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Archive: April, 2011
Andrew Lofton (running for the 8th Council District seat), Tracey Gordon (2nd Council seat), Mike Jones (At-Large), Warren Bloom (City Commissioner) and Lewis Harris (Traffic Court) are all against the city's new campaign finance law — because of its timing, they say.
The candidates put out a press release this morning, in which they say they support the Mayor and City Council for passing the bill, which closes a loophole that allowed PACs to make several contributions to one candidate. But they argue the timing is "an example of abuse of power and conflict of interest," says the release.
They are asking Council to consider repealing the law until after November's election.
This article is part of our new, expanded coverage of this year's exciting election season. Grab this link for more "ElectionEar" pieces and look for the new column in our print edition.
Women are taking back the word "slut."
On June 18 at a TBA location, Philly activists are holding a "SlutWalk" to protest the recent words of a Toronto police officer, who allegedly said that women should not dress like "sluts" in order to "not be victimized."
Read below for the full release:
Ride the Ducks will return to the Delaware River, according to a city press release.
This follow last year's tragic accident involving Ride the Ducks, in which a barge struck one of the tour boats, resulting in the death of two Hungarian visitors. Operations on the Delaware have ceased since then.
"Every measure has been considered and will be followed to provide for the safety of Philadelphians and our visitors," said managing director Richard Negrin in the release.
The Managing Director's office says Ride the Ducks will return with "improved safety procedures" and "enhanced operating, communications and trianing standards." They include barring Ride the Ducks boats from entering the water when a barge is within a half nautical mile. "Quackers" — aka those famous noisemakers — also won't be given out until the end of the tour.
Last year, some ex-employees of Ride of the Ducks' Baltimore operations told City Paper the company's safety standards are "abysmal." Ride the Ducks refuted this.
See above for an image of where Ride the Ducks will operate, as provided by the city.
Last week, City Paper attended (and live tweeted!) a 1st Council District forum in South Philly.
It was quite a South Philly affair: It mostly consisted of white (and all-male) South Philadelphian candidates talking to white, South Philadelphian residents. The four candidates vying for the seat now occupied by Councilman Frank DiCicco are Mark Squilla (from the Whitman neighborhood), Jeff Hornstein (Queen Village), Vern Anastasio (Bella Vista) and Joe Grace (the only odd one out, from Port Richmond).
Squilla even attended high school in the very place the forum was being held: Neumann-Goretti.
The big issues at the forum were casinos, waterfront development, trash and Superintendent Arlene Ackerman.
Hornstein called SugarHouse "awful." Grace said he was against a second casino and the expansion of SugarHouse. Anastasio claimed he was the only 1st candidate who fought as a community organizer against SugarHouse, but later, Squilla said he did too.
Trash was a topic that kept coming up throughout the debate: Squilla called dog poop that's not cleaned up a "big issue!" Anastasio argued that his civic organization funded litter cleanup, and the city should follow suit.
Several candidates also spoke out against Ackerman. Anastasio said she ought to step down, and Grace called the Philadelphia School District's leadership "authoritarian."
Unsurprisingly, some candidates tried to make DROP a big issue — even though no 1st candidate is enrolled in DROP.
Anastasio claimed to be the only first candidate completely against DROP (except for firefighters and police). However, earlier in the race — when DiCicco was still running — Grace positioned himself as the anti-DROP candidate.
At the forum, Grace acknowledged that the four candidates agreed on a number of things, and indeed, there's been speculation that they aren't dissimiliar enough. So the question is: What is this battle about, exactly? Not race. Since all the candidates are white, it's hard to say which, if any, will attract minority voters.
Is it a battle between neighborhoods? Perhaps. Squilla is president of the Whitman Council; Hornstein has a following in Queen Village and NoLibs; and Anastasio is founder and president of the Bella Vista United Civic Association. Grace, meanwhile, can lay claim to being the only candidate not from South Philly, in a district that encompasses everything from Chinatown to NoLibs to parts of Center City.
Or is it a battle that pits political insiders against newcomers? Yesterday, Mayor Michael Nutter endorsed Squilla. Grace was a city spokesman under former Mayor John Street. Anastasio, on the other hand, has painted himself as an outsider and a community organizer — on his Facebook, he's called longtime politicians "hacks of the past." And Hornstein has positioned himself as a man of the people, too: He was an organizer for the Service Employees International Union.
Later today, look out for Isaiah Thompson's report on the 2nd Council District forum, which took place a few blocks away from the 1st.
This article is part of our new, expanded coverage of this year's exciting election season. Grab this link for more "ElectionEar" pieces and look for the new column in our print edition.
Happy Monday!
In celebration, I'm going to share a hitherto-tightly-held journalistic secret — a magic recipe for getting a scoop no one is likely to have. Just follow these steps:
1. Wait for Philadelphia Police to shoot or kill someone.
2. Ask questions.
That's what Daily News reporter Regina Medina did this week and — lo! — she stumbled on a slew of witnesses who contradict the police account of a shooting that left a young North Philadelphia man paralyzed.
Police say the man pointed a gun at them; witnesses say the police shot him in the back as he fled.
Medina's reporting, what's more, unearthed a witness who says the police called her "a white n----- lover," and asked her "why am I living in the jungle with a bunch of n-----?"
The story reminded me of a similar experience I had, after reading a tiny blurb in the daily newspapers about a man — Air Force veteran Harry Bennett — who was fatally shot by police, also in North Philadelphia, after being tased when he allegedly brandished a "meat cleaver."
A week late to the story, I went to the scene and found several witnesses who offered a very different story than that given by police and faithfully written down un-questioned by reporters. Among the various details witnesses offered was the observation — confirmed by four people independently — that police dragged the man's body, ankles-first, down a set of concrete steps while he was either bleeding to death or already dead.
In this weekend's case, one paper seems to have talked to witnesses and the other didn't — and it shows. The Inquirer's article on the same incident is only a few paragraphs long and contains only the police account of what happened. The DN, however, spoke to witnesses and obtained a completely different story than that offered by police.
Does that necessarily mean the police account is wrong? Of course not — but the police have a vested interest in giving simple, clean explanations. And that makes their stories worth checking.
Tomorrow, Mayor Michael Nutter will endorse Mark Squilla, candidate for the 1st Council District seat, according to a press release sent out by his campaign earlier today.
Squilla is running against Vern Anastasio, Joe Grace and Jeff Hornstein for the seat that is currently held by Councilman Frank DiCicco, and which covers a diverse group of neighborhoods from Fishtown to Chinatown to Pennsport.
This article is part of our new, expanded coverage of this year's exciting election season. Grab this link for more "ElectionEar" pieces and look for the new column in our print edition.
Yesterday, a story appeared on philly.com in the Inquirer's print edition that we feel did a disservice to our intern reporter, Emily Apisa.
The piece, written by Melissa Dribben, focused on the efforts of La Salle University's student-run Collegian newspaper to print the details of an incident involving La Salle professor Jack Rappaport bringing strippers to a school lecture. According to Dribben, the student journalists initially planned to publish their story on April 7, but were forced to hold it by La Salle's administration.
The Collegian eventually ran its front-page story on April 14 — but not before Apisa, a La Salle student who is currently interning at City Paper. Apisa, who, like the Collegian, "had" the story long before it was published, managed to confirm its details and publish her article on CP's Naked City blog on April 8, before any other news outlet. (Two days later, Apisa was contacted by an Inquirer reporter who asked if she'd be willing to share her confidential sources. She, of course, did not.)
Gonna make it quick: Holly Otterbein and Isaiah Thompson are tweeting live from candidate forums. @Hollyotterbein is at a forum for candidates for the 1st District — @Isaiah_Thompson, a few blocks away, is covering the 2nd District. Follow along!
View galleryThe Naked City blog spotted this Girls Gone Wild bus at Second and Callowhill streets. A young man in a sweatshirt was sitting in the bus' passenger seat.
Is this what we think it is? Are they filming here in Philly for Girls With Low Self Esteem, er, Girls Gone Wild?
The Naked City tried calling the series' press number, to no avail. It was disconnected.
The campaign for Cindy Bass, the 8th Council District candidate, has employed a second person close to a former political corruption scandal.
In this week's column Election Ear, City Paper found that Bass' campaign employed a man named Sabir Hameen, who's lived with Theresa Pinkett, a former aide to Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller who pleaded guilty to bribery in 2008.
(Court records confirmed that the two lived together, and Bass' campaign confirmed that they had employed Hameen.)
This follows last week's news, broken by G-town Radio, that Bass' campaign had employed Steven Vaughn, also a former aide to Miller, who pleaded guilty in 2005 in a pay-to-play scandal. Bass opponent Robin Tasco, in the same show, claimed that Vaughn tried to bribe her to drop out.
Bass' spokesman, Joseph Corrigan, calls this news a "distraction," and says that candidates' platforms and campaign issues ought to get more attention.
Read more about this news in ElectionEar.
This article is part of our new, expanded coverage of this year's exciting election season. Grab this link for more "ElectionEar" pieces and look for the new column in our print edition.
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