For those watching and speculating on what kind of relationship - if any - would develop between Mayor Nutter and new Council President Darrell L. Clarke, Nutter dropped a few clues today during his annual luncheon speech to the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.

Nutter described a Council "under the strong leadership" of Clarke and agreed with Clarke's standing proposition that selling some city assets would be a useful and relatively painless way to raise money. He even quoted favorably from an Econsult report that has been the basis of Clarke's revenue-generating ideas.

"I applaud City Council for championing the idea," Nutter said. "My administration is ready to work with City Council on it."

Nutter also noted that he has been thinking along the same lines, saying his administration soon would release a report prepared by financial advisers Lazard Ltd. on the possible sale of the Philadelphia Gas Works.

Put this news in the dog-bites-man category: City Council is about to honor John J. Dougherty, the leader of the city electrical workers union and the biggest fund-raiser in local politics, for his selection as grand marshal of the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, scheduled for Sunday, March 11.

A Council resolution honoring Dougherty was introduced Thursday by Councilman Bobby Henon, the union’s former political director, and Councilman Mark Squilla. Both enjoyed strong support from Dougherty and the union as they won their seats in last year’s elections.

Dougherty is not the first grand marshal to be honored by Council, and he won’t be the last. But the resolution puts at least one councilman in a curious position: How will David Oh vote after Dougherty spent tens of thousands of dollars on mailings and radio trying to derail Oh’s bid for a Republican council-at-large seat?

The resolution is likely to come up for passage Thursday.

State Rep. Mark Cohen hasn’t racked up 40 years in the Pennsylvania legislature by taking his political opponents lightly.

When he heard that Numa St. Louis, 31, an Olney educator, was planning a run against him this spring, Cohen discovered they were both Facebook devotees — St. Louis with more than 700 friends, Cohen with more than 5,000.

Not only that, St. Louis had created a campaign page — Team Numa — and many of Cohen’s colleagues in the state House were listed as Numa’s friends.

“They might have agreed to be Facebook friends, but they were not supporters of his candidacy,” Cohen said. “He’s included people on his page who are very strong supporters of mine....This thing is fraudulent.”

Philadelphia doesn’t have a lot of money to spend on, well, on anything, but hey, a city can dream, right? One of the biggest dreams is a planning effort called Philadelphia2035, the city’s first comprehensive effort in 50 years to talk about what our neighborhoods and streets should look like.

On Tuesday, the City Planning Commission unveiled drafts of the first two plans for individual neighborhoods, and they propose big changes.

Anybody who has visited the Please Touch Museum or Kelly Pool can see the potential in the neighborhood the city calls West Park: A vast swath of green surrounded by charming homes with porches. If it were in New York City, it would be surrounded by multimillion dollar homes. Instead, much of West Park is poor, and the sections of Fairmount Park that dominate it are unknown to many people in the rest of the city.

The 2035 plan for West Park would start relatively small, moving a Streets Department facility at 40th and Jefferson streets that is out of character with the area’s residential feel. Planners also hope to create a green playground at a local public school to transform blacktop there into a park that residents could use. City planner Andrew Meloney also said planners want to add pedestrian crosswalks and other features to calm traffic on Parkside Avenue, which currently can feel like a raceway.

Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown's quest to find new money for the cash-strapped School District of Philadelphia will continue Thursday, when she plans to introduce a bill to allow advertising on city school buses.

This comes on the heels of last week's bill to let bars stay open an hour later - until 3 a.m. - thus collecting an extra hour's worth of liquor tax for the kiddies.

Advertising also seems to be a theme of this new Council, with President Darrell Clarke offering up the idea to sell space on city property.

Brown, who is the Majority Whip, believes that advertising on school buses could generate between $1 - 1.2 million a year (or roughly about $10,000 for each of the district's 1,250 buses).

Since Darrell Clarke became City Council President this year, everyone has been wondering how he and Mayor Nutter would get along. Clarke, after all, was a protege of Mayor Street, and the old mayor and the new one don't exactly get along.

At the official groundbreaking for Dilworth Plaza Monday, Clarke took pains to let everyone know that he and Mayor Nutter are doing just fine.

"I've been trying to show in a very public way that we are working together," Clarke told about 150 people gathered in an office building across the street from Dilworth. He and the mayor then shook hands.

Was it real? Will it last? Are they best friends, frenemies or something in between? It seemed to Heard in the Hall that both men are at least making an effort.

The state House of Representatives races promise plenty of excitement in the April primaries with the entrance Wednesday of one T. Milton Street — yes, the former mayor’s prodigal brother — in the 195th District, challenging Michelle Brownlee, the first-term, handpicked successor to longtime legislator Frank Oliver.

Street, the former state Senator who gained 24 percent of the vote in a challenge to Mayor Nutter in last year’s Democratic primary -- using his recent jail term on tax charges as a rallying cry for the “Don’t Counts” -- announced his latest candidacy via Facebook. The district includes parts of West Philadelphia, North Philadelphia and Fairmount.

Meanwhile, City Councilwoman Maria Quiñones Sánchez will have a lot at stake in the Democratic primary.

As previously reported by Heard in the Hall, husband Tomas Sánchez is seeking the 197th District seat in North Philadelphia, vacated by Jewell Williams, who became Philadelphia Sheriff.

Former Philadelphia prosecutor Dan McCaffery’s exit from the three-way race to become the Democrats’ Attorney General nominee will likely tip the scales in favor of one of his former opponents.

Patrick Murphy, a Bucks County congressman and military prosecutor, now emerges as the clear front-runner for the nod. He was the top vote getter at the Democrats’ state convention earlier this month in State College, but failed to secure the two-thirds vote of delegates to get a party endorsement.

The hold-up? The 40 votes of Philadelphia delegates that broke for McCaffery under the direction of caucus leader U.S. Rep. Bob Brady (D., Phila.).

“Now that Danny’s out, I’ve got to be for Patrick,” Brady said Wednesday. “I’m going to do whatever I can to get everybody together.”

A state court ruled Thursday that about 200 Philadelphia paramedics belong to the local firefighters bargaining unit, a victory for the city’s firefighters' union and a blow to Mayor Nutter.

In its decision, a three-judge panel of the Commonwealth Court reversed a decision by the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board that had said the city could separate the paramedics from the firefighters.

 The appeals court said the two groups should be able to bargain as one because they have worked alongside each other for decades. A spokesman for the firefighters' union praised the decision. A spokesman for Nutter says city officials are reviewing the opinion and weighing their legal options.

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