The Next Mayor

Just heard a live report on WHYY 90.9 FM that Michael Nutter will be making another announcement about his cabinet later today.

Nutter gave that info out this morning to WHYY's Shai Ben-Yaacov when Shai went to cover the mayor-elect's appearance at the Philadelphia Stock Exchange:

Philadelphia Mayor-Elect Michael Nutter will kick off trading for the New Year on the floor of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX) on Wednesday, January 2 when he rings the opening bell. Remarks will begin promptly at 9:15 a.m.

For the eighth year in a row, the Mayor of Philadelphia will be at the Exchange to usher in the start of the new trading year. His appearance marks the first in a year long series of prominent people invited to ring the opening bell at the nation's first stock exchange.

Check back here later today for more.

(edited to add) According to the media advisory about the event, the announcement will be made at 3:30pm about "SEVERAL KEY SENIOR APPOINTMENTS."

As I mentioned on the main page, we'll be counting down the days until the official swearing-in of the next mayor with a different feature each day.

Today, we offer a podcast of Monday's Radio Times. Guest host Alan Tu welcomed John Baer and Gar Joseph of the Daily News to recap the major local news stories of 2007 - political and non-political.

You can download the entire episode by right clicking this link and choosing "Save Link As" (for Mac users, that's Ctrl-Click).

Feel free to share your own thoughts about the top stories of 2007 in the comments. Best comment will be excerpted and attributed on the front page later this afternoon.

Wendy updated with full info...

Dan was kind enough to text in the news from today's press conference of Nutter announcements: Shelly R. Smith will be Nutter's city solicitor. Everett Gillson is deputy mayor of public safety. Rina Cutler is deputy mayor for transportation and utilities.

Douglas Oliver as director of communications. Israel "Izzy" Colon as director of multicultural affairs.

Hard-working campaign spokeswoman Melanie Johnson is city rep.

And who are these people? Read their brief bios -- from Nutter's press release -- after the jump...

As Wendy posted earlier (and thank goodness she could read the cryptic text messages I was sending over my old Nokia cell phone - I'm surprised she was able to get Deputy Mayor of Transportation and Public Utilities from my "DMTPU"), Nutter unloaded a bunch of appointments on us today.

Here's the video:

With 4 full days left in his term as mayor, what will we remember most about the John Street era? Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane takes on this question today at 10 am on WHYY 90.9 FM.

Here's the promo:

What will Philadelphia Mayor John Street's legacy be? His last day in office is Monday, Jan 7th when Michael Nutter will be sworn in as Mayor. Will he only be remembered for the FBI bug found in his office? Will history remember how he launched a major neighborhood scale restoration program known as NTI? We'll talk with two journalists who have followed Street's career both as a City Councilman and his eight years as Mayor. DAVE DAVIES is a Senior Writer for The Philadelphia Daily News, and MARK McDONALD covers City Hall for the Daily News.

If you can't be near a radio, you can click here for options to listen live on your computer. Check back to this post later today for a podcast of the show that you can download and listen to at your leisure.

(Edited to add) And the link for the podcast is below. As usual, right click and save as to download the .mp3 otherwise, just click and listen!

What will Philadelphia Mayor John Street's legacy be?
Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane

Remember a few weeks ago when I wrote a blog post about how much good news there seemed to be in the paper? Yeah, that was nice. Wasn't it?

Not so much today. Both the Inquirer and Daily News used a variation of the word "botch" in a headline today and both stories were about public safety services of the City of Philadelphia:

Inquirer: Police admit botched arrest (includes plenty of quotes from people about the cops firing at a gun wielding New Year's reveler and hitting the fully occupied house behind him).

Daily News: Woman dies while city botches EMS call. Admittedly, there's a lot of blame to go around here including on all of the drunken idiots who took up valuable rescue services because they couldn't control their partying on New Year's Eve:

Ayers said for this New Year's Eve he added extra communications personnel and five ambulances to the 28 that would normally be on duty in the wee hours, but it was clear that the system was stretched beyond its limit.

"We get so many calls then, a lot of them for people who've fallen down or passed out drunk," Ayers said. "That makes it harder for us to get to more serious situations like this one."

Sigh.

Well, you heard Dave Davies and Mark McDonald from the Daily News talk a little about the Street legacy on Radio Times this morning, but there's plenty more.

The City Paper reprinted the transcript of their exit interview with the mayor. In it, Street explains that his biggest accomplishment is the end of the term "abandoned property."

There is no neighborhood in this city today that is worthless. By that, I mean there is no such thing as abandoned property anymore. When I became the mayor eight years ago, there was a lot of talk about abandoned property.

Speaking of abandoned property, Mark McDonald of the Daily News gives us part 1 of a two-part piece that evaluates the NTI program. It's an extremely thoughtful and balanced piece that admits, in some places, that we just can't tell whether NTI did some of the things it set out to do. In fact, that's exactly the conclusion he reached after asking a number of people, inside the Street administration and other experts, "Did NTI lead to thousands of new homes in Philly - or were other forces at work?"

I, however, am most fascinated by the reader comments section, which you should be able to get here. I'm still scrolling through them. I'd say they're about 80% racist garbage, 5% defense of Street and 10% thoughtful criticism. It's the 10% I'm trying to focus on.

Back to those comments.

(edited to add) I'm also picking my way through the City Paper article. Admittedly, Street makes a lot of good points about why his 8 years in office were actually not that bad, but in the context of his overall communication style, his points often come across as grousing and bellyaching:

In 2002, homicides in this city were at a 17-year low. Nine out of the 11 years before I became mayor, we had [more than] 400 homicides every single year. I became the mayor, we have had [more than] 400 homicides one out of seven years. We got homicides down so low that when they starting coming back up people said, "Oh boy, look at this." And it is bad, it's bad, but I think modern means of communication like the Internet really gives people a whole lot more [information] and they talk about it a lot more.
...
I really do think people out of the heat of the moment are going to look back and say a lot of good stuff happened. I think I'm young enough to live to that time; there are huge numbers of people out there in the neighborhoods who have a mighty appreciation for the improvements in their lives today, but they aren't always spoken for. Most of them aren't bloggers, the people who overwhelmingly voted for me in all of my elections are probably not of the blogging class.

I am the blogging class, but as I was still registered in Delaware County in 2003 and 1999, I didn't have the chance not to vote for Mayor Street.

(edited to add) And this is why blogs are great, because we can check people's math. Continuing with my interpretation of City Paper's John Street interview, it appears the mayor bristled a little when the interviewer mentioned Michael Nutter's electoral victory:

CP: You have three weeks to go [at the time of the interview] and Michael Nutter, who is coming in, and who won a large majority of the vote ...

In the general election, the Republicans didn't even campaign. I think Al Taubenberger spent less than $150,000, if that. My general election, the opponents probably spent $10 million. I say all that to say I don't know what you can refer from the voting in general, the primary, the voting in the general election.There was no competitive general election and in the primary, the turnout was very low, and the vote was split up in so many pieces, that the eventual winner of the Mayor's office did it with almost no votes.

Can Nutter be faulted that the GOP considered him such a strong candidate that they didn't even try to field a better candidate? Let's compare the 1999 with the 2007 Democratic primaries:

In 1999, John Street received 103,479 votes in a 6 candidate field (5 "viable candidates"). This equaled about 36% of the votes cast (289,005). There were a total of 737,063 registered Democrats which means that turnout was 39% and Street's total votes represents 14.0% of registered Democrats.

Eight years later, population dropped by at least 70,000 people (according to U.S. Census estimates) but the number of registered Democrats increased to 752,097. Many experts attribute that to laws which made it more difficult to purge non-voters from the voter rolls. It's possible that there were less than 700,000 registered Democrats in the city. However, setting that aside, what are the numbers:

In 2007, Michael Nutter received 106,805 votes in a 7-way (5 "viable candidate") race out of 291,492 votes cast. That's a turn out of about 39% assuming there really are 752,097 registered Democrats. Actual turnout could have been anywhere from 41% to 45% (very rough estimates). Regardless, more total voters showed up at the polls to vote despite the fact that there was much less money spent on television ads than in the 1999 primary. Nutter's 106,805 votes represent about 37% of the vote and 14% of the total number of "official" registered Democrats.

And with that, I've spent just as much time picking on John Street's seemingly inane point about Nutter's vote total as he spent downplaying the City Paper interviewer's reference to Nutter's "large majority."

Just got a press release from the Nutter transition team about the festivities that are planned for the first full day of the new mayor's term. Apparently, there will be cookies!

Mayor-elect Michael Nutter invites Philadelphians to join him at City Hall on Tuesday January 8th from 4-8pm for an open house reception on his first full day in office.

In the courtyard, hot chocolate, cookies and other refreshments donated by area businesses will be served by Culinary Arts students from the Philadelphia School District.

Finally. The courtyard is being used for more than just a shortcut from East Market to West Market. How long will it be until a nice little catering set-up takes up shop there and the first group of seniors holds their prom under the stars and the City Hall clock?

Just got a statement from the Nutter folks.

“We are shocked and deeply saddened to learn of the sudden passing of James M. Barnett, husband of Camille Barnett who is the incoming Managing Director in the Administration. Mr. Barnett was killed early this morning in a car accident during his commute from Washington D.C. to Philadelphia. During the process of bringing Camille to Philadelphia and announcing her appointment, I, as well as many of the staff members and volunteers on the Nutter Transition Team had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know James. We found him to be a warm and a gentle man. All of our hopes and prayers are with the Barnett Family in their time of loss.”

Very sad news indeed.

Our deepest sympathies also go out to Mrs. Barnett.

(edited to add) Inquirer has just a few more details including that the couple's daughter and granddaughter were also in the car and survived the accident but their condition is not yet known. We'll keep you up to date on this very tragic incident.

I've been kind of wrapped up with the unfortunate news from this morning about the husband of Managing Director-designate Camille Barnett so I haven't yet gotten to weigh in on the front-page, "above the fold" story in today's Inquirer:

FOP rips Nutter's pick for safety job

Apparently, Nutter failed to run his choice of Everett A. Gillison as Deputy Mayor of Public Safety by the FOP. It's not that he necessarily needs their approval, but it would have been the "political" thing to do.

Gillison, while in the public defender's office, represented convicted cop killer Solomon Montgomery who had shot Officer Gary Skerski during a bar hold up back in 2006. The Inquirer story from this morning includes several quotes from Nutter's new spokesperson, Doug Oliver, who gives all of the "right answers" about the fact that Ellison defended Montgomery:

"Regardless of his individual caseload, Everett Gillison is good at what he does"

"Every man is entitled to a defense, and we don't think [Gillison] should be penalized for doing his job and doing it well."

and so forth.

And all of that is true. Our system of law depends on the adversarial system in which everyone, no matter what crime they committed, gets the best defense possible. That way, when they are convicted, we all are as confident as possible that it was because they actually committed the crime and not because they couldn't defend themselves. In fact, the FOP should probably push for cop killers to get the best defense possible so that we're not stuck with another Mumia case that drags on for over 25 years.

However, it's also understandable why the FOP would be a little sensitive to this, considering that the man in question did defend someone who took the life of one of their own. At the very least Nutter should have had some kind of informal consultation with them. And the Mayor-elect admits as much.

Nutter quickly owned up to the mistake in procedure while also standing by his choice of Ellison. The following are quotes from Fox 29's coverage this morning:

The one mistake I made here was not at least giving him [FOP head John McNesby] a call ahead of time, because I do consider him a friend, both personally and professionally, and he deserved a heads up. I made a mistake in that regard.
...
[McNesby] is my friend. He's a true professional, and certainly deserved the heads up. I ended up talking to him after and apologize at that time, and I reiterated that I had made a mistake in that particular matter, and when you make a mistake, you just have to own up to it.

Standing by his choice of Gillison he said:

I understand the concern [by the FOP], but quite frankly, because Everett [Gillison] is so good, I know that he can actually help us in the government better coordinate all of our public safety services - the police, the courts, the DA, the public defenders, probation and parole - because he's seen the system from the insider and understands what works and what doesn't.

So, you be the judge. How do you think Nutter handled this first potential misstep? Is the story done now and do you think they move on or will it linger and leave a lasting impression on the new administration?

Last Thursday, I went to a meeting at the Academy of Music, site of today's ceremony, to go over details of the media coverage of the event. This is my first mayoral swearing-in as a member of the media and, on top of that, the first one that I'm really paying attention to. When Street was first sworn in back in 2000, I was safely tucked away as an academic in Chester County.

However, even having never fully experienced what's about to happen today, I still got a sense from the questions that were being asked on Thursday morning and from the sheer amount of people who were at the meeting, that this one is special. The media is paying extra special attention to this one.

Who knows why? Perhaps, we, like everyone else, are being swept up into the stratospherically high expectations that are being heaped onto mayor-elect Nutter and want to give our readers, listeners and viewers the kind of coverage that we think they want. Maybe, after 8 years of a mayor that has had somewhat of a bunker mentality when it comes to the press, we're all looking forward to dealing with an administration that, at least so far, values free and open communication. Or possibly, we are all just a bunch of Philadelphians (city and suburban) who want the city to do well and are pinning our own hopes on this new administration. As such, we all just want to be there and, in our own very small way, be a part of history.

The end result is, yes, we are going to cover that crap out of this event. Here's the whole schedule in today's Daily News.

Starting at 10am, a whole slew of Daily News reporters, Susan Phillips from WHYY and I will be at the Academy of Music for the pomp and circumstance for an event that is basically a very well-attended City Council meeting. About an hour into that meeting, Michael Nutter will be sworn in and then deliver his inaugural address.

You can see the entire thing, starting at 10, on WHYY's Digitial Channel 12.3 which can be found on Comcast Digital Cable Channel 242 or Verizon FiOS 873. If you can't get to a TV or don't have digital cable or FiOS, we'll be rebroadcasting the swearing-in and inaugural address part, tonight at 11 PM on Channel 12, which you can still get with a good set of rabbit ears until 2009.

Shortly after that, I (and I'm sure a whole bunch of the press corps) will head over to City Hall for the public swearing-in of the mayor's new cabinet. That event is scheduled for 12:30pm. I'll most likely get a little video and share that later today on the blog. This is being touted as a first. The first time, the cabinet is being sworn in as part of a public ceremony.

Nutter then heads to the Bellevue for a "Mentorship Luncheon" for city students and their mentors. As of now, I'll probably head over and see if I can get some of his remarks on video to share later today as well.

Finally, after a nice long day for everyone, I'll be among the numerous press at the "Philadelphia Realized" inaugural festivities down at the Cruise Ship Terminal in the Navy Yard. Nutter is expected to deliver a speech at around 10pm (just in time to go live on the 10pm newscasts and get taped and edited for the 11pm). Video (very unedited) of that will also be available much later tonight.

All of this coverage is subject to change (ie, if my battery goes dead, there may some video I don't get). Check back here throughout the day for updates.

I got back about 90 minutes ago from the various events on the mayor's schedule. In a few minutes I'll have video footage posted from my spot in the balcony of the Academy of Music for the swearing-in, from the scrum at the cabinet swearing-in (where were all those cameras for the budget director announcement?!?!), and from the mentor luncheon that the mayor attended shortly after the cabinet event.

Whew - long day of inaugural stuff completed, long night ahead.

We're preparing several posts, but this small item, from a unnamed correspondent who was there, is so funny we will stick it up now:

Immediately following the inauguration, Mark Gaines was outside the Academy of Music selling Michael Nutter.

That is, the artist was selling his 11.x17 portraits of the new Mayor – rendered in ball point pen, photo-copied and slipped behind a black mat – for $5.

Sales were brisk. Brisker than the sales last inauguration, anyway. Gaines said not many people were buying John Street portraits in 2004.

But by 12:30 Monday, Gaines had sold all but about 12 of the 100 copies he brought with him.

Then again, we noticed that most of Gaines’ sales were being made to women, who were not shy about expressing their, er, admiration for the portraits. (“Mmmm, mmm” was the most common reaction.)

But then, our feeling about this new Cult of Nutter was compounded when one of the few male art lovers showed up with his $5: It was Al Taubenberger, the Republican candidate Nutter defeated in the election.

He mumbled something about buying it for someone and quickly disappeared into the crowd.

The saga of this post continues. Turns out the Nutter folks sent an early draft of his speech. Below the jump is the correct one -- though, again, those who were there say Nutter departed from this script a lot.

This from Comcast...

Nutter’s Inauguration Available ON DEMAND

For your readers who were unable to view Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter’s inauguration and inaugural address, CN8, The Comcast Network and Comcast Cable have teamed up to provide the complete address ON DEMAND. From Wednesday, January 9 through Sunday, January 13, Comcast Digital Cable customers in the Philadelphia-area can view the ceremony at their leisure for no additional cost by selecting “Get Local” then “CN8 Originals” and “Specials” from their ON DEMAND menu.

If, like me, you're not a cable subscriber, you may not be able to see the CN8 OnDemand offering that Wendy posted about a little while ago.

Tonight at 11 PM, WHYY TV-12 will be re-airing the part of the proceedings that include the blessing, the Ave Maria, the swearing-in, the Inaugural Address and the performance afterward.

For now, here are some highlights (Quicktime required) that I shot myself (trust me, the 11 PM show is much high quality!) from my perch in Lincoln's balcony:

Again, where were all these cameras for the announcement of the new budget director? (;v))

Following the swearing in ceremony, Mayor Nutter signed three Executive Orders. The first declared a "crime emergency" and charged the new Commissioner with submitting a plan within 30 days to fight violent crime. The second established the role of Chief Integrity Officer, sending the Chief Information Officer scurrying for a new abbreviation. The third established the several deputy mayors and sought to clarify the organization of the executive branch and codify the cooperation and coordination of the various departments, agencies, board, and quasi-governmental agencies.

The video is available as a Quicktime or via Youtube below:

This one was a pretty quick edit but it captures the essence of what his remarks were about:

I'll get some video up tomorrow but for now you can use the following link to hear his entire speech from last night. Sorry, I ended it before he started singing. If there are enough requests for that, maybe I'll try to get those few seconds up here too!

CLICK HERE FOR PODCAST OF NUTTER SPEECH

You can right click on that link and "Save As" to download the .mp3. It's about 6 minutes long. The woman's voice you here clearly is Mrs. Lisa Nutter who, along with their daughter Olivia, was up at the podium with the Mayor.

Oh... and that video that'll be up tomorrow... I got a particularly good shot of surprise guest at the party.

Turn on a TV right now. News helicopters, which I usually think are the biggest waste of resources in commercial news, are the only pieces of equipment that can accurately capture the scene at City Hall.

As I arrived and followed the signs guiding me to the entrance at the North Portal of City Hall, I thought there was just an unusual amount of rush hour commuters making their way to Suburban Station. It soon became clear that this was not the ordinary homebound rabble. The line, 4 or 5 people wide in parts, wound its way from the North Portal through Dilworth Plaza, around the western face of City Hall, right along the edge, squeezed past the southwestern corner and finally ended, or began, just past the South Portal.

I talked to a few folks at the end of the line and got their reactions which I'll share on video tomorrow. As I tried to get reactions specifically from the person at the very end of this line, 10 or 12 people instantly filed in behind. A security guard marking the start of the line with an intermittent and hearty "This is the Michael Nutter LINE!" told me that he'd put the crowd at 3000 people easily. Clearly this was the largest crowd ever gather at City Hall when there wasn't some kind of giant hoagie or baseball cap involved.

With my video camera and WHYY mic flag in hand and my flimsy "temporary media credentials" I was able to get no less than 5 different cops and security guards to let me through to the where the mayor was receiving people. Nutter was taking his time with each person who spoke to him. In the 10 minutes I observed this process, I saw the whole range of Philadelphians - as young as 2 and as old as 82, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, men and women. Some wanted autographs. Some, usually older ladies, had gifts for the mayor.

After shaking hands with Nutter, folks could move on to Commissioner Ramsey and Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers who were dressed in their Class A's.

I'll have more video from this event tomorrow but for now, here's some of Mayor Nutter with a certain Philadelphian who was also known for his convincing victories:

The Metro was able to find one of the few folks who were willing to go on the record with less than glowing praise for yesterday's City Hall open house:

Political watchers said yesterday that Nutter’s open house may set the tone for the kind of administration he hopes to have, but was little more than a well-executed public relations stunt.

“What the hell else can be behind it other than a good public relations move?” ask­ed Larry Ceisler, a political consultant. “Michael’s about transparency and accessibility in government, and this is a good mechanism to set that tone.”

My own cynicism was very much muted after experiencing that line yesterday. Now we just have to see what's going to happen when the real work begins. As one of my co-workers just said to me after seeing the coverage of yesterday's event on the news, "I feel like were in a movie right now and I just hope that it ends well."

Don't worry, there are plenty of other items in the news for me to be sarcastic and less than 100% hopeful about today - not the least of which is a candidate for President convincing a small New England state that she's the candidate of "change" just by saying the word 3000 times - so the blogger you've come to know and be ambivalent about will return soon.

There's an excellent post over YPP that reminds us that just because it's a "new day" with a new mayor who has voiced his commitment to cleaning up city government, it's not time for anyone, least of all the city's main "good government watchdog" group to think that ethics is no longer an issue:

On Sunday, Zack Stalberg appeared on Live at Issue. He said that with the change in office, the Committee of Seventy was likely to shift its attention away from ethics violations (the main issue during the Street Administration) and towards "good government," i.e., efficiency, the quality of city services, etc. The proposed changes to the city charter, then, would fall under how the Committee is now interpreting its mandate.

But even if it's a broadening of focus rather than a wholesale change, I find this troubling -- especially insofar as it seems part of a narrative that with Street out and Nutter in, the city's ethical problems are over and we can move on to other issues. The presumption that a change of the top office holder somehow changes both the prevailing dynamics and universal potential for corruption is woefully short-sighted.

I wholeheartedly agree. Nutter and his appointees may be the squeakiest of the squeaky clean but that doesn't mean that all of the 22,000+ people who work for the city - and who have been there since long before he took office on Monday - are as ethically sound.

You don't have to look much further than City Council and Traffic Court to get that icky feeling about government that was so common over the last eight years. I was especially impressed by the boldness with which Action News's David Henry characterized Curtis Jones and Willie Singletary:

Mayor Nutter likes to say it's a new day and a new way in Philadelphia. But some of the old ways are apparently still hanging in there. We have a new traffic court judge who is a notorious scofflaw, and a new council member who's under investigation.

And hopefully the new administration realizes that. I'm not sure what Nutter can do about either of these, considering that, as one commenter to the Action News story wrote:

Good job Philly! Nutter didnt appoint these people, the voters did.

Can a mayor criticize the alleged ethical violations of those in Council without completely alienating them? If not, can he face a city that has come to depend on him to take a strong stand against even the hint of such impropriety?

Dan McQuade at Philadelphia Will Do went for the high end:

Yesterday, Michael Nutter hosted at open house at City Hall and like 80 billion people showed up and the line stretched all around the street. It was like the Phillies were in the playoffs again. It was even 60 degrees outside. Only John Street got booed at the Phillies rally, while Nutter had people shaking his hands and whatnot.

McQuade is apparently also the official Alycia Lane Comic Commentator™.

Now that's... a sweet gig.

Also via Philadelphia Will Do:

I guess I left waaaaay too early.

It's too bad YouTube wasn't around for Ed Rendell's stirring rendition of Meatloaf's "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" during the 1992 Inaugural Ball.

I had considered taking the rest of the day off from blogging since there's no way I'd be able to top a post with a video of the new mayor performing Rapper's Delight, in its entirety.

But I wanted to bring up the larger point that is touched on in this news item that was way down on philly.com's home page (under PA Suburbs - I guess Kensington could be considered a suburb before the 1854 consolidation):

A proposed zoning change that would allow a mixed-use "green" project on an industrial site in Philadelphia's South Kensington neighborhood has met stiff opposition from businesses along the American Street Industrial Corridor and the city's Department of Commerce.

The developer, Home (Scale), proposes building about 50 residential and three commercial units in a complex known as High Street Philadelphia. Vincent Dougherty, the city's assistant director of commerce, said the project "would remove more industrially zoned property from an inventory constantly being reduced by residential, big-box store and commercial development."

The larger point is, while Philadelphia's not quite in the dire straits that was back in the 1990s when there was absolutely NO development taking place and the Rendell administration felt that it had to accept anything that came along, it seems unlikely that Philly will ever need all of the "industrially zoned property" property that Mr. Dougherty is seeking to protect. We can wish all we want that all of those vacant, rundown, broken factories and industrial lots magically reopen as modern plants, building computers and plasma screen television, with hundreds of high paying manufacturing jobs, but it's pretty unlikely.

It would seem that a "mixed-use 'green' project" is the next best - and only realistic - reuse of this kind of land.

I was poking around the city's website today to try to get a sense of which top level staff were kept on from the previous administration (to update our own "appointments page") and I realized how ridiculously difficult it must be for whoever is in charge of that site to create something that's useful, coherent and well-organized.

This isn't a dig at the Mayor's Office of Information Services. It's just a thought about how difficult it must be to create a website that has to be so many things to so many different people. For business and residents, the website should exist to provide an easy way for them to get certain city services or find out where to get them. For the city, it serves as a promotional tool that spreads the word about new programs or initiatives. For those of us in the media, sometimes all we want is to find out who's who (and who's doing what job).

To complicate matters, the city government itself is HUGE. Just hit the drop down menu on the top left that says "Select a City Department" and you get 85 choices, many of which seem to stretch the definition of "City Department." Basically, rather than make things simpler, the website falls into the trap of simply reflecting the complexity of city government and the difficulty with which one has to navigate it.

So we probably shouldn't expect a massive overhaul of the city's website within the first several weeks of the new administration. The only real change will come when the actual system represented by the website is radically reorganized.

That said, don't expect this blog to do some sort of "Web Watch" in which we nitpick the pages and parts of the site that are out of date, non functional or just plain confusing. Heck, plenty of folks can do that for The Next Mayor website anyway. But we will continue to be vigilant about and report on the structural changes that make city government work better.

(And for anyone who's wondering when we'll update that "Appointments Page," the Nutter folks assure us that they'll be sending out a comprehensive list of all of the senior level staff. As soon as we get it, we'll fill in all of the blanks.)

Two true things: 1) The city schools are under the control of a state-installed School Reform Commission. 2) The governor and the mayor both have appointments to the SRC, but the governor has a majority.

And one more thing that's not true quite yet, but you can bet on it: When the time comes to pick a new schools CEO, to replace the departed Paul Vallas, new mayor Michael Nutter will have his say. He made that perfectly clear even as a candidate.

So now we know two on the "short list" of those being considered. Each are well-known; one has been a lightning rod for controversy.

And I just find it interesting that this appointment will be one of the new mayor's biggest challenges yet -- and it's not officially his appointment at all.

WHYY's Susan Phillips produced a fantastic, in-depth interview with new Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey. Listeners will get a little insight into how Ramsey made the decision to become a cop, his thoughts on stop and frisk, community policing and his plans for the PPD.

Right click and choose "Save As" on this link to download this piece. Or you can just click and listen. The file is large so please be patient as it loads.

My internet connection has been crazy slow today so I bow to YPP for beating me to these two pieces of news in this morning's Inquirer:

Two meetings set on waterfront transit

It's nice to think that folks are actually considering making that PATCO-SEPTA connection with some sort of light rail that will travel along the waterfront. With that piece in place, it's not hard to imagine the Civic Vision for the Central Delaware waterfront becoming a reality. I'll be at one of the meetings to check it out, not so much as an Issues and Policy blogger, just a concerned Philadelphian who would love a quick and easy way to ride to the Sports Complex (when he's 50).

Planning Commission meetings on city's future

This second item points out that there's a City Planning Commission sponsored website called Imagine Philadelphia on which viewers are asked:

How do you imagine Philadelphia's neighborhoods, skyline, parks, and business districts in 2035?

It's humbling to think that by 2035, 27 years from now, just about all of the major players and decision makers who run this city today will have faded from the scene. For my part, I hope that my wife and I are living on the beach on of the South Pacific islands that hasn't been completely inundated from the effects of global warming and rising sea levels, say, Australia.

Check out the website. Like the plan for Philadelphia, most of the website is still under construction but you can find a January meeting near you.

Doesn't quite have the same ring to it as, "Welcome your 2008 Philadelphia Phillies" but for those of you keeping score, like us, the Mayor's office has released the complete list of senior government officials to date.

Many have the "Acting" in front of their title which means that the search continues for the permanent occupier of that role, though that does not mean that many of the "Actings" aren't in competition for their own jobs. The biographies for each of the non "Acting" (or permanent) is located further down the page. At the bottom, you'll also find the newest members of the Mayor's office:

Pauline Abernathy, Senior Advisor to the Mayor
Julia Chapman , Director, Legislative Affairs
Tricia Enright, Deputy Chief-of-Staff
Terry Gillen, Senior Advisor to the Mayor for Economic Development
Wendell Eric Pritchett , Director, Research, Policy, and Planning

Most of the people who have gotten permanent appointments as departments heads are long time veterans of city government. Please feel free to comment on any of the choices.

I know I promised that I wouldn't nitpick the city's website but I was poking around Philly.gov to find information about the Mayor's Office of Community Services (MOCS) so I could fill out our Appointments Page with the info from Mayor Nutter's office and I found this funny little malapropism:

In the 1960s, poverty threatened to ravish the United States. (emphasis mine)

That's in the "History" section of MOCS. Let's review:

Ravish (verb) 1 a: to seize and take away by violence b: to overcome with emotion (as joy or delight) <-ed by the beauty of the scene> c: RAPE, VIOLATE 2: PLUNDER, ROB.

Ravage (verb): to wreak havoc on : visit destructively and often violently.

(From Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary)

Sorry, I shouldn't mock MOCS. I think the better question would be, since MOCS was originally created as a result of a federal mandate, which I'm sure came with a lot of federal dollars, are those dollars still flowing in such a way that this office can be sustained? Please feel free to share your own experiences with MOCS, positive or negative, and let us know whether this office is one of your budgetary priorities.

Anyway, check the appointments page for the complete starting line up of your Philadelphia City Government and be sure to get ready for the City Government Fantasy Draft.

I just got this message from our daily company announcements and I thought I'd put it out there for any of this blog's readers who may be interested:

The Clash Live: Revolution Rock
Be a part of this live-taping and national production on January 24th. We will need volunteers to help answer phones on our TV set from 8-11 p.m. Meet David Rubinsohn, Pierre Robert from WMMR and many more as this documentary plays first in Philly! Dinner will be provided!

Unfortunately, I don't think The Clash themselves will be there but every time I've come in contact with Pierre Robert, I come away feeling just a little bit cooler - quite a feat for me!

If you're interested, click here and fill out the volunteer form. It won't cost you anything and, hey, free dinner!

Ok, shameless WHYY plug is over. Now back to the politics.

This morning, the Mayor's Office of Communications sent out a media advisory alerting recipients to the fact that the mayor would be meeting with the Administrative Board this morning at 11 am. As a total government geek, my curiosity about this governmental body was piqued, so much so that rather than just look up the make up and function of the Board in the Home Rule Charter, I raced down to City Hall to watch it for myself.

I only hope that all such meetings are as short and efficient as this one.

Apparently, several other media outlets were just as curious about this event. Channel 6 and Channel 3 both had cameras, with Channel 3's Robin Mackintosh (who has his own Wikipedia entry). KYW 1060 AM, the Daily News and at least two other print journalists were also present.

City Solicitor Shelley Smith answered our question about the board, saying that the board administers the rules for exempt employees of the city (those who aren't covered by civil service regulations, in many cases, political appointments and their staffs). Also present were Finance Director Rob Dubow and Chief of Staff Clay Armbrister, who was acting in place of the Managing Director, and Armbrister's executive assistant.

The meeting began shortly after 11 AM, giving this blog reporter time to get through the security line that was so accurately criticized by the Daily News Editorial Board this morning. Armbrister called the meeting to order and they quickly dispensed with their two agenda items - the reappointment of Acting Water Commissioner Bernard Brunwasser who had retired on December 29th to take advantage of the DROP program (and who's name, ironically, means "well-water or spring-water") and increasing the number of exempt positions in the Managing Directors Office by 12 to reflect the 3 new Deputy Mayors and their staffs.

The meeting had all the trappings of an official government meeting with motions being proposed, seconded and voted on. The motion to adjourn came a mere 5 minutes or so into the proceedings and, just like that, it was over.

Nutter took a couple questions and facetiously alluded to the fact that, unlike his days in Council, he had "turned a new leaf" and wouldn't prolong the meeting with a ton of questions. According to Nutter, all such meetings of the Ad. Board are required to be open to the public, though it's hard to imagine that they'll have such a huge turnout in the future.

Nutter also took questions about his plans for the Office of Arts and Culture, questions prompted by this item in The Evening Bulletin. Check the Daily News tomorrow to see how he answered.

(edited to add) Turns out the Daily News didn't want to run with the story about the Office of Arts and Culture, but KYW 1060 did.

...by me.

Of course, I wasn't so much reporting on the demise of industry in this city as I was opining about it.

Memo to self, stop opining about things.

So I turn the blog over to someone who actually knows something about the potential for industry in this city, Ned Rauch-Mannino, who alerts us to the work of the Urban Industry Initiative and its special project, the Manufacturing Alliance of Philadelphia.

Have at it Ned:

On Wednesday, Dan posed a great question concerning the need for industrial land preservation (which generated great feedback of both views). It’s undeniable that Philadelphia’s economic character has changed, and that not all industry has handled the transition well. But “ill” doesn’t mean “deceased,” and with immense contributions in revenue and employment opportunities, industry’s place in Philadelphia is vital to the city and region.

At the Urban Industry Initiative, the economic development agency responsible for Philadelphia’s manufacturing community, the argument that land preservation for large companies that aren’t coming or aren’t wanted is heard often. But the companies doubted and feared aren’t actually coming; the majority of production, distribution and repair (PDR) businesses aren’t gigantic, fume-spewing towers. Instead, picture small neighborhood companies, employing fewer than 20 and tucked in corridors going unnoticed in most communities. More importantly, these PDR companies bring a hefty contribution to city revenue (in spite of diminishing contributors), with niche manufacturing creating possibilities in small business ventures, and industrial entrepreneurship potentially leading to alternative energy and additional recycling centers.

*And, before I forget, green development and PDR facilities aren’t mutually exclusive. Why couldn’t a manufacturer adopt sustainable practices? Wouldn’t the expansive flat rooftops of distribution facilities be ideal for a solar panel or green roof initiative? (Before your mind strays to wonder, yes, I’m already working on it.)

Thanks, Ned.

That's what we do around here. Thoughtful and enlightened discussion of complex but important issues.

That's right folks. I don't know about you, but I'm getting a feeling that expectations are pretty high for our current mayor. That doesn't mean that it's time to put all of those best practices on the shelf.

So the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, one of our finer think tanks idea factories (see, manufacturing is alive), is bringing Mayor Shirley Franklin, multi-award winner (including being named one of the nation's 5 best mayors by Time Magazine, and one of the "best leaders" by U.S. News and World Reports, and, I think, a Grammy or something) to Philadelphia.

Details are here. I believe that there's still space available.

Don't know about Franklin? Check out this blog entry from our "Meet the Mayors" series.

Have you every really taken the time to explore the complex web of Philly-based blogs that exist on the interweb tubes? No, I'm not talking about phillyblog, a great resource, but it makes my brain hurt to read some of those posts.

I'm just talking about clicking through the blog rolls of some of your primary, everyday destinations. The original work and writing being done on some of these off-off Broad Street blogs - at least, they're off-off for me, they may be your primary reads - is fascinating. Here's just a sample of what I found after just 10 minutes of browsing:

I'm not Generation X. Apparently I'm in a generation known as "The Net Generation." I found this out on YPP, admittedly one of my daily reads. But guess who is Generation X or, as the article referenced by the blog post calls it "OGX - Original Generation X": Michael Nutter and Barack Obama. The author of the YPP post goes on to ask some interesting questions about the generational shift in Philadelphia politics that seems to be happening with Mayor Nutter as its standard bearer. The article referenced in the post, a Boston Globe/Braniac piece by Joshua Glenn, is here.

Via the blog Kensingdelphia, here's another excellent piece, also, coincidentally, from the Boston Globe that explains why cities have had no place in presidential politics.

Here's a taste:

Our cities are as important today as they were in 1968, but you wouldn't know it from the first caucus and primary, held in states without big cities. The economy is powered by the idea-rich clusters around New York and San Francisco, not the black soil of Iowa. Yet, Republicans now ignore cities altogether, and Democratic urban policies cater too much to well-organized urban interests. We need national politicians to pay more attention to urban problems, and this will only happen when we start judging them on their urban policies.

Sounds a lot like the message that Mayor delivered to his endorsee, Senator Clinton.

Finally, Phillyskyline.com has a series by Philadelphia-based writer Nathaniel Popkin called "The Possible City." There have been 8 installments so far, but the most current, about SEPTA and its shortcomings as a bus-centric mass transit system effectively explains one of the major reasons why SEPTA is perceived so poorly:

Philadelphia's transit system seems inadequate in comparison to other cities because it is based on the bus. Bus lines don't translate well to conceptual maps and they lack a physical presence, which means they are hard for most people to grasp. A subway system, on the other hand, has stations, stops, and maps so conceptual they simplify city life. And a subway station is a natural place to disseminate information. It is also manned.

He's sooo right. If I could jump on a subway to Manayunk or Chestnut Hill, rather than pay so much more for regional rail or cram myself onto a bus, or, for shame, drive my car, I'd find myself up there a whole lot more.

Reading this led me to click through to Popkin's blog itself, where I found this essay that I missed in the City Paper. Apparently, the palm and tarot card readers say that 2008 is going to be a good year for Philadelphia. But where Popkin really pops is in his description of what this city has gone through - a description that makes one wonder how Philadelphia even exists today:

We have survived, after all. Not merely eight years of John Street, but assault and neglect from every possible corner. We have survived despite the NRA, 1950s zoning, the business privilege tax and Bush tax policy; despite councilmanic prerogative, crack and heroin and meth; despite the barricades at Independence Hall, the loss of Steve Lopez, G-Love and AI; despite 97 straight combined seasons without a championship, Sam Rappaport, Greek-style pizza, and the blown deal for Meyer Werft; despite Vince Fumo and Faye Moore; despite the suburbanization of public housing, the proliferation of the curb cut, the expectation of Sugarhouse and Foxwoods.

Consider that the literary interpretation of this week's events.

WHYY's Liz Fiedler also has an audio version of the whirlwind of events surrounding the inauguration/beatification of Philadelphia's new mayor.

One of the running jokes associated with the Street administration was that public schedules for the mayor were tough to come by.

Well, we're almost a week into the new administration and the public schedules for this mayor keep on coming.

Today's is available here and it's a pretty full day. In fact, I might walk myself down to the 10am event, happening about a block away from here.

So I did walk over to the dedication of what is now known as "People's Plaza" at 5th and Market Street - a section of Independence Mall covered by nice, clean granite paving stones with the First Amendment carved onto a large granite block near the sidewalk. It's kind of cool how an area with a name that sounds like something out of Moscow or Beijing can represent such different things in this country.

Mayor Nutter arrived promptly at 10:07 AM and moved towards the staging area to take his seat. He decided to go sans overcoat and the rest of the participants in the ceremony, not to be shown up by this apparently-impervious-to-cold-weather mayor, did the same. Upon taking the podium, Nutter remarked that when he arrived, "taking my coat off seemed like a great idea."

As if on cue, and inspiring the Blues Brothers-referenced quote in the title of this blog post, the sun came out, back lit the mayor and briefly warmed things up. ("JESUS H. TAP-DANCING CHRIST... I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!")

Nutter spoke about the work of the founders of the United States as "real people taking real chances and expressing themselves in ways that could have gotten them in real trouble."

"I've had a fair amount to say over many years," Nutter said, referencing his a career in City Council during which his views weren't always in line with the majority. "Out of the discussion, debate, and disagreement, have come good things," he said.

As referenced in the Heard in the Hall account of the event, Nutter then gave Steve Murphy, the Park service maintenance division employee who came up with the "People's Plaza" moniker, the day off. Nutter quickly acknowledged that he has "nothing to do with the National Park Service," otherwise, I'd put in my request that he tell them to get rid of those ridiculous do-nothing, window-dressing security measures that enclose the "birthplace of freedom" in a prison of bunting-covered bike racks.

Nutter received a gift from Friends of Independence board chairman Thomas A. Caramanico - a book called "What would the Founders Do?" - the retail value of which, I'm sure, falls under the amount that elected officials are allowed to receive under the ethics laws. Caramanico then presented a check for $268,983 to the officials in charge of the park causing Nutter, in another lighthearted moment, to remark that he'd contribute the extra $17 to bring it to an even $269,000.

For some reason, the Inquirer has started running Chris Satullo's columns on Saturday, which is unfortunate since I'm guessing that readership of the Saturday papers is probably far lower than the Sunday paper where Satullo's columns previously appeared.

Thanks to the power of "the internets" we can read it whenever we want.

In this column, Satullo, among several other very good points, makes one especially important point that I've tried to make in the past:

The mayor's college focus, while dead-on, runs headlong into a Philadelphia quirk.

"Not everyone is college material." That phrase cropped up often in Dec. 2 forums on the Knowledge Economy agenda, which set a sheepskin goal less gaudy than Nutter's. True, not everyone is cut out for campus. But a radically higher percentage of the city's youth must be, if a city whose economy hinges on education and health care wants to soar. College needn't mean Harvard; the fine community college offers a wealth of practical degrees.

I came at it from a slightly different direction:

The only way large scale change will happen is if we dedicate ourselves to the proposition that every single child, from birth, needs to be prepared to go to college... and get that liberal arts education. That means no more "college isn't for everyone" attitudes from parents and teachers. Aside from being degrading and, in many cases, racist, it's just a way of giving up. Parents, teachers and the students need to try harder and be given every possible resource to make it happen.

So, yes, Nutter has a-whole-lotta obstacles in his path as he tries to accomplish what Satullo calls "Big Hairy Audacious Goal" number 2. By writing about this city's tendency to fall back on the excuse that "college isn't for everyone" in the public forum of his column, Satullo exposes that attitude to the sunlight that could hopefully start to kill it. It'll be up to Nutter to change it so that every child born in Philadelphia, no matter what the conditions around his or her birth, has adults in his or her life, from day one, who strive to make college - Harvard, Community, whatever - the number one goal for that child.*

(*not to mention, the number one goal of every undereducated person in this city who wants to create a better life for themselves and their families)

KYW 1060 AM interviewed Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers, one of the many high level officials who survived the transition and will be continuing in the role he had prior to the Nutter administration. Judging from the way he opened the interview, Ayers has already fallen in line with the Nutter message/mantra.

You can download the podcast of the interview here from KYW's website. (That link is an .mp3, click and listen or right click and download.)

Feel free to comment about the interview or the interview subject.

I take back everything negative I've written about the phila.gov website.

The city's website has apparently given out even more information than anyone was looking for:

Mayor Nutter has tapped a veteran of city and state education circles to lead the effort to transform his education message into reality.

The list, since removed from the Web, names Sharon Tucker as deputy education adviser to the mayor. Tucker is a research and strategic planning specialist in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education at the state Department of Education.

By all accounts, at least those accounts in the Daily News and Inquirer, these choices are very pleasing to high-level folks who work with child and youth advocacy organizations.

And that's a good thing too because apparently... the schools meeting goals set in 2004? Ummm, not so much:

Fewer than half of third graders are reading at grade level. The goal was 80 percent.

And only 62 percent school buildings rated a "B" or better on a safety audit last school year. The goal was for all schools to be rated at least "B."

And since we just talked about preparing all Philadelphians for college (and by college, I am also including Associates Degrees and Community College), it's especially troubling that:

The district is especially lagging in its goal to ready more students for college. Its average SAT scores have dropped, though the goal was to have them rise.

The goals also called for 80 percent of students to enroll in college; only 58.6 percent did in 2005-06.

According to the report a staggering "70 percent of teachers hired in 1999-2000 had left the district by 2005." That is perhaps the greatest challenge facing the next school CEO and Mayor Nutter as he works towards his twin goals of halving the drop-out rate and doubling the college degree attainment rate.

And it's an especially ironic statistic given that during Nutter's visit to his high school alma mater last week, he spoke specifically about the influence that his history teacher had on his life, a teacher who, 32 years after Nutter graduated, is still working at St. Joe's Prep.

Continuing with the education portion of today's "issues in the news," we have this editorial from the Reading Eagle, which cites Mayor Nutter's clarion call to do something about the drop out rate. The two-second version of the editorial is - it's about the parents:

In a country where the higher-education system attracts students from around the world, it is appalling that its secondary-education system has difficulty holding the interest of its students.

And that’s a shame because one of the best things parents can do for their children is to insist that they stay in school.

Sometimes, items in the news make it so easy to write these blog posts because they have a way of tying it all together. In this case, we've seen how education seems to be the dominant thread in today's news with information ranging from the reading performance of the District's 3rd graders to the high level choices of for the mayor's administration. In the end, aside from the obvious moral obligations of assuring everyone a chance at a good education and the tools they need to be good citizens, there are the implications for the overall economic health of this region we call home. I mean, c'mon, the title of the op-ed is "Capitalize on the people of this region." Ultimately, and unfortunately, that's what we all are - capital. (At least, that's what I learned from reading a YPP post that turns into a discussion of "The Wire".)

In the op-ed, Sallie Glickman of the Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board drives it home:

For far too long, the economic potential of Philadelphia and the region has been compromised by a failure to adequately invest in the city's greatest asset: its people.

The human resource present in our current and potential workforce is the greatest source of untapped capital that can launch Philadelphia and the region into a prosperous future to the benefit of all citizens.

But only... if they are educated.

The Windy City is like Philadelphia's cool, adventurous, slightly overweight friend who is always plunging head first into crazy situations and making it ok for his skinny, somewhat timid little buddy to follow him.

A lot of that has to do with that city's mayor, aka mayor-for-life Richard M. Daley.

So now Chicago is going out onto the potentially thin ice of solving their own underfunded, city-worker, pension fund. And how is Daley going to do it? By getting everyone, "labor, business and banking," involved from the verrrry beginning.

Judging from the article, it seems that Chicago might be in even bigger trouble with their pension fund than Philadelphia is with its own. The message being given by Chicago city officials is clear - this isn't a crisis now but it will be if we do nothing.

Good luck, Chicago. Hopefully you can figure it out so we can just copy off of you in a few months.

(edited to add) If you are really into the pension fund issue, this might be interesting to you.

Two days behind the cool kids, as usual...

This piece in Sunday's New York Times travel section is getting a lot of buzz throughout the local blogosphere. Apparently, Fishtown is awesome.

(via Philly Skyline, The Blog Formerly Known as Phillyville, and Philebrity - who calls it "That Time The NYT Big-Upped Fishtown, as well as the last, best, current tool available for local realtors to unload those Memphis Flats condos before the market tanks entirely" and provides a decoder of the language used in the piece.)

Today the Metro has a profile of the city-funded non-profit Innovation Philadelphia, a group "set up to support technology-based economic development and strives to attract and retain young professionals."

Whaddya think? Innovation Philadelphia, stay or go?

Sound off in the comments.

A commenter to the post about Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers caused me to re-read this Daily News story about the Fire Department's reluctance to call on private ambulances when the PFD itself is swamped with calls.

A few points brought up by the story are troubling:

1. The Fire Commissioner isn't opposed to using private ambulances but has concerns over legal issues. Rather than just clear up these legal issues so that more people can get care more quickly, he dismisses the idea saying "I wouldn't say it's on the front burner."

2. Ok. I get that there are these "legal issues" and that anytime the public sector contracts with a private company to do work, the public sector has less control over the quality of that work but gets all the blame if that quality is low. What's troubling, is that other cities (much larger than this one) seem to have figured out how to get around that:

Jay Fitch, a Missouri-based EMS consultant, said that many cities call on private ambulances when their 911 system is overwhelmed.

"It takes some well-reasoned thinking on how units are dispatched and how you maintain quality and supervision," Fitch said. "But those issues pale by comparison to someone having a heart attack or having to wait an inordinate amount of time."

Yes, in an ideal world, the city would be flush with cash and able to have the staff and vehicles it needs to handle even the heaviest workloads. Since that doesn't seem to be the case, it's time to get creative. Heck, it's time to do something that other cities are already doing.

Ok... be polite about it though.

I'm heading to the Loews Hotel to check out what Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin has to say. She'll be interviewed by my TNM partner in crime, Wendy Warren of the Daily News.

Expect some video soon along with the finished pieces about Mayor John Hickenlooper of Denver and former Mayor of Washington DC, Anthony Williams.

This event is also on Mayor Nutter's schedule, which means I better get there early so I can beat the other television cameras and get a good spot.

I just got back from the final installment of the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia's series on Great American Mayors. Mayor Shirley Franklin was just as good as advertised.

She's a straight talkin', joke-crackin', spitfire. She's clearly very smart but she's focused and pragmatic as well.

I'll be editing video of the event probably all day tomorrow so hopefully, loyal blog readers, you can get a sense of what I'm talking about. (Although, I think most of my loyal blog readers were at the event anyway. If you were, well... you can see highlights.)

Consider it a pre-season warm up for high level city officials as they and the administration prepare for the budget process.

In this morning's Daily News, Dave Davies and Catherine Lucey report that Mayor Nutter has asked his department heads to come up with plans that anticipate cuts of up to 5% of current spending levels.

Opening Day for the official budget season (Fiscal Year 2009), will be at the end of the month when the mayor delivers his budget address to City Council.

According to Nutter's campaign policy paper on the budget, called "An Honest Budget Now," the mayor plans on opening the process to the public and using public input to come up with a plan that reflects the priorities of the people:

Working with the Pennsylvania Economy League and Philadelphia Forward, I will encourage philanthropic funding of a public/private partnership to learn from the efforts in other cities and to design a process for our City that will build a meaningful role for citizen involvement in setting priorities and making choices. (page 5)

Let's see if we can start that process without the philanthropic funding. Feel free to use the comments to this blog post and all future blog posts about the budget to express your "citizen involvement" and start "setting priorities and making choices."

So far, it seems that funding for Innovation Philadelphia is not high on the priority list.

I'm a huge fan of the "Hoagie Dip" cartoon in the Philadelphia Weekly for its insightful and flat out hilarious take on many of this city's most pressing issues. Along with PW blogger D-Mac, they have been a print and still image version of the Daily Show, excoriating Philadelphia politicians, celebrities and the media alike.

But I'm worried.

I once heard a saying that "good comedians look at the world and see a funny place, great comedians look at the world and don't." Meaning, what these humorists are able to do, much like the Daily Show has done on the national level, is take the tragedy of poor leadership and make us think about it deeply. When George W. Bush leaves office, will TDS or the Colbert Report or SNL suffer? What if Barack Obama, an eloquent, dignified, brilliant scholar of the law and history is elected president? And what if he does a really good job, avoids scandal, makes things better for everyone, etc.? (same goes for Hillary Clinton and others not named Bush - or possibly Giuliani) What will those shows do?

As I thought about that a few weeks ago, I figured that the only thing they would be able to do is poke fun at the high expectations and enormous popularity of whoever gets elected. Jokes about infallibility or divine origins or superpowers, etc.

Given all of the admittedly well-deserved, positive press that Nutter has gotten the same problem exists for our own local humorists. It's a problem they probably wouldn't have had if, say, Bob Brady or Tom Knox had been elected.

Not to worry. They've gone exactly the route they need to - making us all remember, by poking fun at our hero worship through parody and a deft use of the absurd (pictured at right, click on the picture to go to PW website and see the whole cartoon), that the man is human. Mistakes will happen. All we can hope for is that they are the mistakes that your baseball coach used to tell you were ok - mistakes that come from being too aggressive, not mental errors or the result of being too tentative. And most of all, that we all learn from those mistakes, remember them and not make them again.

Otherwise, it just makes the job of the cartoonists and humorists too easy.

In case you forgot, compiling links to all of the stories having to do with the mayor, city government or major regional issues is a daily service of The Next Mayor (aka, the website formerly known as The Next Mayor).

You can check them out here.

Among the more interesting ones, CBS 3 gives another angle to the difficulty that the city is having with responding to EMS calls. Turns out, it's that darn residency rule again. Video of the story is here.

Meanwhile, Councilwoman Krajewski wants to get to the bottom of it with a (duh duh duh) PROBE!

Metro gives you the print coverage of Mayor Franklin's visit last night.

Philadelphia Weekly's Kia Gregory, who knows her stuff when it comes to covering crime and the police, gives her account of Ramsey's town hall meeting from Monday night.

And Phil Goldsmith, who writes about the many careers that he himself has had, gives a little advice to those long time city officials who found out that their services would not be needed by the new administration.

In case you missed it from Monday night, Mayor Nutter gave us a little more of his inaugural party performance on Comcast Sportsnet and then talked sports with Michael Barkann and, surprisingly, economic development with Hugh Douglas.

Who knew Hugh was so interested in economic revitalization?

(edited to add) HitH printed the list of salaries of several top level appointees. Surprise to me - press secretary Doug Oliver makes more than City Representative and campaign spokesperson Melanie Johnson. Feel free to discuss.

Couple of interesting points related to early personnel decisions by the new administration...

The Inquirer's Marcia Gelbart secured a list of salaries for Mayor Nutter's "top mayoral aides, Cabinet members, and 13 commissioners and department heads" and reports that at least 5 of them will be making more than the mayor's $186,044.

While at first, the numbers being thrown around as salary levels for these people may seem high, it is important to note that, according to the article, "the heads of 13 major city departments in Nutter's administration collectively are costing taxpayers about the same as they did during Street's tenure, nearly $1.7 million."

In addition, at least a few of these top-level aides are making significantly less than they were in the private sector.

So, blog readers, is this even an issue? Are you on the side that believes that if you want very highly talented people to be working for your government, then you have to pay them pretty well? Or, do you see a problem with these salaries and think that they should be linked more directly to performance with, perhaps, a lower base level and bonuses contingent on certain outcomes?

One top-level city official who seems to be the subject of some controversy is actually a holdover from the previous administration - Commissioner of Streets, Clarena Tolson. Like the City Paper's Loose Canon, Bruce Schimmel, I was a little surprised to see that Nutter was retaining Tolson given his commitment to recycling and the often harsh things that recycling advocates have said about Commissioner Tolson in the past. Schimmel puts it like so:

When I first read that Michael Nutter would be retaining Tolson's services, I honestly thought it was a misprint. So did many of the Greenistas, at meetings the following day of the Next Great City coalition and of the Recycling Alliance. These are the leaders of the same constituency whose early support ignited Nutter's campaign.

With Tolson's reappointment as commissioner of Streets, they felt kicked to the curb.

Is it possible that she saved her job with the decision, late last year, to expand single-stream, plastic- and cardboard-inclusive recycling to Center City and South Philadelphia? Personally, I've been happy not to have to schlep all of my cardboard and plastic to a once-or-twice-a-month drop-off location several across town from my house.

Those same "Greenistas" to whom Schimmel refers will be out in full force tonight at this month's Urban Sustainability Forum about creating a "bike share" program in Philadelphia. The mayor himself has this event on his schedule. Will fireworks ensue? Guess I know where I'll be tonight.

Do any green activists who are reading this care to weigh in on the Tolson decision?

Ok. Lame title. I know. I just wanted to get his info out quickly.

Press release from the Nutter administration provides the names and bios of the mayor's five appointees to the very important, often controversial, Zoning Board of Adjustment.

Press release, in its entirety:

MAYOR NUTTER APPOINTS NEW MEMBERS TO ZONING BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT

“The Zoning Board of Adjustment plays a crucial role in planning and zoning in the city,” said Mayor Nutter. “This is a new board that will reform the practices and activities of the Zoning Board of Adjustment. These appointees bring not only diverse experience in planning and zoning matters, but also in dealing with neighborhood concerns. It is with great faith that I task these five new members with establishing a professional and collegial environ ment between the Board and the public.”

Click "Continue Reading" for biographies.

Councilman Goode is a frequent contributor to Young Philly Politics and has chosen that outlet to speak out about the death of his second cousin and grand nephew of former mayor Wilson Goode.

Here's the Daily News coverage of young Goode's death.

Go to YPP to read what the Councilman has to say. I'm not going to reprint it here so you have to go there to read it.

As I mentioned on the front page, coverage of Mayor Nutter's appointments to the Zoning Board of Adjustment (first mention on this blog yesterday) has been pretty extensive. Some, like the Daily News, went the route of searching through campaign finance records to see how much the appointments contributed to the Nutter campaign. I'm not sure why this is an important part of the story, given that the campaign finance limits were supposed to have made it unlikely that such positions could be "bought."

The Inquirer looked a little deeper into the backgrounds of the appointees themselves and got quotes from them about their new jobs.

WHYY went even deeper to get reaction from a local expert on the planning process and a reaction quote from one of the appointees. The Metro did similarly good work to use this news to explore some of the problems that Philadelphia has in its planning and zoning process:

“The city has evolved into a style of making planning decisions as big issues hit the agenda and are ripe for development,” said Joseph McLaughlin, a former government official and assistant dean of Temple University’s College of Liberal Arts. “That gives developers less certainty.”

Overall, it seems that reaction to the appointees has been positive. But the reporting itself, given deadline pressure, is pretty surface level.

So what, exactly, does the Zoning Board of Adjustment do? I put that question yesterday to a friend of mine who has some planning expertise and follows these issues very closely. He suggested that we start with the Home Rule Charter itself:

Click "Continue Reading" for more.

On the heels of his appointments to the Zoning Board of Adjustment, Mayor Nutter has just released his appointments to the Zoning Code Commission - charged with examining and rewriting the decades old zoning code - and the City Planning Commission.

The press release with the names of the appointees and their bios is after the jump.

And the lucky winner is:

Debra Wolf Goldstein.

According to the press release (included after the jump), "the Mayor’s Designee serves as an Ex-Officio member of the Commission."

So she will serve alongside the 5 other "Ex-Officio" members of the Commission who are "the President of City Council, the Public Property Commissioner, the Chief Engineer and Surveyor in the Streets Department (a Deputy Streets Commissioner), the Recreation Commissioner, and the Water Department Commissioner," and the "10... citizens appointed by the Board of Judges of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County." (source, FairmountPark.org)

Full text of press release after the jump.

Aren't three-day weekends great? If only the whole world would take off on those long weekends, then I wouldn't have to worry about the three days of news that I have catch up on.

More about that a little later.

For now, it appears that, as one commenter wondered a while back, the mayor will in fact be a little delayed in his delivery of the budget address to City Council.

However, the administration has set a target of February 14th for the address. Apparently, they want the extra two weeks to incorporate budgeting for Commissioner Ramsey's crime plan, which is due on January 30th.

The Inquirer's Patrick Kerkstra has more on this and put the question to Nutter about his Streets Commissioner choice. You can review the background of that little controversy on this blog or over at YPP.

(Edited to add) The Streets Commissioner appointment is a headlining story on KYW 1060.com.

In an editorial today, the New York Times heaps praise on NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his attempts to tackle that city's persistent poverty problem.

Step 1 (actually, he's already taken a number of steps to try and help out the poor in his city) is to figure out a way to get an accurate number of the people living in poverty - a far different thing than the number living below the federal government's "poverty line." As the editorial points out, the federal government considers a family of four with an annual income under $20,650 to be living in poverty. The formula that gives us that number, as the West Wing episode referenced in this post's title reminded us, was developed by Mollie Orshansky of the Social Security Administration back in 1963-64.

Bloomberg, the consummate numbers/data guy, understands that the formula, which basically triples the annual cost of food for a family of four (since food represented approximately 1/3 of a family's spending back in the early sixties), is irrelevant for today's urban poor.

What does this mean for Philadelphia where we heard a lot about the percentage of people living in poverty during the last mayor's race? If and when Mayor Bloomberg succeeds in coming up a with a formula that more accurately reflects the consumption habits of urban dwellers and finds out, as he surely will, that actual "poverty line" is much higher than $20,650, we need to be ready for the hard truth that way more than 25% of the city's population may be living below that new line.

More importantly, given the scarcity of resources at the state and local level, the Nutter administration needs to be prepared to figure out how to shrink that number.

Check out the profile of Joan Markman, the city's new Chief Integrity Officer, in today's Inquirer.

Interesting bit of trivia:

Joan Markman's parting gift this fall from her colleagues at the U.S. Attorney's Office was a can of Real Kill bug spray.

It was a tribute to her role in the FBI "bug" investigation of John Street's City Hall - and on Friday it sat on a bookshelf in her new office, adjacent to Mayor Nutter's, where she was two weeks into her job as the city's first chief integrity officer.

It shouldn't be too hard to bug the mayor's office from there... not that such action should be necessary.

As written about by HitH this morning, Mayor Nutter appeared on the popular MSNBC program last night to discuss race and politics in the presidential campaign.

Via the700level.com, here's a link to the video.

The mayor handles himself pretty well with Mr. Matthews. If I were him, I would have reacted far differently to that ridiculous question about what it would mean if Obama wins South Carolina:

... Let me ask you, mayor, do you worry that South Carolina will be seen as almost like, oh, that's the black community down there; if he wins down there, it doesn't count as much?

What a ridiculous, horse-race-mentality, empty-punditocracy, worthless question!

Want more about how the media is, as Jon Stewart would say, "hurting America?" Check out this link via Attytood.

The term "must-win" gets thrown around a lot in a variety of different endeavors. Of course, athletic teams use the term for just about every game (the Eagles are 1-3, clearly this contest with the Redskins on Sunday is a "must-win"), political pundits have been using it for just about every candidate, and without much real meaning (Iowa is a "must-win" for Edwards or he'll be forced to drop out of the race). It's a phrase that, considering the way commentators an opinion-sharers abuse it so much, makes me think of the words of Inigo Montoya: "I do not think it means what you think it means."

"Must-win" is a two-word phrase that often represents a dire situation which could get far worse if certain actions aren't taken. If we think of it that way, then the solution arrived at to our city's employee health and pension benefit situation by the administration and those on the other side of the bargaining table is a "must-win" situation. Get it right now - figure out a way to keep promises already made to city employees while possibly subjecting us all to a little, temporary, present-day pain - and they spare us from a world of hurt in the not-too-distant future.

Earlier today I was on a conference call with the authors of a report - presented by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia - called: Philadelphia's Quite Crisis: The Rising Cost of Employee Benefits. (link to the full report here)

Of course, we've talked about this before, most notably when the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority (PICA) released their own series of reports about the rising costs of employee health benefits, pension benefits, and one that included those two issues along with a few others facing the new administration.

According to Donald Kimmelman, the Managing Director of Information and Civic Initiatives at Pew, this study seeks to bring these issues back onto the front burner and present them in a way that may a little more accessible to the public at large. Also, according to Kimmelman, the authors of the report provide a "perspective of folks from outside of the Philadelphia region who spent time studying other cities and the states."

I'll post more about the report later, including highlights of the report itself and some additional information that came up during the conference call with the authors and a follow-up call.

For now, I'll leave you with a couple numbers to consider and a couple quotes from the report. First a quote:

Misery loves company, and it might be tempting for Philadelphia citizens to jump to the conclusion that many cities and states share the problem it faces in dealing with its legacy of pension problems.

But this is not the case.

Compared to nine other cities of roughly similar size or geographic make-up (Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and San Francisco), Philadelphia comes in second to last in terms of the percentage of its pension obligations that are currently funded - 52% as of latest available fiscal year. That means, if it had to pay out all of its obligations, it would only be able to cover a little more than half from its pension fund. The rest would have to come from you and me. Only Pittsburgh at 44% was worse. San Francisco, on the other hand, recently had 108% of its obligation in its pension fund.

And the other quote:

But the devil is in the details. Philadelphia's pension situation is in some ways worse than the funding ratio reveals.

What does it all mean for you and me?

If the mayor allows the pension fund to be managed in the way it has been for the past several years (decades really) and does nothing to try and rein in the cost of health benefits by figuring out a different benefits structure (with the cooperation of the unions during the upcoming contract negotiations), then by 2012, 28% of the city budget will go just to paying for pension costs and health benefit.

More soon.

Just after I finished pointing out that Pittsburgh was the only major city doing worse than Philadelphia in funding its pension obligations in the Pew study released today, I read that the mayor Pittsburgh, Luke Ravenstahl paid a visit to our fair city on Tuesday to continue the idea of an "east-west partnership" with Mayor Nutter.

Knowing full well how these two Pennsylvania cities share a poor legacy of managing their long term obligations, the Trib Review reporter mentions Pittsburgh's pension problems. Mayor Ravenstahl has an idea:

One common problem the cities share: Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have drastically underfunded pension accounts. Ravenstahl has suggested the formation of a statewide pension system that rolls anemic pension funds from Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and elsewhere into a statewide account could solve the problem.

Hmmm... the state barely wants to pay for the education of the city's children and has ignored the ruling of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to pay for our court system. I highly doubt they'd be too keen on taking responsibility for paying the retirement benefits of municipal workers with whom they never negotiated the terms of these benefits.

If you work in Philadelphia you pay it. If you live in Philadelphia and work on the moon, you pay it.

It's the dreaded, Philadelphia wage tax. But is it such a big deal any more?

D-Mac at Philadelphia Will Do pointed out that the announcement that Verizon would be relocating several hundred suburban Philadelphia jobs to their building at 9th and Race (welcome to the neighborhood!) did little more than lower the take home pay of those workers by 3.7 percent (assuming they don't already live in the city).

According to KYW 1060's Mike Dunn, Verizon Pennsylvania President Bill Peterson doesn't think that's such a big deal:

I think the opportunity to work in these new buildings that have been rehabbed, to be part of the city, to work downtown, is going to be very exciting for people. I think they're really going to like it. I think our employees are going to be very pleased.

Granted, this is just one company which already had a presence in the city and was making the move so that it could sell off the suburban properties, but it does bring up a larger point.

Back when the wage tax reductions started in the mid 90s, the city had just begun to go through its "Renaissance" period. The downtown was a bit dirtier, emptier and, frankly, pretty boring. Gas prices were lower so that driving to a suburban office from a suburban home was far less expensive than it is today.

Things have changed. A downtown office worker can enjoy a wide selection of cultural amenities and a nearly unparalleled dining experience at the end of the work day. Gas prices are through the roof to the point that even short daily commutes can add up quickly. Meanwhile, development continues unabated and traffic along inter-suburban routes has turned those short commutes into frustrating stop-and-go joyless rides. All of which makes that 3.7 percent (and falling still) not so bad. Heck, a lot of suburban governments are starting to levy their own personal income taxes, making the difference in take home pay even less than that 3.7 percent.

So it seems that, as far as competition with the surrounding suburbs is concerned, the wage tax may be fading as a deterrent for businesses to locate here and people to live here.

Can the time be far off when it becomes less of a drag on our ability to compete with other metropolitan regions?

For those of you who are really into the minute-by-minute goings on of City Council's first day of the 2008 session, the team over at Heard in the Hall has been giving updates throughout the day.

I also just received a media advisory that Mayor Nutter will be making a statement at 2 2:30 pm regarding casinos in Philadelphia. Such a thing is sure to dominate today's news cycle, which means that whatever awareness was raised by the Pew Report on employee pension and health benefit costs may fade.

This blog will be sure to keep the issue in the public consciousness (or at least the consciousness of the several hundred or so people who read this blog).

The challenge, of course, is to present the issue in a balanced way at a time when it would be so tempting for most people to conclude that all of the steps that are needed to solve this issue have to come from concessions by the workers. We'll try to be very skeptical of that.

It's clear that both sides (actually, all sides if you include taxpayers) are going to need to give a little to fix mistakes made over the past 20 or 30 years.

Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky wants to rally the masses in the cause of freedom from tyranny and the dreaded DROP program:

My dream is that the DROP program will burn Council just as the 2005 post-midnight pay grab did the state Legislature. Those Harrisburglars ignited a passion for reform that booted some of them out of office.

Get out your taser and order them to stop chasing after every loose dime that rolls off the table.

It's worth remembering, however, that none of the so-called "Harrisburglars" from Philadelphia were affected in the least by the midnight ride to a bigger paycheck - and that was an issue that was fairly easy to understand. DROP is a complicated program with, as Bykofsky writes, several different goals.

Good luck with the war on DROP, Stu. Now it's up to the rest of the media to take on all of the other things that City Council needs to figure out... property tax assessments, councilmanic prerogative, etc.

If you listened to WHYY 90.9 FM's local newscasts this morning (that's the 4 minutes or so a the top and bottom of the hour during Morning Edition), you heard the following stories:

Philadelphia City Council holds their first session of the year - and the first working with the new Nutter Administration. Council is expected to take up the issue of casinos and a controversial retirement program. But the mood is optimistic among councilmembers eager to put behind the often tense relationship with former mayor, John Street. WHYY's Susan Phillips reports.

The Philadelphia School Reform Commission interviewed three finalists for the position of CEO of the Philadelphia School District yesterday. The candidates include a career educator, an academic and a businessman. All three say they can help improve Philadelphia's schools, but none of them said it would be easy. WHYY's Bill Hangley has more.

The links are to .mp3's which you can listen to on your computer or download as podcasts and use on any .mp3 player.

Enjoy.

I was seconds away from posting a summary of what WHYY's Susan Phillips told me about Nutter's earlier announcement on casinos when I got two emails in rapid succession about that very topic.

First is from the folks at PlanPhilly, who have been doing tremendous work covering the often confusing details of this situations. They provided a link to a breaking update by the Inquirer here. And a promise of more in depth coverage on their own site later this evening.

Then, the Nutter press office followed that with a release of their own, telling their side of the story. The full text of the release is available after the jump.

In the Inquirer coverage, they mention that:

A group of state lawmakers, as well as City Council, has petitioned the State Supreme Court to revoke the license itself, saying that only the state has the right to grant it.

Nutter said he believes that lawsuit is now moot because there is no license.

So, according to what I understood of my conversation with our reporter covering this, while these state legislators - Mike O'Brien and a representative of Vince Fumo - might be in agreement with Nutter that the casinos should find a better place, they don't agree with him that the lawsuit is moot. They continue to believe that the City does NOT have the right to grant riparian rights (aka license to build on submerged lands), and therefore, the lawsuit is not moot.

They told our reporters that only the state has the power to grant those riparian rights.

I've gone cross-eyed.

End result... looks like it may be a little while longer before you can go drop a few nickels in a one-armed bandit up in Fishtown. Yay? Boo?

In other casino news, brought to you by PlanPhilly (with video!), Councilman Frank Dicicco, wearing his Marian Tasco costume, introduced "legislation that would allow Foxwoods Casino to operate on its proposed riverfront site." Judging from the article, much consternation was had by many even thought Dicicco, now wearing his "written statement" costume, assured people that everything was going to be ok:

The proposed city legislation contains conditions that must be met in order for the zoning for the site to go into effect and "we set the bar really high," [Dicicco spokesman Brian] Abernathy said. "I don't think Foxwoods will like this legislation."

Mary Isaacson, spokeswoman for Rep. Mike O'Brien, who has also worked to move the casinos – agreed with Abernathy. She considered DiCicco's proposal a sort of Plan B to pending legislation and other efforts to relocate the casinos. "I think when (Foxwoods officials) see what is the starting point of what is required to even consider that site, they may think twice and move to another site that's more viable," she said.

So the many-headed hydra of casino gaming gets cut off in Fishtown, but seems to have sprouted anew down in South Philly. Or does it? This is all so damn confusing. If I were a casino operator, I'd be looking to build in Memphis by now.

Then again, I guess making it hard for business has always been something that the city has been good unintentionally good at. It makes sense that when they want to make it hard for businesses they don't like, they'd be reeeeally good at it.

(Click Continue Reading for text of Nutter release)

Like I predicted yesterday, Mayor Nutter's statement about Sugarhouse Casino, and the legislation introduced by councilman-in-absentia Frank Dicicco dominated last night's and this morning's news coverage. (6 ABC, Fox 29, Daily News, Inquirer, KYW 1060 AM, Metro, Evening Bulletin, and the Business Journal).

Fortunately, the DN, Inky, KYW and WHYY (no link available) had the time and the resources available to cover the release of a report by a select committee - the Community Oversight Board (COB) - that was charged with reviewing child welfare practices at the much-maligned Department of Human Services (DHS).

The report paints a picture of an agency that still has a lot of improvements to make but also makes the point that at least things are moving in a positive direction.

The most persistent obstacle, it seems, is the difficulty that DHS has in attracting, training and, most importantly, retaining qualified case workers. The Daily News and KYW stories point out that there are 80 to 90 vacancies (depending on which your read) which has made one of the goals of DHS reform - visiting children under age 5 at least once per month - very difficult to achieve. A quote from Mayor Nutter in the KYW story tells part of the story about why it's so difficult to fill these positions and keep people in them:

Mayor Nutter says DHS workers don't get the same kind of recognition for saving lives that police and firefighters rightly receive:

"They are really good, committed people, who do these jobs that many of us would shudder, if we had to listen to or interact with some of the things that people to do children and to each other."

When you combine the toll this kind of work takes on one's psyche with the low starting pay and frustration with the way the system works, it's a wonder that anyone takes these jobs. I get a sense that the experience of a social worker is a lot like being a doctor - they just can't take everything personally, can't get too close to their cases - or it'll drive them crazy. Of course, I've never been a doctor or a social worker so I'd love for some input from people who are or who work closely with them.

The really good ones are there because they want to help people - specifically kids. They aren't in it for the money, and it's not clear that raising salaries would make all that much difference in recruitment and retention. That's not to say that more funding for DHS isn't necessary. It's up to the city government, among its many priorities, to do everything it can, to provide the necessary resources/technology/support, to make the jobs of the social workers easier. These folks are the first line of defense against a whole range of social ills that could result from a poor upbringing. If not for the social workers, at-risk children will either end up dead or the next city worker they meet... will be a police officer.

A post like this often opens me up to a whole bunch of comments about how the government shouldn't be raising children... about how it starts with having better parents and stronger families. I don't disagree with any of that. But just saying "parents have to raise their children better" isn't going to make it happen. And until it starts happening, leaving those children to fight for themselves against abusive or neglectful parents is not something we should accept by any level of government.

Read the full report or at least the news coverage (here, here and here). If you consider this a budgetary priority, keep that in mind when the process starts on February 14th with the Mayor's budget address to City Council.

Over two weeks ago, I wrote about a small news item that appeared under the "PA Suburbs" headlines section of Philly.com. The story was about an innovative, affordable, "green" housing/commercial project that a young developer was trying to put on land that is zoned industrial. Due to opposition from the Commerce Department, the Zoning Board of Adjustment refused to grant the variance necessary to build residential on the industrial parcel.

At the time, I brought up the notion that perhaps it was a little short-sighted (or flat out blind) of the Commerce Department to hold out for the return of industry and that in an area like Kensington South, new residential/commercial, especially green and affordable, should be welcomed with open arms. That started a pretty good discussion which I included in a follow up post.

Well now, two weeks later, the City Paper and Inquirer columnist Inga Saffron have staked out positions similar to mine.

Saffron writes:

Given the beleaguered state of the neighborhood, you'd expect the city to welcome the pair's proposal for new housing with rousing cheers. The neighborhood group has sung its praises. But instead, the city told the young developers it was committed to preserving their junk-strewn, half-acre lots in the event an industrial user came along.

However, she goes much deeper than my "Is manufacturing coming back" framing of the issue. She looks specifically at this parcel of land and the Kensington South neighborhood. Saffron concedes the point that even in "the post-manufacturing age, every city needs places where fabricators, warehouses, truck depots, junkyards and other messy enterprises can feel at ease" but points out that the proposed development wasn't seeking to jump in front of a huge line of industrial uses that are chomping at the bit to get into this neighborhood.

The fact is, Kensington South is "abounds with vacant tracts" and despite efforts by the city to attract manufacturing to this area, they have seen "only modest results."

So without restarting the debate about whether manufacturing is or is not returning to the city, perhaps we should ask a different question. How long do we wait and see whether the city can guide an area like this to becoming an industrial park before we turn to different uses like residential and commercial?

Another interesting thing comes up when you read the City Paper account of this story.

Tom Namako, who wrote the City Paper story, sought out reactions from folks in leadership positions with Kensington-area community groups and, smartly, found out whether they actually live in Kensington:

At the meeting, Dougherty gave the microphone to a woman, Annie Moss, who belongs to the Old Kensington Neighborhood Association. (After the meeting, Moss admitted that she actually lives in Jenkintown, "but my parents still live in Kensington," she said.) She told the board that she opposes the development "because jobs are more important."

(If my parents were living in the area, I wouldn't want them walking to their factory jobs. I'd want a whole lot of other, middle-income, law-abiding homeowners in the neighborhood.)

On the other side of the issue:

Nebel [the developer] then mentioned that he has the support of another community group, the Kensington South Neighborhood Advisory Council (KSNAC). Later that day, KSNAC executive director Marie Lachat said her group supports the development because "it's a balanced combination of residences and small businesses." (Lachat also admitted that she doesn't live in Kensington, either.)

Do any of these folks actually live in Kensington?

Namako then talked to a number of people who own industrial land in the area. Turns out, they'd be alright with the city allowing non-industrial development if it meant more residents, 24-hour presence and reduced crime.

And as Namako points out, given that there are:

366,339,600 square feet of industrial land that is either unused or needs an environmental cleanup before development. Would the so-called nation's greenest development — requiring about 65,000 built square feet — really stop industry from locating here?

With "a new day, a new way" comes a new ZBA. Let's see how this one plays out.

The scene: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

The players: City of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, mayor vs. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, General Assembly.

The issue: local control of gun regulations.

Inquirer has the story.

Young Philly Politics provides some commentary and reaction.

Although I think that such laws, especially the one that would limit gun sales to one-per-month in within city limits, will make little difference unless they are enacted at the state level, we are at a point where we should be willing to try anything.

But what happens if these laws are actually put in place and the number of shootings doesn't change? Sometimes I think that elected officials on both sides of this debate prefer that it doesn't get resolved either way so they can continue to campaign on it. The biggest fear for all of them is that these laws are finally passed. Proponents of the law fear that if they win, nothing would change. Gun supporters fear that these laws would actually work (edited to add) and they'd find out that people and guns actually do kill people faster than people and knives or fists kill people.

"Mayors' 10-point Plan '08" is latest report from the US Conference of Mayors and begins by strongly stating the case for the why cities and metropolitan regions are so important:

Led by America’s mayors, America’s cities drive our national economy — the strongest national economy in the world. Metro economies now account for 85 percent of national employment, 87 percent of labor income, and 86 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Of the largest 100 international economies in the world, 42 are US metro areas.

So why does it seem like the federal government has ignored cities for the last 8 or so years?

It's true. I'll admit. City living isn't for everyone. Some folks just can't live close to other people. And that's fine. They've decided that in exchange for having to use their car to go anywhere, to live in often architecturally dull houses, to spending their leisure time at the movie theater in some nondescript strip mall, they'll enjoy vault ceilings, a backyard with a pool, deathly quiet nights and 4000 square feet of living space. I'm not going to judge. A lot of those things appeal to me too, especially the pool and the high ceilings.

But it's not too much to ask that the federal government not ignore the 28% of this nation's population who live in cities of 100,000 people or more. And that's precisely what the U.S. Conference of Mayors wants.

Some of my favorite suggestions:

1. Making an "Energy Block Grant" the number one point in the plan. The federal government has totally dropped the ball on this so they may as well shift some funding to the folks who are actually trying to end the dominance of foreign oil.

2. Infrastructure (5th Point). While addressing the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Congressional Urban Caucus Chair Chaka Fattah, makes that point that we are spending $10 billion per month on the war in Iraq. Meanwhile, the 10-pt. plan points out that the American Society of Civil Engineers has said that this nation needs to spend $1.6 trillion on infrastructure. Remember that bridge in Minnesota? It's the reason I take the Walnut Street bridge now when I cross the Schuylkill and not the South Street Bridge. Cities can't afford to be fixing bridges all by themselves and city residents aren't the only ones using those bridges.

It's also flat out embarrassing that other countries are eating our lunch when it comes to our telecommunications and internet infrastructure.

3. Competitive workforce (Point 6). Speaking of embarrassing, it's embarrassing that our nation seems to be getting dumber and dumber compared to other industrialized countries. So many cities (and states) are still trying to hold on to jobs that are long since gone because they don't have the imagination to envision what the next jobs will be. Calling for investment in training for "green jobs" is at least a step in the right direction.

As we transition away from covering mayoral politics and broaden the coverage of this website (and eventually rename it) and its blog, we're going to want to focus on the issues facing this entire metropolitan area and how governments at all levels - federal, state and local - have been handling these issues.

Ohhh... did I just drop a hint of things to come? Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, read the report and get a healthy dose of what the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution is serving.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Let's take a quick run through the news before we get down to work for the day, shall we?

The big story with city government and the new administration seems to be the rounding out of the mayor's cabinet with the appointment of a permanent Director of Commerce (who will also serve as the Deputy Mayor of Planning and Economic Development. The lucky guy (Andy Altman) comes to us from... Germantown (?! a local, how cool!) via Washington D.C. which should now be considered the training ground for future top-level Philadelphia officials. Daily News, Inquirer and KYW 1060 AM each provide some details. An official announcement, a possibly another swearing-in ceremony like the one Altman's colleagues enjoyed on Inauguration Day will happen this afternoon at 4pm.

Speaking of Nutter's schedule, today at 2pm, he'll be announcing his choice for "Chief Education Advisor/Director of the Office of the Public School Family and Child Advocate." It looks like Governor Rendell will be joining him. Undoubtedly, the press will have plenty of questions for the Governor about his recent revelation on a Pittsburgh radio station that their sister city to the east (that's us) has a habit of "selectively enforcing" the collection of certain taxes. Rendell was referring to the the "liquor-by-the-drink-tax" that Philadelphia has had for a while and that is coming soon to Allegheny County. The good governor was apparently just trying to soothe some small tavern owners by letting them know that it might be ok (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) if they skip those payments for a while. As anyone who reads the comments to this blog knows, this city has been selectively enforcing the collection things like property taxes for a long time.

Michael Nutter had breakfast with a blogger on Friday morning. I'd like to extend the Mayor an invitation to breakfast with this blogger, his wife and two web-savvy cats. Yesterday's fare was banana pancakes, waffles and 12 hrs of America's Next Top Model on MTV. A truly wonderful day.

The Daily News has a little "he said, she said" going on in its opinion pages today. The topic - casinos. The "he said" side of the argument is apparently pro-casino but I stopped reading at the "E. Digby Baltzell's Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia" reference. You lose me any time you blame this city's problems on the fact that a few Quakers had some meetings back in the late 1600s.

In case you missed it, Tom Ferrick, giving some thought to what the oncoming recession could mean for this city, had some advice for Philadelphians in his column on Sunday - get out while you still can. Ok, so he didn't exactly say that but, jeez, Tom, you didn't do any favors for the digestion of my Sunday morning pancakes with such a "cheery" column.

YPP informs us that incumbent State Representative Tony Payton, Jr. could have just as difficult a time with his primary election this spring as he did when he was first elected - when a guy handing out rubber stamps with his name on it almost beat Payton as a write-in. By most accounts, Payton's only misstep that cost him the endorsement of the Democratic machine was the fact that he beat the Democratic machine in his first election. Not so much with the forgive and forget, eh? We'll have to see how this one plays out. Payton could be helped by the fact that the Democratic primary for President may still be in doubt when it comes time for Pennsylvania to vote in April. High turnout always hurts the machine since they are less able to make sure that only folks who are voting for their candidates show up. It should be interesting to see what the progressive blogosphere can do for one of their own in a state rep district that would seem not to be the most digitally connected in the city. That race could show us whether that same progressive blogosphere has made any gains in power, influence and the ability to marshal volunteers since 2006. Stay tuned.

Just received the press release with the Mayor's public schedule.

In addition to naming his new Chief Education Advisor (with the governor present) and swearing in the new Commerce Director, the Nutter administration will be welcoming back Managing Director Camille Cates Barnett. You may recall the tragic story of Dr. Barnett's husband, James M. Barnett, who was killed in a car accident during his commute from Washington DC to Philadelphia earlier this month. It's good to see that Dr. Barnett is back after what was assuredly a very difficult time for her. If there's one thing that Philadelphians know, it's the value of family. Here's hoping that she'll find a lot of support among the people of her new home city.

Have you read the article in this month's Philadelphia Magazine about Philadelphia being "The Last Union Town?"

I thought this blog would be a great place to discuss some of the points brought up in the piece, given how civic minded most of our readers are. Did the piece seem a little... ummm... slanted to you? Feel free to chime in here in the comments. Union supporters and people who might not think that the unions are doing such great things for Philadelphia are free to participate.

I'll leave my own take on the article out of it for now.

One thing... I have a feeling the Teamsters would consider those Cordwainers to be a bunch of wimps.

Artists.

When Mayor Nutter decided to postpone his campaign promise of re-opening the office of Arts and Culture on the first day of his new administration, he may not have been aware of whom he was taking on.

Over at roberta fallon and libby rosof's artblog (found via Philebrity), the proprietors of the blog are organizing the city's artists to send "Kisses for Nutter" until he makes good on opening the aforementioned office:

Here's the deal. We will create a series of photo posts on the blog called A Kiss for Mayor Nutter that will include images of artists and art lovers throughout the city. These images make the face of the "arts" constituency somehow more real than it seems when people talk about artists and the arts.

They seem to have gotten a ton of pictures already. (Including one from a guy I went to grade school with! Yo, T.C., what's up?!)

While the artists may not bring "potatoes studded with boot nails" to a fight, they do bring something that has traditionally been very lacking from the typical picket signs you'd see at a union protest - creativity. When wielded against an opponent, creativity can lead to what you'll see after the jump. (yikes)

Anyway, if you're an artist, and this sort of thing concerns you... check out artblog for details on how to participate.

Click "Continue Reading" to check out what the Mayor is up against.

As predicted by several different news sources the Inquirer, Mayor Nutter just announced that Dr. Lori Shorr will serve as his Chief Education Officer and Director of the Office of the Public School Family and Child Advocate. Dr. Schorr comes from the Philadelphia Youth Network where she has served as Vice President of Policy and Planning since 2006.

Read the full press release with bios of Schorr and Ms. Sharon Tucker, the Deputy Chief Education Officer.

More coverage of this and today's 4pm announcements are forthcoming.

Let's take a quick look at the news that isn't connected to the State of the Union Address, Teddy Kennedy's choice for President or the latest Phillies move to "grade" (not upgrade, not downgrade, just grade) at third base.

3-1-1 is coming to town! The system that has revolutionized the way city services are delivered in cities like New York and Chicago may actually be making its way to Philadelphia. Managing Director Camille Barnett returned to town and laid out a bold plan to bring 3-1-1 and CitiStat (sort of like "Second Life" for filling potholes and towing abandoned cars) by the end of the year! No word on what City Council members will do with all of the free time after "constituency services" is removed as one of their core functions... perhaps legislate? KYW, Inky and Metro coverage. WHYY coverage (via Redlasso) here.

In today's Daily News, Dave Davies reports that Mayor Nutter is creating a commission (a blue ribbon commission?) to "assess ways to increase diversity in the construction industry as part of a plan to get the Convention Center expansion moving." Council, meanwhile passed an ordinance requiring the unions to give demographic data on their membership and promise to be more diverse at the Convention Center. Council would then give an ok to the unions' diversity plans but those plans could be changed depending on what the mayor's commission discovers.

Councilman Wilson Goode, who has been championing efforts to get more inclusion of minority and women workers at the Convention Center seems to be a little... meh... about the whole thing:

"This is an attempt to reverse what was done in ensuring economic opportunity in the ordinance passed by Council in December, and to provide cover for the building and construction trades not submitting diversity plans to the Council," Goode said yesterday.

"It is what it is," Goode said, "and anybody who says it's not is a liar."

On the education front, the mayor brought in what he calls "the dynamic duo of education" to make sure that the really big thing known as the city government is playing nice with the really big thing known as the School District of Philadelphia. One of the appointments, Lori Shorr, will serve as director and chief education officer of the Office of the Public School Family and Child Advocate, a position created through a charter change in last November's election (and I believe, one of Councilwoman Campbell's lasting contributions to city government). Inky, DN, WHYY, Metro and KYW.

And finally, in a letter to the Daily News, AFSCME District Council 33 president Pete Matthews, takes the next step in the public portion of contract negotiations between the city and the municipal worker unions. You may remember from last week when we wrote about a Pew Study on the city's financial future that warns about the enormous cost pressures faced by the city for funding employee health and pension benefits. That study refers to the cost of health benefits as "the unaffordable cost of good intentions" and points out that Philadelphia's costs are higher than every major city except Detroit (thank goodness for Detroit) and come to an average of $13,030 per worker ($374 million total).

The authors of the report say that they could find no recent analyses that suggest that Philadelphia is a particularly high cost market when it comes to health care. So they conclude that the reason for the high cost has to do with how the city pays for health care for its employees:

One potential answer towers above all the rest: the city funds its health care plans by negotiating a flat amount per employee with its unions, and then turns over the lumps sum for the unions to administer. Result: the city is unable to compel any changes in health care coverage or fully undertake cost-saving measures that have been put in place elsewhere.

This may become a sticking point in the coming negotiations if the city is determined to get more control over these costs. In his letter, Matthews counters:

Since 1996, when I took office as president of District Council 33, our union has been managing our health-benefits fund responsibly and with a sharp eye on cost control.

District Council 33's Health and Welfare Fund currently receives markedly less than the funding received by other city workers unions, and yet we have been able by careful stewardship to maintain, and in some cases improve, health benefits for the members of our union.

Both sides make good points and this is only the beginning of what we can expect to see as the negotiations heat up. Stay tuned.

Well, I have meeting out of the office today so posting will be light. In fact, this is probably going to be it. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves.

With most of the major positions filled within city government, a mayor's focus turns to all of those boards and commissions that need some behinds in the seats. And there are a lot of them.

Today Mayor Nutter announced his selections for the city's Historical Commission, a group that "reviews building and demolition permit applications and determines whether a given building, structure, site or district is historic."

Of note, one of his appointees is Richardson Dilworth 3rd, grandson of the former mayor and reforming legend of the same name. This Dilworth is an Assistant Professor of history at Drexel University. The Commission recently weighed in on the fate of his grandfather's house on Washington Square. According to the website of the Preservation Alliance, the Dilworth House is not long for this world.

Read the full release and weigh in on some of the selections, especially if you are an historical preservation advocate and know something about the qualifications of these folks.

Hardly. But it looks like there's a plan in place and a set goal to be measured against.

Coverage of the unveiling of Commissioner Ramsey's plan has been extensive. You can find links to all of it in our headlines archive.

Speaking of "goals" and "measuring," having a number like "100 fewer murders" to compare to next year must be good news to Phil Goldsmith who wonders why the Inquirer, all of sudden, doesn't think it's so important to keep a daily running total of the number of murders.

I'm with Phil on this one. In fact, the Inquirer could probably use the extra space they're saving by doing away with stock listings by printing a running total of murders, dropouts, homeless, etc. and then comparing it similar totals from the year before. (Yes, I know, most of these numbers aren't kept on a daily basis... but you get the point. Let's measure progress on a range of issues and when it starts to get better, let people know about it!)

Jump on in and discuss what Ramsey's pushing. For a good wrap up of the event, including commentary from an expert in the science of crime fighting, check out this piece by WHYY's Susan Phillips.

So are you mad at having to pay taxes? Actually, I take that back. Are you miffed that you or your business seems to have to pay taxes on some ridiculous things but not so much on other more sensible things? If so, you may be a potential tax reformer and interested in the things that Philadelphia Forward have to say. If not, if you think taxes are just fine where they are, you may also want to contact Philadelphia Forward. I'm sure they'll love the chance to change your mind.

Regardless of where you stand on the issue, you may just want to drop things on City Council members from a hot air balloon (possibly that giant balloon at the zoo). The folks over at Philadelphia Forward (Brett Mandel - the least favorite person of the Board of Revision of Taxes), have revamped their Tax Reform Challenge video game to include the new mayor. Once you drop a fax or email on all 17 council members, a whole lot of little Nutter clones attack. Well, not so much attack as pop up from somewhere below the street (the subway? the sewers?).

Click on the picture of the game below to be taken to Philadelphia Forward's website where you can try to beat Milton Street's and Carlos Matos' high scores.

I couldn't do any better than a score of 81 which means I must not be an effective advocate for tax reform. I shouldn't be surprised, my advocacy for a citywide Elvis Presley day hasn't gone anywhere either.

As for this blogger and taxes: at this point, I have little choice about paying the wage tax so complaining about it would be about as useful as yelling at a cloud. I like my neighborhood. My trash gets picked up on time. Cops patrol pretty frequently. I even have single stream recycling. But if I do open a business, I'm considering putting it on an island in the Delaware as soon as I figure out how far out I have to be so that I'm technically in New Jersey. I consider myself more in disagreement with the kinds of taxes that are levied rather than the overall level of taxation. It seems like there is definitely some room for improvement in which taxes are collected, how they are collected and how often they are collected.

Ok, anonymous property tax commenter... the comments are yours to remind us how much is out there in delinquent property taxes.

Via everyone (but specifically, the Associated Press on AOL):

Mayor Pleads for Forgiveness on TV

DETROIT (Jan. 31) - Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pleaded for forgiveness from his wife and constituents Wednesday in an emotional but carefully worded televised speech, avoiding direct mention of racy text messages that appear to contradict his sworn denials of an affair with a top aide.

Here's the video from the AP:

Yikes.

Yes, the controversial tactic (mostly controversial because people don't fully understand what it really is) is a part of Commissioner Ramsey's new "back to basics" crime fighting strategy.

In this piece by WHYY's Susan Phillips, Nutter emphasizes that the tactic will be employed judiciously and after officers receive additional training. The piece also includes reaction from civil rights lawyer David Rudovsky, who debated stop-and-frisk with criminologist (and veritable stop-and-frisk expert) Lawrence Sherman on Radio Times back in December 2006.

Listen to the story to hear what Rudovsky had to say.

Your thoughts? Does the plan - and the reactions by the cops to the plan - encourage you?

I wrote a few days ago about a fledgling movement among internet savvy artists to protest the mayor's delay on opening the office of arts of culture.

Well, that movement continues over at roberta fallon and libby rosof's artblog. They've been nice enough to categorize all of the relevant posts so you can just click here to see the response they've been getting. By my count, they're up to 95 artists (including some group photos and, of course, this guy).

The City Paper is also pursuing the Office of Arts and Culture story and provides reactions from the designated advocates for the arts and culture community - the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. Let's just say, compared to the underground movement of artists represented by the aforementioned artblog, the folks at the Cultural Alliance don't seem too worried:

Peggy Amsterdam, president of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, says she believes the delay has more to do with the mayor's thoroughness than forgetfulness.

Part of their confidence is Nutter's continual emphasis on arts and culture, both as a 4th District councilman and a mayoral candidate. "We worked with Michael Nutter when he was a candidate," Amsterdam says. "He understands that a world-class city needs a world-class arts and culture office."

I wonder when the "we are fully confident" attitude of the higher profile arts advocates turns into the less patient, actual advocacy, of the artists themselves.

(edited to add) Let me borrow a quote from a New York Times column about another hope-inspiring candidate to explain the "honeymoon" period:

Every great candidate has golden moments when the campaign merges perfectly into the zeitgeist of the people. But sooner or later it passes, and you’re left with a tired, flawed human being making a pitch to crowds of slightly deflated citizens. One of Hillary’s selling points is that we’re pre-deflated. We’ve known her so well for so long.

The Obama let-down would be way harder to handle.

Let's hope, for Nutter's and the city's sake, that the golden moment lasts just a little longer.

The City Paper's Brian Hickey hopes so.

To sum up: Hickey liked smoking in bars. Nutter didn't. Hickey likes Barack Obama. Nutter... more of a Hillary guy.

At some point, earlier this week, Finance Director Rob Dubow briefed City Council on some of the many difficulties that the administration (and Council by being involved in the process) are going to have with this year's budget. Unfortunately, unlike the start of the American Revolution, it seems that this was "the shot that was barely heard around the room."

Only The Evening Bulletin reported on it:

Mr. Dubow sounded much like his old PICA self as he led council members through a PowerPoint analysis of his budget concerns.

"If we only had to worry about the city's finances for one year we'd be in great shape," he told Council.

And, oh yes, it gets worse. Read the whole thing to learn how much worse. And remember, this is the guy from the Nutter administration. We're pretty used to mayors, through their surrogates or by themselves, paying a pretty rosy picture of the finances.

If anyone can find any other coverage of this event, please let me know. All I came across so far is this piece in The Evening Bulletin. So at least somebody was there for round 1 of the battle. (Sorry, I have to pull out all of the stops when talking about the budget to get some attention on it, so expect a lot of "fight" "battle" "apocalypse" vocabulary.) Admittedly, the sorry state of the city's immediate fiscal future is not "news" so much since we've been hearing about it for a couple years now. But it would seem to be news that City Council and a representative of the mayor are talking about it.

I don't often write about pure politics in Philadelphia - the 5th major sport as Mayor Nutter has referred to it. Frankly, I don't have the connections with ward leaders, committee people, etc. that many of the longtime Daily News or Inquirer journalists have. I'm not an active participant in that club and I'm not trying to bust my way into it or build a parallel structure like many in the progressive blogosphere who are also activists and campaign supporters.

My time in politics was brief. It was fun. It was, at times, heartbreaking and, at times, inspiring. Since then, I've tried to stake out a spot in the blogosphere as a guy who sees everything as a potential "issue" for our government to deal with and then act as a referee for a discussion on those issues or a gatekeeper to the people who know a whole lot more about the issues than I do.

But sometimes I too like to indulge in the pure "sport" of politics in Philadelphia. That's why the primary re-election campaign of Tony Payton, a young state representative from North Philadelphia, is so fascinating to me. Young Philly Politics has a firsthand account of the battle lines that are being drawn over this once insurgent, now incumbent candidate for the Democratic nomination for state representative - and who is on which side of those lines.

Apparently the ward leaders of the 179th District (we'll call them, "the party") are still not happy about being beaten by Mr. Payton. They've decided to endorse someone else even though, by just about all accounts, Mr. Payton has done an pretty admirable job in his first term. And when you consider who his predecessor was in the district, the bar is pretty low.

According to Ray at YPP, the Governor himself (a party unto himself) is decrying the the Party's decision not to back Payton, saying:

If we let them beat back Tony, it's a huge blow to independent politics in the Democratic party and the city of Philadelphia...and to young people.

So the lines are being drawn. The old guard on one side, the new blood on the other. The Party vs. the Guv. Payton's primary campaign (election April 22nd!) should provide us with a good look at how far the fledgling local internet activists have come. Can they help to influence a contest between an independent politician and a machine backed candidate in one of those lower profile, smaller turnout elections that generally favor the Party? This should also prove to be an interesting warm-up for a lower profile, citywide race for the Democratic nomination for DA in 2009.

Again... I'm not as big an expert on the local politics as the experienced observers at our city's two largest daily papers, but I know I'm going to be watching this race with interest.

If you're interested in the city's 5th major sport, you should too.

Because apparently, according to the Governor as reported in today's Metro, they're being held hostage by those dastardly "community groups":

Perhaps the governor’s strongest statements about opposition to the slots parlors, Rendell referred to a “City Council with no guts that can be extorted by community groups.” He said the delays were also blocking 7,000 jobs for a city “dying for jobs” and wage-tax reductions for city residents.

Heard in the Hall has more from an understandably miffed City Council but I only have one question.

If City Council is going to be "extorted" by anyone, wouldn't we want it to be community groups and the voters who elected those council people?