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."

No, this is not some crack about John Street. We're talking about Bob Levy, the missing mayor of Atlantic City. The subject's pretty far afield for Heard in the Hall, but the story's just too bizarre not to link to.

AFSCME District Council 33 - which represents the city's blue collar workers and is by far the largest municipal union - has just endorsed Michael Nutter for mayor. D.C. 33 heavily favored U.S. Rep. Bob Brady in the primary, but Nutter was an easy pick for the union over GOP nominee Al Taubenberger.

Nutter and D.C. 33 are all smiles today, but odds are there will be some tough days between the two when city workers' contracts expire next year and a new deal must be hammered out.

On Wednesday we got more menu labeling, bakers for trans fat, and a new entry: The Comptroller will scold the city over the food it feeds senior citizens.

First of all, we need to correct yesterday's entry on the trans fat issue. We told you how small bakeries in the city will testify Wednesday about how the city's trans fat ban is going to ruin their best recipes. We mentioned Szypula's bakery, and its proprietor, Connie Jesiolowska (incorrectly identified as a Szypula), and predictably misspelled their speciality, Chrusciki. Here's the note from Connie:

"The Chrusciki pictured are not Szypulas.Our Chrusciki (note the correct
spelling) are all hand rolled and cut. Our Chrusciki have a thin and
delicate texture that melts in your mouth. Connie Jesiolowska is the owner who retained the name Szypulas in honor of the original owners of the bakery so that customers from afar will
recognize the quality products we offer. Our specialties include authentic Polish rye bread, cheese babkas loaded with almost 50% cheese, and our Chrusciki."

We have already groveled for Connie's forgiveness.

But just when you thought that elected officials have had enough about governing our stomach's, Controller Alan Butkovitz will issue a report Wednesday that criticizes the way the city feeds old folks at Riverview, a city senior care facility. Can't wait to see what Butkovits has found.

Okay, so at-large Democratic City Council candidate Bill Green is not likely to lose the November election, but he is staking out his territory with position papers leading up to Nov. 6. Yesterday Green put out a treatise on "Zero-Based Budgeting," which challenges City government's practice of basing budgets on the previous year's spending plan. Green wants all departments to start from zero each year (or as often as possible) and justify every single program and expense. That is going to make some bureaucrats very unhappy. Can it work. We'll look into it.

City Council didn't vote on a proposed menu nutrition labeling at chain restaurants yesterday, but that doesn't mean they're done talking about food. See this post for a full preview.

Looks like the School District's forgotten $700,000 management audit will be released to the public this morning, thanks to the fine work of Inquirer staff writer Sue Snyder.

Gov. Rendell to anti-casino folks: get over it.

Speaking of anti-casino activists, Anne Dicker - one of the leading casino foes - has been doing extensive polling to suss out the weaknesses of indicted State Sen. Vince Fumo, who she plans to challenge in next spring's primary. It now looks like former city councilman Joseph Vignola is also considering a campaign against Fumo. Vignola has also served as the city's controller and as the executive director of PICA.

Mayoral nominee Michael Nutter's joint appearance with Sen. Bob Casey and Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz may not have produced any actual news, but it did give us a chance to take a look at the status of the federal COPS program, which would give the city more money to hire police officers.

Common Pleas Court Judges Willis W. Berry Jr. and Rayford A. Means are being investigated by the state Judicial Conduct Board for their real-estate dealings.

A Tennessee medical examiner has determined that the death of Omega Leach, the Philadelphia teen sent to a Tennessee treatment facility in that state by the Department of Human Services, was a homicide. Leach was strangled while being restrained by treatment facility employees.

And finally, you'll be relieved to hear Atlantic City's mayor has been found. It seems he spent the last couple weeks in a psychiatric facility.

Sen. Vincent J. Fumo said he needed cash, and now he's doing something about it.

The powerful South Philadelphia senator, whose federal corruption trial is slated to start in February, is following through on his comment of last June that he would probably have to sell his 27-room Art Museum mansion to cover his legal fees.

As of today, realtors are free to show the place, which is listed at nearly $7 million.
Not a bad return, considering Fumo and his then-wife purchased the Green Street home in 1994, for $175,000.

It's over 7,500 square feet, has a shooting range, a self-melting sidewalk, a front garden, a rear garden, a roof deck - and oh, a separate quarters for your servants.

Can't wait to see the takers on this one.

Vince Fumo's 27-room Art Museum mansion is on the block, and for just $7 million, it can be yours, complete with basement shooting range, brick oven, elevator, three kitchens, underground tunnel, servants' quarters and self-melting sidewalks. It's unclear if the sales price includes the 19 Oreck vacuum cleaners.

Family bakers rode to the rescue of trans fats in City Council yesterday, convincing a committee to endorse a bill that would exempt local bakeries from the city's trans fat ban, which is set to begin in January. The hearing seemed to pit "blue collar" neighborhood bakers against Center City croissant-making, butter-fat loving, pastry chef surrender monkeys. We kid, a little, but really that undercurrent was there.

City Council members don't exactly fall over themselves these days to be seen with Mayor Street, but eight of them joined him yesterday as he announced the release of $21 million to spruce up commercial corridors throughout the city. The money comes from a $150 million bond issue Street got council to authorize last year.

In the City Paper, Councilman Jim Kenney waved away rumors that Michael Nutter is considering him as a possible chief of staff. The City Paper also takes a look at the 8th Council District, where folks seem physically unable to settle on a single challenger to Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller.

The city's first openly gay Common Pleas Court judge will be sworn in today. School District officials finally got around to reading that $700,000 management report they commissioned, only to declare it largely unhelpful. City Controller Alan Butkovitz found some flaws in the way the city's elder-care facility is run. DHS is moving rather slowly to get Philadelphia children out of the Tennessee facility where a boy was strangled to death in a scuffle with facility workers.

Lastly, we overlooked Phil Goldmsith's column yesterday on Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell's Youth Studies Center "shakedown." It's worth a look.

At-large GOP City Council candidate David Oh was interviewed last night by Young Philly Politics. Apparently they talked for over an hour, which is easy to believe. In addition to knowing how to have a good time, David Oh can jaw it out with best of them.

Oh tells YPP that if does manage to pull off a victory in November's election (which itself would have to be considered at least a minor upset), he'll eventually run for Mayor.

What was left out of today's Inquirer story about bakers preserving the grand tradition of 100-year-old trans fats was how the testimony, and witnesses offering it up, served to underline the assets Philadelpha has that you will be hard-pressed to find in any other major city in this country. Where else are you going to get five different bakers who can boast at least three generations of family, going back at least 50 years, and making stuff that people are more than happy to kill themselves with?

Indeed, as the hearing went on, and bakers piled up their wares on a sample table in front of the Council members, the committee seemed to fall into a swoon, the substance of the hearing becoming less important than ending it and tearing into the trans-fat laden goodies. There was another table of non-transfat items -- our daring columnist Monica Yant Kinney will give us the results of her taste-test on Sunday!

Particularly controversial at the hearing was the notion of "tradition" among the bakeries.

Vince Termini's said his father came over from Sicily in 1921 with his original recipes. He said he tried to change to trans-fat free oils, and his Cannolis came out soaked in oil. The people he said, "Would like a nice cannoli, or a nice piece of cake." Talk to me, Vince!

But others ridiculed the thought that Papa Termini was cooking up cannolis in Siciliy with Crisco or some other trans-fat, because it wasn't widely used until the middle of the century.

Enraged reader, Marco Federico wrote: "This needs to be discussed. Cannolis originate in Sicily, from a time before Trans Fats ever existed. This crap about old family recipes is
total bull*#@$&!t. Transfats come from corporate food laboratories, not
any "old country". This is a fallacy that must be brought to light.
Look, its a matter of these bakers finding out what was used before
transfats hit the markets. It cheaper and they make a bigger profit
by using transfats. And at the expense of our health.
Its easy and convenient to appeal to hearts of romantics who say "
oh, our old world traditions are in danger". Please, Mr, Shields, I
beg you to consider this and research this matter further.

I did, a little. Scientist Paul Sabatier developed the hydogenization process in the 1890s, and Crisco first was available in 1911 (though grocers in Sciacca probably weren't selling it).

"You can be assured that bakeries in Sicily were certainly not using partially-hydrogenated oil in 1921," Michael Jacobson, executive director for the D.C.-based Center for Science in the Public Interest, testified yesterday.

What the transfats do is allow for greater shelf life and lighter texture, the bakers said.

In the end, it came down to letting the people pick their poison, though many cautioned that trans-fat is a bad bad thing to put in your body, like lead paint or nicotine. Councilman Brian O'Neill, who left the meeting early, said the ban on trans fat for bakers (which he originally voted for) had crossed the "fine line between educating the public and becoming the food police."

The cannoli cops lost yesterday, though baker Richard Haegele, who inherited Haegele's Bakery in Mayfair from his father in 1955, said he expected a suitable to substitute to arrive soon.

"It's not the same," he said. "There wlll be a day when they have that, it's just not here yet."

It seems Democrat mayoral nominee Michael Nutter spent some time across the river this morning.

He was in the front row, to be exact, at Gov. Corzine's news conference to unveil the third and final plank of his statewide anti-crime initiative.

Nutter, who himself has proposed creating tax incentives for Philadelphia employers to hire ex-convicts, told Inquirer reporter Maria Panaritis that Corzine is "right on point" in putting forth a $3 million package focusing on helping prisoners find jobs and stay out of prison.

Nutter was there as an invitee of the governor, who for his part took the podium and pointed out a "special guest" - Nutter - "who is about to be the mayor of Philadelphia."

Corzine added that issues such as prisoner reentry policies don't recognize rivers and bridges.

The Street Administration has just approved 178 promotions in the Police Department. It's a big number, and given that Mayor Street is on his way out, some find the timing fishy.

But with the exception of five new captains, most of the officers moving into new pay grades are relatively low-ranking: sergeants, lieutenants and detectives. According to both the Street Administration and the Fraternal Order of Police, there's a massive need for patrol supervisors, and that's what a lot of these newly promoted officers will become. City Councilman Frank Rizzo - a guy with a real interest in the police departments - also thinks the promotions seem reasonable.

Still, mayoral nominee Michael Nutter wishes the Street administration had held off the next mayor takes office.

"We need lieutenants and seargants," Nutter said. "At the same time, I don't know that the upper level promotions are completely necessary."

State Sen. Vince Fumo - indicted on federal corruption charges, but seemingly cheery - had an audience, so why not?

"I'm selling a house, if you want to buy one!" he announced about an hour ago before a crowd of over 200 VIPs crammed into a sixth-floor courtroom to attend the ceremonial swearing-in of new Common Pleas Court Judge Dan Anders.

You may have read about Anders on the Inquirer's front-page today. You know, Philadelphia's first openly gay male judge. "Off the bench, Anders appears to be your typical Macho Guy," wrote reporter Gail Shister in her breezy profile, "aside from his fondness for Wonder Woman."

Well, Wonder Woman or Superman, this guy has a lot friends. And, it seems, a future.

Anders got to be a judge because Gov. Rendell nominated him to fill a vacancy. But if he wants to keep the job, he'll have to win an election in 2009.

A little bit ago, he got a big boost toward doing so when Democratic City Committee chairman Bob Brady took the podium and gestured toward the back of the room to his GOP comrade, MIchael Meehan, and said the two would go have "a sidebar" right then to make a deal to keep Anders on the bench.

But back to Fumo.

In retelling how he met Anders, the senator said it was through Mark Segal, the Philadelphia Gay News publisher who Fumo bailed out when he came up short tens of thousands of dollars for the 2005 Elton John concert. Segal was one of the organizers.

"I still remember the debt from the Elton John concert," a smiling Fumo told Segal from the podium. "It's one of the few things not mentioned in the indictment."

A poll out today says that presidential candidate/motormouth Sen. Joseph Biden would lose the Democratic presidential primary in his home state of Delaware.

The Fairleigh Dickinson University Public Mind Poll finds that 57 percent of our neighbor's voters have a favorable view of Biden - as a senator.

A plurality of Democrats say he he would not be a good president, and, more important, all but a statistically insignifcant few think there is no way he can win. Strategic voting is all the rage in primaries, as partisans calibrate the competing demands of their hearts and their heads. Like horse bettors, most primary voters are looking ahead to the general election and want to pick somebody who looks like a winner.

Only 19 percent of First State Democrats say that Biden is their first choice for the presidential nomination, while 41 percent back the national frontrunner, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. Seventeen percent favor Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, putting him in a statistical tie with the homestate guy.

Only 4 percent believe there is an "excellent" chance of Biden becoming the Democratic nominee, while 50 percent rate his chances of success as "poor." A third of Democrats, however, say that Biden has an excellent chance of being the party's vice-presidential nominee.

Fifty-four percent of Delaware Democrats think Biden would make a good president.

“"Any candidate, especially one trying to move up from the second tier, needs to be able to count on the support of their home state, especially if it has an early primary,” said Dan Cassino, a politics professor at FDU and analyst with the PublicMind poll. “People approve of Biden, but many of his potential supporters in Delaware seem convinced that he can’t win, and that’s hurting him.”

Delaware has a Feb. 5 primary scheduled on the so-called Tsunami Tuesday when dozens of states will hold nominating contests.

Without a favored son in the race for the Republican nomination, Delaware mirrors trends in other mid-Atlantic states. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has the support of 37 percent of Republicans, with Fred Thomson (13 percent), John McCain (14 percent), and Mitt Romney (10 percent) all in a distant statistical tie for second. Twenty-one percent of Republicans remain undecided.

Results are based on telephone polls with 700 registered Delaware voters and smaller samples of self-indentified Democrats and Republicans from the state. The margin of error for the overall sample is plus-or-minus 4 percentage points. Results for the Democratic sample are subject to an error margin of plus-or-minus 5 percentage points, and Republican findings are subject to a margin of plus-or-minus 6 percentage points.

Apologies for the late posting, we had some technical problems this a.m.

City Council is shooting down Mayor Street's plan to transfer an additional $34 million to the Department of Human Services. Councilman Jim Kenney summarizes the objections: "It's such a large number, at this point in the administration it doesn't make any sense." A good chunk of the $34 million would have been funneled through DHS to Safe & Sound, a favored Street non-profit that focuses on youth-violence prevention.

The Street Administration raised at least a few eyebrows around town with a batch of recent police promotions as well, but it actually looks as though the promotions are pretty routine.

Elsewhere: Clout takes a look at how U.S. Rep. Bob Brady is building a D.C. empire on sfogliatella. A group of community groups known as the Multi-Community Alliance is opposing the city's plan to temporarily move the Youth Studies Center to the old Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute. And Dan U-A, founder of Young Philly Politics and the son of former 8th District Council candidate Irv Ackelsberg, looks back at the May primary and the district's compulsion to nominate 22 candidates to run each election against Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller. He has some gentle criticism for the media in general and the Inquirer in particular, wishing that the press had paid more attention to council races. We wish there were more of us so that we could.

Young Philly Politics continues to go after Councilman Darrell Clarke for allegedly getting his primary opponent's empty-lot cleanup contract cancelled. They've got photos...

Remember when National Geographic was calling Philadelphia the Next Great City? It was just two years ago. National press coverage of Philadelphia has a different cast these days. Witness Anderson Cooper's account of crime and guns in Philadelphia last night. Or this ABC news report over the summer that covered a lot of the same territory.

Would a Mayor Nutter have Chief of Staff Jim Kenney as his right-hand man?

No chance, Councilman Kenney says, shooting down a rumor that was first publicly floated in a City Paper article the other day.

“If he asked me I’d be flattered, but I’m not interested,” Kenney said. “It’s too much work. It's like being mayor."

Kenney and Nutter worked well together as council members, and they are often of similar minds when it comes to policy. But Kenney thinks he can accomplish just as much — and put in a few less hours at the office — by staying on Council.

“I’m going to be loyal oarsman for the next administration,” he said. “People expect council and the mayor to be on the same page. For a lot of reasons that hasn’t happened, but we have a new chance to get our act together.”

Nutter of course isn’t yet saying who he will ask to serve in his adminstration. It's premature, there's an election in November, so forth and so on.

Democractic mayoral nominee has three "Town Hall" appearances on tap this month. The ever-careful-not-to-sound-presumptuous Team Nutter characterizes them as campaign stops, but Al Taubenberger won't be in the room.

October 17th – YMCA – 1724 Christian Street – 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
October 20th – Boys and Girls club – 1709 Kinsey Street – 2 pm – 4 pm
October 25th – 5120 Chestnut Street – YMCA - 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

There was a significant Philadelphia event that took place in Delaware County last week. It got great photos in the Inquirer and Daily News, but we're here to let you read more about the illustrious Octavius V. Catto. In short, Catto was a renaissance man of Civil War-era Philadelphia, a giant in the struggle for African-American advancement. He was assassinated by a white gunman on Election Day, Oct. 10, 1871.

Catto enthusiasts, who are raising money to build a monument at City Hall, marked the 136th anniversary of his death by dedicating a grave marker to the previously unsigned grave he shares with an undetermined number of people at Garden of Eden Cemetery in Collingdale.

City Council picks up the pace this week with five hearings on everything from plugging cell phone camera users into the 911 system to defining domestic partners as family for real estate programs, to offering businesses financial incentives for hiring ex-offenders.

Councilman Dan Savage kicks it off Tuesday at 1 p.m. with a hearing looking at improvements made, and those still needed, at the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections. Some have grumbled that the hearings will cover familiar ground, but Savage feels otherwise.

On Wednesday the Committee on Public Safety looks at Councilwoman's Donna Reed Miller's proposal to see if the city can afford to receive digital photos and video to its 911 system. New York is planning something similar, according to the bill. At the same hearing, Councilman Jack Kelly will push his bill to equip firefighters with hearing protection.

The Committee on Finance on Thursday will look at Michael Nutter's initiative, proposed by Councilman W. Wilson Goode Jr., to encourage businesses to hire ex-offenders by offering tax breaks and other incentives. The committee will also look at whether domestic partners (this is not limited to gay couples), should be considered for the same exemption from real estate transfer taxes that traditional family members are.

Find the full council calendar here.

When you have a mayoral election that appears as non-competitive as this one, it's tough not to look past it and imagine what a Nutter Administration might look like. The Daily News takes a look at Nutter-ally Terry Gillen, a fascinating character who seems likely to play a major role of some sort in a Nutter administration. In the print edition of Heard in the Hall, we address the likelihood (slim-to-none) that City Councilman Jim Kenney could be Nutter's chief of staff, and we explore the possibility that GOP City Council candidate David Oh is courting John Dougherty.

Over the weekend, Inquirer columnists dealt with weighty civic matters like taxes, the city budget, and oily cannoli.

The Democratic City Committee's annual cocktail-party fund-raiser is this evening. We'll fill you in on who was there and what was said tomorrow.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments this morning regarding the legality of the city's campaign finance law - almost 18 months since that question was first raised.

These days, with a mayor's race that is not much of a contested election, there has been little brouhaha over the law, which created the first-ever donor limits in Philadelphia elections.

Among other issues is the central matter of whether the city, under the state's election code, has the authority to regulate campaign contributions. State law is silent on the matter, which has left some people (the city itself as well as Democratic mayoral nominee Michael Nutter) arguing that the city is perfectly in its right to do so. Others (former mayoral candidate U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah and labor leader John Dougherty) believe the city ordinance is unconstitutional.

This is an oversimplification of things, but one trial court ruled last year that the law was invalid, while another trial court said it wasn't. Then a Commonwealth Court in April declared it legal. Now it's the turn of the state's highest court.

No decision, of course, is immediately expected.

The state’s high court moved quickly this morning to strip away all but one central question over whether the city of Philadelphia has the legal right to cap campaign donations for municipal candidates.

That question is this: Since Pennsylvania’s election law does not explicitly address the matter one way or the other, can Philadelphia do what it likes, or not?

“The call for us is whether non-action is action,” as Chief Justice Ralph J. Cappy put it.

Hearing cases today in Philadelphia, in an ornate City Hall courtroom, the seven justices listened to opposing arguments about the answer to that question, and asked several of their own, for about 30 minutes.

What wasn’t discussed is why U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, who lost in the primary race for mayor, is pressing forward with the case. Afterall, Democratic nominee Michael Nutter undoubtedly showed that significant dollars can be raised, even with the campaign-finance caps.

The justices likely to cast votes at the end of the day, although that decision, and the accompanying written opinion, will probably not be made public for several weeks.

With the November general election less than a month away, however the case is settled almost certainly will not affect fundraising for either of the mayoral candidates, among the others running for municipal office.

Commonwealth Court ruled in April that the city has the authority to set its own campaign-finance rules.

The case stems from a suit filed nearly 18 months ago by Nutter.

He subsequently withdrew his complaint. But the case was kept alive because of counterclaims filed by labor leader John. J. Dougherty, who was then considering a run for the office.

Tonight, dozens and dozens of them were stuck in the grass divider at Columbus Boulevard and also across the fences and walls not very far away. They were blue and red and green and yellow. They were square and rectangular, sort-of-large and extraordinary large.

CAMPAIGN SIGNS! FINALLY!

Yes, Election Day is three weeks away - and here at long last in this lackluster campaign season was indisputable evidence.

The occasion: The Democratic City Committee's pre-election day fundraiser, held at the cavernous Sheet Metal Workers Hall.

"There are too many people who think this election is done. It is not done!" shouted party chairman Bob Brady, squashed on the dais by the dozens of candidates - for judge, City Council, statewide jobs - that he had just called up to join him.

And then he announced the main attraction: "The next mayor of Philadelphia - Mayor. Michael. Nutter!"

And Nutter for the first time had before him an audience he never quite had before. "It's party time! It's party time! It's Democratic Party time!... Bob Brady is absolutely right. This election is not over," he continued, repeating that 22 - "22! 22!" - days remain.

But so much for the pomp and circumstance. On to two of the more memorable happenings of the night.

The first was the appearance of Tom Knox who Brady, in his good-natured way, made a point of inviting up to the dais. (Knox has said he is interested in running for governor or a U.S. Senate seat, and tonight he sought to affirm that. "I'm going to do something," he said.)

So along with Nutter, there on a shared stage stood three of the five candidates who ran in the May primary - Brady and Knox (the former archenemies) and Nutter.

Brady referred to it as something about "showing Democratic unity."

The second intriguing episode happened a short time after. As Nutter exited the stage and worked the crowd, he stopped at a certain table to take a photo.

It was with state Rep. Frank Oliver, the party treasurer, and Councilwoman Carol Campbell, the party secretary who last year denounced Nutter for "sticking a knife in my back."

Campbell's likely successor - she lost her seat in the primary - had a word for that picture. "It's an oxymoron," said Curtis Jones. "An oxymoron."

Another city-state standoff yesterday with big implications, this one in the State Supreme Court where the issue in question was the city's ability to create its own campaign finance laws. As Heard in the Hall's Marcia Gelbart succinctly puts it, the central question is: "Because Pennsylvania's election law does not explicitly address the matter, can Philadelphia do what it likes?" Remember, this is the case U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah and union leader John Dougherty kept alive following the May mayoral primary. Read all about it in the Inquirer. The Daily News' take is here. Councilman Wilson Goode Jr. also weighs in on the proceedings over at Young Philly Politics.

Also yesterday, Republican mayoral nominee Al Taubenberger went on the offensive against Michael Nutter for perhaps the first time in the campaign. Taubenberger took issue with Nutter's position on full-value property reassessment (Nutter is for it, Taubenberger against), and went so far as to call a press conference and send a public letter to Nutter's office saying as much. Why Taubenberger picked reassessment isn't exactly clear, especially since he's endorsed it himself in the past. DN's take is here.

Don't worry, your favorite mayoral couple appeared to have patched things up by last night, appearing at a pair of forums and getting along as well as ever. Daily News piece is here.

Brett Mandel of Philadelphia Forward effectively makes the point today that the city's property assessment system is an unjust mess by taking a look at the paltry property tax bill on Vince Fumo's $7 million Art Museum manse.

If the Board of Revision of Taxes were following current law, the annual tax bill for this home should be roughly $185,113 per year.

That number is calculated by following the law and taking the home's Market Value -- defined by the BRT as "The most probable price (in terms of money) which a property should bring in a competitive and open market under all conditions requisite to a fair sale, the buyer and seller each acting prudently and knowledgeably, and assuming the price is not affected by undue stimulus" -- and applying our 8.264% tax rate to 32% of that Market Value. The equation would look like this:
$7 million x .32 x .08264 = $185,113

Instead, the BRT lists the mansion's Market Value as $250,000 (the same value for the last five years despite the fact that home values were doubling during this time) and the tax bill for the mansion is currently $6,611. The equation looks like this:
$250,000 x .32 x .08264 = $6,611

Mandel and Philadelphia Forward are calling for a citywide reassessment of properties to ensure property owners are paying taxes linked to the actual value of their homes and businesses. They also want to see a shift to a "full-value" taxation system. For more on this complicated but critical subject, visit Philadelphia Forward's reassessment page. And yes, this is the same thing Michael Nutter and Al Taubenberger were arguing about yesterday.

Before 2007, while Philadelphia plotted to relocate its Youth Study Center to make way for the Barnes Foundation's exquisite art collection, Montgomery County commissioners were blissfully uninvolved in the fight to block the Barnes from moving out of Merion and onto the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Until this year, that is, when an election and/or epiphany convinced them that keeping Dr. Albert C. Barnes' collection in the county meant the world to them. The whole Board of Commissioners -- Republicans Tom Ellis and Jim Matthews and Democrat Ruth Damsker -- jumped behind the Friends of the Barnes' last-ditch attempt to stop the move. They have convinced the Montgomery County Orphans Court to hear their petition, despite assurances from the Barnes Foundation board that they are determined to move to Philadelphia and have chosen an architect for their new museum.

Now, Friends of the Barnes are smartly taking it a step further, asking each commission candidate to outline their position in the Barnes as we head toward the election. In the state's third largest county, which Democrats are trying to win for the first time in 140 years, silence on won't be an option when there are boatloads of votes to be had in Lower Merion Township.

In a press release Tuesday, Friends of the Barnes asks Republican Jim Matthews and Bruce Castor Jr., and Democrats Ruth Damsker and Joe Hoeffel, the following:

With last night's not-so-ferociuos YouTube mayoral debate behind him, Michael Nutter popped up in Harrisburg a few hours ago, striding into the newsroom where state Capitol reporters work.

He apparently spent the morning meeting with various legislative leaders, doing what Mayor Street has been criticized for not doing. And he is apparently spending the evening hours raising campaign money - surprise! - at a fancy Harrisburg wine bar named the Red Door.

He was upbeat, Terry Gillen was with him, and he was looking very mayoral, reports Inquirer Harrisburg reporter Angela Couloumbis.

And in case anyone wasn't certain who he was, he also left behind some business cards: "Michael A. Nutter. Candidate for Mayor."

Yesterday's item in the Heard in the Hall print version, discussing David Oh's take on the power structure in Philadelphia politicis, didn't sit well with the at-large Republican City Council candidate, who wrote us to say he didn't really say what Young Philly Politics blog said he said. Tom Fitzgerald's original item read as follows:

With likely-mayor Michael Nutter and his good-government ethics about to sweep into City Hall, City Council is reaching out for part of the action.

A four-bill package - on lobbyist regulation, nepotism prohibitions, outside employment restrictions and a gift ban - has just been scheduled for a Nov. 13 hearing before Council's Law and Government Committee.

That news comes courtesy of Shane Creamer, executive director of the Philadelphia Board of Ethics, which was asked to testify.

Just a few hours earlier, in the board's monthly meeting, board chairman Richard Glazer was wondering if those bills, introduced by Councilman Frank Rizzo, would get a hearing before the year's end.

It's as if someone was listening.

The Daily News takes a look at a pair of possibly competitive City Council races in the 8th and 10th districts, where longtime incumbents Donna Reed Miller and Brian O'Neill face legitimate challengers. Most district council members will have an opponent in November's election, but with the exception of the 8th and the 10th the challenges are merely token.

Miller might set a record for most challengers-dispatched if she survives (as still seems likely) this round's three-headed challenge. She narrowly defeated three challengers in the primary, and she's routinely faced multi-candidate fields since taking office. The number of candidates willing to run against Miller speaks to some significant dissatisfaction in her leadership, but it plays into her hands as they split the "anti-Donna" vote. Her base sticks with her through thick and thin, and the three less-than-well-funded minor party candidates going after her this time will have virtually no chance to beat her unless they can set aside their differences and settle on a single challnger.

Republican Brian O'Neill has a different problem. He represents a district that's trending Democrat at a time when Republicans nationally aren't getting much love. The Daily News reports that O'Neill will outspend challenger Sean McAleer by more than 2-1, which suggests he's worried.

Other critical reading: Inga Saffron's report from yesterday's Planning Commission meeting. Members got their first look at the PennPraxis waterfront development plan, and they seemed underwhelmed. It's this whole revolutionary "street grid" concept that's catching the most flak. PlanPhilly also has an account.

Elsewhere, Democratic at-large City Council candidate Bill Green does a Q&A with Young Philly Politics, in why he proclaims: "Bikers are my core demographic." ... Pity the indicted State Senator trying to unload a Florida vacation house in a tough market. ... Metro takes a quick look at the low property tax bill on Fumo's Art Museum manse, which is listed here ...

The Pennsylvania Assembly has apparently caught Roberto Clemente fever, asking Major League Baseball to retire the uniform number of the Puerto Rican native, Latino icon, and all around great guy from all of baseball. Just remember: City Councilman Juan Ramos got there first, getting a resolution passed on the same subject earlier this month.

So exactly how unnoticed and underplayed are the current campaigns being waged for an election that is three weeks away?

Consider that, to date, just 1,294 absentee ballot requests have been received, says the city's election board.

It's a number that, when he heard it today, made City Commissioner Edgar Howard shake his head.

In 2003, when Sam Katz challenged Mayor Street, unsuccessfully and for the second time, more than 10,000 people had sought out absentee ballots.

How's that comparison for an indicator of voter turnout Nov. 6?

Under Editor Larry Platt, Philadelphia Magazine has been notable for its thoughtful coverage of politics. Now Platt might put down the (figurative) red pencil and join the fray.

Platt confirmed that he is considering running for Congress as a Democrat in the suburban 6th District, now represented by U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.). He said he has met with U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, the Democratic chairman of Philadelphia, and Montgomery County Democratic Chairman Marcel Groen to discuss the possibility.

"As journalists we wring our hands and point out problems, but at a certain point you say to yourself, 'What are you going to do about it?'" said Platt, an Ardmore resident.

"It’s hard for me to stay on the sidelines, when my congressman is enabling the war in Iraq and some of the biggest deficits ever," Platt said. "Someone's got to hold these guys accountable, so it might as well be a constituent."

Gerlach, currently serving his third term in the House, has been on the Democrats' list of vulnerable Republican incumbents almost since he was elected in the swing district in 2002. He defeated Lois Murphy in 2004 and last year, in some of the most expensive congressional races in the country. Democrats have been searching for someone to saddle up again.

Platt said he's doing his "due diligence," talking to people whose political acumen he respects and has not made any decisions. (He also has not yet consulted with the DCCC, the Democratic Party's national congressional committee, which recruits and helps finance promising candidates.)

Hat tip to PoliticsPA, which first reported Platt's interest here http://www.politicspa.com.

Maybe you thought it would not happen at all.
But truth be told, the first TV debate between Mike and Al has been scheduled - and it will occur this Saturday, on CBS 3, at 7:30 p.m.
So think about trading in those reservations at El Vez, Alma De Cuba and the Prime Rib for Chinese takeout.
I mean, really, who would want to miss this?

To read more on the debate:

Philadelphia firefighters would be outfitted with $500,000 worth of equipment to prevent hearing loss under a bill approved by a City Council committee Wednesday.

Lt. Brian McBride, president of the International Association of Firefighters Local 22, said testing has confirmed that more than half of the city’s firefighters have suffered “measurable hearing loss” during their careers. Hearing hazards include sirens, air horns, truck engines, and power tools, McBride testified before the council’s Public safety Commtitee yesterday.

McBride said it would cost about $500,000 to equip fire trucks with protective headphones, replacing the cheap foam earplugs that are difficult to remove when going into a fire in full equipment and prone to melting. Firefighters don’t use ear protection inside a burning building, where they need to listen for trapped victims and communicate with eachother.

The bill, sponsored by Councilman Jack Kelly, could be approved by the full council within two weeks. The Street admistration wants to vet the technology in conjunction with the firefighters' union, managing director Loree Jones said last night.

The $800 million Cira Centre South project in University City, held out as a link between Center City and West Philadelphia,
won approvel from a City Council Committee Wednesday and could be cleared for development by the end of the month.

Developer Jerry Sweeney’s “city within a city” was unanimously voted out of the council’s Rules Commttee with the zoning he needs to build offices, a hotel and 75 condos in a series of buildings fronting the Schuylkill and backing up west on Chestnut and Walnut streets.
The project would be a bookend to the original Cira Centre to the north (at the far right of the illustration above). The legislation was to be introduced in full council today and voted on next week.

Hardened inmates at Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution cowered in fear Monday when a City Council meeting nearly broke out in the visiting area.

Councilmen Frank DiCicco and Jim Kenney went to Fort Dix (actually a minimum-security facility), to visit their convicted former council colleague, Rick Mariano (pictured in Michael T. Regan's great photo for City Paper last year), for the first time since Mariano started serving a 6.5 year corruption sentence in August 2006.

Kenney said Mariano had reached out to DiCicco,
a former friend whom he broke with as part of the Vince Fumo-John Dougherty wars -- DiCicco a loyal Fumocrat, Mariano a former union electrician loyal to Dougherty, head of the electrician's union. The intermediary: Kathleen Fitzpatrick, a DiCicco friend who lost to Mariano in the 2003 Democratic primary for Mariano's district council seat.

"He looks better than expected," said Kenney, who said DiCicco asked him to tag along. Kenney, who said his rift with Mariano had become much deeper than the DiCicco-Mariano split, said he was glad he went, even though "it's not a nice situation."

"He's not a whiner," Kenney said. "He's like: 'I did this, and I'll pay for it.' He'll get through it."

DiCicco added that he met a few guys in there who recognized him and said hello. They all said they were wrongly convicted, DiCicco observed. "Out of 3 or 4 guys, Ricky was the only guilty one," DiCicco said.

Although one of the charges that Fumo faces in his own indictment is misappropriating funds to gather dirt on Mariano to use against him politically, Kenney said neither politics nor business was the purpose of the visit. They talked about their children and family mostly, he said.
Meanwhile, Kenney said, Mariano has gone back to his old job in prison. He's an electrician.

An animated Michael Nutter held forth at a South Philadelphia town hall tonight, swinging back-and-forth between his familiar wonkish riffs on taxes and a rhetorical style that can only be likened to that of an African American minister or some sort of populist rabble-rouser.
He was working the cadence, the repetition, the call-and-response, the whole thing.

Judging by the reaction of the crowd, Nutter pulled it off. He was emphatic, he was passionate, he was ... distinctly mayoral. The event was held in a cavernous YMCA gym, which helped lend a church hall feel to the meeting, but it made for terrible recording acoustics. We have some fuzzy audio which we'll try to clean up and bring to you tomorrow, but for now, take a look at some of what he said.

On Philly's Dirty Streets & Looking Out For Each Other
When we were younger we didn't need a law, we didn't need a bill, we didn't need a resolution, we didn't need a government to tell us: come outside and sweep your steps, wash down your sidewalk and make your neighborhoods clean. We didn't need anybody to tell us that because we cared. About where we lived and who we were and what we were about. We need to bring that back, a sense of community pride, a sense of ownership, a sense of caring about each other. We are our brothers and sisters keepers. We ARE our brothers and sisters keepers. And we need to pay more attention to what goes on next door and down the street. Now I understand from time to time you might see a kid doing something wrong and you say, 'well I don't want to say anything to the kid because they might say something back to me.' Say something. Say something. Show that you care. They're looking for direction and they need your help.

On Voting For Change
We're sick and tired of what's been going on. We're sick and tired of corruption in our own City Hall. We're sick and tired of indictments coming down like raindrops, here in the city. We're sick and tired of being sick and tired. And that's what happened, and that's what that election was all about. Well let's finish what we started in the primaries, because there is an election on Nov. 6. ... Because if you want change in the city, you got to come out and vote for it, ain't nobody giving up nothing for free. Bring a friend, bring a neighbor, bring a family member, bring somebody you don't even like...

What I need to know is... are you ready? Are you ready for change? Are you ready for change in this city? Have you had enough of what's going on? Do you want to get a job opputunity up in here? Do you want to make a safe neighborhood? Do you want to create economic opportunity?

On Supreme Court Elections
They only handle the big cases. You know, things like whether there should be a school takeover or not. Who should be in charge of the Parking Authority. Who's going to run the Convention Center. Or whether or not we should have gaming in this city. All decdied by the Pennsylvania Supreme Sourt. Some folks think that we're not going to show up to vote, and they can just go and grab two Supreme Court seats and three Superior Court seats, and let them have the mayors race and we'll run the city and the state by holding the court system. ... I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so.

Note: file photo from election night.

If you haven't already, check out this posting from yesterday afternoon, in which coucilmembers Jim Kenney and Frank DiCicco stop by Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institute to visit their old pal and colleague Rick Mariano. Heard in the Hall also takes you to Michael Nutter's first town hall meeting. Mr. Mayor the presumptive mayoral favorite, was in fine oratorial form. It was DiCicco, incidentally, who called Nutter "Mr. Mayor" at the meeting. Nobody blinked when he did so.

Nutter will also be at today's City Council session, testifying in favor of Wilson Goode Jr.'s bill encouraging city businesses to hire ex-cons.

In the Inquirer today, we learn that the Fairmount Park Commission is jacking up the Boy Scouts rent from $1 to $200,000. That's one heck of an increase, and it's tied of course to the organization's refusal to admit gay scouts. The city is also getting tough with one of its own judges, Rayford A. Means, who owns some dilipidated South Philadelphia properties. Over at Great Expectations they're getting ready for a heavy discussion on poverty. The Daily News reports from the Ethics Board, which has imposed some tighter political restrictions on city boards like the Planning Commission.

Finally, great news from Harrisburg for those who like to see the public's business kept private: a new open records bill was just riddled with holes by a House committee.

Ok, you can't miss this. U.S. Senator Arlen Specter has a stand-up comedy routine, and I'm afraid to say that he gets a little raunchy in it. A sample joke, the target is his friend Bob Dole.

I called him last july 22nd on his 84th birthday and I said, 'Bob, congratualtions how do you feel?'

And he said, 'Arlen I feel like a teenager. But the problem is I can't find one.'

And he said, 'I just came down for breakfast and I said to elizabeth I just shaved and I feel 10 years younger. And Elizabeth frowned and said, 'why didn't you shave last night?'

Here's another one. He's talking about Moses and the 10 Commandments.

"For example when he came down from Mt. Sinai, he said there's good news and bad news. We got the number down to 10, but adultery is still there."

Lord preserve us. You can watch it yourself on Philly.com here.

Meet campaign aide Jamie Fleet, 28.
His old boss was Jonathan Saidel, the former City Controller who was going to run for mayor until U.S. Rep. Bob Brady got into the race, squeezing Saidel out. Fleet, without a missing a beat, left the Saidel campaign for the Brady one.

Meet spokeswoman Kate Philips, 33.
Her old boss was Gov. Rendell, who last February kindly granted her a leave from Harrisburg so she could handle reporter inquiries for the Brady campaign.
Now meet Jamie Fleet and Kate Philips - a couple soon to be wed.

Philips spilled the beans earlier today, showing reporters (including the Inquirer's Harrisburg-based Angela Couloumbis) the ring that Fleet gave her last night after dinner at Le Bec Fin.
Philips noted that Brady took credit for getting the pair together.
She also said that Brady called their match the only good thing to come of his mayoral campaign.

Friend to the animals Councilman Jack Kelly wants you to know he's not just fighting for the rights of ducks while serving on Philadelphia's august representative assembly. He's fighting for dogs as well. Metropolis points out that Kelly's got a billboard on I-95 in the lower northeast with the following slogan: "Jack Kelly. Fighting for everyone. Two legged. And four-legged." He's got a canine in his arms.

Still awaiting Kelly position papers on health care (for humans, we mean), gun violence and the city's crumbling infrastructure.

Update: Kelly knows multi-media. More animal boosterism below.

Businesses that sell spraypaint and etching materials, already prohibited from selling to minors, would not be able to ring up the items on a register without scanning a driver’s license or entering a birthdate, under a new bill before City Council.
Councilman Darrell Clarke doesn’t want to stop there — he introduced another bill Thursday requiring the same for alcohol and tobacco sales, though the state Legislature would have final say on those state-regulated products.
Clarke is unsure whether a scanner can be set up to scan only a person’s birthdate from the magnetic strip on their driver’s license or other official identification. Taking more information from someone's ID to buy a commercial product would likely raise a host of privacy issues.
But even if employees were forced only to manually enter a birthdate, it may have the effect of encouraging them to check IDs, which Clarke said is not happening and the city bears the graffiti stains to prove it.

With the 10,000 Men March brewing for Sunday to keep the peace in Philadelphia, the Inquirer's Andy Maykuth reports shocking news: the 2007 homicide rate has now fallen behind last year. This should please Mayor Street because he's been insisting that the focus on the numbers has been obsessive and misplaced, and he often points out that the city's homicide numbers are still lower than their peak in the 1990s.

Speaking of the mayor, the contrast in attitudes toward the current and future mayor was nearly comical in City Council yesterday, where Council members threatened to sue Street while later welcoming Nutter to council to testify on his ex-offenders bill. Note to Nutter: Such nice-nice treatment in Council Chambers will end the day you're sworn in. The Daily News focused on Darrell Clarke's war on graffiti.

Lest we stray too far from politics, an Inquirer front-page story Friday shows that 70 percent of the money going into presidential races from the Philadelphia area is going to Democrats, with Sen. Hillary Clinton leading the pack. While the Republican suburbs have been drifting Democratic and often voting that way, there is still a lot of GOP cash to be had on the Main Line and beyond.

Never let it be said that Vern Anastasio shies away from a fight. The South Philly Democrat, fresh off a brutal May defeat at the hands of Councilman Frank DiCicco, appears to be contemplating a challenge against none other than Congressman Bob Brady.
We haven't yet spoken to Anastasio, but he's emailing supporters to let them know he's considering it.

Update: Brady didn't talk to us directly, but here's what he told press secretary Karen Warrington: "The congressman says, 'let him run, the more the merrier, join the party.'" Still no word from Anastasio.

------------------------------

CONFIDENTIAL. DO NOT FORWARD.
October 19, 2007

Hello Friends:

First, I want to thank you, again, for joining Leslie and I in last Spring's primary. As an official member of GFOV (Good Friends of Vern) you helped us do about as well or better than any challenger against any elected incumbent in City Council. We sure did have fun.

I have some exciting news. I wanted to let you know that a small group of supporters and I are exploring an exciting opportunity -- getting involved with next Spring's Democratic primary for the 1st Congressional District seat in Pennsylvania.

We're now exploring this opportunity as we gauge what it might take to stand for such an important post.

Why would I run?

(rest after the jump...)

Accused sidewalk-stealer Samir Benakmoume has agreed to return the walkway in front of his 1352 Lofts on South Street to the minimum 5 feet, according to Councilman Frank DiCicco's office. Benakmoume's company, Rimas Properties, has been negotiating with the city to return the sidewalk to its proper width after contractors mistakenly built out a deck and handicapped ramp a bit too far. Inquirer architecture columnist Inga Saffron was all over it on her Changing Skyline blog.

DiCicco introduced a bill yesterday to allow the construction to proceed. His chief of staff, Brian Abernathy, said Rimas has already begun to clear the sidewalk in front of one shop, and will move on to the others in the coming weeks. Abernathy said Benakmoume is generally a responsible developer, calling this episode an unfortunate mistake.

You just knew that as soon as the SugarHouse and Foxwoods casinos paid up their $50 million licensing fees, which they did on Wednesday, the political pressure to build them would follow suit. Foxwoods said it has to pay $400,000 a month debt service on the license.
Sure enough, Mayor John Street wrote a letter to council the next day asking them to stop delaying approve the zoning and land-use legislation necessary for the two plans, and let the tax dollars start flowing.

Councilman Frank DiCicco, whose district includes Foxwoods in South Philadelphia and SugarHouse in Fishtown/Northern Liberties, told the mayor that he still lacked answers on economic impact, traffic, and whether the projects could secure waterfront land rights. (The computer rendering of Foxwoods along the Delaware River above won't look the same without those rights) Read DiCicco's response here.

Thousands of men answered Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson's call for 10,000 volunteers to patrol the cities streets in an effort that's either inspirational or misguided, depending on your point of view. The legions who showed were a little short of 10,000, but it was a huge crowd nonetheless. However you feel about the campaign, it sounded like a moving scene in the Liacouras Center Sunday. The Daily News take here.

The first televised mayoral debate aired this weekend. You'll be shocked, shocked to learn that it was issue-driven and featured little actual "debate." Story here. At this point, it's much more interesting to watch the ways in which Michael Nutter is preparing himself to be mayor, and to look at how folks are reacting to him as he grows into the role.

Also, we have the print edition of Heard in the Hall for you. The Daily News reports on the Parking Authority's growth. John Carter, former head of the Seaport Museum, admits he did the museum wrong, then dishes dirt on who else hurt the institution.

This clip really speaks for itself. From Saturday's televised debate.

Hat tip Philadelphia Will Do.

Councilwoman Carol Ann Campbell has been a legislative whirlwind when it comes to children, the elderly and the handicapped. Even grizzled City Hall veterans have been impressed; she’s banned dogs from tot lots, pursued mandatory programs for autistic children, and challenged the way SEPTA and the public school system accommodates the disabled. As we speak on Monday, she's already had three hours worth of hearings on disabled issues and will go another few this afternoon.

In November, voters will have a chance to approve or reject two Campbell-sponsored initiatives — one to create an Office of the Handicapped and Disabled Advocate; the other to create an Office of Public School Family and Child Advocate.

Campbell introduced these bills before the May primary, which she lost. In the event the ballot initiatives are successful, some now ask: Would Campbell accept one of the $100,000-a-year positions if offered to her as a Philly-style golden parachute?

“I would doubt it,” said Campbell, who said she plans to devote the time after her term ends Jan. 7 to establishing a job training center named after her father, the late Edgar C. Campbell Sr., one of the city’s pioneering black politicians.

Observers don’t expect presumed mayoral winner Michael Nutter would appoint her for a number of reasons. “I think Michael’s going to be very careful about those things,” said Councilman Frank DiCicco. “And that’s the sad part — because she’s very qualified for the job.”

But John Street could make the appointment before his term is over, and apparently enjoys a good working relationship with Campbell. We're awaiting word from the Mayor.

The Committee of Seventy Monday afternoon urged city residents to vote against two ballot questions that would create new offices of city government, one as an advocate for the disabled, and one as an advocate for parents of public school children. The Committee feels the positions are unnecessary, and rumors have been swirling around City Hall of potential candidates for the job (see Councilwoman Carol Ann Campbell's take on that above). If passed, the Committee urged Mayor Street to leave the appointments to his successsor.

The venerable watchdog group gave a thumbs up for ballot initiative to require anyone running for council to have lived in their district for at least a year, and took no position on a fourth question regarding issuance of bonds. Read the Committee's reasoning here.

From our comrade, Inquirer reporter Sue Snyder:

At the Philadelphia School Reform Commission meeting last week, Commissioner James Gallagher said the district should consider out-of-towners when selecting a new chief executive officer.

“Philadelphians may not have all the answers,” he told the audience. “What you have to look at is the best candidate, whether that person is 6’3”, 5’3” over 200 pounds or 108 pounds. And I don’t give a blank blank blank where they come from as long as they’re the most qualified person in this country."

He continued on and took a shot at former Chief Executive Officer Paul Vallas, a Chicago native who was at odds with Gallagher by the time he left the district last June.

“If the person comes from Philadelphia, so be it,” Gallagher said. “If they come from San Francisco, or Boston, or Atlanta - notice I didn’t say Chicago - …”

The audience laughed.

“Or Chicago,” Gallagher continued, ”we’ll be very, very happy.”

The commission hopes to select a new schools chief by the end of December.

Mayor Street announced yesterday that a deal had been struck to install an additional 250 wireless surveillance cameras in targeted sections of the city, stories here and here. The Parking Authority was under the looking glass yesterday, stories here and here. And Penn President Amy Gutmann isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Another great YouTube moment, posted first over at Metropolis. Democratic traffic court nominee Willie Singletary - he of the suspended license and $11,000 in moving violation fines - appeals to a crowd of bikers for their financial support. Singletary pretty much comes right out and tells them he'll be their friend if he's elected and they find themselves in his courtroom.

Say what you want about Councilwoman Carol Ann Campbell, the fact is she's proven to be a remarkably effective legislator during her short tenure on council. The Inquirer's Jeff Shields has a must-read profile today of Campbell. The piece doesn't ignore the many controversies Campbell's been a part of, but he lingers on the fact that plenty of folks in City Hall have been pleasantly surprised by her work there. Here's council's respected chief accounting officer, Anne Kelly-King, for instance: "I didn't know what to expect when Carol came in, but I think she took the office by storm." And Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, one of Campbell's implacable political foes: "I don't agree with her politics most of the time, but I give her respect for what she's accomplished ... She's a strong, positive person, and she's getting a lot done."

Elsewhere, City Council takes a look at the problem of illegal dumping. There was another televised mayoral debate, but you're forgiven if you didn't watch the riveting rat-a-tat-tat action. You can catch another debate online in just a few minutes, it's hosted by the Next Mayor, and it starts at 10 a.m.

At 2 p.m. today, a City Council committee will take up a signature piece of Michael Nutter's proposed mayoral agenda: Allowing officers to stop, question and frisk people suspected of carrying concealed weapons.

It's the first official hearing on this contoversial proposal.

Nutter himself won't make it into Council chambers as he did last week to testify on two bills.
He is instead sending UPenn law professor Wendell Pritchett, one of his campaign policy advisers.

Others expected to chime in include City Controller Alan Butkovitz; Bob Eddis and John McNesby of the Fraternal Order of Police; and at least criminal justice professors.

It may very well be a fight of David v. Goliath proportions, but that isn’t stopping a coalition of Philadelphia neighborhood and civic groups from pounding the pavement in the state Capitol to stop the city’s two casinos from building on state-approved sites along the Delaware River.
The coalition, the Philly Neighborhood Alliance, was in Harrisburg today once again trying to prove that size doesn’t matter when it comes to getting your way in politics: they are determined to get legislation passed that would prohibit casinos from building within 1,500 feet of homes, schools, playgrounds, parks and places of worship.

This just in: Michael Nutter is about to be elected mayor of Philadelphia.
Well, duh.
Today's Keystone Poll shows that Nutter, the Democrat, leads Republican Al Taubenberger, 74 percent to 8 percent. A supermajority (65 percent) has a favorable view of Nutter, while fully 82 percent told pollsters they did not know enough about Taubenberger to form an opinion. That tends to happen when you've got no money and there've been no ads.
The poll also found Philadelphians very negative about the direction of the city - unclear how long a honeymoon Nutter will have to turn it around.
Here are the complete results:

Opponents of Eighth District City Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller have long had a problem: There have been too many of them on the ballot.

Enter this year's Independent challengers, who don't want to see the opposition vote split again, giving the Democrat another term in office.

Tomorrow, the Rev. Jesse W. Brown Jr. and Jim Foster say they will sign an agreement that whoever gets at least two of three newspaper endorsements will be the Independent candidate. The other will waive the white flag.

Brown is already ahead of the game, with the Inquirer's support. The deciding factors will be the decisions of the Daily News, and City Paper.

Miller will still face Green Party candidate Brian Rudnick. But as for the Independents, Foster said the candidate who bows out will tell supporters to help elect the other Independent candidate: "We have decided it would be beter to have one of us go against the Miller machine," he said.

SugarHouse Casinos said at a press conference this afternoon that it intends to sue the city of Philadelphia. Sugarhouse, which was selected to build a casino in Fishtown, has been delayed in doing so, along with Foxwoods, for a variety of legal and other reasons. More on the lawsuit to follow shortly.

Stay tuned for how much Al Taubenberger has added to his $20,000 campaign... ummm... warchest.

As for Michael Nutter, though, there's no mystery. As reported in today's Inquirer, Nutter pulled in $2.9 million over the summer and during these fall weeks. That means he has raised a total of nearly $7.5 million in his quest to become mayor of Philadelphia.

Details of his fundraising -- as well as Taubenberger's and City Council candidates -- to come this afternoon as pre-general election finance reports come rolling in.

To check for yourself, you might clicking here, though there is no guarantee how often this site will be updated for what are listed as Cycle 5 and Cycle 9 reports.

Finally, some proof that a campaign is underway.
In Michael Nutter's 6th floor Center City campaign offices, the signs have arrived.
Today. Eleven days out.
Stacked in brown shipping paper that is being torn open by volunteers are 2,000 yard signs and 3,500 window signs. Still on order: 500,000 door hangers.
But they're coming.
It's time.

We took a long look at the Philadelphia Parking authority in Sunday's Inquirer, a place that somehow manages to be both ruthlessly efficient and indisputably bloated. Send PPA tips this way.

Friend to the animals and City Councilman Jack Kelly is bankrolling his campaign with $30,000 in contributions from three limited partnerships all affiliated with a big Northeast developer. It's likely legal, but the Ethics Board nonetheless would "like to get more information."

Two of three challangers to Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller in the 8th district have agreed that the whichever one of them wins the majority of three newspapepr endorsements will stay in the race while the other drops out. The idea is not to split the "anti-Donna" vote between a large field of challengers, which is what's happened in the 8th district in every election since 1908.

The Daily News takes a look at the city's ailing Republican Party.

John Baer has some legal advice for Vince Fumo.

Since practically the day of his primary win, Michael Nutter has consistently denied that his thoughts have been focused on anything except his general election campaign.
Hogwash.
For one thing, there are the rumors: About a certain current city department head or two who have already been told they would be part of a Nutter Administration. About at least one outside professional who has turned down an invitation to join the new mayor. About a certain former City Councilman who wouldn't mind returning to City Hall - this time on the 2nd floor.
But brush all that aside. Those are just rumors after all.
HERE is the proof.
Over at Nutter campaign headquarters on Friday was a little diagram on a dry erase board of a certain flow chart. At the top was one box that said "mayor" with two lines, one drawn to another box saying "MDO" and the other to a box that read "deputy mayor." From the "deputy mayor" box was one line drawn to a box that said "DHS Comm."
The dry erase board was on a wall just behind Nutter as he met with reporters Friday. When it was pointed out to him, Nutter just smiled and asked this: "Do you have any recommendations?"

State Rep. Dwight Evans, who's been one of the Parking Authority's best friends on the Democratic side of the aisle, will meet with embattled PPA Executive Director Vince Fenerty and chairman Joe Ashdale in Harrisburg tomorrow, said Evans spokeswoman Johnna Pro.

The topic? All the attention the authority's been receiving in the press and from parents who want to see the agency hand over more money. Here's what Pro had to say:

"Clearly the press has raised some issues, members of the public have raised some concerns, and I think he wants to have a very open converstion with them about what is happening at the parking authority. That's not to say we need to drag everybody up here for a formal hearing."

Sometime tonight or tomorrow, depending what TV station you watch, expect to see some ads up for Michael Nutter for mayor.

It's true.

The Democratic nominee has not hit the airwaves since winning the May primary.

But beginning now through Nov. 6, he'll be up everyday, says campaign manager Tricia Enright.

That also means he'll be digging into the wad of cash he's collected. On Friday, he reported having $2.1 million in the bank. After purchasing TV time, he has winnowed that down to about $1.5 million.

There will actually be just one ad (no word of whether or not daughter Olivia makes a reappearance), and it will run on ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX.

... and that offer comes from the state senator's only declared opponent for next year: Anne Dicker.

Here was the press release sent out moments ago.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007, Philadelphia, PA -- Today, Pennsylvania State Senate candidate Anne Dicker put in an offer to buy Senator Vincent Fumo's 2220 Green Street Mansion. The offer was for $250,001, which is $1 more than the value assessed by Philadelphia's Board of Revision and Taxes (BRT). If successful, Anne Dicker has pledged to turn around and sell the house for upwards of $1.25 million, and to donate the profits from the sale to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

To see video of Anne making the official bid: http://vimeo.com/363202

It's got Bush and Cheney. It's got Olivia and Lisa.
Why is it important to vote Nov. 6.
Michael Nutter puts it this way:

Here it is. Just hitting the airwaves.

He's soon to turn 60. He's got a new job, with a long title. And he's about to get a new wife.

George Burrell, a former City Councilman and Mayor Street's longtime political adviser, is getting hitched this spring to Janis Pierce, currently the city's deputy representative.
Burrell, now the executive vice president and general counsel for PRWT Services, proposed Oct. 19. While eating a cheesesteak. In his kitchen.
Asked what brought the pair together - Pierce previously worked at the airport while Burrell was Street's secretary of external affairs - Burrell said: "Faith. A shared faith."

Incumbent Republican Councilman Jack Kelly knows that his biggest challenge for one of two council seats reserved for the minority party (that would be Republican in Philadelphia), comes from David Oh.

While the two have avoided taking direct shots at one another, Kelly's loudly professed love of animals elicited this from Oh: "Philadelphia would be a pretty darn good city if all you had to worry about was stray dogs."
When told of Oh's remarks, Kelly, the scourge of foie gras farms and friend to the city's animal shelter, posed this critical question: "I would like to know if Mr. Oh has a pet?"
Lest he be labeled a pet hater, Oh revealed exclusively to Heard in the Hall that he DOES NOT currently have a pet, but insisted he is "quite the animal lover," and he once had a Rottweiler named Rocky, a Brazilian Mastiff names Xena, and a Jindo named J-Dog.
Oh also mentioned that he has a wife and 5-month-old baby girl.
Kelly has a mutt named Cassidy he says he got from the pound. And, oh yeah, four children and a wife.
Now you should be ready to vote.

During last night's nationally televised Democratic debate at Drexel University, there were countless questions about war, rumors of war and (supposed) softness on the Bush-Cheney administration's foreign policy. Heck, one of the TV heads even asked what each of the candidates wanted to dress up as for Halloween. And the final minutes of the debate dissolved into hilarity as Tim Russert got Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio to discuss his encounter with a UFO.

What was missing?

"There was no discussion about city-based issues," said Democratic mayoral nominee Michael Nutter, working Spin Alley way past midnight. "It's astounding to me that in a two-hour debate there were no questions about crime - it's unbelievable, to consider that, unbeknownst to the candidates, a Philadelphia police officer was shot as they were talking. There was no discussion of education funding, no discussion about poverty, in a city with the highest poverty rate of any major city." (25 percent)

Nutter knows that those aren't pressing issues in Iowa or New Hampshire, and that it's hard to chew up 20 minutes of debate time on Iraq and Iran and then bring the conversation back down to North Philadelphia, but..."The candidates have got to figure out how to make the federal government more relevant to the lives of citizens in cities," Nutter said.

More to come later.

No surprise here. Democratic Mayoral nominee Michael Nutter has said in the past that he's got a good relationship with new DC 47 president Cathy Scott. He'll need it. Scott and Nutter will soon be sitting on opposite sides of the table, trying to hammer out a new labor deal that works for DC 47's members and solidifies the city's shaky financial position. It's going to be a major challenge for the next mayor.