JONATHAN VALANIA REPORTS: The subtext of just about everything Dwight Evans has said so far: John Street is f**king up royally. As representative from Pennsylvania’s 203rd Legislative District, Evans pushed the city’s school district into the arms of the state like an unfit mother who loves her kids too much not to put them up for adoption — he says the city does not have the economic capacity to run the school system. Evans will bring back John Timoney — seemingly every other candidates idea of the Superman that can stop crime. Evans voted FOR casinos — BOO! — because it’s an economic generator, a wage tax reducer, and will brings jobs. Marty holding his feet to the fire for casinos exploiting the poor and the elderly. “That’s true but you do have some high rollers that LOVE IT. And besides that is where we are at today. You don’t want to put this genie back in the bottle.” Held the Rep. seat since 1981 (!) where he voted FOR controversial lawmaker pay raise passed in the middle of the night — and then in the wake of the backlash, he voted FOR its repeal. Hmmm. On ending Pay To Play: “Let me tell you, the bad guys have been caught — 29 indictments.” Caller takes Evans to task for STILL talking about Ogontz Avenue 20 years later — and taking ALL the credit for the bravery of a lot of small business entreprenuers who were willing to stick their necks out and open shops on the block. Caller calls that “ludicrous” and accuses him of overstating his share of the credit for Ogontz Avenue’s turnaround. Oh, snap! Next caller says he sent letters to all five candidates trying to explain how to better deploy the police — shockingly, none of the candidates have written back yet. Next caller is appalled at Evans support of casinos. Says we should put the money into dredging the Delaware to bring in $30/hr. union dockworker jobs instead of $7 and hour casino jobs. Evans says casinos will bring construction jobs (yeah, for like nine months).
Wow! Something weird just happened. I think Evans just gave Phawker Talk To The Hand. After making arrangments with his spokesperson for the standard candidate photo-op with the Phawker product placement, I handed Evans a Phawker bumpersticker, explained the photo-op, he nodded, and as I backed away to take the picture he dropped the Phawker sticker to floor like I’m a Moonie at the airport handing out cult literature. (His spokesperson quickly scrambled for it and smoothed it over with one of those What can you do? grin & shrug combinations.) Bad move. Nobody, puts Phawker in the corner. Heretofore, I was merely underwhelmed with his understanding of the city’s problems and how he proposes to fix them. But seeing as how he has voted at least twice AGAINST the interests of the people of Philadelphia — for casinos, and for a pay raise for him and his legislative cronies — and completely fumbled what should have been an easy photo-op that would get his smiling mug out to thousands of Phawker readers, we are not only giving his mayoral candidacy the thumbs down, but likewise question his allegiances as a state lawmaker. Now if you could just phone-in a smile for us, Mr. Evans…CLICK…Thanks for playing, and good luck to you, Sir.