SEPTA union transit leader Willie Brown  - who is now meeting with Gov. Rendell - stopped by City Hall this afternoon and spoke with eight City Council members.

During the meeting, Brown continued to voice frustration with the mayor, referring to the walkout as “Nutter’s strike,” according to Councilman Frank Rizzo. Previously, Brown called the mayor "Little Caesar."

He and others who were there also said Brown depicted the mayor himself as the deal breaker that ended talks Monday night, and that led Brown, in anger, to call for the 3 a.m. strike. “Apparently the mayor did something that he (Brown) didn’t elaborate on,” Rizzo said.

In an interview after the meeting, a flabbergasted Mayor Nutter said he was perplexed by Brown's comments. "I have no idea what the gentleman is talking about," the mayor said.

»  More Nutter: "No idea" what Willie Brown is talking about

For a relativley quiet Election Day, it was a noisy afternoon today at The Palm.

In one corner sat the Republicans, including losing District Attorney candidate Michael Untermeyer. No doubt, though, that the others with him - city GOP leader Michael Meehan, Republican City Committee chairman Vito Canuso, state Reps. John Taylor and George Kenney, and Philadelphia Parking Authority executive director and ward leader Vince Fenerty - were juiced by big GOP gubernatorial wins in New Jersey and Virginia, as well as for Pennsylvania's open Supreme Court spot. State Rep. John Perzel also stopped in.

Dining in another corner - literally - were members of electricians' union Local 98. It was a true building trades moment, with applause breaking out sporadically as they celebrated victories as well, and hoped to be celebrating yet another one with an anticipated win by state Superior Court candidate Anne Lazarus. At last count, Lazarus was said to be up about 1,500 votes. Besides Lazarus, others seated in the Local 98 section included Building Trades Council President Pat Gillespie, Local 98 business manager John Dougherty, new Municipal Court Judge-to-be Joe Waters and City Councilman Bill Green.

To be sure, a number of other former and current politicos were scattered throughout the Center City restaurant, which has served for years as a traditional gathering spot for post-election gossiping. ("Did turnout reach 13 percent yet?") Seated at a separate Palm table, for instance, were former state House Speaker Bob O'Donnell and his wife, Donna Gentile O'Donnell, and lobbyist Nick Maiale.

»  More Big Post-Election Day Crowd at The Palm

The call for the elimination of the city's four row offices got a little louder today with the release a new report by the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority.

The authority, which oversees Philadelphia's finances, said the city could save as much as $15 million a year by scrapping the offices, and stated that as the goal given that their joint functions are "primarily administrative in nature." The offices include the sheriff, register of wills, clerk of quarter sessions and the city commissioners.

In addition, the authority argued that their continued existence goes against the spirit of open government: “The independent status of the row offices adds a layer of bureaucratic expense, diminishes the mayor’s ability to properly budget and oversee their administrative functions, allows circumvention of city hiring rules, and creates the potential for patronage and political favoritism,” the report said.

The nonprofit and nonpartisan Committee of Seventy has also argued in favor of abolishing the four offices and the positions of the six elected officials who run them.

»  More New report: Row offices must go!

Gov. Rendell and Mayor Nutter met with representatives of Transit Workers Local 234 this morning at the Governor's Broad Street offices as part of the union's bargaining process with SEPTA, and the parties broke for lunch with the expectation to return early this afternoon.

Nutter left The Belleview about 1 p.m. after the union went to lunch, saying he expected to return. SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said the two sides are "basically crunching numbers" and began about 10 a.m.

The two sides postponed talks scheduled for Sunday night, after reaching agreement Saturday on health-care issues with a commitment from the union not to strike for the World Series games in Philadelphia Saturday, Sunday and Monday. An agreement on wages was reported to be close.

A City Council committee just ended an informational hearing on the city's pension structure that was neither controversial nor terribly informative in the way of new facts - but it did seem to ratchet up tensions between Council and the Nutter administration, which was possibly the point in the first place.

Twice in the last year and a half, Councilman Bill Green, who chairs Council's Labor and Civil Service Committee, had scheduled a hearing to examine the state of Philadelphia's pension system and consider recommended fixes. Twice he postponed the hearing at the request of the administration.

A final straw seemed to come last week when Nutter spokesman Doug Oliver suggested that Council was "abdicating any responsibility" for finding ways to lower pension costs by refusing to pass a resolution creating a cheaper pension plan for newly-hired city workers. Council support for doing so was nil, with most members believing that was a collective bargaining matter to be settled at the negotiating table.

Within a few days, today's hearing was scheduled.

»  More Pension hearing not entirely about city pension system

Mayor Nutter today said he's unaware of any city policy barring employees from bringing their pets to work, but that doing so could prove "a bit of a distraction."

Tell that to Managing Director Camille Barnett.

The Daily News reports that Barnet this week brought her two Yorkshire terriers to work with her at the Municipal Services Building, and also asked her staff to walk the pooches and give one of them eyedrops.

Barnett left for vacation yesterday and won't return until Nov. 9, according to her office.

»  More City managing director dogs her staff with new task

A yet-to-be released study that ranks Philadelphia as the most expensive county in the state when it comes to per-voter election costs garnered almost no attention this morning during a meeting of the City Commissioners.

As reported today in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the study found that Philadelphia spends $9.18 per voter, which is nearly double the median figure - $4.68 - spent by Pennsylvania's 15 most populous counties.

No matter, for now, to the three City Commissioners who oversee Philadelphia elections. "We will respond when we are good and ready... and you'll be surprised," Commission Chairwoman Marge Tartaglione said.

Referring to the Nov. 3 general election, Commissioner Joe Duda said, "Right now we are focused on this election."

»  More City election officials stay silent on report of costly Philly elections

Mayor Nutter just released the winners of the Citizens Park Mayor's Box raffle for playoff tickets.

Read the release below:

 Philadelphia, October 16, 2009 – Today Mayor Michael A. Nutter announced the nine winners of National League Championship Series tickets. More than 29,000 people participated in the raffle. The winners were chosen by randomly generating nine numbers, from 1 to 29,000 (the number of correct response received), using a random number generator. Emails were then assigned a number, based on the order in which they were received. Emails with the randomly generated numbers were then selected as the winner.

Mayor Nutter will distribute tickets to the winners today at 5pm at City Hall, Room 215.

»  More Mayor announces Phillies playoff ticket winners

Close to 200 of Mayor Nutter's friends and supporters showed up at a campaign fundraiser the mayor held last night at the Sheraton Philadelphia City Center Hotel.

Gov. Rendell stopped by.

And so did Bill Green, the only one of City Council's 17 members widely rumored to be considering a run against Nutter in 2012 - despite Green's insistence that he is not interested in running City Hall.

"I went because I was invited," says Green, a first-term councilman who has emerged as a sharp critic of Nutter's. "It's not everyday the mayor invites me to be somewhere."

»  More Mayor raises campaign cash, draws pals and others