I have been keeping an eye on it all week...anyone else following this story? (Catch up here:)
Spoiler:
Quote:
Mayor Nutter: 'We Have No Money' PHILADELPHIA - Mayor Michael Nutter continues to turn up the heat on state lawmakers - specifically Senate Republicans - to help Philadelphia solve its budget crisis.
Thursday, for at least the fourth time in the last three weeks, the mayor described a virtual dismantling of the city if it does not get permission to raise its sales tax and delay its pension payments.
The apparent goal of these events is to pressure the state Senate into signing off on a House bill that gives Philly the help it needs, reported Fox 29's Bruce Gordon. But despite the mayor's threats and warnings, that help is still very much in doubt.
Mayor Nutter included props in this latest act of political theatre: a table loaded down with seniority and performance scores used to determine which police officers will be laid off.
In a somber voice, the mayor announced, "'Plan C' implementation has begun. The clock has started."
Nutter formally transmitted to City Council a revised 5-year plan, detailing the cuts needed to fill a massive hole in the city budget.
In the doomsday spending plan, a thousand police officers would be laid off and 200 firefighters and paramedics would lose their jobs. City pools and rec centers would close. Trash collection would come just twice a month and the city would shut off court system funding.
"This is not a game. This is not an exercise. This is not about leverage and no one is crying wolf pointing fingers or blaming anybody. We have no money,” said Nutter.
Nutter repeated a plea he made while in Harrisburg last week that the state Senate pass the so-called Philly Legislation without adding amendments that could delay final passage.
But Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Sen. Dominic Pileggi wasn't buying it then.
"Members of the Senate, on both sides of the aisle, have made very good points about the need to improve the legislation before we vote on it,” said Sen. Pileggi on August 11.
Thursday, Senator Pileggi's spokesman said it's likely one or more amendments will be offered.
A local Republican, on hand for the Nutter event, claimed the mayor's threats have gotten him nowhere.
"The city gambled and the mayor gambled and the mayor lost," believes Republican City Controller candidate Al Schmidt. "And the assumption was that they were going to ask for these things and the state Senate was going to give them everything they wanted. And there was no chance that that was going to happen."
Senator Pileggi's spokesman insists - even with amendments - the Philly legislation could gain final approval in time to avert those drastic budget cuts.
But that Senate vote apparently will not come before August 26, no matter how many dire warnings come from City Hall, reported Gordon.
I couldn't believe a mayor would scare a bunch of families like that. It makes me angry to think how many children were aware and were scared or upset because they thought the libraries and all their after school programs would be gone.
What in the Heck is Wrong with Philadelphia? September 16, 2009 Just what is going on in Philadelphia? The Library Link of the Day yesterday was to this article from Philly. The Philadelphia Free Library has announced that it's going to close all of its branches on October 2 if the city doesn't get more money from the state. The system has something like 50 branches. I actually like the way they frame the closing, since they start listing all the services that people aren't going to get. In some ways it's a good strategy to put the value of the library directly to the citizens of Philadelphia.
But it seems clear that the libraries aren't the problem, since the aptly named mayor of Philly has targeted lots of other city services to go under his "doomsday budget." From the article: "Besides closing libraries, the Nutter administration's so-called Plan C doomsday budget includes eliminating court-system funding, shutting down all recreation centers and laying off up to 3,000 workers, including police and firefighters."
From the outside, one can only look at this and say, "What in the hell is that guy thinking?!" What does it mean to "eliminate court system funding," for example? Does it mean that they would no longer arrest and try criminals, which would be harder to catch anyway if they get rid of the police? Or does it just mean that the poor schmucks they do manage to catch will have to represent themselves in court because the city won't provide public attorneys? Is that last part even legal?
The whole scenario just seems bizarre. No other city in the country seems to be having these kinds of problems, despite the recession. The mayor and hence the library advocacy implies that this is some problem of the state. If the state doesn't allow a "temporary" (uh-huh) sales tax hike and a 2-year suspension of paying into the city retirement fund, then the mayor will shut the city down. This kind of behavior has a name; it's called blackmail. "Give us money or we will kill your city." Except in this case the mayor would be killing his own city.
What I can't figure out from the news is what's really going on, though. Surely some readers out there have some insight into this mess. The problem seems like a combination of severe fiscal mismanagement combined with a complete disregard for the needs of the citizens of Philadelphia. Is that the case, though? Is this an incompetent administration holding a city hostage? Or does the mayor just not like libraries? That might be the case, since surely one could close most of the 50+ branches of the Free Library without closing them all.
Or maybe he knows that generally people like libraries, so threatening to close them all is a way for him to rally public support for his blackmail scheme against the state. That would be even more cynical and disreputable.
Or is it that the libraries are the worst offenders when it comes to spending city money, so closing them will save everything else? Are the libraries at fault here? Are the librarians all living large at the expense of the public, smoking fat cigars and drinking expensive champagne and telling the library patrons they can all just eat cake?
I'd like to know the truth, because it seems to me that a cynical mayor is trying to blackmail the state by holding libraries hostage. Philadelphia used to have an atmosphere of learning and education, with Benjamin Franklin there either founding or helping other people found everything from the first public library and the American Philosophical Society to the University of Pennsylvania and the United States of America. Now it looks like it might be known as the first major city to destroy its libraries. That's quite a legacy for just one mayor to leave. Maybe they can close down the schools and museums next, or sell the Liberty Bell to the Chinese and just shut down the city.
_________________ "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:11 am Posts: 9449 Location: Your Dreams
Who elected that Nutter?
_________________ Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails... ...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be? Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me █ ♣ █
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:59 am Posts: 15740 Location: Combat Information Center
I think that rather than provide money to replace those service the state should just activate the National Guard to provide police protection and ambulance service. Courts could be run by JAG personnel. (No, not using UCMJ. JAG personnel are all regular lawyers; they get trained at regular law schools and a lot of them run civilian law practices anyhow, so lets not go down that road.)
Really, don't just give the city the money so they can **** it all up. Provide the services for them until they can figure out how to manage money properly.
_________________ "Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."
Well, today Nutter got his wish. Philadelphia will be allowed to raise their sales tax another %. That makes Philadelphia 2% higher then the suburbs. If I could pack you all into the Partridge family bus and take you on a tour of the area you will see lines of retail stores. High end, mid range, diners, mom and pop restaraunts-
About a block on the outside of the Philly jurisdiction.
There are very few things that a consumer can only get in Philadelphia. So now a higher sales tax, various other useage taxes, Phillys wage tax, exorbent parking prices, etc. A majority of the land are rental properties- they don't generate the same revenue as homes do. Really, we find no reason to go into the city. The value of what you recieve there is far outweighed by the hassle, cost, and sometimes danger of being there.
For years there has been a exodus to the suburbs. Philadelphias population has gone down, but it's government has not shrunk to reflect that fact. If it wasn't being propped up by Sweaty Eddie Rendell over the past 7 years, Philly may have normalized.
This was a despicible scare tatic engineered by Rendell and Nutters crews to bleed more money out of Pennsylvania. It's always "firemen and cops" who are on the chopping block first. Why not trim the fat off the municipal workers? What about all the $$ spent on these solar powered trashcans- their "cost benefit" was supposed to more then pay for them.
Philadelphia is poorly managed, and consistantly lives beyond their means. Year after year they find ways to extort more money out of people, and bemoan the fact that businesses are leaving whenever possible. I was hoping the State would tell Nutter to go pound sand, so he would have to finally trim the waste thats been in the system for a long time.
_________________ A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:59 am Posts: 15740 Location: Combat Information Center
Monte wrote:
Ladas wrote:
Actually DE, I would advocate they use the UCMJ.
No openly gay folks allowed in Philly, then, eh?
Being gay is not punishable under UCMJ. You can be Chaptered out of the army, but it is not a punishable offense. A Chapter is an administrative method of removing people from the army. It may accompany punitive action, but that is not always the case. For example, a person who repeatedly fails a physical fitness test cannot be prosecuted for that, but can be chaptered.
_________________ "Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."
Wow the bar is gonna be empty this weekend. Damn, guess I'm gonna do a live action of the Billy Idol song.
_________________ A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill
Who wants to go to Philly, anyway? I can smell that place from here.
_________________ "It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones
Sounds an awful lot like what the Govenator was saying earlier this year around the start of fire season saying that he was going to have to cut the firefighters because of the budget crisis. Sons of *****.
_________________ Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions
"I love this **** team right here." -Jonathan Quick
Oh Monte, we simply MUST hang out if you pass this way.
_________________ "...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville
Joined: Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:35 am Posts: 2903 Location: Maze of twisty little passages, all alike
And don't ask!
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