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Archive: May, 2012
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CP has learned that the Philadelphia law firm Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg LLP, known for its litigation over "Stop and Frisk" policies and other civil rights cases, is considering filing a lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia for the ban on serving free meals in city parks, announced by Mayor Michael Nutter about two months ago.
Attorney Paul Messing would not comment other than to confirm to CP that his firm is investigating the matter, and litigation is under consideration.
Mark McDonald, a spokesman for the mayor, told CP that the city has "received notice of intent to sue," but had no other comment on the matter.
Brian Jenkins, the executive director of Chosen 300 Ministries, which serves meals both indoors and outside, and who has been a leading critic of the ban, also declined to comment on any potential lawsuit other than to make the general statement that he would view a lawsuit as a "last step" and hopes the city is open to compromise on the issue.
Jenkins has frequently called the ban "unconstitutional," saying it violates the religious freedom of those who feel "called by God" to serve meals outdoors.
In 2008, the American Civil Liberties Union won a lawsuit against the city Orlando for a similar ban.
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.
Aaaaaarggh!!!!!!!!!
Northeast Corner of 17th and Pine Streets -- How the hell did this happen? A perfectly good piece of prime Rittenhouse Square-area real estate just sitting there, parking cars? A corner property? What in the fuck!?!?! That's 19,045 square feet of asphalt cockfucks sitting on some expensive-ass land.
Well, I guess it's not that expensive. The lot was purchased in August of 2009 for $10. It seems that a lot of the empty lots and parking garages I've written about have changed hands for $1 or $10. I guess this allows those greezy motherfucker slumlords that own these places to get away with paying little to no land transfer tax. Crooks.
Just kidding: In response to a visit to Philadelphia tomorrow by Gov. Corbett to address the city's Chamber of Commerce, various groups are planning a "massive" protest of the governor's proposed cuts to education, medical programs for the poor and food stamps, and his proposed elimination of general assistance welfare. (You can read more about the possible implications of those cuts, especially to general welfare, in my colleague Daniel Denvir's article here).
Among the groups we can expect to see outside the event at the Prince Theater at 14th and Chestnut: Decarcerate PA, Fight For Philly, ACT UP Philadelphia, Coalition Advocating for Public Schools, and, of course, Occupy Philadelphia.
At-Large Democratic Councilman Wilson Goode made yesterday what sure sounded like a ringing endorsement for the mayor's plan to fund the school district through a citywide reassessment.
Mayor Nutter has proposed $94 million in funding for the district, to come from anticipated revenue from the Actual Value Initiative, which would reassess properties citywide. His administration has said the reassessment will "catch" an overall increase in the city's property values.
So far, the idea has received mixed support on Council. Those who do support the plan couch their support more in terms of the School District's dire need than in their enthusiasm for raising extra revenue via AVI (Councilman Bill Green has pointed out once or twice that Council could always choose not to collect extra from the move — by, for example, paying back anything extra in tax reductions).
But Councilman Goode today offered what sure seemed like a defense of the mayor's logic.
The School District is entitled by law to a certain portion of Philly's real estate taxes. because our properties were under-valued.
The schools, Goode said in Council today were "losing that share for those years," and the District is now "simply asking us to do what we were supposed to do," by requesting that Philly hand over much of the revenue generated by the reassessment.
Goode says he's prepared to vote for more funding for the schools, and mentioned tweaking the current balance from the city's receiving 42% of the property tax and the District 58% to a 40/60 split instead — on one condition: the School District can't ask for any more. And if it does, Goode said, "We move back to local control."
At-Large Dem. Councilman Bill Green, who at one point seemed to be trading speeches with Goode and has adamantly opposed the linking of AVI to school funding, describes Goode's remark as "a rationale for why the mayor's proposal is reasonable."
Green (who, we should point out, is probably going to run for mayor) counters that Council has been deciding on a yearly basis how much to give the schools anyway — and points out that the moratorium on reassessments was put in place by ... Mayor Nutter.
Over the past few months, some of Philly's ugliest buildings with plywood-covered door and window openings have begun to blossom with pretty pink L&I notices that they're in violation of the city's Windows and Doors policy. And some of them have actually been fixed up.
At today's City Council Legislative Oversight Committee hearing, Department of Licenses & Inspections spokeswoman Maura Kennedy reported that the 6-month-old campaign to take violators to "Blight Court" is showing returns. She said there's been a 35 percent compliance rate in installing the required facade fixes, and 100 properties have been sold by owners who can't or don't want to bother with bringing their buildings up to code. L&I is also beginning to take properties with L&I liens to sheriff's sale when necessary, and has stepped up the average time for sealing a nuisance property from 10 months in 2007 to 10 days today.
There's also been a decrease in illegal dumping in the last four years — but the numbers still sound pretty daunting. Streets Department Deputy Commissioner (soon to be L&I Commissioner) Carlton Williams reported that Streets in 2011 removed more than 16,000 tons of debris and 110,000 illegally dumped tires from 1,047 locations around the city, at a cost of $1.6 million. And Andrew Stober of the Mayor's Office for Transportation and Utilities reported that out of 10,500 vacant parcels cleaned last year, the city itself had to do 8,700 of them itself.
Despite mobile short-dumping cameras and efforts to dispatch patrols more efficiently, those testifying expressed that limited funding and personnel remains a barrier to more proactive efforts. The city may try to be wily, but "the illegal dumpers do get smarter on us," Stober said.
What the hell is up with Harrisburg?
At-Large Republican Councilman Dennis O'Brien might know better than anyone else on Philadelphia's City Council — and he offered his own opinion on Tuesday.
During hearings Tuesday on a request by the School Reform Commission for more than $90 million in support from the city to help plug a $300 million budget gap, O'Brien — former Speaker of the House — veritably erupted, delivering to the three-person panel before him (which included SRC chairman Pedro Ramos) the following Jeremiad, in which he roasted Mayor Nutter and Governor Corbett for asking City Council to come up with the extra money while delivering a five-year plan for the District that shows no increased revenue from the state.
No one really expected the conversation last night to be genial, given that the matter at hand was the Women's Community Revitalization Project's (WCRP) proposal to tear down a graceful old bank building (Hot-Button Issue No. 1) and put up instead ultra-low-income (HBI No. 2) rental (HBI No. 3) housing with no green space (HBI No. 4). It didn't help that there were a whopping 25 residential units planned for the site on Front and Norris, with just a couple no commercial spaces, even though Front Street is zoned as a commercial corridor. It also didn't help that the meeting was a three-way affair between Norris Square Civic Association (NSCA), Fishtown Neighbors (FNA) and East Kensington Neighbors Association, and that all sorts of conflicts and grudges were also in play.
Spoiler: There was lots of ugly talk about gentrifiers, and the vote went 60-to-21 against the project.
But going beyond all that, the question of who decides the fate of historic buildings in Philly's less posh districts remains a striking one. For one thing, although residents might consider a given property to be historic, if it's not certified by the city's Historic Commission, it's not protected. "The historical commission is overworked. They don't have time to certify [buildings] on their own," city planner David Fecteau told the meeting last night. So lots of buildings are going un-reviewed. For another, there's not much to stop an owner from letting a would-be historic property decay for a decade or two and then having it declared structurally unsound.
Given the size of the street in question, we probably wasted too many pixels and too much ink on this the last time it came up, under ex-Councilman Frank DiCicco. But the plan to strike the tiny Bodine Street from Spring Garden to Green Street and give it for free to NoLibs party bar and favorite Democratic City Committee watering hole Finnegan's Wake had all the markings of a gift from one party insider to another. The plan quietly disappeared at the end of last year's council term. Now, it looks like it's back in action.
Residents of the 1st Councilmanic District have seemed pretty happy with Councilman Mark Squilla, who's been heavily focused on making the rounds of community meetings and collecting feedback. Although Northern Liberties neighbors were avidly opposed last time around, Squilla has at least brought the parties together to discuss it this time. Northern Liberties Neighborhood Association president Matt Ruben says his group is "not thrilled" but they're at the table, and Finnegan's will head to an NLNA zoning meeting this month to argue their case. He's been assured that "not only will it not be voted on but it won't even go to committee unless we give the OK."
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.
734 Schuylkill Avenue -- Hey! That's not a bridge! This proposal right here generated lots of excitement and anticipation but ended up falling to shit. While multitudes of successful building proposals and construction projects were (and still are) being built in Southwest Center City, this one was by far the most bold ... and the most failed.
The super-massive building at 734 Schuylkill Avenue has been a part of the Schuylkill waterfront in the little alcove locally known as "Devil's Pocket" for 71 years. Built for the U.S. Marine Corps in 1941, it spent its first 24 years as a munitions and tank factory. The 721,564-square-foot mega-building has as much floor space as half the Comcast Center. Since each floor was required to carry many multi-ton tanks and tank accessories, its walls and columns are meta-reinforced and rival City Hall in strength. This thing is like a goddamn mountain.
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