob reports. That led state Attorney General Tom Corbett to tell election officials statewide not to enforce it.

Though Staggs is the only one running for mayor, a number of third-party candidates and independents also filed for other city offices. The candidates had to file their papers by today.

They are:

8th councilmanic district: Brian Rudnick (Green), Rev. Jesse W. Brown Jr. and Jim Foster

7th councilmanic district: Luis A. Pineda

Council at large: Jacinth Brown Roberts (Green), Osborne Hart (Socialist Workers')

Sheriff: Jacque Whaumbush

City Commissioner: Lewis Harris Jr. (Green)

Since we happen to be focusing on the isssue of casinos and development along the Delaware, I should point out that planphilly.org has a report about the first meeting for public feedback on the work of central Delaware planning group at the "elegant Cescaphe Ballroom" (includes video). Apparently, while it seems that most people liked the ideas presented in the plan, there were diverse opinions about its feasibility. But overall, it sounds like they took this advice:

The audience divided itself into seven groups of 15 to 20 participants to respond to the proposals and offer their own. Harris Sokoloff, who leads the Penn Project on Civic Engagement, asked them to rise above the perception of the city as a nay-saying “Nega-delphia” and explore the opportunities the plan offers. Mostly, they obliged.

It's funny, but I have a feeling that most of the "Nega-delphia" comes from people who think that "the politicians will never do it," not realizing that the politicians will do it if the people tell them to. I know... I know... how naive. But there is a grain of truth.

Anyway, if you missed last night, you can tonight to the meeting in Queen Village. You may even get a chance to see me. I look like this.

(edited to add)
In case your interested, planphilly.org also has information about the people who will be determining what the city looks like for the next... 40 or so years! It appears that some of them will be meeting tomorrow. And it's only "some" since the mayor and some council folks haven't gotten around to making their appointees yet. Remember how long it took for him to make his appointments to the ethics board? Maybe they should postpone Friday's meeting.

Here's your chance to comment about today's issue du jour: Education.

Check out today's episode of Issues Forums, available any way you want it - streaming video, a video podcast (link will open iTunes), or on everyone's favorite tube, Youtube:

My takeaway from this video is that is doesn't matter whether or not the SRC - School Reform Commission - continues to be the governing body of the School District. The next mayor can have an impact on the schools by doing things that are as simple as actually visiting the schools on a regular basis. This next mayor will get about 6 months of a honeymoon during which television crews will flock to him like moths to a flame. Use that and bring those tv cameras into some of the more troubled schools. Don't hide from the things that are wrong with the schools. Bring them to light so everyone knows about them, use that pulpit to lay out a plan to fix them and then get everyone to buy into that plan.

Also, influence over decision making comes with money. If the next mayor dedicates a portion of the budget to the schools, greater than what it is now, and puts that money in place for specific actions - like new teacher recruitment and retention - he can make those decisions.

Anyway... people who think about this stuff much more than I do have actually written about what the mayor can do about the schools. Check out this summary of the report from the Cross-City Campaign for School Reform, which includes links to the entire report.

Check out the video and sound off in the comments.

The Equality Forum, an international group promoting civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people, has taken a deep look at the primary vote in Philadelphia's gay neighborhoods. And the group says that, as a block, Philadelphia gays voted for Michael Nutter.

According to the Forum's research, about 70% of the vote in gay neighborhoods went for Nutter.

The methodology behind this report is interesting. The Equality Forum started by identifying "seven distinct Philadelphia gay neighborhoods" and found that Nutter took 74 percent of the vote there.

If picking gay neighborhoods sounds a little subjective for your research tastes, well, the Forum went at this in a scientific way too: the group used Census records to identify the 12 city Census tracts with the most same-sex couples residing in the same household and found Nutter took 69 percent of the vote in those neighborhoods.

Obviously, either method sweeps up a lot of straight voters -- and, just as clearly, a lot of gay votes too.

So why is it that gay voters went so solidly for Nutter?

Nutter had walked the walk: as a City Councilman, Nutter introduced what became the city's domestic partnership law. And during the primary, he issued a policy paper on LGBT issues.

But several other candidates had their own LGBT bona fides to point to. In February, Evans was the first candidate to issue a plan to address LGBT issues -- and he pledged his support for Dan Anders, a gay candidate for Common Pleas judge . Brady was feted by Congressman Barney Frank when he picked up an award from the Philadelphia Gay Tourism Caucus. Fattah was endorsed by OUTFRONT!, a advocacy group serving LGBT communities.

That's not all: Brady, Evans, Fattah and Nutter all attended a forum hosted by The Liberty City Lesbian and Gay Democratic Club in March (Knox was invited but did not attend). It's an interesting indication of the power of the gay vote in Philadelphia that, at that meeting, each candidate there had something to crow about (as reported by Catherine Lucey March 9):

Nutter noted that when he was on Council he worked to give domestic-partner benefits to city employees.

Evans discussed his recently released LGBT agenda, which calls for reforms including greater diversity in City Hall and sensitivity training for police.

Fattah pointed out that he had voted against the Defense of Marriage Act - which sought to bar gay marriage - in Congress.

And Brady talked about how he had gotten the carpenters to work for free on the William Way [Community] Center.

And Nutter, Fattah and Evans all attended The Rustin Forum for Philadelphia's Future in April when more than 100 members of Philadelphia's LGBT communities presented the issues that they want Philadelphia's next mayor to deal with. (The video is here. Knox, Brady and Taubenberger were invited but did not attend.)

So what made the difference among the four candidates who were obviously gay-friendly?

The Equality Forum's Executive Director, Malcolm Lazin, suggests that it was how Nutter campaigned that made the difference. He said gay voters responded to Nutter's style, reading into it (and his legislative history) that he would work for their issues. "A candidate who can provide the right cues can be the beneficiary of a GLBT block vote," he said.

Lazin continued: "Nutter was viewed as a progressive outsider by a community that is perceived as outside the mainstream. Nutter actively campaigned for the gay vote and sent cues that he embraced diversity and wanted to shake up the establishment for Philadelphia's benefit."

Interesting.

I also wonder if those seven to 12 neighborhoods are home to voters with higher socioeconomic status, which might affect voting patterns as much as anything.

Regardless, the Forum's Lazin is impressed with the political strength of Philadelphia's gay communities, and sees a future in measuring the strength of gay voting in future elections. "Block voting increases a group's political importance and power," he said.

It's crazy to think what's going on here in our city this week...

We have another fatal police shooting, 11 for the year.

We also have the Casino business with town councils meeting the governor to talk about relocating the casinos, though, with the casino security, it may actually reduce crime, who knows?

And, back to crime, sort of... two sisters were evicted because their house apparently did not meet safety standards, but one must ask, with the murder rate moving like a Ferrari with no brakes, can we, or they, really afford to worry about a family's house? Especially since the only reason the residents claim the repairs were not done was because they couldn't find a legitimate contractor to do the work.

Meanwhile, the Teachers turned down a multi-million dollar merit pay program, but there are certainly justifications as to why, but for that one must read the article...

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers turned down a 20.5 million dollar program from the Federal Government. The program was supposed to give incentives to both the teachers and the school system to outperform their current educational trends.

The Teachers were not interested because they claim that the program cannot be run fairly, that they have no control over the makeup of their student body, likewise, they say the rating will be to subjective. Who knows, perhaps their right, but could it hurt to try?

Every time the contract is up, there are innevitably complaints about the salaries of teachers, so from a monetary standpoint, this policy would hurt nobody, at least not directly. Think about it like extra credit, and teachers should understand that, if you get it, it helps you, if not, your situation will not change.

And, to complain that the system is unfair seems to be a faulty argumant, not because it is untrue, but what do teachers say to students when they complain about things being fair... life is not fair. Teachers need to practice what they preach regardless of the situation they are in. People do not expect the teachers in Philadelphia to train their students to work at NASA, but they need to pass critical tests, and thus teachers need to do their job, extra money or not, so it cannot hurt them.

One could argue that the schools could use the money in better ways, and that may be, but if the Federal Government has 20.5 million dollars ear-marked in this fashion, it would be silly not to take it, because by turning down this money, do you hurt yourself in the future? If Congress acts in the policy of Don Corleone, they will not offer again now that they have been refused this offer.

If that is the case, then this could have been a terrible decision, but time will tell... your thoughts?

Welcome to the Capital, no not DC, but Philly, the Homicide Capital of the World. With homicide rates skyrocketing like a Shuttle Launch, someone needs to step up and accomplish something.

Unfortunately Philly, this isn't Gotham City so we're not going to get a billionaire to hand out justice from a rocket car. Maybe i'm crazy, but usually, i expect policemen to protect and serve, and perhaps they do, but not well enough it seems. According to an editorial in the Daily News, it would seem that the police are okay with this self fulfilling prophecy, so somebody needs to get it done.

Unfortunately, Philadelphia only seem to want one thing, John Timoney. People in Philly need to step out of their shell, he's gone. But there has to be another person with top cop potential, there has to be somebody, but John Timoney is gone, get past it.

I pose a question of sociology, were things that good under his reign? Or are things just horrible now that we want what we once had? And, while we keep checking our rearview mirrors for the now Miami Chief, we're driving off the road here in the present... does anyone know how to drive this thing? Or do we just continue to spiral out of control?.

One thing is for sure, with the new mayor, there will be a new top cop, the question is twofold, who and is it too little too late?

I've been sitting on this link for about a month now, not because I was waiting for a particularly slow news day (because now that there's a cheesesteak war, I can't imagine any slow news days for a loooong time) but simply because I wanted to mull it over a little before I offered my own thoughts.

The author focuses specifically on the qualities of "transformational leaders" or people who bring about significant change to a public sector organization. Since this election has been mostly about a call for change, it stands to reason that the next mayor needs to be one of these so-called transformational leaders. That said, let's go through the column and relate some of it back to some of our situations here in Philadelphia.

Governing in a democracy necessarily involves managing varying, often conflicting, interests. Organizations can easily get side-tracked responding to these interests, so leaders need laser focus.

The next mayor will come into office in January after a year in which the city may have seen its highest murder rate since the late 90s. While this is going to be the dominant issue, it's also a symptom of many much larger, structural problems that can only hope to be fixed with a complete transformation of many parts of city government. If the next mayor gets bogged down in a number - the death toll - at the expense of maintaining that "laser focus" on the long term solutions that can make permanent, sustainable changes in a lot of different numbers, including the murder rate, then while he may experience some success, it will be shortlived.

They challenge their organizations with “unreasonable” or “impractical” goals.

A woman I once worked for who had experience in city government said that there's a large class of city workers who consider themselves "be'eres" as in "we be here before you got here and we be here after you leave." While their institutional memory and the continuity that a lot of these long time workers provide can be invaluable, if the next mayor is unable to change some of the things that haven't worked, things that they do just because "it's always been done that way," then he will fail. At the very least the next mayor needs to challenge his department heads and appointees and be ready to let them go if they don't meet expectations. He should then leave it to those department heads to do what they can to transform their own departments.

They are ready to invest in change.
This point is perhaps most relevant to Philadelphia, since we always seem to be in some sort of budget crunch or are facing one down the road. The author makes the point that it's even more important to make these investments when the organization (the city) is facing a budget crunch. It makes sense. Why keep throwing away money on the old habits that helped contribute to the budget crunch in the first place? Also, since it's difficult enough to get people to believe in change, those investments and plans are usually the first to go when things get tight.

They create a high-level blueprint for change — a picture of what the transformed organization will look like.
I absolutely love the puzzle metaphor that the writer uses here. The next mayor has to create the vision - the picture on the puzzle box - for what he wants the city government to look like and then let that picture guide everyone involved in the transformation as they bring their own pieces to the puzzle. We've all put puzzles together. You do the easy parts, the edges first, then it gets tough as you try to fill in the middle. As you get closer to the finished product, it gets easier and easier until you snap that last remaining piece into place. The next mayor and his closest advisers need to paint the picture for his appointees, for the unionized workforce and, most importantly, for all of us. If transforming the way the city works is the goal - and that seems to be the message that the voters and poll respondents have been sending - then we all have a part to play.

They get personally involved with the day-to-day issues involved in change.
This is especially true in Philadelphia. The next mayor can't just task this off to someone else. No one else in city government is going to have the authority or public profile to pull this off. There will be a lot of things on his plate but the next mayor absolutely must set aside some time - call it "change time" - every day to see this through. It also wouldn't hurt to devise some sort of message calendar so that every high ranking member of the city uses whatever opportunity they get in the media to deliver the "change message of the day." We voters and citizens have short attention spans. For example, without looking it up, who represents PA's 8th Congressional District and who preceded that person? We need to be reminded in some small way, every day, about what our city government is trying to do.

They are willing to celebrate what is good about the past. People do what the system rewards.
The headlines are filled with bad news these days. Bridges are crumbling. People are dying in the streets at an insane rate. The Phillies are still out of the playoffs. But that doesn't mean that some good things haven't happened in the last eight years and aren't continuing to happen.

Whole neighborhoods are being transformed - most with the benefit of a "transformation initiative." Some schools have made vast improvements. Many Philadelphians are sitting on an immense accumulation of wealth simply because the value of their home has increased. Philadelphia will soon be blanketed by the largest municipal wireless internet system in the nation, creating a whole host of opportunities. The next mayor doesn't need to stop the good work of the previous administration just because it was the work of the previous administration. We've been through that before. He also doesn't need to do a wholesale, public shredding of the city's bureaucracy. The next mayor will be well served by finding something, anything, that he can celebrate about the way the city works. It'll boost the morale of the folks working for him, make him the captain of the "team" rather than the ax man and help to convince the "be'eres" that everyone will be happier with a new way of doing things.

A tall order? Yes. But no one said change is easy. Now, where were we on that puzzle?

In case you missed it, Saturday's Inquirer reported on the PA Supreme Court's final decision about the casino referendum and ruled that city officials can't zone the casinos out.

So where does this leave anti-casino activists? Is it time for them to come to the table and try to get what they can out this process? Councilman Dicicco's chief of staff seems to think so:

While DiCicco had promised to fight the sites with every tool available - including sponsoring the referendum and introducing a casino-buffer bill that would force the casinos to move - his spokesman suggested yesterday that opponents may have to shift tactics.

"Our toolbox is pretty empty at this point," said chief of staff Brian Abernathy. "Frank and I have both said publicly that it's unlikely we're going to change these locations, and maybe it's time to get to the table."

The cynic and conspiracy theorist in me was about to suggest something about Councilman Dicicco and a bunch of Philly state reps and the timing with which they started to oppose these casinos. But I won't. I'm sure plenty of folks will do so anyway in the comments.

In a ballot referendum that we'll be watching with some interest, the city of San Francisco will be choosing whether they want more money for public transit or more downtown parking.

Here's the tricky part. This isn't so much an "either/or" questions as it is two "yes/no" questions. Even if voters vote "yes" for both... well... aside from the voting booth exploding, they won't get both. Those sneaky pro-transit folks fixed it so that the question of whether to give the Muni (is that a better name than SEPTA?) also includes a slap against the parking plan:

In a last-minute move aimed at securing needed support from the more liberal supervisors, the Muni measure was amended to preserve the city's current restrictions on the creation of new parking - a direct hit against the parking initiative.

If both measures were to get a majority of the vote, the board's Muni measure would take precedence because, unlike the Fisher [that's Gap founder, Don Fisher, who has apparently been having trouble finding a parking space] plan, it would be cemented in the City Charter, the bible of local governance.

Take that, people who want to park!

I encourage you to read the article. There's some pretty choice apocalyptic language in there that pretty much equates more parking to the rapture, or at least a serious blow to the city's "transit-first" policy. Here's a sample:

[San Francisco Planning Director Dean Macris] predicted that if the initiative were to pass, there would be "significantly" more traffic downtown, bringing "increases in congestion, air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, delays to public transit, and conflicts with pedestrians and cyclists... and locusts, frogs, black flies, the Bay will turn to blood and McDreamy Mayor Newsom will get a really ugly boil on his face."

Ok, so I added that last part.

Wouldn't it be cool if Philly had a "transit-first policy" instead of the current "screw you policy"?

More about this later but for now, take a look at the list of people who are on the Zoning Code Commission (or ZCC as they're trying to be known). Notice any candidates for mayor?

Yep. That's right. Al Taubenberger is there and doesn't even have a designated alternated in case something happens to him... like getting elected mayor. Does anyone have a problem with Mr. Taubenberger participating on a commission that should be devoid of politics while he runs for office?

(Tip of the hat to a friend of The Next Mayor for bringing this up.)

I'm fascinated by Bob Warner's stories published in today's Daily News about John Sabatina, the 56th ward leader who has created a role for himself as a consultant who gets judges (and other candidates) elected.

Bob's profile of Sabatina is here; his piece on how consultants are changing the machine-driven system is here.

Sabatina is very successful, by any measure. He raked in $150,000 from the seven candidates he represented in the primary. Five of those got elected. The Democratic City Committee, by contrast, endorsed four judge candidates; one (Linda Carpenter, who was at the top of the ballot) was elected.

There's much to discuss here, including the fact (made in this story) that the rise of these consultants seems to help relatively well-off candidates. But what fascinates me is the argument -- which he makes, and I certainly have no reason to doubt -- that these consultants are needed.

Huh?

Reading between the lines, the argument is this: 1) The Democratic City Committee's endorsement counts for less these days, and ward leaders are not pushing a single slate of candidates 2) There are a lot of ward leaders and other important pols who candidates need to meet and extract promises of support from 3) Ergo, candidates need to hire these consultants to manage the introductions (and, as one source says to Bob, to make sure that the ward leaders make good on those promises).

It's a rational market-based argument -- there's a need, people will pay to fill it, so someone steps up to take the money -- but good grief. Michael Erdos spent half a million dollars to become a judge, $77,000 to four noted consultants (including Sabatina).

Is there no better way to spend that money during an election?

I guess as an homage to a time when this was big news, the Inquirer and the Associated Press had a story about Michael Nutter's new campaign manager, Tricia Enright. She's got an impressive resume and people I know who know her well have spoken very highly about her. In fact, she may even be overqualified for the job. While it's a good pick up for the Nutter crew, it's kind of like if the '92 Dream Team had added Shaquille O'Neal for good measure.

While the celebration over a new campaign manager must have been great, it didn't slow the candidate down as he took time to send a bunch of newbie environmental activists on their way into the harsh, pollution-choked world. More about that later from a very reputable source.

Wendy already mentioned this biographical piece about ward leader and highly-paid political consultant John Sabatina, a piece which Dan U-A over at YPP calls "puff." While I'm inclined to agree with him, I can't help but think that Bob Warner asked the very questions that Dan U-A brought up. Also, a lot of the criticism about the role of consultants in elections is brought up in the companion piece about how rise of the indepedent ward leader/consultants has made Democratic City Committee about as effective 2004 "Dream Team."

If you love really flimsy, thin pieces of tissue paper that cost 60 cents, have we got some good news for you. 'HYY, the Daily News, the Philadelphia Tribune, the Inquirer and the Metro give Barbaro treatment to the transfer (which could be bad news for the transfer given how the whole Barbaro thing turned out). How good could "home rule" be if our transit agency can't even stick it to poor people without the feds stepping in?

Turns out this guy should have just turned himself in for the outstanding warrants that he was facing. Given the charges he was facing, his situation couldn't have turned out any worse than it did. I remember a big part of "Safer Streets" being an intense push to find and arrest everyone with an outstanding warrant since the statistics were showing that a large number of violent crimes and homicides were being committed by people who shouldn't actually be allowed on the streets. I guess that was more difficult than the mayor and commissioner thought it would be.

Finally, it's that time of summer that all kids look forward to... the release of their PSSA scores! Yippee! Metro, Tribune and 'HYY have this one. Let's get it up for... suuuuuuh-light improoooooooovemeeeent! Of course the real fruit of these improvements won't be known for several years when we see whether increases in the numbers of students who are "proficient" in reading and math translate to an increase in the high school graduation rate which hovers around 50 percent.

Earlier today, I received an email from Brett Mandel of Philadelphia Forward. That's hardly big news. I'm on his list and I get at least 4 emails a week from him (or so it seems). I generally read them, click through to his sight check some stuff out and get back to whatever it was I was doing.

This one was different.

Its subject line "View of Philadelphia from Manhattan is troubling" caught my attention. I don't know. Maybe it's because I still care way too much about what people think of me. I also happen to care a lot about what people think of my home city. I reprinted the article he refers to here so you can check it out. In his email, Brett had this caveat for his readers:

While City Journal definitely has a slant, as a publication of the Manhattan Institute it should not be ignored and authors Harry Siegel's and Fred Siegel's take on "Street Cleaning in Philly" (subtitled "Is reform finally coming to a corrupt city?") is instructive for us. Some facts are wrong and some ideas are questionable, but the perception comes through loud and clear. (emphasis mine)

Then I read the piece and realized just how wrong some of the facts are. In fact, I hesitated to post it because of how ridiculously wrong some of it is. However, as much as that bothered me, I couldn't help but have two opposite feelings simulatenously: (1) these Siegel guys are being really unfair, we (the people of Philadelphia) aren't that permissive of our corrupt politicians and (2) or are we?

Aside from lumping all black voters in a group and blaming them for what the authors call an "at-least-he's-our-bum" attitude, they don't specifically target the citizens of the city. They keep their criticism aimed at elected officials that they characterize as "a classic suit in search of an office," "political fixer," and leaving "the city little better off than he found it." These criticisms are precisely about the citizens of Philadelphia - voters and non-voters alike - who, in the authors' minds, are happy to keep putting people like this in office.

It's not as bad as Siegel and Siegel make it out to be. Or is it?

PS. If you don't have the energy to respond with substance to this post, feel free to use the comments section to point out all of the factual errors in the column.

Excuse my language for a second as I'm having a hard time controlling my emotions right now but how the whipperpoop did I not already know about Al Taubenberger's blog! Turn your volume up and let the music flow through you!

Where were Philebrity or Philadelphia Will Do on this one or even my favorite Best of Philly blogger, Fight for Room 215? I depend on these guys to keep me informed when there's stuff as crap-tastic as this on the internet. I had to learn about it from some "we hate SEPTA" blog.

Keep up the good work, Team Taubenberger, and don't even THINK about getting rid of the music.

Really, aside from all those words I just wrote, I'm absolutely speechless.

(And I dare you to listen to the music, with headphones, for a half hour... another reason I'm speechless. I've forgotten how to speak.)

Ok... I've recovered from my encounter with Al Taubenberger's new blog (oh no... I opened it again!)

Several minutes later and still whistling the Taubenberger tune...

This election is over as far as I'm concerned. I don't know what Nutter can do to compete with that. The Olivia ad was a stroke of genius but a midi version of "You're a Grand Old Flag" will be impossible to top. He's not giving up, though. Taking a page out of Sam Katz's 2003 playbook, Nutter is courting the skater vote, which I think got Sam all of 3 votes and those were guys who accidentally showed up at the voting booth. I can laugh about it since it was partially my idea for him to do this. I stand by the idea since it I still think embracing LOVE Park's iconic status would go a long way in upping the city's cool factor and generating some of that great buzz that helps draw creative, entrepreneurial types... that and lowering the costs of starting a business.

Anyway, Nutter doesn't quite see LOVE Park in the same light but he is willing to help out with the compromise plan, which, I gotta admit, looks pretty cool. Judging from the location of tomorrow's fundraiser, a penthouse at the Phoenix apartments, I don't think Nutter will have to worry about bringing a helmet.

Oh yeah, and he's doing the "vision thing" with some very thoughtful Drexel students.

The latest episode of Issues Forums in on the air and the web. You can watch it by a number of different platforms: catch it on TV-12, Comcast Digital Channel 242, Comcast Digital Video OnDemand by selecting "Get Local -> WHYY -> The Next Mayor," check out streaming video on our website, or use this link to open up your iTunes and subscribe to our video podcast and watch it on your iPod (my favorite method).

Ok, that's a pretty long-winded way of saying we have a lot of different ways for you to get our content. But what the heck, why not just watch it here:

So let's go through the list of things that the mayor can directly do to improve the local environment:

1. The Visual Environment - There's a sign on a telephone poll near my house that says that littering will get you a $50 fine. This sign violates two economic principles. Laws and fines designed to combat nuisance crimes need two things in order to work - some chance that they will actually be enforced and a crazy steep penalty if they are enforced. Otherwise, rational actors who aren't governed by any higher moral considerations (ie it's just wrong to litter) will multiply their percentage chance of getting caught by the amount of the fine and if that number is less than some number in their subconscious which puts a value on their effort to take their trash to a trashcan, they will litter. Since, in Philadelphia, the chance that the law will be enforced is zero, that number will always be zero so they will always litter.

Even if the city starts enforcing the law, they would need to raise the level of the fine by a lot so that the probability times fine number is high enough to change behavior. Again, a long-winded way of saying that the next mayor can increase the fine and order a crackdown. If he doesn't want to do that, he'll have the far more difficult task of teaching people (adults) that littering is wrong after their parents failed to do so.

2. Clean water - With Philly's combined storm water and waste water system, heavy rains means that the sewage treatment plants are often overflowed. The sewage (human waste and the cat litter that I flush down the toilet) bypasses the treatment system and goes right into the rivers... or into basements. It's an expensive proposition but the next mayor needs to consider overhauling the entire sewer and storm water system. Part of the money can come from charging people according to their impact on the system.

No, that doesn't mean charging people who eat a lot of Mexican food more. It means charging parking lots more for their water-sewer fees. At the very least, even if it doesn't produce enough to overhaul the system, changing the fees would reflect their impact on the system and could generate enough money for other storm water mitigation efforts.

3. Recycling - Once a week, single stream, plastic, glass, metal, paper and cardboard. Some cities even recycle food and yard waste like Seattle's "Zero Waste Strategy." City saves millions in landfill fees and generates millions from the recycling (that's double millions if you're keeping score at home).

4. Fix SEPTA. Ok, ok... the next mayor only has indirect influence over SEPTA but whatever influence he has should go towards modernizing and possibly expanding the system.

5. Renewable energy. I have my own vision for a city that's complete "off the grid" - generating all of it's own power by covering all of these thousands of urban rooftops with solar panels or photovoltaic paint and urban wind farms. No more electricity from the coal fired plants whose waste product follows the wind currents to our city and helps turns the sky into that soupy, opaque color that we've got today.

Surplus electricity could then be sold back to PECO, which would then sell that electricity to the suburbs thus creating a new and mutually beneficial transfer of money from suburbs to city and enable us to eliminate the wage tax - c'mon folks, this is the dream zone. Ever since the power outage I experienced on Monday night, I've since scaled back my vision to solar panels on my house that could power my central air.

Ok... so I went a little overboard and far beyond anything that or panelists had to say. I'm just sick of watching all these other cities do cool things like "green roofs," "zero waste," hybrid cabs, bike stations etc. To borrow a quote from yesterday's Metro, "I think compared to a lot of big cities, Philadelphia probably hasn’t made the leaps and bounds to be seen as a leader on environmental issues... Other cities are willing to take risks to get out front.”

So watch the video and fire away in the comments.

So, the schools have released their newest test scores... Math and Reading scores are up 3 and 2.5 per cent respectively... so what does this mean? It means that there is still a long way to go.

The schools still have 33.5 per cent of students coming in at "below-basic." This equates to almost 62,000 children. A staggering number to be failing expectations. It seems unbelievable to me that this can be the case, but it is, so what can they do?

Who knows what the answer is?

More schools? More teachers? Who knows?

What is known is that something must be done immediately, because though they have made progress steadily over the last five years, more must be made going forward to meet standards as well as do the job of any school system... educate children.

The question is, do the kids want to learn? I know that when I was in High School, it was the last place I wanted to be. Retrospectively, I'm glad I went, but at the time, I did not want to be there, but there was a lot of pressure to go, and I went. This was in the suburbs. In a lot of the schools in Philadelphia, people don't have that pressure because they are worried about other things like staying alive, their next square meal, helping to take care of siblings and other pressures that no child should have to face.

The problems of the Philadelphia schools is greater than the schools themselves, especially if children are distracted by violent crime and their famillies are not pressuring them to attend school because they are worried about the same things.

Finally, who is ultimately responsible for answering this question? Whom do we hold accountable? Is it an unelected official like the CEO of the School District? Is it the 5 unelected members of the SRC who hired the CEO? Or can we hold the mayor and the governor accountable? It's clear that both of them, especially the mayor, need to step up and grab that responsibility, stake their whole reputation and career on it. For the long term success of the city, not much is more important.

Got a tip in response to my glowing praise for Al Taubenberger's blog. Apparently his alternative media savviness can be explained by taking a look at his media adviser's website. Apparently his motto is, "when you're this good, you don't need to advertise." Can I get a copy of that Flash video for my next party so I can play it on an endless loop projected on the wall.

I can't take credit for finding this site, but I want to protect the anonymity of my tipster in case he doesn't want his identity revealed.

Continuing with our theme of Environmental Issues:

David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment sent in this report.

Monday August 6

To learn more about PennEnvironment or to become an e-activist and stay caught up on local environmental issues, you can visit their website at www.PennEnvironment.org.

And here's a reminder that you can check out our latest episode of Issues Forums to see what some other environmental policy experts had to say about what the next mayor can do to help clean the land, air and water in our region.

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, whom I've referenced so many times on this blog that people are probably starting to think I have a crush on the guy,* was named as one of Esquire's best dressed mayors. The always self-deprecating Mayor Hick, wearing clothes temporarily on loan from Esquire, commented "I have suits that cost less than that [$160] tie."

He also responded to someone who asked about the juxtaposition of the $1200 suit with his $12 haircut with: "Actually, I think my haircut looked good with those fancy clothes."

And just to clarify, I guess there are two reasons why I'll never win such an award. I'll never be a mayor but the chances of me being "best dressed" anything are even more slim than becoming mayor of any place.

I've decided to extend our conversation about environmental issues for another day for a couple of reasons. One, I want to give folks another chance to check out our latest episode of Issues Forums:

Two, I happen to be very interested in this issue because of the potential it has for expanded economic opportunity, energy independence, etc. Articles like this one in the City Paper about affordable green building are right up my alley:

That green housing will one day be as much a part of the building code as safety regulations is probably inevitable; already many states, including Pennsylvania, offer incentives for going green, and some cities, such as Chicago and New York, have begun to do so (Philly has not yet, although Democratic mayoral nominee Michael Nutter has proposed such incentives). But what we may be witnessing with the advent of green affordable housing is something that seems unthinkable in today's America.

Any other "green" ideas that the next mayor can pursue? Sound off in the comments.

Is it time for the Mayor to go to school? Perhaps not as a student, but as an administrator? A new study would say yes.

In a new book by Brown education Professor Kenneth Wong, The Education Mayor,
it shows how cities that disband their school boards in favor of mayoral control perform better on tests.

There is a lot to it, but, according to the study, the improvements would show the equivalent of an additional 4 months of schooling. If this is the case, Philly would be stupid to maintain its educational bureaucracy. One of the reasons that the Mayors can run schools better than boards is because they sit atop the foodchain and can cut through red tape to get things accomplished. If nothing else, the system would be more efficient.

The only real blockade would be that the schoolboard would almost certainly not go peacefully, so it would be up to the mayor to send acting school CEO Tom Brady and his crew packing. It would requirer a lot of intiative, but would be worthwhile? Almost certainly.

We've all heard the old saying, "you can't fight City Hall." But why should you have to "fight" City Hall in the first place.

I've already said that I'm not a big fan of treating taxpayers like customers. Doing that can sometimes lead to those arch-conservative calls to shrink government down to the very bare essential services and keep taxes low enough just to pay for those services. That philosophy assumes that people should only expect to get out of government what they can pay for. There's no sense of the "common good" or "commonwealth." Before I go too long on what many will undoubtedly say is "my liberal soapbox" I'll propose that we think of city government as more of co-op. We're each giving a little something extra and in return we receive services but at the same time provide for those who can't, for whatever reason, provide for themselves.

That said, the city does have a certain responsibility to us collectively and as individuals in return for the taxes we pay. If polled, most people in Philadelphia would probably feel that their not getting the level of services that they should for the amount of taxes they pay. There's a sense that they have to claw tooth and nail for even the most basic services - filling a pothole, picking up trash, getting a permit, etc. In some cases, folks don't even know whom to call and end up getting the run around until they're finally put on hold and disconnected. At that point, they either give up the "fight" or bravely press on. Too often, folks choose not to fight and either don't move into the city or don't too business here.

And that brings us to today's episode of Issues Forums. By now you should know how you can watch it but I'll review: check it out on TV12, Comcast Digital 242, Video OnDemand (choose Get Local ->WHYY -> The Next Mayor), on our website, as a podcast (click that link if you have iTunes) or right here:

I'd really love to use this thread as a chance for people to make their own suggestions on how the government can become more easily accessible for people. This video deals a lot with how businesses and developers have difficulty dealing with city government. I'd like to hear from our readers about their own "fights" with City Hall. So please share your story and suggestions in the comments section.

Enjoy!

Just finished rounding up all of the issues-based and political stories I could find for today and what tops the list:

Yep, Gar Joseph's Clout column in today's Daily News that reveals that your favorite millionaire candidate and mine, Tom Knox, is contemplating a run at governor... or possibly senator. I guess he hasn't decided which yet and probably doesn't care. Either way, it's a chance to flood the airwaves with more commercials about his rags-to-riches story. That oughta play well in the "T" as will his penchant for finger nail filing and his love of the opera.

Student's perspective of Nutter's visit to Drexel.

The transfer lives to fight for another week but the FTA gives SEPTA the ok to shaft poor folks.

We have double coverage (compliments of the Metro and Inquirer) of crews who are in charge of cleaning up the SEPTA underground. If the Center City District can pull this off, maybe we should consider conveying "Mayor for Life" status on Paul Levy.

And finally, we love keeping up with our former mayoral candidates around here so here's a mention of something that Chaka Fattah did.

Vallas and now Nevels. James Nevels, Chair of the School Reform Commission is the man of the hour. With his unexpected resignation now imminent, who will be appointed in his place? Does the governor choose a new Chair from an academic background or someone from a business background? The answer may be neither. Maybe he should start looking for someone with a development background.

This is an idea I just thought of, a college style president who can raise money and accomplish what needs to be accomplished throughout his tenure. Many Universities and Colleges find new leadership from other Universities or from the business world. Harvard's Lawrence Summers was the Secretary of the Treasury, and though, I doubt the city of Philadelphia can create a vacuum for that kind of clout, I believe they could find someone to run the school.

Think about it, Colleges, public and private, have multi-million, sometimes billion, dollar endowments. If somebody came into the district, couldn't they find donors? It should be a simple procedure shouldn't it? It should, but the red tape required to accomplish things in Philadelphia is almost Gordian. But the bureaucracy is a topic for another day.

I digress. I think it would make sense to stop waiting for someone to change the funding formula. We can raise the money, 10 dollars from half of Philly would be almost 8 million dollars, and though that seems unlikely, I'm sure some wealthy person who attended a Philly school would be happy to have their name on a building. It cannot hurt to try a little innovation.

We cannot do the same things forever and expect different results. The same things bring the same results, but as Newt Gingrich says, "Real change requires real change."

If you missed it yesterday afternoon and this morning on 91FM, reporter Peter Crimmins produced two excellent pieces about a program that introduces new Assistant District Attorneys to some of the city's most crime-ridden areas.

This one ran yesterday afternoon and includes great sound from the drug bust that a bunch of the newbie ADAs got to witness.

In this piece of the story, which ran this morning, the reporter walked through a "shooting gallery" with one of the ADAs who did some olfactory evaluations of the place and got to interview a heroin user who had fallen off the wagon.

Give it a listen. It's some great radio... er uh... web broadcast.

On today's episode of Issues Forums, we bring together some flat out EXPERTS to talk about the very important issue of transportation. Of course there's an emphasis on mass transit and SEPTA, everyone's favorite regional transportation authority, but this issue also includes pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, highways, bridges, freight movement, intercity train travel and the airport. Our panel hits just about all of them. There's also a preview of the issue of regionalism - one of our upcoming episodes.

And here's the fun part... the next mayor doesn't really have direct statutory authority over much of it. This is one of those issues where "soft power" and leadership come into play. I'm sure if the mayor wants SEPTA to move more quickly to a rechargeable, intermodal smart fare card, he can do a lot to push them in that direction without having that official power.

A city with a poor, crumbling, multi-modal transportation system is like a rich, powerful person with a bad heart and circulatory system. Soon things will grind to a halt and the city will slowly or, in the case of a real emergency, very quickly die. Will our next mayor be able to strengthen those arteries?

The video is available as a streaming, Quicktime video on our Issues Forums page, or as a podcast by using this link to subscribe on iTunes, or by using this link in any other podcasting client or just watch it here:

Suggestions about transportation, anyone? Sound off in the comments.

Michael Nutter and Al Taubenberger yuck it up at last night's Candidates Comedy Night, organized by Daily News columnist (and 9/11 fan) Stu Bykofsky.

Catherine Lucey provides a review of their performance:

The good-natured duo also gamely - if not exactly tunefully - broke into a version of "Together, Wherever We Go."

Ah, summer time in the city.

Earlier today, City Controller Butkovitz got on his "I want to be mayor someday so I'm trying to raise my profile as much as possible" stool to decry the laxness with which the prohibition on posting signs on telephone polls is enforced.

WHYY's Liz Fiedler attended the press conference and provided me with a copy of L&I's list of Code Violation Notices (tickets) that were given out for illegally putting signs on polls.

How did the candidates for mayor do?

Bob Brady heads the pack with $21,675 in fines.

Dwight Evans comes in second (poor Dwight, he couldn't even "win" this one) with $7050 in fines. To his credit, the list in my hands indicates that he has already paid his ticket.

Michael Nutter follows with $2,475 in fines. So much for that squeaky clean image.

Chaka Fattah's fundraising woes may have saved him a little this time around since it probably meant that he didn't have too much cash to throw away on these signs. He racked up $1425 in fines.

Finally, in what seems both strange and unbelievable, Tom Knox brings up the read with a whopping $75 fine for one sign. I could go right now and find two Tom Knox signs in South Philly. If I take them down do you think he'd give me 50 bucks per sign for the 75 per that I'd be saving him?

It should be noted that the list indicates that:

Prior to the issuance of the aforementioned Code Violation Notices, all candidates were sent a two (2) letters notifying them of the code regulations regarding posting of signs and the subsequent penalties.

(Hey readers, Phil the Intern's level of rage-a-hol at the unceasing march of death gripping the city is pretty palpable. Who's with him? - ed.)

258 Homicides- outrageous! It seems like something out of a bad horror movie, but what is the horror? Certainly that 258 people have been killed since the beginning of this year, but is anyone else worried about the velocity with which the murders continue? It certainly does not seem to be slowing down and that personally is more of a worry to me. Its terrible that there things happened, but is it not worse that we haven't stopped them from continuing?

Somebody needs to do something short of getting Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris to patrol the streets, seriously, we need to stop the murder before we must have martial law, it cannot continue. I'm sure there are plenty of people like me who feel this way, but it is completely nefarious to let this continue, we must do something, and i mean us, because it seems that we're going to get better results calling Ghostbusters than 9-1-1.

We must take action to protect ourselves, otherwise it will only get worse.

This one seems like a no-brainer to me but, of course, that's why it's perhaps the most difficult issue facing this city. According to Philadelphia Safe and Sound's annual Children's Report Card, the health, welfare and safety of Philadelphia's young people are, statistically, an abomination.

Without some kind of radical rethinking and intervention into the lives of the most vulnerable children, the cycle of poverty, low expectations and violence is destined to continue. However, given short-term nature of politics, especially in a town where the mayor is limited to 8 years in office, it's very difficult to generate the level of support and shared sacrifice needed to make a difference. Even if the next mayor fully commits to this, as the current mayor claims to have done, what strategies could he use?

That's the topic of today's episode of Issues Forums.

Susan Badeau of the Philadelphia Children's Commission, Anne Shenberger of Philadelphia Safe and Sound and Archye Leacock of the Institute for the Development of African American Youth, take part in this conversation about the issues facing the city's youngest and most vulnerable residents. They offer suggestions to the next mayor and make a plea for a consistent, cohesive and long-term plan - something which is always difficult given the instant gratification nature of politics.

Those with Quick Time can check out a high-quality, streaming version, iTunes users can subscribe to our semiweekly video podcast, or use this feed to subscribe to the podcast.

And of course, you can check it out here:

Answer: not so good.

In South Philadelphia, residents are looking forward to the Board of Revision of Taxes new plan to set assessments at 100% of market value with the same anxious anticipation for a visit to the proctologist. The article is a little disappointing, though, in that it fails to mention a lot of crucial facts about the revaluation. It focuses instead on the fears of residents who really seem to be in the dark about the process.

Though full-market valuation, which uses 100 percent of market value instead of a percentage — now 32 percent — to obtain a home’s assessed value, is on hold, it’s still on the table and this is the second time in as many years residents have come closer than they would have liked to it. Full-market valuation, if and when it is implemented, would most likely spike property taxes by forgoing the use of the percentage. (emphasis mine)

The way I understand it, it's not totally clear that all properties would see their tax bills increase and it's certainly not clear that they "would most like spike." Some, whose assessed values are ridiculously low now, may see an increase. Others, not so much. The article also fails to take into consideration the role that City Council will have when it comes time to set the actual property tax rate.

If City Council remains committed to making this a "revenue neutral" change, then they'll set the rates low enough to avoid a windfall tax increase.

This a very complicated issue that's going to require diligence on the part of elected officials to educate people about why it needs to happen and what can be done to ease the pain. That's the hard road and it includes enacting a lot of complex legislation to bring down tax rates, put buffers in place and get changes at the state level. With a city government that's used to taking the easy way out, it seems pretty clear that the full/fair (whatever you want to call it) value assessment will probably sit on a shelf for a while.

More info about the Full/Fair Valuation project can be found at Philadelphia Forward and the BRT's website.

Best praaac-tices? We talkin' 'bout [best] practice?

Yes, we are. Let's recap Michael Nutter's campaign schedule from the past few days:

1. Go to Chicago.

2. Meet Mayor Daley.

3. Get a tour of all of the great things they're doing - parks, green roofs, high tech command centers that make Jack Bauer's CTU look like my high school computer lab.

The novelty of this whole "study what other cities are doing" approach seems to have caught the attention of the media. I linked yesterday to Catherine Lucey's story about Nutter's trip and I just found the link to Action News' story (3+ minutes!) According to the Action News report, the next stop for the Nutter "campaign" will be New York. Maybe he learn something from the Mets (3 games up) that he can bring back for the Phils.

Young Philly Politics chimes in with their mixed review of what Nutter's learning from Chicago:

I am not a big believer in the surveillance camera movement. I doubt it stops a single murder (although I concede it could conceivably help prosecute a case). Either way, it is good to see Nutter doing this type of stuff. We are so behind in things sometimes, that just getting to where other cities are, is a huge step forward.

Finally, I can't help but think that all of this fascination with the Windy City (and best practices in general) has something to do with the work of the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, who has been trying to drag us kicking and screaming to learn from other cities, and The Next Mayor project's coverage.

For those of you who want to catch up with Democratic Mayoral nominee Nutter, here is his schedule for the weekend.

You can ask him about his trip to Chicago.

After spending over $10 million of his own money in an attempt to become mayor, Tom Knox may just skip the middle man and start funding his own policy ideas.

Inquirer's Marcia Gelbart has a quick blurb today about Knox's plan to open up the Domino's Pizza of health care clinics - "care in 30 minutes or it's free."

Who needs City Hall?

Knox is still thinking about a run for the U.S. Senate, or even for governor. But with those elections three-plus years away, "it's a little early," he said. "Things change."

I love the idea that he's considering running for Senate... or Governor, as if the two public offices are interchangeable and the only thing he has to figure out is which one will be easier to win.

Back to his proposal. It's great that he's considering stepping up with some of his vast wealth to make a significant dent in one of the city's most pressing issues. It's just unfortunate that we've become so dependent on the good will of wealth individuals and foundations to fill the gaps left by a perpetually financially-strapped government.

This topic also gives me a chance to let our web users know that next Wednesday (8/29) our penultimate episode of "Issues Forums" will deal with the issue of health care.

The news lately has been so crazy that Martin Scorcese could option the stories as scripts, 5 shots on Friday night alone. One of those Friday murders so extraordinary that I do not even want to discuss it. Young Philly Politics used it as a jumping off point for an interesting discussion about women, violence and abuse.

Also, Michael Nutter is in Chicago visiting Mayor Daley. Odd as he is only a candidate so far. It strikes me as funny to see a candidate acting like he has already won, but even more so, seeing the mayor acting as if he is no longer in office. Between the school system's current "administrative overhaul" to the new problem with the Water Company's dated software. Perhaps his iPhone is occupying too much of his time. Or perhaps he is just spending time reading through the 500 pages of his bill before sending it to the city for payment.

Also, Tom Knox, remember him? He is trying to create a statewide health system... If i'm not mistaken he lost his election. That aside, if it goes as planned, it is potentially a great thing for the state of Pennsylvania, but an even better thing for Tom Knox if he truly has aspirations of the Senate or the Governor's Mansion.

It seems like a lot of different things are taking place in Philadelphia, the question is, what do you think about these things?

One of our frequent commenters pointed out that I included a link on the main page to the much-maligned (by me) article in the City Journal about Nutter's primary win.

For those of you who don't remember what I wrote about it, you can check out the old blog post.

The only reason I linked to it from the front page was because it just recently became available (legitimately) on the web. I wanted to give readers of this blog a chance to respond to that article directly on City Journal's website. Feel free to do so and then share with us anything you had to say.

After several joint appearances with his Democratic rival, GOP mayoral nominee Al Taubenberger appears to have honed down his message. In an interview with The Evening Bulletin, Taubenberger does a nice job of finally explaining what distinguishes him from Michael Nutter:

"I don't think very many people can say, 'Job well done,'" Taubenberger said of the decades of Democratic rule, saying a stronger two-party system would go a long way toward chipping away at corruption in City Hall.

"I think there are issues that need to be raised that only someone with my perspective can do," he added. "It has to come from outside. It has to come from a Republican. It has to come from someone who has not been in power, because you think outside the box. You're more open to ideas and not beholden to so many different special interest groups."

Essentially, he's saying that even though Nutter ran as the candidate of "change" and won. He, Taubenberger, is even changier. What he fails to mention, however, is that his own party is not immune to being beholden to special interests groups and getting what they can for their own people out of the city government.

For now, I'm willing to give Al the benefit of the doubt. He personally doesn't seem to owe anything to anyone and he seems like an honest, down-to-earth guy. But it'll take a lot to convince me that because his party happens to have been out of power for the past 50 years, it's not enjoying some of the leftovers of patronage and pay-to-play.

Heck, if that were the case, they would have nominated Sam Katz to fill in for Frank Rizzo in 1991 or their three councilmembers would have taken the lead in advocating for all of the ethics legislation that came down in the wake of the federal investigation.

So he's got a message... "changier."

As heard on Morning Edition this morning, the Philadelphia Planning Commission could vote today on approval of the plans for the Foxwoods Casino in South Philadelphia. (Josh at the Metro also has a story about it.)

A little while back, we took a deeper look at this issue and convened a panel that included people on both sides of the casino issue as well as the person responsible for planning development on the Central Delaware waterfront. You can use this link to see the video and get more information about the work of Penn Praxis and the Central Delaware Plan.

One thing that I found fascinating about what Harris Steinberg had to say was that casinos can actually work on the waterfront if they conform to certain guiding principles. If they're transit accessible, if parking is underground, if they look out onto their surroundings, then it's possible that the casinos could be a benefit to this section of the river. If they follow the typical American model of casinos... well... think Wal-Mart and Target except with 5 times as much traffic, 24 hours per day.

Your thoughts?

The Philadelphia media landscape hasn't been a very friendly place for Mayor Street since about 2 minutes after he was sworn in but some members of that media can be especially harsh. Chris Freind of the Evening Bulletin filled some column space today with a piece that could easily have been written two months ago and could probably be used two months from now (ie, no news peg).

Let's see what, according to Mr. Freind, the mayor can be blamed for today:

Faced with the highest murder rate in the nation - a fact not lost on the national news bureaus - and the highest violence rate, the mayor's efforts have led to the highest poverty rate in America.

Yes, because Mayor Street's "More Poverty for All" Initiative has been such a glowing success.

Center City continues to be plagued with an aggressive homeless population, a dirty image and a convention center whose unions scare away more business than can be generated.

Wait, so this column wasn't written in 2001? I thought the whole unions scaring away convention business was behind us.

In fact, another legacy idea that was recently announced was the decision to raise parking meter rates in Center City - by a mere 100 percent.

Hold on. Did the city take back control of the Parking Authority and I missed it? Last time I checked, that's a decision made by what is essentially a state-run operation. His Microsoft Word fact checker must be set on Uzbek (Cyrillic).

And that's not all. The meter's hours of operation have also increased, with motorists now having to worry about feeding the meter up to 10:00 at night (up from 6:30 in many places).
Instead of running the gauntlet of criminals just once at the end of an evening, you will be forced to do it several times or face huge parking fines. Quite frankly, I'm surprised this hasn't become a reality TV show yet. Viewers could vote as to which contestant they think isn't going to make it back to the pub alive. You would have Philadelphians (and tourists) faced with rape, robbery, and, in true Hollywood fashion, the very real possibility of getting blown away - over a disputed parking space!

I must be in a different Center City because I walked home (Bella Vista) from a pub at 2nd and Race with my fiance and we didn't even get shot once! This guy should be working for the Convention and Visitor's Bureau.

It's funny. Just the other day I was in New York, and as much as I tried to notice the resemblance between the two cities, the similarity escaped me. New York has Manhattan; we don't. End of story.

Oh good. He's done. But wait, there's more. Apparently that wasn't the end of the story.

Of course, there is one area where we do beat New York: killings. Welcome to Philadelphia.

Yes, welcome to Philadelphia. Please see Mr. Freind for what has to be the most depressing tour ever of Center City and the tourist district.

With so many parts of the city that are actually dealing with violent crime on a daily basis, why does he feel it necessary to invent a problem in areas of the city that are actually doing well? Since I can only assume he's a conservative, why doesn't he appreciate that market forces are dictating that since the demand for on street parking at night has risen due to the increased popularity of Center City, then prices should also increase?

Ok. Enough with the bogeyman. Back to real issues.

...got its OK from the planning commission, as was widely expected.

There was much fussing -- the three-hour meeting was heavy on public comment.

And there will be more of that fussing, too: The actual zoning change has to be introduced in and approved by City Council, so expect protests there as well. (SugarHouse's change has been introduced, but not approved.)

Yeah, yeah... I did something that I promised myself I wouldn't do. I made Lincoln Steffens reference on the main page of the site. We all know by now about how Steffens, in an article for Vanity Fair or GQ or something described Philadelphia as "corrupt and contented," sending us into a collective tizzy for the next 100 years. (What most people don't know is that he was actually describing the Philadelphia Phillies organization, which, at that point, had gone a pathetic 21 years without winning a championship. Later on in the article one of the Phillies 1904 executives used the phrase "gold standard" and claimed that multiple championships would be on the way.)

Regardless, ever since the founding fathers moved out of the city at the end of the 1790s, their political offspring has generally regarded "We the people" to mean "We the people who lie, cheat and steal our way to elective office then continue to lie, cheat and steal from you the taxpayer." Philadelphia enjoyed a brief respite from the graft and corruption in the late 1940s and early 50s. After the city basically "misplaced" several million dollars (resulting in the suicides of at least few city officials), a guy named Dilworth, armed with the sound system from the Blues Brothers and the car from Ghostbusters, rode around town and read a list of charges against all of the officials in the corrupt Republican administration. He was elected DA and Joe Clark became mayor. The Democrats swept the Republicans out of power and they all lived happily ever after...

...not quite. Fast forward a few years and the entrenched Democratic machine began to fall into the same pattern as its Republican predecessors. What followed was 50 years of elected officials taking lie detector tests (and failing), accepting bribes from fake Arab shieks, shaking down contractors and getting Superbowl tickets in exchange for bond work.

Somehow, all of this was finally enough to shake the electorate from its slumber and get them to demand some new rules governing campaign finance, disclosure, transparency and ethics enforcement.

But there's still a ways to go.

On today's episode of Issues Forums (which you can watch here, download with this if you have iTunes or this for any other .rss reader) our experts give suggestions for the next mayor to help restore trust in government. Or better yet, establish trust in government since it seems that it's never really been there anyway.

You can also check out the video here:

Feel free to comment. Do you have hope that the next mayor can get the people of Philadelphia to trust their government? What would he have to do?

An article from today, The Showdown on Hurley Street, struck me as hysteria. It's an eye-opener for anyone who doesn't understand the magnitude of the challenges facing the next mayor and all of us as a society. Would a child be potentially murdered because he won a game of basketball in front of people?

Is it this easy for people to die? If this is truly the worst street in the city, which the police in the article attest, then how could it have degraded so? What can be done to bring back a block like Hurley Street while preventing other streets in the city from falling to this point?

I hope there is a way to prevent the other streets in the city from hitting a slippery slope until there are more stories like this one; stories of homicide, vendettas and vandalism. It seems like the more we try to improve things, the worse they become, unless we are just not working to improve in the right areas.

Even more important, how do we help the areas that have already slipped? Do we put the police there 24 hours a day? Perhaps. Do we declare martial law? Not yet, but I wouldn't rule anything out the way things are going. What would you do if you were the person in charge? How would you help the situation?

Read the article. Don't let the next mayor off the hook for conditions like this.

Phil just blogged about a piece in today's Weekly about certain block in Philadelphia that, as the writer puts it, has come to look like Beirut (and not the Beirut of the late 90's but the one we're all used to from the mid 80s.)

What struck me about the article was the role that the cops were playing in this whole story. Granted, it's impossible for us as readers to know the whole story. Most of the article was from the point of view of the one family that had recently moved to the block. We'll never know who's telling the truth, who's entirely at fault and what parts of the story we're missing. That said, the reaction of the cops in this story could lead the reader to think that we need to re-think a lot of what we know about policing:

A lot of narrow side streets in West Kensington get roped off in the summer. This aggravates the cops, who think the neighbors use the ropes to keep patrol cars out.
...
At this point the details get sketchy.

Gunshots.

Like I said, I'm not a cop. I don't know any cops and I by far don't know all of the things that are happening on Hurley Street north of Allegheny Ave. However, it does seem like, at the very least, a new strategy could be used to help ease the tension that is so clear in this neighborhood and neighborhoods like it.

That's where this piece from Governing.com's blog, "The 13th Floor," comes in. They talk to Michael Nutter about the crime problem in Philadelphia and learn a little more about his plan to deal with it:

He talked about community policing, and his desire to get Philadelphia's horrendous gang-murder rate down by giving cops more time out on the streets, getting to know the inner-city residents and defusing tensions. At the moment, Nutter seemed to feel, the inner-city neighborhoods were at once fearful of violence and distrustful of any hard-line police efforts to stop it, such as a heavy-duty stop-and-frisk policy.

This leads to a whole discussion about the return of community policing and how that strategy showed so much promise when it was last popular in the mid-1990s. Of course, back then the federal government was a much bigger fan of fighting crime in the big cities and provided additional resources (money) for hiring the cops to "walk the beat."

The question becomes how do you make someone care? A great majority of cops are committed, compassionate and multi-talented individuals who are able to blend the roles of referee, strict parent, mentor, helpful neighbor and law enforcer. But how can the next mayor and/or police commissioner make it so that ALL of them have those qualities and can therefore be counted on to make community policing work the way it's supposed to? Years of good, hard work by an honest cop who spends his time building relationships in the community he or she patrols can be destroyed by one bad incident with police officer who doesn't share that same attitude.

Despite the horror of incidents like the one recounted in the Hurley Street story, I'm hopeful that the next mayor and the thousands of police officers who will be working for him, can figure it out.

If you tuned into 91FM this morning you may have caught the feature piece by WHYY's Joel Rose about the city's drug trade and its effect on violent crime. Rose got a tour of some of Kensington's most persistent drug markets from an off-duty police officer in the 24th District. The officer speaks of watching as drug dealers are picked up only to replaced by two or three more the next day.

Rose also interviewed Rutgers criminologist Patrick Carr, who has studied crime fighting efforts in cities around the world and was on a panel about violent crime that we videotaped and is available for view.

Police Commissioner Johnson repeats his oft-used plea for more witness cooperation and Michael Nutter re-emphasizes his idea to get more cops out of cars, walking or biking the beat and getting to know the people in their districts more personally. (More about Nutter and community policing)

You can download the piece by right-clicking on this link and choosing "Save As" to download it as an .mp3 (for Mac users, that's Control-Click).

If any of you live in a neighborhood with a lot of open-air drug corners, what have your experiences been? What kind of policing does your neighborhood get? What do you think the next mayor can or should do to help combat the drug trade?

Other thoughts or comments on the piece? Feel free to share.

I have to head out for a meeting soon so I'll just put the video up here and let people watch and comment as they see fit.

More on this later...

Here's Michael Nutter's schedule for the weekend. If you decide to go see him, keep on asking him about the city's near-term fiscal situation and how he plans to shore up the municipal worker pension plan and the rising cost of health benefits.

The Nutter campaign continues its mission to clean up the city one block at a time - this time with a stop in Germantown.

If you have any candidate sightings, feel free to share your experiences in the comments!

For the first time in a while, I had a chance on Sunday to sit back, relax and read the paper. If you read Sunday's Inquirer, you may have seen this article about Governor Rendell's plan to deal with overcrowding in state and, especially, county prisons. Let me 'splain. No, is too much, let the Inky sum up:

The package, outlined in a letter to legislative leaders, includes a plan to get nonviolent offenders out of jail and into programs designed to make sure they don't recommit their offense. People serving time on drug charges and petty theft would be among those eligible.
...
Other aspects of the governor's package aim to cut prison costs by streamlining prisoner transportation, paperwork and parole administration. This year, the Department of Corrections received $1.6 billion in state funding, or 6 percent of the state's overall $27.2 billion budget.

The proposal also would transfer some inmates serving sentences between two and five years from county to state prisons. That change could add about 2,500 inmates - at least 700 from Philadelphia alone - to the approxmately 45,600 in state prisons, according to the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. Those inmates cost the counties $45 million a year, the commissioners report.

Removing 700 prisoners from the Philadelphia Prison system seems like it would go a long way in taking some pressure off of an overcrowded system. That is, until you read this article in today's paper which explains just how overcrowded it is:

On Aug. 6, the prison population hit 9,123, an all-time high that is more than double the average of 4,000 inmates held in the late 1980s.

As a result, the prison system has been pushed to its limits. Cells designed for two inmates now house three. Shortages of correction officers trigger frequent lockdowns - keeping inmates in their cells 23 hours a day.

Yikes! 1600 over! Even more astounding, how did that number more than double since the late 80s? Are there that many more people committing crimes, that many more arrests being made? (If you're interested, you can find the answers to those questions in a very comprehensive Temple University study about the "Confinement and Justice Process in Philadelphia.")

Young Philly Politics chimes in and emphasizes a couple of very important points about the people who are in prison (found in the aforementioned Temple Study and mentioned in the Inky article):

...nearly HALF of all city inmates are in prison for this reason. They haven't been convicted of anything at all yet, and a person with money in the exact same position would be out on the street, free.
...
An even ridiculously higher proportion of those 9000+ inmates are there for nonviolent, mostly drug-related, offenses: 88%.

While the human costs of this are clear - overcrowded prisons are much less likely to be able to perform the rehabilitation function that we assign to these facilities, guards are placed in much greater danger, non-violent offenders can become "hardened" criminals - the financial burden to those of us who may never be in prison are less obvious.

That's where PICA comes in.

Back in March, the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority released a study called, "City Budget Behind Bars: Increasing Prison Population Drives Rapidly Escalating Costs." So how much is the city expected to pay in prison costs?

- In FY97, the year covered by the Five-Year Plan quoted above, prisons costs came in over budget. Instead of the $111.4 million projected in the budget, they were $117.5 million. In FY07, the prisons budget, now far larger, is also likely to come in well above budget. While the prisons budget for FY07 was $194.2 million, costs are now projected to be $207 million. FY07 will continue a pattern of prisons costs increasing rapidly and faster than budgeted (the prisons system has exceeded its budget each year since FY97).

- That increase in costs has meant that the prison system’s general fund cost per inmate has grown. In FY97, the cost per inmate was about $20,600 per year. In FY07 the cost per inmate is projected to be over $23,300 per year, a 13 percent increase.

- The growth in general fund healthcare costs is a combination of the increase in the cost per inmate and in the number of inmates, with the growth in the cost per inmate being a far bigger factor. Since FY97, the cost for healthcare has grown almost 190 percent while the average inmate population has grown just over 55 percent.

To put it in perspective, for FY08, the city budgeted $219 million for prison costs. For that same year, according to the mayor's budget brief, the combined budgets of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Fairmount Park Commission, the Sanitation Division, the Streets Department and the city's contribution to the School District comes to $218 million. If revenues don't grow quickly, any increase in costs for prisons is going to have to come out the budgets for those other departments. And we haven't even got into pension and healthcare costs for current and retired city employees.

So what do we hear from mayoral candidates? Nutter made prisoner re-entry a big part of his campaign, so at the very least, he'll try to take a chunk out of that group of repeat offenders who go back to prison because they don't have any better options. Philebrity TV was on hand this weekend when he discussed this plan with a group of ex-gang members.

I've sent an email to Al Taubenberger to see what he has to say about these closely related issues (overcrowding and escalating costs) and I'll add that when I hear back from him.

In the meantime, what are your thoughts? Is releasing non-violent offenders the wrong way to go? Do you think we should actually be locking up more people? Or should prisons be the place for violent offenders while those 88% who are mostly guilty of non-violent, drug-related offenses be diverted to some alternative?

In the interest of giving equal time to both candidates' plans and ideas for taking on the dual issues of prison overcrowding and skyrocketing prison costs, I reached out to Al Taubenberger via email to see if had any plans. Taubenberger called me back a short time ago with the following statement and 5-step plan to attack this problem:

The state needs to be involved. A number of these crimes fall under state mandate and these people should be incarcerated in the state prison. That is something that is being worked on now and I would fully support it. That would also bring the [overcrowding] numbers down.

We should also focus on making more opportunities for employment available. A good job and a good wage is a better program than Harrisburg or Washington could ever devise and that in itself would help keep people out of prison or the drug trade in the first place.

The preceding statement was made on the fly during our telephone conversation. Taubenberger said that if he has anything to add or more details, he'll send it along and I'll send it along to you.

Feel free to evaluate in the comments.

I seem to have adopted Phil's penchant for naming blog posts after movies. In this case it seems especially appropriate. If you tuned in to 91FM today, you may have heard Elizabeth Fiedler's very interesting take on the current violent crime epidemic. She sought out a couple of experts who have studied or dealt directly with crime in Philadelphia for at least a couple generations to find out how this wave of violence differs from the high point of gang warfare in the 60s and 70s. Guess what the answer is? You got it... more guns.

Back in the day, it turns out, gang members had to rely on their fists, their fighting ability and whatever blunt object they could turn into a weapon. The violence was more calculated, less random and less likely to take out an innocent bystander. Though a lot of people were killed, it appears a good beatdown was the ultimate objective. The piece doesn't explain why it's easier to get a gun these days, whether it's laws that are more lax or guns being produced faster and cheaper.

Regardless, more guns means that more lazy punks who know that they'd get their butts kicked in a fair, mano-a-mano, fight can pick up a gun rather than hit the weights and settle thing in seconds. Me? I've never thrown a real punch at someone in my life and I'm hoping I never have to. If I did get in a fight, I admit it, I'd probably get pretty bloodied but without a gun in the picture, I'd live to fight (or not fight) another day.

It's like Craig's father said in Friday:

You win some, you lose some. But you live, you live to fight another day.

Check out the piece, especially the story from Bilal Qayyum about what it was like back in the day.

Of course, the big story (is that term copyrighted?) today is about an appeals court decision to uphold the convictions of former city treasurer Corey Kemp and four other businessmen who were found guilty on various corruption charges a couple years ago.

(Daily News, WHYY, Inquirer versions of the story)

Defense lawyers are pledging to keep fighting this all the way to the top, meaning that this will continue to be a story for quite some time.

Since these convictions came down, we've seen the passage of various city laws designed to regulate campaign finance and choke off the opportunities for "pay to play" that were the basis for this investigation. An independent ethics board was approved by the voters and put into place in time to exercise some enforcement power over this past mayoral primary. A new Inspector General was named and he has since gone on the rampage against all manner of lower level corruption. And, of course, a candidate who ran on his record of putting many of those anti-corruption pieces in place emerged as the winner of the Democratic primary.

Now we have a general election in which both candidates are about as free and clear of their respective party machines as we can hope for. What do you want to hear from them, collectively and individually? If you're a Republican or someone who is so fed up with the Democratic power structure in Philly, what are you looking for from Al Taubenberger? Can Michael Nutter ever fully earn your trust?

I ask you the readers... what's the next step in the process of removing the dreaded "corrupt and contented" epithet from this city? (And no, you can't just say "remove the current mayor.") Is there anything left to do or are we, as one councilwoman once said, "ethic'd out?"

I know he did a bad, bad thing, but is this fair:

Kemp, the highest-ranking city official convicted in the probe, is serving a 10-year prison term for taking cash, trips and other gratuities in exchange for official favors.

Hawkins, Holck, Umbrell and Knight have remained free pending appeal.

Today's Philadelphia Weekly has an interesting story on Curtis Jones, who is the Democratic candidate for Council in the Fourth District. Which is, obviously, Nutter's old seat.

The looong article includes discussion of Jones' gang background, his his description of himself as a "solutionary" and a couple of potshots at recent Daily News stories detailing a city ethics investigation into Jones and his resume "issues." It also includes his interest in grassroots economic development and his loyalty to his neighborhood.

And, naturally, author Kia Gregory asks about Nutter:

Asked about the differences between himself and the mayor in waiting, Jones turns to the similarities.

“Nutter and I have common roots,” he says. “We once lived on the same block.”

Did he ever take Nutter’s lunch money?

“Nutter wasn’t a nerd like that,” he says. “Michael would fight. He wasn’t a punk. He wasn’t afraid. He walked with a different crowd, but we’ve had interactions over the years, and we’ve had a lot more on the campaign trail.

“I bring a shared experience of government,” he continues. “I’ve sat on the other side of the aisle while he asked me about my budget, and I’ve served under seven administrations, so I get it. I’ve been involved in it. We share that. We now share a district that we both care a great deal for, and what we have in common is that we want to change things.”

Hey, a mayoral candidate who knows how to climb over the wall that separates Philly from its closest suburbs!

Democratic mayoral candidate Michael Nutter was out in Delaware County Tuesday, talking with suburban officials about the future of the Philadelphia International Airport, which is located in Philadelphia and Delaware counties.

Nutter sat down with Delaware County Council Chairman Andy Reilly and Tinicum Township Commissioner Thomas Giancristoforo. Reilly and Nutter served together on the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority.

In a phone interview with the Daily News' Catherine Lucey several hours after the meeting, Nutter said they spoke about issues like airport expansion and who should control it.

“We all agree on the most important goal, that the airport run well,” he said.

Nutter said he did not support the creation of a regional authority to control the airport, a proposal that has been made by State Rep. Bryan Lentz of Swarthmore.

“Authorities don’t necessarily focus on all the things they need to focus on,” he said. “I’m committed to working together in the true spirit of co-operation and partnership.”

It's Wednesday and that means another episode of "Issues Forums" here on The Next Mayor. In today's episode, we brought together a group of health policy experts to break down all of the challenges facing the next mayor as he seeks to improve public health in Philadelphia.

Former Commissioner of the Department of Public Health said that health policy is similar to most other policies, in that good results can be achieved if the next mayor and his health commissioner are committed, outspoken and focused on the issue. If issues like childhood obesity, lack of exercise, air quality and especially violence as a public health issue are left on the back burner, then the city will continue to sicken.

Now, we've already placed a lot of issues on the "front burner" for the next mayor and by now the expectations are huge. Where should this issue rank among them and what steps can he take to make Philadelphia a healthier city? Our experts weigh in with suggestions but we welcome yours as well.

As always, you have several options for viewing this video. I encourage you to subscribe to our video podcast so you can download the video and watch it on your portable video playing device. iTunes users can get to it quickly and easily with this link. Anyone who uses and RSS reader can use this link. You can watch it on our website or just check it out here via Youtube:

Enjoy!

So the Daily News' Catherine Lucey is along with Michael Nutter in NYC today, where he's meeting with Michael Bloomberg, learning about 311 and meeting the NYC police chief. Nutter seems to be on a tour of other cities right now, where he's learning from successful mayors.

"There are any number of things we can learn from New York," Nutter told Catherine. "There's not a mayor school yet, so we are kind of creating it."

We'll bring you updates through the day.

So many interesting things in the news today that it's tough to come up with a coherent post that draws attention to them and explains why you (and the next mayor) should be paying attention, but here goes.

Leading off, is an editorial in today's Inquirer about air pollution that makes this unfortunate point about the Greater Philadelphia region:

It was a report card that any savvy third grader would feed to his dog, rather than suffer the consequences of presenting it to his parents.

That's why it is all the more significant that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is due in Philadelphia today to hold one of only five hearings scheduled across the country on reducing the ozone levels that produce smog pollution.

Air pollution is perhaps the perfect example of an issue that doesn't stop at the city-suburban boundary. If the air's dirty in West Philly, it's going to be dirty in Upper Darby too. It's also an issue (like the airport issue that Wendy blogged about yesterday) that provides a great opportunity for regional cooperation among our elected officials.

In fact, Michael Nutter, who's going to "Mayor School" in New York today, recently visited Chicago and undoubtedly learned about their Metropolitan Mayor's Caucus. Mayor Daley and all of the mayors of the surrounding small towns get together and work on issues of regional significance, using their collective strength to lobby for change in that state's capital. (Quick, what is the capital of Illinois?) One of the first issues they worked on was regional air quality.

A neighboring county is already taking some steps to free us from dependence on coal-produced electricity that's generated in plants that dump tons of pollution in the air. The effort in Bucks County will result in one of the nation's largest solar panel arrays that will produce enough electricity to power 400 homes per year. You're probably thinking, "400 homes, big deal." If the entire region could make a commitment to work together to bring more such projects to fruition, we could reach that tipping point that sends us on the way to a truly, energy independent region.

Anyone interested in learning more about green living and finding out what Michael Nutter thinks about it can check out GreenFest Philly on September 9th. This article in Eastern University's paper, The Waltonian (don't ask) has more details.

A separate environmental issue, the quality of the visual environment, was discussed in "Trash Me," the Philadelphia Inquirer's blog about... well... trash. Both Michael Nutter and Al Taubenberger contributed to the blog yesterday in response to the complaints of several users about the city's inaction on keeping things clean.

So we don't lose sight of the city's most pernicious, most devastating issue, Inky and Daily News have stories about the latest casualties in our losing battle against violent crime and homicide. This time, a 5-year-old girl, a 12-year-old girl and a 1-year-old boy were left without mothers - and the 5-year-old and 12-year-old get to spend the rest of their lives with the memory of finding their mother in a pool of blood.

Hey, but at least Fumo will be ok (.mp3) and Wireless Philly is on track. Sorry... forgot to take my anti-cynicism pill.

Democratic candidate Michael Nutter just finished up his meeting with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, reports Catherine Lucey, who is traveling with Nutter's group.

Nutter and Bloomberg had a private meeting over coffee, and then did a press conference.

The most interesting fact to come out of that press availability was that Nutter was in NYC to see how the city addresses crime reduction, economic development ... and parks.

Nice to see municipal management of parks back in the spotlight!

And there was the usual intergovernmental back-slapping.

Bloomberg: "We are happy to have him here even though the Phillies have taken three straight from the Mets. This is a good chance for New York to show what it's done."

Nutter: "We'd like to know how the mayor has done these things. I have admired him for a long time."

Continuing his day in New York, Michael Nutter took a tour of Mayor Bloomberg's famous "bullpen."

Daily News reporter Catherine Lucey wasn't allowed into the bullpen, the cubicle-filled room in city hall where Bloomberg works. The New York press aren't allowed in there, either.

But Nutter described the visit afterward. He said he was impressed, but he wouldn't commit to matching it in Philadelphia.

"It's different," Nutter said. "Nearly everybody is right there where you need them. It does seem tremendously efficient."

What he did think was worth borrowing is NYC's emphasis on hiring young people in government work. He said that, in his administration, he hoped "young people would have the opportunity to take part in the rebirth of a great American city."

This afternoon, Nutter had a closed-door meeting with NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. Kelly said the two spoke about crime mapping, surveillance cameras and "stop, question and frisk," the controversial tactic, used in NYC, that Nutter backed in the primary.

"I think it is a useful tactic; it has been useful in removing guns," Kelly said.

Nutter praised the New York cops for a "relentless pursuit to drop [crime] numbers down." New York's homicide rate is running about 3.24 per 100,000 people, while Philly's is over 17 per 100,000 people.

"I think they are constantly innovating, constantly doing things differently," Nutter said.

And, he said, it was "encouraging" to talk to a department that had actually deployed the plan that he got so much heat for in the spring. (It probably was also encouraging to talk to police that had managed to lower those violent crime numbers.)

"It's one thing to talk to criminologists, but to talk to a real live person who is actually doing it ..." Nutter said. He added, of Kelly, "I think he knows what he's talking about."

In the finale of the Next Mayor TV's summer season, we discuss the issue that kicked off this project back in December 2005: Regionalism.

Throughout the country, policymakers are realizing that "the region" has replaced "the city" as the key organizing structure in the global competition for jobs and residents. Elected officials in and around Philadelphia, not surprisingly, have been a little slower on the uptake. In fact, to make it clear that this isn't just a problem on the Philly side of the line, I remind you of this post that was written about responses to the regionalism question by suburban candidates for state legislature.

Some of the attitudes reflected in those answers are about as wrong-headed as can be and fit into a pattern of exploiting suburban distrust of the city for political gain, rather than correcting it so that the whole region can work together.

Our panelists, with expertise in business and community development, talk about what the next mayor can do to foster better relations with the city's suburban neighbors. I encourage you to check it out, either by watching it as streaming video on our website (Quick Time required), subscribing to our podcast by iTunes or using your RSS reader to download it or check it out via Youtube, right here:

Regional cooperation is perhaps one of the most important issues that will come up in this election, at the very least because we have candidates - both in the city and the suburbs - who are willing to work together. (Michael Nutter's visit to Delaware County, is a perfect example.) To get an idea of the emphasis that The Next Mayor has put on this issue, check out search results for the work "regionalism" on the blog to see how often the issue has been brought up.

Effective leaders can shape public opinion but at the same time (as Abraham Lincoln knew) they can't force public opinion to go somewhere it's not ready to go. Residents of Philadelphia and the Greater Philadelphia region need to demonstrate that we are, in fact, ready to work together and demand that our elected officials do the same.

So what do you think? If you live in the city or the suburbs, feel free to comment about whether you think public opinion is coming around on regional cooperation or if we're still a generation or two away from truly becoming "Greater" Philadelphia.

This week I received itineraries for both candidates!

Al Taubenberger will be sticking close to his German roots and celebrating Octoberfest! at Cannstatter's in the Northeast.

Michael Nutter, freshly returned from New York, where, I'm told, he left a couple brooms at Shea Stadium, has a full slate for Saturday.

I imagine both candidates will be paying their proper homage to the men and women of labor on Monday (despite what the Evening Bulletin says) so if and when I get those schedules, I'll pass them along.

Enjoy the weekend!