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Archive: April, 2012
Things are getting even weirder than normal in Philadelphia politics: conservative hedge-fund managers and corporate heirs are, as we've reported (here and here), spending big to support pro-school-voucher candidates and attack opponents.
This week things just took a turn for the straight-up outer-space bizarre: Dick and Betsy DeVos, the right-wing Amway heirs behind millions of dollars of pro-voucher campaign donations, are funding what appears to be a purpose-made front of a PAC, which in turn is behind a militantly pro-choice mailer sent out in support of Fatimah Muhammad's campaign against lead voucher opponent and state Rep. Jim Roebuck in West Philadelphia's 188th district.
The DeVos family, again, is pretty right-wing―and they have also donated big-time to anti-abortion organizations.
The “pro-choice” mailer attacks Gov. Tom Corbett for saying that women forced to undergo a mandatory transvaginal ultrasound before receiving an abortion would “just have to close [their] eyes.” The other side of the mailer says that “Republicans are waging a war on women's rights” and that Muhammad will “take on Republican extremists and protect our rights.”
This is politics at its most cynical: major funders of the pro-choice, pro-Muhammad ad are anti-abortion Republican extremists.
Two of America's most high-profile anti-Muslim bigots will gather at Temple this April 23 for something called the "Islamic Apartheid Conference”: Pamela Geller, who has called Barack Obama is a Muslim and ignited the whole “Ground Zero Mosque” fiasco; and Robert Spencer, co-leader of Stop Islamization of America, an organization the Southern Poverty Law Center has classified as a hate group.
Temple students and Occupy activists are organizing a protest, and Geller has responded by attacking university critics as “brownshirts,” “subversives,” “jihadists,” and “fascists.” She calls the activists' Facebook page “Goebbels propaganda.”
The event, she says, is dedicated to “exposing the suffering of millions of women and non-Muslims living under the oppression and subjugation of the sharia and debunking the vile lies and blood libels spread about the state of Israel by Islamic supremacists and their lapdog apologists.”
Unfortunately, this is Geller's second trip to Philly this spring. In March, she spoke at an event hosted by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) Greater Philadelphia District.
Is Geller anti-Muslim? I will quote at length from my previous post:
Clarke: Dry as a funny bone.
We at City Paper have been developing a new appreciation for 5th District Councilman and Council President Darrell Clarke and his remarkable — almost unsettling — knack for humor so dry and subtle that it's not always entirely clear he's making a joke.
There was an offhand remark the Clarke made to Councilman David Oh on the second meeting of Council this year. Clarke had missed Oh's signal or skipped over him or something and said:
"I didn't quite know where you were, sir." — Which was either simply what it seemed to be or a deeply subtle reference to Oh's uncertain alignment in the political struggle for the presidency of Council. The jury is still out on that one.
There was Clarke's line when the mic went out during contentious testimony from AFSCME 33 union members at Council. Clarke's impromptu: "Is there an electrician in the house?" miiiight have been just a bit of cornpone; or it might have been an invocation of Philly politics and the looming role of IBEW boss Johnny Doc so deep my hairs stand on end in recollection.
Today, after Councilwoman Marian Tasco announced that she will be dancing on Dancing With the Stars to raise money for sickle cell anemia, Clarke seemed to (gently) rib his colleague and her dancing by thanking her for "that very informative" piece of news.
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Henon: On a crusade to do something we were supposed to be doing already.
6th District Councilman Bobby Henon, the freshman city legislator replacing longtime Councilwoman Joan Krajewski, has made a pet issue out of going after blight. Today, he introduced a resolution, co-sponsored by many members of Council, calling for hearings to examine establishing a "problem property task force."
Blight is, of course, about as chronic a chronic problem in this city as any we have. But it's also a problem that seems to attract perennial promises of some new fixit plan.
Last year, as you may recall, we reported that the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections was embarking on a brave new campaign to go after private owners of blighted property using new tools and strategies, including investigating the owners and going after their assets if they owed the city money. The program was to begin with a pilot project in and around Port Richmond.
It seems like we haven't heard so much about that problem lately or whether it did, as intended, reach into the most blighted areas of the city rather than the less severe areas used in the pilot.
It's a question we're likely to hear answered — at Councilman Henon's hearing.
Brian Sims, the former campaign treasurer for longtime Center City Rep. Babette Josephs and her challenger in the 182nd Pennsylvania House District, has out-fundraised her three-to-one, as noted in today's Daily News. Ostensibly, that's the inspiration for Josephs' latest attempt to show up Sims on the campaign trail: a low-budget online campaign video that reads like a Babette dream sequence set to a klezmer-esque soundtrack. Josephs mentions her lack of wealthy "out-of-state" donors, then takes us on a whirlwind tour of her district. It's goofy, mostly beside the point, kind of endearing and worth a watch if you have a couple minutes. Pair this with the trippy, Lost in Space-themed campaign mailers we blogged about a few days ago, and Josephs definitely wins the prize for quirkiest campaign this election cycle.
Also, Josephs' campaign has a release out in response to our reporting on the recent campaign negativity. It's below. The gist is, essentially, "Sims started it." Read on for the full statement.
To reporters and interested parties,
The sign welcoming visitors to the Inquirer and Daily News' new building's marquee on Market East will not, KYW Newsradio reported last week, include the logo of the embattled Daily News.
Or, maybe it will, it turns out.
“Don’t worry, our proud Daily News logo WILL be prominently displayed on the side of our new headquarters,” Assistant City Editor Josh Cornfield wrote in an email to staff. Publisher Greg Osberg told him (and KYW) that the Historical Commission rejected including both logos: the old-timey Inquirer font would be a better fit for the historic Strawbridge's entrance.
A weekly series of foul-mouthed investigations into empty lots, dead-ass proposals and other design phenomena in Philadelphia. Find more stories like this at Philaphilia.blogspot.com.
Bounded by North Broad, Noble, Buttonwood Streets and the Lasher Building — This lot is pathetic. It hasn't been able to be completely covered in construction for at least 60 years. What's worse, it may NEVER get built on. It's located at the northeast corner of Broad and Noble streets, but there's nothing Noble about it. This lot sucks ass.
Last week, a community meeting in Norris Square to discuss the remapping of part of the neighborhood — a plan that would move properties a more restrictive residential zoning category, effectively curbing conversions of single-family homes into multifamily structures — turned into a shouting match and faceoff between Councilwoman Maria Quiñones-Sánchez and the local Norris Square Civic Association. Sanchez says the remapping is needed to curb runaway development; Norris Square Civic Association says it's "motivated by her opposition to NSCA's St. Boniface Mixed-Income Development."
As we previously reported: For years, Norris Square Civic Association has been working on a plan to redevelop the old St. Boniface church site at Hancock and Diamond Streets into co-op housing, a community center, a school and daycare. Now, the group sees a proposal to remap the area, from York to Berks and Second to Front streets, as the death-knell of a project that has $5 million in federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program grants, $5 million in state funding and $1 million in sunk design costs.
Today, the debate moves to the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. But first, NSCA will be holding a protest against the zoning changes. The fun starts at noon at 1515 Arch St.
Pennsylvania, which just four years ago was one of the worst states in the country when it came to releasing information about child abuse fatalities, is now among the most transparent, according to a new national report. Some other states, however, have made the information less accessible than ever.
The study, "State Secrecy and Child Deaths in the U.S.," released by The Children’s Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law and the child advocacy group First Star, rated all 50 states and the District of Columbia on the accessibility of information about child abuse fatalities. Pennsylvania scored a 97 out of 100 possible points in the report released today, losing points only in the question of whether child abuse and neglect proceedings are open to the public.
(Photo: Mayor's Office of Transportation and Utilities)
When is a parking spot more than just a parking spot? When it's a mini park, or a sculpture-turned-bicycle-corral, or part of a bike lane or pedestrian plaza. Philly streets have the potential to become destinations, not just pathways, if we have the tolerance to let them.
The Mayor's Office of Transportation and Utilities is putting the notion that streets can be quality-of-life improvers, and not just glorified car storage corridors, to the test with two pilot programs expanded from popular one-off offerings last year. One is a "parklet" program that follows a similar successful effort outside the Green Line Cafe on Baltimore Avenue, near Clark Park in West Philly; they're even offering to kick in $5,000 for successful applicants to their request for proposals (due May 4). Another is a bicycle corral program, for one of 10 bike racks holding 12 bikes apiece; such an installation went up last year on Sydenham Street in Center City.
Parking spots are a perpetual concern at zoning meetings, and this spring we saw a plan for a pedestrian plaza, that would have taken up a short block of Passyunk Avenue off of South Street, crumble under protests from businesses concerned about traffic flow. But if residents and businesses are willing to cede a few parking spots for these programs, maybe there's hope for weaning Philly off our automobile dependence after all.
The Philadelphia Inquirer “Assault on Learning” series won a Pulitzer Prize today, and the reporting team, by and large, deserves heartfelt congratulations. But the series' last installment, “Armed with Guns and Understanding,” evidenced major journalistic shortcomings and dangerously propagandized in favor of arming Philadelphia's school police. At the risk of this seeming in poor taste while champagne bottles pop on North Broad, this critique was published in November:
What is up with the Inquirer's campaign to arm school cops?
The Philadelphia Inquirer has dedicated article after article to its "Assault on Learning" series, describing a school district where students suffer from widespread violence that administrators underreport so as to not look "persistently dangerous" on paper. They exposed a dysfunctional early intervention program that enrolls nearly everyone — again, like standardized test scores, looks great on paper — and helps almost no one. And they disclosed that school police receive little training and even less vetting. This year, one uniformed officer appeared in court the first day of school — to face charges for crack possession.
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