PhillyInc

Wow. They're really living the brand, huh?

Seems like Street has a huge divide in his mind about business. First it is the cash cow, then it's the enemy. Street criticized the Party machine, then when he took it over, he made it his own, anti-business, pro-scary taxes, and only pay to players could get in on city controlled contracts or properties.

Reading Annette John-Hall's piece on Street's legacy, I see that there is still a cadre of writers who just can't bring themselves to admit that Street's legacy with business and the business of government is huge debt and looming crisis.

Nutter inherits a situation where collecting taxes can't wait, and people are going to have to pay more in property taxes. Street was too scared to face this ever.

The looming financial crisis of the city is paralelled by the muted, dulled, limited business potential that Street, in 8 years, never addressed. Promised he would, never did.

The tax burden on business hurts blacks more than whites, Ms. J-H. There seems to be no comprehension that jobs are created by a private market.

What runs Philly down? The BPT, the wage tax decreases are so incremental as to be insignificant, the whole climate of bad schools and crime created by Street's suspension of property tax collection or reassessment -- critics have pointed out that Street's quiet policy of nonuniformity in prop tax assessment is illegal in PA -- all put the burdern on Street's successor. The city's financial picture went backwards as Street heaped on the debt.

But the columnist at the Ink is like, oh, still walking, still drinkin' water. Some FBI stuff, didn't stick. Put programs into place that involved borrowing a ton of money, woo hoo. No clue how to pay it back. Come on!

Some attention is given to the climate of corruption in the article, but that is a big reason business won't come here. It's not the "perception" of corruption, it's the fact of it. If you want to buy the old factories you see along the R7, Globe Dye Works, Red Bell Brewery, etc. which wouuld pay off the huge overdue property taxes, btw, you have to go through PIDC, or the RDA, or some city agency or quasi-city agency that makes it clear you need to pay to play.

The very properties that could be office parks that would create new jobs, no legit business can get the chance to buy.

You have to be a top contributing Democrat to get a chance to try the waterfront. Sharif Street doesn't even pay taxes himself, but he's arranging a waterfront deal.

Come on Ink. Do better. Be intellectually honest, and politically neutral.

Street spent his political life entirely outside this private market, racking up huge debt, not collecting taxes, not addressing the tax problems, and avoiding his own responsibilities in paying taxes, like a payday loan taker.

Street not only has no sense of what it takes to manage a business, or the business of government, but no sense of how to manage the finances of a household. His whole mindset is as a debtor.

The Innovation Philadelphia website can't address the problems; the Ink columnist missed the whole legacy of Street: DEBT.

Debt with no plan of payoff. It's the mindset of person who loses their house. No one seems to be able to criticize this deficit in Street.

Not the press, not the government programs set up to address business....

Innovation Philadelphia is a great idea, but as a Street admin mouthpiece, it could never head on address the very things that prevent business from coming here to take advantage of Philly.

Philly, with the right leadership, politicians that get the benefits of a centrist concept of balance and responsibility, who realize that the private market is going capitalize the changes the city needs, that's when Philly will rival Chicago and NYC.