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- no snitchin
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- Representative Chris Carney: Keep standing up for us, not the insurance companies
- Representative Jason Altmire: Listen to us, not the insurance companies
- 9th Ward Democrats "WEAR"N OF THE GREEN" St. Patrick's Party Fundraiser this Friday Night
- Guest Blogger: Sue Kerr on Dan Onorato
A Long Term, Long Range Plan for Broad and Erie.
Submitted by Dan U-A on Thu, 09/10/2009 - 7:24am.
On Tuesday, the Daily News ran a set of stories (1, 2) about the city's plans for transit-oriented development around Broad and Erie. Effectively, the city has decided that with Temple constantly building on Broad (especially Temple Hospital/Med School here), with the Erie station on the subway in constant use, with a number of bus lines, with Germantown Ave hitting the intersection, the neighborhoods surrounding the intersection can really be strengthened in a big way:
A plan scheduled to be released in the coming weeks calls for transit, commercial and housing redevelopment in an area that extends in a half-mile radius from the intersection.
The area stretches from 10th Street to 20th Street, and from Allegheny to Hunting Park avenues.
"We did a market study . . . and there is actually pretty good market demand for 10 new sit-down restaurants," said David Fecteau, community planner for North Philadelphia.
For me, an article like this, that actually details a smart, overarching plan for some neighborhoods in our city, really stood out. Why? Because notwithstanding the hugely important election of a progressive District Attorney, city and state politics and policies over the last 12 months have really... sucked.
About one year ago, as the Phillies and Obama were marching towards their fall heroics, the Mayor started cutting budgets, and rumblings started coming from library head Siobhan Reardon about her plans for cuts from the system she managed. Those rumblings soon morphed into the 'close libraries' plan. And so, the next two months were spent in a fierce battle, with the neighborhood forums and Mayoral intransigence. The library saga only ended well after with a miraculous, New Years Eve injunction from a courageous judge.
Then we had the budget forums and the tax hike kabuki dance with the Mayor and City Council, ending with the worst of all tax solutions- an increase in the sales tax, and an accounting trick for the pension plans. The sales tax plan was stupid from the beginning, relying on the GOP in Harrisburg, and has therefore been constantly delayed, been used as a vehicle to crush organized labor, and has been shadowed by doomsday announcement after doomsday announcement from the Mayor.
Forget whether the impending plan of doom is a charade or not (as Ben notes, the specific plan has to be, even if the overarching reality of a lack of money isn't). The important takeaway for me is that the guy the city pinned its hopes on has basically spent an entire year in total crisis mode. (And that is with labor negotiations that still seem likely to lead to a strike, with trash piling up and City Hall unstaffed.) Meanwhile, many of the top policy people on the Mayor's staff- Wendell Pritchett, Andy Altman, Marc Alan Hughes and more- have already left, leaving a lot of people to wonder what exactly is going on in City Hall.
Much of the above, or at least the circumstances that led to much of it, is not the Mayor's fault. He is the Mayor of a poor city during a huge economic downturn. Every single Mayor in this situation would be largely screwed. But, whether you think he has done well or whether he has failed, the bottom line is that the last year has appeared to be devoid of an overall, far-thinking vision for the future, and filled with images of shuttered libraries and rec centers, laid off policemen, and the court system grinding to a halt.
All of that is why reading the articles about something smart- transit oriented development in a really important neighborhood- was such a breath of fresh air. We have 6 more years of Michael Nutter as Mayor. Here is to hoping that they bring a lot more positive developments like the plans for Broad and Erie, and a lot less of what we have lived through for the past year.
Nutter's best when he voices "doable reform"
city-wide recycling, parts of Green Works, standardizing the zoning process, more sensible land management at the RDA. He's been pretty poor at leading the horse known as City Council to water (even for things that would endear them with many voters), terrible at "making them drink".
And many of the most important things - fixing L&I, fixing the BRT, fixing the row offices have languished in the near constant crisis mode. Oh and I almost forgot "cutting the drop-out rate in half", remember that one? Still I tire of people blaming the Mayor for everything on the budget just as I tire of cranky white people who continue to rail against Michael Nutter personally for Latrice Bryant of all things (because he's the chief moral spokesperson for all black people who say stupid things in the city of Philadelphia obviously). At some point we have to expect that City Council, all 17 of them not just the freshmen sometimes, will work to generate ideas that improve and expand upon the things Nutter was correct to put on the agenda. I'm not seeing it.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
Latrice Schmatrice
Latrice is a poster-woman for all that locals see in City ineptitude. I'm guilty of the same thing. Whenever I've called a City department or dealt with a City staffer and received the rude treatment from someone who has been working there for several epochs, or services requests at a glacial pace... Latrice Bryant is the first thing that pops into my head. I know several fine City employees, but when I sometimes encounter the awful ones... she seems to be iconographic and the memory returns.
Nutter OTH can't be blamed for of any of this. Latrice isn't Nutter's employee, and Nutter isn't an enabler as Street was and Street's only crisis was the murder wave near the end of his term, and IIRCC, most of the media critiquing went squarely on Street and his completely-incompetent sycophant Sylvester Johnson (who deserved it).
Nutter is a breath of fresh air compared to previous mayors, and Charles Ramsey is one of the best employees the City has.
Latrice Bryant should be fired. But we all know that's not happening; she's got a "leg up" on that position.
Not to hijack the thread but...
Because I love TOD and hope that the development around Erie goes really well. Though, point of order, just by virtue of being in a fairly densely populated area, that particular transit stop is already pretty transit-orientedly developed. Would love to see similar thought put into train stations in Exton or Willow Grove or that parking lot at the stop on the way to Trenton.
The hijacking... Dan's point about much of the above being not the mayor's fault brings up a good question. Of everyone that is pretty well known in public life in Philadelphia today, who would be handling this current situation in a better way? Would we have been better off with any of the other candidates for mayor? Is there anyone who didn't run who would be doing a better job with the cards we have been dealt?
I don't bring this up to say that Nutter is doing a bad job, just that it's possible that there is NO ONE who could have been successful given all of the circumstances (hostile state legislature, city without a great job/tax base, national economic meltdown, powerful unions, less-than-stellar City Council, etc.) In fact, I don't even really care at this point. Just looking forward to a time when the economy does pick up and hoping there's still a city whose long term trend is in the positive direction (ie compared to where it was 20 years ago... not the short term right track/wrong direction questions asked by pollsters).
So any names?
Good questions
and I'm not seeing alternative answers.
To bring it back to whats good about Broad and Erie - yes it is already somewhat densely developed - but mostly by people who have to go someplace else to work. A mix of desirable new infill residential and most of all - jobs producers - is more especially what the doctor ordered.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
Also sales tax is not the worst of all solutions
Flat per-capita or per-household "fees" that neither correlate to the amount of government service that is required, nor for people's ability to pay - tends to be the most regressive form of taxation. And coincidentally also bad for small mom-and-pop business as well. The exemptions for food and clothes reduces some of the regressivity in sales tax. On the other hand if a large household living in a $6 million home in Chestnut Hill puts out 6 cans a week and an old lady in Nicetown putting out one can are being charged the same flat fee for garbage pickup, thats a more regressive form of taxation than sales tax.
And without the sales tax approval, fees like this is what the city will be pursuing in a big way.
Also fixing the BRT - even just to make the percentage of city currently revenue generated from property taxes more fair is something that should be done anyway. And if we are going to close budget gaps without depending on Harrisburg, finally dealing with property tax inequities has to be on the agenda. Unfortunately new assesments that were supposed to be the solution for commercial properties which are arguably the most unfair part of the system under current assesments, turn out to be far, far from ready for prime time. And no sign of when City Council is going to address oversight of the broken and corrupt agency in charge of producing these assesments.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
Poor Peoples' Food often gets sales taxed
In large areas unserved by grocers, the choices for food are too often take-out or other prepared foods, all sales taxed (and high-profit margin).
Joshua Vincent
www.urbantools.org
www.ourcommonwealth.org
Phree Philly
I agree.
Access to affordable nutritious food is still a huge problem for many neighborhoods in Philadlephia - with devastating effects on nutrition and also budgeting. I have a soft spot for the informal network of "guys with a truck" who sell produce from the Produce Market on street corners around the city but its not a replacement for the lack of full-service grocery stores.
Sales taxes were politically "easy" though far from fair. Dealing with the BRT required more political mettle than Council has shown so far, and the wage tax for this year (but not next year) was illegal. Eliminating DROP for electeds should have been an equally "easy" give away for Council since everybody already signed up would have been grandfathered in anyway - but for Council it was apparently more about looking bad in the reflected light than doing something relativley painless to make sure the city's budget was approved.
Mostly I think that for city government this was a "lost summer" where a few simple, easy reforms could have done a lot to to unlock Harrisburg and put the focus back on substantive issues and instead most on Council opted to run away from owning up to the budget they themselves passed. Nutter by contrast drove nearly everyone bonkers with the constant reminders of pending fiscal disaster.
Its time for Council to step up on property taxes, how to make them fair, how to work in protections - because people are still going to be hit with spot reassesments, whether Council acts or not. As Obama says on healthcare, "Neither can we afford not to act."
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
A sales tax victory is still a loss
I can say from some Facebook and personal exchanges that some on Council actually thought the sales tax increases was slam dunk territory. So much so that no Plan (B,C,D,E,etc.) was even considered. I can also say that some mild protests about that course of action from yers truly were met with super-high dudgeon about the property tax's awfulness, disregarding that sales taxes fall on citizens straight up, while at least 40% of real property value is non-residential.
The Mayor was stuck with a bad option, and the legislative arm of the city accidentally painted the city into a corner, and now we have the spectacle (and it is, I saw the Mayor walking through the state house) of the one bad option being the only option.
At least when we spoke in front of the tax policy task force, Councilperson Quinones-Sanchez agreed that designing a solid homestead exemption (using LVT as a mechanism, natch)was of paramount importance this year to move to the property tax.
The sad fact of the sales tax is it will hit small businesses that are "trapped" by their equally trapped lower-income customers: hair salons,cafes and other independent small business. The mobility of higher-end sales is a proven.
The demographics on council are changing, and turnover is inevitable. Can we wait?
Joshua Vincent
www.urbantools.org
www.ourcommonwealth.org
Phree Philly
Homestead exemptions
deferals - that whole problem is long, long overdue. Hopefully Councilwman Quinones-Sanchez is not a lone voice on that front.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.