The latest budget deal between Mayor Street and City Council leaders calls on Council to enact an ordinance delaying implementation of the Working Families Wage Tax Rebate for two years. This rebate was the last major proposal introduced by the late Councilman David Cohen. Continue reading
A Jannie Blackwell amendment was added to the Fiscal Year 2007 budget which had its first reading last Thursday. The amendment transfers all of the Housing Trust Fund dollars from the “Purchase of Services” (class 200) account to the “Personal Services” (class 100) account. The transfer means that the $9.8 million in the Housing Trust Fund will not be available for the creation or rehabilitation of affordable housing or for homelessness prevention. This amendment is, in multiples sense, an abuse of trust. Continue reading
Two weeks ago, the front page of the Inquirer’s Sunday Currents section published a piece by Randall O’Toole entitled “SEPTA out of loop on transit needs.” A copy of the article is available on my website. The article starts out reasonably enough by pointing out that SEPTA is not serving suburban commuters very well. It continues by pointing out that because the Philadelphia suburbs have been developing in a sprawling low-density fashion, it will be difficult for public transit to meet the needs of those commuters. These are reasonable points that any serious transit planner and advocate should consider. But the piece goes downhill from here. Even if you don’t know the author and his history, the article quickly reveals his ideological biases. It soon becomes evident that it is an analysis of public transit and urban planning from the standpoint of someone for whom sprawling suburban development and the… Continue reading
The race for the Democratic nomination in the 175th district has some progressives in the city torn. Two candidates with progressive credentials are in the race, Anne Dicker and Terry Graboyes. While I think Terry would make a good state representative, I am supporting Anne. The issue for me is not just who will serve the district or who will vote the right way in Harrisburg. Anne and Terry will both do that. My concern is how best to build the progressive citizen’s movement we so badly need in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. Continue reading
In the last post in this series I wrote about the limitations of Governor Rendell’s centrist strategy in dealing with a Republican legislature that is tilting very far to the right. Today I want to point to some of the failures of activists in dealing with the same barrier to progressive politics. Let me make clear that this is mostly an exercise in self-criticism. (Yo, David Horowitz, note that suspiciously Maoist turn of phrase.) I am going to write about some of the campaigns on which I have worked and point to three ways in which I think we might have made them, or might now make them, more effective. Continue reading
Last week there was another go round about the Business Privilege Tax (BPT) at a City Council hearing at which I testified on behalf of One Philadelphia. Most of the people who testified had done so before. They, and the council members who were there, seemed to know each other’s lines so well that they could repeat them in their sleep. But it has taken me a while to get my head around the various issues concerning taxation and it was my first time attending this particular circus. I thought it might be enlightening. After all, as the ad goes, if you haven’t seen it before, it is new to you. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really new to me or terribly enlightening. The problem with these hearings about the BPT, and with the whole debate about taxes in the city, is that it is terribly one dimensional. Taxes after all are… Continue reading
We tend to think of Philadelphia as a city of homeowners, but there are hundreds of thousands of renters as well. To protect them City Council recently enacted the Certificate of Rental Suitability Bill (#060010). It would improve the lives of tenants in this city, especially those who are poor. Unfortunately, Mayor Street may veto this bill. Continue reading
Governor Rendell went to Harrisburg hoping to follow his path to success in Philadelphia. As Mayor of this left of center city with its strong labor unions, Rendell governed from the center. He took on the municipal unions, forcing them to make significant concessions. He cut taxes. He used city funds and tax breaks to create the public facilities and to encourage the private initiative that spurred development, mostly in center city. He was neither a rightist who minimized the role of government nor a leftist who attempted to use government to pursue social justice. Continue reading
The Future of Progressive Politics in Pennsylvania, Part 1 This has been a good week for progressives in the state. Governor Rendell has announced that he will veto HB 1318, a bill that would have been most aptly named the Voter Suppression Act of 2006. I was very proud to work with wonderful Protect Our Vote Coalition in opposing the bill and was pleased that Neighborhood Networks officially joined the coalition as well. Jeanine Miller in Philadelphia and Celeste Taylor in Pittsburgh did a great job leading the coalition and Larry Frankel of the ACLU in Harrisburg was immensely important to our efforts as he tracked every twist and turn of the legislative process and gave us strategic advice about what to do at each moment. Any victory by the left is a good one and stopping this awful bill is an important accomplishment. However, before we get too pleased… Continue reading
This post is a follow up to the previous one, The Potential and Danger of Gentrification How do we realize the promise of gentrification by not displacing people in growing neighborhoods? There are a number of prescriptions. Here is a tentative list of ideas that seem plausible to me. Continue reading