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Archive: April, 2011
The race for the Eighth District Council seat is getting more and more interesting.
Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller says that a couple weeks ago, the police had to escort candidate Greg Paulmier out of City Hall. Sources tell City Paper that Paulmier was asking Miller for her endorsement too adamantly.
"Because of his behavior the police made the decision to escort him out," says Miller. "I did not make the request."
Paulmier denies that this happened.
Paulmier, as it turns out, is the only candidate who says that he's sought out Miller's endorsement. Of the seven candidates running, three told City Paper outright that they weren't seeking Miller's endorsement; three others said they'd accept it but hadn't asked her for it.
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.
The Mayor's Press Office held a press conference just now to announce what we were promised was a "major major" personnel announcement.
The big news: Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey is staying here after all, after reportedly being wooed by an offer from Chicago.
According to intrepid reporter Holly Otterbein — who stands on scene as we speak — "everybody and their mother" was present for the announcement, and the room "burst out in applause" at the news.
What enticed Ramsey to stay? Was it our only somewhat-climbing murder rates (way down, albeit, since Ramsey took charge)? Was it the satisfaction of disciplining a police force that's seen more than its share of scandal this year?
Maybe. But Nutter also offered the Chief a raise from $195,000 to $255,000 — an amount, Otterbein reports, that exceeds city ordinance limits but which Nutter says is appropriate since Ramsey serves more than one city function.
More as it comes.
It must be true what they say about politicians having no permanent friends and no permanent enemies.
Last year, City Paper covered the ousting of Tracey Gordon from the city's Democratic party. Gordon was elected by the voting public to the 40th Ward in Southwest Philly during May's primary but then immediately kicked out by the ward leader. By the Democratic City Committee's own admission, they didn't let her in, in part, because she wanted to bring new blood to the party.
She was escorted by police out of the ward's first post-election meeting.
Now, the 40th Ward is inviting Gordon, a candidate for the Second District Council seat, to speak at a meeting about her running.
"I thought it was the right thing to do," says Ann Brown, the 40th Ward's leader. "She is a candidate, and she did go out and get a lot of signatures."
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.
Sources have confirmed with City Paper that Mayor Michael Nutter is going to back Cindy Bass in the race for Eighth District Councilperson.
A press release sent out this morning hinted at the possibility, noting that Nutter would join Bass for a "major campaign announcement" at Wired Beans Cafe this Saturday.
This follows this morning's news that Robin Tasco, one of Bass' opponents, says that she recieved threats from one of Bass' campaign workers. On G-Town's Morning Feed today, Tasco said this call was placed by Steve Vaughn, who was found guilty of corruption in 2005. He was also once on the board of Germantown Settlement, a now-defunct community development corporation that received millions in public dollars for years, yet persistently defaulted on loans and left properties abandoned.
According to NewsWorks, Bass confirmed that Vaughn is working for her, but said she wasn't aware of Tasco and Vaughn speaking.
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.
Anuj Gupta, the executive director of Mt. Airy USA, tells Naked City that the community development corporation has won a $250,000 grant from the city to fix up two abandoned properties on Germantown Avenue.
The properties are located on the 6500 and 6600 blocks of Germantown Avenue, in Mt. Airy. This part of the street is an interesting position: It's between Chestnut Hill, an extremely rich community, and Germantown, which has wrestled with blight and poverty for years. In fact, this area is only a couple of blocks from what is widely accepted as the border of Germantown.
"If we can anchor this stretch," says Gupta, "it will help trigger the next wave of investment into Germantown Avenue."
Gupta says the two properties, located specifically at 6614 and 6513 Germantown Avenue, will become mixed-use developments. He hopes that one will end up selling food, thus "bringing quality-of-life amenities to all parts of the community."
The grant comes from the city's Office of Housing and Community Development.
View galleryOn Saturday, as neighborhood groups around the city organized spring clean-ups, about 60 neighborhood activists, residents, and city and Conrail workers got down to (the beginning of) the dirty work of cleaning the drug-riddled, trash-strewn, long-neglected Conrail railroad bed that runs from the Delaware River through Port Richmond, Kensington, and North Philly and that was the subject of our cover story, "The Wasteland."
Neighborhood groups, including the Hispanic Association of Contractors and Enterprises (H.A.C.E.), the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary church, Arch Diocese Office of Community Development, and New Kensington CDC have said that if the city and the railroad's owner, federal entity Conrail, are willing to help clean out and maintain the railroad, they'll do their part to keep the streets around the railroad cleaner, too.
The cleanup is part of a effort by these groups to find a solution to the criminal and trash problems the railroad causes those who live near it. Encouraging the railroad to practice better upkeep by making a good faith effort to help is one part of that equation.
H.A.C.E.'s Willie Gonzalez says of Saturday that it "was a good gesture on the part of Conrail."
Residents of the unfortunate clock of 300 Tusculum street — who live facing a giant, gaping hole in the 50-year-old fence, and who see a steady flow of drug users, police, and violent, drug-fueled chaos past their houses — watched Conrail bulldoze swaths of accumulated garbage with mixed reactions.
Theresa Lugo, whose children were held up at gunpoint in front of the tracks and who says she fears to let them leave the house, said "it's good to see them moving. It's good to see them doing something."
But without fixing the fencing (there were no signs of that), she questioned the efficacy of the cleanup.
"I don't mean to sound ungrateful," she lamented, "But if they don't fix the major situation — which is covering entrance into there, it's pointless."
Tara Timberman, an advocate for prisoners, was scouring the country’s Higher Education Act, and came across a pleasant surprise.
The law bars federal and state inmates from receiving Pell Grants, a major form of federal financial aid. But it doesn’t restrict county inmates from getting aid — in other words, Philly inmates are eligible.
“I was reading it, and not really believing it,” she says.
Timberman (pictured, center) says this law, which is reauthorized by Congress every few years, led to about 500 college-for-inmates programs getting cut “almost overnight" in the 1990s.
Timberman, who teaches English at the Community College of Philadelphia, took this information about financial aid to the Philadelphia Prisons System. According to prisons spokesman Robert Eskind, the city's prisons hadn’t offered college-credit courses to inmates since the ‘90s, at least — until this year, that is.
Thanks in no small part to Timberman’s discovery, a group of 15 inmates at North Philly’s Cambria Community Center celebrated the completion of their first college semester on Friday. (Two other men, who were released before the semester ended, couldn’t attend, but also finished the classes.)
In the 10-week semester, the inmates took courses in reading, writing and acting, which were taught by professors at the Community College of Philadelphia (CCP). They read Homer's The Iliad, wrote essays and memorized lengthy monologues.
The inmates were selected from a pool of about 200 inmates at Cambria, based on the duration of their stay, their eligibility for financial aid, and other factors.
Everett Gillison, the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, says that this program represents a departure from the justice system’s traditional “lock ‘em up and throw people away” strategy.
Louis Giorla, the prisons commissioner, says the classes faced opposition at first. At city meetings, he says, attendants would ask, “Why should inmates go to college when my kid can’t go?”
The city’s prison system has offered educational opportunities before, such as the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, but this is the first time that inmates received college credits during them since at least the ‘90s. Timberman says this is especially beneficial to inmates because upon release, they don’t need to take any additional application steps to further their educations — they’re already CCP students, with financial aid and all.
City officials hope that this program will hope lower rates of recidivism among participants.
At the ceremony on Friday, many people teared up, including CCP professor Kathleen Murphey.
She says that, on average, her incarcerated students performed better than other students. For instance, in her remedial English course of 20 students at the campus, 14 took the final exam — and only six passed. But in her class with inmates, 17 took the final exam — and 14 passed.
George Mink, a 40-year-old with several tattoos, was among the inmates celebrating on Friday. He says he “never, ever pictured going to college,” and had been out of school for 20 years. He adds that the classes helped kill "all the dead time" in jail.
Now, Mink plans on majoring in behavioral health at CCP upon his release this month. “I realized a lot of the guys in here need behavioral help,” he says.
Timberman says there will be a new class of incarcerated students in the fall, and hopes to expand it even further in the future.
Today, attorney Joseph Doherty filed an appeal in the two DROP lawsuits against Councilwoman Marian Tasco and City Commissioner Marge Tartaglione in the Commonwealth Court, on behalf of his clients.
Doherty argues that because Tartaglione and Tasco are enrolled in the Deferred Option Retirement Plan (DROP), they're ineligible to run for office.
A so-called legal loophole has allowed public officials to remain working while enrolled by collecting a lump sum of cash from DROP, "retiring" for a day and then running again.
Last week, Common Pleas Court Judge James Lynn ruled in favor of the candidates.
Doherty says that in the Rizzo case, the court issued an order today declaring that there wouldn't be an oral argument for the appeal. He expects the same decision will be made for the DROP cases against Tartaglione and Tasco. But now that all three are filed, Doherty added, "The court may change its mind."
Doherty's clients in these cases include, among others, Stan Shapiro, the former chief staff attorney for City Council, and Antoine and Leta Thomas, relatives of one of Tasco's opponents in the upcoming primary, Lamont Thomas.
Matt Wolfe has already filed an appeal in his DROP lawsuit against Councilman Frank Rizzo, which makes the same argument.
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.
Previously:
Committee of Seventy files amicus brief in DROP cases
DROP candidates can stay on the ballot
DROP lawsuit will be filed to kick Tartaglione off the ballot
Ward leader files challenge to kick Rizzo off ballot
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