INQUIRER: The Free Library of Philadelphia has posted notices at its branches and on its web site advising users that all libraries will close at the end of business on Oct. 2 if the state Legislature does not act on the city’s budget request. The notices also say that all material will now be due Oct. 1 and that nothing can be borrowed after Sept. 30. 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. MORE
PHILLY CLOUT: Mayor Nutter says he is hoping the state Senate will approve budget relief legislation for the city before Friday, when he is set to send layoff notices to 3,000 city workers as part of the “Plan C” budget. “It has a devastating impact on folks who get that notice. It has an impact on folks who remain,” Nutter said today. “Everything gets affected just by sending the notices out.” House Bill 1828 would allow the city to raise the sales tax temporarily and defer some payments into the pension fund. The legislation has gone back and forth between the state House of Representatives and state Sentate. It is now in the state Senate, where if the legislation is passed without revision, it would go to the governor for his signature. MORE
BOING BOING: Picture an entire city, a modern, wealthy place, in the richest country in the world, in which the vital services provided by libraries are withdrawn due to political brinksmanship and an unwillingness to spare one banker’s bonus worth of tax-dollars to sustain an entire region’s connection with human culture and knowledge and community. Think of it and ask yourself what the hell has happened to us. MORE