http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20081119_Money_Under_Stadium_Seats_...

While this should come as no surprise, it's still sickening.

I’m curious what YPPers think of Verizon being given the right to offer its version of cable TV in the City. Do you have concerns about which neighborhoods will be “wired”? Do you believe competition with Comcast and the satellite companies will drive costs down? Will additional public access stations be used?

I would like to hear from folks before I write my testimony.

Lance Haver
Director of Consumer Affairs

The debate today was strangely detached, some pro and con forces were heard. I wish I had been recognized by the chair to speak :( ,but I think council's 'tude - except for Bill Green and Frank Rizzo was one of resignation.

I suppose it was all set up anyway, but I wish more people had shown up to express dissenting views.

Tax reductions will stop, even though Rob Dubow acknowledged they reduce inter-city competitiveness, and huge slashes will be made to programs, so the script played out as it was written.

Everyone talked about New York and their problems, which was weird, but if I'd had the chance, I would have mentioned that a higher tax on vacant land was signed into law for NYC this summer.

I hope the people will recognize that a land value tax can provide community-created revenue so that the tax rate reductions could continue without reducing citywide tax receipts.

Carol Campbell has passed away:

Carol Ann Campbell, a legendary force in the local Democratic Party, has passed away.

She died around midday at Methodist hospital. The cause is unknown, but she’d struggled with lung illnesses and was recently on a ventilator.

Campbell was the daughter of Edgar Campbell, former City Councilman, ward leader and Clerk of Quarter Sessions and often referred to as the Dean of Black Politics in the city. Carol Campbell took over the leadership of the fourth ward in Philadelphia when her father died in 1987

Campbell served as a ward leader and as secretary of Democratic City Committee for years. In the fall of 2006, Campbell was appointed by the Democratic Party to lead the Fourth District, after Mayor Nutter vacated the seat to run for the city's top office. She lost her re-election bid in the May 2007 Primary Election to Councilman Curtis Jones Jr.

Our condolences to her family and friends.

Perhaps we can use this space to tell our stories about libraries and what they mean to us.

The public library in my hometown was, when I first visited at abot 6 six years old, in a little corner of the municipal building / fire house/ courthouse. (With a population of 5000, you can kind of put everything in one place.)

It had a distinctive smell, of course, of books. It's a small I love to this day.

The librarian gave us all a little talk about how the library works. When she said we could actually take books home, I looked around in wonder at all the books and felt a sense of ownership. I blurted out, "You mean any of them? We can take them home?"

So then I had to find one...and there were lots of choices. That was the day I learned the pleasure of browsing book shelves...something that I continue to do today although its harder with progressive lenses.

There's a city-wide meeting tonight to discuss developing a city-wide agenda around the Digital Divide.

Philadelphia's Digital Inclusion Coalition
When: Wednesday November 19, 5:30PM
Where: United Way, 7 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Lobby 2
Why: Develop an agenda for Philadelphia around Digital Divide and the Future of the City

There's no promise of live music a la Neighborhood Networks' event earlier this week but I am sure it will still be a good time. And one of particular interest to YPP readers. Not to mention timely with city library cuts. So hope to see you there.

It would be pretty awful. It would be very muddy and slow getting from place to place. Cars would be worthless. Mail delivery would be virtually impossible. If you were injured you might not be able to get to the hospital before you bled to death, and giving directions would already be a great deal harder than it is.

On an otherwise very happy Election Day this year, one dark spot was the mess the city made of processing new registrations and absentee ballots.

This failure went beyond the expected "I thought I registered but I never got a card." I saw many people coming in to the polling place with valid brand new registration cards, mailed to them by the city, only to be nowhere on the voter rolls. Nor on the supplemental rolls, printed out the day before.

Voting provisionally isn't the end of the world, but because in most cases that vote will not be counted it's frustrating for someone excited to cast a vote for the first time.

And then there were the "recieved after Election Day" absentee ballots.

Sure, the City Commissioners office should be reformed. Might be a good topic for the budget talks. But, to fix the voting administration problems, we should look bigger. Project Vote has compiled links to examples of recent public support for a new, federal, way of handling voter registration. The goal would be to have the federal government, rather than individuals or third-party registration drives, be responsible for getting every of-age citizen on the rolls. Look at the arguments below after the break, and let's start advocating for this.

EDIT: Kati says below, "If you are interested in working on election law reform in PA, there is a meeting on Friday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. at the Labor Council office (22 S. 22nd St.) to debrief the election protection efforts of various non-partisan groups, and to begin to strategize about a legislative agenda on election reform in 2009."

Daily News editorial

A crisis of this magnitude is license to do some serious reinvention of government. It's a time when you can get away with bold thinking, and radical ideas. A few more of those were what we were hoping for.

First, let's be clear: We know how easy it is to be armchair experts, and how hard it is to have to make the decisions. But we also believe the city and its citizens are richer when we can have discussions about these challenges, with many at the table trying to solve the problem. This is a time for us to tough it out together. We hope that during the town-hall meetings the mayor announced yesterday he has a chance to listen as much as to talk.

Friends of the Free Library of Philadelphia
215.567.4562
savethelibraries@gmail.com
http://www.libraryfriends.info

press release and schedule follows -

------

Monday, November 17, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MAYOR NUTTER ANNOUNCES SERIES OF TOWN HALL MEETINGS ON CITY'S RESPONSE TO
FINANCIAL CRISIS

Top City leadership to attend eight community meetings across Philadelphia

Philadelphia, November 17 - Mayor Michael A. Nutter has announced a series
of eight Town Hall Meetings throughout Philadelphia to explain the city's
response to the financial crisis and changes to the budget. The meetings
will take place during late-November to mid-December. At the meetings, city
government leadership will explain the difficult decisions that need to be
made, share the principles that guided the process, and to listen to any
concerns that citizens may have.

At each session Mayor Nutter will make opening remarks and run the audience

So, yesterday the Mayor's office decided that the super secret rationale for "right-sizing" our libraries and pools and fire departments shouldn't be so secret.

In an inch-thick binder, Chief of Staff Clay Armbrister provided figures showing Philadelphia has more libraries per capita than all other top 10 cities and would remain first in libraries even after closing more than a fifth of its 54.

Siobhan Reardon, president and director of the Free Library of Philadelphia, told Council that it was her idea to shrink the library system to provide better service at existing libraries with fewer resources.

......

The decision on which libraries to close was based on how many people were served, afterschool program attendance, building size, and annual visits, Reardon said.

The administration argues that the closures are appropriate even without a budget crisis. Armbrister left little room for keeping libraries open, while leaving open the possibility of preserving public pools through private donations.

Even when releasing the information, this administration seems to get more ridiculous by the day. So now, after the Mayor saying it would break his heart or something, the budget crisis just gives us a nice opportunity to shutter libraries that should be closed anyway?

I seriously cannot wait until the city-wide Hawaiian shirt day. Those shirts are really festive.

Council's reaction to the presentation was mixed, though most members were gratified to get something they could sink their teeth into.

That is nice. Now how about letting the public see it. Are the rationales online?

And, I really think Jim Kenney is one of the more thoughtful members of City Council, but...

"You have people who want to grumble and to grandstand, but when I look at it, I think they worked extremely hard and were extremely thorough in their examination," Kenney said. "Anyone who's got a complaint about it should come up with another idea or ideas."

Come on. How in the world would anyone even know whether that statement is true, when so much has been done in secret? Maybe they have been thoughtful, but even if so, they have no one to blame for this outcry but themselves. When you conduct the people's business in secret, that is what happens.

Here's a fairly simple question w/major implications: how many people are currently employed by the City of Philadelphia? What is the ratio of city employees to city residents, and has this ratio changed since the 1950s?

This has been alluded to elsewhere, but much of the City's infrastructure configured based on a city w/2,000,000 residents, rather than the ~1,500,000 residents currently living in Philadelphia. If we're still employing people to service 500,000 more residents than actually exist, it suggests an obvious place to cut costs.

Of course, when you talk about cutting jobs, that brings union contracts into the discussion. And whose ox gets gored, so to speak.

Thoughts? Does anyone have some hard numbers on this?

-Z

Within the United States there are over one and a half million service members that have served in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over thirty thousand have been physically wounded, but many more have experienced less visible, psychological wounds. Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder have emerged as signature injuries of these conflicts, with recent reports suggesting an increase in rates of suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, homelessness, and domestic violence among returning service members and veterans.

Returning soldier with his family

These traumatic affects of conflict, left unaddressed, could have far-reaching negative consequences for the individuals affected, their families, and our country. Survivor Corps’ work in some of the most conflict affected countries in the world has shown community reintegration to be the key factor in those that overcome their traumatic experiences, and those that are consumed by them.

Philly, you voted for Obama and so did I, so tell your Municipal Government to act like Obama instead of Cheney. Cheney will poison the environment for the sake of money and so apparently will the political interests of Philadelphia.

This city had a chance to stop the Environmental Injustice at the East Mt Airy Brownfield at every opportunity. This Neighborhood suffered three years of exposure to environmental toxins and there is still a cover up.

I’m for protecting public health and environment and so is Obama.

Are you for Change Philadelphia? Are you just going to allow the cover up of Environmental Injustice and continue to be one of the worst cities for environmentally induced health hazards?

Obama also wants "BUILD from the GROUND UP" Libraries are building from the ground up. Libraries build our children and future. Oh yeah, after those kids with no libraries get older and can't read , they can always go to the casinos. Casinos are basic, right?