Council Session Wrap-Up
The highlights of this morning's weekly City Council session included two long-lingering land issues and a win for Mayor Nutter in how city departments hire top deputies.
Council Session Wrap-Up
Chris Brennan
The highlights of this morning's weekly City Council session included two long-lingering land issues and a win for Mayor Nutter in how city departments hire top deputies.
Councilman Frank DiCicco introduced legislation to change the zoning for the former New Market property in Society Hill. Renamed "Stamper Square," the project calls for a 15-story hotel and condominiums. Developer Marc Stein needs a zoning change, which will be the subject of a public hearing, to build higher than six stories on the site. Will Smith previously envisioned a W hotel on the parcel bordered by Front, Second, Pine and Lombard streets. The Society Hill Civic Association took no position on the project after a 12-12 vote last month.
Councilman Brian O'Neill saw passage of his legislation allowing the Fox Chase Cancer Center to expand onto 19 acres of nearby Burholme Park. As we reported last month, this legislation stalled at the end of Mayor Street's administration but was revived by Mayor Nutter. "I think we got lucky because this deal was unraveling," O'Neill said today. Fox Chase will pay the city $4 million to find replacement park land in the neighborhood.
Council also approved a proposed City Charter change from Mayor Nutter to expand the power of department heads to hire more deputies. The measure, which will be placed on the April 22 primary election ballot, boosts the number of deputies that can be hired from two to 10, with up to four allowed to be hired from outside the city. Only Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell voted against the proposal. Blackwell today repeated her concerns that she isn't sure all city departments need that many deputies and she wanted more information before offering her support.
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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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