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Archive: November, 2011
After maintaining his lead over candidate Al Taubenberger during the counting of absentee and other non-machine votes, Republican David Oh saw victory today in his bid for one the the two At-Large City Council seats reserved for minority parties.
Oh's win also marked a loss by union boss and political rainmaker John "Johnny Doc" Dougherty, who spent an unknown — but clearly very large — sum of money to defeat Oh, who ran without the backing of the city's political machine. (In 2007, Oh ran against party pick Jack Kelly, narrowly losing to him).
Dougherty paid for radio and tv ads, robocalls, and what must have been hundreds if not thousands of anti-Oh fliers, mostly playing up Oh's supposed mis-characterization of his military career.
Oh took heat from the Daily News and a small group of veterans (organized by a veteran with a personal grudge against Oh) over having referred to himself as "Green Beret," and a "Special Forces Officer." It turns out that he was assigned a green beret and designated a Special Forces officer. Oh, in fact, enjoyed the continued support of several well-established Philadelphia veterans groups.
But for all the negative campaigning, he positive campaign for candidate Joe McColgan — Dougherty's pick for the seat — failed to win enough votes even to put McColgan in third place, leaving Oh neck to neck with Taubenberger, and ultimately winning.
Just observing the small group of Oh supporters that turned out at the vote today was telling: Oh's campaign faithful are a diverse hodgepodge of people — whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, immigrants, veterans, young people — that bears little resemblance to the groups of political elite you often see hanging around candidates for these positions. Like him or not, Oh's campaign was indisputably that of an outsider to the political establishment — no wonder that establishment tried to take him down.
Not to say it's been such a bad week for Dougherty and the machine, such as it is: On Monday, the Inquirer reported that Councilman Darrell Clarke seems to have corralled enough of his colleagues votes to become City Council president — largely thanks to votes from candidates supported by Dougherty and with the blessing of former mayor (and Nutter foe) John Street.
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“Not true,” says Mayor Michael Nutter’s spokesperson, Mark McDonald in response to rumors that the Occupy Philly encampment would be evicted later tonight. “Not going to happen.”
The date “Nov. 15” has been rumored to be the city’s deadline over the past weeks — and no one, the Mayor included, knows where the rumor originated.
Philadelphia Media Network (PMN) has announced that the Inquirer and Daily News newsrooms will merge when they move from the Inquirer building at 400 N. Broad St. to the old Strawbridge store at Eighth and Market Streets in July 2012.
Whatever that means. Reporters at both paper-of-record and brash-tabloid say they have no idea what’s going on.
One newsroom insider is worried that the merger will set the stage for more layoffs, and is “not excited about it.
TV news rigs circled like hawks last night around the 1300 block of Hewson Street as hundreds of neighbors, family and friends filled the pavement with candles in hand. The impromptu vigil, organized seemingly by no one, was both a memorial to Shane Kelly, 27, who was killed over the weekend, and a show of outrage against violence in this sleepy corner of Fishtown.
“This rocked our community to the core,” said Margi Megill, who had come out to show who support and to demand more from the 26th District police, whose beat also encompasses South Kensington. “We need the police and elected officials to pay more attention to our community. You can’t put all your resources on the other side of Front Street.”
[Correction from Mayor Nutter's office at bottom of post]
If it seems as though all of the Occupy Wall Street evictions are taking place at the same time — Oakland, Portland and now the New York City mothership — that's because they are. And if you think the crackdown might be secretly coordinated by big city mayors around the country, as many protesters contend, you might be right, too.
A packed agenda on today's Philadelphia City Planning Commission meeting includes large-scale and controversial items aplenty. Among them: Toll Bros. proposal for a massive gated community of condos and townhouses on the 2400 block of South Street; remapping an area along Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill to make way for million-dollar homes and an upscale grocery store by Bowman Properties; and SugarHouse Casino's phase two, which includes remapping and amending setbacks in the area.
The full agenda follows.
Good government group Common Cause has joined the growing list of people (see our July 28 profile) who don’t like right-wing ("gun-toting, gay-bashing, tea-partying" is how we put it) state representative Daryl Metcalfe — though they express their displeasure in a notably polite way.
Apparently, Metcalfe likes to pack the House State Government Committee’s official agenda with every little thing he wants to do to stop the “illegal alien invasion.” In particular, according to a Harrisburg source, this is about his so-called “National Security Begins at Home” package of 16 anti-immigrant measures. He lists all 16 bills each and every day, even though only one or two will be discussed — throwing other legislators’ work into disarray.
"We have observed a troubling trend in the House State Government Committee, and we hope you are open to a change in the committee's modus operandi that will allow it to better serve the needs of all Pennsylvanians. The members of your committee need to know precisely what bills the committee intends to deal with on any given day. When the committee calendar repetitively lists numerous bills — most of which will not see action on the prescribed day — committee members waste time preparing for bills that do not come before the committee as scheduled, and therefore may not have sufficient time to address the bills that do come before the committee.”
Philadelphia Managing Director and Deputy Mayor Richard Negrin has been working with the Occupy Philly demonstrators since they set up camp 40 days ago, and the constant change in/lack of leadership feels a lot like "a shell game" to him. "You don't know who you're dealing with from one day to the next."
That might explain why Occupy Phily today complained that the city withheld information on Thomas Paine Plaza, while Negrin tells CP that he actually sat down with Occupy Legal Collective members and showed them schematics of the plaza a full month ago.
Furthermore, he argues that Mayor Michael Nutter has rolled out the red carpet for Occupy "unprecedented access to senior officials," starting when "the mayor left his office with myself and chief of staff Everett Gillison, and walked over to the Friends Center to meet with them under their own terms and conditions. We showed up with half the cabinet, on their terms!"
At that point, the city asked for weekly meetings with Occupy, which the demonstrators declined. "That's not collaboration. That's not open communication," Negrin says. Negrin believes the group is seeking out confrontation and conflict, whereas the mayor is looking to avoid it. "There are concerns about whether the movement is becoming more radicalized."
Fishtowners and supporters will gather at the 1300 Block of Hewson Street tonight in memory of 27-year-old Shane Kelly, who was killed during an attempted robbery early Sunday morning. At 7 p.m., they'll meet to "stand together as a community in mourning. Come out to let these criminals know that we're not going to let them take over our neighborhood," urged posters on the Fishtown.us message board. Police have arrested and charged a local man, Ryan McManus, 20, of Sepviva Street in Kensington, with the murder.
The city's Board of Elections is currently counting absentee, alternative and provisional ballots from last week's election to determine the winner of the second minority party City Council At-Large seat. On Tuesday, candidate candidate Al Taubenberger came in a close third to David Oh, who won by 165 votes.
Oh has so far maintained that lead. As of 3:30 p.m. today, all of the approximately 1,700 absentee ballots and several hundred alternative ballots had been counted. Oh, who possibly stood to lose some of his lead in that count, in fact came out 11 votes ahead of Taubenberger.
About 400 to 500 provisional ballots still remain uncounted. Counting may go until tomorrow — but it could also end early if Taubenberger concedes.
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