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Pitching Fright
Entrepreneurs are tapping the lucrative market of wet-your-pants entertainment.
-Ted Mann

Tracking the ISTAR
-Mary F. Patel

Soundbites
-Deborah Bolling

The Bell Curve
City Paper's weekly gauge of Philly's Quality of Life

October 17-23, 2002

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Split Decision

by Daniel Brook

With the latest round of property tax assessments, many have called for the taxman to be drawn and quartered. In a variation on the theme, a proposal by Councilman Michael Nutter would cut the city’s tax assessor into three pieces.

Nutter made waves at the Oct. 10 Council session with his call to let Philadelphians vote on whether to split up the Board of Revision of Taxes (BRT). If authorized by Council, the referendum would go on the ballot next May.

Nutter calls for splitting up the BRT into three offices: one for assessment, one for appeals, and one to oversee the other two. The plan is based on the system in Allegheny County that wowed Council members with its high-tech web page.

According to Mary Rita D’Alessandro in the Mayor’s press office, Street has not yet decided whether to support the measure. “We’re still taking a look at it. It would be premature to comment,” she said.

Nanny-Nanny Boo-Boo

Councilman James Kenney and Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell have long been at odds over how best to deal with Center City panhandlers. Kenney favors a get-tough approach including the possibility of jail time, while Blackwell supports more treatment.

In September, it seemed the two had called an unofficial truce. Kenney decided to hold his bill and Blackwell followed suit. But the if-you-hold-yours-I’ll-hold-mine détente broke down in Council session on Oct. 10.

In caucus, held before the start of the formal Council session, Kenney circulated a resolution calling for hearings on aggressive panhandling.

Resolutions routinely pass unanimously in Council, so when Kenney asked for a vote in full Council session, Blackwell objected. According to official Council rules, which are selectively enforced, resolutions must be circulated 24 hours in advance of a vote.

“We would like to see resolutions before they’re introduced,” Blackwell said in full session. “I just want one set of rules for all of us.”

When Council members Rick Mariano and Joan Krajewski piped up that they hadn’t even seen the resolution in question, Kenney agreed to withdraw it until next week. But before he did so he got in a jab at his colleagues. “It’s not that long but if people need a week to read it, we’ll do it next week.”

After the session Blackwell pussy-footed around the question of whether she thought Kenney was trying to slip his resolution in under the radar. Blackwell says she objected because she had prepared herself for the session on Oct. 9 before leaving work to care for her sick mother.

Regardless of when Kenney gets a vote on his resolution, the truce is over, says Blackwell.

“If he left it alone, I could leave well enough alone,” she said. But with Kenney calling for hearings, Blackwell says she will as well.

“Now it’s even-steven,” said Blackwell.

Kenney says he wants hearings to shine light on the problem of what he sees as overly aggressive panhandling, but vowed not to call for a vote on his original bill. “That bill’s not going anywhere because there’s not enough courage in this place to get it passed.”

While he fumed over his colleagues’ lack of courage and speed-reading skills, Kenney refused to discuss his alternate strategy.

Perhaps he will disclose it over drinks and hors d’oeuvres at a panel discussion hosted by the Center City Proprietors at Brasserie Perrier this Tuesday evening.

In the Zone

Perhaps you’ve seen Councilman Frank DiCicco’s new ads on cable TV?

The one where he looks into the camera, tells you he feels your tax pain, and urges you to call Mayor Street to get him to support “real property tax reform.”

Then again, perhaps you haven’t seen DiCicco’s ads. It all depends on where you live.

According to DiCicco staffer David Fitz, the ads are “targeted towards constituents in our district.” Comcast allows advertisers to pay for their spots to be shown in select sections of the city. While a few folks living outside DiCicco’s district are in the ad buy zone, it’s far more cost-effective than purchasing time in the entire Philadelphia market. Then DiCicco’s funders would be wasting their money showing ads in South Jersey -- where all of DiCicco’s South Philly constituents move when they get fed up with their property tax bills.

By press time, Comcast had not responded to repeated requests for comment.

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