Philly peeps who do you like for mayor?
crashcourse
214 Posts
with crazy milton out of the race i'm not sure who i like. maybe nutter or knox. big issuses for me are taxes, crime and casinos. wage tax=lower it. crime=murder shit is outta control. casinos=fuck them and the politians they're in bed with.
Comments
They're coming- much to the chagrin of many of the residents here.
Saves bus fare to AC??
I assume you mean tax revenue......always a shady deal.
What does the surrounding neighborhoods of Atlantic City look like these days.
Haven't been there since the Steel Pier was still operating.
As far as the neighborhoods go, there are some pretty dangerous areas in the city (esp. Stanley Homes Village, Schoolhouse and Back Maryland).
Nah, I can't really call it yet, but he seems the most savvy at implementing programs to get the guns off the streets:
West Philadelphians Exchange 267 Firearms for Grocery Vouchers[/b]
By Walter F. Naedele
Inquirer Staff Writer
Posted on Sun, Feb. 11, 2007
Scores of people dropped off 267 guns in West Philadelphia yesterday in exchange for $200 worth of food vouchers each plus two tickets to a 76ers game, no questions asked.[/b]
Near the corner of 46th and Market Streets, police deposited the weapons - mostly handguns but also rifles, some of them collectors' items - into a large footlocker in the back of an SUV.
Bill Johnson, 73, a retired Streets Department crew chief who lives in the Tioga section of the city, said he turned in a .32-caliber revolver that he had found in a late uncle's cellar.
"I was looking for my drill saw and found a gun," Johnson said. He had held onto it for three to six months until he heard about the exchange.
Joe Kelly McCoy, 43, said that after months of discussion he had persuaded a young man in his Northwest Philadelphia neighborhood to surrender a .22 handgun, which McCoy turned in yesterday.
"Word got around from a couple of kids," McCoy said of the young man's gun, "and I approached him - almost a year ago."
A disabled former UPS driver, McCoy said he thought his influence as a block captain in the neighborhood near Haines Street and Ogontz Avenue might have helped persuade the owner to give up the gun.
McCoy said he might use the voucher to "buy some stuff for the home and take it over" to him, though the young man did not know of yesterday's exchange. He said he might use the rest of the voucher for a neighborhood street party in the summer.
At a noon news conference, U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.) said that in the first two hours of the six-hour exchange, weapons were turned in at a rate of "almost a gun a minute."[/b]
Fattah noted that at the other exchange he had helped organize - at a North Philadelphia Y on Martin Luther King Day - "we got over 230 guns."
Because identities were not taken, authorities did not know yesterday how many firearms, if any, were turned in by drug dealers or members of violent gangs. Still, Fattah said he hoped the effort would make a difference. For instance, it might mean fewer weapons that "criminals could get their hands on" during home burglaries, he said.
The $200 vouchers are good only at the Fresh Grocer supermarket chain, which has outlets around the city.[/b]
Ron Goldwyn, Fattah's spokesman, said money was still being raised to fund the vouchers, to which the Fresh Grocer chain is one of several contributors. Others include Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Merrill Lynch, Peco Energy Co., the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, and Radio One, owner of local FM stations.
A candidate for the Democratic mayoral nomination, Fattah shared the lectern yesterday with Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown and State Sen. Vincent Hughes (D., Phila.), whose district offices are in a former insurance company building behind them. The collection point was down the block.
"We had to resort to this," Hughes said in a slap at state lawmakers who declined to support gun-control legislation, because of "my nonthinking colleagues in Harrisburg."
On Feb. 2, Hughes and Fattah announced that people with information about illegal guns could call a hotline - 215-546-8477 (215-546-TIPS) - operated by the Citizens Crime Commission of Delaware Valley. Anonymous tips that lead to arrests of owners of illegal guns could lead to rewards of $1,000.
Yesterday, meanwhile, some unusual firearms turned up in the pile.
Erik Bullock, a member of the city police SWAT unit, said he handled a couple of rifles that he estimated were each worth "a couple thousand dollars."
One was a "Japanese rifle from World War II, with an imperial stamp" on the barrel. He showed off a bolt-action, single-shot rifle that, he said, would have used a 7mm or 8mm shell.
Another was "a Chinese version of an SKS assault rifle" that he said was capable of firing multiple 7.62 x 39 shells. "This is what the insurgents are using" in Iraq, he said.
Officials said the collectors' items, along with everything else, would be destroyed.
I'm pretty sure the white constituency of Philadelphia is trying to make a statement about leadership capabilities divided along racial lines this time around. Just calling it as I see it.
so far, he is my favorite candidate but i plan on learning a lot more on each candidate before the primaries (in a few weeks).
and...please vote for mike erdos for judge in the court of common pleas. www.electmikeerdos.com
Puritans. Legalized gambling brings in tax dollars and pushes out mob practices. Mad money to be made for the government with the casino business, once its legalized it will be regulated out the ass. And don't act like there isn't gambling or prostitution going in Philly already, now the government gets a cut too, its not like Philly couldn't use the money.
Yeah right! Have you read the literature on casinos?
I lived in a city where a casino opened up to much, as Phill said, consternation. The city of Duluth ceded city property to a nearby tribe in order to open up a casino downtown. The block the casino opened up on has become stagnant, from a development standpoint. Two to three blocks in every direction, developers are going nuts, but not by the casino. It is a major blight downtown.
Furthermore, most of the money going into casinos comes from a handful of -- how to put this -- dedicated gamblers. I think the stat is something like 80 percent of revenue comes from 10 percent of the population. It is by no means proportional, whatever the numbers are.
I would suggest reading thisbefore coming back to the discussion, since it points out the economic and the criminal impact of casinos.
state and city politicians are actually prohibiting philadelphians from voting through referendum on the casino issue. bullshit ass bullshit
knox is in front right now cause he's been dropping loot on advertising. thats going to keep him in the race.
i gotta go with Michael Nutter. met him and seen him speak on numerous occasions and i felt favorably about what he spoke.
Nutter definitely seemed the most credible and trying to stay out of everybody else's business.
Dwight Evans found a way on every opportunity with the mic to get up in Knox's ass while Knox just sat there and took it.
Fattah was good, I like his ideas.
Brady is just in it for kicks.
I think Nutter was talking about how across the street from the ABC studio where the debate was taped, there was a proposal to put gaming there, but now it's a Target with a few other businesses. I'm not sure he's completely against casinos, but it did seem like he thought there were better ways to generate money and jobs.
The moderators also had the candidates touch on their thoughts about how the immediate areas surrounding casinos would be affected, ie: crime and prosititution, which I thought was pretty interesting.
Worth checking out: Philadelphia Mayoral Debate
Yeah, a casino in Duluth is definetly a microcosm of casinos in the States. You know, people are linning up to go to Duluth, I mean its such a great city and there is so much to do.
As you know a casino run by a tribe is much different operation and subject to different laws than a regular casino. Is it such a surprise that its failed, in Duluth of all places!
Now I can't read the article you linked because of its restricted status, but if you can post it I'll read it. But anyway, casino development increases crime, so do liquor stores and gun shops, so what.
I grew up around casinos, use to go all the time, apart from being propositioned by prostitutes and seeing people sniff coke in the bathroom I never saw criminal activity, nor feel threatened in any way. Casinos, if run right and in a place people would actually consider visiting, bring in a lot of jobs, tourism, and tax revenue. Yes, most casino money comes from big fish gamblers, I doubt Philadelphia will have trouble attracting them, whereas in Duluth, good luck.
Why are you guys so anti-casinos? If run right they are profitable and provide employment.
i own a house about 4 blocks from the one of the 2 locations chosen. these two locations are adjacent to 4 of the best neighborhoods in the city. imho. i wouldn't care as much if they were down by the walt whitman bridge by that weird crazy horse place. the casinos are being forced upon us by harrisburg with zero input from residents.
This is the treuest shit in this thread.
Huh? Fattah has been in the House of Represenatives for over 10 years. Nutter is a member of city council...he's actually the person responsible for the city smoking ban (which i think is a good thing). I don't think Nutter is a bad guy but Fattah has done a ton for this city (as has Brady). You can't really compare the two (nutter and fattah) as far as records go. Check Fattah's bio, the dude's heart is in the right place.
really an interesting race though...you got knox floating high off his big spending. you got three black candidates who may end up splitting the black vote...opening up the race to anyone, really. you got brady, who is about as old school a hack as they get. and you got nutter, very intelectual candidate who might be too progressive for people in this town to handle.(my students love his name though!)
i watched bits of the debates and read up on all the candidates. in my mind, its not even close, chakah fattah stands above everyone else. evans is a quality candidate too and although i have issues with brady (don't want someone that connected with the unions) and nutter (too conservative, publicity whore, takes credit for things he didn't do), i think either of them would be a huge improvement over Street.
Fattah will make schools his #1 priority and its not just a talking point, he has already started a scholarship program through his work in congress that is nationally recognized and gets millions of dollars in funding. in the debates, he stood out (along with brady) as a candidate who spoke off the cuff, and didnt just repeat political slogans (ahem..knox).
i tried to give nutter a fair shake but the guy seriously rubs me the wrong way. in last night's debate, he advocated a stop and frisk policy in philadelphia. fattah blasted him for it and now the papers seem to imply that the public would support nutter's policy. i hope not. stop and frisk lends itself to racism. blacks are targeted just for being black and its like a throwback to the 1950s...cops will be allowed to randomly stop people, just based on "suspicion" and frisk them right on the street. this is a huge constitutional issue for me and the fact that nutter, a democrat, is for it tells me that he is trying to reach the white voters as a "conservative black democrat."
btw, i'll be at the polls in the northeast handing out literature for my man Mike Erdos who is running for Judge in the Philly Court of Common Pleas. this guy was born to be a judge. most honest dude i know. went to oxford, yale law school, and even played professional hoops in england. he was high up in the DA's office but quit so that he could campaign for this position. PLEASE vote for him - he is far and away the most qualified candidate. his ballot position isnt so great and he needs all the support he can get.
my friend haile johnston is running for city council aginst darrell clark. he is sound.
intereting field this year.
A good friend of mine works with the Mural Arts Program. She spends half of her time doing administrative/bureaucratic work and the other half out on the streets working with the kids. She's a wonderfully kind, genuine and intelligent woman. We had a long conversation last weekend about the elections. I heard stories about self-congratulatory back patting ceremonies where half wrecked councilmen read poorly thought-out, off-topic speeches off of the back of cocktail napkins. I heard stories about important parts of the bureaucratic chain not responding after repeated phone calls to the point that certain projects that a lot of people, both children and adults, had put a lot of effort into had to be canceled. I wonder if these people care that creative kids who sincerely WANT to beautify the city's soul are left disappointed so often. After talking with her I felt disheartened about the situation. She said she didn't know if any of the candidates really cared and that a lot of them seemed like they just get off having a political title.
Bucky Fuller said something to the effect of, "There is something patently insane about all the typewriters sleeping with all the beautiful plumbing in the beautiful office buildings ??? and all the people sleeping in the slums." As long as those office buildings and the large businesses within them are the main concern of politicians in this city, a lot of people will be going through the struggle. No amount of self-serving award ceremonies or National Geographic articles will change that.