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As reported by PlanPhilly, the Old City Civic Association, one of Philadelphia's oldest and highest profile civic groups disbanded this week, after its board voted on Monday to dissolve the organization entirely.
The drastic move was hardly an unheralded one, as OCCA's board had also voted two weeks ago to dissolve its liquor control and zoning committees, effectively neutering the organization's enforcement capabilities. That decision followed years of acrimonious relationships with developers and certain business operators, one of whom, Waterfront Renaissance Associates, has been largely credited with suing the zoning committees out of existance. OCCA members reported that their director's and officers' insurance premiums had jumped into the thousands of dollars annually thanks to that suit, which alleged a conspiracy on the part of several civic organizations and the city to derail the Philadelphia World Trade Center project.
CP hasn't met Ed McBride, but doesn't doubt that he is an amiable guy, not to mention a savvy one. That said, it's probably not just his friendly nature that led every member of City Council to co-sponsor a resolution introduced yestarday honoring him "on the great occasion of his promotion to the position of Manager of Local Government Affairs for PECO." McBride also happens to be the guy whose name is all over PECO's generous corporate gift-giving to City Council members, in the form of Phillies tickets, Auto Show tickets, Flower Show tickets, Mann Music Center tickets, and tickets to fancy receptions at the Pennsylvania Society gathering. This, along with various lobbying efforts, appears to be what's described in the resolution as McBride's "years of dedicated service to The City Council of Philadelphia."
Several hundred public school students crowded around City Hall at lunchtime, holding signs and umbrellas, demanding an end to cuts to school staff and programming. Their march — instigated on Twitter and Facebook and, according to them, supported by their teachers and school staff — came hours after Mayor Nutter and state legislators held a press conference to announce their plan to put together an additional $60 million in funding for Philadelphia schools. That plan was to include liquor-by-the-drink tax increases and possible cigarette tax increases, both of which would require state enabling legislation. The school district is also seeking $120 million more in state funds.
Nutter said at the event that he'd discussed the matter with Council members. But not at the announcement: Anyone from City Council. As Council President Darrell Clarke put it, "There was a press conference today. I don't know what was said, because it was held at the time that we had to be in this building. Pretty much consistently every Thursday we're here."
Clarke does know one thing, though: Council needs help, from the state and the administration. "The whole notion that this Council has to do it alone? That's getting old, that's getting real stale," he said at Council. Later, he told reporters, "Enabling legislation from the state [to clear the way for liquor and cigarette tax increases] does not equate to real contributions form the state, as relates to dollars." Those ideas, he added, were short-term fixes in any case. He said that Council had asked to meet with Gov. Tom Corbett on the matter but had heard no response. (CLARIFICATION: Clarke had asked School Reform Commission Chairman Pedro Ramos to request that meeting, which Ramos said he would do. But apparently there's been no progress on this that Clarke's been made aware of.)
Tens of thousands of Philly residents still haven't applied for the homestead exemption, the tax-relief for owner occupants that's currently set at $30,000 (that is, your property tax rate is calculated after you deduct $30,000 from your homes value). Now, they may have more time to get the forms in.
The state of politics these days around the Actual Value Initiative (AVI) may seem a little hazy, given the double-digit number of proposed property-tax relief bills that have been floated in City Council. But last night, Councilman Kenyatta Johnson broke it down for South of South neighborhood residents: They're screwed — so are Councilman Mark Squilla's First District constituents, and some of the property owners in Council President Darrell Clarke's Fifth District — and it's up to the constituents to help him pressure at-large City Council members to stop "this train" before it gets out of the station.
"I'm already a 'no' vote," he said. But Council members whose districts would benefit from AVI didn't feel the same. He said he had support from Squilla and Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, but needed residents to help turn the heads of at-large City Council members, whose names and phone numbers he provided on a handy call sheet. "We're going to need nine votes to change the direction of where AVI is going right now."
"The process is flawed," Johnson told residents, adding that City Council has now "subpoenaed the city for their formula" for assessing property values. He has also been working with the Crosstown Coalition of Taxpayers, a number of civic groups that have been demanding more transparency from the administration and the Office of Property Assessment.
Philly's notoriously inaccurate property tax assessments are being made even worse by the Actual Value Initiative, according to a study released this morning by the City Controller and Robert Strauss, an economist and tax expert at Carnegie-Mellon. The study by Strauss and commissioned by Controller Alan Butkovitz found that variability between residential property values and median area sales went from 82 percent under the current system to 112 percent under the proposed new system. It also found indications that lower-value properties were disproportionately over-assessed, and that African-American neighborhoods were assessed higher than mostly Caucasian neighborhoods.
The analysis also noted that the Office of Property Assessment's data was lacking or incorrect in many cases when it came to residential properties' attributes, such as number of stories or rooms. The variability it found was well outside accepted guidelines, which demand variability of 15 percent or less. The administration has repeatedly contended that the Office of Property Assessment's findings, while not perfect, are far closer to the mark than the previous system was.
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Funding for SEPTA and other public transit is "subsidizing a minority of our population’s bus fare, which is just more welfare," said state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler), according to an e-mail discussion obtained by the Capitolwire news service (subscription only).
Metcalfe's comments were sparked by an e-mail sent out by Rep. Tom Killion (R-Delaware) citing "a new report [that] showed 27 percent of the state’s transportation funding went to southeastern Pennsylvania – Bucks, Philadelphia, Delaware, Chester and Montgomery counties – while that region had 32 percent of the state population and 40 percent of the state’s economic activity."
The Econsult report, Understanding SEPTA's Statewide Economic Value, comes as Gov. Corbett and the legislature attempt to find a long-term fix to transportation funding--and as SEPTA faces a potentially devastating budget shortfall. City Paper examined the roots of SEPTA's funding crisis last June.
Rep. Rick Saccone (R-Washington) joined Metcalfe in criticizing Killion, saying that "the core point is that opponents don't believe the taxpayers should be funding a mass transit operating fund in the first place...They are fed up with, as they most often say, ‘pouring money down a black hole of inefficiency, patronage and corruption.’ If these investments are necessary then the private sector should and will invest in them. I have had five town halls in the last two weeks and people are disgusted with mass transit funding."
Metcalfe and Saccone did not respond to the evidence presented that SEPTA, like roads and bridges, are critical to the state's economic health. Public transit investment can also save taxpayer money by curbing suburban sprawl that forces inefficient infrastructure and service spending.
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.
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George's Hill, Fairmount Park: No rendering exists, but here's the bust of W. Wilson Goode that was to be included in the project. Source: Zenos Frudakis |
In the melange of Philadelphia's numerous Dead-Ass Proposals, you'll find cool things that would have been awesome if they happened, shitty things that were better off dead and boring things that wouldn't have mattered anyway. Then you have one like this: shit so outlandish that you can't believe how close it came to actually getting executed.
It all began with Samuel Lincoln Evans, known in the late-20th century as the Godfather of black Philadelphia's business leaders and politicians. Evans, for all intents and purposes, was a badass. Born in 1902, this guy was already working at his first job on a plantation by age six, earning 15 cents a day. He witnessed five lynchings before the age of nine. After working odd jobs all across the country, he finally arrived in Philadelphia at the age of 17. By the time Evans was in his thirties, he was a well-known mover and shaker in the Philadelphia business and politics community.
Workers at Philadelphia International Airport who assist wheelchair-bound passengers say they're dealt broken equipment, insufficient training and below-minimum-wage pay. The workers, who have been organizing for the past year seeking better wages, filed complaints with the federal Department of Transportation and Occupational Safety and Health Administration last week. Nine workers joined complaints filed against PrimeFlight Airline Services, US Airways, Southwest Airlines and United Air Lines, describing hazardous conditions including exposure to bodily fluids without proper protection and insufficient training to safely lift people in and out of wheelchairs or deal with people with disabilities.
Julie Blust of SEIU 32BJ says OSHA has confirmed it will begin an investigation of working conditions at the airport. Training guidelines are set by the Air Carrier Access Act.
The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Center on Regional Politics at Temple University hosted a symposium on Philadelphia's oft-maligned tax structure today, featuring two panels of speakers from across the city's political and academic worlds.
Pew's own recently collected data was on display during the event, painting a grim, if slightly improved picture of the city's finances and economic future. According to their data, the average family in Philadelphia spends nearly 13 percent of its income on state and local taxes, much higher than many suburbs and even other peer cities, with businesses chipping in nearly a third of their revenue. The Pew report drew a direct corrolation between onerous taxes and the flailing local economy: Philadelphia currently lags far behind most of its regional peers in job creation, hemorraging nearly 25 percent of its employment base since 1970, while New York, Boston and DC saw 15 to 25 percent gains over the same period.
The opening panel, consisting of city finance director Rob Dubow and Center City District director Paul Levy along with several academics and economists, was largely focused on an shaping an ideal tax policy for a cash-strapped city they painted as "addicted" to wage and business taxes. All of the speakers agreed the current "19th-century" tax mixture was not working, with the consensus that the city should shift more of the burden to homeowners, with the presumption that property is less mobile than jobs or residents.
Levy was easily the most outspoken on the subject.
"The absence of jobs outside of Center City, University City and Temple is a major crisis. ...This is a denial of opportunity caused by taxes," he said. "We tax what moves, jobs and people, rather than improvements."
Levy commented that the furor surrounding AVI needed to be expanded beyond the "18 percent of Philly tax revenue from property taxes."
The panelists also commented on the highly regressive nature of the wage-tax model, noting that the average family tax contribution to the city actually decreased as a percentage of overall income for wealthier families, as City Paper reported earlier in the year.
"Our tax burden is particularly high for lower levels of income," said Dubow, noting that the state's uniformity clause made it difficult to tweak taxes for different income levels.
The second panel featured Councilwoman María Quiñones-Sanchez along with an assortment of state legislators, including Rep. John Taylor, Anthony H. Williams and Vincent Hughes. Focused on the political realities of implementing tax codes, several of the speakers railed on the Corbett administration for "turning their back on Philadelphia," in the words of Hughes.
"You can't isolate the economic success of this city and region to tax policy," said Hughes, emphasising that state and federal support was also crucial for the larger goal of providing adequate city services and paying for municpal labor costs without putting taxpayers in the poor house.
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