1) The Board of Ethics Attacks… and this time they ping the best Councilperson we have- Maria Quinones Sanchez. Basically, what is comes down to is that during the 2007 campaign, there was a PAC that was running ads supporting a bunch of candidates- including my dad, Derek Green, Marc Stier and Maria. Because the PAC was running a bunch of ads, they got a bulk rate.

Then, the Councilwoman’s campaign wanted to used the discount the PAC got on the ads for some more Maria-only ads, and so they got the PAC to run them, and then paid the PAC. The BoE decided that violated the campaign finance law, in that she was effectively controlling more than one PAC. So, basically, the campaign saw a chance to get a discount with the Inq/Daily News, and paid money through the PAC to make it happen. She has she messed up, and accepted responsibility.

The rub comes that she says was willing to settle with the BoE, but is pissed that she didn’t have a chance to make her case with the BoE about a specific provision of the settlement agreement(holding her personally liable).

Quinones-Sanchez and her campaign treasurer, Peter Winebrake, acknowledged "a technical violation" of the campaign-finance law, based on their use of an independent political-action committee to save $2,500 on a series of newspaper ads.

Quinones-Sanchez said that her campaign organization had been prepared to settle the matter by paying a $4,500 fine. But she said that she balked at the terms of a settlement agreement proposed by Shane Creamer Jr., the board's executive director, fearing that it would expose her to lawsuits challenging her seat on Council.

"We wanted an opportunity to make our case in front of the Ethics Board, but that was denied," Quinones-Sanchez complained. "We were just flabbergasted that we would be denied."

I will contact the Councilwoman, and let her explain what she means. If there is a chance to improve the BoE procedures, great, let’s do it. This is still new. Improving it, constructively, if there really are some problems, sounds fine. That is a lot different than trying to get rid of someone with silly grandstanding….

2) Mayor Nutter got props for the Philly Foreclosure program. That is really awesome. Its great to see a good program like that being lauded. Let’s also make sure that the other people who got this thing going get their props- people like Judge Annette Rizzo, John Dodds of PUP, various attorneys from CLS, ACORN, and others.

3) Last week it was announced that Philly’s school food program has been spared. Score one for santity. And now Fattah, Sestak, et. al. are trying to enshrine this change into law, so a future doofus at the USDA cannot kill it.

4) Buy Local! Yesterday at the Public School Notebook birthday party, I had some excellent locally made ice cream from Chilly Philly, a Mt. Airy based company. It is sold at Whole Foods, at Weavers Way in Mt. Airy, etc. It is slow made, and awesome. Buy it. Eat it. Enjoy it. Support a local business.

What else is going on?