Union Leader: Nutter Drove City Workers Into Poverty
BY PETE MATTHEWS, President, AFSCME District Council 33/ Mayor Michael Nutter’s stubborn and vindictive refusal to settle fair contracts with AFSCME District Councils 33 and 47 is driving city workers ever deeper into poverty and negatively impacting the City’s ability to deliver vital services. Many Philadelphia neighborhoods are facing cuts in City services due to [...]
BY JOE SHAHEELI/ The city’s voters will have their say as to whom they wish to represent them in the Philadelphia Traffic Court races Tuesday. At the same time, the Republican-dominated House is rushing through its Judiciary Committee Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi’s (R-Delaware) two bills which will forever eliminate Traffic Court. The Pileggi bills, [...]
TIME TO REVIEW THE I.R.S.? The Internal Revenue Service is the most-feared instrument of the federal government. The revelation it had focused its attention with the intention to punish select tax-exempt groups because of their political opposition to the president’s agenda, demands heads roll … and only IRS heads, their apologies notwithstanding. We need to know [...]
As a result of the property tax overhaul known as the Actual Value Initiative, residential property will account for a greater share of Philadelphia’s total property value — and thus the property tax burden — in 2014 than in 2013, according to a new report from The Pew Charitable Trusts. For the residential sector as [...]
BY DENISE CLAY/ Here are two things you might want to know about Philadelphia’s District Attorney Seth Williams: One, he’s probably not going to run for Mayor of Philadelphia unless the number of candidates is much smaller than the scuttlebutt on the street says it’s going to be. “Unless the only candidate is Prince William [...]
Normally, events in a city in the Midwest would be of minimal interest to those of us in Philadelphia. However, a recent report from KEVYN ORR, the Michigan state-appointed emergency manager of the City of Detroit, offers some warning signals for other large cities, including Philadelphia. Orr noted, “The path Detroit has followed for the [...]
MAYOR MICHAEL NUTTER made a visit to Harrisburg recently. He visited members of the Philadelphia Senate delegation. The purpose of his visit reportedly was to ask the Senator’s assistance in covering the School District’s education-funding shortfall. Those in attendance were Mayoral hopeful STATE SEN. ANTHONY WILLIAMS, Delegation CHAIRWOMAN STATE SEN. SHIRLEY KITCHEN, congressional possible STATE [...]
BY MICHAEL P. BOYLE, ESQ./ Congress is currently contemplating legislation to update immigration policies and procedures. In response to an inquiry made by Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, one of the Senate sponsors of immigration reform, the chief actuary for SSA, Stephen C. Gross, in a letter dated May 8, 2013, discussed the impact of [...]
Our General Assembly needs to realize it has duties which it continues to neglect. A major one of these duties is funding the state’s infrastructure. A corollary is they must fund the public-transit systems on which their voters depend. In a post above is a graph showing how little money SEPTA gets, compared to sister [...]
