Heard in the Hall

Council survives community budget hearing just fine

Philadelphia City Hall and political coverage from the Philadelphia Inquirer City Hall bureau.

3 comments

Council survives community budget hearing just fine

POSTED: Thursday, April 2, 2009, 8:18 AM

Patrick Kerkstra

What with the recent publicity over the DROP program and their use of city-issued cars, one might have expected City Council to take a major beating when it ventured outside City Hall for a community budget hearing at Temple University last night.

That didn't happen.

There were a few sharply worded questions, but only one interrogator directly challenged Council on their own perks. Most of those who stepped to the microphone (out of a crowd of about 200) used the opportunity to urge council to preserve certain programs (CLIP, for instance) or to ask that the proposed property tax hikes be scaled back or in some way ameliorated for low-income residents.

Indeed, if anything the hearing just gave council some ammunition for its battle against Mayor Nutter over which tax to raise. Nutter wants to go after real estate and sales taxes, while Council seems to prefer the wage tax.

The meeting also lacked much in the way of sharp confrontation between Council and the mayor's staffers, which is something we've seen plenty of at the budget hearings that have taken place so far inside City Hall. Council asked a few questions of Nutter's Chief of Staff Clay Armbrister, but for the most part they let city residents do the talking.

The next community council hearing is scheduled for 4 to 7 p.m. on April 23 at the Mount Airy Church of God, 6401 Ogontz Ave.

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3 comments

Comments (3)

Comment removed.

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 1:48 PM, 04/02/2009

At this time, we should not be too hasty to judge Council's motives. It took a lot of courage for them to take their budget hearings to the community...Council should take note of the civility of their constituents...Philly residents are really upset by continuously being turned upside down and shaken for the little change they have.

— tbtpay2010

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 4:23 PM, 04/02/2009

One should be very carful about what they read in regards to how the press has come down on City Council soon after the Mayor's Budget address. Since the Mayor hired one of the media's own (Mark McDonald) as one of his press people, I'd be willing to bet that the Nutter administration and the editorial staff at the DN and the Inky are in close cahoots with each other. They seem to be diverting our attention away from the Mayor and focusing it Council. Great PR strategy. Frankly I could care less about Council giving up their beat cars, or even the DROP for which they did contribute most of their own money. Or..ponder this if you will...maybe the Inky is diverting our attention away from it's own mess. (Tierny's raise and the $450,000 they owe the city in back taxes). Smoke and Mirrors my friends... smoke and mirrors.

— sun_tzu_4u