Archive: July, 2009
It's good to see that Gov. Rendell plans to sign an "interim" budget next week that will allow most state workers to get paid. That's one problem solved, but the broader budget impasse drags on to the benefit of no one.
State workers shouldn't be used as pawns just because Harrisburg lawmakers can't perform the basic function they were elected to complete: pass a budget.
The 77,000 state workers have mortgages and rent payments as well as other bills to pay. So it is unfair to cut off their paychecks as lawmakers debate whether to cut the budget or raise taxes. Some state workers have been forced to seek help at food banks.
If a broader budget deal isn't reached soon, then Rendell plans to sign the interim measure next week. Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware) supports the move.
The explosion of drivers using cell phones and BlackBerry-style message devices behind the wheel is ratcheting up the pressure for government regulation to keep the nation's highways safe.
With a growing mountain of data outlining the clear safety risks, policy makers at both the federal and state levels cannot ignore the need to act. They do so at the peril of everyone who travels the roads.
It was a hopeful development on Wednesday, then, that four U.S. senators called for legislation banning texting. By federal law, states would be denied federal highway grants unless they enacted a texting-and-driving ban.
Lawmakers hardly needed a study to demonstrate that texting while driving poses such a grave danger, inasmuch as texting often requires drivers to look away from the road. But a study released this week provides shocking evidence of the risk, finding that truckers who sent text messages have a risk of crashing that's 23 times greater than when not texting.
This just in from City Hall: Mayor Nutter announced that city employees now have to pay their property taxes just like the rest of the suckers . . . er . . . residents of Philadelphia.
Gee, what a novel policy approach. And, essentially, all it took to kick things into gear was a front-page story in The Inquirer.
Mayor Nutter announced the policy shift yesterday in what a press release described as two "tough new measures."
Step One is to notify the roughly 1,300 city employees currently behind on their taxes that they have 30 days to settle up or enter into a payment plan. If the employees fail to comply, Step Two will be to withhold 20 percent of their pay until the debt is settled.
Delaware state officials are fighting an ill-timed rearguard action against deepening the shipping channel in the Delaware River up to Philadelphia.
Their denial on Friday of a long-standing request for permits by the Army Corps of Engineers comes just as the $379 million project is about to get underway.
After sitting on the Army Corps request for permits since 2001, Delaware environmental officials rejected them on grounds that the application was out of date.
That sounds like a Catch-22 - penalizing the dredging project because the bureaucrats waited so long to do their job. It's also puzzling on the merits, since Army Corps officials regarded the project as ready to go.
Indeed, the Army Corps has advertised the first bids for the project, which could be awarded in early October.Oct. 6.
Here's a classic example of your tax dollars at work: It took one vice president, the U.S. attorney general, four governors and a host of government dignitaries to travel to City Hall to announce this big news yesterday:
Philadelphia is getting 50 new jobs.
A press conference to announce 50 new jobs used to be left to small-town mayors. Instead, Vice President Biden & Co. dropped by to announce Philadelphia will be getting $10.9 million in stimulus money to pay for 50 police officers over the next three years. The money is part of a $1 billion package announced yesterday by Biden, who was accompanied by Attorney General Eric Holder and Govs. Rendell, Corzine, Martin O'Malley of Maryland and Jack Markell of Delaware.
For a transit agency that's long catered mostly to its regular riders, SEPTA is making smart moves to try to welcome all comers - including occasional commuters and out-of-town tourists.
The most important customer-service initiative will be the long-overdue smart-card fare system, which is still a ways off. Most other major transit agencies have had such a system in place for years.
Once in place, the smart cards will put to rest the jokes about SEPTA cashiers who staff "token booths" where they cannot sell tokens.
Likewise, the addition of the quiet cars is a welcome advance.
But the agency's latest proposal - a possible revamping of the "R" route designation for its commuter trains, announced last week - poses potential risks as well as rewards.
When the state took over Camden in 2002, it was clear that there would be no quick fixes to turn around the troubled New Jersey city. But that doesn't mean the state should remain in charge for 30 years.
Theodore Davis, the chief operating officer the governor appointed to run Camden, wants the state to retain control until 2030 to give the recovery time.
Three decades seems like an awfully long turnaround, even by government standards. At some point much sooner than that, the state needs to let Camden stand on its own.
The state has already stayed in Camden longer than first planned. Initially, the 2002 law that gave Trenton sweeping authority over city operations was to last for five years. That was extended to 2012, with an option to go to 2017.
The $100 million entertainment complex that would replace the Spectrum in South Philadelphia is a promising idea for an under-used city landscape.
In fact, the proposal is such a good one that it prompts another: If there is going to be legalized gambling in Philadelphia, why not make the Foxwoods slots parlor part of the project?
The stadium-complex location is accessible to city and suburban residents. The infrastructure is already in place and provides good highway access and plenty of parking. There’s also access to public transportation.
A slots parlor seems like a natural fit for the existing and planned entertainment uses. The stadium location for Foxwoods would also end the current logjam that has delayed the project at the Center City site.
Foxwoods has proposed opening at the old Strawbridge’s department store at Eighth and Market Streets, but has yet to obtain a lease. The location faces fierce opposition from residents, and other hurdles.
Don’t get Mary Tracy started about those newfangled electronic billboards cropping up on the nation’s highways – that is, unless you have the time to talk.
The anti-billboard activist and founder of Philadelphia-based SCRUB - which bills itself as “the Public Voice for Public Space” – sees the flashing billboards as a bane for distracted drivers and the environment.
With the changing messages flashed every few seconds by these signs, drivers have been known to slow while waiting for the next image. That’s a life-threatening risk at interstate highway speeds, notes Tracy.
Then there’s the obvious drain and cost of the electricity used to power these signs 24/7. Tracy says it would require planting 4,000 trees to offset the carbon footprint of these signs, in addition to the added cost of operating them.
What’s the likelihood that the views of this local advocate will affect the national debate on the electronic billboards? Well, they just got better this week – with the announcement that Tracy has been elected president of Scenic America.
From Kevin Ferris:
National Review Online offers an excellent editorial that should be read by anyone giving credence to the ridiculous "birthers" movement i.e. The conspiracy theory suggesting that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and isn't a citizen, and thus is ineligible to be president.
Here are the key passages:
"The fundamental fiction is that Obama has refused to release his 'real' birth certificate. This is untrue. The document that Obama has made available is the document that Hawaiian authorities issue when they are asked for a birth certificate. There is no secondary document cloaked in darkness, only the state records that are used to generate birth certificates when they are requested.
"If one applies for a United States passport, the passport office will demand a birth certificate. It defines this as an official document bearing 'your full name, the full name of your parent(s), date and place of birth, sex, date the birth record was filed, and the seal or other certification of the official custodian of such records.' The Hawaiian birth certificate President Obama has produced — the document is formally known as a 'certificate of live birth' — bears that information. It has been inspected by reporters, and several state officials have confirmed that the information in permanent state records is identical to that on the president’s birth certificate — which is precisely what one expects, of course, since the state records are used to generate those documents when they are requested.
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