Both Al Taubenberger and Michael Nutter were on the job on Labor Day. And both were promising a real race in November, though that was undermined a bit by the fact that Michael Nutter began his day by speaking to a crowd of labor leaders gathered to also hear from AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, and Al Taubenberger started his day by listening to Michael Nutter. (Maybe Nutter's exalted perch was a Democrat/union labor thing.)
Still, I was relieved to hear not only that both promise to compete, but that they did it with a little wit.
Nutter laughed at the notion of a hiatus between the May primary and Labor Day, asking: “Did we ever stop?”
On stage, Nutter spoke of Democratic unity after a five-way primary. “The primary is over and all five of us who ran in that race are all still working to make Philadelphia a great place,” he said.
The other four candidates from the Democratic primary were, however, noticeably absent at yesterday’s festivities.
As he marched with union members from Washington Avenue to Penn’s Landing, Nutter was repeatedly addressed as “Mr. Mayor” or “Mayor Nutter.”
But Nutter refuses to buy into the public perception of his inevitable victory.
“I learned a long time ago when I was playing high school football to play to the last whistle and when there is no time left on the clock,” Nutter said. “We’re not slowing down until the polls close at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 6. That’s how I play.”
Taubenberger, who mingled with Republican City Councilmen Frank Rizzo and Jack Kelly, praised Nutter as a “good man” but promised a competitive race. He said Democratic control of the city for almost six decades had created unhappy voters ready for a change in City Hall.
“You know what? Underdogs do win,” Taubenberger said. “Ask Mike Nutter.”
I've got an idea. In the middle of the worst wave of homicides to come over the city since the end of the crack-fueled epidemic of the 80s, let's cut funding for a program modeled on one that has been directly attributed to creating a "miracle" in another city:
FOR EIGHT YEARS, the Youth Violence Reduction Partnership has worked with troubled kids in some of Philadelphia's most dangerous neighborhoods, cutting murder rates among its target population and prompting calls to expand the program.
But something odd happened in the frenzied negotiations over the state budget last month:
Funding for the partnership disappeared.
...
The partnership is modeled after a Boston program which achieved such a dramatic drop in the city's homicide rate that it was widely called "the Boston miracle."
The program's premise is that those most likely to kill or be killed in cities are an identifiable group of young people with a history of brushes with the law.
The YVRP identifies at-risk people between ages 14 and 24 and assigns each a street worker who works with police and probation officers to try to keep them out of trouble and connect them with education, employment and other positive influences.
In the 24th and 25th Police Districts - in eastern North Philadelphia, Kensington and Port Richmond - where the partnership has worked longest, youth homicides have dropped by more than 40 percent.
In his latest e-missive, Philadelphia Forward's Brett Mandel brings attention to a low profile criminal case that demonstrates the flaws in the city's real estate assessment process:
James F. Lynch, a Board of Revision of Taxes tax assessor, and developer James F. Campenella both recently pled guilty to charges of bribery and fraud in a scheme where the developer paid the assessor $20,000 in cash in exchange for lowered tax assessments.
Chris Satullo made a very important point in his column in Sunday's Inquirer - patience, people!
But Nutter, a very smart guy who worked for a long time inside that ornate pile of stone called City Hall, knows something that eludes some of his giddy fans.
No one could achieve in short order all the things folks now blithely expect him to do. The challenges are too big and varied, the money too short, habits at City Hall too entrenched. He plans to do big things, but he knows that will entail another long, hard climb. The worry is: Will his supporters' patience fray long before he even spies the top of the hill?
...
But remember this, too: The new mayor will not, upon taking the oath, be handed a wizard's wand. He will be handed a Byzantine, encumbered, undernourished city budget. He will face a sullen workforce, spoiling for a fight in contract talks that will begin as soon as the photo of daughter Olivia goes up on his new desk. If he doesn't get the contracts right, he has no prayer of delivering on his core promises about improved services and lower taxes.
He will inherit national scorn and local panic over a frightening homicide rate. No man could reverse this statistic in a year, but he must appear to be mastering it or his other initiatives will pale. He'll have to deal, somehow, with the leadership meltdown in a school system that is vital to all of his long-term plans.
Readers of this blog, you're more likely than anyone to have been following this race very closely from the very beginning. You're also more likely to have a deep understanding of the difficulty and complexity of the issues facing the next mayor. That said, what are your expectations? What signals would satisfy you that the next mayor is moving the city in "the right direction?" How soon would those events have to take place before you get impatient?
One of the things I find most interesting about watching politicians (granted, it's a pretty short list) is watching them deal with the unexpected.
Government throws any of its practioners a lot of surprises. You thought it would be the Year of Making Schools Better but it turns out to be the Year of the Garbage Strike. Stuff like that.
There is such a nasty surprise potentially brewing in a spot that I doubt many people have thought much about. It's not the most important program in the city. But it was a cool idea, and if it melts down, we'd be worse off.
It's Wireless Philadelphia, the ambitious plan to provide high-speed wireless Internet access across the city. In some parks and public areas, the access would be free; for most customers, it would require a subscription of around $20 per month.
The bad news about this idea is that it is failing in cities across the country. Last week, EarthLink -- the company that will provide the actual internet service for Wireless Philadelphia -- said it would cut 900 jobs and close four offices, including one in Harrisburg. That followed an earlier annoucement that the company was taking a wait-and-see approach to other citywide wireless grand schemes. Chicago shelved its plans. So did Houston, San Francisco, Alexandria and Arlington, Virginia, and St Petersburg, Florida.
Wireless Philadelphia was quick to announce, on its blog and in a story in the Daily News, that it would press on, undeterred.
How, and what on earth could the good news about such a program be? Turns out Philly got out ahead of the Wi-Fi fray by cutting a deal with EarthLink early, and we apparently -- surprisingly! -- engineered one heck of a deal. Industry analyst Craig Settles was quoted in Silicon.com:
"Everyone wanted to be another Philadelphia. But they didn't understand the complexities of how Philadelphia structured its non-profit organisation to help defray costs...."
By most counts, Philadelphia was extremely lucky in being the first major US city to propose such a network. As a result the company negotiated an extremely good deal with EarthLink, which promised to pay $15m to build the network and provide service. The contract, which spans 10 years, requires the city only to provide access to light poles and other structures to deploy the wireless radios. It does not require the city to spend any amount of money with EarthLink on services, although city officials say it will likely become a customer.
Also, Wireless Philadelphia subsidises the cost for low-income households through grants. That's because Wireless Philadelphia has, wisely, pitched itself as primarily a program to get the internet in the hands of poor folks and others now cut off from a healthy exchange of information.
So Philly actually did something both first and, apparently, well, and now the whole business model is threatened. Figures.
But this is where smart goverment can step in.
Programs like this work when they are supported by the words and actions of government leaders. The next mayor could help Wireless Philadelphia meet its goals by making sure the city signs up as a customer, for example, and by pitching Philadelphians to sign up too.
Is this the most important decision the next mayor will face? No.
But it will be an interesting test of how that man handles the X factor of the crazy, unexpected mess that gets thrown at government leaders every day, and whether or not he can turn it into opportunity.
WHYY's 91FM news has two stories today about school-related issues. In these stories they chronicle two of the most important groups of people who work in Philly's schools - the teachers and the cops - neither of whom get paid enough for what they do.
In fact, according the Metro, not only do the cops not get paid enough, but there's way too few of them to keep order. They ought to talk to the prison guards, whose staffing shortages have led to a number of creative solutions.
Perhaps not as many cops would be needed if they had better food in those schools. Granted, this story doesn't mention the quality of Aramark's food but I can imagine that there's way too little fiber and way too much fat in the typical school cafeteria.
Finally, if you're the parent of a school-aged child and you want to evaluate his or her school, just listen to a Daily News Op-Ed contributor. After years of research, he's got it all figured out:
So four things - openness, honesty, service ahead of self and positive outlook - define the good school. Both parents and policymakers should note that none of these has anything to do with money, or certification, or in-service training, or the quality of the buildings, or how many reports get filed.
Philadelphia students return to school on Monday. Good luck, everyone.
They want "to keep the issues of homelessness and poverty on the next mayor's agenda."
If that's an issue you feel strong about, click through on the links and fill out one of the post cards on their website. While your at it, share your own thoughts about what the next mayor can do (or can't do, if that's what you think) to alleviate poverty and homelessness in Philadelphia.
Sorry but I'm going off blog-topic for minute to pass along this piece of info from my daily Philadelphia Business Journal news update. Apparently, there's a comany out there that has the solution to obesity:
Small Bite Inc. of Haverford will use a $300,000 investment to help bring to market a mouth device that would force dieters to take smaller, slower bites.
Campaign Season Opener - Free Library of Philadelphia - Tonight
Tonight, 7pm, at the Central Library on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway (1901 Vine Street), you have a chance to see Michael Nutter and Al Taubenberger in action, presumably as a opponents.
According to the flyer you can "let them know what you think about: crime, our schools, taxes." You know, the big three.
I'll be there, juggling a video camera, audio equipment and a notepad in an effort to be a one-man multi-platform reporter. Check out the website later tonight to see if I succeeded.
Coincidentally, on the same day that I finally get around to posting about the Vote For Homes! Coalition's push to put homelessness on the mayoral agenda, the Philadelphia Campaign for Housing Justice sends me a press release about a rally for Inclusionary Housing, taking place tomorrow.
Looks like some real rock stars of the housing justice world are scheduled to attend. If you're interested, check out Dilworth Plaza at City Hall at noon, tomorrow.
Thursday Afternoon Quarterback - Nutter and Taubenberger Forum
As you may have seen on the main site, I went to the first campaign forum of the fall season last night at the Free Library. You can check out the video summary of the event here:
Admittedly, the only thing you learn from the video is that both candidates favor giving the mayor more control over the school district and that Election Day is November 6th. That last bit of information may be critical for a lot of people who are likely to forget that there's an election this year. As short as it is, however, it's very likely the only video coverage you'll see.
Before we get to a summary of what was actually said by the candidates last night, let's get a little "meta" and break down the coverage of the event.
I was fortunate enough to pull up in front of the Free Library at exactly 6:30pm, which meant that the "Two Hour Parking 8am-4pm" and the "No Stopping from 4pm-6:30pm" time was over, making parking free. As one of the first cars to arrive in the post "No Stopping" time, I was able to get a spot directly in front of the building.
I unloaded equipment and walked across the street where I greeted Larry Eichel of the Inquirer, a very smart reporter who seems just determined as I am to find something interesting about the "contest" part of this campaign. We joked a little about how difficult it would be for me to find a spot for my tripod and camera given the army of television crews that were undoubtedly already inside jockeying for a spot near the mult box. I told him that my goal for the evening would be to find the one point on which Nutter and Taubenberger disagree.
Turns out that my mock fears of a scrum around the mult-box were unfounded (or founded?) since I was able to set up my tripod and plug in right next to the box in the back of the auditorium. There wasn't a single television camera in site. After testing my equipment to make sure everything worked, I grabbed by camera and went back outside to see if I wanted to shoot exteriors.
When I got out there I saw Dave Davies who ask me if anything exciting was going on. Since exciting was hardly the word to describe the scene in the auditorium, I used the opportunity to turn the conversation to one of our other common interests - our woeful Philadelphia baseball squad. He made some reference to 1977 which would have completely escaped me (I was 2) if I hadn't heard the story about leaving Greg Luzinski in left field for the ninth inning of Game 3 of the NLCS.
At that point, I saw "that news van" from Channel 6 pull up so I hurried back inside to throw some elbows to protect my spot. As it turns out, Action News didn't send a reporter, nor did they seem to have any intention of getting good sound from the event. The cameraman shot the candidates walking on stage, a couple more shots from the back of the hall, some shots close to the stage, a few pans and close ups of the crowd and then got the heck out of there. He was in the room for all of 25 minutes.
Fox 29 also sent just a cameraman but at least he plugged into the system to get some good sound. I didn't get to see the Ten O'Clock News but a search of their website reveals nothing about last night's event. Unless Channel 6 did the story after sports and weather, they didn't have anything at 11.
Other than that, I saw 3 or 4 still photographers, apparently with the Evening Bulletin, Inky and Daily News.
The coverage in print, which includes an article in The Evening Bulletin, emphasized the cordial tone of the affair:
Daily News -
Democratic mayoral candidate Michael Nutter and Republican nominee Al Taubenberger engaged in another friendly wonk-fest last night at the Free Library's central branch.
While the candidates emphasized different points in their answers to questions from an audience of about 400, not a single disagreement between the two emerged from the exchange.
Davies, wiley veteran that he is, dug up perhaps the only dirt to be found last night - that the moderator of the event was a Nutter supporter:
One other measure of the lack of partisan edge to the forum: No public notice was taken of the fact that the moderator, William Sasso, the Free Library Foundation's board chairman, was an early supporter, fundraiser and contributor to Nutter.
Larry Eichel actually found a point of disagreement between the two candidates:
One area of disagreement did emerge: how to deal with the planned move to full-value reassessment of residential properties in the city.
Democrat Nutter said that he supported the shift, if it could be done in a revenue-neutral fashion and with safeguards to limit annual tax increases for homeowners, particularly seniors and people with low incomes.
But Republican Taubenberger opposed it, saying that the assessment of a home should be based on what the buyer paid for it - regardless of when it was purchased - rather than current value.
Eichel has a little bit of an advantage there since he's written extensively about full-value assessment and has therefore developed an immunity to the eye-glazing that affects the rest of us when this complex topic gets brought up.
Cap Assessment Increases or Freeze Assessments — Assessments must keep pace with changes in value or the system will become even more unfair. Rate reductions or tax deferments are better tools to help homeowners.
For example, if assessment increases are capped at 5% and two homes worth $100,000 today increase in value at different rates (one at 5% per year and one at 20% per year), after five years the owner of the first house will be paying taxes based on an assessment of 100% of potential sale value but the owner of the second will be paying taxes based on an assessment of only 51% of sale value.
Now I'll leave it up to you to decide whether you agree with that or not.]
Eichel also calls the event "full of smiles and chummy kidding" - a little different from the Local 98 fueled invectives hurled at Sam Katz in 2003.
Hopefully we'll able to tease some more fundamental differences in policy out of the two candidates. My quick breakdown of the event, including what, in my opinion, was the real difference between the two candidates, will follow in the next post.
Wait... Nutter can be omnipresent too? Apparently high expectations aren't that much of a problem afterall.
Proving that the internet can be more than just an easy way to get porn or download music, Nutter conducted a video web chat that beamed him into the living rooms of all of the house parties. He took questions from partygoers who shared in the experience.
This gives me a chance to make a big announcement for an event that The Next Mayor project will be putting on in late October.
Shortly after 10am (so you an watch from your computer at work - shhhh!) on October 25th, WHYY and its partners at The Next Mayor will welcome Michael Nutter and Al Taubenberger to Studio 1 for a live debate to be broadcast via the web and on WHYY's Digital Cable Channel 242. More information will follow at a permanent spot on thenextmayor.com. We'll have a small studio audience but we'll also be soliciting user-generated video and emails to ask the candidates about a whole range of issues.
We're also going to use the information and video that we've gotten by conducting our Community Forums and Issues Forums to provide jumping off points for deeper conversations about the issues. (That's a hint for the candidates. Watch those videos!)
Stay tuned for more information and instructions for submitting your own videos for the event!
Elmer Smith wrote more extensively about this video but I figured it might be interesting to use it as a jumping off point for a discussion about race relations in Philly. [Warning: Please keep your comments at least somewhat productive.]
Setting aside the made-up statistics being thrown around in the video, many questions are raised in this confrontation between a older black man, who claims that he can never get a cab to pick him up, and cab drivers, who themselves are overwhelmingly persons of color.
Do the cab drivers have a point when they say that their safety an experience are factors in their decisions to pick up certain riders in certain neighborhoods?
Should a young black male be essentially penalized for dressing according to a style that is often associated with the gansta-shiek culture that glorifies crime and violence? In other words, if a young black male wants to increase his chances to get picked up by a cab, especially, it seems, by these cabbies, should he just change his style of dress?
If the city wasn't currently, in the words of one of the drivers, the "murder capital" where most the crimes are instances of black-on-black violence, would this be less of a problem?
Essentially, it gets down to this - do you think that the burden of proof (or whatever) falls on the cab drivers or on the prospective customers? Should the cabbies pick absolutely everyone up no matter what the circumstances or should cab customers do what they can to conform to an appearance or style of dress that is less frightening (for lack of a better word) to the cabbies?
I realize that asking these questions pretty much assumes that what Joe Sam says - that many cabbies are less likely to pick up black customers - is true. But many of the cab drivers in the video seem to be agreeing with him while also claiming that he's wrong. They seem to be saying that they all pick up everyone BUT if a young, black male is wearing sagging pants and affecting a tough-guy look at 3am, he's not likely to get picked up.
Issues of race have always been difficult in Philadelphia, traditionally between whites and blacks. This video demonstrates that there's also some intraracial strife going on.
Oh and here's the obligatory question: What can the next mayor do to fix this?
(Special thanks to Jonathan Tannenwald at philly.com for suggesting the video.)
With these innovations already in existence, can Knight Rider and Air Wolf be far behind?
I get a biweekly email from the Kennedy School's Government Innovators Network that summarizes unique technological advances and new techniques being used throughout the country by municipal governments.
A couple of the items in today's email caught my attention:
Of course, building strong cases against graffiti vandals has always been difficult, even with enhanced police attention paid to the problem. The vandals invariably try to strike when no one's looking, and the only evidence they leave, typically, is damaged property.
It helps, however, that graffiti vandals are so vain that they are compelled to leave a distinctive tag at the scenes of the crimes - in effect, signing their work.
Authorities have become especially adept at compiling a data base on these tags and matching them to new graffiti. That's what happened with the Grant City arrests.
But in this case, the cops had a secret weapon - the brand new, $55,000 spymobile, which is equipped with a periscope, video recorder and digital cameras.
"These guys are great," Mr. Oddo said of MTA Police Officers Mike Yannelos and Chris D'Onofrio, who made the first-ever arrests mounted from the new vehicle. "The first day this thing was out and it paid immediate dividends," and within an hour of when it first hit the road.
We shouldn't forget that Philadelphia has its own unique and award-winning method of dealing with graffiti - The Mural Arts Program. But there's no reason we couldn't use both.
The driver, like some heavy-duty video gamer, manages the entire operation with a joystick inside the clean, air-conditioned cab.
Not only does this reduce the need for sanitation workers, possibly freeing them up to for other tasks, but the workers who do operate the trucks are spared the wear and tear that leads to sick days, disability claims and early retirement. Of course the initial investment is large, new trucks and custom made trash cans for every property, but the long term payoff could be huge. That is, if they ever figure out how to keep this from happening:
But every new technology has bugs, and some of the automated trucks appear to have a big one: For reasons that are in dispute, they occasionally burst into flames.
Oh well, maybe not. That spymobile still seems pretty cool. Just some neat stuff for a Friday afternoon.
Starting today the city will mail tax notices to 23,000 property owners and thousands of businesses in hopes of collecting on tax debt totaling $688 million - $394 million in delinquent property taxes and $294 million in delinquent business and other taxes.
Street said his tax and legal team believes that the city can corral about 34 percent of what's owed, some of the debt going back 25 years.
"It's more aggressive than anything we've ever done," Street said. "But then, necessity is the mother of invention."
Over the next five years, the Street administration projects, the school district would get $126.6 million from the delinquent-tax-collection program and the city would get $109 million.
Great idea but it begs the question: why has the city been so lax, up to now, in collecting the money that is properly owed to it? Also, what faith should we, the law abiding suckers who actually pay our taxes, have that the city will actually come through with this latest plan? I feel like giving some kudos to the city for doing this would be like congratulating someone because they started shoveling the snow from their sidewalk.
For those of you who fear that this could lead to a wholesale eviction of thousands of low-income home owners, don't worry. It seems that the city has anticipated this:
Street said the city will set aside $1.5 million, a "safety net fund," to fund loans and other support services for "people who are really, really desperate and need some help."
Services will include housing counseling, exchanging predatory loans for "fair interest rate" loans, and actual tax forgiveness, according to the city's consumer advocate, Lance Haver.
Are you a candidate groupie? Do you want to know where your favorite mayoral wannabe will be at all times this weekend? Well, you're in the right place...
If you plan on tagging along, you better stretch and warm up. Nutter will be participating in the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia's BikePhilly Tour on Sunday morning.
If you're a fan of the arts in Philadelphia and like to mix your arts with a little politics, there's a Town Hall Meeting on the Arts on Sunday night at The Painted Bride Art Center. WHYY's Susan Phillips has more on that.
Today, Philadelphia public school students will go back to their classes. And they will re-enter a district with no permanent chief executive officer, no permanent chief academic officer, no permanent chief financial officer and no permanent chief operating officer. (Oh, and there's that remaining deficit to deal with.)
But that's sort of par for the course.
What I'd rather talk about is how to deal with it. And how the long-suffering supporters of Philly schools could find unlikely allies in some places that I doubt very seriously the average city seventh-grader has heard of:
Philadelphia should unite with the state's poorest, most rural counties (Pike County, anyone?) to demand school funding that depends less on property taxes and more on statewide funding.
I realize this is not a new idea; education advocates are working on it now. So should the next mayor.
Here are some facts to consider:
In 2004-05, the state share of school costs in Pennsylvania funded by the state budget amounted to 35.8%. Nationally, the average is closer to 50% paid by the state.
There is a $10,259 gap between what the highest and lowest spending school districts in Pennsylvania spend per pupil on current expenditures. The highest spending district spent $18,064 per student in 2004-2005; the lowest only $6,991. This translates into a $276,825 gap per classroom of 25 students.
As a result of insufficient state funding, public education in Pennsylvania is more dependent on local taxes than in most states, and school district property taxes in Pennsylvania are therefore among the highest in the country.
Those facts are from Good Schools Pennsylvania, which is one of those groups fighting for a statewide solution (the group is strongly pro-state funding; former Philadelphia schools superintendent David Hornbeck, who knows the schools' needs personally, is on its board). But they are largely backed up by non-partisan sources including Standard and Poor's.
I don't want to get sidetracked on a discussion of how much money Philly schools should or should not get. We will learn more about that from the ongoing "costing out" study the state government has launched, which is designed to determine just how much it costs to run each of the state's 501 school districts.
I think we can assume that Philly isn't getting everything it needs, though I also think there will be other poorer districts with deeper needs, many in rural areas.
And let's not call this "impossible" because of Pennsylvania's deep divide between city and country. Another state -- one far more divided between black and white, between rich and poor -- has already done it. That was South Carolina in 1984, and the fact that one of the nation's most fiscally and socially conservative states has beaten us to this crucial reform should shame Pennsylvanians into at least giving the idea a thought.
The next mayor has a smart political play to make here. He can reach out to those rural districts and begin to build the trust required to make a joint appeal to lawmakers and to the governor to launch a big-thinking reform of state funding for education. Somehow, this seems more helpful than re-taking control of the schools.
It was not a popular idea down in the Palmetto State when then-Gov. Dick Riley began working for it in 1983. He spent months waving around facts that sound alarmingly like what Good Schools PA pushes. But what became the South Carolina Education Improvement Act, which raised sales taxes statewide to pay for school improvements, was eventually passed and quickly became the savior of some of the nation's worst schools.
South Carolina isn't yet an educational model, by far. But it gets an A for improvement and for effort.
While Pennsylvania hasn't even acknowledged yet that it needs remedial work.
I just got done catching up with all of the weekend's news. Nothing like 6 loads of laundry, 14 shirts and two pairs of pants to iron and simultaneous Eagles and Phillies games to keep a guy from following current events.
For now, if you've ever wanted to see Michael Nutter in a cycling jersey, here's your chance!
Nutter and Taubenberger Public Schedules for September 11th
Both candidates for mayor will be in the same location tonight, but NOT for a candidate forum or debate. Michael Nutter and Al Taubenberger will commemorate September 11th at the Interfaith Remembrance Ceremony for Prayer & Peace on Bustleton Avenue in Northeast Philly.
The event, to be held at Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Roman Catholic Church, 9220 Old Bustleton Avenue, and neighboring Temple Beth Ami Synagogue, 9201 Old Bustleton Avenue, will take place at 7pm, tonight.
Feel free to use this thread for comments about your own thoughts and memories of 9/11. As for me, I can clearly remember driving along the Route 30 bypass on my way from Exton to Downingtown to go to BJ's Wholesale Club to stock up. It was a crisp, beautiful fall day and for whatever reason, I was listening to Howard Stern. I had never been much of a Stern fan but I just happened to the channel in time to hear him recounting everything he was seeing on cable news.
I remember trying to call one of my friends in NYC and not being able to get through due to the intense volume of calls overwhelming the cell phone system in New York. I got an email from him a couple days later letting me and my other friends know that he was ok.
At the time I was working at a boarding school that had a pretty good amount of kids from New York as students. They and the rest of the student body were hastily assembled and assured that the school would do its best to help them contact their families to make sure everything was ok. As far as I know, no one at the school lost any family members or friends or knew anyone who did.
The rest of the day and the following weeks are all a blur, aside from the countless number of times that I saw the replay of the planes crashing into the buildings. Though I don't consider myself to have been or to be as "affected" by the incident as other people and I tend to think some local post 9-11 security measures (ie the fact that I can no longer walk over the plaque commemorating JFK's appearance at Indepedence Hall on July 4, 1962) are an overreaction, I think those memories of 9-11 will remain as vivid to me 50 years from now as they are today.
Oh, Philadelphia Forward. You crazy rabble-rousers!
Brett Mandel and his merry band of reformers at Philadelphia Forward are at it again. His latest email/call-to-action encourages folks who just had their houses reassessed by the Board of Revision of Taxes to appeal those assessments.
He even provides all of the language to use on the form:
Attach the following language to your appeal to demonstrate that you understand that all properties are to be treated uniformly, but that in Philadelphia the entire assessment system is fundamentally flawed...(feel free to cut and paste and print it out to attach to your appeal)
Though it's not explicity stated, I think he may be trying to pick a fight that ends up in the Commonwealth Court system, at which point, the Court would almost certainly have to rule that the current assessment system violates the state constitution's "uniformity" rule:
The Pennsylvania Constitution demands that "all taxes shall be uniform, upon the same class of subjects, within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax." The city is in comprehensive violation of uniformity and the most-recent assessments do not correct the problems. The assessment lacks uniformity with other properties within the taxing jurisdiction and is therefore illegal, improper and unjust.
Such a ruling would pretty much force the city to make the changes necessary for full/fair market valuation. The BRT has been preparing for this for a while and has completed the citywide reassessment, so they could probably have the new assessments out pretty quickly. That would put the ball squarely in the court of elected officials, who would then be responsible for setting the tax rates and putting the mechanisms in place to protect low-income folks from sharp increases in their tax bills.
Or maybe Philadelphia Forward is just trying to help people get their tax bills lowered.
This gives us a chance to review one of the actual policy differences between Al Taubenberger and Michael Nutter.
On the front page of the site, we featured a story by Catherine Lucey about Councilman Wilson Goode Jr.'s new bill to provide incentives to businesses for hiring ex-cons. The fun part of this story is that the bill was actually authored by Michael Nutter and became a major part of his primary campaign.
...The legislation awards $10,000 in tax credits to employers who hire ex-offenders, and provides support services and career training to ex- prisoners.
Nutter put forth the idea for the program — named the Philadelphia Re-Entry Employment Program or "PREP" — during the primary election campaign in May. Shortly after he won, he asked Goode if he would consider introducing the bill.
The bill seems to cover everything - education and housing for ex-offenders and, just to be sure that they're not getting it all for free, the program participants will pay 5% of their wages back to the city. (Hmmm... I'm paying 4% of my wages to the city and I ain't never been to jail.)
There's some universal praise towards the end of the article which leaves us hoping that Nutter enjoys such a good working relationship with City Council and government watchdog groups when he actually is the mayor.
Carol's Fix-it Shop - An example of what needs to be fixed in city government
Speaking of government watchdog groups (see end of previous post), Zack Stalberg at the Committee of Seventy makes a pretty fair point about what otherwise seems to be a worthwhile project by lame-duck City Councilwoman Carol Campbell.
Seems that Campbell decided that the city's Basic Systems Home Repair Program, which provides money to very low income individuals and families so they can perform repairs to their homes, wasn't serving her district well enough. So she took action:
Campbell created her district's own program to help people make structural, electrical and plumbing repairs so they can stay in their houses. District residents no longer have to apply to the citywide program, with its waiting list 3,400 names long, including 375 from the Fourth District. They can go straight to Campbell's program, which has less stringent income standards.
...
Campbell's program uses $1.3 million in Neighborhood Transformation Initiative funding - normally reserved for buying, boarding up and demolishing vacant buildings in the districts.
Stalberg's criticism:
"The basic rules should be the same from district to district, and each of the district Council people should be aware of what the ground rules are," Stalberg said. "If it's kind of an underground program that's benefiting Councilwoman Campbell's constituents more than others, it smells wrong."
Now, Campbell answers the criticism by saying "she would not be involved in creating the list," nor will she be choosing the contractors who perform the work. But really, the problem, as pointed out by Stalberg, is less about what goes on within her district than what happens across all of the districts. It's a problem that a lot of people have with government at the local, state and federal levels.
Why should the residents of one council district be entitled to greater access to "city" resources than those of any other council district? Afterall, it's not like the "4th District" collects its own taxes then distributes that money back into the district.
On the other hand, if residents of a council district go to the trouble of choosing someone (set aside, for a moment, the fact that Campbell was chosen by ward leaders and not re-elected by the voters) because they perceive some talent and creativity in that person, why should that person be prohibited from doing everything she can to help our the folks who put her there?
And here's where we get into the real problem. City Council members (and, to some extent, the City Democratic Party) have put constituent services above and beyond their other roles as legislators. (Here's where I actually defend them.) They do this because, in many cases, "the city" has failed to deliver these services. Campbell's reappropriation of NTI funds to make up for an inefficient city program is one example. The city program has a waiting list of over 3000 people. She and Councilwoman Tasco and Councilman Savage, who also enacted similar plans, just want to get folks who live in their districts onto a shorter list.
If this is such a worthwhile program, which it seems to be, the next mayor will have to make sure that (a) people know about it and (b) they get service faster so they're not on a waiting list while their roof caves in or need a city councilperson to get them the help they need.
Democratic mayoral candidate Michael Nutter, who is the favorite to win the November election to succeed Street, said he supported any effort to reduce crime.
"I think any effort to organize and rally the community to fight crime, especially black men, is important and should be actively supported," Nutter said. "We need black men in the community to not only stand up and take action in the neighborhoods, but also to reach out to many of the young black men who are involved in violence and help them turn their lives around."
And to answer Attytood's question:
Johnson said the training and patrols will be offered citywide and open to anyone, but he believes there's a special need for African-American men in Philadelphia to get involved.
The Kick-Off is October 21st at the Liacouras Center.
But what's this about the Governor's idea to create a new position, school district managing director, and filling that job with his budget secretary, Michael Masch? According to the Inquirer:
The district used to have a managing director, but several years ago split that job between a chief financial officer and chief operations officer.
Those positions are currently filled by interim appointments. Would those positions both be cut and their separate responsibilities be combined in a managing director? Or would the managing director be created to oversee two positions that perform the jobs that the managing director once had by itself?
OK, casinos. The very word is like chum to sharks. I know.
And I certainly don't mean to pander to those who oppose casinos. But I think something is going on that's worth noting.
The AP just moved a report on a Gaming Control Board meeting this afternoon that was disrupted by anti-casino advocates, one wearing the aforementioned shirt while others quoted the Pennsylvania constitution (really).
It's a story that seems to imply there's been a shift in momentum toward Philadelphia's anti-casino forces, which have been, frankly, stimied everywhere except the court of public opinion.
It's headlined "Casino protesters force early end to state gaming board meeting" and it discusses the casinos' "unlikely ally," City Council. Hmm.
Not to mention that the story starts off this way:
Anti-casino activists disrupted a state gaming board meeting on Wednesday and forced an early adjournment, signaling that the bitter grass roots battle against two city slots parlors is far from over.
Like I said, I am NOT PANDERING TO THE CASINO FIGHTERS. I just think the slight shift in tone toward the casino battle being "far from over" is, well, interesting.
If you'd like to watch for yourself, here's the video...say hi to the Daily News' Chris Brennan. And don't miss the part where the anti-casino activists compare former Gaming Control Board Chair Tad Decker to George Bush.
We could use these here - Impartial Public Servants
How often have we heard stories about friends or neighbors (or strangers) who got some sort of preferential treatment from some city official or another? Most of the time the story comes to light if it involves a major scandal - say, a tax assessor accepting a bribe and then lowering someone's property tax assessment - but often it's just a matter of "I have this friend in at L&I who said he can help out."
Bob Stone, a professor at Cal State Long Beach, writes about this in a column for Management Insights. It seems that more often than not, public officials or civil service employees have biases like any other human, and those biases affect their decision making:
Everybody has biases: we love some people, we dislike some, we like some schools, we admire people in some occupations. We recognize these biases.
But we also make assumptions, almost unconsciously, that hijack our impartiality.
The public official, he writes, is expected (and required) to put these biases aside:
Impartial judgment is part of the deal for public servants. Americans count on it. There's no room for bias in tax assessment, zoning decisions, policing, judging, or contract awards.
But, as he says, "many factors conspire to rob us of our chance at true impartiality."
Of course, this doesn't excuse such behavior, but it does remind us that in a city government with over 20,000 human employees, it's going to take a long time and a lot work to make sure they all have the ability to recognizes their biases and the methods to deal with it.
Stories like this fascinate me, not so much because of the policies being discussed, but because of the political minutia that has to be taken into consideration any time an elected official makes an announcement.
...Washington, D.C.'s Adrian Fenty has joined the ranks of the rail-riding pols -- well, temporarily:
The mayor's advisers were stumped. No one could agree on the savviest way to handle the sensitive political situation.
How would Mayor Adrian M. Fenty travel 2.1 miles from the John A. Wilson Building to Cardozo High School on Clifton Street NW for a news conference in which he was to tell residents to protect the environment and leave their cars behind?
Showing up in his usual gas-guzzling, government-issued Lincoln Navigator seemed politically incorrect. The Metro was an option, but Fenty was running late and would have to walk several blocks. Someone offered a vehicle from the city's fleet of hybrids, but the mayor ruled that out. He countered by offering to hop on the expensive Cannondale bicycle he uses for triathlons, but then aides reminded him that he might become sweaty in his navy business suit.
So he walked up 14th Street NW and took the No. 52 bus north.