ELEPHANT CORNER: Philly Voters Want Charter Schools – Then Vote For Their Foes

JACK McDermott, Jim Presby and Mike Foley kick back at GOP Eaglrs-watching party at Romano’s Catering in Juniata Park.

Monday night, STATE REP. and Republican City Committee CHAIRMAN JOHN TAYLOR held an Eagles game-watching fundraiser at Romano’s. The event was very well attended. The Eagles made the event even better by winning.

Taylor remains the only Republican elected official from Philadelphia in Harrisburg except for STATE REP. TOM MURT, whose predominantly suburban district has a few divisions in Philadelphia. This is sad a statement about Philadelphia. We have a populace that blindly walks to the polls and pulls the Democratic lever – frequently against their best interests.

A ward leader in West Philadelphia told me that at a polling place in the basement of the Boys Latin Charter School, there was a table at the door manned by people with a petition for the formation of a Girls Latin Charter School. Apparently they had gotten a lot of signatures.

Sadly, one of the three divisions voting in there had no votes for Gov. Corbett and the other two divisions had only a handful. So the people who signed the petition overwhelmingly voted for TOM WOLF, who has made it clear he is not a friend of charter schools.

The public schools in West Philadelphia, with the exception of the Penn Alexander grammar school, are pretty bad. Not only are they academically inadequate, many are dangerous. I am sure most of you heard of the temporary teacher at Bartram HS who was thrown to the ground and knocked unconscious.

Not just in West Philadelphia does the electorate vote against their best interests; they did they did so in North Philadelphia. US Congressional candidate ARMOND JAMES only received 9% of the votes cast within the Philadelphia portions of the 2nd US Congressional Dist. Most voted for incumbent CHAKA FATTAH, who is probably going to be indicted for a number of alleged crimes, including stealing money from federally funded education charities. He stole from the children of the people who overwhelmingly voted for him.

I will give credit to the liberals in the Lower Merion portion of the district, who appeared more reluctant to vote for an alleged crook. James picked up roughly 40% of the vote in that township.

Speaking of electing people who do not have our best interests at heart, one only needs to read the disingenuous letter some of us received from City COUNCIL PRESIDENT DARRELL CLARKE, explaining why Council passed on the sale of the Philadelphia Gas Works to UIL Corp. Clarke claimed one of the reasons it passed on the deal was because Council could not amend the deal. Really? Do you honestly believe that after UIL spent $20 million of its shareholders’ money to pursue this deal, they would not consider some amendments?

Clarke also noted the City would lose the $18 million per annum for 30 years PGW is supposed to give the City annually. PGW in recent years was able to meet this obligation, but there were many years in which it could not.

Additionally, maybe we should give Clarke a calculator. The net proceeds to the City’s pension plans were to be $400 million to $600 million. If the pension plans invested these funds in what probably one of the safest investments, 30-year Treasury Bonds, at current rates the annual income to the funds would have been $12 million to $18 million per annum for 30 years (assuming the aforementioned net proceeds).

Also a UIL-controlled PGW would be a private-sector company and thus responsible for the paying taxes.

Perhaps the most-comical part of the letter was Clarke’s intent to work with businesses to use PGW’s assets to help make Philadelphia an energy hub. I think UIL can help him there – by telling other businesses exactly how Council works with the private sector.

   Send article as PDF