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Council's returning, ready to talk property taxes

WHAT WILL make news in Philadelphia this week: CITY HALL They're baaa-aaack It's the moment you all have been waiting for . . . the return of City Council!

WHAT WILL make news in Philadelphia this week:

CITY HALL

They're baaa-aaack

It's the moment you all have been waiting for . . . the return of City Council!

That's right, after its three-month summer recess, Council is poised to kick off its first meeting Thursday at 10 a.m. in Room 400.

Although there will be several hot topics on the agenda this fall, one that is certain to generate continued discussion is Mayor Nutter's planned shift to a new property- tax system, also known as the Actual Value Initiative (AVI).

Council opted to delay AVI for a year after members became increasingly concerned about data from the administration that continued to change.

COURTS

Trial in Kraft shooting

Yvonne Hiller, the Crescentville woman accused of using a .357 Magnum handgun to settle a feud with co-workers at the Kraft Food processing plant in the Northeast two years ago, goes to trial Monday. She is charged with murder in the deaths of LaTonya Brown, 36, and Tanya Wilson, 47. Hiller, 45, is also charged with shooting co-worker Bryant Dalton, 39, who survived. Court records indicate that she will have a nonjury trial before Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner.

Twins' alleged killer

Few crimes are more shocking than what Stacey Newkirk-Smalls is accused of doing on May 24.

The Tacony woman is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Tuesday to face charges that she killed her 1-year-old twins, Adam and Eve, in the home she shared with her husband, Ron Smalls, a city corrections officer. One child was smothered; the other was drowned. Newkirk-Smalls, 41, is also accused of trying to poison her 4-year-old daughter, who survived.

- Jan Ransom, Mensah M. Dean