Archive: May, 2010
Catherine Lucey
City Council just voted to override Mayor Nutter’s veto of legislation that stipulates that paramedics are firefighters, allowing them to be in the same bargaining unit.
Council vote 16-0 to override the mayor.
The Nutter administration opposed the legislation, sponsored by Councilman Jim Kenney and unanimously passed by Council, arguing that because paramedics have different schedules and do different work from firefighters, they should be in a separate unit.
International Association of Firefighers Local 22 has about 2,200 members, over 200 of them paramedics.
Catherine Lucey
It looks like the end of the road for Mayor Nutter's proposed soda tax. Council President Anna Verna just said there will be no vote on the soda tax today.
“Because I don’t think we have the votes to pass it,” Verna said. “So why would we keep going through the process?”
Asked if the tax vote could be revisited at a later date, Verna said: “I think right now, we have a balanced budget.”
Councilwoman Marian Tasco said it was unlikely the soda tax would come back. "For right now, for all intents and purposes, it is not on the table and I do not see it coming up again in the future," she said.
Council is set to pass a budget today with a 9.9 percent temporary property tax hike and taxes on some tobacco products. They argue this budget provides the mayor with sufficient revenue, but Nutter has been saying he will not have enough cash to get through the year.
Nutter originally proposed a soda tax of 2 cents per ounce, billing it as a way to raise revenues and improve public health. More recently, he has been lobbying for a tax of 3/4 cent per ounce, but has been unable to get the needed 9 votes to move the legislation out of committee.
Catherine Lucey
Mayor Nutter this morning sent a letter to Council saying that if they don't pass a soda tax or increase the temporary property tax hike, that he will have to eliminate more than 300 city jobs.
"We have tried hard to avoid making cuts that would have any further impact on service, but without additional revenue, we will have little choice," Nutter said in the letter, which says he will have to cut $20 million and lists police and fire amog the departments that would be affected.
Council members questioned Nutter's reasoning, noting that the budget they have tentatively passed so far -- which includes a 9.9 percent property tax hike -- will include surplus funds of $42 million.
"To turn around and say he's going to lay off 340 people seems to be a bit punative when he didn't get a soda tax," said Councilman Jim Kenney.
Council has been meeting behind closed doors this morning on the budget. At times there have been more than 9 members behind closed doors -- in an apparant violation of the state Sunshine Act -- and staffers have refused to answer questions.
Nutter has been pushing for a soda tax of 3/4 cent per ounce, which would raise about $30 million annually, but just $14 million in the coming budget year.
Catherine Lucey
Battle lines are being drawn up here in Council today, as the body is set to reconvene to give final approval to a budget plan – and possibly revisit Mayor Nutter’s soda tax proposal.
Nutter – who originally pitched a 2 cents per ounce tax in his budget – has been lobbying for a tax of ½ or ¾ cent per ounce in recent weeks. But last week he did not achieve the 9 votes he needed to move the legislation out of committee.
Today Council may try again, although it is unclear if the votes are there this week either. Crowds are filling up in chambers. Opponents of the tax – business owners, teamsters and soda manufacturers – are here with 30,000 signatures against the bill. Members of the city’s blue collar union AFSCME District Council 33 are here in favor of the tax, which they say will preserve city jobs.
And white collar AFSMCE District Council 47 is here, on a different mission.
“I’m here to advocate for raising the real estate tax,” said DC 47 President Cathy Scott. “We think DiCicco’s 12.2 percent (proposal) is appropriate.”
Chris Brennan
City Council meets today to give final approval to the budget. Will it include the soda tax? And how is that two-year 9.9 percent property tax increase playing in the neighborhoods?
Arlen Specter's change in political parties does not enable him to be reelected. Here's why.
The battle for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor is both narrow and nasty.
And Dr. Manan Trivedi will face U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach in the Nov. 2 general election.
Chris Brennan
The White House just released a statement from Vice President Joe Biden, calling U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter a good friend and U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak a great candidate to take on former U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey in the Nov. 2 general election. Sestak defeated Specter in yesterday's Democratic primary election by 8 points.
Considerable ink was spilled over the issue of whether Biden and President Obama could have saved Specter with a last-minute campaign rally in Pennsylvania. After luring him back to the Democratic Party in April 2009, Biden and Obama stayed away during the closing days of the campaign. Specter repeatedly ran a television commercial with Obama praising the five-term senator while Biden did radio ads.
Here's Biden's statement: "Arlen Specter is one of my closest friends. He has served Pennsylvania with determination, wisdom, and skill for many years. I was proud to play a role in his return to the Democratic Party; his votes to pass the Recovery Act and health insurance reform were courageous and critical to our success. I look forward to working with him during the rest of this year, and remaining in close contact with him after his term in Washington is finished.
"I spoke to Joe Sestak last night and congratulated him on his impressive victory. He will make a great candidate in the fall, and a wonderful United States Senator. I look forward to campaigning for him in Pennsylvania and celebrating his victory in November."
Catherine Lucey
Sources tell PhillyClout that Mayor Nutter plans to veto a recent Council bill that dictates that paramedics are firefighters, which would allow them to remain in the same bargaining unit.
The Nutter administration opposed the legislation, sponsored by Councilman Jim Kenney and unanimously passed by Council, arguing that because paramedics have different schedules and do different work from firefighters, they should be in a separate unit.
We called Kenney for comment, who said: “Although [Nutter’s] my friend and I like him very much, this will be his first override.”
The Nutter administration last year appealed to the state Labor Relations Board to have paramedics removed from Local 22 of the International Association of Firefighers. A recent ruling from the board backed the administration, although any action is on hold while the order is being appealed.
Local 22 has about 2,200 members, over 200 of them paramedics. We've asked the administration for comment and will update if we hear anything.
Chris Brennan
Former City Controller Jonathan Saidel, a candidate yesterday for lieutenant governor, was targeted by a robocall around the city Monday that linked him to the Ku Klux Klan. The woman who made the recorded calls claimed she was supporting another candidate in the Democratic primary election, former Commonwealth Court Judge Doris Smith-Ribner. Ribner tells us she had nothing to do with the call.
PhillyClout has obtained a partial recording of the call, in which the woman asks if "Saidel is running for controller or for grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan."
Here's the rest of the script: "It is no secret that Saidel has not been a friend of our community. But now, he thinks he can buy off a few ward leaders and we will all vote for him. Not me. I am voting for one of us: Doris Smith-Ribner. Doris has fought racial stereotypes all her life, rising to be the first African American elected to the Commonwealth Court. Please join me in voting for Doris Smith-Ribner for lieutenant governor. This call paid for by Pat Wilson."
So who is Pat Wilson? We're still trying to find out. Ribner says she'd like to know. "Many people have been wondering who this person is," she told us. "I don't know what to say. I have no idea who this person is."
Saidel is locked in a still-undecided race with the third candidate in the primary, Scott Conklin. Saidel spokesman Marty Marks said his campaign doesn't know who ran the robocall. "To suggest that Jonathan Saidel, of Jewish heritage and a champion of civil rights for his whole career, has anything to do with the KKK is disgusting," Marks said. "It’s politics at its worst"
The root of this political attack may have been a racially tinged dust-up from 1993, when Saidel told a mostly white crowd in Northeast Philly that he opposed school busing plans that shipped kids to "parts of the city that look like East Beirut." Then City Councilman Michael Nutter made a speech in Council a few days later, saying he thought Saidel was "running for city controller, not grand wizard."
Chris Brennan
It wouldn't be the day after election day without recriminations and disputes about what went down at the polls. But we really didn't count on a dust-up between Al Jazeera and the Delaware County GOP. Tom Ackerman, a reporter/producer for Al Jazeera English in Washington D.C. e-mailed this morning to say our blog post yesterday was "grossly misinformed." The post quoted John McBlain of the Delco GOP saying an Al Jazeera crew seemed perturbed yesterday at the lack of signs for U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter's campaign at a polling place. Another Delco official told our colleague, Bill Bender, that the crew improperly tried to enter a polling place.
Here's what Ackerman has to say about all that:
"The only "combative" aspect of the incident was the GOP representative's insistence that we were breaking the law by shooting routine voting scenes, none of which violated any law that he could recite, even after calling the County Solicitor. Anyway, we were not perturbed about the lack of Specter lawn signs (or for that matter, any Specter pollwatchers that we could find). We simply made a journalistic observation which may have proved telling."
Catherine Lucey
Will Bunch takes a look back at Sen. Arlen Specter's career.
John Baer looks ahead to the Toomey-Sestak matchup in the fall.
Democratic Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato and Republican state Attorney General Tom Corbett will face off in the governor's race.
And the Clout column takes you inside all the Primary Day gossip.
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David Gambacorta spent a small eternity writing about cops, drug dealers and serial killers. Now he’s writing about power and politics – which sometimes reminds him of the old crime beat. He joined the Daily News in 2005. And yes, he knows you’re not quite sure how to pronounce his last name. E-mail tips to gambacd@phillynews.com
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Jan Ransom, a native New Yorker, joined the Daily News in 2010 after graduating from Howard University. She has since written about the difficulty of filing police complaints, tax deadbeats and life after violent home invasions. She joined the Daily News City Hall Bureau in 2011 and has plunged headfirst into reporting on administration budget battles and City Council shenanigans. E-mail tips to ransomj@phillynews.com
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Sean Collins Walsh is from Bucks County and went to Northwestern University. He joined the Daily News copy desk in 2012 and now covers the Nutter administration. Before that, he interned at papers including The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News and The Seattle Times. E-mail tips to walshSE@phillynews.com
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