Mayor Nutter's open letter to Will Bunch

Mayor Nutter published a long piece in the Daily News this morning, a response to my open letter to him about the planning for Pope Francis' September visit that first appeared here Sunday night. I'm truly grateful for this; the major thrust of what I wrote was a plea for better communication from City Hall, and this article was a big start. I'd like to see more of this -- but interactive with everyday citizens.

I'm not going to get into a long back-and-forth over the substance -- I think the mayor's piece speaks for itself. You should read it. I'll still like to see more convincing arguments, and more information, about the extent of the Pope-related closures. I'm not sure that senior citizens or the disabled shlepping over Ben Franklin Bridge from South Jersey will be calling themselves "joyful pilgrims," but hopefully they'll all be accommodated.

I also understand why past World Conference of Families confabs were used as a benchmark, but I wonder whether comparing Philadelphia -- addicted to our cars and our HD TVs, not big on inconvenience -- to venues like the Philippines is going to come up way short on crowd size...we'll see. I can tell you the mayor and I -- and, most importantly, most people reading this -- agree on the most important point, that everyone wants that weekend to be a showcase for one of the world's great cities.