Mayor Nutter spent today in Seattle, where he's attending a three-day U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting that wraps up tomorrow.
Now comes word from his press office that come Sunday morning, he will be leaving the West Coast - and headed straight to San Antonio, Texas, where he will be attending another meeting that last through late Monday. This one is sponsored by the Council on Foundations.
While there, the mayor will be speaking on a panel about the city's mortgage foreclosure program. He will also be meeting with HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and Ed DeSeve, senior advisor at the White House Office for Management and Budget for Recovery Act implementation.
Here's the press release:
"Mayor Nutter will attend the 2009 Fall Conference for Community Foundations in San Antonio, Texas. The theme of the conference is “Philanthropies Role in Creating Transformative Change from Our Largest Cities to Our Rural Communities”. In response to the Obama administration’s call for a new era of public/philanthropic partnerships, the Council on Foundations is convening its first cross-sector gathering of community leaders who are engaged in transforming America’s cities. A diverse group of city leaders will jointly address the role of public/philanthropic partnerships in bringing about change. Mayor Nutter will discuss Philadelphia's Mortgage Foreclosure Protection Program as a national model for keeping families across the country in their homes."
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whats the carbon foot print on all that flying? I thought we had a budget crisis?— uandwhosearmy- Crisis? What crisis?— dim-5
- Why don't he just buy one of those jets, the senators were getting?— FJG JR
- The article left out the most important part of the story. Did he travel alone or did he take his staff along as usual. If he went alone I have no problem with this expense during a budget crisis but if he took his staff than this proves further that this mayor is not aware we are in a growing budget crisis.— DennisR
- DennisR, great post. I see no answer from Marcia Gelbart, the original poster.— alank
- Are you guys serious? The Mayor needs to do his job, which entails occasionally traveling to other places and engaging and educating the public. Further, appearing in panels and speaking to foundations raises the profile of our great city and might help to bring in conventions, businesses, and tourists (all with $$$ to spend in our city!). Get out of your mother's basements people and stop being so god damned pessimistic and hateful.— mlane2228
- When an employee is flown to a site to do work, the employee has a specific goal or assignment. The same is true for the mayor. What is Nutter's specific goal, what is his assignment? Given the coverage, it could be nothing but a junket. HUD money is given to Philly and Philly just wastes it, and that story never seems to get the coverage it deserves. I hope the audit of HUD spending in Philly is continued, and that the OIG in HUD issues reports that the Ink covers. My federal tax dollars have no business being spent on programs that harbor drugs, drug dealers, and devalue my equity. The truth is that the city won't collect property taxes to spare politically generous nonprofits who are nonperforming. This wastes money needed for housing and community development. The dirty secret in Philly is that we have enough money to address our social ills, but because the waste is done by the Dems, it's off limits for the press to go after it. That has to change if the press truly wants the good schools, the effective programs for homelessness, or any measurable good result from the hundreds of millions being spent. I suspect Nutter will be getting some hard news from Donovan, involving the need to see how all this money is accounted for, before anymore comes down the pipeline.— CleanupPhilly
- Universal Companies was given hundreds of millions in HUD bloc grant money, in HOPE money for years. What do they have to show for it, given the portfolio of properties they were given? 777 S. Broad finally got developed, but only by Dranoff. The Royal Theater is a vacant building, rarely used, and not really safe. The few properties Universal has managed to develop are dwarfed by the properties that are still vacant wrecks that owe property taxes or are deliberately underassessed by the BRT. The RDA is in the habit of simply re-writing redevelopment agreements that it holds with Universal for years, even over a decade, at a time. The same is true for other HUD funded groups that are losing properties at the mortgage sheriff sale, such as the Greater Germantown Housing Development Corporation, that borrowed a million, got property from the city, and is being foreclosed upon tomorrow by the bank. (See writ number 260-485). Nutter is the head of a huge waste of housing money, probably the largest scandal in any urban redevelopment. I'm sure Donovan does want to see him. It's too bad that the press is missing the prize.— CleanupPhilly
- Oh, and see writ number 260-486 to see another Greater Germantown Housing Development Corporation property getting foreclosed upon. These were groups given more money than the market even requires to build this property to address the need for low cost housing. Simple question to the journalists that Donovan will be asking the mayor: Where did the money go?— CleanupPhilly
- Folks like mlane call this criticism "pessimistic and hateful" but is probably one of the people that will or should end up in jail for stealing this money, or allowing it to be stolen. How many properties were these CDCs given by the city that they have now lost at sheriff sale? How many of these properties are not paying a real market rate property tax, even as other properties do on that same block? How much money is the city forfeiting in unpaid and unassessed property taxes for property that has no time limit to be developed by these corrupt nonprofits? Obama is not going to keep feeding Philly money to do this, because it threatens the integrity of the Democratic party. The press certainly is doing Democrats no favors by letting them get away with this year after year. I suggest that the press get on board to build a better Philly Democrat while assuring their own employability with prize-winning investigative reporting.— CleanupPhilly
- Just got to www.phillysheriff.com and click on "mortgage foreclosure" dated tomorrow. Then scroll down to writ number 260-485 to 260-486 and see the CDC "Greater Germantown Housing Development Corporation" losing property at sheriff sale. The bank has to collect on its loan, but there really should be no reason that these CDCs, which should be producing annual reports available to the public that are as good as any a business uses, should not be paying their mortgage for property that they were given by the public trust to develop. Where is the press coverage of this robbery, this theft of municipal services? People belong in prison, and Donovan is not going to let Nutter off the hook.— CleanupPhilly
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