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Archive: October, 2011
Bathroom graffiti at West Philly's Satellite Cafe explains Pennsylvania in one map and three words: "youse," "yinz," and "Pennsyltucky." Sadly, the graffiti has been removed since this photograph was taken last week. RIP, oh rare incident of good bathroom graffiti.
From the developers who brought us the monolithic walls of Naval Square comes another mega gated community — this one scaled down (if you can believe it!) from an even more mammoth 2005 proposal. Toll Bros. is looking to bring 66 stacked "two-over-two" townhouses and and a five-story, 59-unit condo building to a lot that currently holds warehouses and a massive parking garage. This will be a gated community, of course, but gates will be open during the day according to the developer — who is resisting the ground-floor commercial that residents are asking for. The larger issue of what gated communities mean for the surrounding neighborhoods aside, check out Naked Philly for renderings.
This Saturday, Oct. 22, people of every age, color and socioeconomic background will congregate on West River Drive to draw attention to an issue that affects thousands of individuals in Philadelphia each year: domestic violence. The event: the fourth annual Walk to End Domestic Violence, benefiting Women Against Abuse, which runs a Philadelphia shelter as well as the only area domestic abuse hotline. Ahead of the walk, we spoke with its founder, abuse survivor and state Senator LeAnna Washington.
As Washington says, “If I didn't get out when I did, I would be dead, or eating out of a trash can in the street, or in a mental institution.” Washington’s husband had been abusing her while they dated and throughout their entire marriage, even giving her a black eye on their honeymoon. Once she made the decision to get out and move far away, she saw options for herself and her children. She went back to school for her master’s degree, served in the House of Representatives, and was elected a Pennsylvania senator in 2005.
Still, Washington knows that many others have not been so fortunate. “This is not only a local or state issue, or even national. This is a social epidemic," she says.
Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor will speak about economic inequality this Friday at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business, and the Occupy Wall Street movement will be there to protest, citing his opposition to the stimulus package, abortion rights, immigrant rights, and environmental protection.
As far as I can tell, this is not some Yes Men performance art, and the real-life Eric Cantor does plan to "talk about the various socioeconomic classes and how Washington should stop pushing different people down the economic ladder and instead can work together to ensure that all people have the ability move up."
Stop the class war, people, and start up your engines of inter-class loving: when's the last time you hugged a banker?
The Zoning Board of Adjustment issued a two-week hold today on plans to build a single-family home that would cover Bella Vista's beloved "Autumn" mural. In the meantime David Guinn, the muralist behind the beloved work at Ninth and Bainbridge, is looking to file a suit under the Visual Artists Rights Act, a federal law that allows an artist to take action against the destruction of his artwork, even of that work is no longer in the artist's possession. "I'm hoping the result would be either that the builder would not build there, or that he would pay the cost of re-creating the mural in another location," Guinn says.
More than 20 angry neighbors went to the ZBA to lobby against the house, but the mural's destruction is not a zoning issue and so cannot impact the board's decision.
Jennifer McCreary, director of communications for the city Mural Arts Program, hopes that the mural can be preserved there or at another location. In the past, builders have helped secure funding for displaced murals; Liberty Property Trust did so during the building of the Comcast Center.
A billboard advertising the United States' high incarceration rate that would accost new arrivals at Philadelphia International Airport seemed like a good idea to the NAACP. But it wasn't the kind of advertising Philly was looking for. The city, and Clear Channel Outdoor acting on its behalf, declined the billboard order, and now they're facing a lawsuit filed by the ACLU.
A series on under-the-radar stories worth reading.
As Philebrity picked up yesterday, the massive Philadelphian condo on the Parkway is in hot water with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The feds charge that the demands put on people with disabilities looking to waive the no-pets policy were "burdensome and invasive." Now the case will go to court to be heard by a U.S. Administrative Law Judge.
Things are about to get ugly in Bella Vista, where a scuffle over a planned rowhouse that would cover up the "Autumn" mural is headed to the city's Zoning Board of Adjustments. Neighbor and Bella Vista Town Watch member Joel Palmer says he has raised $250,000 to purchase the lot, at Ninth and Bainbridge, from concerned neighbors to purchase the property, currently owned by developer Jim McIlhenny paid for it less than two months ago. However, the builder's lawyer, David Orphanides, says the sale price would have to be closer to $600,000, given the cost of the investment and the projected profit. "You might as well ask for $1 million," says Palmer.
Orphanides and neighbors have also exchanged words over the possibility that the developer — who Orphanides says feels "set upon" — could paint over the mural pre-emptively. "It's on his property," says Orphanides. "There's a good possibility that it oculd be painted over and you don't know when that could happen. It oculd be tomorrow. It could be today."
More than 400 neighbors have signed a petition to stop the construction, and Palmer expects 25 to 50 to come to the meeting and testify. ZBA hearings are at 1515 Arch St., 18th floor, and this one kicks off at 2 p.m. on Oct. 19.
Importantly though, the property is zoned residential and as such could be built upon even without a zoning variance, Orphanides says. So, even if the ZBA declines the variance request, McIlhenny could pursue construction following a different building plan.
The first words out of City Commissioner Joe Duda's mouth last night were neither a greeting, question, nor the answer to a question posed to him.
Instead, Duda marched onstage at a Monday's City Commissioners candidates debate, sponsored by the the Committee of Seventy, League of Women Voters, and Philly.com, and made a demand to the crowd assembled:
"I was told there would be no cameras and no pictures taken," he said. "No recording of any kind allowed in the audience," he stated.
The sponsors have videotaped every one the dozen or so candidate forums they've held this year; the previous forum that night, for City Council At-Large candidates, had been videotaped; and a camera person was actively manning the camera for this one.
Nonetheless, they withdrew the camera. And with that, Philly lost one of the most interesting public debates we've had in a while.
Three candidates for City Commissioner were present - Democrat Stephanie Singer, who defeated 36-year-incumbent Marge Tartaglione; Al Schmidt, the republican insurgent; and longtime Republican incumbent Joe Duda. Schmidt and Duda are facing off in a tight race which carries tremendous importance to a group of Republicans trying to overthrow the Philly GOP's current establishment, led by its counsel, Mike Meehan.
And Schmidt had come to fight.
*
Politics in Election Oversight
Schmidt and Singer, both ward leaders, have pledged to resign that position if they become City Commissioners.
Schmidt called the fact that Duda and Tartaglione have remained ward leaders even as they hold positions managing elections a conflict of interest.
Schmidt: "Not only do you have City Commissioners advocating for certain candidates and running the election. but they're in their wards on election day, doing ward leader work on elections day, and they're paid $120,000 to run elections ... not to be ward leaders."
Duda's response: "I think the whole system, if you're going to change the whole system, fine — but right now, the rules are a certain way."
Schmidt rebutted.
"Everything the commissioner just said is exactly what's wrong with the office — "
When applause broke out, Duda said: "No applause. I can get my people to start applauding."
Schmidt continued, "— a feeling that every fault of the office is the result of someone else: the Committee of Seventy nagging for improvements, reporters, others, really treated poorly by elected servants."
Duda: "How much time do you have to respond?"
When Seventy's Ellen Kaplan answered "30 seconds," Duda said, in reference to Schmidt's rebuttal, "Ok, well I think we're all out of that."
*
Handling of Elections
Schmidt: "Complaints don't really matter unless they're acted upon. In 2008, the problems that came into the Commissioners office were handled by ... Commissioner Tartaglione's daughter, Rene Tartaglione who has since had to resign because of multiple ethics violations related to elections activities."
Duda: "Bob Lee handled all that, he was the chief administrator. We get all the information, compile it, and turn it all over to the District Attorney and Attorney General."
Schmidt: "It's a fundamental mistake to think you need law enforcement authority to fix some of the problems. ... It's about exposing these problems when they occur."
Duda: "Well we do expose them."
(Singer rebutted that Commissioners have a lot of control over the relationship they have with the agencies that do have police powers and the Commissioners have a lot of moral force to encourage enforcement or not to encourage enforcement and there is room for huge improvement there.")
*
Encouraging Voter Participation
Singer: The City Commissioners office should be the place that makes it easy for people to build engagement and to built excitement around elections. We are ready for this, and this is one of the things I am just so looking forward to doing."
Schmidt: "Fundamentally it's about a term that would never be used to describe the current City Commissioners and that's 'pro-active' — making sure people know how to register, know where the polling places are and it's not left up to other groups to have to tell them. ... THe city commissioners have an obligation to be out registering voters.
Duda: "I do a pretty good job. I got 10,000 republicans where I am."
Schmidt: "It's not about Republicans and Democrats, that' the fundamental problem."
Duda: "You're not letting me finish! I'm saying to you that we have more Democrats than Republicans here. When we go out, we generate the Democrats get excited and they go out. And we have a great turnout. I try to encourage that through all the ward leaders in the city. It hasn't been easy, but we've been trying and I've been encouraging everybody."
Here's what's on tap for Oct. 19.
Zoning
-The ZBA meets tomorrow afternoon, including on the contentious plan to build over the “Autumn” mural at Ninth and Bainbridge streets. Here are the details.
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