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At a community meeting in Northern Liberties a while ago, City Controller Alan Butkovitz took a moment away from telling residents how badly the administration had bungled its rollout of the Actual Value Initiative to pass out a glossy brochure (the interior of it is at the bottom of this post), along with a copy of Watchdog, a trifold newsletter that the Controller's Office publishes. Asked if it was a campaign brochure, Butkovitz said no. "We've had several generations of that brochure," he added. It's published out of the Controller's Office, not a campaign office. It's to keep people informed, nothing more.
But since the controller candidates are debating this evening, it seemed as good a time as any to share this bit of communication and ask: Speaking of efficient use of taxpayer money, where does this brochure fit in?
[-3] Philly police say they’re working to set up a system for recording interrogations, but are being held up by logistics, funding and a state law requiring them to ask permission before recording. “That last one is the biggest hurdle, as we usually shoot first and ask questions later. Also, we keep tazing the tape recorders.”
[-1] Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay says his struggles this season are all mental. Analysts agree telekinesis is his best option for getting a fastball back above 90 mph.
[0] Businessman Tom Knox is considering running for mayor again in 2015. “I’m rich and I’m bored,” shrugs Knox. “My backup plan is to float around the world in a gold hot air balloon shaped like my wang.”
[0] The Daily News launches its new paywalled site. “Let me out!” bellows Stu Bykofsky.
[0] Real-estate magnate Bart Blatstein buys the McIlhenny mansion on Rittenhouse Square for $4.2 million. “Picture this: casino in the basement, mini-piazza in the yard and multiple turrets shaped like my wang.”
[0] SEPTA announces it will ditch paper transfers at the same time it eliminates the token system. “What we’re going for is one really historic clusterfuck, sort of like a flash mob, but city-wide and civically, economically and politically debilitating,” says SEPTA.
[+5] The chess team from Masterman wins a national championship. Sadly, none of the high fives connected.
[+1] Jay-Z announces the return of the Made in America festival this summer. But only because Made in Cuba turned out to be a giant hassle.
[-2] A new report by city Inspector General Amy Kurland says people who pay their taxes with checks that bounce are going unpunished. Adding: “Hint, hint.”
[0] According to Philadelphia magazine, the Schmitter sandwich has the most calories of any food for sale at Citizens Bank Park. Welcome back to your comfort zone, PhillyMag.
This week’s total: 0 | Last week’s total: 0
Councilman Bill Greenlee, who has been championing legislation requiring paid sick leave for workers in the city, couldn't muster the final vote he needed to override a veto from Mayor Nutter. He declined to call for an override vote in Council this morning, instead saying, "I apologize to 180,000 workers in the city of Philadelphia that I couldn't get this done for them." Philadelphia will have a paid-sick-leave requirement some day, he said. After all, some see New York's passage of paid-sick-leave rules as a "tipping point" that could bring similar protections to many more cities across the country. Similar campaigns are underway in at least 20 other municipalities.
Marianne Bellesorte of the Philadelphia Coalition for Healthy Families and Workplaces issued this statement: “The voices of hundreds of thousands of Philadelphians who support and need earned sick days were drowned out by a few deep-pocketed corporate lobbyists. To strengthen our economy and our families, Philadelphians need paid sick days.”
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"If you smell something stinking … it's Ill-Adelphia Because We're The Shit!"
That's what the shirt, with an image of a big steaming pile of poo underneath, announces to passersby — people walking by City Hall, like me. And I bought one.
Sekou Davis, 38, grew up in Wilmington, and "moved here from Los Angeles to take care of my father, and had to do something to generate money. So that's where the t-shirts came from." Davis, who now lives in West Philly, believes that many things are the shit, beginning, of course, with himself.
Q&A: Pro-fracking filmmaker Phelim McAleer says shale-haters 'need someone to blame for their lives'
Scenes of shale-country residents lighting their tapwater on fire, seen in the 2010 documentary Gasland, have become an iconic moment for the anti-fracking movement. But what if they were bogus? Journalist and filmmaker Phelim McAleer says that's the problem: Methane was in the water supply in places like Dimock long before natural gas drillers arrived, he says. "People have been lighting the water in that part of the country for decades." Tonight at 7 p.m., McAleer will be at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute for a screening of his new, Kickstarter-funded film FrackNation, which he's taking on tour across Pennsylvania. The message: There's no science to prove claims of fracking's harm. (Of course, many experts insist there's no science disproving it either, which is why the industry's rapid growth worries them.) Here, McAleer explains his motivations.
City Paper: Why make this film?
Phelim McAleer: I've no connection to fracking. Unfortunately, I don't own any royalties or any oil pads. I'm a journalist … and I have an interest in the environmental movmeent. But I believe in treating big environment the same way you treat big business. So I went and asked the director of Gasland some inconvenient questions.
CP: After making this film, would you allow fracking in your backyard?
PM: I'd have it in my kitchen. It's the true ethical energy, actually. It's the most regulated energy on the planet. It's from America, which has the most regulations of any country. It's not Saudi Arabia. It's not China. It's not Venezuela. It's not in a country where gay people are hung for being gay or where women are stoned for adultery. It's true ethical energy, and it's safe. There's been 1.3 million wells drilled, and there's never been any scientific evidence of fracking having contaminated groundwater.
We've been talking about this for awhile and our best guess, given how little information we have to go on, is that this was the work of a Flash Fight Club. That is probably a thing now. Here's the story (so far) from Action News.
ABC3 says this:
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Chopper 3 HD was over the scene of a large disturbance of teens gathered in Center City on Tuesday afternoon.The incident happened shortly after 3 p.m. at 15th and Chestnut Streets.
That might seem weird but, according to science books, a gathering of teens is commonly referred to as a "disturbance." Like a murder of crows, heard of cattle, etc.
Nobody's reporting any injuries yet so that's good. Actually there are injuries reported. Ugh.
As the deadline for City Council to override Mayor Nutter's veto of the Earned Sick Days bill approaches,school nurses, childcare professionals and parents will be rallying this afternoon at 1:30 p.m. outside City Hall to emphasize the impact of the bill on working parents. In particular, they're zeroing in on Dennis O'Brien, who has been an advocate for legislation supporting children with disabilities.
The bill, which was vetoed on April 3, will offer earned sick leave to an estimated nearly 200,000 Philadelphians who do not currently have access to paid sick days, if passed. Marianne Bellesorte, the senior director of public policy and media relations at the service and advocacy nonprofit PathWays PA, believes that the veto was “short-sighted” and is urging “City Council to show leadership.”
“We are mainly looking at issues caregivers face, and making sure that those families don’t go into debt,” Bellesorte says. “The bill will ensure that all workers are given one hour of paid sick leave for every 40 hour they have worked.”
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.
Now this is crazy as shit. This was Philly's attempt at an Eiffel Tower-style structure well before Eiffel was ever a thought. Had it been executed, this gigantic tower would still be the tallest building in the city.
In 1874, Clarke, Reeves & Company was feeling pretty awesome. These engineers out of Phoenixville, PA had just finished designing the longest and widest bridge in the United States, the second Girard Avenue Bridge. Built by their Phoenixville Bridge Company, it had replaced a crappily-designed one that was less than 20 years old when it was demolished. The company proposed another project that would complement the Centennial Exhibition, a 1,000-foot cast and wrought iron tower.
Over the past month or so, City Council members and civic leaders have been criss-crossing the city to talk about the citywide property-tax reassessment known as the Actual Value Initiative (AVI). They've brought with them a simple message: If your assessment seems too high, appeal it. And if your assessment is out of line with your neighbors', appeal it.
But what if appealing your property taxes could backfire? That's what one Northern Liberties couple say has happened to them. Their relief at winning a tax appeal with the Board of Revision of Taxes (BRT) quickly turned to frustration, as they learned they were being sued by the school district.
Wendy Daughenbaugh and George Miller are facing a lawsuit demanding they pay a total of $10,300 in additional taxes for 2012 and 2013 on their 1,216-square-foot row house. Daughenbaugh thinks the message is one of retaliation: "I think what the city is doing is responding to a wave of mass appeals, and they're just coming after people because they need their money. Everyone says, with AVI, 'Just appeal.' But if everyone appeals, the city still needs a certain amount of money so I don't see what's going to stop them from just coming after everyone."
View galleryAt noon on Sunday, a few dozen people noiselessly gathered in Love Park and simultaneously collapsed to the ground. Moments later, the scene was deserted, leaving as a grim after-image dozens of chalk body outlines on the concrete, each with a personal note or a label such as “Jack, age 6, murdered.” Visitors, skateboarders and families gazed on with curiosity. A young girl looked up at her mom and explained, “They are talking about gun violence.”
Art=Ammo, or Artists Against Gun Violence, was started in February in New York by Lorin Latarro, a choreographer and dancer who was reacting to the Newtown, Conn., shooting. She coordinated a 200-person flash mob that silenced Times Square, and then started an online campaign to bring the movement to other cities, including Philly. In each city, Latarro encourages onlookers to call their local congressmen, advocating for gun control.
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