Clarke steps up for pro-casino fight

One topic the budget crisis may bring to a head is the future of SugarHouse Casino.

The proposed slots parlor in Fishtown/Northern Liberties is not in Councilman Darrell L. Clarke's district, but many of his constituents are its close neighbors.

Thus far he has deferred to District Councilman Frank DiCicco to lead the way on casinos, but with SugarHouse still stalled in the approval process and with Mayor Nutter still trying to force it off its planned Delaware River waterfront site, Clarke was shaking his head after last week's budget briefing.

He questioned how the city could be cutting pools and libraries while fighting a development that, along with the other planned casino, Foxwoods, is scheduled to bring $28 million in tax revenue.

"We need to have a serious discussion and finalize this casino issue," Clarke said.

The city is expected to receive more than $23 million annually in tax revenue alone if both SugarHouse and Foxwoods ever open. The school district is to get an additional $5 million. Casino opponents say that revenue will be swallowed up by increased costs for police and services for problem gamblers.

Clarke said he feared that the state legislature would carve Philadelphia out of other gaming-tax benefits - specifically wage-tax reduction already under way - as some legislators and the governor have threatened.

Clarke, the majority whip, might encourage other pro-casino Council members to join him if he decides to take on both Nutter and DiCicco with a public stand.

- Jeff Shields

His name is Al Schmidt, and he wants to be elected Philadelphia's next city controller - as a Republican.

"I am going to be running full time, and it's quite a leap," Schmidt said, knowing the odds he faces in this Democrat-dominated town.

Still, he decided Friday to throw his hat in the ring after Mayor Nutter and current City Controller Alan Butkovitz earlier in the day announced a proposal to stretch out the city's pension-fund payments - and, in the process, save $172 million over five years.

The proposal put Schmidt over the edge. He called it a bad idea for "the same reason why you can't buy a 60-year mortgage on your home. . . . It pushes the obligation back a generation, and in this case, it means your children end up paying for it."

Schmidt, 37, worked last year as the executive director of the city's Republican Party, resigning the job last month to give "thoughtful consideration" to getting in the controller's race.

Before that, he spent five years at the U.S. General Accounting Office, where he had top-secret security clearance, he said, to audit the Department of Homeland Security.

Born in Pittsburgh, he moved from Washington to Philadelphia in 2005, when he was engaged to his wife, who is a Philadelphia native.

No other Republicans are yet in the race. Besides Butkovitz, two other Democrats - John Braxton and Brett Mandel - have said they intended to compete in the May 19 Democratic primary.

- Marcia Gelbart

Here's something else that has fallen victim to the city's financial crunch: Mayor Nutter's onetime hope of hiring full-time city employees to staff a sparkling new Philadelphia lobbying office in Washington.

In the summer before the general election, Nutter said he was leaning toward such a plan as a way of maybe strengthening the city's Washington presence.

It has been the practice of past mayors - namely, John F. Street and Ed Rendell - to hire Washington firms to lobby on Philadelphia's behalf. But some other major cities in recent years have moved toward opening their own offices with their own full-time staff.

That may be in Philadelphia's future.

But for now, Nutter - who is becoming a familiar face himself in the U.S. Capitol, with about half a dozen visits since the fall - is not breaking new ground.

"The budget crisis has forced us to reevaluate that original idea," mayoral spokesman Doug Oliver said, "so we are not taking any steps in that direction for the foreseeable future."

- Marcia Gelbart