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The Mayor
How time flies â just a couple of hours ago, I was writing about the long-standing deadlock over Philadelphia's fiscal relief bill in Harrisburg - and then, about half an hour ago, the deadlock seems to have ended, with the Senate passing the bill, without amendments, 32-17. (KYW reports that Mayor Nutter made an "emotional" call to his cabinet to order them to "kill Plan C."
That means â not that we're even slightly surprised â that Nutter won't, in fact, shut down every branch of the Free Library, close our courts, and lay off hundreds and hundreds of cops.
Over at Philadelphia Weekly, my colleague Joel Mathis responded to my own assertion that nearly everybody â Nutter, the media, Harrisburg itself â was enacting a kind of mass bluff, and suggested:
"Well, if itâs a bluff, maybe it worked."
I don't know. Maybe it did work. But I wonder if Mayor Nutter didn't hurt his own credibility â not with Harrisburg, but with us.
If Plan C was a bluff â and I think it was â that means that there was either another plan, that we didn't know about, or there wasn't, and Nutter fully expected the passage of this bill.
If the former is the case, shouldn't Nutter have told us about the real Plan C? Shouldn't Council have been weighing in on real contingency plans, rather than holding their breath together?
If the latter is the case, it means that our institutions â library branches, police, etc. â were props in a political theatrical production.
And Philadelphians will remember that the next time that cuts rolls around.
All that being said, some congratulations are in order â to Philly, and to Mayor Nutter. May he go for a nice bike ride or something back home in Philly.
"shouldn't Nutter have told us about the real Plan C? " um, maybe you need to look up the meaning of bluff, huh?
What Plan C could there have possibly been? There's no money folks.
What Plan C could there have possibly been? There's no money, folks.
OF COURSE IT WAS A BLUFF! Please! The whole thing was ridiculous. Explain to me how he was going to shut down the courts? Seriously? With thousands of people awaiting trial/sentencing? Were we just going to empty the jails? And, of course, stop arresting people, 'cause there'd be no cops. Bullshit! And we'll just stop picking up the trash. Right. Think that was going to apply to his neighborhood, too? Or City Council's? Not bloody likely. Shutting down libraries and parks wouldn't surprise me, 'cause we've got F'd up priorities, but I didn't EVER hear him talk about layoffs in the Revenue Dept. Hmmm. The whole thing was grandstanding, partly to give him him a way to screw the unions, and partly to make the jerks in Harrisburg feel important and in control. It's all a bunch of crap. Hey, Mike and Ed, GROW A PAIR. You don't want to be unpopular in Harrisburg, so you're gonna screw Philly? Nice. I knew a guy who always said "you're talking out your ass, 'cause your mouth knows better". There's your "plan C." PS: Can someone explain to me how NOT funding the (already under-funded) pension plan actually helps anybody? Isn't that just leaving a bigger mess for someone else to clean up in the future? Like I said, nice, real nice.
Alternate title: "Nutter Hurts Philly Retailers Even More" People shopped outside the city to save 1%. Now the threshold has been cut in half. When my bills are more than my income, I cut my spending. Of course I don't have people trapped in my living room who I can just tax, either.
My read on the "bluff" the impossiblity of not funding the courts would have built in a little more time for Harrisburg in terms of back and forths with PICA. If the city was going to make a play for an emergency alternative tax plan it would have also given Nutter more ammunition to say "he was forced". The problem with that is the PA Supreme Court Mastrangelo that stops the city from passing new taxes mid-fiscal year is very well established. Its not just been cited by dozens of subsequent decisions here in PA but actually been cited several times in other states. Also what people fail to understand, the cost of the courts would have made Plan C significantly more short of money so in terms of the impact on citizens, there is no chance that "the bluff" would have made the impact less severe.
[...] laid off a bunch of policemen, and gotten rid of trash pickup, and… wait, these things seem awfully well-chosen to piss Philly residents off), here’s a beautiful statement necklace for your favorite librarian. Each one is made of [...]
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Friday morning, signs went up on every entrance to every library in the city's system, from Central on down, reading thusly: All Free Library of Philadelphia Branch, Regional and Central Libraries will be Closed Effective Close of Business October 2, 2009.
Upon seeing such, I rang Andy Kahan, the Director of Author Events at Vine St.'s Free Library of Philadelphia and asked what this meant at first glance.
First is that all libraries are now in a diminishing borrowing period and that all materials will be due on October 1. As for events and readings, Kahan says, though signals are mixed, he and his staff are preparing for the worst.
"Author events would be the only program that continues and I'm in the process of negotiating with other nearby venues — just in case," says Kahan. "Parkway institutions such as Friends Select School and Moore College of Art have stepped forward and offered their auditoria to meet our need. I'm trying to figure out which authors to place where based on the size of the audience and the institutions interest and projection capacity. I'm looking to nearby institutions because, in the event we can't reach all attendees with news of the venue changes, people who just show up will know from our illuminated signs which parkway venue is hosting our event — and they won't be late to the party."
One Book, One Philadelphia programming doesn't begin until January 2010 so it's still a bit early for the Free Library's event heads to look elsewhere — but they are prepared to take events elsewhere if necessary. Kahan is, like a lot of us, hopeful that Pennsylvania representatives will heed Mayor Nutter's warnings. "On one hand the House seems willing to pass the 1% tax and pension deferments, which would allow the city to continue functioning; the Senate is not," claims Kahan. "We're optimistic they'll work through their differences before the October 1 deadline."
Kiss a librarian today. It may be one of your last chances for a while.
[...] Citypaper has more. Maybe they’re meant as warnings of what’s to come if Mayor Nutter’s taxes [...]
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Today, Mayor Michael Nutter, along with D.A. Lynne Abraham, announced the creation of Philly's brand-new Mental Health Court. Essentially, its function is to "provide alternative supervision to eligible offenders who require specialized mental health treatment with court oversight." From the press release:
Instead [of] many different judges supervising these cases, one designated judge will hear all matters pertaining to the targeted population, thereby streamlining dockets and bringing all mental health cases into one courtroom. Participants in the Mental Health Court must follow the rules and regulations of the Philadelphia Adult Probation and Parole Department and the conditions of an individualized treatment plan. All participants will be required to appear before the designated judge who will monitor their compliance and adherence to all rules and conditions.
While this is a first in Philly, it's not in Pennsylvania 11 other counties have mental health courts. But, as the press release says, Philly's "will represent the first in the state to provide for participants reintegration back into the community." Which all sounds pretty good, no? Shouldn't people with mental health issues get treated differently? Though there isn't much news on the topic (except from Philebrity, strangely, which also noted the the lack of media coverage), there's a good article in the U.S. News & World Report on a mental health court in Pittsburgh, which sheds some light on exactly what differentiates it from other courts. Here's a snippet:
A soft touch is hardly standard for judges. But this is the Allegheny County Mental Health Court, an alternative to traditional criminal court, and it is precisely that sort of approach that has helped keep more and more mentally ill offenders out of jail. "Some people say, 'Is warm and fuzzy appropriate for the criminal justice system?'" says Zottola, a former county prosecutor. "But it really works."
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| PA DEP |
I think we can all agree that cameras tucked secretly away behind stoplights are just plain, total evil. But a hidden camera placed near a lot that people routinely litter at not so bad, right? According to ABC's Action News, Mayor Nutter has already ordered that dozens of the anti-litterbug cameras be placed throughout the city, with more to come in future months.
The cameras have allegedly already caught teens spray painting and adults tossing out tires, so let this be your warning: If you want to throw out that couch of yours, don't take it to an abandoned lot. Just put it outside your house, for chrissakes. Last time I did that, when I was moving out of Fishtown, two guys picked it up in less than an hour and kindly thanked me for it.
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| badluckcity.files.wordpress.com |
In November, Mayor Michael Nutter said that he'd shut down 68 out of the city's 81 swimming pools. But then the people spoke, and Nutter listened (whether that's for the best or not, we have yet to see). Last Thursday, he said that he'd be keeping 46 pools open a big difference from the original 13. This obviously means all sorts of great things: recreational departments like Mander Playground (33rd and Susquehanna) will be able to keep their summer camps robust, community members without AC will have access to a cooling alternative, and crime will likely be reduced because of the 'ol routine activities theory keep people busy, and they won't get into trouble as often.
Or will they?
Caterina Roman, a criminal justice professor at Temple University, has an interesting theory about what may happen as a result of closing some pools and keeping others open. In 2003, she published a study on the effects of shutting down schools and displacing students to education centers in other neighborhoods. "We found that there was an increase in assaults, as a result of placing rival gangs together or just plain rival communities together." While she hasn't completed a study on displacing students or adults as a result of pools, she predicts that it may have the same effect. She emphasized that this was merely conjecture, but still thinks police should take it into consideration once pools open.
She also thinks officials should have thought about this while deciding which pools to close. When I spoke with Alan Joinville, public affairs coordinator for the rec department, a few days ago, he gave me a list of criteria that they used to determine which pools would stay and which would go the pool's attendance, size, age, condition, access and location. He didn't say anything about gangs.
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| Is that the whole Philadelphia story? |
| economist.com |
I know this is a little late, but I still think it's important to get out there: A number of national publications have deemed Philly's budget crisis worthy (or bizarre, or depressing) enough to cover in the past month.
The New York Times and The Economist are among them, with the latter's piece being an overly simplistic summary of the library fiasco. (Unlike our boy Isaiah Thompson's coverage, which is far more complex. Hooray local papers.)
The most interesting aspect of The Economist's article is the accompanying graph, pictured here. It paints the city of Philadelphia as essentially selfish — we've always had more libraries per person than other major U.S. cities, and we'd still have more even if Mayor Michael Nutter made his proposed cuts.
Funny thing is, the graph is straight from the Nutter's office. And despite giving prime real estate to Nutter's side, The Economist does little to explain his opposition. The writer basically says that the public is "overwhelmingly unhappy about the cutbacks," and ends it with that.
Of course, we've heard the other side of the argument before. But to Economist readers outside of Philly, it's likely one they're not familiar with. As Amy Dougherty, executive director of Friends of the Free Library, says, "This talking point ignores that in six of the nine cities to which the Nutter administration is comparing Philadelphia — Los Angeles, Houston, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas and San Jose — all public schools have libraries staffed by trained professionals … in Philadelphia, by contrast, about half of our public schools have no libraries."
Whatever side you're on, it's an important point to remember. Unfortunately, not everyone's had the chance to hear it.
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