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Clout: Protesters to Lurie: We want the whole 8 million yards

THERE'S NOTHING like a good old-fashioned tailgate party during the offseason. In Wynnewood. About 50 people passed around grilled hot dogs - chanting "Pay, Eagles, Pay" to the tune of the team's fight song - in front of team owner Jeffrey Lurie's Llanfair Road mansion yesterday to urge him to fork over the millions of dollars that the team owes the city.

THERE'S NOTHING like a good old-fashioned tailgate party during the offseason. In Wynnewood.

About 50 people passed around grilled hot dogs - chanting "Pay, Eagles, Pay" to the tune of the team's fight song - in front of team owner Jeffrey Lurie's Llanfair Road mansion yesterday to urge him to fork over the millions of dollars that the team owes the city.

Before leaving, participants propped up against Lurie's padlocked fence a large "Past Due" notice for $8 million, which cops later took down.

ACORN, an advocate for low-income families, set up camp there in an effort to retrieve the money to help keep city health centers open. Closing up to three health centers is among the options to help plug a massive gap in the budget.

"In the '80s, when the Eagles struggled, the city went forward [to help]," ACORN organizer Keith Crosby said, referring to the luxury skyboxes that the city built atop Veterans Stadium.

"We just want to be paid back," he said, adding that with interest, the figure is now closer to $10 million.

New post for Williams

State Sen. Anthony Williams has replaced the late Councilwoman Carol Campbell as chair of a group of some 18 African-American ward leaders. In past years, the alliance has been known mostly for soliciting political donations from judicial candidates. But Williams says that the renamed United Democratic Ward Leaders of Color wants to play a stronger role in minority neighborhoods and weigh in on issues like health care and education, not just politics.

Williams said that the group supports efforts by U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, the city's Democratic Party chairman, to restore the party's clout in pushing a single citywide slate of judges. A number of ward leaders have been freelancing as political consultants, offering their services, for pay, to judicial candidates - and pushing the cost of a successful campaign for Common Pleas judge two years ago past the $500,000 mark.

"In the past, we were disappointed when we supported a diverse ticket of judges, and other people didn't," Williams said. "We have to look at reforming both the amount of money being spent and the importance of ballot position."

Hallwatch remembered

Clout offers a respectful tribute to the local Web site Hallwatch, which quietly closed shop last week after eight years of leadership sharing public records with the public.

"In many ways it was a labor of love for me," said Ed Goppelt, 49, the Harvard-educated technophile who ran the site out of his South Philadelphia rowhouse. "Ultimately I made a decision this was not something I wanted to keep doing."

Goppelt created the Web site in 2001 when he found that City Council was not making its hearing schedule available online. Later, he added campaign-finance records, city real-estate data and a nifty tool telling people where to vote. Several times, he had to file lawsuits to get public records, and with help from Michael Churchill, at the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, he won every battle.

All of Goppelt's innovations were later duplicated by the agencies that should have put them up in the first place.

"Call me arrogant, but I feel some pride . . . in prodding those guys to make public records truly public," Goppelt said. (See editorial, Page 19.)

Ward leader finds work

State revenues may be down more than $2 billion, but there's always enough money to hire a Democratic ward leader. Former city councilman and 23rd Ward chief Dan Savage is now reporting to work at the Pennsylvania Turnpike's regional office in King of Prussia. He became "regional office coordinator" last October, filling a vacant position. The job pays $69,604 and Savage is permitted to remain active in politics - but only on his own time, according to Turnpike spokesman Bill Capone.

Transparency, Biden-style

When Clout heard that VP Joe Biden was throwing a Super Bowl party in his new digs at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, we had just one question: "Who's cooking?"

A month later, we still don't know.

Three times we asked Biden's deputy press secretary, Annie Tomasini, to find out whether taxpayers are providing the VP with a cook. She initially said that she hadn't been able to find out, then she stopped answering our calls.

We followed up this week with a formal request, via e-mail, for a list of all federal employees assigned to Biden's official residence. No names necessary, just job titles and salaries. So far, not a word in response, from Tomasini or the VP. *

Staff writers Dafney Tales, Bob Warner, Dave Davies and Michael Hinkelman contributed to this report.