Great Expectations

Where is Larry kane's Blog?

I'm not perfect but I try to live by example. Trash in our city is one of many eyesore's for me (and many others). In my opinion, people that do this are just lazy. Now, I don't mean to sound preachy nor wish to work for the sanitation Department, I have a professional full time job but whenever I see trash in an open area, I don't think twice about picking it up and placing it in a bin. There's usually a bin within just a few feet away, most times close enough to the trash itself, unbelievable, yet true. I do this with a double purpose: I know several folks walking by will witness this, that's the incentive, people will witness this uncommon action and the message is sent, loud and clear. In the hope's that respond like sheep with say, the latest fashion trends, this will plant a positive seed. I cannot comprehend why a person can't just hold on to their trash until they come upon a trash bin?

I second the trash issue. People know what they need to do. Solution -- fines. There is no reason that there are no sanitation officers tasked with ticketing litterers, or, have the PPD do it.

AND the fines have to be substantive -- $100 for first offense, $500 for the second. Earmark the revenue for schools to make it more friendly.

Have contests where schools can get fines earmarked to their school for turning in illegal dumpers.

WE have to make kids into citizens. Also, are people using www.ppdonline.org to report sanitation violations and graffiti? It works wonders.

As for the poverty issue, the obstacles have to be removed, and in Philly, that obstacle is taxes. Higher taxes than the surrounding areas to business drives out jobs.

Then the wage tax drives out the best employees.

We can afford to abolish, not just decrease, both in a year if we only start collecting the overdue property taxes of $500 million or so.

The city owns too much property that pays no property taxes. This hurts schools, safety, and all of the issues listed above.

Until the mayor establishes a working group to develop the tax base, or simply makes it a priority, then the list of recommendations to increase property tax revenue without raising taxes overall can't be implemented.

We have to have entities that pay no property taxes either pay up or foreclose. The owners are able to take out loans, and the city can direct owners to low interest loans for homeowners, or reverse mortgages where the owner gets a monthly payment.

There is no reason that the city has to simply avoid sending property for sheriff sale to pay off the years, even decades of overdue taxes. See for yourself at www.hallwatch.org.

Some zip codes have half of all property owners that are long overdue on paying property taxes.

No city can survive this way. While Street blames Bush for decreased subsidies, the truth is that we can cover that shortfall for programs ourselves if we use discipline.

The result will be new owners who are paying current taxes on time and in full. Making that top priority is key to funding any programs mentioned, from trash, to schools, to police, to prisons, to poverty.

We have to realize the very cynical reason schools are bad and no one collects property taxes in Philly -- school kids don't vote. Owners do.

If you have no real interest in education, but want cheap votes, you know the drill.

Even the liberal Urban League publishes analysis in it's new report on the status of Black Philadelphians that the wage tax and BPT have to be abolished to alleviate poverty.

It's a shame Street could never accept the connection, even though noted black economists in the area endorse it with evidence.

It's just common sense that business will go where it is cheaper to pay people and cheaper to operate. For Street and much of City Council, this is anathema.

Here's the article of the economist's comments and the coverage of the report:

www.philly.com/dailynews/local/12240591.html

Street also doesn't comprehend that prisoners in Philly receive excellent care, better than most HMOs. Prison in Philly is where a lot of people turn their lives around.

Still, Street opposes hiring more police using the false corollary that Nutter "must" cut mental health, nutrition, housing, and other funding.

For that $29,000 per inmate, they get access to detox, rehab, mental health care, behavioral modification, anger management, chaplaincy services that cover a broad range of social and physical needs and wrap around, excellent social services that extend past release, and most importantly, are in the only environment where they can't get access to drugs and alcohol. Court ordered observations usually result in release, so families try that and don't get the support they need until the relative is arrested.

I feel proud of my service to inmates and their families. Philly COs are police officers, well trained, and extremely professional. The results show it. However, the prisons are just to crowded in the city.

First, a safe city is a city where people can climb out of poverty, get an education, and thrive. We see time and time again a city that is so unsafe for African American communities that they can't do any of the above.

You see it in the article on the Urban League's report of how Philly is doing. Not good, even after Street's expenditures. On homicide, it's even worse than any time previous in his 8 year tenure.

We have to face up to the facts: Philly has too little high quality prison space, but the small quantity there is itself quite good, although overcrowded.

This problem is so serious, that there is no way to address poverty without first making neighborhoods safe to live in and go into.

The article quoting Street's comments against more police and prison space in Philly is at:

www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20071208_Street__Dont_hire_more_cops_-_use___for_more_services.html

Street never was able to bring in the business so desperately needed in the poorest areas because he could never accept a more centrist Democrat view -- low to no taxes on business bringing jobs, be competitive, use government funds wisely, don't borrow as a primary funder, don't have high debt payments (as true for anyone), and be tough on scofflaws to those who don't contribute their fair share in property taxes.

Even if family, even if friends, even if peers or allies, even if votes. Taxes have to be fairly, impartially collected.

Right now, taxes are collected in Center City but not in West or North Philly. Even though CC is a cash cow, we can't have two sets of rules.

No matter the race or income, any property owner has to divvy up to their costs.

Look at the HUGE difference in property tax delinquency rates by zip code:

http://www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/delinqbyzip/index_html?skey=pcent&rkey=pcent

How can West Philly sustain schools if 40% of all owners are way behind on their property tax payments?

If you look at those zips that owe taxes, Street has orchestrated property tax collection to be nil, effectively, in areas where there is a change in percentage of long term residents who are black voters.

Where the neighborhoods are changing in racial composition, Street halted property tax collection the most.

Where property tax collection proceeded under private lien collection -- the neighborhoods renovated themselves with little input from government. Rendell sold that property tax debt to balance the budget the first year in his administration as mayor.

Empty houses, shells, lots, and other properties were sold to eager builders for the newcomers. Street never saw this coming -- he had NO idea where the surplus came from, but it came from old liens getting paid off at the sale time, and new real estate tax revenue.

Still, Street maintained that the city couldn't collect this overdue property tax the whole terms of office until only just recently.

His argument that only poor neighborhoods owe that much isn't true -- Schuykill, or SWCC, has a 30% delinquency rate, while Point Breeze (much poorer, more dangerous and in need of more police funding) has a mere 18.5% delinquency rate. Schuylkill needs to get into the single digits of a delinquency rate by auctioning off this valuable property for more police in Point Breeze.

Like SWCC, Spring Garden North and Germantown East have been rediscovered by newcomers who love the location and old houses. But they are bringing their high expectations of responsive good Democrats with them who are job friendly and reward merit. Yet Spring Garden North and Germantown East also have super high noncollection rates among owners in those zips.

Yet the worse off areas need that property tax revenue to fund police, poverty, schools, etc. What gives?

Property tax payment is still optional in Philly. Instead of helping people "get by" it really just further handicaps them from adjusting to responsible homeownership and citizenship. And it is the easily manipulated mechanism by which an old school corrupt democratic machine held control.

Street, in the final analysis, is the worst of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" type of politician.

Until we hold everyone to the same standard if they own property, we perpetrate and infantalize a whole segment that faces increasing pressures.

You can't help an adult by babying them their whole lives. Street utterly refutes this idea. My feeling is that this is where Nutter and Street clashed markedly through the years.

I have faith that Nutter is the new school, centrist, clean Democrat that the party can send to Harrisburg and the White House.

After he makes Philly like NYC under a certain other former mayor of an east coast city.

Street is afraid of newbie Democrats coming in, forget anyone conservative. To him, they are all "republicans."

Margit Olsen is as unwelcome to Street as John McCain. She won't just pull the lever for him or his hand picked successor (Fattah) after all the choices have been weeded out for her courtesy of the strong party.

Even Fumo got the boot in the tail for corruption, so I hope the local Dems are getting the picture.

Clean it up or go on vacation where the locks are large.

Until the Margit Olsens of Philly demand evidence based results with their money, and fair, even policies that make everyone equally responsible for their contribution and behavior, then we'll just have street preachers for mayors who promise the moon and the sky.

Then they implement some hair scheme that falls apart shortly thereafter, and call it a failure of support from the Bush administration.

NTI is the one that pops up most, and the pals-only housing funding that never seemed to get Sr. Mary Scullion what she needed no matter how many hundreds of millions the pals got with no strings attached. Universal has no numbers online of what they've built, what they still hold, and the cost per house. You'd be shocked if you knew how much money groups like this got under Street, and normal strictures in contracts to assure timely performance were removed.

Nutter won't do that. Seems to be why Universal has made a U-turn into public safety programming a la the 10,000 men from Universal march. But they weren't the only ones getting big considerations in land, contracts, or city funneled block grant money that just didn't do the job. Simple business accounting and accountability techniques not used meant much money wasted for what Ms. Olsen points out.

Nutter won't dismantle Street's juvenile justice, social service, ageing, mental health, and other innovations under his terms of office. Nutter is impartial that way -- if it works, he'll not only keep it, he'll become its advocate. But he'll require an annual report that is industry standard.

Unlike petty Street who said "why shouldn't I reward my friends" and punish his enemies no matter how well they may have served the city, Nutter is not about rewarding anyone for anything other than merit.

I really feel Ms. Olsen has cause to be greatly optimistic. I read that she doesn't feel that way after the meetings, but I can see big conceptual changes coming, and practical, measurable outcomes.

We can't better the city if contracts, land, and city opportunity only goes in the pocket of a handful of the same folks with no effort to create competition.

A handful of a few AA notables is not progress, John Street. Hence the Urban League report on Philly.

Name the South Street Bridge after Street. The new John Street Bridge is falling apart.

Street was a transportation mayor, alright.

It seems like Philly has been focused for eight years on poverty, without result, while the other issues Margit mentions go without what they need.

Don't we need more balance of a mayor's attention?

I think poverty in Philly gets such a huge amount of attention that people feel it has sufficient advocacy for change.

I don't think I agree, but traditional antipoverty advocacy is stuck. Traditional subsidy programs are changing, but the papers and the city hardly cover the issue. While people have gone through the welfare to work program, where some antipoverty advocates predicted catastrophe, there has actually been an increase in median income of the former welfare recipients. That lifted many of them out of the poverty classification.

It's like the press and advocates don't want to say that OK, there were some things we didn't see, or want to see about how welfare operated, but it was right to modernize it.

But we're not in the clear. There is still plenty of understanding we don't have about new federal anti-poverty programming and the new requirements for accounting and results. Like PHA has to cost out each property set per housing properties. So an apartment that is way expensive to run can be compared to one that isn't, and changes made.

Right now, that is just guestimated. Can you believe it? The PHA has no idea which projects are the most cost effective, because they are all lumped together as one big list of debits and credits.

PHA has to start doing this stuff before a federal mandate, get out ahead of the curve, anticipate changes.

This is the type of anti-poverty work being done now in the city, and the results are more tangible than they have ever been.

This should mean that PHA can make the case to sell properties that are old, run down, too expensive to use, and take that cash and use it for new projects and programs.

This is exciting good stuff that both sides of the aisle can get behind.

Poverty can't be tackled in Philly if we keep doing the same things over and over again that aren't working.

We have to admit what's not working, by the numbers, and make big changes. For politicians in city council the cost is higher than the reward.

You'll just alienate an embedded industry that doesn't want to have to update it services or make changes.

That's always the problem when you set up a bureaucracy to deal with social issues.

While Street rightly calls for an increase in mental health/addiction services, in and outside of prison, we have to realistically remember that this is primarily going to affect the numbers needing incarceration years from now.

His social programming was bold, (except for housing and NTI, which just rehashed and ad hoc funded existing city initiatives).

But the damage that causes hard core criminality often happens before or at birth in a criminal mind. For those premies, drug babies, fetal alcohol effect babies now grown into adulthood, there is no fix.

They make poor candidates for living in society. The only environment they exist will in is highly structured, with immediate consequences.

We have to do both -- prevent this kind of birth damage, while giving services to those who have it.

But Street romanticizes the problem of certain kinds of inmates, the most violent ones, the most antisocial. They are impulsive because they have neocortical damage, damage to the centers of self control and judgement. They have multiple mental health diagnoses, typically, such as ADD/ADHD along with depression or a schizoaffective disorder.

While most of that is treatable, and people can live normal lives, they have to be vigilant with their medication, and accept the fact that they have a chemical, fMRI identifiable disorder or imbalance of neurochemicals. Add addiction to that, and you have a really intransigent dual diagnosis (really should be called multi-diagnosis) disordered young people.

This relates to poverty and education because we are tasked with educating and uplifting these souls like any other.

Even the most diligent person will confess that a John Lewis, just like the Omaha mall shooter (a multi-diagnosis case) needs locked placement and treatment, including high quality prison.

Street's administration couldn't accept that the level of damage that presents in some young adults and their record of crime only makes them good candidates for prison.

Street is still decrying prison as a proper solution in the worst cases, but where we failed to prevent the damage in the infant from the mother, we can't fix it, though sometimes we can help the inmate manage the illnesses if they are motivated.

However, they are

This kind of mental health/mental retardation inflicted by an addict mother on her offspring (addiction includes smoking and second hand smoke around a pregnant woman or infant) creates poverty.

More rehab/detox slots for pregnant women are mandatory, and more slots in the women's prison system in Philly for pregnant offenders.

The cost to society to try to attack education and poverty in a population that is brain damaged before or at birth is exponential.

It is more practical to aggressively prevent this kind of damage. But first, Philly had to face its dirty laundry head on, honestly. That has always been lacking in politics.

Not just fully funded kindergarten, not just broad head start and high quality pre-school within the Philly school system, the city has to realize that we have to prevent the creation of a grossly poor, unemployable, ineducable criminal class.

Dare I say that conservative catholic PA has to fund familiy planning, including abortion services, for those who cannot afford them? That is a key difference between this city and cities where crime continues to fall.

No woman worries about how to pay for an abortion in NYC. Not so in Philly, where private charity tries to cover the need, but can't.

We have to meet real people with real problems at their level of need. Trying to tell someone they can be a doctor if they only want to while they have an unwanted pregnancy, use drugs and alcohol on occasion or freely, and have limited skills and education doesn't help this person advance in life.

City Council is also full of the rose colored glasses folks who think you only have to give someone like this a job and they'll succeed.

If we really want to help the criminal classes stuck in extreme poverty, we have to be willing to provide what they need, even if they don't want it! Prison space is one such solution where people can get clean and sober, and turn it around.

So when people don't show up for poverty thinks, I think the reason is that people working with the hard core poor day to day are burned out and catching up on sleep.

The politicians want to pretend that the hard core poor don't exist and are just voters waiting to be snagged provided you give them some trinket or give away.

And the laypeople who see a whole city of impoverished people who appear to only want to rely on a subsidy or crime, rather than a job for which they are suited. The recent cop shooters are a case in point.

Mustafa Ali -- had a job in a factory and a business. John Lewis had a job at the donut shop he later robbed. Jerome Whitaker had a coveted construction job as a brick layer.

These are guys with jobs. But they also have impulse control, antisocial personality disorders that stem from early issues.

To fix something like this means you need to have to person out of the temptations of society. Street can't face it, but that means prison.

If 10,000 bench warrants are outstanding and the people are free and roaming around Philly, while 10,000 people are in the stuffed local prison system, that tells me we need to double our prison space, and make it high quality prison space with programming.

Why is Street, and certain members of Council, so opposed to this simple, effective life altering, public safety measure?

Cost seems like a red herring, since the city only has to collect overdue property taxes to pay for this one time and ongoing increase in prison expenditure.

When the black community suffers so from crime, what is the problem with focusing on making the law abiding residents safe from the law breakers in need of massive public intervention and programming?

We are not going to build large asylums again, with locked units. The only locked placement society has to deal with the small group of people who commit most of the crimes will be prison now and in the future.

We have to stop demonizing prison in Philly. We don't have enough space to fit the need of a population of 1.4 million people.

"The average real estate delinquency among the delinquent accounts is $8,965 and dates back 13 years.

The average delinquent taxpayer among the top 1,000 delinquent accounts owes more than $32,000 – debts accumulated over the last 15 years."

from the Mayor's press release on Property Tax Collection in 9/07.

Could we use that money for what Margit tried to talk about in the forum?

Is there a forum where we can talk to each other about these issues that is broken down by topic as the Convention was? Or one that is more participant-controlled? Thanks.