BY PATRICK KERKSTRA INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Before the next mayor’s first term ends, $1 of every $4 Philadelphia spends will go to city workers’ pensions and health benefits. Unless the city gets a handle on these costs — which have more than doubled in Mayor Street’s tenure — the next mayor will have little or no cash left for new initiatives. Alone among big U.S. cities, Philadelphia has committed itself to substantive, long-term tax cuts. The reductions may be essential if the city is to scale down its notorious tax burden and compete for commerce, but that does not erase […]

MARICA GELBERT OF THE INQUIRER After weeks of blogging about the Philadelphia mayor’s race, Sam Katz has taken a step toward jumping into it, The Inquirer has learned. The three-time mayoral candidate has left the door open for a fourth run, quietly switching his party registration at the eleventh hour last week from Republican to independent. In an interview this afternoon, Katz repeatedly declined to say whether he was considering a run. But he also did not rule it out, saying only: “It is what it is. I wouldn’t read too much into it.” The pre-primary deadline for voter registration […]

“There are four candidates sitting at this table that all their life helped working men and women,” Brady said. “There is one candidate, Tom Knox, that has not. [He’s been] ripping off men and women, working men and women . . . Predatory lending, insurance scams, attacking pensions. Now, I’m going to get a lot of negative ads coming back to me, probably a million dollars negative on me. But . . . my vision is too important for this city to have Tom Knox become the mayor.” It was a calculated attack. As the candidates left the television studio, […]

The Democratic campaign for mayor is now a race between two candidates: Chaka Fattah and Tom Knox. We predict one of these guys is going to win the May 15 Democratic primary, which means one of these guys is going to be the next mayor. That’s not to say the three other candidates – Bob Brady, Michael Nutter and Dwight Evans – are irrelevant. Indeed, they are tres relevant, but mostly in their effect on the top two candidates.     INQUIRER: It’s a Black Thing, You Wouldn’t Understand RELATED: Nutter Surging In His Own Poll; Brady Hunting Elephants In […]

Yesterday, rather than pointing a finger of blame at Brady, Commonwealth Court blamed the state Ethics Commission, arguing that it produced a flawed set of instructions. In the opinion, Pellegrini acknowledged that pension contributions are the type of “thing of value” that ought to be reported under the Ethics Act. But he said the instructions got in the way by limiting “what is to be included in income.” The judge noted that cases such as this, in which the issue is exactly what must be disclosed by a candidate, are becoming increasingly common. He asked for someone — presumably the Supreme […]