Glad that's cleared up.
We visited all the Council offices again yesterday, both to see who was in the office and to provide members with an opportunity to tell us what they're working on. Despite the looming holiday weekend, PhillyClout found many Council members plugging away in City Hall.
Curtis Jones Jr., Jannie Blackwell, Jim Kenney, Anna Verna, Bill Green, Bill Greenlee and Brian O'Neill were all in the building.
"I don't begrudge anybody who takes vacation, but I don't," said Blackwell, who was meeting with a staffer from the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania when we stopped by.
Council members W. Wilson Goode, Marian Tasco and Frank Rizzo checked in by e-mail or phone to tell us what they were up to. Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown was away on a staff retreat. And a big PhillyClout thank-you goes to Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, who managed to call us even though she was laid up yesterday with a broken toe.
Jack Kelley, Maria Quinones-Sanchez, Joan Krajewski, Darrell Clarke and Frank DiCicco were not in when we stopped by.
For details on what the members are working on, check www.phillyclout.com.
Resignation watch
The latest staffer to depart Nutter's administration is Wadell Ridley Jr., executive director of the Mayors Office for Community Service. Ridley, who previously worked as an aide for Nutter in Council, left his $91,361-per-year post last week after 18 months on the job.
Labor drama at Del Frisco's
A political fundraiser for D.A. candidate Seth Williams was moved from Del Frisco's Steakhouse to the nearby Union League last week because of picketing by construction workers and subcontractors, angry over hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid construction bills.
The subcontractors, supported by the Building and Construction Trades Council, say they had crews working around the clock last year to get the Chestnut Street restaurant done in time for the Christmas season, and it should have been obvious to the high-end chain that overtime would push the project way over its $8 million budget.
"Once the doors opened, the payments stopped," complained Kevin Gillespie, of Delaware Valley Remediation. "A lot of people have maxed out on their credit lines. This could put as many as 15 [subcontractors] out of business."
But Shang Skipper, the restaurant's general manager, told PhillyClout that its construction manager, Lorient Construction, of suburban Chicago, claimed that the project was essentially on budget - right up to the moment that Lorient went out of business, still owing huge amounts to local contractors.
"It's an ugly mess for everyone involved," Skipper said yesterday. "I feel bad for the subs, I really do. But we're all victims in this."
Quotable
"We're not expecting people to walk around with rolls of quarters in their pockets."- Deputy Mayor for Transportation and Utilities Rina Cutler on why the city is putting off a $3 per hour charge at parking meters. *
Staff writer Bob Warner contributed to this report.
Have tips or suggestions? Call Chris Brennan at 215-854-5973 or Catherine Lucey at 215-854-4712. Or e-mail
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