She's down in the dumps over the city's fine for early trash

I was recently very upset to find a $25 ticket in my mailbox for putting a small bag of trash out at noon on a Thursday. My trash is Friday and I was in a hurry on a small trip and I never thought of this really being a big deal. I think a WARNING would have been sufficient.

My street in Rhawnhurst has caring neighbors who all work on their properties and try to beautify their street. On a daily basis, you will see people sweeping, planting, and performing general maintenance on their properties. I think that is horrible to pick on this street with the trash police. Look around at other filthy properties where no one cares about their house, and fine them for their mess.

I really think the city targets certain areas with these ridiculous fines. I work all around the city and I am positive that this cannot be done everywhere. I will pay my $25, but I will surely make all my neighbors aware of this, too. Hopefully no one else will get fined.

So many of the Northeast residents want to move out of the city, no wonder why.

Hope Hendrix

Rhawnhurst

Digital TV is a congressional fraud

In response to Richard Iaconelli's letter in the June 25 edition (Digital TV woes are a big-time turnoff), Congress messed up and they don't care. The conversion to digital TV was done because Congress wants to sell off the analog band and rake in millions to waste on their pet projects/pork.

They already wasted over $2 billion on the conversion. Wait until Phillies and Eagles fans find out they can't watch their teams from the beach, park or backyard. How much money did the cable/satellite companies and converter manufacturers donate to campaigns to have this legislation passed?

How many more landfills will we need for discarded TVs that will spread toxins? Where have you gone, Al Gore?

However, there is a solution. We need to convert Congress over from analog legislators to digital legislators. So, I am giving them the digit now.

Myles Gordon

Bustleton

It's up to us to stamp out graffiti . . .

I am writing in response to your June 25 article, Ruining the neighborhood. Residents need to fight back. My husband Ed has been covering up graffiti and picking up trash in our neighborhood for about 17 years. Your reporter, Bill Kenny, followed him around and did an article on him about 10 years ago.

Every morning after breakfast, my husband walks Hartel Avenue, Castor Avenue, walks through the Rhawnhurst School and down Large Street. He carries a bag and picker, picking up all the trash he sees. If he sees graffiti, he comes home, gets in his car (which carries lots of paint and graffiti removal in the trunk) and goes out and covers it up. He even puts residents' trash out if it is not out. If it was not for my husband, Rhawnhurst would look like the slums. All neighbors should be very thankful for what he does. I certainly am proud of him.

When we are out in the car going somewhere and he sees graffiti, he stops and covers it up or removes it, no matter what neighborhood we are in.

If every person who sees graffiti would cover it up with spray paint or remove it with graffiti removal, we can beat these hoodlums. Even a simple call to the city's anti-graffiti hot line to report the crime gets it removed. They have been driving around and covering it up.

It takes unity to fight these types of crimes. Stand up for your neighborhood and fight back by covering graffiti up or removing it yourself. They will eventually get the message and stop. Their supposedly called "artwork" will be destroyed.

Barbara A. Colfer

Rhawnhurst

. . . And the city can lend a helping hand

I applaud the efforts of community organizations and civic activists in their fight against graffiti vandalism. The city of Philadelphia's Anti-Graffiti Network has been waging war aggressively against graffiti vandalism for over a decade and we thank those that volunteer their time to help clean it up.

As you know, graffiti is everyone's problem and everyone needs to work together to combat this senseless crime. The Anti-Graffiti Network will provide free graffiti-removal services for private as well as public properties; a simple phone call can get results. If you wish to speak to a live operator, contact 311. You can also call 215-686-0000, our hotline, and leave a message to have graffiti cleaned up. Be as specific as possible with the location of the graffiti vandalism (front, side, rear of property, etc.). You may also visit our Web site at www.phila.gov/qualityoflife to report graffiti vandalism online.

The city also provides free graffiti-removal products to community organizations, businesses and civic activists to help defray the cost of graffiti removal through our Anti-Graffiti Paint & Supply Voucher Program.

No matter how you contact us, we are more than willing to join forces with you to eradicate this blight from our communities.

Only by working together, will we make a difference in our neighborhoods.

Thomas Conway

Deputy Managing Director

Neighborhood Services Division

City of Philadelphia

What's all the fuss about parking spots?

Regarding Theresa Ulmer's letter in the June 25 edition (Won't you be my good neighbor, Part 1): Oh Theresa, I could totally commiserate with your letter. Isn't it amazing how possessive people can be with the spots in front of their homes?

I've got two doozies on my street. The neighbors to my left flat out said, "My house, my spot," yet he can't park to save his life. He ends up parking his car half in the street, almost two feet away from the curb.

Then I have a real winner who has white paint on his curb to mark where his house begins and ends. This is so he can park his giant van there.

I once had a friend from Jersey visit me. She parked in "his spot" and he was outside scowling when she got in her car to leave. Not even a minute later he moved his van into that spot. So now, if I have a choice of spots and none of them are in front of my home, I'll park right between his white lines!

It's amazing how loony some people can be - especially when it comes to parking spots on a street that is as big as the one that I live on. There are other things they should be worrying about!!

Heather Steinberg

Bustleton

Giant warning for Krajewski

Hey, Joan Krajewski, when was the last time you ran a supermarket? What a stupid statement you made when you said that you didn't think the Giant Market planned for Grant Avenue and Blue Grass Road would hurt the other stores that much.

Where the devil do you think that the business will come from? It will come from all the stores in the area. It's just great that the contractors will have a year's work, but when they walk away they will be taking the jobs and pensions of their fellow union workers with them. For the sake of one year for the contractors and the 300 or more jobs that Giant will offer, you and City Council will destroy the lives and pensions of hundreds of union employees. SHAME ON ALL OF YOU.

But fear not, because all of you will surely feel the wrath of those people you hurt sometime in the future.

I, for one, believe that there was more to it than meets the eye when it came to passing that bill.

Catherine Gilbert

Holiday and Shop N Bag Markets

Close the Delaware loophole

It has been more than six years since I first introduced legislation to close the infamous "Delaware Loophole" to create a fairer corporate tax environment for Pennsylvania's families and small businesses.

So far, large corporations have employed the same skill and evasiveness in avoiding the legislation as they have in avoiding paying their fair share of corporate taxes.

This year, with the state facing a deficit of more than $3 billion, and small businesses being counted upon to lead the economic recovery that can prevent future deficits, my legislation targeting the loophole is more of a necessity than an option. Since I introduced Senate Bill 227 in February, the state's budget crisis has steadily deepened. Many of my Senate colleagues have now joined me in the effort, and we are trying to make the bill part of the final budget package.

If the legislature fails to modernize our corporate tax laws, every Pennsylvania citizen will be forced to make up the difference through potential increases to sales taxes, property taxes, state income taxes and drastic cuts to services.

In Philadelphia and across the commonwealth, residents have already paid a high price. I can remember a day when the streets were lined with small, neighborhood businesses and were crowded with shoppers into the night. While there are several factors that have contributed to the extinction of those hardware stores, office supply stores and toy stores, there is one that we could have - and should have - prevented.

Large, multi-state corporations have been able to create Delaware subsidiaries to which they pay exorbitant rent and royalties so they can write off those expenses on their Pennsylvania tax forms. Today, less than one-quarter of Pennsylvania corporations pay any state income tax at all. The state Department of Revenue estimates that half of the companies that pay no tax are using Delaware subsidiaries to hide income from Pennsylvania.

Small-business owners had neither the staff nor the time to participate in this shell game, and were forced to pay the nation's highest corporate net income tax. Given all of the other advantages that scale brings to large retail chains, preserving a tax system that gives them another is unconscionable.

My bill would force these corporations to combine the income of all subsidiaries and portion out Pennsylvania's share for corporate tax purposes. Such a change would not only level the playing field for businesses, it would also allow us to gradually reduce corporate income taxes for those who have paid more than their share for decades.

So far, 23 states - a majority of states that impose corporate income taxes - have already closed this loophole, and research shows that those that have done so tend to have higher rates of entrepreneurship.

As Pennsylvania faces the tough choices that come with a deep deficit, ending this corporate tax loophole can help mitigate the damage done by drastic budget cuts. Working families can have little faith in a state government that allows them to suffer for the shifty accounting practices of wealthy corporations.

It is time to assure those families, and the owners of small businesses, that we are willing to take the steps needed to ensure that tax tricks and dodges will not be tolerated, and that we are doing everything we can to maintain critical services.

State Sen. Christine M. Tartaglione

Democratic chair of the Senate Labor and Industry Committee

Blame who, Arthur?

This is a response to Arthur Gurmankin's letter in the June 18 edition, Blame Rush and his ilk:

Arthur Gurmankin, you come across so far left that you forgot what is right. You are one uptight, shortsighted, narrowminded leftover hippie. You have to be to blame Rush and the other right-wing talk shows for a guy's behavior for killing a murderer of children, some up to eight months into term. That story made the front pages instead of the real terrorist that shot dead a recruiting officer - typical left-wing mentality.

Here's a few more for you, Arthur. I'm going down your list. Pro-life? At least we believe in the life of a child, not like the left where you believe in abortion but support the rights of terrorists.

Pro-torture? There were only three terrorists that were tortured, and it also saved the lives of many that were going to be blown up over the Atlantic from London, and it also thwarted a plot in L.A. Our special forces get waterboarded so they learn how to deal with it if captured.. Oh, terrorists don't do that, they just cut their heads off and march them through the streets, the guys you want to read the Miranda rights to.

Religious and faith-based? Yes, I believe in God and that's why I understand what evil is. Your side doesn't know evil. They are weak when dealing with the terrorists and only use God when they're campaigning and running for office, when your president is out on his apology tour and saying we are not a Christian nation. Well, we are one nation under God!

Pro-war? It was our soldiers who shed more blood than any other country for freedom all around the world, and that freedom is why you can shoot off your mouth with your donkey ears glued to your Keith Olbermanns and your Jack Caffertys and the rest of your wacked-out, left-wing loonies of the media who kiss the butt of this socialist president.

I love my country, and it's a damn shame to watch it go to hell in a hand basket with Obama spending more than all the presidents combined, causing a debt that my great-grandchildren will be paying, soon to be overtaxed out the wazoo and in fear of a president who decreases military funding just when Iran, North Korea, China and the Soviet Union are building up their forces tenfold.

Advice to you, Arthur: Move out of Bizzaro world and into reality and get some anger management classes and you might just become a real American. Oh, and some prayers would be nice, because with this president, we're going to need all the prayer we can get.

Bin Laden said that the way to defeat America is to bankrupt it. That's why they went after the twin towers. Think about it Arthur. What's this president doing to our economy?

Richie T. Mauro

Torresdale

RIP Michael, Our Little Angel

In an instant he came along and changed our lives

A child that never truly became a man

A life that was never really his to control

Someone was always waiting for something

But all he ever wanted was to just fit in

Just to blend into the background

And to enjoy life like everyone else

But he wasn't like everyone else

And that killed him

Unable to look at himself anymore

Tired of seeing what he had become

He tried in vain to change his appearance

Hoping no one would recognize him anymore

Then maybe he could have the life he desired

The life that every little boy wants

But he knew he was no longer that little boy

And that made him cry

Although he tried to hide his true feelings

Heaven saw what was happening to their angel

They felt his pain and saw his endless tears

They knew he'd suffered enough through the years

He had felt things that no one should ever feel

Even though he found love he never knew if it was real

So God sent an angel down from the heavens high above

And now forever that little boy is happy and will know love

John J. Ruppert

Mayfair

Ackerman's agenda is bad for the Northeast

Superintendent of Schools Arlene Ackerman had her Guest Opinion printed in the Northeast Times last week. After one year and nothing accomplished in her position, she obviously doesn't know her audience yet. She doesn't realize that the taxpayers of the Northeast actually pay their real estate taxes that support the Philadelphia public schools. The last time I saw the real estate tax delinquencies by percentage, Northeast Philadelphia ZIP codes were all within single digits. Some of the inner city ZIP codes had real estate tax delinquencies ranging from 30 percent to just over 50 percent.

Ackerman stated that "every student deserves a great teacher." But what she fails to tell Northeast residents is that she wants to take the better teachers from Northeast schools and reassign them to the hardest-to-staff schools. Where do you think they are located? She even wants to offer teachers an incentive. Whose tax dollars is she offering?

Ackerman wants "to close the opportunity and achievement gap." Is that within the city schools or vs. the suburban school districts? Is she using the Northeast's tax dollars to do this, too?

She and her cronies just received approval for a $250,000 contract with a Florida employment agency to assist in recruiting 50 African-American teachers.

It is obvious to me that Ackerman has some sort of an agenda that is not positive for the Northeast, so maybe it is time to cut our children's losses and get a new superintendent, possibly from Philadelphia this time. Don't worry, it won't be the first contract she was asked to leave and paid out on.

Mayer Krain

Modena Park

***

Regarding Ms. Ackerman's article, Our students deserve the best teachers: Yes, they do, but her task is not to convince us, but rather, the Philadelphia Federation of Mediocre and sub-par Teachers.

The teachers union is the problem. It demands higher wages, smaller class size, more teaching aids (and aides), then blames parent apathy for weak results. And that is true across the country, not just in Philadelphia.

The study should have included teachers (salaries, health, retirement and other benefits) in Canada, Germany, France, Mexico and developing countries with the education results in those countries, then compared those to our results.

We should import 10,000 teachers from England, Canada, etc., at half the current payroll and start over. Then we can reward the teachers who motivate students and perform, and still save millions. We pay top dollar for bottom results, and we have for 50 years. Let's clean house. We cannot pay full-time salaries and astronomical benefit packages for part-time jobs that yield sub-par results.

Joe Murray

Morrell Park

Northeast gets the shaft on parks panel

I was really disappointed to see that the city's new Parks and Recreation Commission lacks Northeast representation. I was one of about 250 applicants that applied for the new commission, which is replacing the Fairmount Park Commission. I have 20 years experience as an officer with the Friends of Pennypack Park, one of the many volunteer groups here in Northeast Philadelphia.

With all the park groups, recreation volunteers and athletic organizations throughout the Northeast, representation was warranted for an area of more than one-third the area of Philadelphia. One of the inadequacies of the Fairmount Park Commission for many years was sparse representation of the Northeast.

The process was for City Council to nominate 25 names to be submitted to the mayor. Then the mayor was to appoint nine from that field, and the new commission can include people from outside the city (counties contiguous to the city). Unfortunately, it appears that the mayor has appointed two people from outside the city and ignored Northeast Philadelphia.

There are many in my organization and in the Northeast that have the experience to tackle the many problems that face our parks and recreation facilities, and have the "roll up your sleeves attitude" to get things done.

Harvey R. Cantor

Somerton

Editor's note: Two mayoral appointees, Anthony Langford and Carlos Rodriguez, listed Northeast addresses on their applications to the commission. Langford's application identified him as president of the Friends of East Fairmount Park and a board member of the Strawberry Mansion CDC. Rodriguez' application identified him as a Beneficial Bank branch manager and president of a North Philadelphia-based youth baseball program.

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