MONICA YANT KINNEY: And so he boldly revived the soda tax. He hoped to raise $80 million for the School District, no matter what it cost him politically. After Ackerman found a way to save full-day kindergarten, he nonetheless remained resolute. (His backup plan for the soda tax, an additional 10 percent property-tax hike, was equally unappetizing.) […] Concern didn’t begin to describe the mood in Council Thursday, where rivals Bill Green and Jim Kenney repeatedly agreed on how much they disagreed with the mayor’s requests. After hours of arm-twisting and team-switching, it was Nutter who emerged most bruised. He […]
HIZZONER: The Problem With Nutter’s Black Problem
[Artwork by HUGGIE!] PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE: Who can blame Michael Nutter, though, for […] bristling at the fact that he was — again — being forced to publicly defend his authenticity as a black man?As the Mayor puts it to me, in an interview in his office a few weeks after the party, “I’m fully secure and clear about who I am, where I came from and what my life experience has been as an African-American.” Then he adds, “The fact of the matter is, neither you nor anyone else has walked into Ed Rendell’s office and said, ‘Are you white […]
THE NEWEST DEAL: Nutter Proposes Soda Tax And $300 Garbage Collection Fee To Cover Budget Gap
KYW: Saying “nothing worth having in life is free,” Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter on Thursday morning delivered a nearly $4-billion budget to City Council. And he asked for the lawmakers’ support for two firsts: a tax on soda and a fee for trash collection. Nutter proposed a flat $300 per year, per property trash fee (see previous story) and a two-cents-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks (see related story). He said these will bring in an extra $184 million per year to save city services. MORE RELATED: William Dietz of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and CDC chief Thomas Frieden […]
DO THE MATH: One Billion In 215-Targeted Stimulus Dollars Has Created Just 3,500 Jobs In Philadelphia
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] DAILY NEWS: Federal records show that more than a billion dollars from President Obama’s $787 billion economic-stimulus program has been targeted for Philadelphia. But the typical job created here is just as likely to require a lab coat as a hard hat, as much of the money has gone for university research projects. Meanwhile, city government, which has been financially ravaged by the recession, has gotten relatively little help from the stimulus program, and then mostly in indirect ways, like payments to citizens that bump tax revenues, or money to accelerate already-planned capital projects. In the […]