As we fought with server issues, I missed the chance to note that on December 23 we passed the one year anniversary of the library lawsuit being filed in Common Pleas Court.

So much had to come together for that whole thing to work, including:

• The outrage of citizens all over the city at the announced closures;
• The botched and ever changing rationales of the administration;
• People organizing all over the city;
• And finally, seven brave women and AFSCME signing on to a lawsuit, joined a day later by Councilman Green.

I sat in the Courtroom as the hearing concluded; it was incredibly tense. As Judge Fox started making her ruling, it was really not clear who was about to win. Then, amidst a Hollywood like mix of murmuring, buzz and then loud applause, she said something like this:

The decision to close these eleven branch libraries is more than a response to a financial crisis; it changes the very foundation of our City. Two of the libraries scheduled to close, Haddinton and Holmesburg, will result in a reversion of the property back to the original grantor because of deed restrictions. No one questions the economic crisis which has rocked both the City and the Nation. However, we are a Nation of hope. A "crisis" evokes something temporary. Defendants argued there were more than enough libraries in Philadelphia. "Philadelphia has more libraries than any other city in the country." Our library system is more than a century old yet in three short months an economic crisis results in permanently closing eleven branches. This court does not envy the Mayor and the tough decisions he has had to make in this financial crisis. Yet, as this court is bound to follow the law, so is the Mayor. The permanent closing of neighborhood branch libraries is changing the very structure of the Free Library of Philadelphia and not just responding to a "financial crisis."

Fast forward a year, and not all is well with the libraries, by any means. But, they have survived, poised to rebound at a time when budgets and tax revenues return to normal. And, one year later, I think the Mayor would agree that libraries- Libraries!- have become the third rail in Philadelphia politics.

On June 23, the Daily News editorial "We want the bad news too" requested details from the Nutter administration regarding its infamous "Plan B" budget that would take effect if the State failed to okay the City's proposed sales tax increase.

Fifteen days later, Harrisburg has yet to act, and the "Plan B" option -- described by sources in and out of City Hall as "apocalyptic" -- looms ever closer to reality. And still we know nothing more about the apparently services-blasting details.

Worse: unless I missed it, during the intervening days, there's been no echoing call from City Council, or anywhere else in government, to make Plan B public.

Well, it's time to make the Daily News' original request a demand.

As Ben Waxman's column rightly states, "It's Our Money" too, so we demand that Mayor Nutter lets us know how it's going to be spent, or not spent.

We demand to see Plan B.

From The Daily News
The Internet for Everyone
By Todd Wolfson of Media Mobilizing Project and Hannah Sassaman of the Digital Justice Coalition

PHILADELPHIA is lining up for a race with a big prize - tens of millions in stimulus money to expand Internet access. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has authorized $7.2 billion for broadband programs, with everything from tricking out community centers with high-speed lines to mapping broadband availability already on the table as fundable programs.

I was a big supporter of Mike Nutter from the time he announced his candidacy for Mayor of Philadelphia. And I'll give him appropriate credit for attempting to take serious fiscal measures to deal w/the serious fical problems facing Philadelphia.

But I question the notion that he can enact temporary hikes in property taxes + the local sales tax. Temporary taxes? Two words for that: Johnstown Flood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown_Flood

The Johnstown Flood was an enormous disaster which occurred in 1889. It was so enormous that a special tax was added to liquor sales (in 1936) to assist in paying for relief to the affected areas. This tax remains on the books today, long after even the great grandchildren of the victims of the flood are gone.

HERE'S the TOP 5 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD GO TO THE SITE www.nopropertytaxhike.com

1. Higher property taxes means our slow housing market will get even slower.
2. The city's property taxes are levied based on "WHO YOU KNOW". Just ask Senator Vincent Fumo.
3. Philadelphians carry one of the HIGHEST TAX BURDENs IN THE COUNTRY
with property taxes at their current rates .
4. Hundreds of millions of dollars of non-taxed real estate sits on the shelf at City Hall --- and they won't sell it to developers who will develop the land and put it in the hands of those who will pay property taxes.
5. For many people near retirement age who have seen their 401k funds dwindle, higher property taxes damage their only retirement asset.

When every other major city in America is cutting bloated public employee rolls, Philadelphia decides to place most of the burden on balancing the budget on homeowners and this is wrong.

LOG ON, SIGN THE PETITION AND PASS IT ON

Last night, I sat in on Mayor Nutter’s most recent “kitchen table” talk with Philadelphians about the budget. (It was more of a living room talk, but I digress.) The first of these talks happened in Juniata a couple of weeks ago. The scene was pretty interesting, and took place in the home of some community leaders in East Oak Lane. The basic set up was about 15 people and the Mayor talking about the budget, and what people wanted out of services, if they were willing to have service cuts, if they were willing to raise taxes, etc. I guess I was ‘press,’ but, I was still sitting in someone’s living room, and so, I won’t directly quote anyone or anything like that.

This is my quick recap, as best I can remember it all. I am going to the budget thing tonight in Germantown, and, I have some more to say about the trash collection idea and this whole process, but I will save it all for later.

Preconceptions

I know that in the Penn Praxis budget sessions, there are some complaints that the “fix is in-” specifically, that people are being asked to simply choose which services they want to cut, rather than thinking about enlarging the pie. I don’t think that was really the case yesterday. I have no idea how the Mayor’s staff will actually incorporate the responses here into the actual decision making process, but yes, the Mayor asked openly about both about services and taxes.

There was one preconception, however, that he does carry with him that I wonder about. Specifically, he implied that this is a structural, long-term problem. There was no sense that although this was a very deep and broad crisis, it was still something that would have an end point. We do have obvious structural issues in our budget, which we all know about. But, those are the same problems that candidate Nutter faced, too. We also have some temporary ones, for which I think we should consider temporary solutions.

The Meeting

The Mayor asked a bunch of different times if there were services that people were willing to do without. Frankly, not very many people were able to elucidate any, other than fat or waste. The Mayor asked a bunch of times, and there weren't a whole lot of answers.

What was clear was that, in that room at least, people don’t want any cuts that would mean less police on the streets or slowed fire response times. But again, there simply weren’t a ton of services that were obviously ‘cuttable,’ period. (And, there were some jokes about the libraries and the Mayor not wanting to go through that again.)

As you would expect, people didn’t jump up and ask for their taxes to be raised either. The trash collection fee came up, and while there was some resistance, there was what I would call grudging acceptance amongst people, especially if there were a means test of some kind. The refrain that came up a few times was “If I have to pay five dollars a week to have my trash collected so that a cop doesn’t get laid off, OK.” (I worry about the trash fee, but I will save that for another day.)

Other random stuff

It seemed apparent to me from his talk, as well as from the general consensus in the room, that the unions will be asked to pay towards their healthcare costs in upcoming negotiations. That will obviously be a huge sticking point in negotiations, but, considering what private employers do, and if this room was an example, it will present union leaders with a serious public relations problem.

That said, in a couple of different ways, the Mayor explicitly stood up for City workers. For example, in response to a question about waste, he basically said, for example, 1)being a sanitation worker is hard, and 2)most of them work pretty hard.

I had to run home to anxiously await the potential to be drug tested (long story), so I didn't stick around to ask the Mayor questions.

I am heading to the budget thing in Germantown tonight. It should be interesting.

Yesterday the Mayor announced the horrible set of possible scenarios facing all of us in the next fiscal year starting July 1. It doesn't have to be that way. Here is One Philadelphia's plan to avert catastrophe. For more info, go to our website at onephiladelphia.org

ONE PHILADELPHIA FIVE YEAR BUDGET PROPOSAL

Mayor Nutter is forecasting a deficit of more than $1 billion over the life of the City's next Five Year Plan covering the period from Fiscal Year 2010 to 2014. To cover the shortfall, City officials have revealed that major service cutbacks are likely in such areas as trash delivery, homeless services, health centers, libraries, fire and police services, recreation centers and virtually everything else that Philadelphians rely upon. These cutbacks would come in the face of a growing economic upheaval that is throwing thousands of Philadelphians out of work and stressing the City's social service delivery service system to the breaking point.

This morning, 24 hours after meeting with representatives from the Chinatown community, Mayor Michael Nutter signed the legislation both re-zoning the Gallery to a gambling district and designating an area from 6th to Broad Streets and Arch to Chesnut Streets as an area where a CED (commercial entertainment district - the name for a zone that permits gambling) may be laid.

Below is Asian Americans United's statement:

Asian Americans United is disappointed but not surprised by the Mayor’s decision.

It has been clear from the start that there has been no intent to engage in an inclusive process that respects the voices of residents and communities. Worse still has been witnessing the dismantling of processes that have been established in our city precisely to protect residents from capricious and self-serving development.

I'm learning now that of the 11 branches they want to close, about half of them are in economically depressed parts of the city. They include:

Durham, Eastwick, Fishtown, Fumo, Haddington, Holmesburg, Kingsessing, Logan, Ogontz, Queen Memorial, and Wadsworth

I'm hearing this from a librarian who says that even though this information probably isn't supposed to be public yet -- she wants the city to know what these budget cuts are doing to their communities.

Philadelphia has spent a lot of money to attract people like my unnamed librarian friend to this city. She came here to study at one of the best Library Science schools in the nation -- Drexel -- and stayed for years after earning her degree, waiting for a position in one of the cities' libraries.

Following last week's heated Chinatown town meeting, Councilman Frank DiCicco's office immediately fired off a mass email complaining that information he wanted to share "got lost" at the meeting.

At this week’s Washington Square West meeting, there was plenty of space for the Councilman to share his deeply divided view of neighborhood priorities.

The last question of the day came from a Chinatown resident, a college student, who after restating the opposition in Chinatown asked DiCicco this:

"And my question is . . . if Washington Square West and Chinatown and other neighborhood organizations are opposing the casino, if you would join us in fighting against the casino placement?"

And this is what he had to say:

"I have been fighting the placement of casinos almost four years? three and a half, four years now. But I have learned, and I think most of us have learned, as I was trying to, I tried a couple of times tonight to articulate . . . I look at this from the opinion that we’re gonna have two casinos in the city of Philadelphia. I said that in my opening statement. And at some point a decision will be made whether it’s by me or this administration or someone else. The Supreme Court of PA will ultimately make that decision. So if Foxwoods tonight decided that there’s a third location that they would like to do some due diligence on – I doubt that very much – but if they were, all those sites are in play.

So when you ask me will I fight? If you want me not to introduce CED legislation on Thursday and you want me to stand outside with picket lines and do all the things . . . I did for the last three and a half years, honestly, it’s not going to make a difference in the end.

March and Rally Will Highlight Issues of Jobs, Housing, and Services; Coalition is Registering Thousands of Low-income and Homeless Persons

Monday, September 22
March - Broad St. and Fairmount Ave., 1:00 p.m.
Rally - LOVE Park, 2:00 p.m.

[PHILADELPHIA] In their quest for the White House, are Senators John McCain and Barack Obama addressing the critical issues facing millions of Americans who are low-income or homeless? That question is being raised by a coalition of Philadelphians who are mobilizing during this election year.

Our friends and neighbors at Casino-Free Philadelphia, as part of a struggle they've shared with groups like NABR and other community organizations fighting casinos in the city, have just won a huge victory -- they've gotten Foxwoods to consider moving from the Philadelphia waterfront.

They visited Governor Rendell today and yesterday, as he prepared to meet with Mayor Nutter, Senator Fumo, and Representative Evans and the executives of Foxwoods. Casino-Free does it right, every time -- they continue to demonstrate that public pressure and accountability from ordinary neighbors can break down even the most established power blocks.

In their email that they sent out to supporters, Casino-Free Philadelphia reminded us that it isn't just the riverfront neighborhoods -- but every neighborhood that deserves the right to be free of gambling parlors and the problems they introduce. CFP has asked us to sign on to principles that the Governor, and the casino operators, must consider in any resiting plan:

1) The resiting process must be fair, transparent and inclusive. The process used by the PGCB was unfair, secret and exclusionary. Any effort to resite the casinos must be the opposite.

2) Casinos cannot be built in or near any neighborhood. Act 71's and the PGCB's lack of social standards in its decision-making resulted in untenable sites. Around-the-clock 5,000 slot parlors with multiple liquor licenses, attracting tens of thousands of cars each day are uses that are incompatible with neighborhoods.

3) Any resiting process must consider the "no casino" alternative. No one needs two casinos in Philadelphia. A cost-benefit analysis should be performed. Prior assumptions deserve to be revisited.

4) Casino companies are not to receive bailouts. They did not merely participate in a system riddled with mistakes but they actively tried to undermine the system. (Governor Rendell suggested today that no state money would be used.)

CFP will get this letter to Rendell, Nutter, Evans, and Fumo.

We have to celebrate this as a huge step forward -- and think hard about how we can use the media attention, the deep thinking on accountable use of our neighborhoods' and communities' land, and the organizing infrastructure to engage with housing issues and other land use issues in Philly.

We also need to step up and support groups like CFP and other neighborhood champions. Bread and Roses is honoring them this October with their Community Empowerment Award. But I'm not going to wait to donate more to one of the most effective groups I've ever seen in Philly.

There's a few articles popping up online about this victory -- read them, celebrate for a minute, and then -- on to Sugarhouse and no casinos in any neighborhoods!

Al Dia: http://www.pontealdia.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=917&Itemid=1

KYW: http://www.kyw1060.com/Rendell-Says-Foxwoods-May-Bend-on-Waterfront-Site/2829622

Editorial in the Inky: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20080821_Editorial__Riverfront_Casinos.html

The Philadelphia web-site has a very simple answer to the long-overdue 311 system, it's the Help Me page. It's no substitute for a full 311 system, but, in the meantime, the idea is pretty good. Assign city staffers that can ferret out the answers to different questions emailed in to one central email address.

Good in theory, but it's never, in my experience, worked. It was there in the Street Administration and it is still there under Nutter. There doesn't seem to be any difference. The City should either make the HelpMe@phila.gov system an important part of several city staffers jobs and make sure they do it right, or they should take the web-page down. Having it and seeing how poorly it works just makes getting around City Government even more frustrating. It's almost as if they are laughing at us.

The first time I emailed HelpMe, I did get an answer.

It wasn't much of an answer, though. I own the two lots next to my house and they are fenced off and I and my neighbor park our cars on them. It's a good deal for our street, because two cars get off the somewhat limited street parking and we only need half the length of a car to maintain access to the space, leaving more space for everyone else.

The problem is, people park in front of the entrance all the time so we often can't get in, or, worse, out.

So I wrote in to find out how you get those stripes painted on your street that denote the fact that no one should park in front of the entrance to the gate. Can you just do it yourself? Do you have to pay someone? Do you have to get it licensed?

That was my question.

The answer I got (I'm not making this up) was: "Not sure! I do know you're responsible for the curb cuts, though."

Did I ask about curb cuts? In fact, that's already done. Thanks. How about maybe looking into the question for a minute rather than going off the top of your head? If the people who receive the Help Me questions can't be bothered to research them, then what's the point of having the system?

I had been thinking about Michael Nutter's first budget address for the past 24 hours and feeling fine... until I got an email from Brett Mandel this morning with the subject line, "Tax Reformers...This Budget's For You!" I thought we might be in trouble after all, but another review of the Mayor's address, and it seems like we're gonna be ok. That said, there are two things Mayor Nutter has proposed which could become very big problems:

1. He sets aside a specific amount of money for city contract negotiations with unions--no more--while relying on a bond to deal with city pension obligations.
2. He proposes cuts to the net income portion of the Business Privilege tax.

The problem with the first point is we don't really know if a bond can work. As the Inky reports today:

"It is a creative solution, and that's a good thing, but there are lots more questions that need to be answered before we know if it'll work, when it'll work," said Uri Monson, executive director of the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, which oversees the city's budget.

We also don't know what the city employee unions are going to be asking for just yet, and without the knowledge, it seems a bit inflexible to name a dollar figure now. Remember, the city is the largest employer, and any drastic change to the livelihood of its employees can have a big impact on our entire region's economy. The problem with the second point--and Jennifer and Dan pointed this out last week--is it is hard to support cuts to the net income tax without knowing how it currently impacts businesses in real numbers. I am sure the Mayor knows of course--since he is privy to data from the department of Revenue that would indicate how the tax is affecting different kinds of businesses--but we, the public, do not.

In the spirit of Mayor Nutter's "new day, new way" approach to open records and transparency in government, Jennifer wrote a letter to the Department of Revenue requesting this data. After all, there is growing evidence that for the very largest corporations, despite a real or perceived high business tax burden here, other factors like proximity to roads, train stations, cultural events, restaurants, etc. have been more important factors in making decisions about business relocation. And, perception often trumps reality when in comes to the free-market, and Nutter sent a pretty strong message that will change the perception of Philadelphia when he said this at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon:

"The doors at City Hall are now open," he said, in a silent nod to the strained relationship prevalent during the Street administration. "You will always have a friend at City Hall."

That's not to say that business taxes do not matter--and I think we all agree that our business tax structure seems uneven at best. But without a public release of the data, it's hard to know how serious of a problem this is, without relying solely on anecdotal information. Despite these potential problems, you have to give credit to Nutter for proposing a budget which:

• expands single-stream recycling
• gives $3 million to city health centers
• $4 million a year to CCP to expand its reach

That said, it is a humble budget, which makes sense for a first budget from a new Mayor. However, I have to express some concern that the entire Jobs and Economic development portion of the Mayor's speech really includes only 3 ideas: arts & culture expansion, tax cuts, and dealing with unions. For a city whose real wages have been on the decline every single year since 1969, and that has yet to produce a real economic sustainability plan for the future--as opposed to piece-meal economic development deals, often at the discretion on Council members--we could do better. However, as Nutter himself said:

We don’t walk into this process under the assumption that we have a monopoly on ideas, but we believe the proposals set forth here today will put us on a course for a safer, cleaner, greener city, where our children are protected and educated, where government performs its tasks in an open, honest and efficient manner and where performance is measured, improvements are made and services are delivered.

And until we see the line-item budget, that sounds good enough for now.

Sugarhouse, the proposed riverfront casino on the Fishtown/Northern Liberties border, needs to build on some submerged land owned by the state. The Street administration issued them a license to build on that land, which provoked lawsuits from state lawmakers and Philadelphia City Council, who claimed that the city had no right to issue that license.

Well, Michael Nutter just either made that lawsuit moot or upped the ante by revoking the license awarded by the city.

From the Inquirer:

At a City Hall news conference, he used harsh language to criticize the city action that preceded him, saying the license was "issued in error" by the city Commerce Department and was "unnecessarily rushed."

SugarHouse will have 30 days to appeal to the city to issue the license again, but only after a more extensive review process, Nutter said. He did not say how long that process would take - "it will be reasonable' - if SugarHouse chose to appeal...

The mayor reiterated that he is not a fan of the site for the SugarHouse or the Foxwoods casinos. In the case of SugarHouse, he said, concerns about traffic, parking, congestion and more were "brushed to the side" by the Street administration in a process that he characterized as improper. "It was an abuse of a discretion," Nutter said.