Heard in the Hall

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...

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.

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 ...

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.

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.

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.

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.

More to come later.

At 10:14 a.m., City Council paused for a moment of silence during its weekly meeting, and Iman Mohamed Shebata opened the meeting with a prayer in Arabic for Cassidy. Eighteen minutes later, Council President Anna Verna stopped the meeting to announce Cassidy's death. The chamber groaned.

"Let's just hope that things change in this city," Verna said.

"May he rest in peace," Councilman Juan Ramos said from the podium, where he as standing for a ceremonial resolution.

David Oh's hitting the airwaves this weekend, with an ad touting his Inquirer editorial board endorsement and the other organizations backing his candidacy.

One thing that doesn't come up at all? The fact that David Oh is a Republican candidate for City Council.

Oh's campaign manager says you can spot the ad on the big network channels this weekend.

The machine votes are in, and challenger David Oh is still seven votes ahead of incumbent City Councilman Jack Kelly.

That's the official word this afternoon from the city board of elections.

But it's not the last word.

The results have yet to be certified, as nearly 2,400 absentee vote still must be counted.

Here are the actual numbers:

Kelly: 60,359
Oh: 60,366

She came, she conquered - she left. And she doesn't want you to forget.

"For A Brief Moment... There Was Carol Ann."

That would be City Councilwoman Carol Ann Campbell, and those were the words she used to highlight her tenure in a gold-colored 16-page brochure that began arriving this week in the mailboxes of her 4th District constituents.

"Wait 'til you get a load of her," U.S. Rep. Bob Brady (D., Pa.) said when she was sworn into Council in November 2006.

Well, City Hall did - as Campbell made clear herself in the brochure, which on gold page after gold page lists what she did on Council in the year or so she was there, from creating the handicapped and disabled advocate's office, to renovating the Shepard Recreation Center.

.As one of 10 district council members, new Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. had to pick one person as his "community leader" on the Zoning Code Commission, the appointed body tasked with reforming the city's convoluted and outdated zoning laws. He chose fellow rookie Councilman Bill Green. Green has expressed a keen interest in zoning reform, but isn't from Jones' "community." Green doesn't live in Jones' 4th District, which includes Roxborough, Manayunk, East Falls and parts of West Philadelphia. "He has a strong interest in it and I think he's value-added to the board," Jones said before Council's first regular meeting Thursday. Word is that Jones knew he would take a hit with this appointment, but wanted to put Green at the table anyway. Jones' spokesman, Al Spivey, said Green has agreed to withdraw if Jones comes up with someone else. "Bill Green has a perspective on zoning and a number of issues, and he should be heard," Spivey said.
In reality, Jones is moving a little closer to the 4th District with his choice. Former 4th District Councilwoman Carol Ann Campbell's pick for the commission, MeLinda DeNofa, lived in Montgomery County. Ralph Wynder, one of the ward leaders from the 4th, said he was okay with Green on a commission that is tackling such a citywide issue as zoning for reform.

When Mayor Nutter stepped inside City Council's Caucus Room earlier today, he shook his head in seeming disbelief that he was now standing there as mayor, no longer as one of 17 Council members.

His reason for being there: To brief his former colleagues, and three newly-elected ones, on matters related to the budget he will present to them Feb. 14.

What followed in the next 90 minutes was less newsworthy than noteworthy: The context of the dollar discussion was not new, but the fact it was taking place at all surely was.

"This is the first time I remember being briefed as we are now," Council President Anna Verna remarked. During John Street's years, his aides typically briefed Council on the budget the same morning, sometimes within the same hour, that Street formally presented it to them.

In fact, Nutter met with Verna inside her office just a little bit earlier, the first of weekly Tuesday meetings he intends to have with her to share his agenda.

"The administration is reaching out. I can't think of anything better," said Charlie McPherson, Council's chief financial officer.

Some of that good will, though, was lessened by what happened next, after Nutter left the room.

Chief of Staff Clay Armbrister stood up to personally invite each Council member to a special briefing tomorrow morning at the Wachovia Center, where Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey is expected to unveil his crime-fighting plans.

Looking a tad bit chagrined, Councilman Frank DiCicco shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't mean to be critical, but it would be nice if we had a couple of days notice."

From the 4th floor City Council chamber, Inquirer reporter Jeff Shields tells us:

The City Council's Committee on Parks and Recreation Tuesday afternoon gave the green light for Fox Chase Cancer Center's $800 million expansion by approving a deal allowing the hospital to build in Burholme Park.

Council is expected to approve the lease agreement between Fox Chase and Fairmount Park, with a final vote before month's end.

Once passed by Council, Orphans' Court will take up a petition by opponents who say the will of Robert Waln Ryerss, whose bequest founded Burholme Park, is being violated through the Fox Chase agreement.

Some council members are asking increasingly pointed questions about Mayor Nutter's tax proposals, wondering aloud what evidence there is that tax cuts create jobs and pushing the administration not to do away with the so-called David Cohen tax cut for the working poor.

Councilman Darrell Clarke seemed the most skeptical at today's budget hearing. If tax cuts are luring businesses back to the city, Clarke said there's no evidence of it in his district. He asked city Finance Director Rob Dubow to research the job-creating effects of tax cuts "in a serious way."

"There’s looking into it and then there’s really looking into it," Clarke said.

We haven't heard the last of this issue...

UPDATE: Told you we haven't heard the last of the issue. Brett Mandel, the city's chief tax cut proponent and head of Philadelphia Forward, called Heard in the Hall to note that already enacted tax cuts have saved the city more than 22,000 jobs, according to an expert hired by the Street administration. The city's Tax Reform Commission, however, predicted its proposed cuts would save 47,000 by 2010. There's a lot of job saving left to be done over the next two years to meet that goal.

The press crashed what Mayor Nutter intended to be a private budget briefing for City Council yesterday. The fullest accounts of the incident can be found here and here, while the Inquirer report dealt principally with the substance of the meeting. Reporters, who tend for obvious reasons to take an expansive view of state open meetings law, felt that the session (which included well over a quorum of council members) constituted a public meeting under the act. Nutter's administration takes the view that it is free to hold closed informational sessions with council, so long as no work is done on legislation. It isn't a new disagreement. Governments and the press dispute the scope of the law all the time. In December, for instance, City Council held what amounted to an illegal closed meeting to hammer out an agreement on minority inclusion for the Convention Center expansion project.

What was new was the tenor of the confrontation between the press and the Nutter administration. It wasn't a friendly disagreement. At one point Councilman Frank Rizzo cracked, "the honeymoon is over."

Nutter administration officials are plainly angry about the incident. They say that the administration has so far been remarkably open and transparent. That is absolutely true. Reporters' questions are answered promptly. Facts and figures that in past administration were difficult to obtain without filing an official and time consuming right to know request are now handed over with little to no fuss. And Nutter and his senior staff remain remarkably accessible to the press.

But given his campaign commitments to transparency and open government, Nutter is being held to a higher standard. The press isn't alone on this either. It's clear that at least a few council members also felt the meeting should have been open. How else would reporters have known there was a meeting to crash?

Bonus reading: a state primer on the open meetings law.

Among the top City Hall brass who Mayor Nutter did away with upon taking office in January was Prisons Commissioner Leon A. King.

But a few weeks ago, King resurfaced. His new boss: City Councilman Frank Rizzo.

“He’s smart, he knows the people, and he knows his way in and out of the Law Department,” Rizzo said of King, the No. 1 prison official throughout most of former Mayor John Street’s administration. Before that, King worked as a city lawyer on prison issues, and in that role he helped negotiate the end of litigation that kept the prison system under federal court oversight for nearly two decades.

Rizzo turned to King after his longtime director of legislation left for a private-sector job. “Our professional relationship is a good one,” the councilman said.

How long will King stay? “Who knows,” Rizzo said, acknowledging that King is now making about half of the $128,000 he earned as prisons commissioner. “I’m sure he’ll find a job eventually that will pay him the money he is used to making. But for now, he is doing a valuable service to me.”