Heard in the Hall

It's a little tough to focus on politics and policy today. No doubt you've already seen the local Phillies coverage, but maybe you missed this delightful memo from the New York Post.

In other, less exciting news, Al Taubenberger will be endorsed by U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter at 30th Street Station early this afternoon. No doubt that will push Taubenerger over the top. Whoever wins the election will have their hands full with the steely new chief of the city's white-collar union, Cathy Scott. City pols are accustomed to Harrisburg muscling in on city institutions (see: School District, Parking Authority, et al), but it stings a little more when it's Ed Rendell who's flexing. John Baer takes a look at how Bob Brady is handling his duties as the Mayor of Capitol Hill. City Council-bound Maria Quinones Sanchez was just named Citizen of the Year by the Council of Spanish Speaking Organizations. Sanchez shocked most political observers by cruising to an easy win over Dan Savage in the 7th district council race. Expectations are high for Sanchez, and she'll be an interesting one to watch come 2008. Ah, and you can find the print edition of Heard in the Hall here.

Who would have thought a year ago that City Councilmen Jim Kenney and Frank DiCicco would be holding a joint fundraiser for one of their colleages?
Okay - ex-colleague.
That ex-colleague, of course, would be Michael Nutter, the almost-certain next mayor. It's hardly surprising that Kenney and DiCicco would pull out this kind of stop for Nutter; the trio were buds of sorts on Council. Kenney and Nutter, for instance, liked to wink and smile at each other from their assigned seating across the room from one another.
In any case, tonight's is not a high-brow event. It's $100-a-head at Paradiso Restaurant in, where else? South Philly.

Mayor Street just can't catch a break.
Three years ago, waving to the crowd as he stood on the grass at the just-opened Citizens Bank Park, the mayor - you know, the guy who got the new Phillies ballpark built in the first place? - got booed.
And he got booed again just a few moments ago by the throngs of red-shirted and red-capped Phillies fans at the City Hall rally that is still ongoing.
And it wasn't just one boo. It was a series of boos. Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo!
Did you hear it?
(Note: No information was immediately available about how many of these fans live and vote in Philadelphia.)

How many hours are in a day?
Too few, says Mayor Street, to permit him to attend all the funerals of all the city's homicide victims.
But not too few, says Al Taubenberger, to limit his volunteerism.
If elected mayor, says the GOP nominee who will face Democrat Michael Nutter next month, he will spend some of his mayoral hours working at the city's curfew centers.
That's not all. He also pledges to continue his "active duty on the Burholme Town Watch."
So will he skip cabinet meetings? Hold fewer press conferences?
Because something has got to give somewhere, right?
Ah, campaigns and promises.

With all eyes on the Phillies yesterday, there wasn't much news from City Hall. Police ID'd a suspect in the shooting of Lance Haver's son, Daren Dieter. Haver of course is the city's consumer advocate and a longtime Philadelphia activist. The Daily News' Ronnie Polaneczky looks into a dispute between the PHA and a local arts group. And... that's about it.

Mayor Street is one guy who doesn't have to search high and low for a Phillies ticket. He has that stadium box at the ballpark, remember? So will he use it to cheer on the team at the two games to be played here? "I'll do my best to attend them," Street said this morning.

What the mayor is certain about is what he'll be wearing the next few days.

"I'm going to wear this jacket everyday as long as we are in the playoffs," he said after a news conference."This jacket" is a semi-shiny red one that he received the day Jimmy Rollins was honored in City Hall, some weeks back.

Moreover, Street wants the entire city decked out in red tomorrow. It's about pride, pride, pride.
The Phillies, you see, aren't made up of "a team of superstars." They are a team with a few superstars, or as Street put it: "We are just a blue collar, hard-working team that knows how to get the job done."

And as for those Colorado Rockies arriving in town, he wishes them a good visit here. "I want them to enjoy their stay in Philadelphia, as long as they lose the game."

At-large City Council candidate David Oh - one of five Republicans running for two spots on council this November - just picked up a pretty big endorsement.

At-large City Councilman Jack Kelly, who is trying to fend off an energetic challenge from the aforementioned David Oh, is not amused by the $5 foie gras specials chefs across the city are offering up in protest of his proposed ban on the fat-engorged-but-delicious duck livers. Kelly tells Metropolis: "I could care less about those snobby French chefs. They can stick their $5 foie gras up their rears."

Campaigning against evil foodstuffs is quick becoming de rigeur for at-risk council members. Juan Ramos got the city to ban transfats, and Blondell Reynolds Brown got some pub when she called for nutrition labeling on menus. Of course, Ramos lost in the May primary, and Brown barely won re-election.

So maybe Kelly should find another issue or two.

Commerce Bank, best known in City Hall as Corey Kemp's financial institution of choice, was acquired by the Toronto-based TD Bank Financial Group yesterday. However George Norcross, the Commerce exec who built one of New Jersey's most powerful political machines, isn't going anywhere. Cynthia Burton reports that as part of the deal Norcross will get to keep his insurance business.

It seems School District officials never got around to reading a $700,000 management study they paid for. But the Inquirer's Susan Snyder did, and the findings suggest that the district is in disarray. Interestingly, the study was led by Noreen Timoney, wife of former police commissioner John Timoney. Noreen Timoney has done similar work for school districts in Florida and New York. School district officials characterized the report as incomplete.

This blog told you last week that Governing magazine was working up a big profile of Nutter. It's out now, and you can find it here. We'll have some thoughts on the piece a little later, but let's just start with the fact that the lead calls Nutter the "Seabiscuit of this year’s American urban politics." So yeah, it's a positive profile.

In other news: Vincent Fumo is recovering from surgery, Sharif Street is off the legal team working on behalf of the mammoth River City development, and John McNesby was elected as the successor to FOP president Robert Eddis.

So what's the wager between Mayor Street and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper?
Trees.
Three trees, to be exact.
If the Phillies get to shout 'victory,' then Denver has committed to donating three environmentally-appropriate trees as part of of Streets' new sustainability program, named Green Plan Philadelphia.
And if Denver wins, then Philadelphia will be donating three trees to Denver as part of the Mile-High city's Greenprint Denver sustainability program.
This is exciting stuff, right?
Oh, there's also food involved. If Denver wins, Hickenlooper gets a cheesesteak. If Philly wins, Street gets a buffalo cheeseburger.
Umm. Did anyone tell Hickenlooper that Street doesn't eat red meat?
Tuna salad, anyone?

Mayor Street plans to try to make "at least a part" of today's Phillies game, says spokesman Joe Grace.
If so, he'll have no problem finding a seat. His office does, afterall, control who gets tickets to the mayor's stadium box.
But exactly who else is getting tickets to the 3 p.m. game is still unknown. "It's a work in progress," as Grace put it a few moments ago.
What Grace did confirm is who got tickets to the mayor's box for last Sunday's game, when the Phillies clinched the division title.
The answer: Not a single public official, or well-known pol.
"Not that there's anything wrong" with having city officials, campaign fundraisers, government contractors and others yak it up on the taxpayer dime, Grace reminds us.
That simply wasn't the case at Sunday's game.
No, the ticket holders in this case was a group organized by two North Philadelphia men "who were instrumental in encouraging the development of a sandlot baseball team."
We're still awaiting the names of those men, and the location of the field where the sandlot team plays.

Mayoral nominee Michael Nutter's best practices tour continued this week with a stop in Pittsburgh, where Nutter got tips on brownfields redevelopment and city-county cooperation from Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato. Nutter seemed particularly impressed by the South Side Works project, saying he was "really stunned" by what the city had accomplished.

Update: Nutter is quizzed by a Pittsburgh reporter on what he can do to reduce suspicions of Philly in the eastern part of the state. It's a long segment, and you get the sense that the reporter is almost surprised that Nutter is in town. Worth watching.

Following a genteel debate with longshot GOP mayoral nominee Al Taubenberger this afternoon, Michael Nutter was asked why he seemed so sanguine about Governor Rendell's recent moves to assert state control over the convention center.

"Because I live in the real world," was Nutter's answer.

"The name of the building is the Pennsylvania Convention Center. It’s not the Philadelphia Convention Center. It’s not just about power and control, it’s about responsibility and who ultimately has the responsibility. If the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is ultimately going to have the fiscal responsibility for any operating deficits over at the center then of course they have to have more control. They’re paying for the expansion. Of course they’re going to have more control."

Nutter went on to list what the city gets out of the deal, such as a cap on its annual payments and a major economic development engine.

Nutter didn't say so, but by acquiescing, he also avoids irritating a popular and powerful governor. And you can bet that a Mayor Nutter will need plenty of favors from Rendell.

As promised here is one of the names of the two men lucky enough to win access to the city's stadium box last Sunday, courtesy of the mayor's office.
His name is Ron Toler, he hails from North Philly and the sandlot baseball team he helped develop is in the neighborhood near 11th and Cumberland, near Fotteral Square.
There were a handful of other "ordinary folks from other neighborhoods," reports Mayor Street spokesman Joe Grace. "No other names or compelling tales in them."
Still no word on who is sitting in that box right now - 2nd inning, Colorado up by 3.
"Today's attendees were still in flux at gametime."

Lunching today at the Capital Grille on South Broad, a hatchery for political schemes of all stripes: Lehigh County Executive Don Cunningham, who says he is running for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2010; former City Controller Jonathan Saidel; Common Pleas Judge John Younge of Philadelphia, a Democratic nominee for Superior Court in the Nov. 6 election; Republican consultant Aaron Cohen; and Democratic operative Charles Breslin, a confidant of Gov. Rendell.

Heard in the Hall hears that among the items on the menu was talk that Saidel might run for lieutenant governor three yeras hence, perhaps in alliance with Cunningham.

Given the problems the city's GOP had finding a mayoral candidate, nobody expected that the Democratic nominee would have to dig deep to win in November. Still, it's a little amazing that we're only 33 days away from the election and the debates are still this friendly and predictable. We're not calling it a bad thing, but it sure feels strange given the John Street / Sam Katz battles of '99 and '03. On this day in 2003, for instance, Katz was attacking Street for refusing to release the terms of a loan he'd received from a lawyer whose firm had done plenty of business with the city. Street, meanwhile, was making hay of a lawsuit filed against Katz by former business partners who'd accused him of embezzlement. And the discovery of the FBI bug in the mayor's office was just days away. Can you even conceive of Al Taubenberger or Michael Nutter seriously going after the ethical record (or any other record, for that matter) of his opponent in this general election?

The Daily News has some guesses as to who a Mayor Nutter might anoint as the next police commissioner. And the politics these days in the city's Pennsylvania suburbs are as fierce as Philadelphia's mayoral race is genteel.

This is a semi-official public announcement:
There's an election coming up. Actually, there are several elections coming up, and to partake, you need to be registered to vote.
So here is a reminder - courtesy the Committee of Seventy - that the last day to register is TUESDAY.
Here is a link to the Pennsylvania Department of State Website:
http://www.dos.state.pa.us/elections/site/default.asp

No doubt that Michael Nutter has rightfully earned a moniker as "The Ethics Guy."
After all, he wrote the legislation that re-created what is evolving into a vibrant and aggressive city Board of Ethics. He is also responsible, among other things, for the passage of a city law that limits how much money lawyers, architects, engineers and other typically big-donor types can contribute to the candidates of their choice - and still be eligible for no-bid city work.
But in one respect, Nutter, the Democratic mayoral nominee, is getting a wee bit more credit than he deserves.
Repeatedly.
For the record: Nutter is NOT the author of the law that led to Philadelphia's first-ever campaign finance limits.
Typical of the misunderstanding on this is the current issue of Governing magazine, which did a feature story on Nutter:
"Nutter may face trouble from other labor leaders because of a campaign finance law he pushed through the city council. The law restricts the amount that individuals and political action committees can give to any candidate. There’s no reason to assume that Nutter wrote that law to help himself, but in the primary campaign this spring, that is exactly what it did."
Even the Inquirer has gotten it wrong, in an editorial that ran today: "While a councilman, Nutter succeeded in enacting limits for the first time in this year's elections: $5,000 per individual donor, $20,000 per political-action committee in the mayor's race."
The real authors of the bill are City Council members W. Wilson Goode, Jr. and Blondell Reynolds-Brown. Their legislation was approved in 2003. It was subsequently amended in 2005 by Councilman Brian O'Neill, and also Nutter. Nutter sponsored two amendments, one requiring that can candidates file campaign finance reports with the city's newly-created Board of Ethics; and the other making sure the limits in this bill matched those in his no-bid contracts legislation.
To the credit of Goode, who has been more outspoken on campaign finance than Reynolds-Brown, he has taken no offense. "Post-primary, people want to him him a lot of credit," Goode says. Still, he adds: "He has been a partner, but the original law is mine."
One more thing. Here's an excerpt from Philadelphia Magazine's current issue on GOP mayoral nominee Al Taubenberger.
"The new laws were meant to put an end to City Hall’s pay-to-play scandals; now, no corporation that makes a political donation of $10,000 or more is eligible for a city contract worth more than $25,000."
Actually, corporate donations are prohibited in the state of Pennsylvania.

You know that seat that is expected to open for district attorney in 2009?
Well, one less person is pursuing it.
"I am not going to be a candidate," confirms former City Councilman Dan McElhatton, who is also a former assistant D.A. He says it's "just not the right time, and not the right opportunity."
Probably not bad news for the half dozen others who fancy themselves as replacements for retiring D.A. Lynne Abraham.

Anyone reading the Daily News' excellent piece Wednesday on violence at city rec centers can't be feeeling great about the places that were once safe havens, but there's good news from Frankford that paints a contrasting picture.

The Deni Playground Youth Baseball team just finished its inaugural season,
giving the park a baseball league for the first time in 20 years. Parents, children, neighbors came out on Friday nights, watched the games, and liked it so much they extended the season two weeks. The group got along so well they're planning to continue meeting on NFridays for movie nights, board games and other activities.

"The kids love playing together and don't want the season to end," said Brian Cross, a member of the Deni Playground Advisory group.

Short-timer Councilman Dan Savage, who has made recreation his first priority, helped create the Advisory Group, which made the league happen.

If the skinny guy with the Rockies cap and goofy grin is getting on your nerves at the ball-park, give him some slack. He's the Mayor of Denver, John W. Hickenlooper.

Will he get booed louder than John Street?

If a report falls in the woods and nobody's around to hear it, does it make a sound? For the second time this week, the Inquirer found that an expensive School District study went unreleased to the general public. This one - the work of a 35-member commission appointed by Mayor Street - recommends that control of the school district return to the city by 2010, but only if certain conditions are met. The study cost $500,000 to complete and was scheduled for a January release. Street administration officials said the report wasn't complete - which didn't seem to match the impressions of the consultant who drafted the thing - but that it would be released shortly.

During yesterday's City Council session, Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell defended her stance on the Youth Study Center. The stance pretty much amounts to: the city needs to send my district $11 million, or I'll never allow the thing to get built. The same story takes note of the fact that some council members are grumbling about Councilman Frank Rizzo's rather sweeping package of proposed ethics laws, which would require lobbyist registration, prohibit nepotism, restrict outside employment for council members and ban members from getting gifts from those who do business with the city. At the same session, Councilman Brian O'Neill said council would need to take a hard look at mayoral nominee Michael Nutter's stop-and-frisk policing plan.

In other news, PICA urged the city to appeal a pricey arbitration award to the firefighter's union. The fiscal watchdog warned: "If the City fails to appeal, it will be ensuring that funding for services will continue to shrink as a percent of city spending." Read the (PDF) letter for yourself here. Clout takes note of the Energizer Bunny like campaign of at-large City Council candidate David Oh, and they're talking about picking the next CEO of the School District over at Young Philly Politics.

He's baaaccckkk... David. L. Cohen is about to assume his biggest civic role since leaving City Hall, exactly ten years ago, as then-Mayor Rendell's chief of staff and most trusted aide.
A year from now, Cohen will officially take over as chairman of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.
Though the job doesn't start for some time, the announcement came this morning, before a 1,000-plus crowd at the chamber's annual breakfast meeting at the Convention Center.
Current chairman Joe Frick hailed Cohen's "unparalleled record of achievement and service," and noted the demands on Cohen's time, given his paying job as exective vice president of the Comcast Corp.
Frick also noted the chamber's first priority: "Let's build a strong partnership with the next mayor." He noted the enthusiasm among chamber members for doing so, and alluded to their "pent-up energy" as well.
Cohen's ascension is interesting in its timing for Democratic mayoral nominee Michael Nutter, already considered a business-friendly mayor.
It's been a long time - eight years - since City Hall and business leaders have realized the benefits of a solid working relationship between the two. Consider that Frick this morning, in recognizing the importance of Convention Center's impending expansion, gave thanks to "the governor, labor leadres and many of you," but made no mention of Mayor Street.
Could this yield a reinvigorated business community to help lead Philadelphia forward - for real this time?

In the bottom of the fifth, an inning after Phillies pitcher Kyle Lohse gave up a grand slam, fans at the ballgame spotted Democratic mayoral nominee Michael Nutter walking up an aisle. "Hey Nutter, can you pitch?" shouted a fan. "Yeah," said the candidate.

We neglected to mention Thursday that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is a local boy who has tragically grown up to become a Rockies fan.

It's hard to imagine any political figure who embodies "Philly" as much as former Controller Jonathan Saidel, our own Happy Warrior from the Northeast. Now, however, Saidel is thinking about expanding his horizons as he explores a run for lieutenant governor in 2010. (This development was first reported by Dan Gross earlier today in Philadelphia's other newspaper.)

A number of people have asked me to run or lieutenant governor and I said I would give it serious consideration," Saidel told Heard in the Hall. What is he thinking? After all, the job usually involves little more than checking the pulse of the governor.

"There are two ways of looking at it," Saidel said. "One is political. If I was on the ticket we would draw support from this part of the state, if the candidate for governor was from the other part of the state; it would bea good composite ticket."

Not for nothing, but Saidel is close friends with Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, a leading possible Democratic candidate for governor who used to be the county's controller.

And besides, Saidel said, it could be possible in the right circumstances to make the No. 2 post substantive, much as Vice President Cheney and earlier, Vice President Al Gore, did at the federal level.

"If you’re given the opportunity to be involved in the government you could end up being influential," Saidel said.

As we try out some new looks for Heard in the Hall.

It's likely to be a slow day here at Heard in the Hall. City offices are closed for Columbus Day, and most pols are taking a long weekend.

The Inquirer finds out why that $700,000 school district management audit went unread. The Daily News revisits the case of a PAC called the Appreciation Fund which made some big contributions to U.S. Rep. Bob Brady and Councilwoman Carol Campbell during the primary election. The PAC was late in disclosing its donors and expenses, and the city's Ethics Board slapped it with a $1,500 a day fine that ran up to $39,000 before the appropriate reports were finally filed. But the Ethics Board is having trouble collecting. The print edition of Heard in the Hall reminds folks of the role those folks not named Michael Nutter played in getting the city's tough new ethics laws passed (hint: Nutter wasn't the lead sponsor, Wilson Goode Jr. was). And Councilman Frank Rizzo writes the Inquirer editorial board, touting his own impressive bundle of new ethics proposals.

From this weekend's papers... David L. Cohen was named the next president of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. Attorney Richard A. Sprague may no longer represent State Sen. Vince Fumo, but he's still at the center of the action when it comes to casino litigation. Former Inquirer staff writer and Plan Philly correspondent Matt Blanchard explains the importance of zoning reform.

In July, you read about how the Philadelphia Parking Authority had one special guy, public advocate Frank DeAngelis, whose job it was to resolve ticket disputes - if you could find him. Despite earlier promises, DeAngelis' name and number were nowhere to be found on the Parking Authority Web site.
No longer.

Not only is DeAngelis listed, along with his e-mail, but so are the name, number and e-mail address for Dawn Jackson, the customer service manager.

These changes were brought to our attention courtesy of Joe Ashdale, the Parking Authority board chairman. "We feel we have been more user-friendly than ever in our history" he said.

Ashdale also points out that even though we couldn't find DeAngelis, 4,100 other people did, and many of them wrote letters to the Parking Authority to thank DeAngelis.

Among them were Connie Katz, wife of former GOP mayoral candidate Sam Katz; the staff of State Sen. Robert Wonderling; and dozens of non-politically connected folk as well. "I now can convince my wife to allow me to keep spending money at my favorite city restaurants and theaters," said one letter-writer, Sidney Gable.

"His follow-up could not have been better, and I am satisfied with the end result," wrote another, Shirley Sample.

But that wasn't Ashdale's only point. As a labor leader - he is assistant business manager of District Council 21 of the painters union - he has a labor mentality and wants it known that he takes care of those in his charge.

So, Mr. DeAngelis: Consider yourself taken care of.

Some tough words for Councilman Darrell Clarke from Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg over at Young Philly Politics. Citing a City Paper story (that itself is a follow-up to an earlier Inquirer piece), Dan U-A blasts Clarke for putting political retribution over the good of the community. Clarke's primary foe, community organizer Haile Johnston (at right) , didn't come close to beating Clarke. But he nonetheless feels he's being punished for having the temerity to run. A non-profit run by Johnston and his wife recently lost a city contract worth $70,000. The money was for the non-profit's much-praised work in greening abandoned and razed lots Strawberry Mansion.

Johnston claims that the contract was cancelled on Clarke's orders, a charge the councilman denies. But it's clear which side YPP is taking.

The state's fastest-growing union is now on Michael Nutter's side, formal announcement to come tomorrow. SEIU went for U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah in the mayoral primary, one of the few good days that Fattah's campaign enjoyed.

It's food week at City Hall, where the Public Heatlh and Human Services Committee will convene in Council Chambers Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. to discuss menu labeling -- as in requiring Applebees and friends (chain restaurants, essentially) to provide nutritional information on everything they sell. Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown and Juan Ramos are backing the bill.
On Wednesday, angry bakers will descend on Council Chambers at 10 a.m. to get out from under the city ban on artificial trans fats. Bakers like Connie Szypula will bring some kruschiki (pictured here) made with and without transfats, and see if City Council members can taste the difference. The Dining Car from the Northeast will bring some Jewish Apple Cake, Termini's and Isgro's will offer cannolis. Councilwoman Joan Krajewski wants us all to know what a living hell life will be like without trans fat in our favorite bakery items. Bring on the babka, Joanie!

Councilwoman Jannie L. Blackwell, who in 2005 gained immortality by proclaiming that the council was "ethic-ed out" in the face of what was regarded at the time as much-needed government reform, was similarly unimpressed by City Councilman Frank Rizzo's four-part reform package that includes restrictions on nepotism, lobbyists, gifts and outside employment.

“I don’t believe we should have so many laws we don’t know when we’re breaking them,” Blackwell said Thursday. But while Blackwell has been ridiculed for a supposedly low tolerance for ethics, she's got company -- Rizzo's bill is already raising the blood pressure of even those who have supported reform. Brian O'Neill and Jim Kenney have grumbled about their ability to work outside of council. One aide called the package "reform for reform's sake." Some are predicting that Councilman Bill Greenlee, who chairs the Law and Government Committee, won't even give the legislation a hearing. Greenlee says he intends to hold hearings, probably in November.

With a closely contested election for two at large Republican seats on Council, we'll be interested to see if Rizzo pursues the legislation as fervently after Nov. 6.

In a front page article Saturday on attorney Richard Sprague's efforts to quash a grand jury investigation of his client, Louis DeNaples, we inexcusably forgot to mention that Sprague and his children own a little more than 13 percent of SugarHouse Casino. SugarHouse plans a $550 million casino on Delaware Avenue straddling the Fishtown/Northern Liberties border. DeNaples, a prodigious campaign contributor from Scranton, hopes in the coming weeks to reopen the once-famous Mt. Airy Lodge in the Poconos as the state's first standalone slots parlor.

Until recently, Sprague also represented the chief architect of the 2004 law that legalized slots in Pennsylvania, State Sen. Vincent Fumo, as Fumo tries to fight off a federal corruption investigation. Fumo told a judge recently he would find a new lawyer due to unresolvable conflicts with Sprague, whose firm has represented clients who could be called as witnesses in Fumo's case.

In May, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard appeals on the Gaming Control Board's licensing decisions, Sprague was there for two clients -- DeNaples' Mount Airy Lodge project, and for SugarHouse and himself. Even he and the justices seemed confused at one point.

One thing was clear -- the protean superlawyer enjoys unparallelled respect on the Supreme Court. While other lawyers bowed down to the justices, Sprague openly debated with them, and at times it was unclear whose court we were in -- Sprague's or Chief Justice Ralph Cappy's.

Now that is juice.

City Council continues its food fight this morning, wrestling over the feasibility of nutrition labeling on restaurant menus at a 10 a.m. hearing. Tomorrow morning's transfats hearing is even more promising, given that it will feature a baked goods taste test. No, we are not making this up. Developing. Dispatches and accounts from the front to come.

Mayoral nominee Michael Nutter, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz are holding an 11 a.m. press conference in Northeast Philadelphia to "to announce strong support of anti-crime initiatives in Philadelphia." No sign yet that that their "strong support" includes any actual additional federal dollars.

In today's papers, Nutter called on the School District to immediately release the unread, unloved $700,000 management audit discovered by the Inquirer last week. Some questions are being raised about Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson's 10,000-man volunteer crime patrol, an effort the Inquirer's editorial board has already called misguided. Those who think better of Johnson's plan can sign up to participate here. And our friends over at the Inquirer Great Expectations blog had a good back-and-forth on zoning code reform yesterday.

Going to be a big day next Monday down at the Sheet Metal Workers Union Hall on Delaware Avenue.

It’s the big ‘ole cocktail party/fund-raiser for the Democratic City Committee. You know, that time of year when the stage overflows with hugging pols and “shouts out” to ward leader buddies who will be among the hundreds in attendance and no doubt occupied chowing down meatball subs.

Of course, the main attraction for the first time is likely to be mayor-in-waiting Michael Nutter, who is sure to receive a warm embrace from a former campaign rival, party chairman U.S. Rep. Bob Brady.

But that doesn’t mean the current mayor will be short on attention. Monday is, after all, John Street’s 64th birthday...

Bring on the party hats.

Michael Nutter's sure come a long way for a guy who couldn't lure a single elected official to his announcement last year that he was running for mayor. This morning he held a joint press conference with U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz on federal-municipal cooperation fighting crime. There weren't any major announcements. Actually, there weren't even any minor announcements. But we believe it was the first time Nutter appeared publicly with Casey & Schwartz, and the three seemed to be on the same page when it comes to crime and the federal role in preventing it (more money, please). It also gave Nutter the chance to say some nice things about Casey, Schwartz, and the rest of Philadelphia's Washington delegation (Arlen Specter, Chaka Fattah and Bob Brady).

"I would put them up against any delegation from any other city in the country," Nutter said. "This is a powerful group."