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The Budget For The Bus Goes Round and Round, Round and Round

  By Transportation

Originally appeared in The City Paper, May 30, 2007 After an election that, for all its turmoil, actually wound up giving us some hope for the future of Philadelphia, we are facing a transit crisis that, more than anything besides our murder rate, threatens to dash our prospects for economic growth, equity and sustainability in the city and region. Unless Gov. Rendell and the General Assembly take action to provide adequate, dedicated funding for public transit in the next few months, SEPTA will be forced to adopt a doomsday budget in early September. Fares will increase by an average of 30 percent. In addition to the cash fare going up from $2 to $2.50: Continue reading

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The transit crisis continues and your help is beeded to end it

  By Health Care

After a holiday weekend, the morning trip back to work is always hard. Now imagine your trip costing substantially more than it costs today for we are facing an 11% increase in SEPTA fares in July and a total increase of 30% by September. -The cash fare will go up from $2.00 to $2.50, an increase of 25% -Transfers will be eliminated so a token and transfer will go up from $1.90 to $2.80, an increase of 47% -A weekly transpass wil go up from $18.75 to $25.00, an increase of 33% -A monthly transpass will go up from $70 to $105, an increase of 57% -Zones 1 and 2 on the regional rail will be merged. A monthly combined zone 1 / 2 regional rail pass will go up from $70 (zone 1) or $106 (zone 2) to $143.50, an increase of 105 and 35 respectively. And, whether you… Continue reading

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On ward politics and street money

  By My 2007 Campaign, Philadelphia, Progressive Politics, Ward politics

Originally posted at Young Philly Politics. A number of my responses to comments made at YPP are below There is an article in the Inquirer today that briefly reports on some of my experiences with ward politics during the last election. I was disappointed by the article, in part because I thought I was talking off the record with the reporter and in part because the article is misleading about the role that wards and street money played in my campaign or other grass roots campaigns. (The Inquirer will be running a clarification about part of the article tomorrow.) I plan to write about this subject in detail later, because these are two subjects that most people interested in Philadelphia politics do not understand very well and about which I learned a great deal in the last five months. Here are some preliminary points. Continue reading

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Thank you all from Marc Stier

  By My 2007 Campaign

Dear Friends, I want to thank all of you who voted for me on Tuesday. And I want to thank even more all of you who worked for me in various ways—going door to door with my literature, working the polls, sending out emails to your friends, making phone calls, and raising or contributing money. I am honored and humbled to have had so many good people around the city believe in both me and the ideas I presented during this campaign. I am, of course, disappointed by the result. I knew from the start that this was going to be a difficult race. But the response I was getting around the city was so positive and supportive that there were one or two moments when I thought I might even squeak by. Optimism is certainly useful in a race as difficult as the one I ran. But, even after… Continue reading

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Bob Brady's finest hour

  By My 2007 Campaign

Bob Brady campaigned extremely hard up to the end, even though he had known for some time that he had little chance to win. But, as he said at a ward meeting I attended, the situation in the Mayor’s race was fluid. And as he did not say…but some of us knew…by campaigning hard in particular areas of the city, and by running hard hitting ads against Knox, Brady helped made Michael Nutter win. He did not, as far as I know, release ward leaders to support Michael Nutter. And that, too was a good move because had he done so, many of those ward leaders might have supported Knox. Continue reading

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One From the Heart (and the Head): Marc Stier for Council At Large

  By About me, My 2007 Campaign

By Sam Durso on YPPon Sun, 05/13/2007 – 8:21pm. I generally don’t post other people’s writings here. But this was such a nice thing Sam Durso wrote about me that I’d like to put it up. Should politicians be nice guys? My stock answer for a long time has been that it doesn’t matter. Some very driven, aggressive, nasty people actually make effective and useful public servants, and some nice guys end up being very corrupt or inept. But having thought about city politics more intently this year than any before, I’d like to amend that. Given the job he or she must perform, an At Large Councilperson should be a really good person. That’s one reason why the first At Large vote I’ll cast will be for Marc Stier. An At-Larger has this funny job of representing the entire city, as though he were mayor, but as a legislator… Continue reading

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I want the best service: How to save hundreds of lives by fixing emergency service

  By Health Care, My 2007 Campaign, Philadelphia

I wrote this with Daniel Hunter during my campaign for City Council in 2007. If you are shot——or have a heart attack—where would you rather be, New York City or Philadelphia?  If you want to stay alive, the unfortunate answer is New York City. Why? New York City has invested resources in emergency medical services. And they don’t hamstringing their paramedics, fire fighters, and police with unreasonable rules. Here’s one example: New York City has far more ambulances per person than Philadelphia. They have so many ambulances, in fact, that they don’t have enough stations for all of them. That’s why you see many parked on street corners waiting for a call. In Philadelphia the situation is the opposite.  We have too few ambulances.  So when police rush onto the scene after someone is shot, they often arrive long before an ambulance.  As a result, they have to put gunshot… Continue reading

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A funny thing happened at a tax reform forum

  By Philadelphia, Taxation

We all know economic growth and job creation are central to making our city a better place to live. Over the last few years, the debate about economic growth has centered on the tax reform issue. That has been unfortunate for two reasons. The first is that, while tax reform may be critical to economic growth, we have not focused enough on other means of creating new businesses and jobs. Second, progress on reforming taxes has been slow because we have focused too much on business taxes and because of sharp disagreements among political activists about whether and how fast the Business Privilege Tax (BPT) should be reduced. But a funny thing happened in a public forum a few months ago on taxes. Brett Mandel of Philadelphia Forward has been a main advocate of gradually eliminating the Business Privilege Tax (BPT) in order to stimulate economic development and job growth… Continue reading

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The BPT: once more with feeling

  By Philadelphia, Taxation

I would like to broaden the debate about the BPT a bit and explain why, from a progressive point of view, it is not a good tax. But, before I get to that, however, let me make four preliminary points about the BPT and economic development and explain why I would not vote to reduce the BPT except as part of a package of economic development programs and tax reforms. 1. I do think that reducing business taxes is one way to create more businesses and jobs in Philadelphia. But it is not the only way or the best way. To understand why, you have to grasp that we have two economic development problems in the city. The first has to do with reviving commercial corridors. This is critical to creating jobs for our many citizens who have not attended college. Reducing the net profits part of the BPT will… Continue reading

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Haircuts and contributions and me

  By Elections and Voting, My 2007 Campaign

I read in the Daily News today that John Edwards is paying for haircuts that cost from $225 to $400 out of his campaign contributions, including one haircut from a “a trendy salon and spa in Dubuque, Iowa.” Since I am working hard right now to raise money for the last month of the campaign–and people comment about how I’m actually keeping my hair short during the campaign–I want everyone to know that I get my hair cut at Julius Scissor on Locust Street, as I have for 22 years, and that I pay for those haircuts out of my own pocket, except for one day, when I paid for my haircut, and my campaign manager’s, with the wrong checkbook. I repaid the campaign as soon as I discovered the mistake. If you want to help my campaign, you can do so by contributing on-line at http://www.stier2007.com/contribute. Or you can… Continue reading