Kenney bill would change towing practices in Phila.

The towing of vehicles in Philadelphia will come under strict regulation if City Councilman James F. Kenney's new bill makes it into law.

Kenney, saying he was fed up with illegally towed cars and tow operators who ignore a city requirement to accept credit cards, proposed a bill Thursday to forbid the towing of cars that have not been ticketed and to require towing companies to provide a list of all their signs on private property in the city.

Kenney said in an interview that many signs that tell people which company towed their cars still say "cash only." That leads people to believe they can't use credit cards to retrieve their cars, he said. Council passed a Kenney-sponsored bill in June 2008 requiring tow-truck operators to accept credit cards.

Kenney said listing the signs would establish exactly which areas are permanently marked as no-parking zones.

That information ideally would be posted online by the Department of Licenses and Inspections so people could verify whether they had parked in an illegal zone, Kenney said.

"This legislation will address these problems by providing a basic level of protection for those who are towed," he said in a news release Thursday.

Requiring vehicles to be ticketed by police or the Philadelphia Parking Authority before they could be towed would be a dramatic change. Currently, companies can tow any illegally parked vehicle from private property with the property owner's permission.

Kenney's bill will be scheduled for a public hearing.

Also Thursday, Councilman Frank DiCicco introduced legislation to eliminate a controversial pension perk brought to light by the pending resignation of Managing Director Camille Cates Barnett.

Barnett has the chance to get a $49,880 annual pension for life so long as she pays $120,451 up front, even though she worked for the city for only two years. A city rule gives employees who are not yet vested in the city pension plan the right to buy into the program if they have worked in a public-sector job elsewhere.

Barnett has declined to comment on her plans, and DiCicco cannot legislate away her right to the perk.

His bill would eliminate the option in the future for workers who have been on the city payroll for less than five years.

State Sen. Larry Farnese (D., Phila.) plans to introduce similar legislation in Harrisburg to ensure that there are no questions about the city's authority to eliminate the pension option.

In other Council action yesterday:

Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. proposed a tax credit for businesses hiring interns. The bill would allow business owners to credit 40 percent of intern compensation, up to $750 per intern per year, against their business-privilege tax. It would be limited citywide to 2,000 internships, defined in the bill as "a supervised work experience provided to a student enrolled in an educational institution."

Jones also proposed a zoning change to allow for retail development of the former Tastykake complex at 2801 Hunting Park Ave. Tastykake sold the parcel this week as part of its move to the Navy Yard.

Kenney, as promised last week, introduced a bill that would define paramedics as firefighters and allow them to remain part of International Association of Fire Fighters Local 22. The Nutter administration wants to split the paramedics from the firefighters, which both groups oppose.