Tomorrow is the final opportunity for the public to testify about the mayor's proposed operating budget. If you'd like to tell City Council how you think our money should be spent, this is your chance!

The hearing is scheduled to begin at 2:30pm. There will be a break at 4:30pm and then testimony will resume at 5:30pm. Right now, the hearing is scheduled to last until 7:00pm but it may run later depending on how many people come to testify.

I've been told that the afternoon slots are all filled, but there is still space in the evening. To get your name on the list, e-mail Sharon Ortiz at sharon.c.ortiz@phila.gov or call 215-686-3407.

If you can't make it to the hearing, be sure to speak your piece in our "Testify!" thread on It's Our Money

i. We'll make sure that City Council gets a copy.

This is part one taken from my own blog written on November 17th. Despite being a few months old, everything still rings true. You can read the original here: http://markskull.blogspot.com/2007/11/civil-rights-and-possible-crime.html

I want to state one fact here: Despite how much I disagree with him on the Crime Emergency issue, I highly respect the man and was ready to hire him myself once elected. I agree with a large portion of what he wants, but on this issue and mainly this issue alone more than anything else, I feel he is wrong. This article, along with Part 2, are serious looks and criticisms I have about this and I have, and will, state as many facts as possible to back me up on not only my view, but the counterpoint as well.

When it comes to any and all comments, I ask you keep them civil. Thank you.

-Larry

The keystone of why I ran for mayor after the May Primary can be summed up into these words:

To make sure Nutter NEVER declares a Crime Emergency.

In essence, a Crime Emergency is this:

• prohibit or limit gatherings of people on sidewalks, streets, or any outdoor place in the designated neighborhoods;
• halt or limit the movement of vehicles through or within the designated neighborhoods;
• establish a curfew limiting the hours people could be outside their houses; and
• prohibit the sale, carrying or possession on the public street or public sidewalks, or in any public park or square, of weapons of any kind.

Let's stop for a second and look at this. To quote Nutter himself:

Title 10 of the Philadelphia Code authorizes the Mayor to take specified measures if the Mayor determines that “the City or any part thereof is suffering or is in imminent danger of suffering civil disturbance , disorder, riot or other occurrence which will seriously and substantially endanger the health, safety and property of the citizens.” Parts of Philadelphia are clearly suffering a wave of violence that endangers the safety of residents.

In other words, it's exactly what it sounds like: A last resort in case it is incredibly dangerous to even leave your house. For example, say we're under a real threat of terrorism and we've been attacked, that would be grounds to declare a Crime Emergency. Or a massive gang war erupted, where you have two rival gangs killing each other and anyone in their way. That's a good reason to declare it as well.

Well, it is of course an exciting time to be in Philadelphia. I know I speak for many when I say that it is a real pleasure to hear Michael Nutter speak, with his hopeful vision for the city. Of course, he does not have solutions for the major problems facing the city; and some of his proposals strike me as far-fetched or difficult to implement; but it is great to hear his pitch for civic involvement and a clear vision for what the city can be. I look forward to seeing what happens, and being a part of it.

So we will face an important decision in 4 years. Will we re-elect him or not? It is doubtful that any major tectonic shifts in attitude or social forces will have occurred; so we will have to decide on whether to support him based on some interval benchmarks.

So I ask now: What are the absolute MUSTs that must be in place in the spring of 2011 to assure your vote and support for Nutter II?

Click to download the first episode of

The Legislator and the Agitator. Rep. Payton and I were talking recently about the lack of podcasts about Pennsylvania politics. We're both pretty involved in it in our own way, so we had the idea of starting our own podcast. The intent is to give the inside and the outside perspective of two people working on the same political side. This is our first episode. In the future, we'll go more into each other's background and also try to spend more time talking about how we do what we do.

This first podcast is pretty topical, though. Show notes below. It's a little under an hour, but divided into four main segments, of about 15 minutes each. In other words, we have your next four walks to/from work covered. Fire up that Ipod, Pennsylvania!

Hit "Click More" to see the Show Notes!

Doron Taussig and Tom Namako at the City Paper put together a cover story (as of last Thursday) that takes the form of a to-do list addressed to Mayoral presumptive Michael Nutter. Great minds think a like apparently as their article hit some of the same marks as my post about the future of Philadelphia’s economy and Michael Nutter.

One point they hit that really seems worth emphasizing is the renegotiation of city worker contracts that will occur next spring. The lines have already been drawn in that battle: the city will not have a whole lot of money to spend on all its needs and city workers don’t want to make any more concessions on health care.

The CP article describes the coming conflict efficiently:

Within five years, the city of Philadelphia will be spending more than one of every four of its tax dollars on what used to be called 'fringe benefits'" — pensions and health care. You can't afford to maintain this rate, and if you don't win some concessions, your hands will be tied by budgetary constraints for your entire first term. But the unions have said they don't intend to accept any benefit cuts — good bennies are practically the point of a public-sector job — and the last thing you want in your first half-year is a public-sector strike that shuts down the city you promised to make work better. The situation is so dire that it's been compared to what Gov. Ed Rendell faced when he first took office, when Philly was on the verge of bankruptcy...One other thing worth mentioning here: Philadelphia's public-sector employees' generous health and pension plans are not necessarily a bad thing. The City of Philadelphia is the biggest employer in the city of Philadelphia. It behooves you to keep 27,778 public employees and 33,500 retirees comfortable.

The authors go on to list a number of other important priorities including violence, addressing prison overcrowding, SEPTA, DHS, ethics, and of course tax cuts:

There are two changes to the city's tax structure that you've backed. One was reducing the business-privilege tax (BPT), a move you tried to make while on council until Street vetoed it. The other is reassessing property taxes, so that properties are assessed according to what they would sell for if a For Sale sign went up today, rather than decades ago.

Now that you're mayor, it would appear that these proposals' time has come. But two things could stand in their way: those upcoming union negotiations, and City Council. There's only so much money the city has to spend every year, and this year, the unions get a shot at it first. If they persuade you to spend more money on them, says tax advocate Brett Mandel, it might be hard to cut business taxes....Passing the BPT cuts, at least, seems doable: It takes nine votes to pass a bill, and eight of the members who voted in favor of cutting the BPT in 2004 remain on council. That means you need to persuade just one of possibly four new council members: Bill Green, Maria Quinones-Sanchez, Curtis Jones or (maybe) David Oh to back the idea. Take them to dinner, compliment their outfits, give them some money for area recreation centers — you remember how this is done, right?

I am somewhat biased in this conversation as I now dating a city worker (well, I have always been dating him, but Joel just became a Library trainee). Aside from the income he brings into our household, his job is important to me because it provides me with healthcare (yea domestic partnership!). I gotta tell you, I really don’t want him to lose his job. And I think you all know how I feel about business tax cuts.

Looking at the situation objectively though, and I guess this is what is what I was trying to articulate in my earlier post about Nutter and the economy, the contract fight is a great opportunity to dissect our collective priorities for the expenditure of city funds.

Do we as citizens and voters support job and benefit cuts for city workers if the money saved will go toward something that enhances our economy and creates a net gain of jobs? Is that really the choice that will be presented to us? What value and services do we as citizens get from city workers?

Messing with the livelihood of the largest pool of employees in the city is a BIG deal. Seems to me like we as a general populace need some tools to better understand what is going on.

As the CP article points out, and as many folks here have pointed out, Michael Nutter has a lot of problems to deal with when he becomes Mayor, and he won’t be able to address them all right away. In that context it is up to us to set expectations accordingly and begin to articulate which things are most important to deal with first, and be able to explain why.

That starts with identifying the issues that will be forced to the forefront (probably this one and and gun violence would be my guess) and all of us (on and offline) listing our priorities beyond those.

When Linda Soffer and Jeanne Kohl of the group Mothers Against SugarHouse (MASH) received news that Thomas "Tad" Decker would be co-chairing a fundraiser for Democratic mayoral nominee Michael Nutter, they were confused and outraged. Decker is the former chair of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, the governmental body that authorized the construction of two casinos along Philadelphia's Delaware riverfront and within a couple hundred feet of people's homes.

"I couldn't understand why Nutter would be taking money from a man who worked to deny Philadelphians a vote on where to put casinos" said Linda Soffer of MASH.