Every now and then, a story reminds you that the people we list every day as the victims of the current, unrelenting murder wave in Philadelphia are sons and daughters and beloved by someone.
Daren is not more important because he's the son of the city's consumer advocate. But he is important as a reminder that we are maiming and losing too many young people.
Lance, Lisa and Daren, we hardly know what to say. We grieve with you.
Comments (18)
That story is both typical and heartbreaking, a combination that makes me feel even worse.
Gun control seems like a sensible response. Is there any progress in the state legislature regarding these efforts? If not a statewide gun control plan, at least a policy that would tolerate local gun control laws which are more restrictive than the state default?
Posted by colin | September 27, 2007 10:09 AM
Gun control at a city level is a waste of precious money, energy, and time. Unless the movement occurs at the federal ie multi-state level, then guns are only a weekend drive away for Philly criminals.
How about doing the stuff we elected a mayor and city council to do -- such as more prison space, streamlining and improving time to get felony charged suspects into court, and (what all the surrounding areas do) HOLDING felony suspects until their trial date so we don't have this witness killing issue.
That requires that the mayor collect taxes (and pay his own) and and to crack down on a criminal culture that he seems to have relied upon (Shamsud-din Ali, Shawn Fordham, and insert here all the convicted felons who receive Street's blessing to get city contracts and property).
Street's ties to local crime are well documented. His own executive secretary was poised to accept money from Shamsud-din Ali who at the time was extorting drug dealers in the name of Islam.
A million more bad men are not going to solve anything, but a million more votes will always catch a bad pols ear.
When will Philly demand campaign finance reform, ethics laws with teeth, and clean pols who don't have ties to the local numbers ring, dog fighting pool, sports gambling outfit, or yes, drug and loan sharking money laundering religious organization that is for sale to GOTV (get out the vote)?
Sup to you Philly. Your kids could be next. I would only that Lance Haver stood up for the rights of consumers to have clean pols not taking moola from black organized crime, Italian organzied crime, and all organized crime as a quid pro quo for contracts and city controlled property, as well as generous donations.
What city has $700 million in uncollected property taxes? And these people and organizations, how do they get the city to "get down or lay down?"
Haver might have advocated for the consumers' right to not have de facto open air drug markets. He might certainly have saved a life.
Posted by Anonymous | September 27, 2007 2:39 PM
Haver and his party didn't do enough to prevent this. Sorry to sound harsh, but the streets are just that.
Shoulda put more money in police and prisons instead of crapping it away, local Democrats. Haver had a platform, but he only could work on approved issues such as from circa 1975. Consumers in Philly today need honest government, not a city rigged to be pro-criminal.
"We can'th arresth our way outh of thith pwoblem" says the top cop. Sorry, thought that was why police carried handcuffs. Say it with me, brutha, handcuffs.
Posted by Anonymous | September 27, 2007 2:48 PM
I get Haver wished his son's shooter had been stopped and frisked before the tragic consequence.
Haver's been so ACLU all these years, and oddly, the criminals run amok so much that the city's not a fit place to raise kids.
Maybe it's not the role of the city to worry about the size of national prison populations, nor the racial composition. Philly obviously has too few criminals in prison, and too many "advocates" trying to gut the city's tax base so the city can't afford good schools, police, adequate prison space, court/parole/probation staffing, youth delinquency holding facilities, and the rest that could have saved Haver's son.
Posted by Anonymous | September 27, 2007 3:17 PM
Seriously, this is sad irony. Haver is part of the crew that makes it impossible for the city to collect taxes that are long overdue, including John Street himself.
Now Haver is advocating for "tax forgiveness" after a lack of tax collection in the city underfunds schools, police, courts, etc. The system Haver labored to create lets deadbeats rule, including the man who hired Haver for the job of city consumer advocate.
"There are people who play games with their real estate taxes" Street says in the article below. Sad, sad irony again.
Haver cries "save the homes" but these are the houses that owe big debts to PGW, PWD, and big property tax liens (old debts). Most of these properties are empty anyway, or second properties, or part of multiple properties, or owned by people whose "hardship" is questionable or unproved, such as their in retirement so they are "low income" but the taxes date from when they were working.
This guts police and schools people because that revenue is the primary source of funding for all the things that if functioning well would have prevented the shooting of Haver's son.
"Street said the city doesn't want to take anyone's home, but he said, 'There are people who play games with their real-estate taxes [!]. . . unfortunately for them, those days are over. We need the money and the school district needs the money.'
City Solicitor Romulo Diaz Jr. predicted that the first foreclosure filings will happen in early November, court hearings in January, and sheriff's sales by May.
[How much do you want to bet that Haver will be spearheading the movement to sabotage collection that pays for police and safety?]
"Before a foreclosure notice is filed, a delinquent taxpayer can agree to pay 25 percent of the balance and the rest within a year. After the notice is filed, the property owner will have to pay 50 percent.
[Funny how people get a year to pay long overdue taxes when I get to pay in full when the bill comes. Guess school children and police don't need the money this year].
"The administration's tough [?] new program comes in the wake of financial-hardship guidelines set in 2005 and a conditional-forgiveness program last year that enabled some delinquent property owners to avoid paying interest and penalties.
[So they got a no interest loan against education and safety spending in the city].
"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."
[And what is so bad about renting, again?]
"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."
from Mark McDonald of PMH. 9-7-07.
So while Haver is advocating for "tax forgiveness" the city struggles to get money to fight senseless crime.
Posted by Haver attacks property tax collection that funds safe streets efforts -- very sad indeed | September 27, 2007 3:33 PM
Haver is one of the architects of the slow to no property tax collection policies that fund anti-crime initiatives.
How about let's hold owners equally accountable for funding safe streets so kids can survive to adulthood?
Posted by Anonymous | September 27, 2007 3:37 PM
Why not expect prompt property tax payment and counsel reverse mortgages?
Police and schools = full funding
Senior/low income owners = stay in home for life and get monthy payment from bank.
Posted by Anonymous | September 27, 2007 4:05 PM
Mod note: I do not believe that earlier poster was actually Mark McDonald, city hall reporter for the Daily News. Which you've probably figured out.
Posted by Wendy | September 28, 2007 11:33 AM
Some of these anonymous comments are pretty cold. I'm concerned about public policy, but I find it difficult to take counsel from anyone who reads that article and has the initial reaction that Haver's tax policy was responsible for the lack of oversight, or that more prisons would do anything to avoid similar tragedies. That argument is so far distilled from the senseless violence which prompted the discussion, that I question whether or not you're capable of reasonable discussion.
This isn't a mercy plea for criminals. I'm asking if anyone has some useful ideas to PREVENT the gun violence in Philly. What does anonymous think of Nutter's stop & frisk? If a push for local gun control is a waste of money, is an increased police presence the only alternative you're offering? I understand the need to do a more effective job collecting taxes, but that's not really what this article was about.
Posted by colin | September 28, 2007 1:26 PM
Crime and schools need cash now to solve.
Haver is ironically one of the people who demand that tax collection not include sheriff sale of properties.
But those sheriff sales result in payment of tax, gas, water and other liens that the city is owed for years. The city has $700 million in unpaid, overdue property taxes. Every one has a sad story, I'm sure.
Haver, in a twist of fate, advocated for giving people what amounts to a low to no interest "loan" against school revenue and public safety.
That's what the whole is about. We need cash to address criminality.
Haver's policies and the local Democrats policies resulted in rampant crime because we didn't have the money available when Clinton's crime dollars went away.
Scattered site housing is full of drugs and crime, PHA pays no property taxes to the city to cover schools and police, yet their tenants are high cost. We decimated the tax base to keep the city 25% low income.
We need that money now, not when it's convenient for the housing advocates to have the owners decide to pay. It's gone off the deep end to where people can't be expected to rent, all poor people have to own houses that they can't afford to keep up, that are 100 years old, that rob them of savings, but that's somehow good to the minds of extreme liberals like Haver.
In other counties you can't not pay property taxes for ten years. You have one or two years, or else a sheriff sale to cover the debt, then you rent.
Philly's housing advocates lobby to have PHA pay no property taxes which costs the city, and allows iffy nonprofits who don't really perform to pay no property taxes, and allows some of the RDA property to pay no taxes -- well meaning housing advocates who are bad at math make it impossible to fund schools I want to send my kids to, impossible for me to feel safe in the streets of Philly.
Sorry if that is offensive, but Haver is one of the guys that keeps the city behind, and now he's paid the ultimate price for creating a climate where the city can't afford normal safe streets.
Is it OK to be honest in the local papers?
Posted by Anonymous | September 28, 2007 1:52 PM
I support gun control, donate moeny to the Brady group (Sarah, not Bob), yet I've watched the battle in PA for years.
You don't have the votes to get one a month in this state, and to get them would mean that the dems in Harrisburg would have to agree to become Republicans on every issue for the rest of their lives in exchange for even being in the ballpark to pass one a month.
Ergo, the top best pols such as Street know this, and instead of cleaing up the streets which would hurt the people not in federal prison still running the show, he devotes himself to windmills.
There are practical things we can do now to prevent this sky high murder rate that are proven, that work.
Let's collect the revenue owed us, make schools YOU would consider for your children for all children, and stop chasing fantasy.
$700 million in overdue property taxes would go a long way don't you think?
But to collect it, you'd have to battle Lance Haver.
Ironic, huh?
Posted by Anonymous | September 28, 2007 1:57 PM
It's not Haver's "tax policy" Colin. It's Haver's "housing" policy, which still assumes that the city can afford to have so many non property tax paying owners.
NYC changed this. Chicago changed this. The federal housing money now requires that the money for new low income housing be managed by a taxable entity, such as an LLC, not just an "authority" that pays nothing.
The city can't survive unless we become property tax self-sustaining.
My friend was killed in Overbrook for his cell phone. So I know what the Havers are going through.
Philly makes itself a haven for criminals and crime because old policies from the 70s aren't well thought out or well managed in practice.
In my neighborhood, the scatt site PHA housing is full of druggies, drug dealers, guns, and pays not one cent for the costs of any of this activity.
Where is the realization by Haver, the mayor, Johnson, or the papers, that being required to be an equal citizen builds character and self-respect? Everyone has to pay their way, and pay their share to the city.
Or else we can't even afford to hold gun suspects in prison until their trial date. No one does that except us. Philly is an open air prison because of it.
Posted by Anonymous | September 28, 2007 2:10 PM
Property tax collection update: since the city started collecting property taxes again, the wife of a drug dealer well known to the Daily News paid off the $21,000 owed on her vacant lot. Apparently she paid in full, didn't enter a payment plan.
Her nonprofit run under her name and her husband's paid off the $15,000 or so that they owed on a lot. They never build this "affordable housing." Apparently they applied for fed and state money and didn't get it.
So that $36,000 in one month on two empty lots. Enough to pay most of the salary of ONE cop that could have been present at the store where Daren Haver was gunned down.
Get it? Property taxes = police = less crime.
Works for me.
Posted by Anonymous | September 28, 2007 2:20 PM
Haver and PUP and all those CLS folks ignore the situations where people can pay just fine.
They focus on the situations where people can't pay, and then make out an argument that the owners shouldn't have to pay.
This is killing the city.
The liberals are waiting for the big federal windfall to come again to cities, but the reality is that we have to pay for our own costs, no matter who wins the presidential election.
After the Gulf Coast housing crisis is addressed, and the debt, and the war, even the Obamas won't have enough left over to fund rust belt cities that have hundreds of properties held by local government that could be paying property taxes now.
The mayor has to be tough enough to make the case to the ones that assume that tax collection is biblically incorrect.
That case is schools suffer, police are too few, and rampant crime that spills out into your life is the trade off to having a city where some neighborhoods have 50% of owners who owe property taxes for years.
I don't see how the papers can keep pretending that there is some other solution to crime but to fund anti-crime measures that work, have worked, are working, but need money.
Money.
And money is what the city is owed. www.hallwatch.org
Posted by Anonymous | September 28, 2007 2:26 PM
Proof?
19132 West N. Philly 53.7% of owners owe property taxes, for total of $40 million.
Who pays for that? The Havers. Because the police this money would have covered, the parole/probation officers, the prisons, the judge, the courts, the new YSC, the bribe to Jannie B. to get her to act on the new Youth Study Center, etc....
Those have to wait.
19133 East N. Philly 48.1% OWNERS who owe property taxes.
I think the journalists get confused. These are not public housing residents. These are not elderly folk who had their taxes frozen. They tend to be inherited properties owned by people who grew up in them and live there still. Never paid rent or a mortgage, and can afford property taxes.
19140 Nicetown 47.8% of owners owe property taxes of $37 million to the city. Half would go right to the schools.
Who are the deadbeats? Typicaldly landlords with multiple properties who know they city won't collect because they have a relative who volunteers for elections, etc.
19121 Fairmount North 45.6% of owners, OWNERS, owe property taxes to the city. Total owed $21 million.
19143 Kingsessing OWNERS owe $42 million and of all owners 44.4% owe money to the city for schools, infrastructure, services, police, jails, social services, child welfare services, city agency costs....
Philly has a big government that tries to do a lot, but people are sick of trying to pay for it.
What do you journalists recommend? Tax amnesty? Tax payoff plans that require the city to hire more people to manage? A bifurcated collection system where property tax payment is optional?
Because that's what Haver and the pro-all housing owners movement have created.
Posted by Anonymous | September 28, 2007 2:40 PM
www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/delinqbyzip/index_html?skey=pcent&rkey=pcent
Source of numbers above.
Posted by Anonymous | September 28, 2007 2:52 PM
OK, thanks to those who tried to explain the distinction. But I still don't understand how addressing unpaid property taxes owed by city agencies can be viewed as a panacea. I understand that replacing PHA with a private taxable entity would make those managers liable to taxation, but wouldn't they just include that burden in the billing of their services back to the city? It just seems like a zero gain $ circle regardless of what agent plays the role.
What about a policy for the city that encourages private construction of affordable housing. Weaving affordable housing into market rate developments would minimize the stigma of public housing and diminish the occurrence of ghetto violence hot spots.
Posted by colin | October 1, 2007 2:14 PM
Well done! I learned some interesting things for me)
Posted by Jasmine | September 25, 2011 3:33 AM