It appears that the It's Our Money project and crack reporter Ben Waxman may have started a little avalanche with this recent post about Wireless Philadelphia. So much of an avalanche, it seems, that a little known functionary from deep within in the city bureaucracy is rapidly becoming a household (or at least cyber household) name: Chief Information Officer Terry Phillis.
While his title sounds like something from high up in the ranks of the communist Chinese hierarchy, Mr. Phillis is actually in charge of all of the city's attempts to enter the 21st century (or at least the late 90s). He's the one you can credit (or blame) for the city's website and its attempts to turn Philadelphia into one big hot spot.
The Inquirer's Heard in the Hall had two posts about Wireless Philly and/or Mr. Phillis yesterday. The second of which is an especially interesting bit about Mr. Phillis' desire to get rid of the ridiculous 2.49 percent charge that bill payers face when choosing to take care of their debts to the city through its website.
The Daily News's City Hall blog, Philly Clout had an entertaining piece about Mr. Phillis' crusade against all those porn-looking, youtube-watching, blog-reading, online-shopping, city workers who are sucking up the city's bandwidth. Apparently City Council members themselves won't have to worry about curtailing their visits to Amazon.com since Mr. Phillis assures them that their own anonymity will be protected. Mmm mmm, I smell some juicy freedom of information requests coming down the pipe.
Philadelphia Will Do, in providing his own comedic stylings to the above story, demonstrates why it still may be a while until Mr. Phillis is indeed a household name:
Philadelphia Chief Information Officer Terry Phillis told City Council today 65 percent of traffic from phila.gov computers is just people screwing around.
She added that the city now has software to monitor everyone's Internet account...
Finally, one of the frequent contributors to Young Philly Politics pivoted off of Ben's thoughts about Wireless Philly and offered his own solution. It's a solution that combines two of my favorite things: regional cooperation and the ability to surf the web while I drive out to King of Prussia!